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Napster, Napster, Napster
michael.creasy was the first with the news: "After
The Offspring
started selling Napster merchandise, they are now being sued by Napster according to
an article at Sonicnet.com." That should wake a few people up. Update: This is not a lawsuit, it's a cease-and-desist. On the lighter side (this means it's a joke, for the differently clued), Brian Briggs wrote in to share the bbspot news story about Metallica's 'Download This' album.
``The government is slapping a $1000 tax on all TV sales and resales. If you don't like paying the extra $1000 then protest by not having a TV.''
Is that a sensible argument? No. Most people really want a TV enough that they'll buy one anyway. It would be an ineffective protest.
"Copyright" is a tax on copying, which you may believe to be good or bad. Maybe I object to the amount of market power that ends up in the hands of a few huge corporations as a result of this tax. Simply abstaining from buying CDs would be an ineffective protest. If these corporations also fund politicians' election campaigns, I may not have much strength to fight it politically either.
However, a campaign of mass civil disobedience can work. If enough people support unauthorised copying it will be impossible to stop and the authorities might think about changing the law.
I'm not supporting such a protest here [or rejecting it]. I'm just saying that the view which says "boycott it if you don't like it" doesn't address the problem. If someone really believes that the law is unjust (and isn't just acting selfishly) then they may be justified in performing unauthorised copying.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
However, Napster and the Offspring have already come to an agreement. Read the MTV News story Offspring, Napster Reach T-Shirt Accord . Napster is now allowing Offspring to sell merchadies and is even giving them more stuff to sell.
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
For a group whose music I can only half-heartedly tolerate, they sure are a bunch of whacky guys. If I ever have a daughter and she insists on dating a real creep, I hope it's one of the OffSpring-type creeps.
After all, just like freely distributing pirated music supposedly generates great publicity for artists, distributing clothing with Napster logos and such should only further Napster's cause, right? . . . Right?
I'm really tired of this Napster deal. You know what? If you want commercialized music (ie, not free), then go BUY it. If you don't like the fact that you have to pay so much for it ($20 is a lot!) then protest by not buying it. Or set yourself on fire like the Tibetan monks or something. Just, for god's sake, quit whining about information wanting to be free and how evil the RIAA is and so forth. I agree, to a point, with all the points made by the pro-Napster side, but eventually it all get's so rediculous that you just can't support it anymore.
Sure, maybe you feel art should not be restricted or available only for a fee -- but it is. Art is a commodity and that is what keeps artists producing it. As much heart as a creative person may have, they need to eat, too. And if they are so successful that they can afford a gold Ferrari with sex slaves and a mexican house-boy, then cool -- I'm glad they could have such an impact on so many people and they deserve their cash.
The point being that two wrong's rarely make a right, and just ripping off music that someone else created -- when they have made it plainly obvious that they do not want their music distributed in such a way, is WRONG. Many people have posted before claiming "well, it's only wrong if you inject morality". No -- it's wrong if you inject common-sense, too. How many of you who are so steadfastly against the record industry ("They steal from the artists and don't pay them a dime!") have ever actually sent any money directly to an artist because you appreciated the great material they produced -- that you pirated? Never? That's what I thought.
The biggest problem our world seems to be facing in this arena is that when you sell oranges -- you have a set number of oranges to sell -- thus a limit to how many can be purchased. Someone can't buy an orange from you and then make ten more oranges out of that and give them to friends (who will then not buy oranges from you -- because they get them free from their friend). Oranges are tangible (not tangerinable) -- they cannot be replicated like an MP3 or photocopy can. With intellectual property, it almost feels like we're breaking a fundamental law of nature by not allowing it to be completely free -- only because a thought, video, song, game can be so quickly and easily reproduced for anyone who wants it -- at no cost. Still, as we've deemed art to be a commodity, whether or not something is easily replicable doesn't really impact on whether or not you are purchasing that unit and the rights to do what you will with it in entirety, but the rights to experience and own that copy of that information and share it with those you are able to -- so long as it is bound by that single existing copy. In other words, treat it like the oranges -- if you want all of your friends to see what an orange is like, let them taste yours -- but if they want their own oranges, they have to go buy them.
What it comes right down to is that you did not create this material. Someone else did. Who the fuck are you to decide how their work should be distributed? Don't rape the artist anymore than their record company already is, for christ's sake.
Just for the record, yes I have used Napster. I find it to be a pretty unreliable service with a poor selection (unless you're looking for hip-hop) that belches up half-recorded MP3's most of the time. So I'm not wholly innocent here. But I also do not have a single MP3 of a group that I have not purchased the album of. If I like a group well enough to keep their MP3's around, I usually decide to go drop the $20 or so for each of their albums (as my large collection will attest to). But there are a lot of people who will grab every MP3 they can from an artist and never think twice -- or ever purchase any of the group's releases, let alone ever consider paying the group for the tunes.
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icq:2057699
seumas.com
"A day earlier, another source in the Offspring camp said that if Napster issued a cease and desist order, it would "expose a huge hypocrisy.""
I'm beginning to think Metallica has a point. It's not that peer-to-peer file sharing is wrong. It's that a multi million dollar VC-funded corporation designed to create proprietary peer-to-peer file sharing software is wrong. Napster isn't a front corporation for a bunch of innovative software engineers... it's just a company trying to sell other people's music for free. if we're going to smack the recording industry in the face hard enough to get their attention, we need a truly distributed system, with proxying, encryption, and random port selection, so you can't profile it. So rather than sitting around on slashdot bitching about it, let's go write some code for gnutella!
just a thought,
-mwalker
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
"It's all fair," an Offspring source said on Thursday. "We've already said you guys [can use] our stuff - we're gonna do yours, too. You shouldn't have any problem with that, should you?"
I'm not sure whether Holland's trying to make a point, or is dead serious, or both.
I understand Holland's actually kinda cool with Offspring music being traded/pirated/whatever over the Internet...and it wouldn't surprise me if he's trying to make a point while meaning every word. "It's good enough for you, it's good enough for me" type thing. Of course, Napster could be playing "do as I say, not as I do"...but that would be hypocritical, now wouldn't it?:)
Plat
Now with nearly 100% legal mp3s! (except for the four Body Count mp3s - sorry Ice T.)
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Though I am not a fan of The Offspring's music, I think this is a hilariously ironic look at the true forces hard at work at Napster. Napster isn't "the good guys", they're trying to make money like every other corporation, and they're not afriad to sue, just like every other corporation *cough* RIAA *cough*.
Napster lives and dies on trafficking illegal music. If Napster didn't traffic illegal music, there would be no demand for it at all. The offpsring basically just pointed this out, after "supporting" Napster.
This is altogether too funny, someone needs to moderate the story up (+1, Funny)
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
Napster should collect the names of everyone who is buying napster stuff from The Offspring then The Offspring can stop selling napster stuff to those people.
Actually, they did have another option, albeit it a strange one...
They can't let people produce non-licensed Napster materials... It's a really bad PR idea to sue... so that only leaves one choice - make it licensed Napster materials.
Mail The Offspring a marketing agreement.
Good for 1 month, no requirements on The Offsprings part. Thus, the merchandise becomes legally licensed, and it gives them a month to try to talk The Offspring into being a little more cooperative.
A bit unorthodox, but it would have solved their problem.
All operating systems suck. Some just suck less than others. (and some are virtual black holes)