The MP3 Troubles Continue

We've been choking on submissions about Napster and MP3 so here's a selection of them: Alexander Burke shared this ZDNet Article about how TVT Records (the fine folks who bring you Snoop Dogg) is getting into the let's-sue-Napster game. Borodir wrote in about how Suzanne Vega influenced the mp3 compression format, and Slashdot reader Napster Online told us about the Salon interview with Napster iCEO Hank Barry. Here's an editorial by John Perry Barlow about the whole Napster mess and a finally a ZD UK story about MP3 pirates going to jail in the future.

Comments

Re:Show of hands...

[FreshView]

Actually, I say it deserves +1 insightful.

Excellent points.

Consider the source

[TheOutlawTorn]

The fact that it's TVT says alot. This is a record company that "gets it". I've been able to download 60 day time-limited tracks from all the artists on their roster off their site for quite a while now, which is why I'm now into Sevendust. I think TVT has got quite the handle on how the internet can be used to distribute music as a promotional vehicle. With that in mind, I find it an eye-opener that TVT is going after MP3.com. I would give TVT's reasons more weight, considering what they are already doing in their business model.

My name is Napster

[Zoyd]

My name is Napster
I live on the second floor
I live upstairs from you
Yes I think you've seen me before

If you hear something late at night
Some kind of trouble, about copyrights
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was
Just don't ask me what it was

I think it's 'cause I bandwidth hog
I try not to play MP3s too loud
Maybe it's 'cause I'm new technology
I try not to act too proud

Lars only hits until you cry
And after that you don't ask why
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore
You just don't argue anymore

Yes I think I'm okay
I got slashdotted again
Well, if you ask that's what I'll say
And it's not your business anyway

I guess I'd like to be alone
With my venture cap, no law books thrown
Just don't ask about my IPO
Just don't ask about my IPO
Just don't ask about my IPO

Re:mp4?

[Sir Tristam]

Does anyone know much about [MP4]? How is it "more secure"? Does that mean that it will be encrypted

Everything I know about MP4s I learned through Google. Try M.I.T. for the standard document.

I love search engines...

Re:Is it too late?

[The Good Reverend]

In the United States, most people under age 16 can't work. I didn't start my CD collection until I was into college and got a job, and my parents didn't particularly want me working while I was in high school. That doesn't excuse theft, but it does excuse your outdated "work ethic".

The Good Reverend

of course he'll buy cd's

[rifter]

What will he do when the hard drive crashes or his sound stops working? What about his car? The portable mp3 players I have seen are way more expensive than a cd player. That's why MP3 CAN NEVER KILL CD'S.

If I go to jail for mp3s...

[jmallett]

Then let's take the people who copied that one book that so many people find important, what was it called? The Bible. I don't find it a book I am interested in but a lot of people do. Let's say you couldn't freely copy it right. One person controlled it. You know how many people would be deprived of something they hold very important to their lives? Well see this is where mp3s come in. A lot of people find religion important to them, I don't. But I do hold music very dear to my heart. I mean if I go to jail for wanting to listen to mp3s, can I at least take my Rio?

Re:Yet another article

[Fesh]

"While so far only Metallica and Dr. Dre have taken the step of moving against their fans, their lawyer Howard King says that at least five other artists have contacted him. Meanwhile, Ron Stone, manager of artists like Tracy Chapman and Bonnie Raitt, insists that the entire Napster movement is little better than thuggery. "Basically they're saying our art is worthless, it's free for the taking," he says. "Music used to be a collectible, now it's a disposable." With a few other artists and managers, he's starting an ad-hoc committee called Artists Against Piracy. Somehow it doesn't have the ring of Save the Rain Forest."
-Newsweek (C)

Um... I like the "disposable" bit. Welcome, Sir Dumbass, to the disposable culture you and the rest of the corporate entities created. Ever notice how you can't buy stuff that doesn't break after a year or so of use? And you can't fix it, so you have to trash it and buy a new one? And suddenly you're all pissy and moaning when other forms of "property" are seen in the same light by those who have been trained from birth to use it and throw it away by society.

If you couldn't tell, I agree a lot with Sig11's post above on the subject. I think he hit the nail on the head.

"Worthless" is another good word... Fits right in with the likes of Brittany Spears and N'Sync...

--Fesh

Re:Prove to me that CD sales are hurt by MP3 tradi

[EZLN]

Hahaha....that's the funny thing. Album sales haven't been hurt at all. Infact in the last couple weeks there have been multiple records broken for CD sale volume. This week Eminem sold 1.8 million CDs, that's the 2nd highest CD sales in one week. A couple of weeks ago everybody's favorite band N'Sync sold some ungodly number of CDs making thier newest CD the best selling in one week EVER! And last week Britney Spears newest album sold the most for a female artist in one week. Yea, napster's really killing the music industry. Boo-hoo. Taylor

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[speek]

The way our constitution is written in the US, you have every right not specified in law. The original writers of the constitution had some debate about whether to include the bill of rights, because by doing so, it implied you only had the rights specified, and anything else was iffy, but in actuality, the intention is that anything not specified, you have an implied right to. It appears they may have made a mistake by including the bill of rights.

Anyway, just thought I'd point that out. Not sure if it has anything to do with the argument you two were having (sorry, I couldn't make much sense of either of your posts).

No Limit

[Stealthwolf]

Last time I checked, Snopp Dogg was on No Limit records.....

Re:Interscope?

[lunartik]

Here is my understanding. Tee Vee Toons (TVT)used to put out records of TV show themes (actually they still do). TVT took a chance on Nine Inch Nails which paid off famously. Trent Reznor and TVT had a falling out after "Pretty Hate Machine" resulting in Reznor's refusal to work with with the label any further. Since NIN was still under contract to TVT this meant that the band refused to work on a follow up album and instead remained on the road. At this point Interscope stepped in and purchased TVT with the specific purpose of acquiring Nine Inch Nails. At least that was my understanding at the time. Now they claim to be an independant company, so I don't know if that is true. I do know that they merged with Wax Trax!, one of the greatest labels ever, and made it suck.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[TheReverand]

Eh, what? What I actually was saying (since you missed where I said that I didn't think that applied here) is that there are circumstances where it can be considered "right" (in the moral sense of the word) to break the law.

No I got that.

Natural Law (from encyclopedia.com) theory that some laws are fundamental to human nature.

The right to listen to a song I create is in NO WAY a fundamental to human nature. All rights are societal constructs created over years of "civilization". There is nothing fundamental about it.

I think you missed my point, what I was trying to say was that we have no inherent rights to any of these things. We only have the rights provided to us by Government (explicitly and implicitly:in the U.S. I mean). There is no law that says you have a "right" to the internet/tv/nicer car then the one I have etc..

If this seems confusing it's because I'm tired and am not thinking completely clearly. Sorry.

Marcus

Flame all you want, I'll post more.

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Once the necessity has been removed, it's no longer wise to make it a virtue.

It's no longer necessary to work? Amazing.

Times are a-changin', old fella. Go back to work and get over it.

I am 24 I hope I'm not an "old fella" yet. :-)

You have missed the point. A person who can afford to be on the net should be able to afford to buy a CD. End of story.

Marcus

Re:Criminals

[whoop]

Napster only affects the distribution part of IP law. So, if you feel people should be able to distribute as they see fit, then what leg does the GPL have to stand on? There are arguments from some that don't think the GPL is just (that Quake thing a few months back comes to mind). If you want the GPL to mean more than the feces my dog manufactures, you must recognize that an author has the right to decide how his material is distributed.

If you want to bitch about the RIAA complaining when people make MP3s of CDs they own, that's one thing. But just claiming "IP law is bogus" really denegrates what all this free software stuff is about as well. If you give can give me an MP3 of any song, then I can give folks copies of the Linux kernel (gcc, emacs, whatever) without any licensing, effectively making it too then public domain. Then anyone can create a nice operating system without these cumbersome restrictions.

Re:Yet another article

[Fesh]

Ooh. And I forgot... "our art"??? WTF? He's saying that he's just as responsible for the creative process of songwriting and performing as the artists he represents? "In my country, thees ees what we call BOOLSHEET!" Responsible for managing their finances, but in no way able to take any credit for creative matters such as art, in my opinion.

--Fesh

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[speek]

Maybe you should have made the IAAL(I am a lawyer) disclaimer, so everyone could see why you'd say such a dumb thing.

Downloading MP3s is ALWAYS legal

[alexhmit01]

Copyright law gives the holder the right to prevent others from distributing their work (with the exceptions of fair use). It does NOT give them a right to restrict the usage. The only reason licensing agreements work is that you are agreeing to the rules, NOT by copyright law, they stem from contract law. Now, under fair use, I can ALWAYS make 1 copy for my own personal use. This does not violate copyright law. This creates some bizarre situations because the means of production are now commonplace. For example, I borrow a friend's CD. This is perfectly legal. I make a copy of the CD for my personal use. Also legal. I return the CD to my friend, perfectly legal. At no point has anyone involved broken the copyright restriction on distribution. However, say I tell my friend I like a CD of his. He makes me a copy. He gives me the copy. I have NOT broken the law, but he has. Why? There is NOTHING illegal in possessing copyrighted material, only in the distribution of it. As a result, the people downloading the music have broken no laws. Whether I have the CD or not, I may legally make a copy for personal use. User X makes a MP3 rip of a song. User X has created a derived work of the song, so copyright remains with the owner. I may then make my personal copy of this song. However, if I share it back out, then I am distributing copyrighted material, that is illegal. Copyright was designed to allow authors to profit off their books instead of allowing the owners of the press to take all the profits. This gave authors an incentive to write. It was NEVER meant to control the masses. However, with digital medium, the power to copy is with the masses, so what do we do? Alex

Re:Downloading MP3s is ALWAYS legal

[ODiV]

You can make copies of CDs you have purchased, not ones which you have borrowed. Get a little more familliar with the law before you make asumptions.

Here I was hoping to find a reasonable argument for the legality of mp3 downloading. Silly me.

Re:who's the criminal?

[Rombuu]

Who are the criminals here in the MP3 debate? Is it the people downloading? the lawmakers who passed silly IP laws like this? the courts for upholding such laws against public opinion and the constitution? The RIAA for engaging in unethical and monopolistic business practices

Um, it would be the people downloading pirated songs.

Or was this a rhetorical question?

Re:Criminals

[timster]

No, it's not the people downloading, it's the people posting who are breaking current US laws.

How much?

[geekflavor]

How much of this do you guys think is driven by the artists, and how much by the companies *behind* the artists?

I'm not standing up for Metallica or Dr. Dre, but I'm saying that they almost certainly had various suits whispering in their ears, "You know, those bad internet people are stealing your stuff!" It's the companies that are terrified, and it's the companies that are driving this whole thing.

It doesn't matter that much anyway. With Gnutella et al., they won't have anyone to sue because there's no centralized "enemy" for them to attach.

Quick! Spread out!

Re:How much?

[jmallett]

It goes like this. Metallica's lawyers sit at home on their asses watching CNN. CNN does a story about Napster or Gnutella or something. Metallica's lawyers think "hrm... Metallica music free, Metallica lose money. Metallica lose money, me no get pay, me no have cigar, me no have 400 servants. hrrrm..." and then the private firm is hired to look into it, and the rest is history. That's how it'd HAVE TO go IMHO. Through all this I respect ARTISTS like Ani DiFranco who understand their music is art and art is about freedom and free people should have open access to art. This CD may be copied freely. Things like that I like to see. You _know_ the lawyers are behind it and that the bands just don't care about their fans.

Re:How much?

[Mr. Slippery]

There also won't be any reason to continue creating.

I'm extremely tired of this argument, because it's not just wrong, it's doubly wrong.

First, there are other ways than pay-per-copy for people to get paid for making art, music, literature, and software.

Second, people can, will, and do create stuff without getting paid for it. I've spent hundreds of hours making poetry and music, resulting a total material compensation of one free meal at the sadly defunt Planet X coffehouse (for an Italian sonnet contest I won), a few free beers at the bar where I often play at the open mic, and a grand total of maybe $50 in cash.

Re:How much?

[AuMatar]

Um, no, you're the idiot. Gnutella doesnt ask for a credit card number. Stop trying to scare people, troll.

Re:How much?

[muldrake]

I'll be happy to see you in jail

Why, has it been lonely for you in jail since your last lover was released?

Re:How much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... I only have one problem with that notion...

Who do you think is behind Napster? Y'know Napster, the company that just got another 16mil in funding? The one that's sponsering tours? Yeah, that Napster.

Napster is a company as well, and their goal is to make money. Period. There is an old Steve Jobs quote that goes something along the lines of "No company sets out to benefit the user. They may do so, but that isn't their primary goal. Their goal is to make a profit." Now what does Napster have that is worth anything?

Well, they provide a service. What does that service consist of? It consists of letting people find music on other people's computers. Many times (arguably even most of the time) music that is illegal to redistribute. (NOTE: I am neither defending nor refuting the current law, merely stating a fact.)

I'm betting it won't be to long until banner ads start popping up on the Napster client. The only thing Napster has of value is a fanatically loyal user base. A user base that, for the most part, isn't going anywhere else. In other words, a marketing wonk's dream.

So, Napster gets off making a buck by facilitating the illegal redistribution of another person's works. And we call Metallica money grubbing? At least the artists (yes and the record companies) were actually involved in producing something somewhere along the line. Napster doesn't.

Re:How much?

[adnoctum]

Keep in mind folks this is a troll account. The poster the troll is trying to impersonate is "fascdot killed my pr" and not "...my p". The original user here is shortened from "prior art".

Re:How much?

[lisle]

No reason to create? Where's that leave the FSF?
or art? or humanity?

Re:How much?

[BenByer]

Some of us believe that access to any and all information is a human right, that is you cant stop me from thinking. At its most fundamental level that is what this is about, free access to information. My civil disobedience is well thought and something that i believe strongly in you fuck.

Re:How much?

[niccodicco]

its illegal to redistribute, not acquire, copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder

That's the problem with Napster et al. When you download an MP3, you also by default make it available to the rest of the world. You might argue that it was available before you downloaded it, but when YOU have it, YOU are responible for the redistribution.

Re:How much?

[NetFu]

Uum, isn't that the whole point of MP3, the internet and Napster/Gnutella??? You just killed your own argument because this artist (along with all the other unknowns who can't get a contract with a major label) CAN have immense distribution using the above tools -- possibly even better than Metallica.

I don't really like Metallica or Dr. Dre and never have, but I have found (through very casual use) almost a half dozen unknown artists that I know for a fact don't have contracts with major labels -- they're unknowns. I found them on MP3.com and they were there (I assume) for the exposure that MP3's and the internet brings.

I also have to weigh in on the argument that downloading an album's songs through Napster is easier than encoding MP3's from your own CD: In reality this is far from the truth. Check out MusicMatch.com -- I download their Jukebox software and I can encode my own MP3's from my CD's. OK, but it's really slow (records only as fast as the CD would normally play which means about 1 hour recording per CD). Forget that, go to Napster! I go to Napster and after doing searches for days on different artists, only 10-20% of the songs are downloadable (I'm on a T1)! After several days, I only have maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of each CD I wanted to record in my library. I go back to MusicMatch.com and discover -- gee, if I pay $29.99 ($39.99 for the shipped, boxed version with some hardware extras for stereo hookup) I can download their Jukebox Deluxe which, among other things, allows you to record CD songs at up to 5x normal speed. I get that and within 10 minutes I'm recording my CD's songs ... but now at a rate of about 10-15 minutes per CD ... and it's automated (just leave it alone and continue surfing the web, reading e-mail, and other stuff until it spits out the CD).

The average speedup was about 3.5x faster than before. And ... I got all my songs in MP3 format in an organized way ... many of them were smaller than the ones I downloaded through Napster (same MP3 quality like 128, 192, etc.), so I just ended up tossing the few I was able to download in Napster anyway.

I guess the final point of this story is that the artists need to realize that this is here to stay and they need to start offering their songs via MP3 direct to their fans (at a substantially reduced price/song like maybe $0.50/song). If they don't they just look like dinosaurs and if they attack Napster/MP3.com and their own fans, they just look like a**holes.

Re:How much?

[DgtlGhost]

Maybe so, but you don't have much in the way of distribution, do you... Lets face it, sure, artists may create art for the love of doing so, but it doesn't get the rent payed, and it doesn't get seen or heard by many people.
"John and I used to sit down and say, 'Let's write a swimming pool"
- Paul McArtny

-Earthman

Re:How much?

[bebot]

You _know_ the lawyers are behind it and that the bands just don't care about their fans.

I don't think you can legitimately portray artists as being such selfless people. I'm sure they are committed to their music and want everyone to have access to their art, like in your example of Ani DiFranco. However, not all artists are this selfless, and some part of them, like all humans, want personal gain and will kick up a fuss when their livelihood is taken away from them in such an insiduous way as Napster, Gnutella et al are doing.

We have seen before examples of artists kicking up a fuss about their revenues being cut, notably a couple of years ago in Australia over the Federal Government's proposals to cut the price of CD imports. One of their main arguments was that by cutting back the income of artists we are stifling the arts; how can artists survive on meagre incomes? They will turn to other, less inspiring work, unfortunately for the community who so obviously enjoys their work, evidenced by the great proliferation of their music in MP3 form.

Re:How much?

[DgtlGhost]

With Gnutella et al., they won't have anyone to sue because there's no centralized "enemy" for them to attack.
There also won't be any reason to continue creating. Lets get real folks, we can say all we want about free speech, better sales and open clustered mp3 linux BS, but what it comes down to is nothing is going to change untill we give it a reason to.
I think the guys at Oragne Ally may have one of the best ideas so far, but untill we get some more ideas, and allot more suport, we aren't going to see any changes...
BTW, www.PayLars.com is almost up to $400 in donations...

-Earthman

Re:How much?

[Chromalon]

If this is the TVT I think it is, then it's the suits who are bothered, not the artists.

TVT stands for "TV Tunes", and for years their bread and butter was novelty compilations of old TV jingles and theme songs. Not exactly an artist-driven business.

Somewhere along the line, late 80's/early 90's, someone at TVT thought it might be a good idea to get in on the new phenomenon of electronic dance music - from what I understand TVT now distributes tons of small dance labels and techno acts.

Not really the constituency to complain about mp3's. Most dance singles have runs of a few thousand copies at most, and they're sold mainly to DJ's and trainspotters. It is simply not a mass market (NIN et al the exceptions of course, and probably what TVT's so concerned about).

Re:How much?

[Ares]

Not according to Lars. In the interview the other day, he stated that their action was initiated by themselves.

What I don't get is how they can prosecute those who download (at least in the US). My reading of the US Copyright code is that its illegal to redistribute, not acquire, copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder. In fact, no BTS license agreement I've ever seen says that you can't acquire the software without forking over the cash, just that you can't make copies of it. Of course, the DMCA BS may change that.

BTW, is it just me or has anyone else noticed that the "Extrans" method of posting doesn't exactly work right?

Re:How much?

[Chiasmus_]

This is a little bit redundant, man.

Metallica has already said (numerous times) that their suit is mostly driven by their personal managers (who apparently have been with them almost since day 1 and who they consider the "fifth and sixth members of Metallica."

Further, Dr. Dre hardly seems to be being "manipulated" by "various suits". He's made it clear that the thing that he's most concerned about, above any artistic integrity or idealism, is his paycheck.

Re:How much?

[VaporX]

Neither. What's really driving this is you morons who blatantly and _publicly_ steal from the record companies and artists. If you had any sense at all you would conduct all your illegal business over _private_ channels instead of in plain sight of the people who will seek to destroy you.

Re:Prove to me that CD sales are hurt by MP3 tradi

[ODiV]

Why should anyone have to prove to you that Napster == lost sales? It's illegal and it's theft.

But... since you want hard proof. I um... know a guy who downloaded music off of Napster, and sold it to someone who would have definately bought the album in stores anyway, they even told him so
("Thanks. You just saved me $10). 1 case. Hard proof. Anything else you need?

Re:First

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Says who that CDs are being price fixed?

The United States Department of Justice. That's who.

bah

[helstar]

the media and record companies will forget about mp3's within a few months, either that or they will find a way to distribute them on their own. the media is just bored because there are no good wars to report about for now.

Re:When will they start sending linux zealots to j

[Ambien]

Yup! Damn straight, that's all slashdot it. An underground communist revolution. ;-) Every 30 seconds a script written by the inner party Hemos, Taco flashes a picture of a penguin where the slashdot logo is that says "Big penguin is watching you under it." Infact Microsoft, Redhat, and Apple don't even really exist. They're all one entity that pretends to be at war to keep people loyal and under their control. By the way, This message never exsisted.

Pulling your example into present day...

[SvnLyrBrto]

What about the portion of the population that already have natural (grey matter only) photographic memories?

Are they commiting copyright violation every time they read a book?

Remember the end of the british film adaption of Farenheight 451? All the guys memorising and repeating the texts of banned and burned books?

I sure hope none of those books were copyrighted in the US. Forget the British laws requiring books to be burned. Those American copyright lawyers will pursue you to the ends of the Earth (well, to Norway at least), if they even THINK that you MIGHT be violating any copyright.

john

Much Ado About Nothing

[WillAffleck]

I hold copyrights. Yes, registered in multiple countries, even.

And I think that MP3 is cool and the enforcers of copyrights are usually corporate pirates, with little of the gains going to the producers.

But I'm also sure that, since there are lawyers involved, noone will win.

Going to Jail?

[geekflavor]

As far as the article about going to jail for downloading MP3s, how can this be shown to be illegal without a search of the downloader's home to prove that they didn't have the CD from which the song came?

On the other hand, this may become the newest excuse to break into people's homes. They got Al Capone with taxes, maybe they'll get people in the future for downloading Mp3s.

Re:Going to Jail?

[muldrake]

They might have to search his car, too, and all his clothes

Don't forget the full-body cavity search! He might just have a beowulf cluster of wearables rammed up his ass.

Re:Going to Jail?

[alacrityfitzhugh]

When I was 20 and working as a DJ, the government was shooting and killing kids like me in the streets. If you think they will have a problem arresting anyone, dream on...

Re:Going to Jail?

[Dave Walker]

I agree with you about not wanting to be a teenager these days.

In my day(our days, bet you /. folks didn't know you had all these MIDDLEAGED folks in your midst, did ya?), the draconian start of the 'War on Drugs', and specifically the war on marijuana, opened many eyes to the fact that our current government DOESN'T have our best interests at heart. The current war on REAL software innovation, (the lawsuits against Napster and DeCss, the mindless granting of software 'patents') has earned our "bought 'n' paid-for government" (TM pending) the same disdain that an earlier generation heaped upon it after the mindless vilification of the "drug" marijuana.

Nixon started the war on drugs 28 years ago; the RIAA and the MPAA just declared war this year, seemingly with the backing of our courts.

Let's hope this new war doesn't drag on quite as long.

Maybe it's time for another 'tea-party'!!

It's all about the donations...

Ask Al Gore. He invented the internet, he ought to be rolling in dough now!!

Re:Going to Jail?

[mindstrm]

Because.
The fact that you may own the CD, and hence, have the right to make a copy of that CD does *NOT* imply (though it sounds bizarre) that you have the right to copy it from another source (ie: napster). Also, as the person offering the file for download is doing so illegally, any download you make of it would also be illegal, as you are participating in an illegal transaction.

Re:Going to Jail?

[ShmuelP]

bootlegging a couple of pop songs is now a God damned felony, that is, the same category as armed robbery, rape and murder

You're absolutely right, that's a shame. We should do something about that!

As far as all you jackasses I've read here with your "bootlegging songs means you are a criminal" crap, you're all a bunch of illiterate idiots...For you blockheads to make a moral equivalence between real crimes like those and these trivial nitpicky little misdemeanors that these disgusting money-bloated tonedeaf RIAA swine are making such a howling fuss over, that only demonstrates that you suffer from the same complete lack of moral sense and proportion that the RIAA lawyers do.

I agree completely: "bootlegging a couple of pop songs" should not be put in the same category as murder, rape, or other similarly nasty things. And I happen to share your viewpoint that those who believe that they shouble be in the same category show lack of moral judgement.

However, this is only a valid arguement from the moral standpoint. From the legal standpoint, they are in the same category. Don't like it? Neither do I, but that's the law. And if you don't like the law, then we should make efforts to change it. Lobby elected officials, make protests, write letters, etc. The system is in place to change those laws taht are bad. Granted, it can be difficult to fight against large corporations, but it can be done. Until is, though, the fact remains that the law defines certain people as criminals.

"Fine," you say. "So the government says that those people are criminals. But so what? That is obviously wrong. It's so obviously wrong that I can't possibly respect such a categorization."

The problem with such an argument is that it breaks down all government. When you don't agree with the government, simply ignore it and pretend that it doesn't matter. Now if everyone did that for their pet issue, then there would be no more rule of law. Society couldn't function in such a way. If you don't like the politics, then try to change them. It's your right in a democracy. But the only way to change the system (short of a complete revolution) is to work within the system to change it.

Re:Going to Jail?

[anonymous cowerd]

No they're not. I defy you to show me one statute that says they are. That's pure rubbish.

Jesus, I am ever glad I'm not a teenager these days, and I sure feel sorry for my kids. We thought we had a police state going in the late 60s and early 70s, but it was nothing compared to the damn universal police state they're running now, and everywhere you look it's just getting worse. It seems like everything is illegal these days - for example, bootlegging a couple of pop songs is now a God damned felony, that is, the same category as armed robbery, rape and murder, in Wisconsin - and if you're under 21 the assumption of all these curfews and searches and pisstests and assorted harassments is that you're guilty until proven innocent. And the police are completely out of control, as the Diallo and Dorismond cases in New York demonstrate. And while there were thugs in police uniforms back then too, at least there was also a principled opposition, whereas these days there's absolutely no one in public life who's willing even to consider reining them back.

As far as all you jackasses I've read here with your "bootlegging songs means you are a criminal" crap, you're all a bunch of illiterate idiots, and I use the word "idiot" in its original etymological sense. A guy who clubs you over the head, or who robs you at gunpoint, or who breaks into your house and steals all your possesions, or who knocks a woman down and rapes her, now that's a criminal. For you blockheads to make a moral equivalence between real crimes like those and these trivial nitpicky little misdemeanors that these disgusting money-bloated tonedeaf RIAA swine are making such a howling fuss over, that only demonstrates that you suffer from the same complete lack of moral sense and proportion that the RIAA lawyers do. Have a happy police state, fools; I hope and expect that your blindered legalistic idiocy turns on you all someday.

Sincerely WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

Re:Going to Jail?

[fishbowl]

"The fact that you may own the CD, and hence, have the right to make a copy of that CD does *NOT* imply (though it sounds bizarre) that you have the
right to copy it from another source (ie: napster). "

Yes, it does. Can you produce a cite, a ruling
to the contrary? You are stating something as if it a fact of (US?) law, that simply hasn't been
decided.

Re:Going to Jail?

[tie_guy_matt]

Makes sense.

Forget about the fact that our jails are filled to the brim with drug dealers, let's go after the mp3ers. So let's take the thousands of people who use napster and lock them all up. Sure, we have plenty of room for them all.

What about all the warez sites and people who give out illegal copies of software? Why don't we just throw everyone in America in jail because I am sure we have all done something wrong at some point.

Re:Going to Jail?

[um... Lucas]

Have you read anything here or on any of the other news sites in the past few weeks? I'm guessing no... Here's a recap.

Nobody is going after anybody for illegally downloading songs from Napster. No one is going after anyone and requesting proof that they own the CD since they downloaded songs from it. The grounds that the labels, bands and lawyers are using are that the people they're going after are makind their (the artists) copyrighted materials available for download by people who don't have the legal right to do so.

No search of a house is necessary. They can just say "look at this college student. Now look at the 10,000 songs in his shared Napster directory. He made each and every one of these songs available for the entire internet population to download.

It's a point that seems to get overlooked over and over... Napster helps perpetuate it, I think. But the fack of the matter is that no one's is gettting yelled at or risking getting in trouble or being kicked off of napster for downloading songs. That's happening because they're making those songs available to other Napster users...

Re:Going to Jail?

[Chiasmus_]

Sure. God knows it's easier to get probable cause for MP3s than dealing marijuana. So, a suspected dealer downloads Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 and #35", and they storm his house, searching for secret wall panels that he might have "Bob Dylan CDs" hidden behind.

They might have to search his car, too, and all his clothes, but, hey, this isn't draconian, they're just very carefully trying to establish his innocence by finding a CD that would exonerate him!

Re:"Mass exodus"?

[alarosa]

I listen to Metallica. I listen to Dr. Dre. I've been using napster since it was in early 1.0 versions. Thx info?

no surprise

[Craig Ivey]

You've got to admit, Napster was looking for trouble when it started up. I mean, do you really think they'd expect the users to trade public-domain MP3s?

Re:Yet another article

[Rendus]

You should also notice the guitar in his hands, the stupid position he's in, and the headphones.

Gee, could that guitar be connected to some sort of computer, which is capable of recording the notes he's playing? And gee, could he be setting up a program to record such sounds?

SUE HIM!

He may try playing Stairway to Heaven! Can't have that!

Bleh. Gotta love journalism.

Napster

[Crazy Man on Fire]

i really like things that are free. it would be really nice if more things were free. i would like to get my music for free. however, i would also like to get my car for free. there are simply some things that are/never-will-be free. it is unfortunate, but deal with it! napster is great, but pirating songs is not great. we get upset when people violate the gpl, isn't it understandable that other folks would get upset when people violate their licenses? sure, cd's shouldn't cost as much as they do. stealing cd's is a sure-fire way not to get the price of music to go down! just because we don't like the law doesn't give us license to break it (especially when we depend on it ourselvs (gpl))...
</flamebait>

Re:Napster

[sdery]

I agree with you wrt to the fact that this digital medium is indeed an infinite product. Combine an infinte supply with a zero dollar price tag, and you've got an infinite demand in old school economics. The problem is not with the product, but the economy that supports these products. Who the hell is going to want to pay money for something they can get for free? It's not a supply and demand LAW for no apparent reason. This is something we'll be seeing more and more of...not only in music, but video, and all other digital medium that graces our presence in the near future. Perhaps the only solution is to tax the bandwith and distribute these bandwith taxes to artists and producers of these products. Anyone got a better idea?

Re:Napster

[Cannonball]

Well said! I couldn't agree with you more. The more we take away incentives for creativity, the more we limit ourselves as a society, and as for civil disobedience, good point. We have to no "right to break the law" no "right to civil disobedience". We have the right to free speech and assembly, let us use that to change laws we find unjust. There are better ways than breaking the laws to change them.

Re:Napster

[endquote]

Ok I'm with you until this point
If it weren't for our ancestors breaking "the law." We'd still be under the rule of Britain.

Oh come on, really. Isn't that a rather silly thing to say :-)
Here you Yanks sit... a lone island in the great expanse of the British Empire! Oh no you'd never get any work done, for using all those extra U's in colour and labour. Not to mention strange pronounciations of aluminium.
No disrespect for your ancestors who were willing to fight for what they believed but what relavance does that have on this discussion.

matt. A Canadian. I have a Queen, but not so you'd notice.

Re:Napster

[BenByer]

yes a free society, abolish copyright now. it really doesnt exist anyway as it is completely unenforcable now.

Re:Napster

[Wah]

Anyone got a better idea?

Yea, but we have to scoot back a little bit.

Combine an infinte supply with a zero dollar price tag, and you've got an infinite demand in old school economics.

I think it will work by creating an infinite demand but not quite like that. That is true, but it offers no reason for compensation. This sets the value at 1, i.e. the real value. Creating a motive above infinite demand is bit tougher as the only concept I can think of that fits the description is love. See the They Might Be Giants post in this thread. The fans will pay regardless, because they respect the artists, wish to have a physical artifact of the music, and understand that the only way the artists can make more music is with monetary support. At least that's how I justify buying CDs, buying t-shirts and paying for shows, YMMV.

or, as the guy just said. "They can play music for money."

A friend of mine said the same thing the other night between his first and second sets. "They can make money playing fuckin' music. That's what they do isn't it?" (emphasis from textual/tone conversion)

He plays guitar, check it out.

--

Re:Napster

[anonymous cowerd]

> When you make as much money as I do ($189K a year)
> you will start to see that some people frankly do
> not know what they are talking about.

Excuse me while I vomit on your shoes. Congratulations, with that one line you achieved the most disgusting post I've read here all year, makes the goatse.cx pic look inoffensive in comparison. "When you make as much money as I do," take your $189K, turn it into one-dollar bills, roll 'em up nice and tight, and stick 'em where the sun don't shine, moneyswine.

Sincerely WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

Re:Napster

[acm]

You've clearly mistaken a political statement (Boston Tea Party) with theft (making copies of musical recordings without the permission of the artist).

I know I'm not the first to say this, and I wont be the last. Collecting copyrighted mp3z is not theft. Theft is taking something from someone, where you come out with more, and they come out with less. What we're talking about here is copyright infringement.

The mp3 movement may not be a political statement, but it makes a statement none the less. Lets just agree to say that our opinions differ on what that statement is.

acm

Re:Napster

[PerlGeek]

> ...with theft (making copies of musical recordings without the permission of the artist).

No, copying mp3s of copyrighted songs is not theft. It's not piracy, either. It's copyright infringement.

Re:Napster

[PerlGeek]

Because you are rich you know what you are talking about? Explain, please.

> Iknow that truth hurts.

How many times have I heard that? That's getting *really* old.

Truth hurts when we're lying to ourselves. Are we lying to ourselves? Insults hurt. Two-by-fours hurt. Just because something hurts doesn't mean it's true.

Re:Napster

[kz45]

then do you know what will happen?? we will be back to the beginning again...I can take any code I want, and release it closed. You can distribute the binaries all you want, but will never see the source

Re:Napster

[Wah]

i would like to get my music for free. however, i would also like to get my car for free. there are simply some things that are/never-will-be free.

Ya know, some people would have said the same thing about music a few years ago. As to your car example...nanotechnology. It (hopefully) promises to, in a sense, make the whole world digital. We need to learn, as a society, how to deal with infinite products. Music is our first challenge, and it should be an easy one. It's art and beauty after all, why shouldn't we share it?

The problem comes if we decide to treat IP *exactly* like PP (physical property) then we will end up with a government that does nothing but protect the profits of corporations who have lobbied that government to change the laws to protect them. I don't want to wake up and find a world where the only thing that stands between me giving away a new car (that used to be a pile of sand) is a soldier with a rifle.

And you are indeed a burning man :)
--

Re:Napster

[Simeon2000]

... what the HECK are you talking about? He was mentioning what a change in history we'd have had not things like the Boston Tea Party taken place.

Here's a good argument for using MP3's (for Americans, anyway), and you turn it into some kind of Canada/Queen/British/COLOUR thing?

?

?

Train of thought! Keep it on the tracks! Don't let that Anti-American sentiment get in the way!

BTW, your sig makes no sense. And we're Americans, not Yanks. Tankuveddymuch.
----- if ($anyone_cares) {print "Just Another Perl Newbie"}

Re:Napster

[Crazy Man on Fire]

not to beat this to death, but...there certainly are many circumstances when it is right to break the law. however, all these circumstances require that the law be unjust! in the case of a just law (as i believe this application of copyright law to be), you are obligated to obey the law even if you do not agree with it. that is how our govenment works, if you do not agree with something, you must work from within to change it.
</clarification>

Re:Napster

[acm]

just because we don't like the law doesn't give us license to break it

Did you ever study the Boston Tea Party in history class?

The Americans were protesting both a tax on tea(taxation without representation) and the perceived monopoly of the East India Company.

If it weren't for our ancestors breaking "the law." We'd still be under the rule of Britain.

acm

Re:Napster

[Yakko]

you must work from within to change it.

Which, as we all know, is not only impossible from an individual perspective, but it's effectively pure fantasy! You want change, you have to BUY it. THAT is how the government works.

That said, I think mp3 is a great way to get the music heard (record label or no) - I've bought *more* stuff as a result of hearing the mp3 version first.

--

Since /. didn't post it...

[The Queen]

... I will.

Dig this article about some other rockers (albeit some sucky rockers) who are doing pretty much the same thing.

The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk

who's the criminal?

[Signal 11]

Who are the criminals here in the MP3 debate? Is it the people downloading? the lawmakers who passed silly IP laws like this? the courts for upholding such laws against public opinion and the constitution? The RIAA for engaging in unethical and monopolistic business practices?

To the industry - you brought this on yourself. You trained people too well to mindlessly consume, and now they do so without conscience. As you have so eloquently shown the general public, the only moral in this country left is the Dollar, and people have learned that lesson all too well - they now freely trade MP3s without any guilt. And I must ask, is it wrong? Motley Crue and Offspring are just a few of the many bands speaking out against you. Bands like Metallica and Dr. Dre who have sided with you and the pro-IP fight have met with icy criticism and a mass exodus of their fans.

Your grip on music in this country will be broken. We will download and trade, eat away at your margins, lay waste to your corporate image and take pleasure in doing so. We have no remorse. Afterall, we're consumers.. just like you taught us to be.

Re:who's the criminal?

[lollipop17]

Nope, not those downloading; I think it has been already stated that downloading the songs is not practical to prosecute, thus those offering their cd collection for downloads are those in violation of "the law".

At any rate, I would like to point out that as a college student, with a big ol' pipe with which to grab all the intellectual content I can, I have played with Napster and Knapster and good ol' warez sites and search engines etc. etc. and fully admit to having several hundred hours of music- but nowhere near as much music as I already owned-legally purchased mind you. I gave all of this mp3 hubbub alot of thought, realized that none of the music I purchased before I got to college sent neither the artists nor the labels any money anyway. Almost everything I own is vinyl , purchased second-hand or CDs purchased second hand or bought from a store-but nearly all of those were artists that are long dead. MP3s made me give contemporary music a second chance- but as the recording industry's practice of silly lawsuits sickens me, I laugh at the RIAA on behalf of the money they continue to miss from my pockets.

Re:who's the criminal?

[Golias]

> Who are the criminals here in the MP3 debate?

Um, it would be the people downloading pirated songs.

So, what you are saying is that if I download a song from the Internet, it is my responsibility to make sure that no copyrights are being violated, and the song is available to me for listening. That means that for every public domain work I want to hear, I must take the time to search the world to make sure that nobody owns the rights to the work in question, or that it was distributed with their permission.

You clearly were not thinking about what you were saying.

Re:who's the criminal?

[Fesh]

Hrm... This has bothered me for a bit... Isn't it actually the people who are making the copyrighted material available for download? In terms of paper, the person infringing on the copyright is the person running off the copies on the photocopier. Plus, Metallica went after the people who had the songs posted, not (as far as I can tell) the people who downloaded the songs. I wonder why this distinction is becoming blurred like this around here... Or is it that the suits are blurring it with their rhetoric? *shrug* Anyway, precision of thought is needed here...

--Fesh

Re:who's the criminal?

[Anonymous Coward]

"And I must ask, is it wrong?"

And I must answer, 'yes'.

And I, in turn, must disagree and say 'no.'

The IP laws have become draconian and unjust. It is neither wrong nor inappropriate to disregard unjust laws.

Until the artists see the lion's share of the profits made from selling CD's, I see absolutely nothing wrong with downlaoding MP3s for free instead. Yes, the artist loses a few cents, but that is a small sacrifice to deny the robber barrons their billions.

Re:who's the criminal?

[kmcardle]

And I must ask, is it wrong?
And I must answer, 'yes'.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way

Re:who's the criminal?

[MarqDaLuser]

You can't solely blame the industry. I admit, they haven't really helped their cause much by blatantly keeping CD prices stagnant when they should have slowly dripped down. Blaming the artists is outright ludicrous. They're the ones most affected by piracy. If people copy their songs and stop buying their albums, the band comes under risk of being dropped from their label. Record labels care about the bands on a direct proportion with the income they provide. Pirates have to be held responsible as well. With greater access to information comes greater responsibility to handle that information. The rampant MP3 pirating is just a lack of responsibility of the users to handle that data. If people want to deal in MP3s, let them. They had just better not act surprised when the snake bites them for it.

Re:who's the criminal?

[cpt kangarooski]

Wrong != Illegal

It may be the latter. It's difficult to say if it's the former.

Re:Take a tip from TMBG (Tori Amos too?)

[Wah]

I believe Tori Amos released the first single of the album "To Venus and Back" digitally before the acutal single was released on CD.

This is actually one of the BIG problems the record industry has with Napster. The full contents of new works are on Napster *before* they make it to the stores. They claim this hurts the *pop* of the album and all the free advertising that comes with early sales numbers and genre ranking.

They don't mention the free advertising that Napster does, but that side is debatable. Anyone want to?


--

Re:Criminals

[speek]

If you give can give me an MP3 of any song, then I can give folks copies of the Linux kernel (gcc, emacs, whatever) without any licensing, effectively making it too then public domain
Ok, sounds good.

Then anyone can create a nice operating system without these cumbersome restrictions
Ok, sounds good too!

You make some excellent points!

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Good point. What I meant by work ethic is the desire to work to get things at all. The reasoning presented was that unfortunate net users can't afford CD's. This was used as a justification for mp3 downloading. I say you should work for what you get. If that means getting 150$ an hour and working ten hours a week so be it, more power to you. But you must try in the first place. If I ahve to work 60 hours a week, well that's my lot in life, but that doesn't justify theft. many people on the net (Dare I say..Netizens `;^) seem to think that the advent of the internet is the advent of getting everything in the world for nothing. Sorry but I disagree.

Marcus

Aren't are jails crowded enough?

[perfecto]

It's bad enough that our jails are so full of consenual criminal that rapists, murders, and other deviants get to go free in less than four years. Now we're going to add to the overcrowding!?!?! Intellectual property is going to lead to very oppressive laws if it is not stopped!

--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!

Re:I stopped listening to Metallica

[jafac]

it is really gut-wrenching to read Lars espouse his business philosophy which is diametrically opposed to the philosophy espoused in his "art". Their songs raised a generation. There lyrics worked their way into the mindset of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of teenagers, who are now young adults.

But Lars says he wants to keep the business side distinct and separate from the creative side.
You can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[Hellmongr]

If people have a problem with a law and it is not taking away from any basic natural rights, they should take the law to the highest court possible to try and get it changed.

In other words, if the law possibly threatens your life, break it, else take it to a higher power in efforts to get it changed.

Don't just go and break a law because you don't like it, people won't listen to you because you're considered a criminal the second you break it. Make a case and present it. (Maybe groups like greenpeace could take this advice, rather than chaining themselves to a tree, for once they could try to sit down with the other party and discuss it intelligently.)

Re:Take a tip from TMBG (Tori Amos too?)

[My_Favorite_Anonymou]

technically, getting/spreading new songs grom napster is much slower than alt.binay.* I couldn't find one track of "13th warriors" just two months ago (well after the release of the film) Now I see the whole CD everyday. But I already made up my mind that I'm going to buy this one once I start my summer job. It's hard to keep telling myself no.

CY

It's time to make a "napster kill the britney Spears" flash/quicktime songs, don't you think?


/_____\
vvvvvvv../|__/|
...I../O,O....|
...I./. .......|
..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|

Legal question

[mpost4]

I have 3 questions

1) if I have a CD can I copy it to tape for use in my car

2) if there is a song played on the radio can I tape for play at a later date

3) if I have a CD can I encode it to MP3 for use on my computer

(assuming I don't distribut it)

4) if there is a song played on the radio can I tape it, then encode it to MP3 for use on my computer

(again if I don't distribut it)

sorry about the stupid questions.

Re:Legal question

[VAXman]

1. Definitely.

2. Definitely. But you can't give it to anybody else.

3. The law is unclear. According to the RIAA this is flat-out illegal, but at least some precedents have indicated that it is ok (e.g. RIAA vs. Diamond Rio).

4. I believe this is the same as 2 - the law doesn't distinguish between making analog and digital recordings of analog source material. A more interesting question would be, is it legal to digitally encode digital radio, such as internet radio broadcast, for personal use? AFAIK, no such precedent has been set, though I suspect that it would be considered illegal.

fair use?

[jetson123]

It seems to me that many downloads and swaps of MP3s are "fair use". Can I give a CD to a friend or relative? Donate it to a public library? Why not an MP3 file?

The notion that sharing content in this way is illegal seems to have been created by the content industry, who would like to see content licensed preferably to individuals and maybe even on a pay-per-view basis.

Maybe what sites like Napster should do is to create a simple "license manager" scheme that ensures that multiple individuals don't listen to the same recording at the same time. It seems to me that the intent of traditional copyright law would be satisfied that way and the music industry wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Of course, if that catches on widely, their sales would still plummet precipitously, because nationwide people would only listen to a small number of copies of most recordings simultaneously.

Re:First

[pangloss]

>> Besides.. white collar crime, like price fixing of CDs, is much more profitable

> Says who that CDs are being price fixed?

Says the FTC and all five major music distributors? (c.f. FTC Settles With Big CD Makers-Cheaper CDs Coming?)

IANAE (I am not an economist :P) but I think you're applying over-simplified, two-party, supply-demand logic ("enjoyment per dollar" etc.) in support of current cd pricing, esp. given the context of the FTC settlement.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[TheReverand]

Furthermore, it's a facet of the freedom of speech (another natural right)

You are confusing natural rights with positive rights. The former being something inherent to nature, the latter being something legislated or provided (which is what freedom of speech is, in the U.S. at least).

Marcus

Flame all you want, I'll post more.

Fight the man!

[whoop]

I say we all take the source of a GPL (or similar) program, microsoft specification, or whatever, remove the bothersome license stuff, and offer it on Gnutella. It's about time the source was freed from those evil GPL monopolies. Licenses are meant to be broken, right? If someone wishes to use some code from a program for a private project, why should they be forbidden? Information wants to be free, not constrained under such license agreements! Viva l'information!

Panel of your Peers

[kid_wonder]

everyone remember the OJ verdict?

its called a jury. if you get arrested for this, get one for yourself. Im no lawyer, but if this really means peers, then no group of your mp3 ripping friends would throw you in jail ;)

of course if gramps and grandma can potentially be up there..you're done for.

as far as i know, jury's can make *any* decision that they want, even if its not in direct relation to the law...so if the RIAA takes this to court and gets the wrong jury they could blow their entire strategy...

just some random thoughts

__________________________

Popularity versus Sales

[fishbowl]

If the record companies actually succeeded in
making it so that you had to either buy the media
or have no way of listening to it, I think the
impact would be felt on the popularity of certain genres of music. Ever since the days of open reel
tape, music sharing has been a vehicle by which artists' popularity has grown, particularly those
artists whose works are not played on the radio.
There may be diminishing returns on the total strangulation of the trading community.

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[BilldaCat]

That is Dial-A-Song, and it still exists.

The phone # is 718 387-6962

It even has an (annoying flash) website at www.dialasong.com.

Copy:

dialasong.com has bee updated and joined the on-line world. With the hip new flash streaming software, everyone is just a quick and easy click away from grooving to the new tracks from TMBG available at dialasong.com. Besides that, dial a song is also back on at 718 387-6962. After months of pure frustration with our computer based system, John and John have returned to the analog scene of the phone machine, and although the songs don't change as frequently, they are fresh fresh fresh and now we have a two song policy so you get more songs with every call.

That IS the future, unless we police ourselves.

[MushMouth]

Read the Bruce Perens article about napster. Something along these lines WILL be in effect unless we police ourselves. Why do you think some of us care if people are pirating music? A) musicians will stop making music, and B) all forms of media will be something like Circut City's DivX, encrypted and requiring a bank card to use.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[DGolden]

As far as I can tell, you've kinda got it backwards. You're correct to say that "rights" are societal constructs. However:

You have no intrinsic right to STOP people copying your work ad infinitum. (except by what means you have within yourself e.g. killing them.) Just as an artificially constructed law against killing people means that members of our society have a "right" to life, a law was invented that gives the creators of a work control over what other members of our society do with the work - the creators are granted an artificially constructed right, "copyright".

For example, the copyright holder of software under the GPL grants any member of the public permission to copy and modify the source code, provided said member of the public releases all modifications under the same restriction if he distrubtes them - thus, the GPL uses copyright law to guarantee source code availability.

The first copyright law I've ever heard of:


The Cathach, or the "Battle Book" is the oldest surviving Irish manuscript psalter. Dating from the middle of the sixth century, only fifty-eight leaves survive.

A copy of this psalter, known as the Battle Book of the Clan O'Donnell- kinsmen of Saint Colmcille (or Saint Columba)- was carried into battle to help its owners to victory.

Saint Colmcille was accused of secretly copying The Cathach, the property of his master, Saint Finnian. The celebrated case of the dispute of copyright (possibly the first dispute of copyright) led to High King Dermott's historic judgement, "to every cow its calf; to every book its copy". The O'Donnell's were ordered to return their copy.

Colmcille's disagreement with the verdict resulted in the battle of Culdreimhe, County Sligo, after which Colmcille, in repentance at the bloodshed, exiled himself from his beloved monastery at Derry Colmcille, and sailed to Iona in Scotland from where he lit the fire of Christianity in Britain.

Thus, copyright is an articial right, introduced by a society, that must enforced by some power withiun that society, in this case the High King Dermott and his forces. What has changed is that now, by international treaty, copyright law applies to most of the globe. There is no reason why this could not change in future, in the face of the drastic social restructuring due to the Internet.

Re:Why artists and Napster should compromise

[VAXman]

There are a huge number of problems with your proposition. First of all, the $6 figure for an album is not reasonable. The cost of producing a CD is only about $1 out of the total cost which the record company gets (approx $10-$12). The fair price, directly through the artist, would be that value minus $1. Next, under this scheme only profitable artists would survive. 90% of music is unprofitable; the record companies act to distribute the money away from the most profitable acts into the less profitable music. Under this scheme, basically, only artists like Britney Spears would survive. Next, there is the problem of commodification. Currently CD's are collectibles, but by turing them into snippets were are paid on a per song basis, buying music is too similar to trading a stock. Finally, there is the problem of a song-based economy. Most serious music is based on larger works, and the song-based music economy will ruin creativity and encourage three minute jewels of pop instead of serious music (with the expense of downloading large files this is an inherent problem with online distribution).

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Wait a minute, I am supposed to expect everything for free? Everything in the world should be given to me because I don't want to have a job? What is outdated about providing for yourself?

Marcus

Re:Culturejamming in SF -- corrected link

[rifter]

There was a lil typo.. the correct link is here.

Dubious Nature of "Free as Beer"

[EXTomar]

I asked a friend the other day who is big into Napster(I unfortunately introduced it to them) why they have so many .mp3 on their machine. "Because it is free and easy." Is this the rally cry Napster wants to rally behind? Its okay as long as the masses want it cheap and free?

Where does it end? Are people who download massive quantities of .mp3 fans? What about other media like video and books and art? Are you doing them such a favor by take a picture of their sculpture or painting and pushing up onto the web? There are plenty of artists who don't want their works featured in "digital media" and that should be their right. It doesn't matter what the fans want or what the fans think is convient if the creator has made a knowledgable decision about how they want to handle their creation. But enough people wave the banner "I'm really a fan and doing this helps expose them to more people" thinking they are doing the creator's a favor by robbing them of the right to control the fate of their creations.

And that is what is at the heart of the matter. Creators who are bringing suit against Napster aren't clueless. What they see is that one of the best features of our open soceity, the right to choose what one does with their own creation, get stomped on in the name of mass-consumer enjoyment.

We harp all over anyone or anything that violates OSS license but people go "Yea Napster!" when it comes to violating other creator's licenses? Its great if you are an artist who wants to use MP3 and they have the right to do so. Artists also have a right not to use MP3 and also have to right TO REFUSE any of Napster's "help".

Napster Ban Work Around (Offtopic)

[nitro69]

All those Windows users who are still having trouble logging on to napster may wish to take a look at this usenet posting.

Users of napster clones would not have to worry about this of course.

PS Legally binding (insecure, anyone could have filled it in on my behalf, no signature required, minors welcome) document my ass :)

Re:Take a tip from TMBG (Tori Amos too?)

[DeRobeHer]

I believe Tori Amos released the first single of the album "To Venus and Back" digitally before the acutal single was released on CD. You could buy the (I assume high quality) MP3 for two or three bucks. I don't know if it came with b-sides or not, though.
Yes, she released a few singles from TVAB before it was released. (Can't remember for the life of me which ones though). She also toured with Alannis Morrisette last summer. The tour was sponsored by mp3.com, who had mp3 broadcasts of a few shows.
--
Donald Roeber

Re:TypoCorrection :-)

[kurowski]

I forgot to mention Broken/Fixed on TVT.

...which makes the reference to Steve in Physical that much sweeter. As far as I understand it, Physical and [track99] were added to the CD *after* it had somehow been signed off on by TVT management. Hmm, what was track 99 called? It's been too long since I've put that disc in. Let's go find it...

Re:sums up the average comp-iliterate thought

[Fesh]

Hey, I've seen a lot of posts suggesting that Network Neighborhood would be illegal... *shrug* And now we see indications that the suits do indeed think along those lines. Yeah, that line hit my attention pretty hard too.

--Fesh

Re:Is it too late?

[speek]

Apparently net access is practically free, and downloading MP3's is free, so.... I'll let you judge whether working is necessary for these things.

The point is that spending $16 for a CD should not be considered a virtue. It ought to be considered really, really dumb, and it should make you feel like an idiot. You play into the hands of some very rich, arrogant, power-hungry people.

What you are suggesting is that good capitalists should work and spend there hard-earned money on expensive CD's, just because it's the "right" thing to do. You may call it theft to do otherwise, but some people just call it downloading. Some people want to change your definitions of things, and possibly make the world a better place. The information age is about making things so cheap as to be practicaly free - and that is a serious threat to capitalism. So, our government is being asked to legislate profits for the "owners of ideas and knowledge", for the purpose of perpetuating capitalism. Those of us on the other side of the fence want to start the process of ending capitalism in order to build something new and better, now that it's slowly becoming possible (because of technology). Most don't realize this is what the fighting is about, because most don't want to think it's capitalism vs communism (which it isn't, really, but I'm sure you're thinking that after reading this).

So, as I said, let's not make a virtue out of a necessity that's no longer a necessity (ie capitalism).

TVT suing mp3.com, not napster

[TMB]

According to the article, TVT is suing mp3.com about my.mp3.com, which is pretty safe considering that my.mp3.com has already been ruled against. Napster doesn't enter into it.

Offtopic: As well as putting out crap music, TVT actually puts out a lot of really good music... about 10% of my music (mostly industrial) is TVT and/or Wax Trax. Good to see a good music label and a good musician (Suzanne Vega) in one /. story! :)

[TMB]

Re:Snoopy Dog Dawg?

[FascDot Killed My P]

Please. You are embazrrising us!

--

Re:freedom

[lisle]

Do you mean Free it, or make it free? Do you see
a difference?

A dead industry?

[abe1x]

seems to me most people I've seen posting about the record industry have a very limited understanding of what services it provides.

The record companies do a lot more then just produce CDs to sell. It is only one aspect of their business. Of course at the moment it is how they generate most of their revenue stream, which is precisely their problem.

The record companies provide a number of services to both their customers and their artists. These include filtering, marketing, financing and yes, manufacturing and distributing CDs. Here's a real simple version of how it works.

First the labels have A&R departments whose main function is to sort through all the crap artists and find the few gems. Check out MP3.com to see exactly why this is an extremely valuble service. Yes, much of what the labels sign is not to everyones taste but it still is useful and yes they miss some brilliant artists, but they reduce the amount of music that I sort through to find what I like drastically.

Once a band is signed to a label the label, the label will advance the band money to record an album. This basically is loan to an artist from the label, based upon the revenue from future album sales. The terms of these contracts are useful dreadful, the labels try and get the artist to sign over their souls and their first born. Artists with poor management often end up signing nightmarish contracts, this is the source of a lot of artists intense dislike for labels. As an aside let me note that most labels do not manage the artists, instead each artist pays their own management team (or more likely the manager, convices the artist that they should let the manger hand all the cash).

Despite the often unfair terms this is an increadible service for artists. Would you loan some musician friend of yours $200,000 to record an album? And if you did what sort of terms would you want. The music business is a hits based business, and the labels lose money on the majority of artists they finance. Like venture capitalists they look for the one massive sucess story that will offset the money they lose on numerous misses. That CD you love, by an obscure artist that went nowhere? The record labels lost money so that you could buy that CD.

The final major service the labels provide is marketing. This one is a mixed blessing for all. I'm quite happy that Warner Brothers dropped tons of cash to make me pay attention to Prince, but I'd rather not hear Britiney Spears every time I turned on the radio (which is very rarely happens). Where would the Beatles be w/o Capitol records marketing efforts? Poor and unknown, most likely. The main problem that bands have with the labels marketing departments is that they often ignore bands they feel have little hope. If a band records a dud of an album, or the A&R man that signed them is fired. Marketing will let a band disapear with out even a visit to the local mall to sign autographs. In effect the marketing department works as a second filter, and unfortunetly usually has even worse taste then A&R.

The point of all this? Basically MP3's napster, etc, only effect one part of the music industry's business. The reason it is so freaked out, is that it effects the part of the business that record labels have tied all their profits too. Personally I see MP3's (or some advanced format) eliminating CD's entirely within 10-15 years. Will the record labels disappear with CD's I doubt it, they will adapt soon enough. A label or too may fail, but the industry in general, no way.

Any one of the major labels could reorganize themselves fully into a new business model in a year or less. The marketing departments could easily become full on marketing companies, same with their PR people. Alter the contracts a bit and A&R men become musical venture capitalists.

We are at the begining of a major paradigm shift for the music industry. MP3's will win in the end, but odds are so will the record labels.

Re:A dead industry?

[VAXman]

An excellent, informed most. I agree wholly with the facts you present.

I agree that online distribution of an open format will win in the long term, but I also submit the very important condition that it will result in the death of quality recorded music. My general prediction is that the major labels will continue to lose more money from piracy, and will be so heavily pressured by the media and by consumers who do not understand the cost of producing a CD, that they will be essentially forced to distribute music online at low cost. At this point, low volume, high cost music (such as 90% of music - everything but the hits) will be completely shut out of the market, and only high volume, low margin music will survive in the industry. This means lots of Britney Spears and Ani DiFranco but not very much Lucy Kaplansky or Julie Miller.

Completely independent distribution a la MP3.com will continue, but it will be almost impossible to surf through the cruft to locate the best music.

The biggest losers in the online distribution model will be the middle tier artists -- the artists who right now are talented enough to secure long term independent label careers, have small but dedicated followings, and sell tens of thousands of albums, but do not have enough mass appeal to sell ten bazillion albums like DiFranco and Spears do. These artists will no longer be funded, and the quality of their work will suffer (both from lack of time because they will need to secure a day job, and from lack of expensive recording equipment). They will be relegated to the MP3.com along with everybody's uncle singing "Drunken Sailor" at the family reunion.

The online distribution model will further commoditize music, and will create two entirely different groups: high paid artists with lucrative record contracts, and volunteer artists with no income from music. Right now there is a massive middle tier, and there are artists at every income level, since the high margins on records fund the risk associated with the industry. 90% of the current music artists, including independent artists, who make a modest living from music -- and who currently hold the art form by their shoulders -- will no longer be able to produce music.

Re:What copyright really gives you...

[lisle]

The artist holds the right to copy, but the mechanism to distribute belongs to the suits.They will screw all concerned if they can increase profit ("enhance shareholder value") by doing so.
So where is the mechanism for free distribution for the artist who chooses to do so? NAPSTER!
The planet should now proceed to produce NEW
MUSIC (and other art) to feed the newly-created need, shouldn't it? and the pirates should then refuse to support the artists who "sell out"?

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[TheReverand]

Copyright is undoubtedly artificial. However so is the "right to life". Don't get me wrong that is a right I definitely cherish =).But that's a different conversation.

The post I was responding too said they had the "natural right" to listen to any music I created whether I said they could or not. If I don't have the "natural right" to stop you from taking what is mine, you don't have the "natural right" to take it.

Marcus

Re:Criminals

[cpt kangarooski]

Some of us who are for Napster are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here.

The very notion of 'Intellectual Property' (other than brains in jars) is offensive. It's not property. It's nothing like property. The rules governing it aren't like the rules for property.

Copyrights can be widely acceptable. Current copyright law is not.

If copyright laws were reformed so that their scopes were narrowed, durations were shorter, etc. we would probably *not* see these kinds of abuses.

But in the end copyright law is going to have serious problems. The only way to save it that does not conflict with the intent of copyright law (hint: it is not to let artists make money. that is only a handy side effect) is to make it more convenient for people to respect it than to break it.

To me, this means that prices must go down. Who hear would prefer to be respectable and buy songs for a dollar (or less) than copy them? Especially if the money really did go almost entirely to the artist.

The only other solution is to eliminate copyrights altogether, as an idea which is no longer feasible.

Strengthening copyrights and creating harsher punishments for those who infringe upon them is frequently unconstitutional. This may not prevent it from happening, but it will not be likely to stem piracy without inflicting grevious, possibly mortal harm upon other freedoms.

As for GPLed software, I suspect that if there were no copyright laws at all, RMS would take it in stride. After all, without copyrights, what incentive do programmers have to conceal source? It won't stop redistribution of the binaries.

Re:First

[Kinthelt]

You're right. It is over-simplified. All microeconomics are based on supply-demand. Where the monkey-wrenches come in is when you have imperfect competition: Monopolies, Competitive Monopolies, etc. Then the rules get "bent".

I have to admit, I was not aware the the big five tried to fix prices.

Re:change the damn business model

[um... Lucas]

The people who benefit from CD sales are the record companies.
The money goes to a number of things, including paying off advances given to the band to record the CD, studio time, manager, producer, promotion, packaging, etc... Part of that money goes to the band as well. As a matter of fact, for many mid-size bands, CD sales are the largest part of their income.

Most of the artists revenue comes from touring.
Again, for very very (unsigned) small acts and very very large acts, that's the case, but the middle of the road acts (those just signed, or those who don't go gold or platinum with each release) tend to bleed money on tours in order and use touring as a promotional vehicle for their CD's.

I want to see the artist get more of a cut from the CD sales.
If you want to talk about greed, rmember that it's entirely possible to record and distribute a CD on your own... The artists that sign with labels in many times don't have the resources to do so, and therefore need to BORROW money from the record labels in order to produce and promote their CD... The CD sells, the artists get paid, the labels get paid, etc...

The table looks a lot more skewed than it is, because labels typically have tens, hundreds or even thousands of artists operating below them, so their profits look incredibly magnified compared to what each of the artists get.

I want to see reduced CD prices.
Well, if you're using Napster currently, buying CD's for anything (even 1/2 their current costs) would amount to spending MORE money than you're currently spending... I'd call it doubtful that you'd be willing to spend more when you've already found that you can get it for free.

Re:Is it too late?

[jafac]

It's true. That train left the station back in 1980 (82?) when the industry decided to go to CD's. The digital format is what makes the music easy to copy limitlessly. The personal computer, the internet, the MP3 format, are all technologies that assist, but really none were necessary once we had CD's. This has been coming for a LONG time. When internet bandwidth gets large enough, people will not trade music MP3's they'll be trading entire CD's in native format.

Charging 25 cents or 50 cents a song download will prevent piracy, generate the required publicity, and allow a broader range of consumers to legally consume. I don't think it will hurt anyone's bottom line one bit, and I still think there will be a vigorous demand for CDs - audiophile quality recordings with collateral materials:

My big thing is, there's WAY too much crap out there for me to even keep track of what music I like. I could buy all the CD's of all the bands I like, it would probably run in the thousands of dollars, but logistically, finding most of those CD,'s, figuring out which ones were ones I like and don't like, would be an impossibility. Being able to download MP3 tracks of everything for a few bucks more would make the task much easier for me, and believe me, would not compel me to not purchase a single CD of music I like. All it would do would be to prevent me from buying CD's I don't like. As it stands now, I was ready to go drop a few hundred bucks last month (stock options ROCK) on CDs of bands I liked in the 80's, most of which I have on Vinyl. I sat down and made a list, and couldn't find most of them at the record store. I ended up buying a Kid Rock CD, because I liked that Bawidibaw song. Every other song on that fucking CD was a peice of shit. So I decided not to buy any more CDs for the time being. Buying a $20 peice of shit is keeping me from spending probably hundreds of dollars on filling out the gaps in my music collection with other CDs. I have since amassed a large collection of MP3s, so I can better tell which ones I like.

RIAA - it is your business model that is screwed up, and in need of adjustment.

I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[Otto]

The catch is you can't make other people do what you want with THEIR music. If TMBG want to give away songs, more power to them. But if Metallica doesn't, you shouldn't steal them. -snip- It's one choice of many, just like releasing MP3's is a choice you can make.

Yes, but they have to face the ramifications of that choice. By choosing NOT to provide digital music, by choosing to uphold the status quo, they, in reality, are choosing to have their music pirated.

I don't say that it's right. I don't say that it's ethical, or moral, or anything like that. But that is the reality of the situation _they_ created.

I'm a programmer. I deal with abstracts like numbers, lines of code, simple commands and routines. I think that a lot of programmers see the world the same way. I know I do. A leads to B leads to C.

In this case, the lack of a digital method of content delivery + the graft they've been charging = people pirating the stuff. This is real. This is fact. You cannot change reality through legislation.

You cannot make the penalty harsh enough to keep people from doing something when it is virtually impossible to catch them doing that thing.

You must change the will of the people to pirate songs. You must create some means by which they can still get the songs, and yet you get reimbursed. The technology is there. The means are there. The reason is there. If the record companies could pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and look around, they'd see that the old way must give a bit of room to the new way, and that's all there is to it.

---

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[fishbowl]

I wish more bands would do things like that. [publish mp3's, fanclub mp3 albums, etc]

LOTS of bands WISH they could do that, but
they're totally forbidden to do any such thing
by their record company contracts.

As soon as ONE of the big record companies realizes the potential to be had in embracing this technology, that company alone will have the technological advantage over all the others.
When the first bookstore went online, the rest had
to go online too...

When the first record company signs a contract with a band (and I mean A BAND, like, signs the
next Nirvana or even, tragically enough, the next
Britney Spears), and the contract states that the
band *MUST* release in digital format at specified
intervals, etc., it will be seen as a success story, and everyone else will follow suit, not
wanting to be left behind.

The "piracy" thing will be no more relevant after
that revolution than Radio is today.

If you had the engineers of the record mixing your
mp3 from the beginning, you'd have a high quality mix. Bundle it with some graphics that add a marketing angle to it, and you've got something that will distribute itself. There will still be
a reason to go buy the CD, online, or at the brick&mortar.

Re:XTC

[CdotZinger]

Here's where the theoretical $18 goes, in my experience (as a guy who allegedly makes a living off this (and writing books, which is even worse)):

$7, retailer
$5, distributor (which is sometimes also the label)
$5, label
$1, artist

The first three vary. The $1-to-artist is pretty consistent and consistently doesn't happen. If you're on a major, you already "owe" it to them, until you sell many, many, many, many more albums than, say, XTC can. If you're on an independent, they'll outright steal it (unless you're on Dischord). Probably they'll use it to buy a new BMW. It was a red convertible this year, proudly shown off at a recent label showcase to all of us penniless chump-geniuses, who had paid for it.

XTC's financial history is very interesting; check out the interview archives at chalkhills.org. In brief, Andy Partridge, best pop songwriter since Lennon/McCartney, has made absolutely great records since 1977, but just started making average-joe money within the last couple years. I wouldn't expect that to continue, though. TVT is doing fuck-all to earn their cash for promoting the new album, since XTC has a built-in fanbase of about 250,000--just the right amount for TVT to "recoup" and for XTC to get about five thousand dollars, under industry-standard contracts.

Interesting perspective

[Snoochie Bootchie]

I read Signal's post a much different way. I viewed it as a sarcastic, political statement rather than a "free music manifesto." RIAA is doing what it can to have complete control over music and music artists. The main motivation for this is to make money for RIAA and the studios. I don't believe it is truly in the interests of the artists. Signal's post, the way I read it, was a statement saying that we, the consumer, are using RIAA's tactics as our example. Therefore, we, without conscious, steal music because the example set for us was unethical, selfish, and, in many other ways, bad. Sort of a psuedo parent-child metaphor.

Snoop Dogg?

[bjorky]

I don't mean to pick nits, but I'm sorry, Snoop Dogg should not be listed as one of the front running acts on the TVT label. With his jumps around from Death Row, to Aftermath, to No Limit, to TVT, I think perhaps there are better examples of artists on the TVT label. As it is, TVT began primarily an industrial metal label, with the rap sections coming in more recently. Nine Inch Nails, anyone? Nashville Pussy?

-----

Re:Show of hands...

[ktakki]

Not to be to picky, but under international copyright treaties, it's not necessary to file anything (or even give a copyright notice in the work) to hold a copyright.

For an unpublished work, yes. A work is covered by a de facto copyright from the moment of creation.

But once the work has been published, it needs the extra protection of a de jure copyright.

Otherwise, what's the point of having the whole published/non-published distinction (and there is one)?

k.

--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

Re:Is it too late?

[titus-g]

I'm sure they will be able to find a profit on the net, as everyone will eventually have to. It's the dawn of a new economic model, in which providers of products and services will have a more "direct" access to their customers than they had previously

think they are just a 'bit' slow, they could be making a profit now, for e.g. is music really that much different from porn?, both are available free in huge quantities online, but are the traditional porn companies making more or less money now?

not a perfect comparison i guess as porn works on the internet for reasons irrelevant to the music industry. accurate in that the companies behind both have similar mentalities & methods though.

goodnoise.com has been selling mp3's on the web since way before napster

Re:Brandenburg and MP3 patent

[TechLawyer]

Brandenburg was an employee who traded his rights in any inventions he might make to his employer (the Institute) in exchange for a steady salary. Many risk-averse people prefer this arrangement. Now assume there is no such thing as a patent. Because the Institute could not obtain patent rights to Brandenburg's invention, what is the point of employing him to invent things? Indeed, what is the incentive for any private employer to employ anyone to innovate or be creative? So, Brandenburg would be out on the street washing car windows, or greeting people at WalMart.

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[Golias]

It sells wonderfully, even if its only a collection of bsides with a few new songs.

The MP3 Album ("Long Tall Weekend") is some of their best stuff. Every geek should get his hands on it, for the song "Older" alone if nothing else.

I hear they have a second offering (an "EP" this time) also for sale.

Plus the dial-a-song, the website (tmbg.com), the fan site (tmbg.org), and the mailing list... As if all that isn't cool enough, they have their own Internet radio station at WiredPlanet.com, which will let you listen to a continuous random selection of TMBG and Mono Puff music. Alas, the streaming client is MICROS~1 only, for now.

better idea

[BenByer]

Yeah, let them make money performing.

Re:Brandenburg and MP3 patent

[Sloppy]

Hmm. Pretty good explanation. Thanks. :-)

---

Ridiculous

[kayser_soze]

This is exactly why the US courts should be extremely careful on setting these types of precedents. Once a case is won in the RIAA vs. MP3 battle, the floodgates will open and everyone and their brother will begin to sue.

I think the US needs to set up certain protection laws for free speech/expression and intellectual property. specifically for the Internet and similar future media. In addition, the current lawsuit procedures should be looked at, it is way too easy for a large corporation to sue (and essentially destroy) a small business or individual, even if they lose. The way the current trend is going, the precedents for these do not look at all hopefull.

Civil Disobedience

[BenByer]

Yes you do have the right to civil disobedience at a very basic level. You have complete control over your body at all times. You can disobey anything order anyone else commands you to do. I feel sorry for someone who does not think this is so.

Re:Civil Disobedience

[Cannonball]

What message do you send when you disobey laws? You say that you don't have the follow the book when you don't feel like it, basically. You feel a law is unfair, so you break it. Why not instead change the laws by the process of lobbying, etc.? Because it's tough? That's no excuse. If you feel you have a civic duty to change a law, do so through the channels, not by breaking laws.

Re:Civil Disobedience

[BenByer]

If the 'channels' no longer work and one firmly believes in their cause then they have the duty to break the law while trying to change it through broken 'channels'. I find it hard to believe that our government responds very quickly at this point. In Arizona there was a ballot issue to legalize maryjane. It overwhelmingly passed, yet still it is illegal to spoke a joint. Doesnt sound like a government of the people to me. One must realize that they are part of the government first and then civil disobedience makes sense.

Re:Prove to me that CD sales are hurt by MP3 tradi

[TechLawyer]

You are absolutely correct that CD sales are hurt by MP3 trading. I believe in the whole gamut of intellectual property (copyright, trademark, even (gasp!) patent), and will not defend those who are stealing music from others, regardless of the strident rationalizing that they use.

That said, the issue of how much CD sales are hurt by MP3 trading is separate--damages vs. liability, as we say in the law biz. Each MP3 download doesn't equal one lost sale, regardless of what the RIAA might think.
(1)Many MP3 users are simply listening to songs to determine if they like the band, and delete the songs if they don't like them. Such users would not go out and buy the album without a chance to see if they like one or two of the songs. So, MP3s downloaded to those folks cannot constitute damages.
(2) Many MP3 users cannot afford to go out and buy all of the CDs on which their MP3s are legitimately located. Thus, if they didn't have the MP3 option, they wouldn't have bought the CD. MP3s over and above what the customer could have purchased can't be damages. This is analogous to the situation where Mr. Softee goes after software pirates in China who sell bootlegged Windows and Office; most customers of that pirated software couldn't afford the real thing anyway, so there cannot possibly be as many lost sales as the number of pirate copies made, no matter what MSFT might want.
(3) Finally, each MP3 cannot = 1 lost CD sale, because CDs have more than one song.

While the RIAA has every right to seek compensation for the theft of copyrighted music, they should receive no sympathy for attempts to inflate their damages.

Interscope?

[djweis]

Are TVT and Interscope still together? I hope I don't have to stop listening to my NIN cds. The newer ones are labeled with the Nothing/Interscope labels, but the older ones (broken) have TVT on the back.

Re:Interscope?

[Devine Intervention]

Are TVT and Interscope still together? I hope I don't have to stop listening to my NIN cds. The newer ones are labeled with the Nothing/Interscope labels, but the older ones (broken) have TVT on the back.

To my knowledge, Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails hasn't been associated with TVT since the Broken and Fixed EPs (Halos Five and Six). Everything after that was done by Nothing/Interscope.

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Apparently net access is practically free, and downloading MP3's is free, so.... I'll let you judge whether working is necessary for these things.

Was your computer free? Is your electricity free?

You play into the hands of some very rich, arrogant, power-hungry people.

Do you have a car? If so you have done this. Do you own clothing from any store? If so you have done this. Do you ever eat fast food? If so you have done this. My point? I am no fan of the RIAA, I try to buy my CD's used as much as possible. Just because they are the scapegoats of the week however, I am not going to act like they are what's wrong with this country. You want to make the world a better place? Go work in a soup kitchen. Support the EZLN. Become a public school teacher in the inner city. Don't tell me that stealing from the rich and giving to yourself is some noble purpose that should be admired.

By the way, according to your email you are on roadrunner and YOU, my friend are playing into the hands of some very rich, arrogant, power-hungry people.

Marcus

Napster is only getting more popular.

[Nennon]

I have serious doubts that this will hurt Napster in the long run. Think about it, their name is all over the news, and people who did not know how to get MP3s off the net now have a great way to do it. Any publicity is good publicity. If the central Napster system fails, we could still always go back to IRC/FTP/Hotmail. There is no way to stop mp3 distribution.

Re:Napster is only getting more popular.

[tietokone-olmi]

If the central Napster system fails, we could still always go back to IRC/FTP/Hotmail.

Psst... OpenNAP. The canonical luse32 client won't support unofficial servers, but that's not my problem.

Re:Napster is only getting more popular.

[Ben33vm]

i agree completely. ive been saying the same thing forever. Warez sites have been pirating this stuff for years. same with AOL chat rooms! -Ben

a little civil disobediance

[Tomguycot]

I've heard a lot of talk about how pirating people's music is not the right way to go...because stealing is wrong...yadda yadda yadda. Well I say screw that! As I recall one of the founding fathers of the United States of America...Thomas Jefferson to be precise once said something to the effect of ...every now and then a little civil disobediance is not only necessary but a good thing. And what was the boston tea party but both a crime and a form of civil disobediance. Also, what of the works of Thoreau (sp?) in walden didn't he advise things such as not paying your taxes as a form of civil disobediance? I would think that if this was "ok" then so would be blatantly taking away all of the recording industry in order to bring it to it's knees. As I see it the recording industry has gotten totally out of hand and it's time for a change I mean 17 to 20 dollars for a piece of plastic that probably only has one or two good songs on it? That is simply ludicrous. So I say it's time we send the recording industry as a whole a message that we will no longer be ROBBED blind and until they make a change we will simply take their music that isn't worth the plastic it's printed on. So in closing I tire of the recording industry's greed and stuipidity...I say it's time they burn.

sure put me in jail

[jimmypop]

I dare you to put people in jail for this nonsense. Our (U.S.) jail system is so overburdened as it is, that it would be ridiculous for an MP3 offender to spend more than a day in any prison for such frivolous "criminal" activity. Convicted murderers get out in as little as 4 years, sometimes less. Fines might be an option, but they will be so outrageous if the RIAA has their way, that many who are caught would simply file for bankruptcy. End result: no fines are ever paid, police are kept from doing real police work, and college kids won't be able to buy a house for 7 years.

Re:First

[lollipop17]

Says who that CDs are being price fixed?
Wasn't it just proven a few days ago that CDs had been price fixed, and that the labels or whomever were ordered to drop the prices for a while?
Correct me if I'm wrong

Re:First

[Signal 11]

Did you even read my post, AC?

Why artists and Napster should compromise

[Antipop]

Let's look at the situation: the artists say they're losing record sales to MP3, and Napster has no way to turn a profit. Most artists right now have no way of selling records without the RIAA to distribute it for them. Instead of every artist one by one sueing Napster, why doesn't Napster come up with a plan to sell MP3s, from the artist to consumers without a label?

Let's say Metallica comes out with a new CD. They allow users to download one song from the CD as a sample. Then they let Napster sell single songs in MP3 format for $.50, Napster gets $.05 per song sold and Metallica pockets $.45. If the Metallica CD is 12 songs total, then the consumer can buy and download it immediately for the total cost of $6. Napster makes $.60 and Metallica gets $5.40 per CD they sell on Napster. The consumer gets the CD immediately for a 1/3 of the cost without leaving their home.

That's great for Metallica and all, some will say, but what about the bands nobody has ever heard of? Well, taking a cue from CDNow.com, Napster could offer links to artists that sound similiar to bands that they know they like. A user can download one song for no charge to see if it is something they like. If it is, that unknown band just got $5.40 and a new fan, if not, they haven't lost anything and neither has the consumer.

This sort of system isn't perfect, but it helps everyone (minus the RIAA). Everybody would benefit from something like this; Napster makes a profit, consumers get cheap CDs, and the bands make money without having a label taking a cut out of their work.
-Antipop

Re:Why artists and Napster should compromise

[kz45]

if all you think music/albums are is the "cost of the cd", then why aren't you buying blanks then? The cost is the blood/sweat/tears that went into recording/creating it. let's see you bust your ass on something, and then see it givin away for free.

Ummmm... No.

[Kinthelt]

TVT is suing MP3.com, not Napster. I'm all for suing MP3 if they were giving away copyrighted material. There's plenty of non-copyright MP3s out there.

Re:Criminals

[speek]

But you don't have a leg to stand on when you advocate theft of copyrighted material.

He certainly does have a leg to stand on. The point is, how much of IP law is reasonable. Just because it's the law doesn't make it right. If we continue down the path of ever strengthening IP laws against the tide of digital copying, we will get in trouble. Advocating civil disobedience has a long and honored history for us (in the US and elsewhere), and there are plenty of arguments to support his views.

Re:Another issue with Napster...

[ZetaPotential]

All he needs is a webpage with an official list of all his songs. If a big surge of people suddenly think that Wierd Al wrote some song called "Girls Just Wanna Felch" or something similar, anybody who's savvy will point out that Wierd Al didn't sing it because it's not on his list. Only morons and script kiddies would be fooled...

Re:Napster is not a crime

[jafac]

"It is only illegal to copy CD's that you do not own. However, this has been going on for a long
time and never hurt CD sales. It is only because there is an easy target that the RIAA is even
doing anything about it. "

This is not true. Yes, Napster is an easy target at first glance, but Napster isn't the culprit here. They've taken the list of 300k users and booted them for violations. Napster is in perfect compliance. It's the 300k pirates that are the target, and they aren't so easy.

The RIAA knows this, and that's why THEY haven't gone after the 300k users. Metallica did. The RIAA is not involved (unless Lars is Lying). The only reason this is an issue is just what Lars said. The scale of it now - a few thousand tapes before, compared to millions and millions at the click of a mouse. And it's not about the money, it's about the control.

There are two obvious options. Either the RIAA adopts a more liberal stance (give up control, sell music for 25 cents a song, also sell CDs as limited run sets, as collecters items, they will still command a healthy demand). OR make CDs obsolte, no longer produce CDs at all, make everyone buy new hardware to play a new medium that can be controlled, and watch the hackers bust it wide open within a week, and still be unable to staunch the piracy.

Quite a quandry.

I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .

Re:First

[Fesh]

People will stop buying CDs (a few will keep purchasing, though) because the amount of enjoyment per dollar is too low.

Exactly why DIVX tanked. The cumulative cost was higher than the amount of enjoyment derived from the initial media purchase. That doesn't seem to keep the suits from drooling over the thought of having the same type of control over music distribution, though. SDMI, anyone?

--Fesh

Re:Napster is not a crime

[rifter]

Napster does not break copyright laws, neither does downloading or distributing MP3's. It is my right to have a backup copy of CD's which can be scratched, broken, stolen, or lost, which I have bought, ACCORDING TO COPYRIGHT LAW.

If I do not have the know-how or proper set-up to rip the MP3's myself, and wish to download them from the internet instead because someone else has already done it for me, THAT IS MY RIGHT UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW. It would be up to teh person providing this service to decide whether they need to charge for it, in this case it is gratis.

It is only illegal to copy CD's that you do not own. However, this has been going on for a long time and never hurt CD sales. It is only because there is an easy target that the RIAA is even doing anything about it.

Personally I think they are wrong, after all I personally have bought and will continue to buy CD's that contain songs I have heard through MP3, though not from any of the artists who are denegrating a new way of distributing music.

Mötley Crüe's cartoon: "Metalligreed"

[magneticstorm]

Mötley Crüe is the latest band to speak out against Metallica, and for Napster. They've released a statement as a cartoon in which their characatures make fun of Metallica, entited "Metalligreed." It's really funny! Users with the Shockwave Flash plugin (there's one for Linux) can check it out at Camp Chaos Entertainment.

Re:Is it too late?

[PerlGeek]

> many people on the net (Dare I say..Netizens `;^) seem to think that the advent of the internet is the advent of getting everything in the world for nothing. Sorry but I disagree.

Not everything. Merely those things that can be copied for free and you can find someone willing to copy it for you for free. Kinda like mixing a tape for someone.

Personally, I disagree with Lars - scale doesn't matter. If it's wrong, it's wrong no matter how big or small it is. Imho, if bootlegging mp3's is wrong, so is bootlegging tapes. I don't know if it's wrong or not, but right now I tend to think there's nothing wrong with it.

There is one argument against napster that really struck me, though. I heard someone say that napster only hurts the smaller artists, not the power-greedy ones. If that's true, then the only people Napsterites are hurting are the ones they claim to want to help.

Of course, anyone who actually buys the cds of the mp3s he likes is not part of that problem.

Make that Hotline. Grr, need coffee. (nt)

[Nennon]

nt

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[PerlGeek]

> So it is a natural right to listen to others peoples creations?

If it's in public, yes. If it's displayed in the public square, shouted out over a megaphone, or transmitted on the radio, the publishers lose all right and ability to control who hears and sees it.

Otoh, if it's in private, no I have no such right to see or hear it. If it's in private, it's their choice. If it's in public, it's my choice.

> Gee, that's funny I always considered it a privelege. Is television a natural right since the airwaves are free?

If they put it on the airwaves, it's free. Personally, I consider most television a punishment, :) not a privilege, but that's beside the point. They are creating the show and beaming it all over creation. I don't have a right to any show they create, but I have the right to any radio waves I happen to find in my house.

That includes encrypted tv transmitted from satillites, analog (at least) cellphone conversations, or whatever else is in radio form and is beamed into my house.

The internet is iffy - I no longer decide, now it's my isp that decides what goes on. If I don't like it, I can find another isp.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[PerlGeek]

> The post I was responding too said they had the "natural right" to listen to any music I created whether I said they could or not.

If you preform your music in public, or send it out on the radio, I have the natural right to hear it, yes. Is that what you're talking about?

Reefer Madness

[niekze]

echo "Marijuana is bad. Marijuana causes blindness. Marijuana makes you insane. Marijuana is communism. It is illegal. Only street punks and communist use marijuana. Buying, using, selling and even looking at Marijuana is bad, immoral, illegal, and clearly an abomination against our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." > stuff

cat stuff | sed s/"Marijuana"/"MP3's"/g

Nice to see original arguments.

Re:Reefer Madness

[niekze]

oh yea =) i forgot that one. cat stuff | sed /"marijuana"/"microsoft"/g this makes posting so much easier.

Re:Napster is not a crime

[jafac]

then there's the unobvious option, which is the road the RIAA seems to be going down:

Alter current law, which leaves Napster not liable for the piracy, and eliminate anonymity on the net, so those 300k pirates CAN be attacked.

Get that? Alter current law. Who do you think runs this country now?

I just remembered this old Metallica song. . .

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[slothdog]

Alas, the streaming client is MICROS~1 only, for now.

Well, their client software is, but you don't have to use it to listen. On the first page at WiredPlanet there's a link on the lower left for "Change Listener Prefs". Just choose "Generic MP3 Player" and they're more than happy to serve out an mp3 stream that you can listen to in your app of choice.

Woulda thunk it?

[xinu]

Suzzane Vega's 'Tom's Diner' would cause all this trouble?

Anyone care for my own editorial of the situation?

[systemapex]

Check it out...I'd like your comments both positive and negative: MP3 Luddites.

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Indeed. And at what age do you think a child can/should work? Should a 13-year old be working? For that matter can a 13-year old even get a job (they can't in Canada). Please remember that the days of sending our childern off to work 50 hours weeks in sweatshops is long gone (in the US and Canada at any rate), new thinking is that perhaps we should allow our kids to go to school and perhaps to have fun and, well, be kids.

The original post refered to college students.

Don't tell me you couldn't get a copy made, tapes were around 10 years ago. Also, please don't try and say that 'MP3s are different because they are digital'. Good 1/8" tape sounds better than 128k MP3. MP3 is a lossy format.

Agreed which is why I don't use MP3. Again please see the parent to my post so you can se why I made the argument I did.

Try $15-$17USD CD. Plus, the pirates have a point: The ability to afford it isn't the main point, the point is that it is overpriced. Look at the facts: A CD can't cost any more than about $1.00USD to make and that is counting the inserts. Also the artists don't get much either (how much depends on the artist but it is usually around $.50-$1.00USD). So where is all the money going? To the recording companies and to the stores. The middlemen in other words. Also, recording companies do have a monoply of sorts. If you want music from a given band, you are forced to buy it from a specific label and at the price they set. You have no option to get it for less from anyone else since that label owns all right to that music.

I buy CD's new for 12 dollars all the time, then again I live in Cleveland, hence a lower cost of living, and I know where to shop.

Marcus

"Mass exodus"?

[Christopher Thomas]

Bands like Metallica and Dr. Dre who have sided with you and the pro-IP fight have met with icy criticism and a mass exodus of their fans.

I seriously doubt that most Metallica/Dr. Dre fans even know what Napster is.

However, I'm sure you wouldn't have posted without evidence. Please show your figures demonstrating that enough fans of these bands are boycotting to make a significant impact on their bottom lines.

Re:"Mass exodus"?

[lollipop17]

I seriously doubt that most Metallica/Dr. Dre fans even know what Napster is.

What, becuase they are black? Nice racial slur there buddy...

Now just a simple poll, who else thinks all metallica fans are black? what kind of racial comment is this one...dr dre is included in a comment about ignorant people-it must be because they are black, right???

Re:"Mass exodus"?

[Signal 11]

Try this search and tell me that doesn't make an impact. Of course, the industry has a few words about the impact on sales as well.

Now, about those figures... look here, here and since some fans even feel they are directly harming metallica, they've setup a site to pay lars back.

I eagerly await your response.

Re:"Mass exodus"?

[Ben33vm]

yeah CAUSE THEIR BLACK! and everyone knows ALL black people live in the Ghetto, and cant afford a computer. (i hope your catching my sarcasm). he didnt say anything baout them being black, moron.

Take a tip from TMBG

[DeRobeHer]

After all the mess with Napster, mp3s, et alle, its good to see a band doing the Right Thing with mp3s. They Might Be Giants has a very 'geeky' and loyal fan base, but has trouble with record contracts. So, they get together with emusic.com, and say "We want to put out a mp3 only album". It sells wonderfully, even if its only a collection of bsides with a few new songs. A few months later, they add a mailing list, and people subscribe to get the latest TMBG news and here's the kicker: a FREE mp3 from the band with a short story behind that weeks selection. It may be a song from a live show that was particularly memorable, it may be a new song they're fooling around with, doesn't matter, the fans love it. Just last week, TMBG decided to put their upcoming EP on emusic.com. You pay $7.99, and get to download the 7 or so mp3s, and they then mail you the cd! Wow! Does it get any better? You've got fans that aren't mad at you, you get your music out, you make a couple bucks (probably more than you would if you had to deal with a record company), and people are generally happy! Whats so wrong with that?

--
Donald Roeber

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[herbierobinson]

Check out how many of those MP3s are being traded freely on Napster. I got many screenfuls of hits.

This a band that is not on a label and probably isn't making spit and they are getting ripped off. You people are just plain leaches. Admit it.

Here's a list of more bands that I know are working for chump change that are being ripped off on Napster:

The Love Dogs
Chucklehead
Babaloo
Allstonians

That's four out of the eight Boston area bands I checked on. None of these groups have major label contracts (two are on indie labels and two appear to be self released).

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[dirk]

After all the mess with Napster, mp3s, et alle, its good to see a band doing the Right Thing with mp3s. They Might Be Giants has a very 'geeky' and loyal fan base, but has trouble with record contracts. So, they get together with emusic.com, and say "We want to put out a mp3 only album". It sells wonderfully, even if its only a collection of bsides with a few new songs. A few months later, they add a mailing list, and people subscribe to get the latest TMBG news and here's the kicker: a FREE mp3 from the band with a short story behind that weeks selection. It may be a song from a live show that was particularly memorable, it may be a new song they're fooling around with, doesn't matter, the fans love it. Just last week, TMBG decided to put their upcoming EP on emusic.com. You pay $7.99, and get to download the 7 or so mp3s, and they then mail you the cd! Wow! Does it get any better? You've got fans that aren't mad at you, you get your music out, you make a couple bucks (probably more than you would if you had to deal with a record company), and people are generally happy! Whats so wrong with that?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I wish more bands would do things like that. But i don't think we should force any band to do it. If you want to release MP3's, go right ahead. Give away all the music you want, do whatever you want with your music. The catch is you can't make other people do what you want with THEIR music. If TMBG want to give away songs, more power to them. But if Metallica doesn't, you shouldn't steal them. It's similar to the GPL. It's a great license, but just because it's a great license doesn't mean we should force everyone to use it. It's one choice of many, just like releasing MP3's is a choice you can make.

Re:Take a tip from TMBG

[Sabalon]

TMBG used to have a phone number you could call (in Brooklyn I think) that had an answering machine, and every day or week, there would be a new song on it...cost to you: phone call to Brooklyn.

Great band.

That's a LOT more reasonable

[acb]

I'll probably get moderated down for this, but...

If the music industry wants to throw the book at someone who makes copyrighted, commercially available recordings available for anonymous download, they have every right. Especially if the artists themselves are sick of having their recordings ripped off on a massive scale.

There is a difference between lending a CD to a friend and making it available to millions of strangers.

Sooner or later the RIAA or an artist will subpoena ISP logs, and some l33t mp3 p1mp will end up as Bubba's new bitch. And he'll have nothing to blame but his own stupidity for thinking that his IP address is sufficiently untraceable to commit a crime.

Re:That's a LOT more reasonable

[Wah]

considering Metallicas fairly consistent thrashing in the press, I doubt many bands would want to take that route, but I agree, more power to 'em for trying.

If they don't want me to listen to their music, no prob. Someone else does.
--

Re:You should be able to use nigger like this...

[emmett]

Dude, you're accusing the moderators, but it's probably Taco or emmett who's moderating you down. The fucking /. team is censoring you!

As far as I know, neither Rob or I have moderated this story today. Sorry to break your conspiracy theory. You can have the pieces, though.

--Emmett

he is insightful, dammit!

[Fishstick]

No, he never does. He doesn't have to. He already knows the answers to all the questions that will ever be asked, and has an opinion on every subject that will ever be posted on /.

Behold, the all-knowing, all-seeing Signal_11!

(ok moderators, now mark me down for trolling, flamebaiting or being off-topic or whatever else you like for having dared to post a comment about the beloved Signal_11!

Interscope, Dr. Dre and Seagram

[acb]

I believe Interscope (which launched Snoop Dogg's career, and specialises in sensationalist teen-rebellion music from gangsta rapcore to goth gone bad) was founded by none other than Dr. Dre.
In any case, it's part of the Universal group, owned by that other recent newsmaker, Seagram.

Mere coincidence?

This just in....

[Janthkin]

Popular artists Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Antonio Vivaldi have also filed claims against Napster. Said Mozart: "It is thieves and pirates like these Napster people that drove me to my death, while I was so young. I want my own back!" Bach notes that "(C)lassical music is only dead because people don't buy it. They would, but Napster lets them have it free."
In a related piece, Russian artist Stravinsky is hoping to use Napster to jump start his popularity in the U.S., which has declined somewhat since the advent of radio.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[cpt kangarooski]

In the US, the government swears up and down that it won't interfere with the freedom of speech (which rarely stops them from trying) but it does not grant that freedom. It only guarantees it.

People can speak freely without laws. The problem with a state of nature though, is that it gets messy. (people being free to infringe on people's rights...)

Besides, in US legal theory (AFAIK - IANAL, though I am interested in law) copyright and the first amendment are seen in opposition to each other.

Brandenburg and MP3 patent

[Sloppy]

Hmm.. I'm not sure how the Brandenburg article is about "troubles", but anyhow...

In an age when it is possible to become a multimillionaire on the strength of a half-baked idea, Brandenburg has done the unthinkable: He has failed to reap either wealth or publicity from his role in the creation of a staggeringly successful technology.

[snip]

Although the Fraunhofer Institute has received millions of dollars in licensing fees from its patents on the MP3 algorithms, Brandenburg has seen only a tiny portion of the revenues.

I get the impression that this guy's motivation for innovating was rather unrelated to the promise of a temporary monopoly, thanks to the patent. So what useful purpose did the patent serve in this case?

ObPlug: Ogg Vorbis

---

Re:David Weekly was right...

[acb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but virtually all ISPs do log dial-ins. With a subpoena, an IP number and a time it is possible to obtain the details of who was using said number at the time. This has been used to prosecute crackers, and it's only a matter of time before it's used to prosecute music pirates.

Well... actually...

[Signal 11]

Contrast that to the vast number of albums sold. Looking considerably less significant, isn't it?

Uhh.. your assertion might work if everyone who bought a CD put up a webpage. Sadly, that isn't true.

Looks like a typical fluff piece written by a third-party journalist. What of it?

Did you read the article? There were parts from quotes on people who work for the record industry. Regardless of WHO wrote it, the quotes speak for themselves. Even Jon Katz makes a point every now and then.

Your first link states that CD sales are declining near universities. By 7 percent.

I don't know about you, but if I was a business, a 7% loss would be a big deal - when the stock market plunged last week it didn't go 7% and people were panicing and talking about how the bubble had burst. Especially considering 7% of 1.4 billion dollars is about 9.8 million dollars of lost sales...

Your third link, to the "pay Lars" site, lists a grand total of $399.00 raised at the time of my viewing (during the writing of this message).

I deduce that you have recently had your humorous surgically removed...

Summary: Your figures serve only to underscore how few boycotters there are, compared to the CD-buying masses.

My summary is alittle different - Napster is havnig a substantial near-term loss of money for the record industry and represents a long-term threat to its monopoly, hence the response. Remember, even during the American Revolution the majority of the people wanted to reconcile with Britain. Most did not want war - it only took a very small minority to break ties with Britain. Boycotting may not be economically effective, but its political and social effects are long-reaching.

Your turn.

Re:MP3.com Blew It with Beam-It

[acb]

Amen, brother.

The most likely outcome is that there will be an out-of-court settlement, giving the RIAA control of mp3.com. Which will help them phase out unprotected MP3s as a format, marginalising it to the fringe, and later allowing them to intimidate player makers into removing MP3 support and ISPs into pulling sites hosting XMMS and LAME (using DeCSS as a precedent). De facto criminalisation of unencrypted music formats will follow, and once it's accepted by the public it will eventually be enshrined in law.

Trent Reznor hates TVT

[aqx_apoulos]

Do a search for one of the NIN FAQs on the web. The first Nine Inch Nails album, Pretty Hate Machine was recorded on TVT. However, every album since has been put out through Interscope/Nothing.

While there aren't many publicly known details, NIN had a *very* ugly breakup with TVT. For those of you who own NIN's "Broken" album, check out the song "Physical." At approx. 28 seconds into the song, Trent whispers "Eat your heart out, Steve," a reference to a certain employee at TVT. In addition, one of their videos displayed a computer screen with "F*ck you Steve" on the titlebar of a window :-)

There are other formats out there?!?!?

[kcarnold]

Everybody talks about MP3 when they talk about music on the Web. MP3 seems ubiquitous. Well, so does Windows. But as was discussed in earlier articles, MP3 has shaky legal standings as purely an audio format, without going into all this copyright junk. So might I refer you to the Linux / BSD of compressed music? It's called Vorbis, and we discussed it on Slashdot in an earlier article (here). I would rant on about how it is better, but I already have. To save you the read unless you want to, I refer you to my earlier comment here.

Vorbis Tools 0.5 is about to go out, as soon as my web server will accept my upload! In the mean time, bother me if you want tarballs. And of course you do ;)

MP3's and distribution

[LegacyMan]

To make a point and use the words seen before I like to think that the revolutionary thing about Internet distribution of music isn't that there are new institutions to replace the old. It is that there are no cartels nor power brokers at all, so that each band can reach out to its audience on an equal footing, without spending much money, and without signing rights away to anyone.

As has been pointed out, it verges on the trivial nowadays for a band to set up its own website and marketing machinery, and if they don't have the tech ability or desire to do it then there are countless others that will be glad to help for a very small fee.

It's just a matter of time before the revolution really takes place.

What copyright really gives you...

[GoodPint]

there is a whole lot of whining going on because people don't really feel like paying for music

I really agree with you on this point. However I think you have a misconception about what copyright is. You say artists should be able to opt-out of such a copyright/license and give their music away and/or distribute by whatever means they like. Well you've just described the very rights that copyrights give to an artist. When someone authors a work they have copyright in it by nature of the fact that they created it. It's up to them to decide how and on what terms that work is distributed to others.

If they want to give it away for free they can. If they want to charge for it they can. Copyright gives them the means to enforce this, by preventing others from distributing the work.

If I choose to give my work away, copyright works to stop others from charging for it. (For example, it allows the creator of a level for QuakeIII to stop someone from putting that level on a CD and charging money for it.) On the other hand, if I decide to charge for my work, then copyright works to prevent others from giving it away for free. (And ensures that if they do, then they must pay me.)

Copyright is not an inherently bad thing. It is a tool that allows an artist to determine how their work will be distributed. If you don't agree with those terms then either ask the artist to change them, or don't consume their work.

GoodPint

There! I've said it.

[yibyab]

Taking something that doesn't belong to you and which the owners do not wish for you to possess without an agreed upon transaction is stealing. I don't believe there can be an argument that stealing a "thing" -- something that's tangible -- is not theft. At any given time there's a finite amount of it and it represents a tradeable commodity. Likewise, taking a "thing" and then reproducing it in such a way as to pass it off as the original is theft and few people would argue that it isn't inherently wrong.

Now, how does this equate to something intangible like an idea or a performance? Once it's "out there", how is it secured? Is there a finite amount of "it"? When you create a bit of information (a song, a story, an essay, a poem, a theory, a proof, a dance, an image, an idea), how do you inventory it? You can't. Truth is, there is only one of "it" and it grows in the collective consciousness where it perhaps, divides and multiplies by degrees depending on interpretation and perception. What is finite is the medium on/in which it is archived, retransmitted and distributed. (the printed page, the electronic file, the pressed platter, the magnetic tape...even the modulated airwaves that temporarily carries the sensory information.) Since you cannot morally control thought, the only way to control the information is to control the media. You can erect physical barriers like walls to prevent anyone (or at least non-paying individuals) from being able to listen or see. You can create physical media that cannot be reproduced with fidelity. But as always, inventiveness and technology will find ways around these barriers. The alternatives are to either manipulate social laws and perception so as to equate the obtainment of such "non-things" with theft and a violation of some ethical code. Or, create incentives whereby the "authorized" distribution channels represent greater value, quality or desirability than the work-arounds. It's apparent which alternative the creators and owners of performing arts have chosen. I don't begrudge them that. I just disagree with the equation that they are representing the side of ethics.

I can see how those of you who believe that MP3 trading using Napster is somehow unethical and illegal can come to that conclusion. You have sympathy for the artist who you see is being deprived of the fruits of his/her labor. Or maybe you believe that the artist/creator has an unassailable right to dictate how that product will be used, manipulated or distributed once it is "out there". You are the kind of person who would never take fruit from an untended roadside stand without leaving the requested amount posted on the hand-drawn sign. I laud you. I believe I am one of you. I am ethical to the point of absurdity. Yet, I believe it is a false charge to claim that end-user acquisition of ephemereal, non-things like information is somehow unethical. Illegal? Certainly, if the laws of society uphold it. But not universally wrong or immoral.

stifle innovation, take the credit

[new500]

Its pretty normal for slow thinking incumbant corps who devote the bulk of their resources to marketing outmoded stuff to ever less informed citizens, FIRST stifle the innovation, then throw the innovators public and supporters into disarray with legal threats crocodile tears lobby actions and misinsformation.

A little later the whole thing gets some superficial repackaging and sold to the public at inflated prices, any legitimate innovative competition having been stifled

Sure shutdown napster, doesn't affect the library

[ground]

This war on napster is a little pointless now that everyone has the required tools to make MP3s. Napster is IMO one of the worst places to get MP3s. The quality usually isn't that great and it's very hard to find complete albums.
The local library on the other hand has just about any song that you could ever want and you are free to rip it at the bit rate of your choice. Before mP3s came along I used to tape all kinds of CDS from the library. Only thing that's different now is the format. I think you would find that most peiple that are downloading/ripping MP3s today wouldn't have payed for the CDs before MP3s were around. They more than likely would have just taped it from a friend/library.
So let the record companies have their war with napster, it won't change much in the end.

Scale

[acb]

Copying a CD to a tape for your own use is OK (not sure if it's fair use or another doctrine). Making a mix tape is tolerated.

However, there is a BIG difference between this and making a CD available, at virtually master quality, by strangers anywhere on the Internet. It's a matter of scale.

The recordings belong to someone, who went to the trouble of creating them. The author of a work has a moral right to decide how it is to be licensed.

It's like the analogy another poster gave: if you touch someone, you'll probably kill a few of their skin cells. If you kill a few of someone's skin cells, they'll never notice; if you kill a large enough number, you'll injure or kill that person.
That is analogous to the difference between lending a CD you bought to a friend and putting it online for anyone to grab it.

Precedence

[jeremy_d_peterson]

Rosa Parks went to jail too.

Are you willing to die for the revolution?

The question at hand: Who owns culture?

The Ten Commandments of Napster

[linuxonceleron]

I. Thou shalt have no other MP3 Search Engines before Me

II. Thou shoult not make unto Napster any incomplete MP3s

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the lord, Napster, in vain

IV. Remember to use Napster every day to keep it holy

V. Honor Napster's Father, IRC, and its Mother, Fraunhoffer

VI. Thou shalt not /kill a Napster user unless you are Metallica

VII. Thou shalt not try to pick up horny thirteen year old girls on Napster

VIII. Thou shalt download MP3s that you do not have the CD of

IIX. Thau shalt not lie to Metallica just to have your account re-activiated

IX. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbors DSL connection

X. Nor their MP3 Files, or any other 'property' of thiers

John Perry Barlow rux!

[QuantumG]

The recent Lars interview had a startling statistic in it that only Lars could put so delicately:


"
-- when we monitored Napster for 48 hours three weekends ago, we came up with the 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music

...

When we go in, and check Napster out, we come up with 1.4 million copyright infringements in 48 hours, this is a different thing than trading cassette tapes with your buddy at school. I mean, 48 hours!
"


I have to agree with Lars, this is a different thing than trading cassette tapes with your buddy at school, it is an outright refusal to
comply with copyright law. 1.4 million downloads in 48 hours, and we take it that Metallica isn't the only band having their copyright infringed on Napster. I user reply by "dirk" suggests that Metallica songs are only 5% of what is traded on Napster. Do the math, that's 14 million outright
violations of copyright law per day, and that's just on Napster!

For those who havn't read it I suggest you grab a hot cup of coffee and read John Perry Barlow's "Selling
Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net". Written over 8 years ago we are only now catching up with his grim prediction of the death of copyright. To demonstrate how insightful his views were, here's a quote:


"Whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts. And, against the swift tide of custom, the Software Publishers' current practice of hanging a few visible scapegoats is so obviously capricious as to only further diminish respect for the law."


What informed opinion can the Slashdot community give to the question: when will copyright law end? If we all stood up and shouted loud enough, would it die today, or are we waiting for the
armies of lawyers to protect our information economy?

Suzanne Vega - That explains it!

[lurker786]

For my first experiments ripping my CDs I chose semi-randomly Suzanne Vega. I found that the quality *was* much better in 256 (it gave me chills, honest.) Then I went on to rip other music... and it sounded pretty much the same at 128 or 256. If it was fine-tuned to Vega, that clears one of the many little puzzles in my life.

"Home taping is killing the music industry..."

[Bitter Cup O Joe]

"... and it's about time."
(Caption of a poster in 33 Degrees, a local independent music store)

Is it too late?

[BlueBlade]

Somehow, after all these months of legal fighting over MP3s, I'm getting the feeling that it's already too late to stop the flood. We are seeing more and more lawsuits filed against sites like mp3.com and, at the same time, we are seeing more and more people trading the mp3s over the net. Don't beleive me? Just log on any IRC network and do a channel search on "MP3". Their average user load increases at about 5 a day, and when the channels get too crowded, another one forms.

My point? Net users (especially young people, who don't have a lot of money to spare) have been accustomed to having free music. Sure, most still pay for cds, etc. Don't we all? I'll be the first to admit that downloading mp3s can lead to buy cds, as it happened to me, and not only once. But the fact is that very few of us are paying for more than 50% of their music.

Don't hide your hand in the sands there, I know some of you will avoid any kind of piracy, but you just can't fail to see that it's not the case of the majority. I think that artists will simply have to adapt, probably by selling their tunes directly to the customer over the net at a very reasonable price, say, US $50 cents, so that a lot more will be willing to support their favorite groups. It's certainly sad news for the record industry. However, I think they will have to drop cd production to go back to what is their primary goal, after all : publicity for new artists. I'm sure they will be able to find a profit on the net, as everyone will eventually have to. It's the dawn of a new economic model, in which providers of products and services will have a more "direct" access to their customers than they had previously.

The net will make it easier for everyone with a genial idea to profit from it. Because here it will matter less what you will hear about a product from publicity, but more what you hear your friends saying in chat rooms, forums, etc. It will finally allow customers to decide for themselves what's a good idea and what's not. Innovations, (true ones, not the kind claimed by Microsoft) will come with less resistance and will have a better chance to impose. Truly, a new kind of economics.

Re:Is it too late?

[dvdeug]

Why do you think the work ethic has changed? Many people taped their music then, just like they trade mp3's now. What about the widespread copying of computer programs back then? The means may have changed, but I don't think the people have.

Re:Is it too late?

[speek]

Notice how none of your examples are very IP related. Cars, clothing, food, internet service - those are products that actually cost money to produce and/or administer. I am not arguing capitalism doesn't work - it does. Much, much better than any central planning could ever do. But, there are other possibilities in store for us in the future. There will come a day when those things too become virtually free, but that day isn't here yet. I hope that when it does, you won't be one of those who insists we should pay for it anyway at inflated prices in order to be good, loyal capitalists.

Re:Is it too late?

[herbierobinson]

What makes you think that people will pay 50 cents for an MP3 file when they can get it free on Napster? You are being naive.

I just checked out the top 10 artists on mp3.com and all but one of them is also being traded on Napster:

303infinity
The Cynic Project
Bassic
Raveing Lunatics

are all being traded on Napster.

[Note that several of these acts had multiple songs in the top ten -- the above list represents 8 of the top ten songs at the time I looked.]

At least some of these are free downloads on mp3.com, BUT mp3.com does pay royalties on the free downloads (from the advertising). True, the royalties are chump change, but here is an example of the Napster community ripping off artists who are providing MP3s on the net at way below 50 cents a copy (free is about as far below 50 cents as you can get).

What kind of twisted morality do you think they will they come up with to justify that?

Re:Is it too late?

[TheReverand]

Net users (especially young people, who don't have a lot of money to spare)

Maybe they should spend less time on the net and more time at a job. Back in the Good Old Days(tm)(c)(r) (you know, the stone age like 10 years ago) I had to work so I could buy my favorite CD. Was that so bad? No. I think this is one problem in our country as kids are growing up with no work ethic. Life is so hard I have to download MP3's because I can't afford a $12 CD

Get a job and get over it.

Marcus

Flame all you want, I'll post more.

Re:Is it too late?

[J�r�me Zago]

Could you explain what you mean by work ethic ?
My opinion is that work in the current sense of the term should be reduced as much as possible (while equally shared). We only have one life, why spend most of our awaken hours of most of our days between 20 and 65 at doing more often than not useless (for people) work ?

Re:Is it too late?

[speek]

Once the necessity has been removed, it's no longer wise to make it a virtue.

Times are a-changin', old fella. Go back to work and get over it.

shh, our little secret

[CentrX]

First of all, IRC warez and mp3 trading is much less done that what's done on napster. Most kids don't even know what IRC is, let alone how to connect and find the stuff. Even if they did, it's definitely not as easy as napster.

Now to the meat, shh! Don't go blurting out about IRC. I find it amusing that the suits don't have a clue about it. I recently read an article in The Boston Globe (or was it Newsweek?) about the whole mp3 and napster thing. An amusing quote by one of the interviewees was "Hollywood will be much more concerned once people start trading pirated movies over the Internet such as Gladiator" as if they're not already... :)

Chris Hagar

Generic MP3 article comment

[tietokone-olmi]

RIAA, yada yada yada, bad business model, yada yada, needs to shift their business paradigm, yada yada yada, metallica sucks, yada yada, hot grits, yada yada.

And still these "eevul corporations plot against mp3!!!!!!11" type articles pull in almost 300 posts every time. Sigh.

I completely agree, Plus: Rave Scene + MP3 = DEATH

[CiXeL]

As was I, I used to be on when napster had at most 200 people online at a time and we celebrated when it broke 200 in #lobby. I remember when we used to be able to chat with napster and the incredible contravercy surrounding the swear filter before they started chopping it all up into multiple channels. And just like you say theres alot of songs obscure songs as well that had it not been for napster i would never have found and kept a copy of. When everything gets the same people being to differentiate and thats what im doing now. Now im into the rave scene with trance and happy hardcore and lots of those songs are difficult to get on anything other than vinyl which makes napster imperative. New forms of music will now be born and popularized through mediums like these where people can gather together enmasse to help them grow and promote the djs. Just like the 'great age of telivision' has passed so will the 'great age of music' now as it assumes different more personal role.

Re:Gravity Kills (a TVT band) has mp3s online

[acb]

Quick; someone tell Edgar Bronfman (TVT's ultimate boss)...

Re:Great

[synesthesia]

Hey, you know what??? You are half way there...now all you have to do is not post as an anonymous coward. If you are willing to take responsibility for your actions (as you say you are) you need to come out of hiding. Perhaps provide a little contact info. in your sig file.

But, perhaps your admission that you are "lacking moral fortitude" is responsible for the disparity between action and statement.

Synesthesia

Re:First

[onyxruby]

I have seen quite a bit written on Napster, and must say yours is probably the best arguement I have seen yet. Well written.

wait a second....

[niekze]

They can sue Napster and Private Citizens for stealing music?!?!

How do they explain Puff Daddy?

Re:No one is thinking far enough into the future.

[ftobin]

Exactly.

legal implications of MP3

[maraist]

disclaimer: I am not a lawer.
I base these statements on material I have "read" and come to think are true.

That said...

Distribution of someone else's copy-righted work against their wishes is illegal. What's the difference between distributing an MP3 or MS Office 2000 over the net? Granted a lot more man hours probably went into Office 2000, but it is the artistic and creative talent ( beit good or bad ) of the artists. Though they may be altruistic ( such as free software or demo/free MP3s ), some earn a living off of it and thus can't afford to do so. ( A big record company, for example is probably not going to be able to fund itself solely through advertisements and concerts )

Additionally, if in our market, if we don't like the price or quality of something, we really should boycott them. The market can work when we're not all materialistic. Prices are enormous because our Demand is excessively high. Hell, I'm sure that they could charge a lot more and even make more money ( e.g. the Demand curve is probably pretty steep ). You can't impose regulations on prices and still be a capitalist nation. ( Salary caps in baseball, for example was a demand-side issue. It was only because of a trust between demanders of baseball ( a virtual monopsony ) that prices were checked )
I would not advocate illegal activities as a justifiable solution. ( With the exception of illegal laws ). Napster can be used in an illegal fashion, and it is indeed the responsibilty of the user to prevent using it in such an illegal fashion. I can see prosecuting individuals who violate the distribution laws ( even though I personally disagree with the prices of records and the supposed harm that MP3s cause the record industry ).
Now the real controversy from my point of view are those that download or even make MP3s. If I'm using napster to download an assortment of MP3s. Some are actually legal ( though their quantity and value is questionable ). Since nobody really marks illegal MP3s as such, am I responsible if I download one? Under some circumstances, possetion is 9/10 of the law. If I don't own a metallica CD but I am found to have their entire works in MP3 form, am I in violation? I would believe this to be a violation of personal rights ( but this does impose a strong raise the same sorts of issues as drugs.. If the Demand is exceptional, Supply will find a way, no matter how drastic ).
The issue of making a personal copy is where I'm specifically concerned. RIO and all those portable MP3 players are a great idea. I can have near-CD quality and convinience in a solid state-form. When used legally, it's of great value and of no harm to anyone. Of course, the legality limits us to a single copy. What does this mean, for example, if my children also get a RIO? Are they allowed to make copies off the same CD, or must I purchase 2 or 3 more CD's just as if we weren't using an MP3 player. Well, personally I find it ludicrous to have to make this purchase, especially since the limiited memory on a RIO requires me to erase it if I want to replace it with another CD. ( side: I don't own a portable MP3 player ). I'm sure the music industry would fight for those few extra dollars if they could, but really that is beyond our control. The 1-CD, 1-backup-copy idea is essential; what happens if I break, lose or wear out the CD, which often happens?
Next, what happens when joe small company owner has an employee that has a massive array of hard drives ( a hundred Gig or so ) and tries to place his entire CD collection on it for his own personal enjoyment. Well, that's cool; one copy and all. But now what if he wants this same collection at work.. Well, he's willing to shell out the money to expand his workstation. Now he has two copies. Well, it stretches the law, but I would argue that it doesn't violate the spirit of the law..
Next comes the communal nature of MP3s. If I invite some friends over, we can all listen to a CD. There is no way that the MPAA is going to charge per house-hold listener. Likewise if I make a single MP3 copy from a CD and it plays off a single computer and there's a bunch of friends around I shouldn't be in any violation. But what happens when I allow coworker friends to stream audio off of my shared hard drive? They are not physically making a copy of the MP3 and thus I am not distributing it ( unless some rogue co-worker makes a copy and potentially ignorantly makes it availabe on napster ). The solution to this problem would be a sort of MP3 jukebox client/server software with a potentially encrypted data channel.
Lastly, and here is the kicker. I'm having a wedding and I'm going to DJ. But I don't have a couple songs that everyone loves. So I pool my resources with several friends.. I'm "borrowing" their music for a time and publicly displaying it. This pushes the law to the limit ( since a commerical establishment can't just play records for its customers ). Is there any difference between that and all of my friends bringing me their CDs and having me encode them int MP3 and store on my publicly sharable hard drive? Each user gets his/her own directory so they are technically making their own MP3 copies and it is achnoledged as theirs; It just happens to be on a network drive. So long as nobody listens to anyone else's directory, there should be no violation of law ( especially if this is the only copy ). But it is obsurd to believe that a shared drive is not going to share its contents. Thus it should be viewed as if all are able to read each others MP3s. This is kind of like the wedding situation where a community can make use of the pooled resources. So long as nobody actually copies the MP3s to their own drive or makes a CD burn of the MP3s there is no literal violation of the law. But essentially we are providing a dynamic juke-box to all employees. The only saving argument is that the bandwidth requirements will not scale very well ( especially on an inexpensive IDE device ). Thus we're not talking about all of IBM providing a juke-box to it's employees. There are of course caveats. Namely that drives are typically tape-backuped, so if the drive were destroyed ( say because a CD was being sold and thus the license is no longer valid, or because the owner of the drive is moving ), the company could simply restore from backup ( or even take the tape home in order to copy to their home machines ).

Personally I believe that the law should allow this sort of activity, simply because there is a minimal infringement. So long as the copy of the MP3 drive is not distributed, and the owner of the drive can reproduce the individual CDs there is no evident violation. ( Thus, the same people that allowed the drive-owner to initially borrow the CDs should always be available for proof-of-license. ) A co-worker that brings the tape-backup home may not have all the contacts necesary to validate the hundreds/ thousands of CDs, and would thus be in violation. Thus a legal jukebox system would keep track of the owners of the associated CDs and for auditing purposes. Of course, I doubt the back-up system would have much justification since the "backup" is really the original CD. But it is, of course, impratical to re-encode thousands of CDs every time a drive is upgraded or otherwise replaced; Especially in a RAID configuration.

Compressed audio are a leap forward in walk-man technology: solid-state ( shock-resistent, potentially water-proof ), infinite storage potential, ease of replication for multiple audio devices ( car, walk-man, home office, work office can all have the same CD-contents without requiring carring the CD or even player ( when player is cheap enough ) ).
Compressed audio is a leap forward in jukebox systems: Multiplexing literally an infinite number of songs ( at $2xx for 40Gig ) to an infinite number of users ( limited by bandwidth and server capabilities, which are rarely dedicated and thus must compete for real-work resources ).

Post-Lastly, to my knowledge you can not broadcast a song that has human voice in it without paying royalties ( hense elevator music in department stores ). Thus it would be illegal to broadcast this MP3 jukebox ( even in a legally secured/licensed fashion ) over the loud-speakers. It therefore becomes questionable at which point ( e.g. with how many users ) does a privately owned juke-box setup become considered broadcasting. 20 employees? 100 employees? To me, the very discrete nature of client/server suggests that so long as only individuals access the juke-box, it is not broadcast; We are not using multi-cast afterall; Aside from spending $50K on a ultra-RAID setup ( with redundant copies ), and multiple servers with independant ether-lines for different sections of the building.

ZDNet article

[mu_cow]

Within the next four months, a student or "other individual found downloading illegal MP3 tracks" will go to jail "as a clear signal that piracy will not be tolerated in the US."

Does anybody have any statistics on how many people have gone to jail as a result of copyright offenses? I'd hazard a guess that it is not many. I imagine the law has basically only gone after those making a hefty profit from what they did. Why should how they are breaking copyright law make a difference?

...current legislation is primarily used "as a threat" rather than a punishment

I doubt many people are feeling particularly threatened. Certainly not all those Napster users who signed up again after being booted off. There is a feeling of safety in numbers...and what numbers! I'm sure the music industry has sense to know that there is a big problem and the way to solve it will not be shooting at the odd random little guy.

Re:ZDNet article

[dammy]

Question is going to be how careful are they going to be in demanding prosecuting of individuals? The Recording Industry as a whole must realise that if they screw up on a given case, they themselves will be targetted in law suits by those falsely accused. With the Deep Pocket mentality of many jurys, it could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mob Rule 0wns

[CiXeL]

Villiage mob gov't style rule is the natural way of governing and justice. The internet rides completely on this mob rule. Bad = whatever the public thinks is bad at the time and Good = whatever the publics best interest is. This is the way it has been, this is the way it should stay. This is the way its always meant to be but people with money and power try to take it away. I lub anarchy.

Culturejamming in SF

[sumana]

I was on the street (2nd Street, to be specific) in San Francisco on Sunday, and saw a sticker on the back of a STOP sign. "MP3 IS NOT A CRIME," it had once said, à la "Skateboarding is not a crime." Funny thing is, the "NOT" had been ripped away. My partner in book hunting postulated that the RIAA employs at least one person to jam such culturejamming.

Re:First

[Stormshadow]

What's that supposed to mean? The quantity of CDs is hardly nearly infinite.

I do believe he's referring to MP3s and other digital media where there is an infinite supply.

Says who that CDs are being price fixed?

The US Government, actually. If I remember right, Slashdot ran a story a week or so back where the record groups agreed to drop their "price fixing" minimum price requirements that they had instated because groups like Best Buy were selling CDs at extremely low prices to draw customers.

People gravitate towards the cheapest price for the best quality. Free == cheapest price.
People think (know?) they can't get charged for downloading illegal MP3s.
Most people are ignorant of economics.
It's not "illegal" in economic terms. I merely stated that Napster is like shoplifting, everybody pays.

There's a splash of truth on those statements. The first two are basically true. People always want the best price. Assuming no conscience, if you don't think you'll get caught doing something bad, then you'll do it. Combine these and you'll get people who steal left and right because it's free which is what the industry wants you to think everyone else is.
However, the last two are essentially false. As far as I understand it, you have microeconomics and macroeconomics. You use one or the either. They cannot exist together as the priciples they proscribe are more or less diametrically opposed. The gap between the two is generally ignored. There is no "Grand Unifying Theory of Economics" that makes them both work at the same time. If economics professors don't know what they're talking about, how can we expect their students, much less the general public to understand it? Oh sure, people make a living at it every day by applying the two, but that doesn't legitimize either one.
Lastly, Napster isn't remotely like shoplifting. If I shoplift, I take something that isn't mine. Oddly enough, napster isn't taking the works; it's copying them. You aren't denying anyone the use of those works as shoplifting would do. The owner can still sell it all he wants. The economic allusion to shoplifting doesn't work. The closest you can get is "Wow, now I have something I didn't have a minute ago and I didn't have to pay for it." If everyone pays, its more likely due to price gouging by the industry for the sake of "safegaurding their profits" from the evil pirates.

Overall, you're told piracy is bad thing. Contrary to the beliefs of industry not all piracy is bad. People invariably fall under one category of pirates:

1. Out and out pirate - This person pirates everything because they can. They have no intention of buying anything they steal. This is what industry would like you to think everyone is.
2. Pirate by need - This is someone who copies digital works because they either cannot afford to pay the cost to purchase it legally and would gladly do so if they had the income to support it (i.e. Windows 98SE - $180) or the product is so rare that it's next to impossible to find (i.e. rare music tracks/bands, old games, etc)
3. Pirate by want - Similar to the 'Pirate by need' this is a person who spends most of his time collecting a little bit of everything. Most of these pirates are harmless by nature. They would grab expensive toys like lightwave, play with it, and delete it because they get bored with it. No revenue is lost by industry because of this kind of pirate since they'd never buy the product in the first place.
4. Try it out pirate - This is something I've done before. Heard both good and bad reviews about software? Snake a copy of it, try it out, and if ya like it, ya buy it.

People in any industry don't want you to realise that they make profits off the last three categories of pirates just so they can eliminate the first. They fall victim to their own FUD and cut off the easiest form of advertising they can get: free word of mouth.

The MP3 pirates everyone is talking about generally fall into the second and fourth categories. How many people here have spent a lot of time sitting on napster getting files? Personally, I've found a lot of groups through napster that I'd never heard of, like Aphex Twin, Apocalyptica, and -Ziq to name a few (okay, I've had a sheltered life.) I love listening to some of the music these groups put out, but do you know how little luck I've had finding CDs for some of them? The groups that I *DID* find, I've bought a CD or two and have plans to purchase more.
And the one glaring shortfall of MP3 and Napster... how many people have gotten files off of napster only to find that a) the file is incomplete, b)due to the bitrate, the sound is all kinds of goofy, c) Whoever mixed it didn't normalize it so the signal is goofed, or D) The DAC they were using was crap and the song quality sucked? Seriously, if I like the song enough off of napster, I'll go out and buy the CD or find someone with it so I can hear it without the warbling treble and decide if I want to buy the CD. Overall, MP3 is great. Heck, I figure Napster is probably selling more CDs than the salesmen on the storefronts do. You can listen to them while you have a data disk in your CD drive. You can do a lot of things while listening to them. The definate leg up MP3 has is you get only the tracks you want. No more buying a CD for 1 track only to find the rest of the CD sounds nothing like it (Blind Melon - No Rain.) But MP3 won't replace CD music completely. There's a lot of things CDs can do that MP3 can't (aside from melt in your car) and business execs are too greedy to try to stimulate and culture the growth of the MP3 craze. If you're an unlucky person stuck on dialup, it's a bit easier to drive out and buy a CD than spend hours downloading 70+ MB of the album.

Sadly enough, big business is shooting itself in the foot. Instead they try to direct everyone to closed "Pay-per-View" standards (DIVX, etc) that rape you for even more money. They lobby to get legislation passed so they can rape you for even more money for longer periods of time and then throw you in jail when you refuse to pay. In an attempt to make the argument bigger, the companies are crying that it's the artists they care about. In a round-about way, they do, but only as a dollar sign.
To this end, one would have to look at it from an artist's point of view. Why did the artist get involved? Because he loved music, or because he loved money? Most small groups don't get lucky enough to be the flavor of the day and be foisted on the masses. Instead of having their tracks played until people are burnt on them, these artists aren't heard at all. These are the artists who stand to benefit the most from entities like Napster. Oddly enough, the band with the biggest fan following in the world, the Grateful Dead, encouraged people to copy. Rather, as the industry wants you to think of it, they incouraged you to steal their works and deny them the money their righteous works should've given them. Did you see Jerry Garcia living on the streets? Did you see any of the band being penniless? That right there should refute most of the general FUD the recording industry has put out, yet most people don't stop to think about that. They insist that piracy is theft and that pirates are somehow evil people.
One last interesting point on the music aspect of piracy. Did anyone stop to think about radio stations? Sure, most stations are more or less pawns of the recording industry now adays, but they don't have to pay royalties due to a Supreme Court decision that said since they were generating business for the industry they were exempt from the royalty scheme. As previously stated, MP3s help generate a lot of business for the industry from the "Try-n-buy" aspect, yet the industry keeps pushing out bogus information based on flawed studies they paid for in the first place. To make things worse, some radio stations sought to broadcast their signal over the 'net... and what did the RIAA do? They filed suit saying it was a copyright violation. Since when did the distinction of the listening quality of a direct copy become a determining factor in wether it was a violation or not? Piracy was always a problem, yet the people in charge are just now treating it like a new thing that sprung up overnight. The laws are out of whack, the suits are greedy, the politicians vote as they're paid.

In the end, however, the solution will have to come from you. I wouldn't trust anyone else to tell me what theft is; why should you? You'll have to make up your mind if copying digital works is really theft regardless of the situation as many people who have vested interests in the field would like you to believe. But when you think about which side to take, remember that the companies only motive is their bottom line. The politician's only motive is their re-election. Both will turn on you in an instant if they think they can get away with it.

TypoCorrection :-)

[aqx_apoulos]

My bad. I forgot to mention Broken/Fixed on TVT.

Re:XTC

[MarqDaLuser]

Perhaps, BUT they don't look at it that way. You're supposed to buy into the hype and buy the album having heard only what the company has selectively released. I could buy it when CDs were $18 as a new media type. But in today's day and age? Not likely. I'd love to see where that $18 goes.

errr

[White Shadow]

According to the zdnet article, TVT Records is suing MP3.com, not Napster.

Gravity Kills (a TVT band) has mp3s online

[JimTheta]

At www.gravitykills.com you can find a number of mp3s (from full-length commercial albums even) free for download for promo purposes. The band members have alluded to maybe putting new tracks from their forthcoming album online, if/when they get permission from TVT.

So (not that this is news to most /.ers) I just want to say that I hope the actions of the company don't reflect on the band. Of course, fans following GK's recent online chats know that GK and TVT might not be on the best of terms right now....

I wonder if TVT's legal/PR people even know...?

-JimTheta, a GK fan
&nbspa couple of other GK things here

Metallica & Dre have the same lawyer...

[isaac]

If anyone's pushing these Napster suits, my money's on Howard King, who happens to be representing both Dre and Metallica in these lawsuits and has the most to gain in any event.

Anyone know who's representing TVT?

-Isaac

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I break a law I don't agree with on a regular basis.

It's illegal in the state in which I live for me to have sexual relations with my lover.

It's a state law I break on a very, very regular baisis.

Is it civil disobedience? Is it 'right' to do this? Is it showing a healthy disrespect for a law that deserves no respect? Am I a scoff-law? Should I go to jail (and yes, people have been sent to jail for this 'crime' recently in this state)?

IMHO there are some laws that citizens of good conscious have ever right to ignore.

With all these suits against napster

[FuzzyHead]

With all the suits against napster, why don't all these artists start sueing Mp3 sites and anyone who makes a mp3 encoders because obviously they are helping create a mean to distribute the music. While they're are at it, they need to sue the ripper for ripping songs into the wav format so that they can be encoded into mp3 that can be pirated. Yes and the sound card, processor, ram, hard drive, motherboard all have vital roles in the creation and distribution of pirated music. Why don't they go after that too.

The technology is here to stay, artists need to quit trying to live in the past and look towards the future.

Tommorrow's Slashdot Headline

[niekze]

Milli Vanilli sues Mp3.com

the ever so popular music groups is claiming that mp3.com is pretending to provide original music, but in reality says that mp3.com is a fake.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[DGolden]

Er... I said the right to life was artificial.

Also, the only sensible way for you to stop someone taking your work, in the absence of copyright, is not to release it.

Once you release it, in the absence of copyright, you shouldn't be surprised if someone copies it (if it's any good), and there would be nothing you can do about it, thus, you have no "natural right" to stop people copying it. If people can take it, then in the absence of a legal framework, they have a "natural right" (i.e. ability) to make a copy of it - i.e. they can. It is this right that copyright restricts. Remember, they are not taking something from you (since that would leave you with less), they are copying.

Think about it. In the absence of copyright,all you really have is the power to decide whether to release/make something or not. Once you do that, you have no say if people can copy it. If it's a physical object, you can certainly stop people *taking* it, but taking isn't the same as copying, is it?

Remember, copyright violation isn't exactly theft (although it may be artificially defined to be). Why? You still have the work, whatever it may be, even if I copy it.

The concept of "taking == copying" you express in your post is thus inappropriate in the absence of copyright framework to give this concept any weight... so your argument is circular.

Note that I'm not against copyright per se,This comment I made some time ago expresses my opinion - basically, copyright as a concept isn't too bad, but the current system has been perverted to the needs of corporations rather than the artists and society (e.g. American copyright can now last significantly longer than the average human lifespan. This is hardly in the interest of the artist, but is certainly in the interest of corporations with an indefinite lifespan, e.g. Disney).

Stop the insanity

[mrsalty]

This comment is redundant. just a warning.
This MP3 mania is madness. The media histeria that revolves around the (relatively) insignificant event of downloading musicis nuts. The software instry has survived in the face of overwhelming piracy for decades and the Music industry has been through this before as well. Does the act of downloading Brittny Spears latest single really an act worthy of a jail sentence? Perhaps it is, but not for the reasons put forth by the RIAA :) People constantly make the argument that the exposure to previously unheard bands prompts them to go buy the album of said band, and I agree for the casual pirate this is true. It is in my case. This is an opportunity for artists and record companies to latch on to a new music medium and make MORE money. They are mad to turn their backs on it. Lars U. was correct in his assessment of the situation if a bit narrow of vision.
vinyl still sounds better that CD or MP3

sorry if i made no sense i have a swelling itching brain. just go ahead and moderate me into oblivion...

Re:First

[Kinthelt]

Yes I did. You seem to be blaming the piracy of music on the boys who stamp our CDs to be sent to your local music store.

Let's see... Simple economics says that prices tend to an equilibrium where the majority of consumers gain satisfaction from their purchase. So, if the artists really aren't getting any money with their deals with the recording studios, they'd either find another studio or change jobs. If the consumers thought they were getting ripped off, they wouldn't buy 5,000,000 Britney Spears CDs.

Of *course* if there's a guy with a van in a back-alley giving away free money that he stole from a bank, people are going to have a line-up around the block to get a piece of the action. Does that make what the thief does moral? I don't think so. He still stole from the bank. Who pays for this "victimless crime"? The innocent, honest consumers.

Why Napster is different to CD copying

[dingbat_hp]

I'm just wondering why they're not suing people for burning music CDs (cd-to-cd copy),

CD copying is very similar to home taping. They don't like it, but they know that it's a small scale thing. I might copy a CD for one friend, but I'm very unlikely to stand on a street corner handing them out to strangers. Similarly ripping MP3s for a Diamond Rio, or whatever is still only losing one (potential) sale, for some non-trivial time investment on my part -- it's self-limiting.

Napster changes all that. It's not only a good means of doing the previous level of minor copying, but it's also a better mass publication medium than commercial servers can offer ! Napster one track and that's several thousand lost sales, as a low estimate.

I still don't know if Napster is the best thing for music since recording, or the worst thing. All I do know is that it's simply incompatible with the current model of the music industry; poor quality bands sold by high quality hype.

Unit of MP3 traffic

[dingbat_hp]

MP3 was born at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, in the town of Erlangen

Does this mean we should measure MP3 traffic in "Erlangens" 8-) We need a unit of volume anyway.

OK, so it's not the greatest pun in the world, but if no-one gets it, then Slashdot really has lost its geek primacy.

bye bye cash cow

[DrSkwid]

music, we all need it.

but when the cost of production is vastly outweighed by the sale price sooner or later the market will force it down.

This is tht force. For too long we have been asked to pay too much for too little.

Over and over again consumer groups have tried to pressure the price of CD's down and the record companies resisted.

Well guess what? The people have decided otherwise. If they'd brought their prices down by half things would be very different now.

CD's in my local store are $20.
Screw that. I struggle to get the cash to buy any and some dumb fuck loser struts around on MTV bragging about all the money they are making from their music. They blatantly take the piss. What the fsk do they expect to happen. We've been waiting for a chance like this for years and years. The tables are turning and pockets will be emptied.
.oO0Oo.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[Grexnix]

If they put it on the airwaves, it's free.

Tell that to the BBC.

--

Re:Take a tip from TMBG (Tori Amos too?)

[Devine Intervention]

Wow, that's really cool of They Might Be Giants. Used to love them back in my junior high school days, but haven't really listened to their stuff in a few years. Perhaps I should reconsider that decision.

I believe Tori Amos released the first single of the album "To Venus and Back" digitally before the acutal single was released on CD. You could buy the (I assume high quality) MP3 for two or three bucks. I don't know if it came with b-sides or not, though.

Perhaps record companies and artists could learn a lesson from this particular instance. Although I know there are a good number of people out there who download entire album's worth of MP3s, I would think that most people are more likely to only download a few singles from a particular album. So why not have the record companies sell the MP3 singles for two or three bucks a pop each?

Any thoughts?

Sampling

[Kardain]

And then you can take a look at the whole "illegal" issue this way: Your friend (or yourself) hears this song on the radio. So, you think to yourself, "If this song is this good, what about other songs on said album..." After searching around on Napster, you come across the remainder of the songs on the CD, d/l `em, find out you like that CD, go out and spend the $15-20 for it. That particular method is exactly how I puchase my CD's, (at which point, I pop `em in my burner just in case someone wants to borrow that CD). Keeps me out of trouble, keeps my friends out of trouble. As for the "go out and sue Napster" bandwagon, there is nothing that can be done to the bootlegger until you go and resell the mp3's either on a CD-R, or the like. Just having them stored on your computer is not a crime. Napster is not a tyrant, it is a blessing.

Re:Sampling

[herbierobinson]

Technically, "just having them stored on your computer" is a crime, but the only penalty is you can get sued for damages (which are not likely to be enough for anybody to bother you about unless you accidentally make the contents of your computer visible by running Napster).

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

YAFNS

I want to get this out in the open. I am an open source fan. I write open source software. I also download mp3's via napster. Yep...I ILLEGALLY BOOTLEG MUSIC. You know what... I'M WRONG AND GUILTY AS HELL.

I'm friggin sick and tired of everybody getting all high and mighty about stealing music. Sheesh... I can only imagine how all you hypocrits would get up in arms if we had some little software program that let you share linux programs that, in a major way, violates the GPL. Heh...that would set the world on fire no doubt. That whole "free kevin mitnick mindset" is like a cancer...guilt doesn't seem to matter if we don't like what's happening...

So.. to summarize.... I steal music because I'm lacking in moral fortitude, I accept the fact that I'm guilty and I make no bones about it. I am a mature adult and I take responsbility for my actions.

Thank you.

Re:Great

[Devine Intervention]

So.. to summarize.... I steal music because I'm lacking in moral fortitude, I accept the fact that I'm guilty and I make no bones about it. I am a mature adult and I take responsbility for my actions.

Well, I don't know if you lack in moral fortitude, because your own personal morals say that what you do is okay. You just lack in legal fortitude, I suppose. I mean, if your own beliefs tell you that downloading and listening to apparently-illegal music is fine, then damn the man, more power to you.

[Insert omnipotent power's name here if you believe in one] forbid you should get arrested for such an activity, but if you do, it's just because the laws conflicted with your own belief system. Should such an unfortunate event happen, remember that.

David Weekly was right...

[Fideist11]

In that salon interview Hank Barry quotes his "crazy brilliant" computer science friend (David Weekly) from Stanford that argues Napster will be obsolete in a bit because of Gnutella or Freenet. David's right. Napster's never gonna get all these monkey's off it's back now that the trend has begun and it's gonna crash and burn under the threat of all these lawsuits while Gnutella zooms forward. I've seen over 20Terrabytes already on Gnutella. And it's growing like mad with many new 3rd party clients being released.
The situation reminds me of FreeBSD essentially losing out to Linux at that critical time in the early nineties simply because FreeBSD was shrouded under the threat of all those lawsuits with AT&T over Unix code.
Gnutella is the future and there's no company to sue! And with dynamic IP's and ISP's that don't release what IP every user has used at any certain time it's gonna be (virtually) impossible to chase down or prosecute someone getting their kiddie porn.
I can see the government scuttling to try and control all these things but it's too late. The net has taken off and is not going to be stopped.
Long live free information!

In a related article

[niekze]

In a recent press release, Micheal Jackson calls all the Napster users "freaks". He then left with his chimp, "bubbles", to go find a day care.

No one is thinking far enough into the future.

[zeda]

Look at digital cameras and scanners and microphones.

Eventually we will be able to make digital cameras that are equivalent to eyes in terms of size and viewing range and all the technical aspects. Then we make microphones small enough to fit in the ear. Then we will have digital storage to record everything we see and hear. Combine this with a wireless link and the entire world can share.

What will copyrights mean then?

You read a book, you are scanning a book, once you read a book anyone can read a book.

You see a movie you record your exact vision and exact sound. Then everyone can see the movie through your eyes and ears.

You hear a music, everyone hears music.

Once technology progresses enough to replicate our actual organs' capabilities, there will be no use for copyright. You will be able to replay experiences exactly as you experience them. Others will be able to replay those same experiences.

We are not there yet, but OCR will progress until we can reliably scan books just by photographing or reading them.

Minidisc and mp3 recorders will get smaller and smaller.

Digital camcorders will shrink.

We will probably not achieve perfection of the replication or sights and sounds, but at what level of quality will it not matter. The audio-philes will still be upset, the video-philes will never be pleased, but most of humanity will be able to share everything they experience at a sufficently advanced level of quality.

What then? There is no copyright, unless you ban all recording of anything. This might be possible, but is it ethical to assume that something you can see and hear you can't record? Why? You are already experiencing it, are you not allowed to have memories? Or is it only ethical to have bad memories.

What about hearing aids, or vision aids for people will impared sight? Are those illegal. Can they be modified to record?

What does this mean now. Can I carry a digital camcorder around everywhere I go, watching movies, visiting concerts, probably not. Why not?

We must start thinking about what happens when technology changes all our old assumptions. This is merely the beginning.

Yet another article

[wiggles]

Here's another article (rejected by the nazi moderators :) on Newsweek about the whole deal with Napster & the RIAA. Notice the picture of the kid, presumably downloading mp3's from the internet. Notice the massive rack of CD's he has behind them. Think he pays for his music?

Put me in jail but let the rapist go free..

[cybrthng]

oh geez yes, lets listen to the RIAA, put my ass in jail for listening to music i could easily record off the radio or borrow from a friend, but let the fucken rapists and gang bangers and gun running criminals have a hay day.

wtf has this planet come to? Charge for speech but let people who do the real crime run free because real crime keeps corporate america on its feet (wonder how many insurance companies would exist if people were shot for stealing.. how many.. i know the RIAA would loose about 23% of its profits if people were not constantly buying 2nd/3rd copies of there cd's and tapes after being robbed/stolen/broken or missing somehow).

So how about we start our own litigation group to force our rights and freedoms and first ammedments rather then listen to some people who make money off other peoples livliehood and raise crackhead children to run the underground and criminalized music scene?

People are supposed to evolve, a community is built around music and the ideas behind that music. I for one listen to it for my own reasons, and i could care less how rich someone else gets.. the same goes for my job, i work for someone elses reasons and i don't have anyone litigating in court to protect my job and my publishings and my speech, so wtf should musicians get any better treatment? Insure your success by being who you are. People by Tool music to hear Maynord sing, people listen to Prince to see his crazy acts, girlies like the backsteet boys because they're cute. Nothing the RIAA does or will do can change that, so why today in a market that exists like this would artists dip into there earnings to protect the interests of corporate america and why do they think it benifets themselves to screw the very people that have probably purchased there music anyhow? Maybe i pirated it, but my friend bought it because he never heard it, or maybe i didn't have any money but i'm enjoying it.

People steal my shit all the time, and the police for sure could care less, and the mayors and people who can make decisions live pretty and don't see what goes on until its too late.

So "pirate on" and do whatever your heart desires. Until the government can uphold our rights as a citizen of the states, i won't respect the rights of corporatism and political wheelin and deeling persons.

BTW, i paid 50.00 to see NIN and Perfect Circle.. you bet i took my recorder with me to have an archive of something i paid for. (and btw, yes.. someone stole the 35.00 shirt they stiffed everyone for).

So RIAA, quit crying, and i hope to god none of my tax money supports your group.

Another issue with Napster...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a slightly unforseen consequence of Napster:

Take a look at this month's "Ask Al" column over at weirdal.com. One of the first questions asked is what Al thinks about Napster. He jokingly references Metallica and pokes fun at the music industry's portrayal of the entire issue. He seems pretty cool about it.

But the next question really brings a different issue to light. Apparently, Weird Al's name is being attached to some songs that he had absolutely no involvement in. Some of the songs are pretty lewd, too-- and Al tries to keep his stuff relatively clean. That, he says, is the biggest problem he has with the free download services such as Napster: people wrongly attribute (sometimes crappy) music to him.

So where does he go with that? Certainly, it's not possible to stop distribution (look how well that worked for Metallica) of the songs. And what if the songs are intended for free distribution anyway (probably not, but it COULD be the case)? He can't get accounts yanked for distributing public-domain songs, can he? But now he's getting a reputation as a pervert-- how does he stop that?

Food for thought.

Henry David Thoreau

[_xeno_]

just because we don't like the law doesn't give us license to break it

Sure it does, if the law is unfair. It's called civil disobedience.

Unfortunately, I don't think this law is unfair. However, should a law infringe on our basic natural rights, then it is not just our right to disobey it, it is our duty as well. At least accoring to Thoreau, who has inspired some really great people in history. But the next time something like DeCSS happens and you want a historical context for spreading the source around, remember Thoreau's essay.

Disclaimer: No, you really don't have a right to break any law you disagree with.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[PerlGeek]

I was referring to what's feasible in reality, not law. There will always be those who crave more power than they should have.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Unfortunately, I don't think this law is unfair. However, should a law infringe on our basic natural rights, then it is not just our right to disobey it, it is our duty as well. At least accoring to Thoreau

i agree with both your points. there is a whole lot of whining going on because people don't really feel like paying for music, but the copyright protecting the music is fair. however, artists should be able to opt-out of such a copyright/license and give their music away and/or distribute by whatever means they like.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[TheReverand]

So it is a natural right to listen to others peoples creations? Gee, that's funny I always considered it a privelege. Is television a natural right since the airwaves are free? Do any of societies creations really fall under "natural rights"?
Marcus

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[_xeno_]

Eh, what? What I actually was saying (since you missed where I said that I didn't think that applied here) is that there are circumstances where it can be considered "right" (in the moral sense of the word) to break the law.

And then I said I didn't think that applied to this particular situation.

And BTW, people listen to Bach, to Teleman, to Mozart, and all sorts of old "other people's" creations all the time without second thought. We consider it a right. It is a right to go to the library and read books. You have a right to read what I'm posting here. In a sense, yes, it is a right to see other people's creations. And it is most definately a right for people to have access to "societies creations." Hence people worried about getting Internet access into libraries (and then censoring what they can be used for... sorry, wrong issue). It's why people commission the arts.

Also, why isn't television a "natural right?" You own a tube, you can watch any of the stations allowed by the FCC.

Re:Henry David Thoreau

[cpt kangarooski]

Of course it's a natural right to listen to other people's creations. You've got ears, I presume. Why would they suddenly stop working without laws?

Furthermore, it's a facet of the freedom of speech (another natural right) to be able to copy other people's creations. If I give a speech, there is no law of the universe that prohibits you from giving it again, no matter what I think about it.

OTOH, while I can accept some infringement on natural rights, it must always be strictly limited to only those infringements that prevent others from keeping me from exercising as many other rights as possible. Each and every infringement, even if long-established, must be carefully examined by every person, because dangers to our liberties are everywhere.

obCopyright: I actually don't mind copyrights AS AN INCENTIVE, but NOT AS AN END IN ITSELF. I'd be happy with 10 year copyrights, with very very limited extensions, deliberate registration of copyrights required, useful materials (like source code) deposited at the Library of Congress, and some significant part of the money charged to obtain a copyright used to create public domain works.

Re:Info on prosocuting Copyright Offenses

[gabrieltss]

Does anybody have any statistics on how many people have gone to jail as a result of copyright offenses? I'd hazard a guess that it is not many. I imagine the law has basically only gone after those making a hefty profit from what they did. Why should how they are breaking copyright law make a difference?

From knowing a little about the Software Piracy issue, I can say that %99.99999 of the time they never prosocute the "home use" pirate. BUT if you start MASS distributing software they raise an eye to you. And if you start selling the software you have pirated THEN they will come after you.

In the case of MP3's I really don't see any law enforcement agency coming after the "home use" pirate. napstar is nothing more than an "open" form of the old Pirate BBS's. Not very many really got taken down. They slowly faded away. The same will happen with Napstar. It to will fade away into something else. Some new technology will replace Napstar. If the RIAA would get a clue they would see that history repeats itself.
But with the mass amount of big corporations trying to take the Internet for themselves anyway they can, what is happening to Napstar doesn't surprise me. If the RIAA can get rid of the Napstar and MP3.com sites. They(RIAA) could open up something similar of their own and have NO compition. It's all about market share. Right now the RIAA has no, zero, zilch, nada, none market share of the MP3 market. I think they realize that MP3's are the next medium for music distribution, and they want ALL the market share, to hold onto their monopoly of the music distribution business. This is why fighting this wave of "stop MP3's!" is so important.
Just my comments on this whole thing.

Gabriel/TSS!

Re:No one is thinking far enough into the future.

[niekze]

If "they" sell those for $300 a piece first, it'll be quite an innovation.

Else it will be Satan and all his free lovin' *nix followers.

Innovation...Piracy...same thing :)

change the damn business model

[TheTick21]

For the last time (ok so you'll probably hear this many many more times) the reason why all of this is happening is that the business model needs to be changed. Our money (music buyers) is being misdirected. I don't want to steal from the mucisians. My father has been a musician all of his life and if someone stole his songs I would be furious. The people who benefit from CD sales are the record companies. Most of the artists revenue comes from touring. I want to see the artist get more of a cut from the CD sales. I want to see reduced CD prices. With a good online service for providing MP3s that provides enough income to support the tours artists would make as much if not more than they already do. Record companies can bite my ass.


My Home: Apartment6

Re:Not a better idea

[BenByer]

But it is too late, you cant arrest everyone who makes free copys of music. The idea that one can has proven not to work time and again with asshole prohibition laws.

Re:Show of hands...

[Pig Bodine]

How many of you have filled out Form SR, PA, or TX and sent your check and tape/sheet music/lyrics to the Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., 20559?

Not to be to picky, but under international copyright treaties, it's not necessary to file anything (or even give a copyright notice in the work) to hold a copyright. The average /. poster holds a copyright on their post. How many of you know that this is but one step in turning an idea into an expression that can be distributed in the marketplace?

One necessary step if you can't otherwise document the origins of the work when you want to sue someone for copyright violation. If you can, then it's not a necessary step. Who read the article on page one of today's Boston Globe and wondered why they interviewed two programmers, a lawyer, a lobbyist, and Stallman but no musicians?

Hopefully because it was a story about a not-very-widely-known subculture and the recording industry is doing a satisfactory job of representing itself. Even if you aren't anti-copyright, a story about how a blunderbuss approach to copyright enforcement can affect fair use rights and technologies for the distribution of free media or speech is a story that isn't told often enough outside of slashdot. Granted, the journalist who wrote the story you cite didn't deal with those issues. But they are commonly raised by the sort of people you are trying to smear by implication as being biased. The story was crap, but I doubt it was the fault of the interview subjects.

Re:First

[Kinthelt]

I must admit. That response was very well written.

However, I have to disagree with a few of your points. Namely, your justification for pirating music.

1.Out and out pirate - This person pirates everything because they can. They have no intention of buying anything they steal. This is what industry would like you to think everyone is.

2.Pirate by need - This is someone who copies digital works because they either cannot afford to pay the cost to purchase it legally and would gladly do so if they had the income to support it (i.e. Windows 98SE - $180) or the product is so rare that it's next to impossible to find (i.e. rare music tracks/bands, old games, etc)

3.Pirate by want - Similar to the 'Pirate by need' this is a person who spends most of his time collecting a little bit of everything. Most of these pirates are harmless by nature. They would grab expensive toys like lightwave, play with it, and delete it because they get bored with it. No revenue is lost by industry because of this kind of pirate since they'd never buy the product in the first place.

4.Try it out pirate - This is something I've done before. Heard both good and bad reviews about software? Snake a copy of it, try it out, and if ya like it, ya buy it.

We both agree the first kind of pirate is bad.

The second type of pirate is nonsense. Nobody *needs* music for the same reason nobody *needs* Windows 98. If you can afford the computer hardware to run Win98, you can afford to buy a legit copy of Win98. Theft due to necessity is still theft. If a person really needed something badly (food, shelter, etc), they could find an organization that can easily help them out (church, YMCA, etc).

I have to agree that the third type of pirate is harmless to the industry. However, just because you want something doesn't mean you should go out and steal it. If I went out and stole everything I ever wanted, I'd be in deep trouble. Why shouldn't the same thing apply to music? Just because I ordinarily wouldn't buy things, doesn't justify why I should steal it.

The fourth type of pirate is ideologically a good one. However, that was tried out in the 1980s/early 90s when it was called "Shareware". Big flop. Nobody ever registered their shareware. The reason nobody ever bothered to register? Why pay for the "real" product when I already have the whole thing/what I need? There is also a very simple solution for these types of pirates to avoid doing anything illegal: Go to your local record store and ask them if you could listen to the album in-store (almost all of them allow you to do this).

Doo Doo Doo Doot, Doo Doo Doo Doot.

[IanCarlson]

In my infinite wisdom (snicker, snicker), I've figured out why the record companies dislike MP3 technology. It isn't that it cuts down on the number of albums sold, it's that it cuts down on the number of bad albums sold.

I haven't bought an album I didn't like in the past two years. Before that, my CD collection was a hit-and-miss set of Micheal Jackson albums. Now, I can grab any CD out of my CD pile and have a smooth seventy-four minutes of aural pleasure. For every good song on my hard drive, I've got the CD within arm's reach.

Napster may die, but I wouldn't worry about MP3 going away. Everybody's got them, and other trading mediums like IRC and newsgroups still exist. The beat will still go on, and Napster's presence in it is moot, at best.

So, as a note to the RIAA and kin, get in on the action before she goes home. Does anyone have an official lawsuit count, so far?

This just in...

[sventek70]

Student goes to jail for owning a cassette tape with music from a friends cd! -Related story- VHS tapes now illegal. I mean come on already.. even with VHS tapes and people copying movies and even recording them off of tv the movie industry can still afford to put out million dollar budget movies. And people still go to see them! just my two cents on it

MP3.com Blew It with Beam-It

[Rahoule]

I'm not if this is totally on-topic, but I'm going to talk about recent events in the MP3 world, so it just be at least partially on-topic...

I don't know about you, but I was truly disappointed when I heard MP3.com had been sued over their Beam-It service. Not because it was a case of mainstream recording industry trying again to suppress MP3, but because MP3.com had taken such a liberty with the record labels' property.

Until then, MP3.com had been a great example of legal uses of MP3 -- exposure for unsigned artists. They were putting a good face on the MP3 format. But then they got the silly idea of Beam-It and blew it.

Yes, they still expose unsigned artists' work, but what they've done has tarnished MP3's reputation for good. Now, even they are pirates, in a manner of speaking. It's hard for MP3s to be portrayed in a truly positive light anymore, at least in the mainstream media.

I have to think this is exactly what the recording industry wanted. With the main bastion of "good" MP3s now "bad", they can really step up their war on the format, especially in the mainstream news. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it's possible that an undercover agent of a major record label or the RIAA got a job at MP3.com and persuaded Michael Robertson to implement this service, just to get MP3.com into trouble.

Internet Memories - the Early Days of Napster

[BigBlockMopar]

As was I, I used to be on when napster had at most 200 people online at a time and we celebrated when it broke 200 in #lobby. I remember when we used to be able to chat with napster and the incredible contravercy surrounding the swear filter before they started chopping it all up into multiple channels.

Ahhh... Remember when Napster had banner ads? And an Internic Whois lookup gave you an address in Massachusetts?

Remember when Port 80 was unused, until a little program called Spry Mosaic came out?

When you gave an electrical engineer your e-mail address, and he had no idea what it was?

When the old DEC VT-100 you'd holed away was the best way of hitting Usenet?

Sigh... the good old days, before the Internet went corporate...

[BigBlockMopar logs onto Napster and downloads "Memories".]

Pay for Napster? Not likely.

[heinzkeinz]

I think it pretty damned unlikely that anyone would pay $15 a month to use Napster. The CEO is greatly mistaken if he thinks that Napster has any great advantage over Gnutella. Napster has more users, but as many sites and services have shown (see Encyclopedia Britannica, or the New York Times, for two examples of sites that were formerly pay services, but are now free and much more successful), trying to charge for something that's available for free elsewhere is a poor business model. It's extremely difficult to convince someone to pay for that which he has already been receiving for free. No one has any loyalty to Napster. Napster's users are after free music, and that's it. Gnutella provides them with the same thing, and people will run to it in droves if Napster starts charging.

Of course, feel free to insert your own argument about how those who would commit the mortal sin of piracy (or "sharing") aren't likely to want to pay to pirate music.

B

Only now...

[buck-yar]

I find it interesting that the record industry has pretty much ignored mp3 trading until now (napster). Apparently they're willing to ignore a certain amount of pirating. I never saw them go after Scour, Kermit or any of the other older mp3 engines.

But along comes napster, and they're up in arms. Its not really fair for napster to take the heat of all the mp3 trading, which is what is happening.

I stopped listening to Metallica

[Brian Ristuccia]

I seriously doubt that most Metallica/Dr. Dre fans even know what Napster is.

I used to listen to Metallica's older albums quite a bit before I heard about their intent to interfere with non-commercial sharing of copyrighted music between individuals via Napster. Now I'm so angry with them that I refuse to buy or listen to any of their music ever again. Bad laws are bad enough without strongarm enforcement of them through DMCA process abuse and civil lawsuits by deep-pocketed members of the copyright cartel.

I just had a really interesting thought.

[Chiasmus_]

You know, a lot of this Napster legislation is probably setting precedents for that "nanotechnology age" they keep promising us in the next 40-50 years.

For those of you that aren't familiar with it, nanotechnology as I understand it is treating matter like data - instead of sending an MP3 which is essentially a song represented by a bunch of 1's and 0's, we'll be able to send the code for, for example, an apple, and watch it built by tiny nanoscopic robots, atom by atom.

Apparently, this is totally feasible, and a lot of scientists think it's only 40-50 years out.

So, whatever law applies to the_unforgiven.mp3 today might apply to 2040_Honda_Accord.xxx or Kraft_hot_grits.xxx in the future. Look at the Sherman Antitrust Act - legislation tends to stick around a lot longer than the technology it was created for.

Your figures seem to support my point.

[Christopher Thomas]

Try this search and tell me that doesn't make an impact.

Follow your own links. I see a couple of hundred names on the most populated sites - and fewer than ten names on most links.

The search returned about 280 pages. The Fermis out to maybe ten thousand names, if you're *EXTREMELY* optimistic.

Contrast that to the vast number of albums sold. Looking considerably less significant, isn't it?

Of course, the industry has a few words about the impact on sales as well.

Looks like a typical fluff piece written by a third-party journalist. What of it?

Now, about those figures... look here, here and since some fans even feel they are directly harming metallica they've setup a site to pay lars back.

Your first link states that CD sales are declining near universities. By 7 percent.

What fraction of the population goes to university? Relatively small.
What fraction of the population buys CDs? Relatively large.

You become Enlightened.

Or, take the geographic approach. Assume that 5% of all stores selling CDs are near a university. They've had sales drop by 7%. This gives you a whopping 0.35% sales hit. Not looking terribly significant.

Your second link seems to be another third-party journalist article advertising "GoodNoise". There is a link included to an RIAA statement providing "evidence", but this link is dead. This article, lacking a critical component, supports neither of our cases.

Your third link, to the "pay Lars" site, lists a grand total of $399.00 raised at the time of my viewing (during the writing of this message).

If the number of people on this site is supposed to be representative of the number of people boycotting, then the boycott is in a sorry state indeed.

Let's take the more plausible approach, and say that the ratio of payLars-ers to boycotters is equal to the ratio of boycotters to CD buyers. This boosts the number of assumed boycotters very substantially.

It's still not enough. To make the numbers easier, let's assume that Metallica makes the piddlingly small sum of $4 million on sales. Using the ratios above, this gives an estimate of the number of CD buyers per boycotter as being sqrt($4m / $400), or 100. Again, the boycotters are at at most a 1% level.

Try this again with Metallica's real income. Or better yet, stick to counting boycotters themselves so that you have a real number.

Summary: Your figures serve only to underscore how few boycotters there are, compared to the CD-buying masses.

I eagerly await your rebuttal.

Re:First

[Kinthelt]

And that equilibrium price would be nearly zero as quantity is nearly infinite.

What's that supposed to mean? The quantity of CDs is hardly nearly infinite. Only so many CDs can be stamped at a time, so it is definitely finite. So there's a certain quantity of CDs to be sold. Let's say the record company sets the price at $50 per CD. People will stop buying CDs (a few will keep purchasing, though) because the amount of enjoyment per dollar is too low. The record company won't make any money. Therefore, they will set the price somewhere where everybody can get satisfaction (the consumers get enough enjoyment for their dollar to buy the album).

Depends. If a thief stole more than a meager sum, it won't be me because I'll switch to a more secure bank.

Classic Red Herring. Instead of responding to the topic, change it. Are you implying you will switch to a more secure CD format?

Besides.. white collar crime, like price fixing of CDs, is much more profitable

Says who that CDs are being price fixed?

perhaps you could explain to me why so many people seem willing to cast aside their ethics to download free music if they know it's illegal in economic terms? I'd be most interested in hearing your thoughts on why black markets exist.

1. People gravitate towards the cheapest price for the best quality. Free == cheapest price.
2. People think (know?) they can't get charged for downloading illegal MP3s.
3. Most people are ignorant of economics.
4. It's not "illegal" in economic terms. I merely stated that Napster is like shoplifting, everybody pays.

Yeah Napster! :-)

[Ambien]

I personally think artist should support Napster. Artists get such a little portion of every CD they sell. They get ripped off more then the consumer does. Sure, we pay $20 for a damn CD, but they get even a small profit from that. Upcoming artists need to support the free music revolution. That would also make music more pure as people would have to be doing it for the love of music instead of the money or fame.

Pay Up

[don_carnage]

If the RIAA had it's way, car stereo manufacturers would be required to build special collection systems so that every time you wanted to listen to a CD, you'd have to insert a quarter.

geesh! Do I have to have a license for everything?

#!/dc
--

Re:Pay Up

[linuxonceleron]

OT but, my Sony car CD player actually does need you to insert a quarter to play a CD. Every one that I've had has had the loading motor break in a month or less, so I've just given up. Now you have to push the cd in as far as you can, and use a quarter or other flat object to push it down onto the spindle. Perhaps Sony should patent this, and maybe make the quarters accidentally fall into some type of container :)

Well, actually...

[El Volio]

From the is-anyone-else-sick-of-this-yet dept.

...yes, we are. But you keep posting the stories. Too bad I can't filter out any story with "MP3" in the title or story blurb.

Re:Well, actually...

[finkployd]

I agree. If only there was some way to just "skip over" the story. I mean being forced to read and comment on every story is terrible.

Finkployd

wrong...

[Ender Ryan]

I agree with some of what you said except one little thing really didn't sit well in my stomach.

just because we don't like the law doesn't give us license to break it

That's just plain wrong. If the people of this (or any) country don't like a law, we have an obligation to NOT comply with that law. If we just bend over and take it, we'll end up losing all our freedoms.... which is where we are headed it seems. When the law is wrong, it is our responsibility to do what we think is right.

However, I'm not entirely sure about what is right and wrong in the case of Napster etc.

Barlow editorial unavailable for a few hours

[Bruce Perens]

Of course as soon as I'm linked from Slashdot, Covad has a massive outage in the S.F. Bay area taking Technocrat down. Thus, the John Perry Barlow editorial is off the air for a few hours.

Bruce

Re:First

[lbrlove]

I am not sure I entirely agree with your economic assessment. It relies heavily on a static supply and demand, but the U.S. economy has been growing at a high rate, ceteris paribus, for a while (say 8 or 9 years). As such, the demand has risen dramatically while the pricing has changed somewhat (perhaps 20% over the same period).

This indicates to me greater profit-taking by members of the supply-side, even while more records are sold (remember also that this period has dramatically lowered the costs of production of the physical medium). In fact, this is almost a given with the higher volumes sold (when Britney Spears is becoming a multi-millionaire, it must necessarily be a goldrush).

I am not saying you are dead wrong, but I think the economic picture is optimized for maximum profitability, and maybe we from the outside do not see all revenue outcomes, especially in a mature big-money business.

-L

Go ahead, arrest me

[Nos.]

Let's say, hypothetically of course, that I downloaded an mp3 of a song I did not own the rights to, and the artist tracked me down and decided to press charges. So the police show up at my door, arrest me, grab my collection of CD's, search my apartment and car for others, not finding a CD containing said song, they go ahead and ask me for a confession, or take it to court.

First thing I do, is ask if they went to my parents though my box of old cassette tapes, and realized the song was on a tape I bought 10 years ago. Okay, lets say I through all of those out, or never had them in the first place. Well, then I just ask one of my friends to go out purchase the CD, and say I lent it to them.

I'm not saying this is a morally, ethically, or legally the right thing to do, but its going to happen. What I hate, is the idea that thousands of my tax dollars are going to be spent trying to prosecute individuals when the likelyhood of a conviction is next to nil.

Show of hands...

[ktakki]

Who here holds copyrights?

How many of you have filled out Form SR, PA, or TX and sent your check and tape/sheet music/lyrics to the Register of Copyrights, Library of Congress, Washington D.C., 20559?

How many of you know that this is but one step in turning an idea into an expression that can be distributed in the marketplace?

How many of you feel that the artist should be held responsible for the excesses of the industry?

How many of you are willing to acknowledge that the greed of the labels, distributors, and retailers is more than matched by the people who want something for nothing?

Who read the article on page one of today's Boston Globe and wondered why they interviewed two programmers, a lawyer, a lobbyist, and Stallman but no musicians?

Who thinks this deserves (Score:-1, Flamebait)?

k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

I haven't bought less CDs. But I have more music.

[BigBlockMopar]

but when the cost of production is vastly outweighed by the sale price sooner or later the market will force it down. This is tht force. For too long we have been asked to pay too much for too little.

I was one of the very first Napster users, going all the way back to August of last year. I happily admit that.

In the past year, I've bought over 30 CDs, compared to 20 or so the previous year. Some of those additional CDs were because I liked the stuff of theirs that I heard on Napster, and some of it was simply because of Napster, I'm more "connected" to my music collection.

I don't for a second dispute the intellectual property ownership or anything like that. But, besides the obvious fact that the Pandora's Box is open and there's nothing the RIAA can do short of making a lot of enemies, there's another issue.

I have a lot more music now than I would have ever had, buying CDs. In fact, now I have stuff that I like to listen to occasionally, but for which I would never commit the real estate occupied by a CD, let alone the cost of a CD. You know the kinds of songs I'm talking about - I guarantee you feel exactly the same way about some song or another. For me, the song is "Bust a Move" by Young MC. I hate rap.

These are songs that the RIAA would never have been paid for anyway, because I would never have bought a copy. And yet, thanks to Napster, on the rare occasion that the urge to hear it strikes, I play it.

The fact that I have this song without having paid for it is not the issue that the RIAA should be looking at. Because, as I've indicated, as a long time user, I spend more on CDs than I used to. Napster has just made me more conscious of the music I listen to, which therefore makes me invest in more.

Yes it is re-hashed, but...

[SupahVee]

As you can see from the topic above, this has been turned into a dead horse for Slashdotters to beat.

But why must we as the people who made the internet so popular by using it the way it was meant to be used, have to suffer at the hands of (insert **AA organization here), so that they can make a bigger buck? I for one am sick and tired of busting my ass, day in and day out, so that those in positions above me can make more money off of what I do?

I've had it! I was raised right, I know the difference between right and wrong, yet the people who insist on making decisions for me, cant seem to see how passing laws based on how much money such-and-such corporation gave them is immoral.

I think it's time we throw out this gov't and get a new one.

mp4?

[aarestad]

The Brandenburg/Suzanne Vega article mentioned a new format that Brandenburg's research group is working on - MP4, which the article called a "more secure" compression algorithm than MP3. Does anyone know much about this? How is it "more secure"? Does that mean that it will be encrypted (and thus, a new tool for the Evil Recording Industry (tm))?
"The world doesn't really need more busy people, maybe not even more intelligent people. It needs 'deep people'..."

This makes my blood boil!

[c.r.o.c.o]

I just don't understand wtf is going on here!

I mean you have a bunch of artists, with no understanding of computers whatsoever, suing Napster. I'm not even sure they even know what mp3s are, or if they do, they have no ideea what they are dealing with.

I'm just wondering why they're not suing people for burning music CDs (cd-to-cd copy), which in my opinion is almost as easy as ripping a cd. Why aren't they suing the people who used to copy tapes, and all the other people who are infringing on their copirights.

The only answer that I can find is that they're clueless!

I read too many articles discussing how can they take advantage of mp3 sales, how they can't stop people from using mp3s, but I guess they're just too moronic to get it!

Well, feel free to mark me as a troll, or whatever, I just had to say those things.

About RIAA: Been said before, will be said again.

[BigBlockMopar]

You know, far be it for me to actually say anthing original on this topic. Everything that I have to say has been echoed hundreds of time by my fellow Slashdotters.

But I think that the RIAA isn't made up of tremendously intelligent people, since the paradigm has so obviously changed, and there's so clearly nothing that can be done to stop it short of embracing it.

So, for the sake of repetition causing learning by rote and the hopes that some little balding RIAA legal-type might read this, let's all join together and repeat after me:

The 'net is unstoppable. The more you fight it, the more record companies and artists will be casualties. The more you embrace it, the more opportunities the Internet and its users will afford you.

[Humbly getting off soap box.]

Ironically...

[Tim Macinta]

Ironically, individual TVT artists have been putting their own stuff on MP3.com (apparently idependent of their label considering the lawsuit). The best techno band ever put some of their older stuff on MP3.com recently and all of their CDs have been released under the TVT label. I think it's only a matter of time until more talented artists realize they can make more money on their own through MP3.com than through standard record labels where they have to subsidize the other 90% of artists - it's already paying off handsomely for a lot of artists.

I've been extremely impressed with the leap in quality of music on MP3.com. I tried it out a year or two ago and was unimpressed. Then a few weeks ago when "major label" recordings were disabled from my.mp3.com I started going through withdrawal and decided to give it another shot. In a matter of a few short days I had quickly gathered up over 3 hours of music that I really liked. By traditional means, this would have taken me several weeks and several hundred dollars in buying CDs that I only know a few songs off of (which I've been doing for years). Now if I find a CD I like on MP3.com it's usually much cheaper than normal and I can listen to it instantly rather than waiting for it to come in the mail. If the RIAA and TVT were smart they would be paying MP3.com to provide their useful my.mp3.com service because it added value to buying traditional CDs (e.g., instant listening and listening from anywhere) and would help delay the inevitable shift to a world where the current music distribution paradigm is obsolete.

one important thing

[Ben33vm]

one important thing that i havnt seen people focusing on is... PLEASE HAVE BEEN PIRATING THIS STUFF FOR YEARS!!! Napster wasnt the first. Warez sites have been handing out free cracked programs for years. i got mp3's off of AOL chat rooms 2 years ago. gimme a break. Napster just made it easier for us to get mp3s. even if they take out napster, we will always have an alternative. is SCOUR being sued at all?? -Ben

sums up the average comp-iliterate thought

[cbuskirk]

Paul Jessop, director of technology at the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries) said that apart from the jurisdictional issues, there exist other obstacles to successful prosecution. "For example, using Napster, you can set up the machine so it behaves like a sharing application," Jessop explains. "That is clearly against the law and such a case would be interesting. But it is the issue of personal use [where one single copy is permitted] which will be most difficult in an actual case."

Yeh those damn sharing applications.... They are so illegal. Gotta look out for those data bases and web servers, and....

Toms Diner on my Amiga 500

[Tulsa T Nawi]

Man, i remember back in 92 or maybe earlier when i had Tom's Diner on my Amiga 500. Being able to loop and do a bunch of effects on that whole song was pretty cool.

Those were the days. :)

My $.02

[Alexius]

Personally, I feel that an artist should get paid for performing, as in a live concert. If they want to get more people into their concerts, then they should release the music for people to hear, whether it be to eMpTyV, the radio, or as an MP3. That way, if the performance isn't any good, because the person doesn't have talent (see any of the top bands on eMpTyV), then they will go under, and those with the loyal fan base that goes to the shows year after year (Greatful Dead and Phish come to mind) will do well. Greatful Dead did quiet well and were very popular, dispite the fact that the entire amount of the popularity was based on trading bootlegged concerts. Obviously, producing some CD and cassettes, or a concert video here and there could bring in some of the proceeds, but I don't think it should be considered the main stream of income. The Recording Industry Association of America should be more like The Screen Actors Guild, simply pimping out the artists, letting the artists make money for actually working.
--------------------

Theft is NOT a right.

[costas]

I posted this on Kuro5hin earlier today. As a general rule, I don't like regurgitating posts, but this new /. story is sorta making my point, so here it is [dons asbestos suit, sets procmail filters on]:

I am amused when people (especially those on that Other Site) claim that anonymity is: a) a God-given right, or b) what the Net was based on.

Bollocks! (b) especially is wrong... when the ArpaNet/Internet started there was no anonymity because everybody on the Net just plain knew everybody else --the couple of CS schools and National Labs online were and still are a pretty close community. Then for years, the internet was full of static-only IPs and real-people-only e-mail addresses: you were far from anonymous.

Anonymity on the Net was introduced either directly by real privacy advocates (who can forget anon.penet.fi that Scientology practically shut down) or, more commonly, by anonymity-through-obscurity: FreeNet (the original Freenet, not the Gnutella/Napster clone) and later AOL, HotMail, etc, etc.

Now, (a) is even less true: what human society ever was based on anonymity? NONE. Actually, anonymity in the Real World is either associated with cults and/or military organizations --where the person 'must' be erased to establish groupthink-- or to avoid prosecution.

But what really, truly bugs me (and you cannot say than on /. on penalty of burning at the stake) is this whole self-serving attitude that the new wave of 'privacy advocates' is assuming. Anon.penet.fi served a noble cause; it might have been used for practical jokes and/or ordering God-knows-what, but it also served as the only way for whistleblowers to speak (e.g. the Scientology case). The 'new' Slashdot-fed "privacy advocates" (and they deserve to be in quotes) are using the otherwise noble flag of privacy (a whole different issue than anonymity as another post explained very well) to *justify* their *stealing*.

If you are too cheap, or too lazy and are gonna break the law by going on Napster and downloading some MP3s (which I won't say I haven't done), you should have, really, the balls to stand up and say: "I know this is wrong, I know this is stealing someone else's work without their consent, but I am just too damn {lazy|cheap}!". The attitude of "Since I am doing this, it *has* to be right" (vis-a-vis "It is right, that's why I will do it") is Puratinistic and hypocritical.

Are record companies charging too much for a CD? yes they are (cry-babies; a CD back in Europe can go for $20 easily). Are we *justified* to go out and steal the companies' property? no we are not. "Justified" is a very heavy word. Don't overuse it...

engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.

"Tom's Diner" == best possible MP3 quality?

[rise]

Hmm, so if you happen to be Mr. Brandenburg "Tom's Diner" should sound the same on CDDA and MP3. Clearly we need an extension to the Napster client to specify not just bitrate but how far the original piece deviates from TD. "Jeannie's Diner" and the reggae version will obviously produce hi-fidelity encodings, but what about the Swedish version?

Criminals

[Booker]

Who are the criminals here in the MP3 debate? Is it the people downloading?

Yes. The law is clear here. They are violating the record industry's copyrights on the vast majority of downloaded files.

The lawmakers who passed silly IP laws like this?

Yep, lots of them are criminals, but not because they pass silly laws. No law against passing silly laws. And laws which protect the works of an individual are not that silly.

the courts for upholding such laws against public opinion and the constitution?

It's not the court's duty to rule based on public opinion (thank God!). I also don't see how copyright violations are a constitutional issue.

The RIAA for engaging in unethical and monopolistic business practices?

Probably.

Come on, this is silly. Sorry you want all your music for free. It's not legally available for free. That's clear. That's the law. Heck, I don't even think it's a bad law.

Don't get me wrong, when the RIAA tells me it's "illegal" for me to convert my OWN CD to MP3 format, I get really really pissed at their attitude... But you don't have a leg to stand on when you advocate theft of copyrighted material.


---

Snoopy Dog Dawg?

[slickwillie]

Who cares?