Slashdot Mirror
More Napster Updates
Here's another quick round of Napster updates! First off, LinuxParanoid wrote in to tell us about Napster reinstating a portion of the accounts removed by the Metallica-inspired crackdown. Grexnix shared at article at the Beeb about Madonna's record company threatening legal action against Napster because a single from her not-yet-released album was leaked onto the net. DanCentury wrote in to tell us about The Offspring selling Napster hats, shirts and stickers on their website. gmr2048 writes "For anyone who may have owned an old HP4020 or 6020 or a Phillips CDD2000 or CDD2600 check out this lawsuit settlement HP/Phillips was sued because of the lack
of quality in these units. They have settled and you may be entitled to a repair/replacement or $200 (if you've disposed of your original burner)." Cool! Also, check out the Brunching Shuttlecocks' 'Napster of Puppets,' and 'Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Pirated Mp3s' at Modern Humorist.
From The Onion's "Our Dumb Century" book...
... the number of Americans describing themselves as "shocked" by Madonna dropped from 48 to 11."
:)
"Madonna Shocks Seven!
In the pop superstar's 132nd outrageous stunt of the past six months, Madonna shocked seven TV viewers last night when she appeared on a Barbara Walters special and graphically described oral sex she had performed on an unnamed NBA star
...The shocking remarks returned Madonna to the national spotlight after a three-day absence. Last week, during an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman she strapped a crucifix to her pelvis and simulated coitus, an act which shocked dozens of viewers, but was met with yawns by the millions of Madonna fans who had already witnessed far more impressive acts of sacrilege during her 1990 Blond Ambition tour.
According to a recent poll,
Just thought that might be relevant...
- Oliver
"exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
Copyright isn't really the issue. Extortion is more to the point. They have something we want, and they're going to make us pay through the nose for it. Why? Not because the market determined a fair price, but because the biggest corporations got together and decided that they needed to set some limits on the pricing in order to make sure they make more money, and keep making that money. This happens to be illegal. Did they care that they were ripping us off? Nope, and they'll never have to reimburse us either. So, tell me again why we should care when we rip off the record labels?
Here's some info if you'd care to inform yourself: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm .
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I'm not on an anti-Napster crusade; I think most of the content there is crap, but people are welcome to it.
I get out of the house a lot; specifically as a musician in a band that uses MP3's a LOT to promote ourselves.
I'm not arguing for the RIAA; they're a bunch of money-grubbing morons.
However, I didn't paint computer users as aristocrats; just as people who definitionally can afford luxury items roughly a couple of orders of magnitude more expensive than the price of a CD. And I'm not necessarily talking about entry-level PC's in the first place, I'm just taking a nice middle ground between a $500 entry-level machine, and a $5000 monster Dell box, both of which are represented in the Napster-using population.
I'm just trying to make the point that the cost argument is stupid. If you don't want to pay that much for music, don't get music, or shop the cutout bin, there's a lot of $2.99 CD's that are full of great stuff. But don't try to tell me that $17 for a band you appreciate is too much to pay; you CAN afford it, you just don't want to.
--
I wish I could agree it was some kind of age/generational thing, but it just isn't. TMBG were formed in 1983, only two years after Metallica (1981). Dre's first album was released in 1992. The difference is that Metallica's Black Album has sold more copies than every TMBG disc ever recorded, and Dre was not only a dominant song-seller, but also has had a hand in the production (and thus the cash stream) of many really successful acts. I won't go so far as to say money corrupts, but it does change perspective and incentives. What I'm trying to say is this: Metallica and Dre, regardless of what generation they are in, are the industry. Whoever replaces them as the next mega-acts will also quickly become part of the industry, and whether or not they "get it" when they were small and poor will be quickly forgotten when they are famous and rolling in the big bucks. I hope you are right about change- but I think that if you expect the change to come from young musicians who retain their values when they strike it rich... well, all I can say is don't hold your breath.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Funny, what you didn't say is really all that matters in this case and why so many people don't want to take the RIAA's side:
There's a difference between blaming software and blaming users.
Maybe you're all for helping to push legislation that will make programs like napster, scour, and gnutella illegal instead of enforcing existing laws on the local user level. Make no mistake about it this is the RIAA's main goal.
Maybe you're all for corporate policing the net.
Maybe you're all for putting the right of the wealthy to become more wealthy above your right to use the net.
Maybe you're an idiot and your know it and that's why you posted as an AC.
Class-action suits in general often do not really work out to significantly compensate the harmed party, but even so they form an important deterrent to prevent companies from deliberately producing shoddy products.
You seem to be suggesting that people should not take advantage of this settlement, because the lawyers profit from it. I'm no fan of lawyers, but they're going to make their money whether the people who were harmed collect or not.
http://david.weekly.org/code/na pster-metallica.php3
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
We believe it is up to the individual to uphold the law; not that of organisations such as Napster and Metallicster.
- From the website.
I take it that no Napster supporter here supports gun control, then? OK, Napster doesn't kill people. But the whole idea of having a police force is that *people can't be trusted* to uphold the law. In the same way, certain lockpicking tools are only available to bona-fide locksmiths, even though there's a perfectly legitimate use for someone who has forgotten their keys, because if they were freely available then the majority of use would be for burglaries. If a company sold these tools to the public, they'd be sued and/or shut down, fined, etc etc.
Napster is almost exclusively used for theft. And if Lars is to be believed, they're going to try and get an IPO out of it. This, surely, is ridiculous (and personally I find it pretty disgusting)...
- Oliver
"exp(i*Pi)+1=0" - Euler
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
You pretty much nailed all of them. Here is another that bothers me as well:
An Internet tax to pay for RIAA "losses" due to piracy--kind of like the money they collect on blank audio CD-R's (and DATs?) Since they pulled that off it doesn't seem like such a wierd idea that they could report huge losses due to piracy on the Net...they're already doing it now at the same time as they are making record earnings. But they've got a lot of competition coming now and it'll be harder for them to maintain those earnings. If they actually experience a loss you can bet it's going to be blamed on piracy.
I know to some people it seems like we don't care about copyright law because we're so wrapped up in protecting the Net. And people are getting divided over it. It sucks that we're taking sides between protecting the Net and protecting copyright law. We should all be protecting both instead of squabbling over which is more important because in the meantime there are corporations that are working their hardest to fuck up both.
How do we protect copyright law and the Net at the same time?
numb
If you think an entry level PC is 2 grand maybe you should take a break from your anti-napster crusade and get out of the house for 10 minutes. Painting computer users as wealthy aristocrats is about convincing and realistic as all the other RIAA arguments.
The early philips drives clearly said "650 meg of storage" but they started locking up when it went over 560 meg. Sounds blatantly obvious to me. My CDD2600 crapped out after a year, then it was smashed with a sledgehammer. Hmm I wonder if they need a serial number or proof of purchase. Mine came from some random online store over 2 years ago.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
...no, not the record companies. Napster users.
Who doesn't want something for nothing? Heck, I want everything for free, too. But the bottom line is that someone's work is not being compensated if I download music without paying for it.
The capacity for rationalization on this issue is amazing.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
It looks like the folks at Napster have the means to keep misguided attacks like the one coming from Metallica from ever bothering them again.
You can see the whole thing live here.
--The Colonel
All those people who got their accounts back. I'm sure that most of them had Metallica MP3s, and I'm willing to bet that a good portion of those MP3s were illegal. Now we get to see if the individuals will get sued... (they DID say, (under penalty of perjury) that they didn't have any illegal Metallica MP3s...)
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
You can find the Madonna single on GnuTella,
just search for "madonna music"
The Offspring's sales is interesting. In the opinions of many, Offspring is a good band, and certainly their record company is enjoying their record sales. For those of us who think that record companies leach both the artists and the fans, this is an interesting update. Should Offspring's record company go after Napster or Offspring for supporting Napster, it would be a good example of record companies acting against, not on behalf of, their artists.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
Their first album was 1989. So... 11 years v. 19 for Metallica. And not a commercial success until 1994, whereas Metallica has been commercially successful (and one could even argue artistically important) since 1986. I'm not slamming The Offspring or anything, but they aren't anywhere near the musical force (in terms of influence, selling power, or sheer recognition) that Metallica is (or maybe was, considering the last couple of albums.)
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
The band themselves don't have ANY control over the prices of the individual CDs their records company distributes to a vast number of retailers.
And as near as anyone can tell, the bands haven't been affected by Napster at all. Unless you can show me some real evidence to the contrary.
but that's not gonna work if we want professional musicians (better than amateurs, I'm almost positive on this one) then we need to pay them for their work.
While I certainly agree that musicians deserve to be able to sell their work and make money from it, I think the current system does a terrible job of achieving this goal. It overcharges the consumer and underpays the artists. You can only expect people to go along with a moronic system for so long. If nothing is done about it, they'll do something about it themselves.
The record industry spends millions on hyping up bands that may never make it.
Maybe they need to stop the hype and just let their music stand on its own.
But the more they pushed, the more they got some underexposed bands out there
Once again... forget about "pushing" bands on us... just let the music get out there and let people buy what they want.
Listen to the radio instead until prices come down.
You haven't bought a cd lately have you? Prices don't go down. When an album debuts, that's the lowest price you're gonna see it hit, ever. They only go up from there. I was browsing through a music store last week. Looked at some older Queenryche cds. They cost 17 bucks now while their newest one was selling for 13. It was the same with all the others. It was the same when I looked at Best Buy and Wal-Mart too, the prices just go up.
Just because the FTC says that music is too expensive doesn't give you the right to go into Tower Records and walk out with their singles section.
No, it doesn't. Tower paid for that cd and is trying to sell it to people. Taking that would be wrong because you then they would not have it anymore and could not sell it.
So don't go stealing it on Napster either
That's a different matter. Downloading music on Napster isn't necessarily stealing. Nor have I seen any indication that artists are being deprived of money or are making any less money because of Napster. I tried Napster briefly, but didn't like it all that much. It was kind of a pain to get anything that I wanted. It's probably improved a lot since then, but I haven't tried it again. That said, I still download a lot of MP3s. Most I get from MP3.com or artists' websites, but some I get from other people, just so I can listen to the songs and decide whether I want to buy the cd or not. Now, according to the RIAA, I'm stealing from artists by downloading those MP3s from my friends. According to me, I'm not depriving them of any legitimate earnings. I don't keep MP3s that I don't like, and I buy the cds if I like the songs. Who's being harmed?
I'm not alone in my practices either. I know many people who do the very same thing. I'd bet that the majority of people on Napster do this as well, which would explain why the record industry hasn't seen a drop in profits, and has, in fact, seen an increase.
The RIAA isn't after people to defend the artists, they are after people to defend their control over the industry. They control the distribution of music in this country and many others. Anything that challenges that control will be attacked by them. Even if it increases profits, if they can't control it, it will have to go.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Madonna sucks/is past her prime?
Um...when was it that she won 4 Grammies (including Best Pop Album), and was nominated for Album of the Year and Record of the Year? Oh yeah...1999.
Now Metallica, Dre, and Eminem I can do without...but this is aggravating. Happily, it looks as if "she" (i.e. Time Warner) is only pissed about the unreleased track, not about mp3s off of released discs. On the other hand, while I don't particularly care for him, Eminem's album just broke the single-week sales record or something, so it's a bit difficult to support the notion that he objectively sucks either. Frankly, I think your argument is absolutely wrong.
This is a short program I wrote a while back that actually composes classical-sounding music (based on pseudorandom numbers and a lot of music theory). It compiles for DOS and Linux; a DOS binary is included.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I found an article about the case detailing exactly why the drives were faulty and the law firm that sued for the settlement.
http://www.maxtarget. com/hardware/cdrom/cd_class_action.shtml
-- iCEBaLM
... and you'll see a better picture of the way technology-focused (i.e. technology types made it) music propagates.
"Tech" music is scarey to big media. And it's people like programmers and admins, and their general ability to confront scarey technology, wrestle it to the ground, and wack it over the head with a big stick, which gives most modern monopolistic companies something to really be scared of.
The average Joe Musician, recording his own material in a digital studio he built himself using inexpensive components, is the same sort of persona (generally) as the average OS Student Finnish programmer wacking out 386 code in the wee hours of the morning, circa 1991... able to work things out for themselves, and use the machines they've built for themselves, to write art (software) for themselves and share it freely.
There'll be a similar boost in this culture (DIY Musicians) as there was with the opensource programmer culture during the mid-90's - many of us are already seeing this occurring now, with sites like MP3, SampleLibrary.Net (which I run), etc.
So I think you're pretty close to being spot on with your asessment that we need to start writing our own music. Just like we needed to start writing our own OS, just a few short years ago...
And look for this "roll your own" cultural phenomenon to make its presence felt in other industries too...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Why the hell would Napster sue for that? That's just free advertising for them.
--
No shit! My 6020i was a piece of junk from the day I bought it, and I'm glad to know I can get at least part of my money back. I dunno if I've got the receipts any more, but if HP wants to argue the point with me I'd be more than willing to pull the drive out of my bottom drawer and mail the damned thing back to them. :)
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
"We don't need no steenkin' techno."
Reminds me of the sort of thing all my Microsoft-lovin' NT bigot friends used to say back in '93 when I told 'em about this litlle ol' thing called Linux.
"We don't need no steenkin' Unix."
Techno is the music of the future, man. Get used to it.
;)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Many artists enjoy the publicity the recieve by having their songs traded on Napster"
Many artists are also suing Napster and anyone else who either trades, or facilitates the trading of illegal mp3s.
True and true. The thing I've noticed is that the artists that are suing already have their own distribution channels and publicity machines. I'm glad that more and more are turning up in support Napster despite the fact that they already already have these things.
CDs cost too much! Why should I pay them $12-$18 when CDs are so cheap?"
If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive".
I agree. I just wish it were easier to tell if a CD is too expensive or not. I have a few that I are worth at least $25 to me. The problem is, you don't get to know what you're buying except for one song--unless you want to wait for a year to go by to see what else gets played from that CD. I've been burned a bunch of times buying CD's because the one song they were playing on the radio sounded cool--then I get the CD and realize it's value to me is about $2 because every other track is crap.
"If the artists are in it for the art, they should welcome mp3 trading."
Try living off of "art". Walk into a supermarket and try to trade your mp3 collection for a loaf of bread. Art is nice, but money is a necessity. And do you really think that Metallica or [insert current teenage pop star] are doing music for "art"?
I'd suggest making money by working like every other musician out there. If you are talented enough you will make some money off of it--provided you have an efficient distribution channel to get your music to fans and potential fans. If you do well you get to make it a full time job. Also, I think Metallica does care about art even if they may (notice I said "may") care more about the money.
"All intellectual property should be free"
If this were true, most music wouldn't exist. Despite what your favorite left-wing writers might think, financial rewards still have an attraction for most people.
Sorry but I think you're way off base here. I think you're confusing the music you hear on MTV and the radio with "most music." The fact is that most music is not on MTV or your local radio stations. It's produced at a loss with a slim chance of being heavily promoted by a major label. Most music is *not* produced for the money.
"Anti-Napster 'advocates' want to destroy free music!"
No, many just think that the attitude of many Napster users is hypocritical and wrong. You don't deserve everything for free, no matter what Momma Slashdot says.
Thank you for being fair and using the word "many" instead of "all" (wrt Anti-Napster as well as Napster users.)
"Napster introduces a whole new paradigm of free information exchange which artists need to understand."
Perhaps *you* need to "understand" the current paradigm better. Most artists don't offer mp3s for sale. That is no excuse to download them illegaly. You can live without the new Britney Spears album. Trust me.
I think both things are important to understand at this point. I think the new paradigm is more important to understand than the one that's on it's way out though.
numb
I personally find it ironic that Metallica, which had previously promoted spreading of their music via bootlegs
And the band still does encourage bootlegging of its concert performances.
is so up in arms over napster
They have the rights to their studio recordings; how can you argue with that?
Will I retire or break 10K?
People who sit back and just willingly take it up the ass from the record companies because that's what we've been doing for 20 years just sicken me.
"If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive"."
Uhm, well, no. CD's are not just "too expensive" - they are conspiritorially overpriced. The record label oligopoly in this country is making money hand over first because of dumbasses like you who just mope around and consign themselves to paying $16-$18 per CD, and then go whine on Slashdot about how everyone else should too. Did you ever even stop to consider that maybe you weren't paying a fair market price for those CDs, that maybe that price is aritificially inflated by a quintet of record companies that have a lot more to gain through cooperation than they do through competition? Obviously not.
Because if you did, you'd realize that they are basically perpetrating fraud on every poor cad who has to by music from them. These companies have had literally no incentive, ever, to lower the price, because the have never had another competitor. They own the means of music distribution in this country, and many others. Period.
MP3s and the Internet represent the consumer's first real weapon against the record companies. For the first time there is a way to get out music at a much, much lower price, to the masses. Albeit this price happens to be free, what you fail to understand is that the innovation of digitally distributed music is a good, good thing. Eventually, a someone will find a secure way to distribute music on the Internet, and that will open the floodgates for literally anyone to make money selling their music.
Paying $12-18 for a CD is a bad, bad thing. We are getting ripped off everytime we do. You have obviously been deluded into thinking that is a fair price for a CD only because that's been the price for as long as anyone can remember. I implore you to think outside the box a bit before posting drivel like this. Maybe you'd realize that preserving the status quo isn't always a good thing, and that just because we've paid high price for CDs for as long as any of us can remember, doesn't mean that's the right thing.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I think this is legally untested in most juristictions, so it probably partly depends on where you've moved to. Personally I think it *should* be acceptable to get a higher-quality copy, since the argument for copy protection is that "you're not buying the tape, you're buying a license to use the song" and it is obvious, at least for older music, that there was never any intention of reserving the right to use a higher-quality version.
[BTW, just to nitpick, it is not "theft" even if it is "unauthorised copying" - the latter is a much less serious offence]
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Oh I see, you're taking the position that because people can afford to be gouged that they should be gouged and not complain about it.
CD prices are artificialy inflated, you prove to me that they arent. Here's a little something from the Federal Trade Commision to start you off:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/cdpres.htm
I and many others would rather not be gouged, thanks. Defending the status quo with this economic arguments is hardly convincing. Then again what do I know I'm an aristocratic PC owner. Lets ignore that PC hardware is sold at market prices with little or no inflation over what the market can bear, maybe thats why they're so popular and affordable.
No, the FTC concluded that the record industry can't withhold advertising money from stores that offer their CD's at less than the recommended price. What this means is Best Buy or whoever can offer CDs at less than they pay for them (which is what was happening to attact people to the store and then hopefully sell them a big ticket item). CDs in general will not go down in price because of this.
And now it's time for all of the music industry to follow suit. They need to lower prices. Piracy is a result of outrageous prices! If CDs costed $4.95 a piece, would we see as much piracy? NO!!!
As much piracy? No. But there would still be plenty of it. Most people want something for nothing. That is why they use Napster, not as some grand protest.
And am I the only one who is sick and tired of music artists telling us bullshit like, "We don't have any control over the prices of CDs". I HATE THAT. Lars Ulrich sat there, and lied to our faces. You know it's bad when someone like Metallica cares so much about profits, that they are willing to lie, and try to get warm and fuzzy with their fans. Don't believe for a second. Artists have a lot more control than you think. They've just been locked into the "system" for so long, that they've lost sight of what's really important.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Artists have no control over how much they pay for a cd. They sign with a label, they make the music, the label advertises them and markets them and produces and sells the cds. The band can want to give away their CD for free, but it ain't gonna happen. The selling process is controled by the label.
If you ask me, I say keep running Napster, or Gnutella, as your taste preferes. And stop letting the criminal music industry tell you that you are a theif. Art should be free for everyone to enjoy!
So if you want to make a statement, don't buy RIAA CDs. Buy indie Cds, or go to MP3.com. That would make a statement. But when you try to make a statement about how the music industry is greedy and charge too much, and then go and show your own greed by stealing someone else's intellectual property, the only statement you make is about you own hypocrisy.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
The FTC found that CDs cost TOO MUCH! ... If CDs costed $4.95 a piece, would we see as much piracy? NO!!!
I don't work for Play, but Play has lots of 60% off deals. And they start you out with 15 CDs for $50 + shipping.
Will I retire or break 10K?
No, the FTC concluded that the record industry can't withhold advertising money from stores that offer their CD's at less than the recommended price.
Umm.. that's considered price-fixing. The record industry is setting a price and telling the retailers that they aren't allowed to sell a cd for less than that price, or they will face consequences (such as loss of ad money, or a refusal to deal with that particular store again). When you get the five largest record companies all doing this, you get an antitrust violation due to the harm they are doing to consumers and the market. This is what the FTC said:
"The Commission has unanimously found reason to believe that the arrangements entered into by the five largest distributors of prerecorded music violate the antitrust laws in two respects. First, when considered together, the arrangements constitute practices that facilitate horizontal collusion among the distributors, in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. Second, when viewed individually, each distributor's arrangement constitutes an unreasonable vertical restraint of trade under the rule of reason.
So, the record industry was engaged in illegal actions that cost the consumers of their products as much as $480 million dollars over the last 3 years. That's right. They stole from us. They have no intention of returning that money. Then they go and try to complain that people are stealing from them when their decision to overcharge people probably played a big part in the creation of things like Napster. If people could get cds cheap, they wouldn't bother with napster anyway. And that's not even considering that many people actually buy the music that they get from Napster and elsewhere. I've bought quite a bit of music after listening to the MP3s. This probably explains why the record industry has continued to see increased profits despite Napster and other methods of obtaining MP3s for free.
As much piracy? No. But there would still be plenty of it.
Maybe, but I doubt it would be any worse than what you get with vhs tapes or cassette tapes. Once the prices came down on these, people didn't bother to copy them. They were cheap enough to buy that it didn't make sense to bother with copying.
The selling process is controled by the label.
This is true, and not only do the record companies control the sales, they usually own the music as well as part of their contract with the artist.
But when you try to make a statement about how the music industry is greedy and charge too much, and then go and show your own greed by stealing someone else's intellectual property, the only statement you make is about you own hypocrisy.
The industry stole from us, and then complains about us stealing from them. They're being just as hypocritical. Not only that, but they haven't shown that Napster has done any monetary harm, whereas the FTC has shown monetary harm to consumers. I doubt that Napster has had any significant affect on the industry other than being a threat to their control over the distribution of music.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I was made aware of the story over on alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d, and the one I read stated that her song was also available on fan's web sites. Shouldn't they go after THEM first if they're gonna go after anybody?
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Because it costs several million dollars to make a "good movie", while it costs not near that to make a "good album" ... besides, people are ripping off VHS from the internet via ASF files or what-have-you. I don't hear the movie companies screaming in outrage over that, although admittedly, it isn't as big as mp3s.
Sure, I have taken mp3s from Napster, plenty of em. But, when I found the mp3s that I liked, I went out and bought the CDs, and if I didn't like the mp3s, then I deleted them. Is that illegal? I don't know.
It's like taking an album off the shelf, listening to it, and then choosing to buy it. Much like you can do at some modern bookstores (like Borders). The only difference is, you are able to listen to a much wider range through Napster and you are able to buy them through Amazon if you like. I think that Napster offers many people that choice.
Yes, I agree that there are many people who remorselessly steal mp3s and never think twice, and never have the slightest intention of buying the album. Those people are the ones who are, IMHO, breaking the law. Not the ones who download and delete or download and buy.
Gawyn
Freedom of Speech?
I. Thou shalt have no other MP3 Search Engines before Me
/kill a Napster user unless you are Metallica
II. Thou shoult not make unto Napster any incomplete MP3s
III. Thou shalt not take the name of the lord, Napster, in vain
IV. Thou shalt useth Napster every day to keep it holy
V. Honor Napster's Father, IRC, and its Mother, Fraunhofer
VI. Thou shalt not
VII. Thou shalt not try to pick up horny thirteen year old girls on Napster
VIII. Thou shalt not 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
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
The complaint issued from the IFTI, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry
Read "IFTI" as "RIAE" (recording industry association of Europe).
Will I retire or break 10K?
No. Read what I actually say, not what you'd like to think I'm saying.
I'm taking the position that being gouged for something and/or disliking the copyright is NOT a viable excuse for breaking the law and violating licensing terms.
There are other options to being gouged that hold water, buying discounted/used CD's, buying CD's from independant bands (I'll sell you some of our CD's for $10 at http://www.elfhill.com/Annwn), or just not buying CD's.
But taking something illegally is simply not a justifiable position just because you don't like the price point. You might not like the copyright laws (I sure don't either), but putting your fingers in your ears and singing la-la-la doesn't make the unsupportability of your position go away.
Copyright law is the only law we have for being able to make licensing demands on content. The GPL only exists because of the strength of copyright law, as does the BSD license, as does any licensing of content, open or not. Undermining just some licenses because you don't like them paints you as selfish and hypocritical; part of the 'gimme-gimme' crowd that makes Open Source and Linux and most of this community look bad to the outside world.
There are constructive ways to make changes in things you don't like; freely taking for your own personal gain is not one of them.
You probably already saw this by Larry Wall, but it's deeply well-spoken and correct: "When you force someone to give you something, it's no longer giving, it's stealing. Persons of leisurely moral growth often confuse giving with taking."
--
We won't have a say in the music industry until we provide content. So why aren't there any rapper/programmers. Both rappers and programmers are arrogant and prone to trash talking - seems like a natural fit. My coworkers are always saying things like "bitch couldn't optimize a hash join if you let him specify the cardinality of the tuples in advance." It seems like an easy transition from talking this kind of shit to busting phat rhymes. Why aren't any of us doing it? We'd have more pull if we produced music. If anyone wants to take action, I have the perfect stage name for you: NeXT Cube. Just screams geeky gangsta doesn't it?
Enough talk, lets take control of the music!
--Shoeboy
(former microserf)
An interview in Rolling Stone quotes them as saying some very interesting things. My personal favorite being:
Humorless sig goes here.
"Many artists enjoy the publicity the recieve by having their songs traded on Napster"
Many artists are also suing Napster and anyone else who either trades, or facilitates the trading of illegal mp3s.
"CDs cost too much! Why should I pay them $12-$18 when CDs are so cheap?"
If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive".
"If the artists are in it for the art, they should welcome mp3 trading."
Try living off of "art". Walk into a supermarket and try to trade your mp3 collection for a loaf of bread. Art is nice, but money is a necessity. And do you really think that Metallica or [insert current teenage pop star] are doing music for "art"?
"All intellectual property should be free"
If this were true, most music wouldn't exist. Despite what your favorite left-wing writers might think, financial rewards still have an attraction for most people.
"Anti-Napster 'advocates' want to destroy free music!"
No, many just think that the attitude of many Napster users is hypocritical and wrong. You don't deserve everything for free, no matter what Momma Slashdot says.
"Napster introduces a whole new paradigm of free information exchange which artists need to understand."
Perhaps *you* need to "understand" the current paradigm better. Most artists don't offer mp3s for sale. That is no excuse to download them illegaly. You can live without the new Britney Spears album. Trust me.
"You must work for the RIAA!"
Good parrot. Have a cracker.
So if you want to make a statement, don't buy RIAA CDs. Buy indie Cds, or go to MP3.com. That would make a statement. But when you try to make a statement about how the music industry is greedy and charge too much, and then go and show your own greed by stealing someone else's intellectual property, the only statement you make is about you own hypocrisy.
My question is, why not? There are components of a CD price that the record companies just can't explain. If you do a dollar-for-dollar accounting of where the money goes when you buy a CD (e.g. $.50 for pressing, $6.00 to artist, etc.) there is money that just has no reason to be there. They are overpricing the CD's simply because they can. They have a monopoly on a commodity, they being 5 record companies who have a standing agreement not to foster competition amongst each other, the commodity beind music, which, okay, isn't water or electricity, but it's high up on the list of people's wants and needs. The Big Five can charge what they want, to a point, because they know people have to pay it. And record companies have been doing this since CDs came out (20 years), possibly longer. Now, with that in mind, what is so bad about ripping them off in return? I simply don't see the moral argument about "stealing" when their own, essentially, theft, has turned David Geffen et al. into multibillionaires by ripping the consumer off. Maybe if piracy continues en mass for about 20 more years, and the recording industry is finally cut down to size, I'll feel a few pangs of guilt. Until then, I'm laughing all the way to the bank.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I cannot be the only here that remembers the Encyclopedia Brown series with fondness. I still remember most of the cases (what's a word with three double-letters in a row? Bookkeeper of course! Car's hoods get hot after driving for several hours. Blind men don't read newspapers. Boiled eggs are cleaned up with brooms, not mops. Need I go on?) I think, for me at least, the best part was lying there groaning afterwards at how stupid you were for not seeing that in the first place. Wow, and the modernhumorist gets the tone of those down exactly right, too. Well, the tone is right, some of the content is slightly different (fine ho's!! hehe). I was laughing out loud.
Doh!
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Looks like more people have those CDR's than they expected. I for one have two of 'em and am eagerly awaiting my $400!
Don't try to tell me her newest album isn't just a William Orbit album with her singing over it.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
I remember the days of the ol' Z80, 6502, and 8080 assembler DIY computer kits. My first computer was 6502-based and required assembly.
Heck, I remember when USENET was introduced, and how cool that was! Whoa, you mean we can post messages and it'll get automatically distributed to News servers around the world? FREAKY!
Unix will never die.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I think the best recouse for something like this is to see the word get out about what a piece of crap their cd-rom drives are. Definitely get your money if you can, but with any luck, HP will get schooled by Johnny Customer and lose some business. That'll teach 'em good.
You're right, that is price fixing. My point was they didn't say anything about the price of CDs. CD prices won't come down, and the FTC didn't say they should.
As much piracy? No. But there would still be plenty of it.
Maybe, but I doubt it would be any worse than what you get with vhs tapes or cassette tapes. Once the prices came down on these, people didn't bother to copy them. They were cheap enough to buy that it didn't make sense to bother with copying.
Except that you can only copy so many videos by hand. Everyone seems to like this comparison, but they have basically nothing in common. To copy a video, you need 2 VCRs, a blank tape for every copy you make and LOTS of time. Distibuting a copy of a video to a million people is basically impossible. Now, to get a copy of a song to a million people you need a computer with a CD-ROM (which is almost every one), an internet connection, and Napster). With MP3s you can distribute an infinite number of songs to an infinite number of people (yes, it's hyperbole, I know) with little effort. It cost people time and money to get a (sometimes much) lesser quality copy of a video, whereas it is completely free to get a vitually exact copy of a song.
The industry stole from us, and then complains about us stealing from them. They're being just as hypocritical.
And as we all know, if someone steals from you, you are morally correct to steal from them. They way to show they are hypocritical is to not make their mistakes while showing others what they are doing. You invalidate your own arguement in the same breath you invalidate theirs.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
I don't know too much about the offspring, but I bought their first cd but not their second, had no idea if they have new material beyond that until now
You really bought their first, self-titled CD, in 1989? If so, you're one of the few. (excellent CD, though)
Unless, of course, you mean you bought Smash, their first MTV-popularized CD.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is interesting, because on
Want to work at Transmeta? MicronPC? Hedgefund.net? AT&T?
Can your IM do this?
Tired of being the only one on your block who hasn't issued a rambling, meaningless legal threat to Napster? Can't afford high priced, low moral legal representation to craft elegant claims of damages and wrongdoing you have suffered at their cruel and perverted hand? Just click through this easy multiple choice form and your one hundred percent screwball legal threat will be generated and sent by Low Pass catfish to the acting CEO of Napster, Eileen Richardson. Don't delay, start now!
Napster Forgiveness Machine
Once again, Low Pass Industries is here to bail you out of your seemingly hopeless predicament. Our in-house polytheist chaplain (Mark Anthony Lynett) has agreed to read and provide nearly instant absolution for any confessions submitted via the form below. As everyone knows, the first step to forgiveness is the admission of sin.
I will now force you through an extensive list of my past experiences with computers and Unix, dating back to the early 60's, but... hey, you started it! :)
:) and back to the main point. As far as I'm concerned, Unix shouldn't ever have been born at all. I'm not sure that it ever was fit for some purpose, and if it was, it's no more so. Unix is already dead, and its decaying corpse is only still being lugged around thanks to the three decades of indoctrination, "worse is better" and "if it looks like it works, don't fix it" to which so many people were subjected. I remain convinced that, once the twin plagues of Unix and C are exterminated, the computer industry will flourish into a new Golden Age.
:)
Anyway, I myself had the privilege of working with the very first transistor-based computer to arrive here at Rio (an already-obsolete IBM complete with its card-reading sibling), and then with the first DEC minicomputer to arrive (a PDP-10, for which I personally ordered from MIT a copy of ITS on tape).
We didn't really know much about Unix here until around 1985-1986, when we were forced to switch to VAXen, and someone decided that, between VMS and BSD, we were better off with that stupid little OS.
Alas, no more ITS, and none of the fabled Lisp Machines ever arrived here (AFAIK, anyway); a few years later, we started adopting some Sun hardware too. And not once did the utter and complete imbecility of Unix's design, architecture and implementation cease to nag me whenever I logged into the system.
But enough of "my credentials are bigger than yours"
Thus my sig.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Yeah, that's true, but stealing IP in the form of music isn't the answer, it only screws the promotions people while the execs pull down their millions. Go after the execs, not the promotions people and the accountants.
I don't know of any way to go after the execs. We just do what we need to do to get the music. Now, like many people, I want to support the artists I like. That's why I still buy cds even though they're expensive as hell. I just make sure that the cd is worth buying before I allow myself to be screwed over by the record company in order to support the artist. I do this by downloading the music and listening to it so I can decide whether it's worth buying or not. I don't see why I should have to make an uninformed decision when I go to buy a cd. I think many people do the same thing, which is why the record industry's profits are still increasing each year.
Yeah, I agree, but apparently, they never know when the single is gonna go huge...so they sign everyone and then they're stuck selling everybody shitty muzak.
Right, which people are tired of getting stuck with. Which is why they like to download the music first and listen to it before they plunk down 15 bucks for the cd.
but for the most part I buy USED CDs. Heard of em?
Sure, but I'm talking about new cds, as in not previously owned. Used cds aren't really relevant to the discussion. We're talking about retail sales of new cds. That's the biggest part of the business. Hell, if the record companies had gotten their way before, you wouldn't be able to buy used cds.
It is stealing. You're acquiring IP you don't have the license for. It's theft, whether or not the RecCos got cash for it or not.
How can it be theft if nobody is losing anything? It's copyright infringement, not theft. Theft requires somebody to actually lose something, and I have seen no evidence that the record companies or artists are losing anything. On the other hand, the FTC did come up with evidence that consumers have been ripped off to the tune of $480 million by the record companies. So who are the real thieves?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
So you think Unix and C should never have been born. Fair enough, everyone is entitled to your opinion, but I don't agree with yours.
On what basis are you assuming that Unix and C have been *detrimental* as a whole?
And what is your suggested alternative?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
So many of you self-proclaimed "do gooders" are out and about, saying, rather hypocritically I bet, that we're all pirates, and we're so evil, that we steal from musicians. Well, I completely disagree. I think our society is one which requires a large movement of people to change things.
I don't remember if Slashdot ran a story on this or not, but a week or so ago, the Federal Trade Commision concluded that music producers were engaging in price-fixing (forget the proper term, I'm sure someone will help me out). The FTC found that CDs cost TOO MUCH!
And Napster is what's going to make the prices go down. Remember back in the day, when VHS costed $100 per movie. That sparked a movement where people began copying their own videos. People, this is nothing more than history repeating itself.
Now we have videos for $14.95, or $19.95. Is it really worth $14.95 to have two VCRs, a bunch of cables, and the wasted time of copying VHS cassettes? I think not.
And now it's time for all of the music industry to follow suit. They need to lower prices. Piracy is a result of outrageous prices! If CDs costed $4.95 a piece, would we see as much piracy? NO!!!
And am I the only one who is sick and tired of music artists telling us bullshit like, "We don't have any control over the prices of CDs". I HATE THAT. Lars Ulrich sat there, and lied to our faces. You know it's bad when someone like Metallica cares so much about profits, that they are willing to lie, and try to get warm and fuzzy with their fans. Don't believe for a second. Artists have a lot more control than you think. They've just been locked into the "system" for so long, that they've lost sight of what's really important.
People we need to open our eyes. Artists who have embraced Napster are not going broke. If it weren't for Napster, I would have never bought my Offsping CDs! Let alone any of the large numbers of CDs I own now
If you ask me, I say keep running Napster, or Gnutella, as your taste preferes. And stop letting the criminal music industry tell you that you are a theif. Art should be free for everyone to enjoy!
Actually, my friends and I always thought the proper bastardization of the title "Master of Puppets" was "Pasture of Muppets." Unfortunately, I don't have the artistic skills neccessary to depict Kermit & co. in a field with the Metallica logo atop.
The HP 4020 series is a CDR not a CDRW.
I assume it includes both the external (HP 4020) and internal (HP 4020i) models.
I do not have the site mirrored, but I do know there is a claim form available, as well as a PDF of the settlement.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
I must be old..
Bob Seger, Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Stones and Beatles happen to be the geek favs around here..
Well, if you don't count the hack who will gladly kill you to replace that Kid Rock album with the Chantelles or Louis Armstrong.. Or Dave, who happens to still get kicks from Guns n'Roses, REM, and Twisted Sister...
Shit.. Twenty-something and out of the loop already.. Someone kill me before I become my parents...
.sig: Now legally binding!
heh... you'll probably never read this, but i was wearing a /. shirt there... mustve run into at least 5 /.'ers
... hi bingo
Here in Belgium, a guy was arrested yesterday for having downloaded 4 000 mp3 files and having put them on a cable server : "the equivalent of 9 500 CD in the mp3 format" -- the math is strange, they just counted that he transferred 95 000 files since the begining of the year, with a mean of 10 songs/CD. No word about Napster/Gnutella, only a vague sentence about the Galaxy server.
The complaint issued from the IFTI, the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (?).
It was a hot topic on Belgian IRC channels today. I'm amazed how mp3 stories begin to appear everywhere, even for non-computer-litterate people.
Here's a link from a local newspaper about it. It's French, but those of you who read it should find it as scary as I found it myself.
Stéphane
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
I respect your position, but keep in mind that it's people who build bridges. Sure, better tools help build better bridges - and bad tools will not only make for worse bridges, they'll make some things utterly impossible. (Where would primates be today without opposable thumbs?)
And that's where my point comes in. The fact that some people managed to build so much great software, despite Unix and C... that is, IMAO, a great testimony to each programmer's, engineer's or researcher's intelligence, skill and resourcefulness. (Of course, those are still the minority; as you well know, most software written anywhere is not at all demonstrative of intelligence, skill or resourcefulness.)
But I digress. My point is, sure we've used Unix and C to do some great things. But instead of lauding them for it, more people should be acknowledging their inadequacy for many other purposes. For they themselves have really done nothing, but the people who used them. In short, they should be replaced, not praised.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
Took the words right out of my, uh, hands?
Gotta go get that tinfoil hat back from my neighbour...
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
AFAICT, and IANAPornStar, and standard disclaimers and so forth, but how is Napster responsible for a song being distributed before it's been "officially" released? Using this logic, couldn't EFNET and Undernet and Microsoft Outlook (or any e-mail application that provides attachment encoding/decoding) be sued as well just for providing the ability to transfer files? This sounds more like the "leaked beta" (AKA "free publicity") crap that MS pulls.
If the RIAA and these bands are so threatened by napster, why aren't they up in arms over the upgraded trade status with China? Isn't that where a lot of actual pirate copies of all kinds of stuff made?
I do not have a signature
How about a link or something to these?
-- iCEBaLM
... wasn't it *HER* fault for letting the single get out in the first place?
...
Nooo, didn't you notice the new tricks for that stuff.
I guess she released it in an self-extracting cab-file with a shrink-wrap license that stated that you have to treat that song as a trade secret
It's really too bad that Madonna has come out against Napster. Surely she, if anyone, should be able to find some way to use it to further her own fame.
Also, I wonder how much the single was really a work-in-progress, as the video was being shot in April, according to the Official Madonna Fan Club.
If only Microsoft would move to Canada, we'd finally get the the "Windows, eh?" edition.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
Before any of you go off and Slashdot http://www.cdrecorderclassnotice.com/ keep in mind what you are going to be supporting. Recently, there have been a plethora of class action lawsuits filed against hardware manufacturers by a few less than scrupulous attorneys out to make a quick billion. Both Compaq and Toshiba have come under fire recently by these class action suits. Toshiba recently settled out of court one suit for $USD 2 billion.
Now, I'm not advocating that the companies that produce faulty hardware should not be liable for the quality of the products that they produce, but these suits are getting ridiculous. Toshiba HAD to settle that suit because the total value of the lawsuit was more than the $USD 9 billion. Here's an article from the New York Times.
This crap is getting out of hand. Toshiba, to me, has been a good company. They sold a flawed product, just as many manufacturers do. The flaw was minor and did not affect that many people. Now a couple of lawyers looking to make a quick 30% of the take have decided that their pocketbooks are more important than the thousands of jobs that Toshiba provides around the world. All of you that have bought the great products that Toshiba has made over the last few years are going to have to pay more for anything you buy from them because these bastards are legally stealing from Toshiba.
Compaq is on the chopping block for the same sort of trouble now too. Put "compaq class action" into a google search and see what you come up with. I just hope that more people take notice of this type of legalized theft before all hardware prices go up by 30%. What's next, "My Nvidia driver didn't work great, so I'm going to sue the company out of existence?"
Of course, no one is bringing suit against Microsoft for knowingly releasing a product with some 64,000 odd bugs....
For:
Limp Bizkit
Chuck D.
The Offspring
Against:
Metallica
Dr. Dre
Madonna
On the Fence:
Weird Al (Question 4)
Anyone know any other artists' stance?
-----
It's called 'Media Whore', from her forthcoming album 'Return 2 Teknophobia'.
Co-written by A. Bastard & D. Umbfukk.
The sleeve-notes will confirm the rumour that Madonna is, in fact, the mother of Christ.
The glaring contrast between Madonna and The Offspring (in respect to their attitudes towards napster) got me thinking about what types of bands seemed most opposed digital music vs those that have seemed to embrace it. Take a look at groups/artists that are anti-digital music: :)
Metallica
Dr. Dre (I'd like to know what his Ph.D is in
Madonna
Some that support digital music and fans:
The Offspring
Limp Bizkit
They Might Be Giants
and many more i'm sure...
What common trait do these groups share? The anti-digital music camp is composed of bands that either suck, or are past their prime, while the other side doesn't suck and are all younger and pretty "hip" bands. Now granted TMBG aren't exactly a new act, neither are the Offspring but they definately come from a different generation of artist than Metallica and Madonna. Of course not all pro-digital bands are young, Chuck D has been around a long time and was one of first artists to see the power of digital music, and hell The Who are famous for encourging fans to freely trade their music. Guess some were just ahead of their times.
One other interesting thing I noticed in the ten minutes of research I did for this post was that both Limp Bizkit and The Offsprings websites contained a ton of useful and interesting information for fans, both included streaming versions of all of their songs, videos, lyrics and even guitar tabs! Talk about fan oriented groups!
This has gotten me thinking about how the 'net and mp3s will really change everything, it's going to come in phases, but what's really going to finally bring the industry as we know it to it's knees will be when the next Big Thing in music is discovered online and completly circumvents the traditional distro system, tells the major labels to fuck off and goes direct to fans first, online, before releasing a CD. I believe the condidtions for this to happen now exist, the fan base (ie market) online is big enough, the technology is ready and media awareness of the whole deal is there as well. The first band to make a name for themselves entirely online is going to get gobs of free publicity as soon as the traditional media hears of them, and once they start getting mainstream attention, radio broadcasts and the like, it really will signal the terminal phase of the cultural cancer we know as the music industry.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
I'll bet she'll be really pissed off when she finds out that the local radio station played the mp3 on the air ;)
i wonder who released it into the wild anyway. that would be the person i'd go after. actually since al gore invented the internet he might be her next target
Um, yeah. And you can also find some discussion about it on Slashdot at this link.
numb
Sounds like Madonna still is in the shock-to-promote game, and plays that "sue-Napster" as advertisement for her CD. She leaked the song out in the first place. And, it is available from numerous sources just as easily as from Napster.
Too bad such airheads do not realize that their silly little promotion scheme has such large ramifications for freedom of speech - or basic freedoms in general.
From the bbc article:
Does that mean ``stolen'' as in ``somebody walked in and swiped the demo tape'', or ``stolen'' as in ``somebody copied the demo tape''? If it's the former then the manager's comments are fair enough. However if it's the latter then the manager has committed slander and they are therefore wide open for a countersuit if they try and litigate, in which case I do hope defendents take advantage of this because I'd like to see the flagrant misuse of the word ``stolen'' being stamped out.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
I don't think he's a programmer but when asked in an interview, "Why do you have such a strong presence on mp3.com?" he answered "Because I am willing to waste away in front of the CRT for hours each day" :) That ought to count for something! Also, his style is geek-friendly: some rap sounds like Jocks, and Gentle is drastically more articulate, polysyllabic and creative than that, with a more relaxed, flowing delivery that first drew me to his music.
Again, just last night I uploaded four tracks to mp3.com/ChrisJ as part of this collaboration- they are just down from the top of the page, the ones that credit Gentle and have (experimental) in the name and 'parental advisory' on the track ;)
To hear what Gentle normally does (and also you can hear the vocal-only tracks that I added bebop-jazzesque music to), go to mp3.com/regularsizemon ster. I'm not a hip hop listener but I ended up liking lots of the tracks...
Now all we have to do is convince Gentle to geek out on Linux and programming a bit ;)