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Two-Faced Napster?
A number of folks have written in about the article on MSNBC regarding the two faces of Napster. On one hand, they espouse the virtues of "sharing," but seemingly, when it comes to their own material, they are very insular. Good discussion piece. [Updated by timothy, 26 July 2000 at 6:25GMT: Lee Gomes, the author of the piece referred to here, wrote to point out that though MSNBC carried this story, it's originally from the Wall Street Journal, and that it's available from this link, no registration required. Thanks for the note, Lee.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
The issue of those annoying twats who put everything in the Title field of the ID3 is another matter.That really annoys me.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Ever heard of Medicare/Medicaid?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
These are some important points. If someone else starts using my trademark, and uses it extensively, and I do nothing to protect my trademark, it is possible that they would ultimately be able to sue ME for my use of the trademark, claiming that my use infringes on their trademark.
On the other hand, if I have a copyrighted work, you could sell billions of unauthorized copies of my work over a period of decades without altering my fundamental right to control my work. you could build up a multi-billion dollar business based on selling my work for fifty years, and I could still sue you, take it all away, and have you thrown in jail forever.
So don't ever buy that corporate-lawyer line of kaka that says "Oh, we HAVE to sue copyright violators, or we could lose our rights!" If you ever hear lawyer-types saying this, they are either liars or morons (or both).
Ok, let's drop trademark laws, and copyright laws for a moment.
Napster is facilitating the exchange of material owned by others. They don't seem to have a problem with this.
But when someone starts facilitating the exchange of material owned by Napster, they get pissed off, and throw a fit.
In a sense, a trademark (read: logo) is simply copyrighted material that projects the recognizable image associated with a company. Now, the laws don't come out and say this, but what do you think would happen if AMD started an "AMD Inside" campaign?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Napster could have just let it go.
No, they couldn't have. The way trademark law is written, it must be actively defended to be preserved.
With copyright the exact opposite is true, even if you never defend your copyright once, the copyright remains valid.
Napster is being hypocritical, but not because of their little encounter with Offspring (which was resolved cordially). They are hypocritical for the other reason you mention:
or open source programmers, tried to use anything Napster owned. Yet at the same time, Napster has no problem helping to distribute material that other people own.
They are hypocrits because they shout "share!" with one breath and then refuse to share technical info with those who wish to write compatible software (and even worse, do all they can to discourage independent efforts at supporting napster). This is counter to the "share and share alike" philosophy of information, be it software (free software/open source), news, or music.
It is OK not to buy into the "information wants to be free" paradigm if one doesn't want to. It is not OK to say "I believe in information being free, as long as it isn't mine!"
As I said in another post, do not count on a corporation to defend your freedom. Napster is as interested in making you captive as the RIAA is (they want to force you to use their product, and their product only). If you really want to insure your freedom, support the gnutella or freenet efforts instead, and trade your material there (and please respect copyrights when doing so).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The author of the article sounds like a politcian running for office: he thumps his fist and makes impressive sounding attacks, but they fall apart when you look at the details.
Last month, when the punk-rock band the Offspring started selling T-shirts featuring the Napster logo, for example, Napster promptly sent the group a cease-and-desist order, backing off only after some Web sites commented on the apparent hypocrisy of the move.
As some one else pointed out, there is a big difference between trademark (Offspring using Napster logo) and copyright law (sharing music). If the offspring t-shirts were about general mp3 sharing with links to www.napster.com, www.cutemx.com etc, Napster the company would be thrilled, but by using a trademark logo Offspring left the company no choice but to issue a cease and desist.
More significantly, the company repeatedly has tried to stymie independent software developers working on Napster-compatible software and Web sites. While these programs could benefit the millions of music fans that Napster claims are its only constituency, they might also diminish the commercial potential of Napster itself.
First time I've heard about this....it was my understanding that the company was quietly supportive of the Linux console client and even had a link to a Mac client on its front page (still have the link on the downloads page).
The company has refused to share technical information about its software code
And its perfectly okay for them to do so. To hell with Stallman, nobody has a "right" to software code. You DO have every right to ask for open code, and the developer has every right to laugh in your face and tell you off. If you only want to use open source software, more power to you, but don't think its an affront to your personal liberty if some software you want to use is closed.
Besides, isn't this a non-issue since the protocol was reverse engeneered about a year go?
and has blocked computers from outside music sites from accessing Napster's database of hundreds of thousands of songs.
But there is one new Internet sharing technology that Mr. Barry didn't mention to the senators, and of which Napster will have no part. These are "bots," or "agents,"
Blocking the use of 3d party clients and restricting how their servers are used are two entierly seperate issues. Napster has every right to decide how people access their own servers; if search companies like AngryCoffe want to make indexes of mp3's, they can knock themselves out on gnutella.
And Napster blocks bots and Napigator so the servers aren't overloaded. Under their current load ballancing setup, users first connect to server.napster.com, which in turn connects them to a sub server which handles all the indexing and sharing, and isn't connected to any other sub servers. If everybody used Napigator, people would tend to connect to the most populated servers, overwhelming them while leaving others virtually empty.
Napster has said they are working on indexing all the servers, making Napigator only usefull for connecting to Opennap servers.
And as for all the frumping about Shawn Fanning having a "mere" six percent in the company, he's lucky to have that much, and its probably due to his uncle having the largest stake. If he was a well known programmer like Alan Cox or Larry Wall in a startup, I'm sure he could have gotten a MUCH larger stake in the company. But a typical no name college drop out would probably paid a few thousand dollars for his idea and be forgotten.
Someone should write an article about the two sides of MS-NBC...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Assuming that the guy running the show is a smart guy, Napster won't be going on being a 'free music trading' service for much longer. What Napster is is a name, and Napster gained a hell of a lot of name brand recognition with all this legal trouble.. The kind of brand recognition that you can't buy. Napster is a household name, and they didn't have to pay a red cent in advertising to get that name. Napster very well could be shut down and re-started as a totally legitimate, corporate system for distributing music. Lame yes, but it could happen.
Remember ICQ. Those guys sold it for like 200 million dollars to aol. What were they selling? A name. That's all. Name recoginition right now is hardest and most sought after commodity on the interent. Get it and you have it made for life.
Is anyone really shocked by this? I mean, all they have is their technology and their brand, they aren't going to give either one of those away, or let someone steal, er, share them.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Gnutella / Freenet arose from the "ashes" of Napster, but they won't "win" because of some grand decentralization theme--if the RIAA / gov't wanted to, they could shut them down. (Imagine a special, temporary court, JUST to issue orders to stop Gnutella servers and hear appeals...)
Oooh.. -1, Clueless. Freenet especially cannot be shut down, not only because there are servers in many countries, but because in order to shut the thing down you have to prove that a law was broken. In the realm of copyright, that means proving that a person is using their computer to distribute copyrighted material. With Freenet that's not even possible - not only is it impossible to determine what you actually have stored in your Freenet cache, you can't even tell who's sendin it to you. So no, Freenet is not going down without either the will of the people running it or large-scale military deployment.
Gnutella has safety in numbers. Do you really think, what with a 5 month (or more) backlog and tremendous legal fees, they are going to haul ten thousand people into court just to shut down their computer. Nonsense. They can fire off all the cease-and-desists they want, but the simple fact is that they don't even have jurisdiction. Not every computer is located in America.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
(The one interesting point the article makes is about Napster's corporate structure and equity positions. I was unaware that the investors were able to pry over 90% of the company away from the founder. Fanning is an excellent developer, but he must be a *lousy* businessman.)
He's lucky the Vulture Capitalists let him keep that much. US Venture Capital is highly interventionist, at least compared to their UK equivalent (who generally swipe about 60 per cent) and generall make damned sure that if the company founder doesn't dance to their business tune they can have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail toute de suite.
What the hell does a VC do to warrant the amount of power they have over a company. They wrote a check. Big fucking deal. All they do is take over companies and throw the founders to the wolves. So really what's the incentive of founding a company then?
And how do VCs compare to "Angel Investors". Supposably Angels are supposed to be nicer, but why?
You've just made my case for me. You are an individual user. Your ISP is not responsible for things that you do without their knowledge.
If you serve up copyrighted material against the copyright holders wishes, you've broken the law. But it's not your ISP's obligation to check the contents of every computer which gets its internet access through their network.
The individual USERS of Napster have to worry about whether or nor their hosting legal files. Napster does not.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
ZDNet covereage is here
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
They don't actively participate in the transfer of the materials now do they?
Someone could present a good argument that Napster participates actively enough to violate the law.
Using your bar analogy, if you ran a bar and a guy came up to you and said, "I really wish I could have sex with a tall redhead," and you proceeded to take him by the wrist, walk him up to a tall redheaded prostitute and say, "This is Tina, she'll take care of you," you would be arrested. You could get up in front of a judge and say, "I'm just trying to match up people, what they actually do is their business," and you would still go to jail.
At least pimps make money off of hooking people up. I don't see Napster ever making a dime.
-B
If you can think of a better way they would have resolved that situation, please respond
IANAL, but... Water-pipes / bongs, hampsters, and PCs are all products. Provided they have a legal purpose, the merchant shouldn't be liable for their use illegall. But Napster isn't a product, it's a service. They don't just ship software--they maintain a network, and act as a SERVICE. If I run a bar and promote prostitution, I'm liable. If I drive a car and offer to help criminals "getaway", I'm liable. The same principle can apply to Napster, but it seems like a fuzzy area... which is why RIAA vs Napster is one of those cases that SHOULD go to the courts.
[snip]...when someone takes the Napster trademark and makes it available when the person has not received permission to do so, Napster Inc. cries foul.
The law specifies a difference between copyright and trademark in that vast propagation of the former does not diminish its value to the creator while it *does* diminish the value of a trademark.
Napster freely distributes material...[snip]...Napster is essentially saying, "We can steal your stuff but you can't steal ours."
*BZZT* Wrong, thanks for playing. Napster ITSELF, the legal entity "Napster Inc." is not "stealing" or "sharing" anything -- they are enabling a more efficient way of sharing mp3 files among their users. If those users decide to make available copyrighted mp3s that are not freely distributable, then the *users* are the ones in trouble, not Napster. (Yes, the judge said no, but the higher courts will overturn this.) They have a legal obligation to protect their own trademarks and respect the copyrights of the record industry -- insofar as they are not responsible for their users' behavior. If Napster finds out that users are trading copyrighted mp3s without satisfactory evidence that the users are entitled to download said mp3s, *then* Napster must shut down the users immediately.
Sorry for the legalese, but that's the way this situation has to work.
"Honey, it's not working out; I think we should make our relationship open-source."
I think it's pretty obvious to everyone that something fishy is going on down at the Napster corporation: parasitising the work of musicians and artists for their own corporate gain, defended with a thinly-disguised cry of "information wants to be free," while they're extremely tight-fisted with their own property.
What's not obvious, though, is what might be the real reason behind this whole mess. Think carefully for a moment. What group was one of the biggest contributors to Bill Clinton's campaign and to the Democrats? Entertainment. (Especially Hollywood.) What group is this hurting most? Big entertainment corporations.
The current controversy surrounding DeCSS and the MPAA only serves to make things clearer. And whose suspicions wouldn't be raised by the sentence:
Mr. Amram also helped Napster raise money from the large pool of wealthy "angel" investors that resides in Silicon Valley, especially those with "dot-com" money
-- when Newt Gingrich is currently politically and financially active in Silicon Valley? (Check the July 24 issue of Newsweek.) This seems to me like a blatantly illegal attempt by the Republican party to punish the entertainment industry for financing Democratic campaigns.
Let's face it. The users of these services are breaking very clear copyright laws. I can't see any real defense for this, or any reason that the trial's not over already, unless somebody very powerful is defending these criminals behind the scenes. And I can't see any reason that the news media would have cause to defend (yes, defend. what else would you call the NYT linking to 2600?) this ragtag bunch of pirates unless they've got a very good reason to.
I'm not crying foul over this -- power politics is a rough game, and people are going to play it, and all I have to say to those who don't like it is, "deal with it." This just might be a good thing to keep in mind.
He didn't write Napster thinking "I'm going to write this program so that I can start a company, get rich, and be persecuted by the RIAA, dirty metalheads and "gangster" rappers throughout the US of A".
He wrote Napster thinking "Wow... these MP3s are pretty neat, I can listen to a lot of cool music I wouldn't have heard before, and give others the same opportunity, its a shame that it's so hard to find the things tho... mabye I can write a program to make it a little easier...".
So he wrote a program, thought it was pretty cool, and shared it with others. Everyone else thought it was pretty cool too, and some people suggested to him: "hey, this software is really cool, you might be able to make some money off of it, like those WinAmp guys did".
The rest, as they say, is history. The software wasn't written to fit a business plan. A business plan was written (supposedly) to fit the software AFTER THE FACT.
Kinda hard to do change everything without alienating your users (ask Apple about the complaints they're getting from the Aqua demos). And that's NOT something you want to do, especially considering that other projects like Gnutella are rapidly gaining on Napster in it's core competency: "making an MP3 search *EASY* to do".
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
If you really want to insure your freedom, support the gnutella or freenet efforts instead, and trade your material there (and please respect copyrights when doing so).
This is probably a waste of breath... err.. typing. Copyright is losing a lot of respect. This seems right given that the value that it once held for the public has been missing for quite some time. The public sees no return for their granting of a monopoly on some creation or information. It seems to me that given that the original bargain between the public and the creators has been broken, multiple times, and retroactively, it's no wonder that people often simply ignore copyrights now. I think this is as it should be. Perhaps it will provide the incentive needed for a reevaluation and renegotiation of the terms to something that will once again benefit the public.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I see a lot of posts about how Napster shouldn't have become capitalist, blah blah Gnutella blah. But there's something to consider: how would Napster be able to pay for their bandwith/computers to keep their centralized network going if they didn't become a company? I know they don't actually serve the files, but I'm sure that Napster has to have a ton of bandwith, otherwise the program wouldn't work and no one would use it. So don't go bashing them because Napster's a company. However, I'm not saying that they shouldn't help other people or not-just pointing out something no one else has mentioned.
Colin Winters
I don't know about other states, but 100% of every recent increase in New Jersey cigarette taxes goes right to the healthcare system to pay for all the damage tobacco has done, and/or to anti-smoking advertising campaigns. Why would the government do the latter if the tax were for the sole purpose of making money? Why the heck would they use the tax revenue to try and reduce future tax revenue?
Those taxes aren't intended to make money - They're intended to discourage use of tobacco and to recoup the healthcare expenditures that the tobacco industry has forced the government to make.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
There are headers you can use (x-no-archive) IIRC which these archives are supposed to respect by NOT archiving your message for posterity...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
He's lucky the Vulture Capitalists let him keep that much. US Venture Capital is highly interventionist, at least compared to their UK equivalent (who generally swipe about 60 per cent) and generall make damned sure that if the company founder doesn't dance to their business tune they can have him tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail toute de suite.
There's nothing in it that indicates Fanning was a lousy businessman: he was just getting the same smelly end of the drain-rod that capital hands anyone with something to contribute.
-- AndrewD
A Maze of Twisty Little Laws, All Different.
Sheep? Crap? Napster is the best mp3 search method, simply because of its ease of use and amazingly huge database. What else matters in such things? I would rather load up Napster, type in a song, and get dozens of results from different servers with different connections than attempt to find an album via ftp or mirc, with no real guarantee that I can get into the server or can be first in a stupid queue. Napster does its job, which is to offer a huge, updated, easily accessible database of music.
It's sad to see how Napster (the company) has corrupted this idea, and turned it into nothing more than a hypocritical attempt to steal profits from the recording industry.
What are you talking about? Napster has always been about stealing from the record industry. Given that Napster has never made a dime, there are no profits to move from the recording industry to Napster.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
It's more like a chap on the street pointing you to the dealers who provide cocaine, which legally can NOT be sold in the US.
More like someone saying "Hey this bar three blocks south and one block east of here is great. You can ALWAYS meet women there." He could mean prostitutes, or he could mean sluts. Prostitution is illegal, being a slut is not.
When then do the telephone book publishers become accessories to the solicitation of prostitution? We all KNOW what "Massage Parlor" and "Escort Service" mean. Yet you'll find pages and pages of them in your local yellow pages.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This sort of hypocritical attitude is nothing new to the Open Source crowd. For years we have yelled and screamed about the evils of copyrights and intellectual property laws-- but DON'T TOUCH MY GPL! Yes, as someone earlier pointed out, there's a difference between trademark and copyrights. But we all can see that there's no fundamental difference between napster and microsoft... it's just a matter of where to draw the line. For the hardcore freedom seekers... it's time for a new poster child. Surely there's someone out there who really believes in this whole "information should be free" thing. But they're clearly not a corporation, and they clearly won't last long.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Long time readers will know I'm pro-Metallica, but here goes...
It amazes me how people can selectively turn on the blinders sometimes. Your first two paragraphs are dead on the the money. You are quite correct. But...
I do not see the hypocrisy.
Open your fscking eyes! Um, let's see. Napster position one - Other people create music, we profit from it. Napster position two - We create a protocol, and we won't let other people communicate using it so they can make a profit.
Or, to put it another way, Napster position one - we can make money off your work. Napster position two - you can't make money off our work. Which part isn't clear?
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
I have never visited their site and I am amazed that so much hoopla has been raised over these guys.
It seems though, that as artists "grow into" the internet age they will demand their stuff be out on the web. They simply will bypass all the big labels, realizing that they are, in effect, unnecessary. Digital bits are alot easier to distribute than CD's. Perhaps this is the beginning of that phase.
Just my opinion.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Ok, let's drop trademark laws, and copyright laws for a moment.
This is stupid. You can't take the situation out of the context that the participants are acting in. You're trying to ignore the very thing that compelled them to send the cease and desist letter in the first place.
But when someone starts facilitating the exchange of material owned by Napster, they get pissed off, and throw a fit.
How do you know they were pissed off or that anyone threw a fit? Did you just make that up or what? Napster's attornies sent a cease and desist letter, which they are required to send in order to retain control of their trademark. As a corporation, they are obligated to take such measures to protect their shareholders' investments. Judging from the outcome, in which Napster agreed to license their logo to the Offspring for use on tshirts and other merchandise, with the earnings donated to charity, they weren't pissed off at all. They just had to take the measures they did because they were obligated to by law.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Napster as a business is absurd. It will never make any money, only lose money. It will be litigated out of existence. The only enduring legacy of Napster is that it pushed the envelope on the P2P concept. VCs will lose money. That's why two Napster principals broke off, trying to create a business scheme that will make money.
I think P2P is inherently anti-business: it's about people sharing files without middlemen, without central servers. Dot-com business people, in general, are losing money on business ventures. I believe this is a good thing. Maybe scads of them will abandon the Internet. Not likely, but maybe.
Gnutella is the exception - created by developers, it has no pretension toward business and untold riches: it is software for people who want to share things, be those things copyrighted or not. Thankfully, business can't get a handle on this. Nor can the RIAA.
Good.
This is probably a waste of breath... err.. typing. Copyright is losing a lot of respect. This seems right given that the value that it once held for the public has been missing for quite some time.
You are not wasting your breath.
I happen to agree with you. I am trying to come up with a GPL-style approach to media copyrights, and am releasing some of my own work under a GPL-like Free Media License.
I agree that a more fundamental review (and perhaps repeal) of the proveleged copy restrictions we call copyright is long overdue.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Oh, I'm fat. I think I'll sue McDonalds and Taco Bell because it's their burgers and tacos that made me fat!
Oh, somebody drove a Cadillac through a schoolyard full of disabled children. That Cadillac should have known that it wasn't supposed to smear little Cindy across the asphalt. Let's sue GM!
Bad things happen, and people need a scapegoat, a company to blame, and to get billions of dollars from. There is no such thing as personnel responsibility anymore. We have been trained to let others think for us for decades. Now that we can't think for ourselves, others are obviously to blame. So, let's sue them!
If you want to sue an organization that profits the most from the evils of society, SUE THE GOVERNMENT! Over half of the cost of cigarettes is local, state, and federal taxes. The US Government makes more money off of a pack of cigarettes than the cigarette company does. Without any more effort than passing a law. And then the government has the absolute gaul to sue the companies for even more money!
All the things that are going to hell in this country and we are worrying about whether Lars Ulrich is getting his two bits for the crap albums he's been turning out the past few years! (let's face it, everything since Master has blown chunks!) The Chinese own the president and our nukes, the UN is trying to create a world court that will overrule all of our constitutional rights, and we're pissed about this crap??
Phillip Morris didn't kill your mom, your mom killed herself! Colt and Ruger didn't shoot up your neighborhood, some punks that have been raised with no sense of responsibility killed your kids! Napster isn't ripping off "starving" musicians, it's the users that choose to download those files!
Stop trying to blame big "sue-able cause they've got money" companies, and start looking at the real causes. This country is really starting to piss me off!
Now, don't start with the "well, why don't you just move, you commie!". I love America! This is still the greatest country on Earth. But we can be so much better! What we have now is now what the founding fathers envisioned!
I'll get off my soapbox now.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
The more I read about their legal strategy and corporate practices, the more I grow convinced that Napster is doomed.
/. many a time: you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Have fun, RIAA, because even if Napster loses, you're not in for a fun time.
"Sharing" is breaking the law. I saw today on CNBC that Napster intended to argue that sharing music via Napster was like "loaning a friend a tape". Baloney. Sending a copy of a song to a thousand people a day in perfect digital form is hardly the same.
Napster should be standing or falling (and it SHOULD stand) on the idea that it has legitimate purposes (sharing free/uncopyrighted/etc music). The fact that people pirate the hell out of it means nothing. When people put up web pages with songs to download, they don't go demanding that ISPs stop providing a web page service.
But if Napster has painted themselves into a terrible legal corner -- defending true piracy -- they will lose, and IMHO, rightly so. People DO have the right to their work. I think its great if people don't need or want big record companies (and I'm hoping the RIAA is doomed), but artists should have the right to choose.
That said, "so what if Napster loses"? There will be another. Do these people REALLY think its that hard to write a directory service and a client? Please. I'm surprised some open source software hasn't already pre-empted Napster entirely. But something will be right along.
As has been said on
At work, I occasionally play "OSS zealot" to a friend's "MS zealot". Both of us really just prefer using the technology that best suits whatever we're out to do, but it gives rise to pokes and jabs about the others "position". If I had to pick a site I sent more "haha, look at this" articles to him from, it would be MSNBC. They're surprisingly thorough, early, and knowledgeable, imo, regarding many issues which other news sources ignore. And if there's any testament, its that I get so many "triumph of OSS" articles of them.
Given who owns MSNBC, they're a pretty good organization.
Napter, no matter how much of a white knight they want to be, no matter how noble their cause may seem to be, is a company that is in business to do one thing: MAKE MONEY.
The original napster software, though interesting, was *CRAP*. The idea was good, it filled a niche, but is in no way technically advanced. It was *easy*. The world already has much better software; napster was just dumbed down enough for the sheep to use. And once you get the sheep involved, the network effect takes over, and it becomes a force in it's own right.
But the software is still crap; no new technology is coming about; napster tries to fight the good fight, but isn't at all interested in the technological advancements. They are interested in money.
Napster does not deserve the support it gets.
Unfortunately, the article ignores the distinction between copyright law and trademark law. Napster is advocating the sharing of copyrighted works, citing fair-use as justification for its position. Even if what couls be considered copyright infringement does occur, it does not diminish the copyright in the same way that unlicensed use of a trademark diminishes a trademark.
A trademark holder is required to actively protect its trademark in order to keep it out of the public domain--no such provision exists for copyrights. Therefore Napster is *legally obligated* to prevent unlicensed use of the Napster trademark in shirts/hats/etc. in order to ensure that 100,000 new distributed file-sharing projects do not have the ability to call themselves "Napster."
Trademarks are never "shared" over Napster, only copyrighted works are. Consequently, I do not see the hypocrisy.
(The one interesting point the article makes is about Napster's corporate structure and equity positions. I was unaware that the investors were able to pry over 90% of the company away from the founder. Fanning is an excellent developer, but he must be a *lousy* businessman.)
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
1. Raise a ton of VC money.
2. Provide a service to help script kiddies violate Metallica's copyrights.
3. Get sued for providing the service.
4. Raise a bunch more VC money.
5. Settle out of court with the record companies for a gajillion dollars, most of which you borrow or agree to pay over a few years. Include, as part of the settlement, and agreement by which you pay a fee to be a licensed distributer of MP3 files related to the big record companies.
6. Become the biggest player in the world in on-line music distribution.
7. Cash out your options before the business collapses under its own weight, retire and live like fat cats.
So far, Napster has completed step 4, and are surely working on step 5. I'm no Nostrodamous, but I got a feeling I'm on to something here.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This is exactly the problem. The issue is not about what Napster does or doesn't do, it's about what people do with the Napster software. But, regardless of Napster's ambitions or claims of "It's not me, I'm just being used", an argument exists for making the use of this software illegal, exactly in the same way as an argument exists for making guns illegal (it's not me, it's the guy I sold it to).
I'm not saying which side of the argument I'm on, but that is the argument - does the tool add more than it takes away? Is the protection / added value worth the cost? And this is something that has to be dealt with.
So now we have two options :
(1) Make it illegal, screw the rights of the people using it.
(2) Protect it, screw the rights of the artists whose work is being stolen.
This situation is obviously begging for a third option, but people are too busy defending (1) or (2) to give a damn about other alternatives, and the judges will end up having to decide between the two. If the law hobbles them, then I wouldn't put it past the relevant authorities in various countries to change the laws underpinning the courts decisions (unless, of course, we come back to the sacred US constitution).
Unless someone finds another option or a way of creating a greyscale between the two we have, the courts will be forced to decide between a greater and a lesser evil, and I for one don't think that their decision is at all predictable.
Salocin.com
Fanning's mistake was to try and corporatize Napster. He wasn't satisfied with releasing an easy-to-use tool, he had to try and turn it into a successful business and make some money off it. Now he's got to balance Napster's sort of rebel reputation with the need to fit into corporate America, which isn't an easy thing to accomplish.
Damned if you do, damned if you dont:
If they pursue litigation with the Offspring, then their mostly teenage/young adult fanbase will see them as "selling out" and not only messing with a cool band but totally reversing their opinions on copyrighted material. If they leave the Offspring alone, then they're losing a possibly lucrative revenue stream in merchandising (they could make their own "official" gear, but c'mon, they'd sell it for more and it's cool to have the unofficial stuff as well :-)
I for one hope Napster pulls through - I think it's a great piece of technology and that the RIAA should work with them, not against them, to ensure the future of digital music. But I still think Napster should have been left as a Gnutella-style freebie tool with no intention of profitability underlying the coolness of swapping MP3s online.
As it is right now, they are cultivating an elitist image reminiscent of how many people view Microsoft - anticompetetive and unwilling to cooperate with others to further the technology empowering its very product. I certainly hope things turn around.
-ryry
-ryry
Anyone who thinks that Napster isn't as intrinsically impersonal and corporate as Microsoft is naive. Napster is a huge company with funding, and right now they are saying that "sharing" music is okay, because that is what their business model is based on. If they found a foolproof way to make more money by enforcing copyright tomorrow, do you REALLY think they wouldn't do it? Seriously, think about it.
All this talk about whether what Napster does is moral or immoral misses the point: Hypocrisy and morality are not issues when it comes to a company, because it is an organization, not a person. Anyone who thinks that anyone at Napster will go "mm yeah , that article makes me realize, we are sort of wrong" and do anything at all differently than how they have been is, frankly, just stupid.
sig:
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Hypocrites abound
Battle laws, but take freedom.
Will Napster survive?
This glourious poem
Will never be read by you
It was posted late.
Personally, if napster can dish it out but not take it, they deserve to be sued into oblivion.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I don't understand why people don't seem to get this. They provide a service that can be used for either legal or illegal purposes. When someone is reported for using the service illegally, they terminate the account. What more do they need to do?
If you go to your local head shop and you ask to see the bongs you will be told that they don't cary aany drug paraphernalia. If you ask to see one of their water-pipes, you will be shown the best smoking accesories that they have. Once you've got your water-pipe, it's your responsibility to use it in a legal manner.
Or think of a pet store. If you go in and buy one hamster or gerbil per week, pretty soon they're going to wise up and stop selling them to you. If you ask for a shaved hamster, they're going to throw you out.
It's up to YOU, the user/client/patron to do the right/legal thing with any product/service. It is not the responsibility of the service/widget provider to insure that you walk the straight and narrow path. I don't care if it's easier to do it that way, it's still not right.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
...that even in our "new" economy, the people who get rewarded most handsomely aren't the people who innovate (i.e., Shawn), but the people who already have the bucks (his uncle).
Shawn wrote Napster to facilitate free and open sharing of music (and perhaps other forms of information). I suspect that to him, and most Napster users, Napster is (or was, at least) a revolutionary program and an idea, not just a company.
It's sad to see how Napster (the company) has corrupted this idea, and turned it into nothing more than a hypocritical attempt to steal profits from the recording industry.
I do plan to do something about this... When I get the chance, I'm going to help port Gnutella to other platforms (already started helping with the Mac port--I may do a Mac OS X port, too).
I read the article and got pretty disgusted with Napster's attempts to suppress the reverse-engineering of its software. If they get shut down, I think it's important for people to be able to drop back to alternatives. Soooo, for those interested, here's OpenNap's definition of the Napster Protocol. Here's OpenNap's home page, which contains links to non-Napster clients, non-Napster servers, references, etc.
More significantly, the company repeatedly has tried to stymie independent software developers working on Napster-compatible software and Web sites.
You are operating under the assumption that making Napster an open system would benefit its users. If people were allowed to develop their own clients that could interact with Napster's network, you would have the same problem with automated SPAM and virus distribution that you have with Gnutella. While there were rumors that users who accessed Napigator were being locked out of their network, these rumors were never substantiated. In fact, Napster *never* explicitly prevents users from accessing clone networks or reverse engineered utilities. In contrast, users of AOL IM are unable to even communicate with users of AOL's own ICQ service let alone the users of other networks.
The company has refused to share technical information about its software code, has made changes to its software that have prevented other programs from working with Napster's own and has blocked computers from outside music sites from accessing Napster's database of hundreds of thousands of songs.
Most companies refuse to share technical information about their software's source code. While Napster could attempt to enforce its ban on reverse-engineering and the use of bots, it has *not.* Napigator is still around and Napster never even filed charges against Metallica's detective firm for using a bot to spy on their network (a mistake, IMHO). Napster has decided *not* to continue using Ebay-like tactics to prevent their site from being meta-searched by Napigator, and its files continue to be visible.
The "sharing" that Napster advocates does not constitute forcing the bands to allow fans to make derivative works in spite of their copyright. Why is it hypocracy for them not to openly support derivative works of Napster (although they do not even actively enforce a prohibition of derivative works now)? They may not be following the open-source code of ethics, but *they are not open source developers.*
never send a capatalist to do an activist's job
This is a very good point.
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
First a corporation must survive by being profitable, second every corporation must be constantly fending off the advances of some other companies or organizations legal department. Unfortunately many news reporters and even slashdotters have little to no experience in this department (IANAL). All this aside, Napster Inc. must preserve it's copyright, trademark, etc due to the legal context and other business arenas that they may be used in. Think about what would happen if a company that was conducting illegal activities happened to be using a Napster trademark? Napster /may/ be implicated during the trial. Even if they are found completely innocent of anything it's bad press and costs money.
I am a bit stymied about the harsh treatment of people who have made Napster clones, plugins, etc. that have caught wind of the above - most likely the statement mentioned in MSNBC was taken out of context (IMHO) as the media tends to do a lot. Napster should have a developer forum where the protocol would be published etc. The protocol should incorporate a profit model (banner ads, or whatever they may come up with --) that would make it advantageous for Napster Inc. to support such a model, because it is already happening - may as well take advantage of it.
Sounds familiar doesn't it?
You are correct with respect to copyright and trademark law, however, the spat with the Offspring was only a minor aside in the article.
More significantly, the company repeatedly has tried to stymie independent software developers working on Napster-compatible software and Web sites. While these programs could benefit the millions of music fans that Napster claims are its only constituency, they might also diminish the commercial potential of Napster itself.
The company has refused to share technical information about its software code, has made changes to its software that have prevented other programs from working with Napster's own and has blocked computers from outside music sites from accessing Napster's database of hundreds of thousands of songs.
Napster is hypocritical in that it is claiming to be a champion defending the right and freedom to share and then refuses to share its own information, including programing APIs, protocol speficiations, or simple access to the virtual net they've constructed from their users' PCs.
This is IMHO very hypocritical of napster.
The fact that Napster seems to sing a different tune when its own property is involved is just one of the ways the reality of Napster is at odds with its public image. The service's management and ownership structure, for example, is quite different than many users suppose, with Napster's highly publicized teenage founder, Shawn Fanning, playing only a minor role.
Herein may lie the problem. We have a bunch of suits in it for the money, and quite willing to toss a few platitudes our way to garner our short-term support, but in the end they have a vested interest in forcing us to use their product, and their product only.
If you want true freedom to share, don't rely on napster to provide, or even defend, it. Instead work with the folks at gnutella or freenet. You'll have much better odds of being able to run a client or server on the platform of your choice, and a much better chance of securing your own freedom.
In short, never send a capatalist to do an activist's job. The results will disappoint you every time.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The MSNBC article references a supposed usenet post from January, wherein a Napster developer tells the community to get bent, b/c:
"Napster is not some garage organization", and goes on to tell them that they are a 'real company' with a "marketing team, bizdev team", etc. Only problem: the post doesn't exist. Deja doesn't have a record of it, nor the other major usenet archives.
Is it just me, or does it look like whoever wrote the article invented this message? Is this going to be the norm in the near future? Couldn't these publications reference the Message-ID?