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

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?

[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

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.