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Several Boycotts Of RIAA Organizing
There are numerous grassroots efforts coming together to Boycott the RIAA. I've decided that
I won't be buying any RIAA CDs for awhile personally (I've already cancelled a couple of orders, and I buy a ton of CDs) but decide for yourself. Should peer-to-peer file sharing be legal or not on the Internet? Should companies like Google and Yahoo be held legally responsible for the content that they index? Meanwhile, the OpenNAP servers and Gnutella are proving that the genie is out of the bottle and while this lawsuit may set a huge legal precedent, it won't help the RIAA in the real world.
They should really work with napster since there already is significant market share and potential for revenue. Gnutella and its kin won't have any centralized point.
This is considerably less than half a million USD.
Hyperion is a tiny label and records mostly chamber music. The half million dollar figure is from the majors, who record operas and large orchestras, and have major stars, are much more expensive and difficult to record!
Anyway, the RIAA site does give that 90% non-profitable figure, but what does that mean? How much does the average "non-profitable" recording actually lose? $1? $1,000? $100,000? How does that balance against the huge amounts that something like a Brittney Spears CD rakes in?
Ah! You're asking the right questions!
The widely quote break-even point is 500,000 units. We do not know the cost of producing that record. I use the figure of $100,000-$500,000 for a classical record as a jumping off point; pop music records usually take much longer to record, have to pay more royalties, and have bigger name (more expensive) producers. It must cost AT LEAST the high end of that to make a pop record.
Britney Spears is VERY profitable. The fixed cost of producing it is (for practical purposes) zero, and the fixed cost is small. Suppose her record company makes $8 @ 12,000,000 copies, that's a hundred million dollars!
HOWEVER, Britney Spears is a 1 in 10,000 ocurrence (literally). It is not correct to say the record company made $100 million from her, because in order to do that, it had to make similar investments in 9,000 other artists who LOST money, and 999 other artists who made less money.
The fallacy of assuming that Britney Spear's record company makes $100 million is the 'Britney Spears Accounting Myth'. It is one of the most pervasive myths about the industry in wide circulation. A massive chunk of that profit is offset by the huge number of unprofitable acts who were also invested in.
But here's the rub ... this welfare system which exists in the industry is GOOD. The system takes away money from the richest artists, and uses it to fund the poorest artists. Herbert von Karajan recorded over 900 records in his lifetime and is one of the most prolific musicians of the 20th century, but almost nothing he did make money; his records were funded by disco, rock, punk, and the other money-makers. These pop genres fund the others genres.
Can you imagine if this welfare system was not implemented, and artists sold direct (a system which many clueless slashdotters advocate)? For starters, Britney Spears would be a lot richer than she is now - she should have $100 million, from recording, alone. Furthermore, no 'unprofitable' artists could still record, because they need to pay the bills (which are currently paid by Britney Spears, routed through the record industry). The industry would be a free-for-all and only the most watered down, most mass appealing, most beautiful artists would survive. The current system allows for 90% of artists who are not successful to pay their bills, and a direct sales system would reduce the pool of recorded musicians to 10% of what it is currently.
So? You can't argue that everyone buying blank tapes and discs will be doing anything with other peoples IP either, but there's still a charge put on them to recoup "losses" on them.
Intolerant people should be shot.
Yesterday on CNN Headline News they stated that "studies have shown" that Napster users (or was it MP3 users?) tend to buy more music. I can attest to that.
I have been preaching for years how mp3's have facilitated the buying of better music for me. The thing is... and I wish the record companies realized this... I've actually bought cd's that I would -not- have bought otherwise if I had not been exposed to the music via mp3 first. I've downloaded songs out of curiosity then fell in love with the band and then bought multiple cd's by the artist. But just try to convince the record companies that it actually works this way!
I would be willing to pay for single-song downloads so long as they weren't any more money than a cassette single. I'd even pay for an entire cd via mp3 so long as it was a decent price. But so far these processes are not the norm, although it would save the record companies and artists the costs of a middle man and the media (cd or cassette) and they'd make more profit.
But no, the record companies are using "piracy" as an excuse to strip the rights of the individual because they are AFRAID.
Just like the DVD thing: They're not afraid of us copying the DVD's (it's not worth the trouble or the money). They just want to control what device we watch it on (devices produced by people who paid for the rights first). Thus aleinating Linux users, etc.
Did dual cassette decks or blank cassette tapes get outlawed? No. The public was -trusted- to obey copyright laws, and for the most part they did. Obviously! The recoding industry didn't crumble as soon as recordable cassettes came out.
The RIAA and other groups like it have to realize that they will keep customers if they respect them. This is why I support the boycotts, and agree with the statement at http://boycott-riaa.com/ that THE FANS control the music industry.
If the RIAA fights us on this, we will find other ways arond the issue and continue to do things behind their back, FOR FREE and they will lose out. If they give us respect and freedom by giving us the chance to use this new technology to it's fullest while obeying copyright laws at least as well as we did with cassettes, then they could make life easier and more fun for listeners, AND make more than a few bucks here and there by embracing this new technology and offering nice clean mp3 downloads for a small fee... heck, even via Napster!
But so far these stuffed-suits don't seem to be smart enough to see it this way.
$0.02
Resolved riaa.com to 208.225.90.120
Resolved riaa.net to 208.225.90.120
Resolved riaa.org to 208.225.90.120
Not only are they trying to stop the music revolution, but they're domain squatting! Hmm.. I wonder who has riaasux.com..
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How can we boycott the RIAA in Australia?
Assuming this boycott begins to become successful, the RIAA will simply turn around and say "See what we told you? Record sales are down because of Napster users."
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
You think a new, locally-popular act could make enough money to tour, attract attention, and be successful charging $.50 for their CD's? I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that; check out what the bands themselves think.
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101010, 222, 52,
You can't look at this completely objectively, saying "Well, napster just transfers 0s and 1s, therefore, shouldn't any digital transfer system be banned?" It's an elementry logical fallacy, and it makes whoever say it look like a warez kiddy who just wants free music.
Please people, debate this with some shread of moral and logical respectibility. Back to the switchblade metaphore, if switchblades were not generally used to commit crimes (if napster only traded legal/unsigned music), they wouldn't be illegal to carry.
-Tim
Otherwise, it's a cool site, and you have an impressive list of artists. The only thing I'd suggest (in addition to allowing Mastercard or PayPal) is to add a brief info/discography/address page. If I'm going to send $5 to an artist with a moderately popular name (Covenant. e.g.), I want to make sure it gets to the right band.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
its kinda funny really...
all ya'll are allways bitching about (for example) people not reading the fine print when they buy computers, and then compalining that they sould have known the actuall cost that was spelled out in the contract (with a little math)
same deal with the record industry!!!
have you ever seen a record contract? it spells out exactly what are the streams of revenue for the artist, what the record company keeps, other fees, etc...
this is why professional musicians have business managers... people who look at the record contract and determine the revenue, then deduct what the record company keeps, what the agent keeps... etc....
the artist (unless he/she has an incompitent business manager) is then told "you will have $n in revenu this year if you sell this many albums and play to this many people, otherwise, with this other set of figures you will $n2 in your pocket"
yes, record companies are asses, but really, people who are worried about getting screwed should voice those concerns durring contract negotiation, not after they spend more money than they can expect to have
and in the case of toni braxton, if she had two platinum albums, she should have had enough clout to make her concerns meaningful, if she bothered to mention them
But the pimp is illegal and the dating service isn't! That's the point.
kwsNI
it should be one particular week nobody buys CDs. Say first week of September..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Nah - ask yourself "What would Brian Boitano do?"
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
If everyone used Napster, both Fred Durst AND Lars Ulrich would be working at McDonalds, probably together, bitching about how they wish they could make money off of their music, instead of having to distribute it for free.
You've sold me. That would be SO AWESOME ! Get boy bands working at Taco Bell, ex-Mouseketeers working at Hooters, and just launch Korn into space. I think you've just laid the foundation for my Utopia.
You forget that the typical artist today deserves to be working at a McDonald's. The music industry is in desperate need of a giant shakedown, and has been for 20 years.
In the US, at least, computer CDR's are tax free, because when the law was passed, they didn't count on computers being used to burn music CD's. Computer CDR's are down to, like, 50 cents a piece, and not a penny of that goes to the assholes in the recording industry.
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Stephen C. VanDahm
I agree. To eliminate any and all "sharing" the RIAA would have to shut down everyone's FTP sites, eliminate Windows file sharing (Windows 98 Third Edition??). Too much cleanup if you ask me.
:)
My theory is that Napster is like the boy in high school who bragged about stealing the girl's clothes in the locker room. Too many people found out...and everything went down from there.
Napster is popular because it's for a Windows platform (Windows is very mainstream, I wouldn't say it's the best but I digress...) and as a result it got a lot of attention. File Sharing (I guess) isn't seen as that big of a threat. Why, I don't know. It's all the same to me.
Maybe we'll never know the ulterior motives (if any) of the RIAA.
It compliles! Ship it!
Grateful Dead fans have been doing exactly that for years and years. Basically, the Dead allowed their fans to tape their shows and trade them freely. It was one of the big reasons for their enormous popularity. There are a lot of newer bands that have taken the same attitude. Phish, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and countless other bands allow you to freely trade tapes (and now CDR's) of their concerts. The best way to get hooked up with their music is by going to http://www.etree.org and subscribing to the mailing lists.
I love E-Tree. I've downloaded and burned dozens and dozens of excellent live shows that I never would have been able to hear if it weren't for the loose network of fans that make this kind of stuff possible.
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Stephen C. VanDahm
Of course, many news servers don't have an alt.mp3 hiearchy. Seems a lot of sysadmins don't like binary newsgroups. You could try getting after your sysadmin to include them, I suppose. Or start looking for an internet service that does.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I can imagine the headline:
RIAA: United States Postal Service a Tool for Piracy
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Stephen C. VanDahm
Good point. Buying used cd's shouldn't show up on their sales reports. Selling your used cd's will help increase the supply so that people won't have to buy new ones! Plus it will give you some extra cash. I am currently selling my entire collection on Half.com, it's a great system.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
www.senate.gov
Make some noise about this one!
"I say we walk into the offices at Sony music and shoot everyone with a Rolex or an imported sports car. That would put the money back in artists pockets."
Why not just used bullets? they are much cheeper and can be fired from a smaller gun...
Some people have suggested that we stop buying music. That isnt enough. Not only would we need to convince hundreds of others to stop, but we'd need to stop listening to the radio and pretty much give it up altogether. While possible, its unlikely to work without mass support and lets face it, most people aren't willing to do it. An easier solution is to write your congressional representitives. The URL at the bottom of my message has a listing for every state. But emails are not enough, if youre not broke, shell out for some stamps and mail hardcopies to DC. The RIAA is using congress as a tool to defeat us, we should do the same to them. Congressmen will take notice when all the sudden they are getting hundreds of messages from people in their district about IP, Fair Use, etc...
a il.html
http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-em
*Note to moderator(s) i know this message is somewhat repetitive, but moderate it up so people get that URL!
"Remember: No matter where you go, there you are."
No, I don't think I'm doing an "honorable" thing. I'm not really sure what your point is there, but I would like to know. Next time, please respond with an actual viewpoint, instead of just calling me a "fucking moron". Then maybe we can discuss an issue here, instead of just hiding behind our computer screens for safety. Get a club and beat myself over the head with it? This is a discussion message board. Lets discuss something. You're in high school, right?
luckman
luckman
I don't involve myself with flames, much less know how to bait one.
You probably don't understand quite how intense corruption is in Russia...
Gav (Married to a Russian)
Gav
"There's no such thing as data that can't be manipulated"
Don't be a jackass. Sales have increased.
If you owned a resturant and people kept stealing some drinks (yet always paying for food) and you were making more and more money, would you arrest them when you're still making money off of them?
When is the last time you bought a CD that you didn't what any of it sounded like?
Unless you want to catalog the entire store's selection and have it at a listening station (3 stations here at our local shop, for 84759248 different cd's), you're not going to know what you're buying. Unless you want to hunt down their website (most older bands don't have one) and see if they actually post audio worth listening to (above 128kbps 44hz), then you still don't know what you're buying (except the record company CEO's new Porsche Boxster or Z3).
Your thinking that the music industry (or any industry couldn't survive this), has there EVER been anytime when musical artists haven't been huge stars? Since classical composers were around (they played for the Kings and got wined and dined) they have been the biggest stars. Don't kid yourself saying that it couldn't survive. You'll never kill music. Rip it off until doomsday and there's always people that will still buy the cd/shirt/home video/posters/etc. and support the artists they love.
Get paid to code OSS
I agree... I think many upcomming artists have to deal with the fact that there is not much room to play with there contracts(there lucky to get one from a major label) A this point in there carreer Metalica has probably a very good deal, and if they didnt, they could probably pick from any record label, or even start there own. But thats not the point.....
Weither your stealing from the label or the artist does not make any any more acceptable. Your still takeing money from someone. It doesnt matter if you feel they deserve it, its THERE money
For the past 2+ decades I have written lots of songs. I've played with MIDI since 1984 to subvert the problems associated with incorporating flaky musicians' efforts in producing tracks. I've written around 200 songs. They may be terrible.
For the past ++decade, I've attempted soliciting the Music Industry through conventional means spending thousands on tapes, postage, and packaging to submit them to RIAA execs who threw them into the trash. They may have been terrible.
For the past 5 years I've published these same songs at Ded Serius Music because it doesn't cost me anything. I haven't made a dime. I don't care. They may be terrible.
I hope Napster can get through this ordeal. I do have some objections to the variances between their PR philosophy and their software policy. It seems a little inconsistent to demand exclusion to music copyrights while maintaining exclusivity on software copyrights. Napster doesn't run on Linux. I don't do windows. If you're bored enough to go to my site you'll learn why that is, too. It's not due to superior MIDI composition software under Linux. I wish such software existed. Napster for Linux doesn't and they've been quite clear on their direction for it.
But, the moral most significant for me in this whole debacle is elicited by the RIAA. Napster, vile though it may be, is a valid exchange for people to sample music they ultimately may purchase. Either way, more purchases will be made than if you merely deleted this distribution mechanism. And, this distribution mechanism can't be deleted, since there are other workable ways to do this without Napster. It will just be harder to leverage by the RIAA. But, the RIAA has rendered a stealthy effort to quelch this and tipped their hat on what disturbs them most: control of the distribution of artistic content; especially as it pertains to the revenue model.
Perhaps, this signals a turning point when the artist will be able to offer their creations freely to John/Jane Q. Public without the intervention of these discerning and qualified brokers of artistic content. Likely many original creations will flow more freely and possibly gain popularity in absence of content from the established bands/artists and control by the discerning ears and wallets of the delegees of RIAA. Likely much of this content will be really, really terrible. Most of it will be weeded out by the denizens of this new unpublished media.
But, the proceeds will go to the artists.... If their creations are not really, really terrible.
I think this is the best possible outcome: much of what we listen to has been endorsed by the RIAA through it's qualification process. Much of it is terrible. Much more that wasn't has been excluded due to this process.
My 2 cents. And, yes, you can laugh at some of it. I certainly did.
Linux rocks!!! www.dedserius.com
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
Revolution !!!
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
While I love the idea of independent musicians making it via the internet, I just never saw how Napster could do that efficiently.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
I don't think it's technically legal to tape songs off the radio. So your argument breaks down because you're trying to prove that one activity is legal on the back of an illegal activity.
Radio taping isn't enforced because of technical problems with propogating taped songs -- you can't make perfect copies of copies of copies. If you could, and people were doing it like they are using Napster, it would be similarly pursued by the RIAA (if they could figure out how to do it).
Ralph
Look at Half.com, they have like 750,000 cd's for sale from it's users. It's quite a good system. I am currently selling my entire collection there.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
You almost have to feel sorry for the RIAA and the MPAA. They try so very hard to stuff the genies back into the lamp. And their cause is so very doomed to fail.
--
Dyolf Knip
Another good analogy:
Guns. Guns really have exactly one purpose. To kill people, or at least do them significant amounts of damage. Yet if I go out and legally buy a gun and then go postal, no one blames the dealership I bought it from.
--
Dyolf Knip
riaa.org works now...
Proof please? The average cost of producing a classical CD is $500,000 (this is "insignificant"?), and sells between 2,000 and 3,000 copies in its lifetime. Do the math. There is no profit for 90% of CD's produced. The only CD's which profit is stuff like Britney Spears, but most of that profit goes to pay for the unprofitable music (90% of titles). That is where the money is going; contrary to the myth on slashdot, it is not lining record exec's pockets.
OK, this may be a bit recursive, but do you have any kind of proof for those statistics you just quoted?
Sure. The figures on classical music are from Norman LeBrecht's Who Killed Classical Music copyright 1997, which is an in depth view on classical music business. There is also an article on Hyperion's web site (I forget the URL ...) which comes to similar conclusions. The 90% non-profitable is widely quoted in the industry; the RIAA web site on the cost of the CD uses that figure, and that number is widely, widely quoted in others parts of the industry also.
And shouldn't AOL be held accountable for the files and information it's users transfer?
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here: http://www.riaa.org/Contact.cfm
I mean, just stopping buying CDs isn't going to do it, we need some kind of way to elt them know that we're consciously choosing not to buy CDs because of their lameness quotient.
As I've posted before, my music budget has more than tripled (according to quicken) since napster came out. So they're definitely shooting themselves on this one.
Kinda like sending in the warranty card when you buy a "linux supported" game with LINUX written all over it, we need some way to let them know when and why we're not buying the CDs.
Any suggestions?
I would rather pay the artist directly... That's why I go to concerts.. Artists get fractions of a penny off of CD's.. while they get a lot more revenue off of their touring (if they tour responsibily.... hehe)..
I really don't want any of my money going to the RIAA.... I used to buy CD's every week.. now I buy 1 every year.
ChiefArcher
I've been using Napster, but mostly because the RIAA doesn't provide a real alterntive. I would be willing to pay, say, a buck a song (like on emusic) rather than using Napster -- if the option were available. In other words, yes, I think what people are doing on Napster is illegal (although, Napster itself isn't ;) -- but, in some sense justified. --tim
you'll boycott the RIAA, but not the MPAA (going to see X-Men).. what's the logic behind this? Not a troll, I'm really curious.. is Napster more important to you than DeCSS?
BilldaCat
Steve Magruder, Technopolist
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I thought that the judge's decision was for Napster to block all copyrighted songs from their network, and when they replied that it would be technically infeasible to do this, the judge told them that was the position they put themselves in. I think that Napster has to comply with the judge's ruling, and the only technical way they can do this because of their architecture is to shut down.
The RIAA didn't request to shut down Napster. They wanted to stop it from being used to distribute copyrighted songs.
Ralph
However, mp3.com has purchased liscensing agreements recently with members of the RIAA (Warner, BMG) for its 'Beam-It' tool. The RIAA and its members DO NOT want to see mp3.com shut down, since 'Beam-It' presents just about the best opportunity for them to offer positive incentives to purchase more CDs while still protecting their property rights.
This is the real world, and the real world is not clean : mp3.com works with both the RIAA and independent artists. If you are really bent on sticking to principles, you should ban mp3.com as well. However, a more moderate stance is that we need both moderates and extremists pushing from both sides to really advance.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Me will boycott audio cd from RIAA related companies. Sure, it does not affect them much. But it affects me a lot. I will have much more money to spend.
50 pack CD-R only $15 from outpost.com. Free overnight shipping. Just in case you need to back up your existing cd's / mp3's.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
> If you buy a music CD at a used CD store, the
> artist (and the RIAA) get absolutely nothing
> for your purchase.
Hey, thanks for reminding me! My RIAA boycott is in its third year and still going strong!
Woo-hoo!
Plug for a good used CD URL: Spun
ceci n'est pas un sig.
No, you asked about how much "non-copyrighted" music someone else would be interested in. Don't try to change your words now, at least admit that you were wrong.
Secondly, if you don't care what the RIAA is, why are you even reading under this topic (Napster shouldn't be shutdown)?
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
If you believe that this suit is about piracy, you are correct, it won't help with the problems of piracy. But it is not about piracy. It is about control. Specifically, control of (quasi) legal distribution.
The problem that Napster poses to the RIAA is a new model of music distribution that is well funded (Venture Capital backed!) but, not under RIAA control.
RIAA currently has (virtual) monopoly control of all current music distribution. With that control comes immense profits.
Those profits are at the expense of the consumers, who have no other avenue but RIAA for music entertainment - so the RIAA can charge what it wants - $16.99 for the TLC Waterfalls CD for example - 12+ million copies sold - do the math!
Those profits are at the expense of the artist who have no other avenue but the RIAA for distribution of their work - so the RIAA can pay what it wants - $150,000 (net) to the entertainers TLC for example - after selling 12+ million copies of the CD Waterfalls - do the math!
It is that legal theft from consumers and artists that the RIAA is trying to protect by stopping Napster. And if they can scare away the VC money from this new form of music distribution, they can maintain that monopoly a little longer.
It is unfortunate that more consumers and artists don't see the RIAA as the threat that it is to competition, and fairness.
And don't expect the mainstream media to share this view as CNN/Time/Warner/(almost AOL) is a part of the RIAA, and ABC/ESPN/Disney is a part of the RIAA, and CBS/Paramount/Viacom/MTV/HBO is a part of the RIAA...
And the Judge who pulled the plug is a part RIAA...
The fact that no two snowflakes are identical should tell you something important about God's will.
The idea is that you obtain your song via Napster or through gnutella/scour/ftp/irc/imesh and then once you determine that you like the song you surf over to www.fairtunes.com and send a completely voluntary amount directly to the artist (we do not send money through their record label. it is up to the artist to distribute the funds).
Matt
www.fairtunes.com
Otherwise, this is a waste of time. You can put it in a worse way. It is not a waste of time. It is a saving of time. There is no need for me go to down to the record shops like Towers, HMV to broswe.... Furthermore, I get to save the money. Now I can afford to donate to the EFF.
I tell a friend in the next room "Check this out" and play a song for him. Fair use?
I lend someone a CD. Fair use? They make a tape of it? Fair use?
I send a net.friend a mp3 file over the internet and say "Here, check this out!" Fair use?
I send a net.friend an entire CD in MP3 format over the internet. Fair use? They make a tape of it. Fair use?
I rip a CD to MP3 format so I don't have to shuffle CDs. Fair use?
I record a song off the radio, make an MP3 of it and send it to a friend. Fair use?
I decide that CD I bought last month really sucks and sell it at a used CD store. Fair use?
Now lets get into the fun ones.
I have the chance to download a song or concert which I would not have heard otherwise. Fair use?
I have the chance to download an album that's been out of publication for a decade. Fair use?
I have a chance to download a southpark episode that aired last week on comedy central. Fair use? With the commercials stripped out? Left in?
I have a chance to download a bit of Anime that only ever showed in Japan, between the years of 1970 and 1975. Fair use?
I have the chance to download the text of a book that I read as a child. The author died 15 years ago and the book has been out of print for almost two decades. Fair use?
As has been pointed out, the ROMS to many games we played during the '80s will soon die. Is preserving them fair use?
I could probably come up with some more examples. The RIAA or MPAA would tell us that under current law, most of my examples are stealing. I think many people would agree that many of these examples are not stealing, especially in the cases where there was no possible way that I'd be able to get the content otherwise.
What I think we need is a fairly major reform of current copyright law, enumerating exactly what you buy when you purchase a copyrighted item, exactly what rights you have and what rights the publisher has. I think the time limits on copyrights and patents need to be moved way down. Copyright is already causing important content that was generated in the past few decades tob e lost. This is NOT the way these laws were supposed to work.
Spelling everything out is the only way these problems will ever go away.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
http://www.laugh2day.com/mp3.html
Enjoy
Now, granted, one is theft, and the other is copying. I can see the difference. But the point is, if you're not willing to pay the price for it, you shouldn't be allowed to have it.
Music, as wonderful as it is, isn't a basic human right. And unfortunately, despite the fact that people seem to think The Internet isn't included in reality, there are laws concerning this sort of thing (at least in the US; other countries, check for yourself).
Copying a work of art that you do not have permission to copy is illegal. Plain and simple. It's not confusing, it's easy to understand. If an artist creates something and doesn't give you permission to have a copy of it, you can't.
Sure, it would be great if all the artists I love would give away their music for free, but they choose not to. Perhaps that will change as the forms of distribution the Internet make possible bring down the cost of self-publishing. In the meantime, I don't even see why people are debating.
Let me restate what I think is the most important point here. If your friend isn't going to pay for Diablo 2, why should he have the right to a copy of it? If I walked into a video arcade (you people are old enough to remember those, right?) and told the attendant I didn't want to PAY for a certain game, but I expected to be able to PLAY it, he'd laugh me out.
Therefore, I laugh at you. Ha!
Grabbing copies of copyrighted music is not theft. It is not piracy. It is copyright infringement. Notice how when you hear copyright infringement you react differently than when you hear piracy or theft?
The record companies have been very successful in controlling this debate by inserting their terms into the discussion. Unnoticed, this introduces their memes and ideas. Theft is a felony. Piracy (though making a comeback in asia, is pretty much nonexistent around the us) is a felony. Copyright infringement is NOT a felony. Copyright infringement was not done by napster. Or by people who made their songs available. The only thing copyright prevents is 'making unauthorized copies without the permission of the copyright holder'. In the whole napster scenario - who was it who made the illegal copies? It was the people who clicked on the link and started the transfer. They were the only people who did anything to infringe copyright. They should be the only people who can be sued by the RIAA.
I don't believe there are 175,000 readers of Slashdot, but hey, saying so will get you some good banner advertisers.
Most of the replies I got some up the real problem; there are not enough people here to make a dent. Oh, it's fun to run outside and rally around the flag and shout curse words at the major record labels. But people lose their interest and move on.
Why?
Because this is not about life and death. It is not a direct cost to you. Oh sure, you can say indirectly this affects you because you don't think it is fair to pay 15 bux for a CD and only 1 of those dollars goes to the artist and the rest to some universally despised, nameless, "fatcat" corporation. Guess those "starving artists" - and I say that with more sarcasm than truth - should have read those contracts.
Try protesting something really important, like people starving, corrupt, murderous governments, polluters, spouse abusers, or child stalkers.
Record companies? Please.
This protest will last until Taco or Roblimo have to get the latest "Last Who Live CD".
So if I boycott buying music from anyone in RIAA, and Napster is shut down, where do I get any new music?
CRANK UP THE RADIO AND GET OUT THE BLANK CASSETTES, BABY!
actually, does the RIAA get a portion of the money the indie-labels make in the form of the RIAA tax that we pay on blank CDs? (well blank audio-CDs, b/c i have noticed that in many stores the blanks which are labeled "audio CD" are a few dollars more expensive than the ones labeled "for computer use only" even though they are the same thing.)
I mean, if you buy a CD from an indie label, but they had to pay the RIAA tax on their blanks, then does that defeat the purpose? (other than better music, of course)
1. I couldn't find the CD anymore (out of print)
2. The songs were remixes and exclusives and not available to the public
3. The songs on the CD that weren't singles.
The RIAA has had the consumers in a chokehold long enough and Napster made them realize consumers have the power. Can the RIAA explain why they are so anal rententive? Why can't consumer buy any song we hear on the radio? Why do we, the consumers, have a certain time frame to buy their music? Lest they forget, we pay their salaries. I used to buy CDs all of the time. Thank you, RIAA, for making it easier for me to boycott CDs from now on.
Madskillz 69
Check out a cool link from a journalist supporting Napster.
http://www.sunherald.com/business/docs/tech072300. htm
Check out this story on the New York Times...
For Many Online Music Fans, Court Ruling is a Call to Arms
Anyway, the RIAA site does give that 90% non-profitable figure, but what does that mean? How much does the average "non-profitable" recording actually lose? $1? $1,000? $100,000? How does that balance against the huge amounts that something like a Brittney Spears CD rakes in?
So don't come crying to me about all the extra costs the record labels have to bear promoting lesser-known bands. It's just not true. 3000-4000% was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but 1800% is not (at the $8-10 sell price).
I don't recall any crying. I don't claim that record companies aren't greedy and immoral, I was merely pointing out that his 3000% was an exaggerated figure. I still think your 1800% is not very informative, since you're still looking at the cost of producing the CD, and ignoring the overhead. It would seem like if you sell something for twice what you paid to make it, you'd be turning an amazing profit. But I bet if the record companies only had a 100% profit margin on the CD production/sales, they'd go out of business. There are a lot of costs that record companies pay, other than just physically manufacturing CDs.
If Chevy's only designed car had a built in jet engine, oil slick, battering ram, and 6 inch gun, and that car were used in the overwhelming majority of bank robberies, then perhaps your analogy would be more in line with reality. Napster exists to disseminate copyrighted music. This is _all_ it was ever intended to do.
I, personally think, given the current state of the record industry:
http://www.salon.com/tech/featur e/2000/06/14/love/
that Napster, and all the little second-gen Napster sprouts are a _good_ thing. Napster is what the music-listening world needs at the moment. But to try to liken Napster to anything other than the gargantuan freebie music-orgy that it is is deluding yourself. Call it what it is, and love it anyway.
-Ryan
Do they accept COD?
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Now that the judge made the call, could gnutella go down too??????????? I was reading at http://www.gnutellanews.com, and I saw all these gnutella clients for every popular (and even unpopular) OS's by all these different people. If gnutella isn't just being written by one person, could it be shutdown??? I think I'll download one of the clients at http://www.gnutelliums.com before there's some kind of shutdown with that too. This is crap. Nobody has the right to shutdown an enterprise that isn't engaging in illegal activity. Just because one person got run over doesn't mean you get rid of the sidewalk!!! A Rather Pissed MP3 Lovin' American
Now if we can just find a similar system to fight the MPAA....
"The real question is not whether machines can think but whether men do." -B. F. Skinner
"The real question is not whether machines can think but whether men do." -B. F. Skinner
OK, if you really want to keep showing what a silly person you are...If you really didn't understand the conversation, too bad, maybe brush up your language skills with a few kiddy books. The user I was replying to certainly did understand.
BTW, I am interested in the basic issue and not in which American organisation has happened to bring a court case, though why I'm bothering to tell you the obvious again I really don't know. And for that matter, I know perfectly well what the RIAA is. Funny you fell for that.
Down with the MAN !!!! I will never buy CD's ever again.....if i need anything... i will either burn it to a blank CD, use gnutella,or copy it on to my minidisc. i havent paid jack for music over the past year...why should i now! minidiscs are the way to go! let all the dumb people buy CD's. i think this ruling hurt the music industry more than it helped them....because now they have 20 million pissed off music listeners who want to ruin them....AND RUIN THEM WE WILL!!!! LONG LIVE NAPSTER !!!!
I like this tactic. (see my post "Why I support the boycott") I would gladly pay a few cents, like you said, per download. Gladly. Any RIAA people in here listening or taking votes? Hello? No, they're probably at the golf course right now. I think this is a great idea.
I'm not going to say I dont use napster. I'm not going to say that I've never download an entire cd solely so I could burn it and play it in my car. But I'm also not going to criticize the RIAA for trying to enforce their copyrights.
= =
I have a hard time believing that any slashdot reader would do any differently if they were in the places of the lawyers for the RIAA. If they do not attempt to combate such bold cases of copyright infringement, then they lose all ability to prosecute copyright infringement in the future. As far as the RIAA is concerned, they must sue napster, if for no other reason than to set a precedent for copyright violations for their artists. If they, the RIAA, choose not to attack this case of copyright infringement, will they be able to mount a strong case against, hypotheically speaking, another artist who samples bass beats or guitar sections of a song? So, in answer to your question: Is it wrong for me to search for and download songs from artists that produced CD's/Tapes that are no longer available to purchase I present you with an equally valid argument: Is it wrong for a lawyer to set a valid precedent for his clients, regardless of how futile the precedent seems to an outside observer?
===============================================
If ignorance is bliss, wipe the smile off my face
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Your viewing of X-Men would have cost you not just $8.00, but a night of hockey.
That night of hockey, I'm guessing, provided at least one or two minor stories or events that will become part of the shared mythology in your circle of friends.
You spent an evening building your own authentic culture through unmediated shared experience. You lost out on participating in a mediated shared experience of the larger culture.
Our secret is gamma-irradiated cow manure
Mitsubishi ad
We apologize for the inconvenience.
How can a majority of the population be criminals? That seems sort of hypocritical to me.
Just a thought,
Caleb
Russia was just an example and true .. it would .. for a while but someone else will just open another one just as fast. Nephew of Ukrainian who spends two weeks in Ukraine every year ... unfortunalty -_-x
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
But it is not as if people go to Napster to check out NEW ARTISTS or NEW MUSIC. They are downloading music which already has a high distribution rate and large market saturation to begin with. The ones with the filmclips, the posters and the popularity
Eg. I am sure you have heard of Britney Spears more people would download her songs then let's say Mala Wala from Tibet a struggling artist not heard of by any record label, with no advertising, no filmclip etc...
This arguement falls down on this point!!
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
Pardon the expression but *tug* *tug* *tug*, man what a troll, heh
On the other hand, you have fingers
Therefore, I don't believe a boycott is useless. Quite the opposite, if enough people get together and force RIAA to listen to reason, I believe a boycott could be a positive catalyst for change.
--
www.scorbett.ca
I know. But we DO exist, so, ah, er...
PHBBT!!!!!
(and I even have a cable modem...)
Don't be a jackass. Sales have increased." That doesn't prove a thing. Thats my whole point, music popularity has skyrocketed. The SAME people that download the latest singles are the ones who go buy the bands stuff. "has there EVER been anytime when musical artists haven't been huge stars?" Sure Wrong again. Back in Beethoven's time, everyone knew of him and his music. He WAS considered a musical prodigy while he was alive. BEFORE recorded music. "Unless you want to catalog the entire store's selection and have it at a listening station, you're not going to know what you're buying." cdnow.com? Unless you listen to the same crap thats on MTV all the time, the CD's you check out won't always have samples (many of them don't). Lots of unknown bands are on there with no samples whatsoever. and I never said anything about because all people are doing it its not illegal, I'm just arguing that the mild cases SHOULD NOT BE ILLEGAL. If I want to download a song off a CD my friend has, there's no reason I can't. I don't drive down sales, I don't distribute it to the masses, and I'm not going to pay for it. Well hey maybe I'm wrong but I will never support a band thats against sharing their music. Obviously they don't give a damn about their fans and are in it for the money and I'm not the SUCKER to buy it all.
Get paid to code OSS
"This morning, Vice-Presidential candidate Cheney was asked about Napster. He begged off, saying he
didn't know much about it. This can't be permitted to happen"
That's because there are probably millions of topics in the world more important out there.
1. AIDS Epidemic in Africa 2. Gun Related Homicide at Schools 3. Terrorist Incidents around the World ever heard of NATIONAL SECURITY....no fuck all that put it all on hold stop MIDDLE EAST PEACE is important lets all just worry about Napster........
And unless you have the kind of money that can seriously sway a politician eg. NRA, Petroleum Companies, the Military Industrial Complex you have no chance whatsoever of deciding their agenda's...yeh lets all stand around and sing are you all ready:
"Come on Children, Smile on your brother everybody get together right now!"
Most people here think that everyone around the world is talking about this shit over their breakfast's this morning.
"Oh my God dear, did you hear about the Napster shutdown??, by the way that Linux article in the NY Times was informative, I can't believe the celebrity status of SLASHDOT and the OPEN SOURCE community as a whole now. All around the world did you know they are signing a petition that probably is going to get at least 2 million signatures..."
Come on seriously...get a fucking clue!
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
"I am gonna download as much music as I can"
Good. Those numbers will be seen not as a protest, but as validity for what the recording industry thinks of you: You are not rebels but thieves and vandals trying to loot a few more songs before the impending shakedown.
Do them one better. Do not listen to, record, buy, borrow or download any more of their music.
Oh, and convince the "millions of people who do not use the Internet/MP3 technology regularly, and listen to the radio for their music" crowd to do the same.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, and I think this is a big part of the problem. Alot of people see Napster as a form of protest to rising, and already too high, CD prices. But just because you think the price of something is too high does NOT entitle you the right to steal it. Rolex's are too expensive, but people aren't allowed to go and steal those in protest or just because they want one and just don't feel like saving their pennies to buy one.
Of course, alot of people are just theives with no interest in protesting anything. I, personally, like quite a few people here, HAVE increased their CD purchasing since the advent of mp3s, but I believe we are a minority when compared to the Napster-using population as a whole. Just last week, I spent $40 on CDs (CDs of MP3s I already had, btw). While discussing the fact that I could barely afford the CDs, one of my friends asked my other friend whether he thought $40 was alot, Friend B replied "To spend on CDs? Yeah, $40 is way too much considering you can go download all of those songs for free and burn them to a CD."
THIS is why I think Napster is bullshit. Fundamentally, ideally, it's a fantastic thing. In common practice, it's theft.
I'll answer here instead of privately, because you ask a valid question!
... compilations, and college radio. There are dozens of compilations released each week - by indie labels, community arts groups, do-it-yourself types, radio stations, you name it. The comps are generally in the price ranges of (a) cheap, and (b) free, and get a surprising amount of coverage. Plus, they are a staple of the used CD stores.
... the upshot is that there are a TON of people who might have heard one or two songs by an indie band. Buzz comes and goes, and every band gets some. The advantage to Napster is that all the prospective fan needs is a name, or even a partial name, and they can find the tunes. The web is often not as forgiving. And believe me ... free digital music is a great way to sell CDs. We have sold over 14,000 copies of our debut, at least 10,000 of those via our web page. I dont think that people would have been as eager to buy if they hadn't heard the songs first ...
The answer is two-fold
Campus radio - that is the tradtional outlet for indie bands, and still very valuable, especially now that CDs are cheap to make. We sent our debut CD to every campus station in Canada and the States.
So
The concept of Napster, being a file sharing program for only MP3s was okay in itself, but the program could have still used improvement. Anyone who's ever used IRC, and seen the barrage of MP3s available on IRC can tell you that. A good percentage of MP3 playing scripts for mIRC for example, carry triggers to send you the currently playing MP3. Now, I've seen the BSA go after the warez channels on IRC, but haven't heard much about the BSA or anyone else trying to deal with MP3 channels on irc.
"If you remain supportive of the megapolies, while thinking you don't make an influence, then indeed there will not be an influence, not even by the people who are trying.
The only influence can be there if people who think they can't make a influence try to make oine. And that's the toughest challenge of all"
Replace "megapolies" with "government" and you'll see what I mean. It's apathy combined with "you can't fight the " where X is something like a mega corp or the government of your country or locale.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Shutting down the central server really doesn't matter .. I'm connected to OpenNap right now and there's over 3TB of mp3s here. Windows users will want to use napigator to change their Napster default server.
No, no, no... Ask yourself, what would *Tyler* do? WWT(D)D
no thanks.
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
In case the first bit was directed at me- I totally understand that the Republicans or even the Democrats or any other type of large political movements don't give a "rat's arse" as you put it to doing any of these things.
.sig for my political beliefs.
What I was trying to point out is that there are a whole slather of far more crucial issues to get hot under the collar about (from my perspective anyway's) we do not see anybody really talking to the Vice-President about these things but a question like Napster comes up???
PS... I am an Australian (note no genetic differences only fucked up human history boundaries here)so really do not give a shit about the political parties over there only their impact on the world in which I live in. For more clues read my email address and my
Hope this clears things up for you.....
PPS. I believe that things like Napster will eventually be the norm but they will have to evolve change and incorporate everybodies interests - eg. Big Business and the Consumer - the people that will still get fucked over are the musician's but hey that's been happening since people started signing "Bob the Caveman to their CaveMan Label"....
Viva La Internet Musica!!!!!!
"The way she used to say Rimmer as if it rhymed with scum" Red Dwarf
This is the second time I've been asked "Can you explain that?"
I'm not explaining anything. I'm just pointing out that you're ignoring a lot of costs to the record companies. That doesn't mean that they're not bastards; it doesn't mean that they aren't ripping off artists. I don't intend to explain or justify any of their behavior, but I'm pointing out that it if they only got a dollar for each CD they would be bankrupt in no time, because it really costs them more than 50 cents per CD to operate. Maybe it only costs 50 cents to physically produce that CD, but record companies do more than just stamp out CDs.
As for the "I'm really using Napster to protest the injustice of record companies," that's total bullshit. You're using Napster because you want to listen to songs without paying for them. If you decide not to buy a CD because you can get it on Napster, you're basically stealing from the record companies, and it's not a noble act of protest. If you really want to protest the record companies, stop buying AND stealing their music, and patronize the indie record labels and free artists.
Trying to hide your ignorance by essentially saying "you know what I meant" is pretty sad.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
As interesting as your idea is, the reason this won't happen is because there are very few independent artists who use Napster as a distribution method. I wish that Napster could be saved, it really is perfect for downloading live and other rare stuff, but I have to admit that I find myself doubting the legality of it more and more every day. Unless the laws are changed... not much can be done.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try."
"given to me by people who own the CD's"..."NONE of them are "stolen".
Dude - If someone who "own's a CD" of Autocad or Microsoft Office "give's you a copy" then by this logic you are not "stealing" either -
[BUZZZ] Next...
Stopping Napster actually helps destroy the old world model which is based on centralising distribution. Napster is more of a commercial interest and works on this centralised model, whereas Gnutella is a truely decentralised peer to peer approach that accomodations not just music, but other forms of media as well.
You could - in some ways - see Gnutella as an early form of an 'Eternity' service - because as more people use the service, the content increasingly becomes highly distributed and massively redundant - and therefore tends to live forever, and is hard to remove. Music is the ideal medium for this to start with, because just about everyone listens to music.
The RIAA looks like it is trying to protect the old world of the middle man doing the distribution work. This is dead. The new world is where the technological framework does the distribution work. There is no middle man, because the middle man is replaced by technology.
Promotion may still need to occur, to provide incentives for people to try out and listen to new works, but that promotion should happen around the new decentralised and distributed framework.
Irrespective of what security mechanisms the music industry tries to put into recorded music, there is now a whole globe out their focused on breaking it. Once the security is broken -- just like how just about every commercial software in history has been cracked -- and the music is put into this distributed web, then it is virtually unstoppable.
Rather than fight against piracy and copy -- which has _always_ existed -- perhaps the smart thing to do is embrace free copy, and change the business model, to make money out of performances, merchandise, special releases or whatever other things can be thought of. Piracy and copy has always been the most significant and most popular way of distributing media - but until now it has been ignored and marginalised and a lot of time and energy has gone into eradicating it - what a waste! Better to find a new approach to distribution that embraces free copy, but makes money in other ways.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
Actually, RIAA doesn't believe those people are buying CDs now.
1. Email the RIAA at thier home page. 2. Call you local radio stations and let them know you won't be listening. 3. Call your college radio stations and let them know you will only be listening to the unsigned acts shows. The only way to hurt them is in thier pockets and not buying CD's wont hurt them anywhere near as bad as Radio Stations calling and saying thier market is not listening because of this.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
I don't buy CD's now, and I don't go to movies, either. I'm not as absolute about movies, though - I have a ton of free Blockbuster rental coupons I'm still using (from a giveaway when I bought my DVD player last year), and I borrow DVD's from my local library, too. I won't pay for them until the DeCSS lawsuit is either thrown out by the court or dropped by the plaintiffs.
Not that I spent a ton of money on rentals or going to the movies before the lawsuit, but I'm trying to be consistent. without movies, I watch even less TV than I did before - my television viewing nowadays is pretty much confined to local news, Red Sox games, and WWF Smackdown (even though Fox carries the Sox and Paramount carries the WWF).
It's tough to live your whole life in a vacuum, though, even if you try. I wish there were more independent places to get music and film, but maybe that'll be one of the things that comes out of all this legal wrangling that's going on.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
You make a very good point: 99% of the MP3's that I download never make (or will never make) the top 10.
However, what are we to do when restrictions are placed on FTP, newsgroups or other services? Are we required to prove that the software (or plaintext or whatever) we are transmitting is not bound by any copyright law merely to protect those that are providing the service?
Just a thought...
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
If someone who "own's a CD" of Autocad or Microsoft Office "give's you a copy" then by this logic you are not "stealing" either
Correct. I'm glad you are catching on. Stealing is when you take something from someone without their permission. This person gave me the CD, therefore I didn't take it without permission.
Or can you explain how this would be "stealing" (don't explain how it's illegal, I know that already, explain how it is stealing)
--
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RIAA is not *creating* music.
If you boycott them, it will ruin artists before they get seriously hurt.
Some of them do need money.
And you need music.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I saw in the paper today a quote from the representatives of the RIAA seeking the injunction.
"Napster is teaching kids today that music has little intrinsic value"
While Napster indeed allows the trading of RIAA artists' music, it is the RIAA which is devaluing music. A while ago I read a good essay on /. about the abstraction of the artist from the art, citing Britney Spears as a prime example. Well, guess what RIAA, your marketing has come back to haunt you. Spears is just one of many, all of whom have one common characteristic: their music is the same. It doesn't matter what artists you listen to, as long as the music is popular and has a beat, who cares? Kids today will listen to anything the RIAA puts in the top 40, do you think they could care less who it is? It is apparent that a side-effect of abstracting the art from the artist is, the artist is expendable. If you can switch artists ard without changing the music, then what value does the artist have? None. Good job RIAA, you've dug your own grave.
As for the boycott, I will continue to do as I always have, I will buy only those albums which I have heard and which I enjoy all of. I do not buy albums which have 1 or 2 good songs. Never have and never will. There are certain artists I will buy and support without question, but I can count those on one hand. For the rest, if I don't hear their album, I don't buy it.
"I live in a world of make-believe, with faeries and leprechauns and tiny little frogs with funny hats."
I'm certainly not going to buy any new CD's until they cease and decist. I hope others join in, and maybe, just maybe the mainstream media will stop looking at the RIAA so symathetically, so the average consumer will start to realize that there is something really wrong here.
Well, quite a bit actually
OK, I'll excuse you as an exception<s>
(Fantastic response time, /. goes real-time?)
I'm sorry.. but this website really doesn't perk my interest at all. What I want to see is a site that has a program I can download and run on my box all day that will send a request every seconds to the RIAA homepage, and will the support of several others, will lead to a DOS if we get enough people.
Sorry if this sounds like I'm advocating DOS attacks, but I could have sworn there was a legitimate program out there that would allow you to keep refreshing a page and was used for legal boycotting.
Does ANYONE know of a program like this?
http://www.riaa.org/Contact.cfm
In the meantime, goto that URL above and let the RIAA know what you think..
Most countries only count each person once. Napster probably has a few people with a couple of dead accounts. And the record industry is multinational.
Oh, I'm sure they would love to shutdown the mp3 trading on IRC, but how would they do it? Bots that say they have songs but really just have links to /dev/zero? IRC is nice and distributed, you can't really get rid of the mp3 trading on it. Napster made the big mistake of having the only "official" database server. And OpenNap servers are just as easy to target for take down by the music industry goons as they get the IPs for them. I do think if people are serious about doing something about this, then power up freenet nodes where ever you can. It's one of the only ways that we will be able to get around this stupid ruling.
Viva La Penguinistas!
Um, that's 1 G = grand =1000.
Turning "we want better, cheaper access to music" into "they want to ban filesharing" is just so deliberately inflamatory and misleading, it's too bad you can't be marked down as trolling. Besides, Napster isn't peer-peer, it's multipeer mediated filesharing.
In general, yes, file sharing is as legal as sharing a screwdriver. The problem in this case is that the files being shared were copyrighted works of music. What's more, they weren't being shared as a book would (loan the book to someone else to read), but they were being copied.
Whether or not copyright is corrupt.... whether or not the RIAA is a trust... whether or not CDs are too expensive... "sharing" of music in the napster sense is illegal.
If you don't like that fact, start a grass roots effort to change the law. I, for one, would come on board!
As much as I thoroughly enjoy Napster, I have to admit that by law, this is a bad, bad thing.
Imagine you invent something. You want to benefit from your creativity, but a thousand teenagers get a hold on it and smash it down the throat of the collective internet. Now where do you stand?
In one sense, Napster does save us money, takes money from big companies, lets the starving artist be heard, and "shares" the wealth. On the other hand, if this was your intellectual property (I know many don't think of Britney Spears as having any sort of Intellectual property, but listen...) you most likely would not want to have it spread across the Internet.
If you want everything under the sun to be open source, you will lose an edge of capitalistic innovation. You have to admit money is a force behind creativity in America.
Napster may not be wrong (it's just software, they don't host illegal files), but they are facilitating a crime. Where that leaves them is interpreted, along with the law, by a judge.
A boycott will do little if anything. The Internet is too anonymous, with too little presence. You'd have to go to the RIAA's office, call your congress person, or protest at the court to even have a fraction of your voice heard.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
Anyone who has mp3's downloaded from Napster should now repent -- send your mp3's back to the RIAA and tell them you've deleted them from your hard disk. Send them by email, or through the post on floppy/CD-R/Zip/DAT, etc.
by post:
RIAA
1330 Connecticut Avenue N.W., Suite 300
Washington, D.C. 20036
by email: (report piracy email address) -- cdreward@riaa.com
You might also want to pick up the phone and call them... tell them you wish to send your mp3's back and ask where to send them.
Telephone: (202) 775-0101
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
From the article:
No one knows that better than Clarke. At a recent technology conference in San Diego, the creator of FreeNet told a packed lecture hall that the record industry needs more than money to lure savvy computer workers.
Clarke seemed bemused by the suggestion that a major label should have recruited him. "Like I'd take a job with them," Clarke later scoffed. "Like anyone with any sense would do that."
So who owned it? My friend? Or the "copyright holder"? If it was the copyright holder, what did my friend pay for?
I suppose you could respond "My friend had a contract (called a "license") with the copyright holder than he wouldn't make copies". But then it's my friend who did something illegal (breaking a contract, not stealing) while I am just a fortunate beneficiary (still not a theif).
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I was reading through the first boycott site listed in the article, and the guy doing the site said that Napster (along w/ all other companies like them - ie. not labels) are banned from joining the RIAA because they are not actual labels. Even though they help distribute music. What Napster should do, is take some of it's VC money and invest it in getting a recording studio/label going. They should release a few cd's from some of the better artist's they've signed up and then join the RIAA. Would the RIAA then be sueing themselves? Heh...it would be kind of funny to see at least. Then again, I'm tired and hungover at work so most anything has some humor value to me right now.
I've heard that tours very rarely make money, and that in general they act as a promotional device for the CD itself.
Salocin.com
If the RIAA was saying "We're thinking about suing Napster" and people started launching boycotts, it might have some effect, if and only if you could make it really public and convince RIAA that their sales drop was due to their proposed lawsuit.
But we're way past that now. We're talking about law now. A judge has said "what you're doing is illegal, shut it down." The power isn't in the hands of the RIAA anymore, it's in the hands of a judge. And a judge isn't going to say "Wait, I take back my ruling, because RIAA is unpopular and losing sales now!"
If Napster wins on appeal, great. I think legally speaking, they have a case, since they don't actually do anything illegal. Just like radar-detectors don't violate speed limits, AT&T doesn't make obscene phone calls, guns don't kill people, and the ISPs that run the backbones from Dallas to New York to California don't sell kiddie porn. These are all just technologies, and if they are used to break the law, the resposibility lies with the law breakers, not the tech makers.
But the laws these days don't always reflect the Constitution, or even justice. So be prepared for Napster to lose. If they lose, boycotting won't bring them back. Accept the loss and move on. Write better software. Take the Gnutella source and make it better. But don't stop buying CDs, because if you do, then your "Napster isn't bad, because I still buy music that I like" is now a pathetic lie. You'll keep listening to the music, you're just making excuses not to spend money.
Not at all. If anyone thinks Gnutella can't be stopped, you are sadly mistaken. The only question is whether "they" will choose to stop it.
The decentralized nature of Gnutella would make it trivial to launch DOS attacks. If the music industry wanted to shut it down, they would just have to have various clients return garbage to queries, send nonsense messages, etc. Yes, future Gnutella clients could have some protections built in, but it's an arms race Gnutella would lose.
"Yeah, but I could just set up private networks among my friends." Sure you could, and then the music industry wins. They don't care about you sharing with your friends, they care about mass, anonymous sharing.
My only question is whether they would choose to do it.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I played drums in a small progressive rock band for 4 years (92-96). Trust me, I'd be glad if I found even ONE of my songs being distrubuted through Napster. We weren't playing for the money, we were playing for the respect for the fans. We knew that no matter what we did we wouldn't be able to make it big, so we concentrated on our academics, and played for fun -- a few small ventures. Our biggest hopes and ambitions were to one day open up for some of the grunge rock bands of the day -- STP, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, to name a few. It's almost ironic that now they're the ones opening up for other bands.
If anyone sees any mp3s by the band Dark Scythe (not my idea for the name!), I'd really appreciate knowing about it!
Daniel Lev.
Napster really re-started my interest in music, and since starting using napster I have purchased more CD's than I ever have before. Not a week went past without a stack of new CD's appearing in my place.
Napster for me was just a tool for finding old singles that are no longer available, or wierd EP's that never even appeared in the UK. It allowed me to get things that the record companies never even tried to sell to me.
....but now its time for action, no more buying ANY cd's, this is is.
Hello record companies, say good bye to a customer, your actions in blocking people who never cost you a dine will cost you a lot.
No profit for you..
No Bonus for you..
No Extra shares for you..
Say goodbye private schools,
Say goodbye nice house in the country,
Say goodbye new BMW.
Rule number one in business, don't piss off your customers.
F
When you think about it, there weren't all THAT many people using Napster at the same time. Users were redirected to one of many load-balanced servers, with a pre-set capacity. The servers were not networked at all, so your search results were limited to whoever was on the same server as yourself.
A service like Gnutella (not GNUtella, as it's not made by any free software people) is decentralized so that you can become a node in a network of potentially infinite size. Of course, the fact that so many packets are going around makes latency a horrible burden to bear, so it's easy to get downloads that run at miserably slow speeds. (And don't even think about getting more than 1 KB/sec if you're running it on a dial-up connection.)
For more information, click here.
Funny. All these you mentioned:
"Nazi propaganda, terrorist manifestos, bomb-making instructions or anti-Christian hate speech"
Are protected by freedom of speech. Should we do away with it? What the heck! People are just going to use it to say things we don't agree with.
Pity we lost so many lives defending it.
Did anyone notice that the site linked to in the post advocates boycotting concerts as well as cds?
What's the feeling on this? I mean, a boycott on cds would (if it worked) get the message through to the RIAA, and wouldn't hurt the individual artists much, but boycotting a concert seems like a singular attack against a particular artist, who it hurts more than the RIAA.
----------
"Rock over London... Rock on Chicago..." -Wesley Willis
First of all: A tool is seldom illegal. It is more often the use of it that is.
Guns are outlawed in some countries to some people. For example in sweden you are not allowed to own a gun if you don't own a license.
Drugs are outlawed allmost everywhere.
These are exceptions, though, and it is my belief that these exceptions should be as few as possible, ideally none at all.
_But_ is napster as dangerous as drugs? Is it lethal to people who use it? Does it promote whole chains of burglary-violence-medical costs for the society? This is true for a lot of illegal drugs, and still there is debate whether they shouldn't be legal.
Secondly: - I believe it was William Gibson who said it - it is not a natural right for businesses to charge money for recordings. The concept has not existed for more than about 70 years. Why is everyone so excited about the possibity that it might end?
I can understand that those who make millions out of recordings are upset, but it is not some kind of assault on people's constitutional rights.
Thirdly: I couldn't care less if all recording-industries went bancrupt and no artists could be millionaires anymore. Almost all the music I listen to is made by people who haven't made millions off of records anyhow, and in this new age their followers will probably be happy to use the internet to distribute their music. People will still make music just because they want to, not because it makes them millionaires.
So there.
Heck, record your faourite songs off the radio.
Or just use Streamripper. It records songs off Shoutcast stations. Not only that, it places them in individual Mp3 files and names them. All perfectly legal under the fair use broadcast recording laws.
The RIAA is acting like those people who never wanted the car to make it to the mass market. Fine, they wont enter the digital universe. I guess that's just the way it's going to be.
There are many great artists out there who will never be signed. They will find the digital medium friendly and waiting. I look forward to hearing from them. So, no more RIAA artists in Napster. Good, I'll get the chence to hear something new.
I was lucky when growing up. I lived in an area with a great number of bands. I grew up in an area called Isla Vista, CA, an area where most UCSB students lived. A great place to spend a childhood.
The bands that were there were great. They would play in backyard, and converted barns, and so on. I loved it. They were never going to be signed. After all the drummer was getting a degree in biology of cancer. He was not going to be in the band for the rest of his life, nor was the rest of the band. Not all the bands were good, but most were, or at least has some great songs.
It's better to see bands like those live, but why not have bands all over the world just put music on the web. People are downloading, and paying for Kings new book online. Why not music.
The RIAA is old world. They are like the old Holliwood studios. They want CONTROL. Control over artists, control over the music, and it seem control over the customer.
Now they have forced us to think about the issues. Maybe even to out grow them, and leave them in the past. We need to think about how much control an artist should have over a song once they allow it out into the public, out of their control.
We're now thinking about copyrights is a different light then before. We should look to the people who invented copyright to see their advise from the past.
Would people feel the same it there was a service which would allow people to read the books in my library, like maybe a library?
But to sum up my crazy pre-coffee rant, we need to look at music which is not RIAA controled. I'm betting that there is something amazing out there.
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
When Ford builds a car and sells it to me, I own it. I can resell it to anyone I want without consulting Ford. I can break it into "functional parts" (the engine, the chassis, the radio, etc) and sell those individually. The car is MINE. There is no ephemeral "ownership by Ford" of any of the physical parts of a car that has been sold to me. How is a CD different?
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Well.. 2 points.
You can get your favourite songs, the equivalent of multiple cd's on single tapes. Not the greatest thing, i know. I wouldn't imagine the kickback to be as high.
You can buy imported blanks
You can follow kearbear's suggesetion (its in this thread) of using streamstripper...
---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
"Stealing is when you take something from someone without their permission"
Semantics. Take the Ten Commandments - God didn't feel that is was necessary to say:
"Tho Shalt Not Steal (or purloin, filch, snitch, pilfer, cop, hook, swipe, lift, pinch, plagerize, or borrow with the intent to return it later without the owner's permission, or short-change, or swap those little bar-code stickers in the aisle before you get to the cashier)"
...because it's all stealing
I tell you what - don't take MY word for it: See for yourself
Since the /. community is only a very small percentage of the music buying market, why not spend the energy on continuing development on Gnutella or OpenNap instead? Liked a feature in Napster? Import it to the other platform. Gnutella could use a "Hot-list" feature, there's one idea already!
Here's my situation. The radio stations in my town (Atlanta) suck big dick. In order to tell if I want to buy music, in the past, I could tune into a radio station and wait 'til something caught my ear. Well, I don't know if you've listened to 99X lately, but if I hear one more freakin' Limp Bizkit song I will slit my wrists. Meanwhile, there are a lot of extremely good artists out there whom I don't get to hear because they're not commercial enough. So how do I tell whether I should buy a CD by band X? I download a sample of their music from Napster. If I like what I hear, I buy the CD. If I don't, I'm sure as hell not gonna keep their crappy music clogging up my hard drive, so I delete it. This is no different, in my mind, from hearing a song on the radio and then buying the CD. The band and the recording industry get their money. They might even get some concert bucks from me if they're good enough. If they're not good enough, they don't get paid.
What the hell is wrong with that?
All parties in this issue are looking out for their own interests exclusively. Users don't want to lose a service they enjoy, and the RIAA wants to preserve their industry. In both cases it is about their respective bottom lines. I don't believe either side is truely able to give enough of themselves to put the Artist first. The Artists will end up deciding the outcome. Right now the RIAA has them in hand, but perhaps if they felt the effects of a boycott, they would be more willing to break the chains that bind them.
I envision a model where I can download songs from a band's official website. The mass market will not care to deal with shady ftp searches, warez sites, or even morally (legally?) ambiguous peer to peer networks, if a simple and reliable method for direct purchase of an mp3. We need the artists to buy into this vision, hence the boycott.
But, it has already been said numerous times on Slashdot that the RIAA takes such a large percentage, the artists don't get any significant amount of money off of CD sales. They make all their money on concerts instead. Saying "we don't make much money off of your purchases" is a clearly false statement. Considering the insignificant cost of producing a CD and the percentage which goes to the artist, your profit margin on CDs makes up nearly all of the cost. Thus, I presume that this post is merely a futile attempt to stop a boycott that has already started, using the misinformation and propoganda that are the trademarks of both the RIAA and MPAA. Except we're not the mass market. We don't take things at face value.
The Boycott-RIAA site has two email addresses listed on it's support page where you can send emails to let them know that you're participating in the boycott.
There are two email addresses, one to which you can send comments that will be passed on to the RIAA, and one that remains private so they can count the number of supporters they have.
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for you are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup.
The reason for a boycott is to show a company that they will actually make MORE money if the accede to your demands. The problem is, the RIAA WON'T make more money this way. How could they possibly be making more money than they already are?
Let's say they adopt some kind of downloadable, micropayment system where you pay $1/song. That's slightly LESS than you are paying for songs right now PLUS they don't force you to buy the whole CD to get the one song. So they lose money there.
Even worse (for them), suppose we got what we really wanted: IP reform. We'd be able to trade songs with each other legally--and the RIAA would lose even more money.
No, boycott will do nothing because our demands essentially castrate the RIAA. They are fighting for their lives.
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
That is a poor argument. This statement is from the same sort of mindset that made the argument which the judge shot down.
As an analogy, should Sears be heald responsible for any murders I happen to commit with a Craftsman Chainsaw?
Windows, and its file sharing, we're invented for other purposes. Napster was invented with a much more narrow focus (namely, the sharing of MP3 files cataloged by name, etc.)
The only way out of this one is to argue that Napster was created with the intent of sharing songs which were not copyrighted, or which the copyright holders agreed to make available on Napster.
But as I see it, if we can find one case where someone used Napster soley as a mean for sharing legal music, then that should cast reasonable doubt, right?
Gene Kan's testimony was pretty funny. Yes he did make some points defending Napster, Gnutella, and file sharing in general. But did any one else get the feeling that there was also a good deal of "Nannie nannie boo boo. This is going to happen and there's nothing you, nor the government, nor anyone else, can do about it."
And mp3.com isn't exactly doing very well either.
See http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=MPPP&d=3m for proof.
They've been on a slide ever since June 6th, which, to the suprise of no one, is when they struck the deal with the RIAA to let my.mp3.com stay open.
Daniel Lev.
Not everyone steals from the music industry. Although I think what the industry does to the musicians is wrong (and shutting down Napster is wrong, they should get the pirates instead), I still don't steal from them. I will boycott, however.
IANAL, but I play one on
Napster was a program to pirate music. The sooner everyone can agree on that point the sooner we can actually dig in and get some real solutions. I will not go to bat for a 'company' like Napster. But I will go to bat for the concept of peer-to-peer networking.
What should be done is pull in Lars and Courtney Love, and The The (who are openly violating their labels copyright on their songs via their website) and develop a file-sharing/song selling system that benefits the artist.
I am all for cutting out the record labels and see more money go to the artist. When I buy my cd's of Russian Chanting Monks, I want that money to go to the Monks, not to promote the Britney Spear's Tits Tour.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Why don't I see you whining about the club that got shut down after they found out the owners were doing child prostitution?
So it's a bigger issue, for the most part, but where do you draw the line? Are you gonna tell me that the place shouldn't be closed because of all those poor innocent dancers that weren't causing any harm?
Yes, the RIAA is taking the wrong position, yes, all this is a big mess that should've been avoided, but is napster right? Absolutely not.
What would happen if Napster only permitted public-domain music? Do you really think that millions of users would still be flocking to Napster? Yeah, right...
I tend to agree with a lot of the points he makes.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
The author of that article is Scott Rosenberg. Now wouldn't it just be great if he were related to Hillary Rosenberg, the president of the RIAA?
If the "artists" were any good at all, they would make their living off of playing their music live rather than by selling studio-produced, watered down crap and then sitting back and raking in the dough.
If you want to listen to some real music, go to some bars and listen to some local musicians, you know, the people who still play music because they have creative instinct and talent?!
Or turn on Austin City Limits some time and see how good you really think Metallica is after watching some real guitarists play. And if you just have to have some bigger names, try Junior Brown or the Old 97's. You'll never listen to another shitty pop crap album again...
The only thing that should be illegal about Peer to Peer file swapping is that companies aren't using it. It's just the way things are heading, look at Stephen Kings new book, a dollar a chapter, and publishing companies are pissed. It's just that movies and albums etc. will be distributed VIA sattelite, or, P to P, which is faster depending...
I personally think that Napster made their biggest mistake when they decided that MP3's would be their only format. Gnutella works just the same, but it's everything, they haven't had problems, although one of the guys from AOL wrote it, and most of the versions now are just clones...
P to P will NEVER DIE! It will just multiply and multiply and multiply and multiply.....
While I love having my CD collection, I would not at all be opposed to paying $20 or so a month (more or less I suppose, depending on how they set it up) for access to music online. Think about it this way: say 10 dollars a month got you either 25 hours of music or something like 300 songs a month. If you listened to more than that, you could pay 20 dollars and get maybe 60 hours a month or 1000 songs....that way you are getting your music and the riaa is getting royalties...
I do realize that this plan lacks a way to pay the individual artists, but I'm sure they could develop a way to tally what songs were downloaded and by whom (also a boon to market research!)
What do you guys think?
They (the RIAA) hate that, too. They'd make it illegal to buy and sell used CDs if they could.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Napster has become a billion-dollar business by making it very easy to copy copyritten works. My feelings about copyright are that it should last *maybe* 8 years or so. But this is a country of laws and the judge had no choice but to follow the law - and shut down Napster, hard.
I can't cry for them. They are a company built on an a-moral business model. But I can cry for the internet.
Soon, it may be illegal to post links to illegal material at all. I have nothing against scour, alta-vista, and yahoo who only link to illegal mp3s. Sure, they are as agnostic as napster, making it easy to download mp3s, whether they are copyrighted or not. Legal or not.
The future of the internet is in jeapordy. Soon everything objectionable on the internet will be walled off. This will, of course, section off the internet. It will be illegal to link to porn, music, or stolen software. That means that places like breast cancer resource sites, copyright-free music, and free software will all suffer hard.
Is there a way to stop it? To boycott those who are causing this? No. WE are causing it, by putting so much effort into creating new ideas that we want disseminated and to own at the same time. The future will closely resemble the past, with guilds controlling complete sections of the economy, enforced by law. My suggestion, therefore, is to join a guild.
-Ben
It really depends on how much you spend...
they can'd do the MC Hammer thing and spend shitloads of money on everything..
You gotta do the Dave Matthews sorta thing and have
1. 1 tour bus (not one for every member)
2. $198 a night on hotels
3. Light spending on food and extras
ChiefArcher
Napster as an application falls way short on what it should be. Yeah, yeah, the disclaimers and user agreements are fine and I believe it is the individual who is ultimately responsible for criminal behavior. I can print books on how to make bombs, I can describe a hundred and one ways to kill someone, but in the end it is the individual who takes the action that is criminal.
With that being said, I want a better solution. Gnutella and FreeNet have their problems, technologically and morally. I still believe, no matter what, that if you want to have a song(story,picture) to listen to(read,look at)over and over, the artist(writer,photographer) who created that song(story,picture) deserves compensation.
This implies to me that any solution developed needs to incorporate the artists. The means the first step is to make sure the artist owns the copyright on the recording not the recording company. Then that artist agrees to distribute their work via a network.
I, the user, buy into the network. I get to put as much money as I want to with a minimum within reason (say $5). Everytime I download a song, my account is deducted a reasonable price, $.75 to $1.50. Even better, the artist sets a base price for each song and let market forces fluctuate the song. For every N downloads a song gets its price increases so it eventually finds its true market value. Unknown artists can set their songs at $0 and allow people to have it for free and see if the market will increase the price.
The money collected from the download is given to the artist. The network makes money to cover its costs much in the same way PayPal gets its money, by doing short term investments with the money people put into their accounts.
As I said, I am snowballing here and I don't know the viability of any of this. I also know MP3.com has done similar things so this isn't truly a new idea but a simplification of existing ideas coupled with a Napster user's desire for instant gratification with little hassle.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Unfortunately, the CD head of my DVD player can't read the cheapies when I burn music on them, nor can about half of the CD players out there. (Oddly enough, it is usually the crappy low-end players that work with cheap burned CD's, while a lot of hi-fi gear balks at them.)
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
This article at Salon should put your mind at ease. It talks about the landmark case, and reiterates what has been said here: if Napster goes down, it's phenomenon on the Internet will get stronger.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it.
Look, I hate to be the guy who defends the record companies, but this is a bogus statistic.
It may cost them 50 cents to stamp the CD, but you're overlooking a huge number of costs for the record companies. They pay the musicians, maybe not well, but they pay them. They advertise. They take care of lots of things for their musicians, including legal fees (because musicians tend to attract lawsuits more than the average person) and transportation and lodging on tour. Also, most bands that are signed at a major label don't make the label a profit, and the profit turning bands have to pay for these others.
Also, the stores charge $15 for CDs, the record companies probably sell to the stores for about $8-10.
I don't know all the costs, someone who works in the recording industry might better be able to name them, but it's unfair to say the record companies make CDs for 50 cents and sell them for $15.
Take a look at www.soundom.com... I don't know if this thing will go anywhere, but it purports to be a program that will pay you and the artists for whatever music you listen to. Looks like they do this through banner ads a la NetZero, and some (undisclosed) method of figuring out what song you're listening to.
;) ... The site says it'll be released for Windows in September 2000, to be shortly followed by a Mac version.
Of course, the client application doesn't exist yet
Sounds like it could be a dot-com pipe dream, but who knows.
Is it okay to cry "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse? --Steve Martin
>>>>some sort of collective legal action against the RIAA on behalf of the independant artists who use Napster as a distribution method Great idea except for the fact that the indie artists tend to have very little money because of the big label hedgemony, and we all know that it takes money for lawsuits.
This Sig has been depreciated.
To whom it may concern,
It is with grave concern that I (and many other music lovers) watch the current legal proceedings between your organization and Napster. I feel that the RIAA's actions in this matter have been premature and based on a flawed understanding of the nature of Napster's service to its users.
I enjoy the use of Napster because it allows me to "try before I buy", albeit through unofficial channels. I can think of several CD's that I have purchased after downloading songs from Napster - songs that were _not_ getting heavy rotation on the radio. I do not "steal" whole CD's worth of music using this service, simply because I enjoy owning a physical copy of the music, with liner notes, and pictures of the band, and a disc that I can play without turning on my computer. Therefore, using Napster will never cause me to not buy a CD that I would otherwise buy.
It is with great regret that I must now refrain from purchasing discs by RIAA-represented artists, as a form of protest over the shutting-down of Napster. I guess I will probably miss some good CD's that I was looking forward to buying, but I would miss Napster more, should you succeed in permanently eliminating it. Thank you.
Freedom: "I won't!"
props
I agree. I am in support of music trading, not music leaching. I support ratio FTP sites and will gladly pay a 1:3 for a good song or album. This way, it is no different than trading rocks or stickers or baseball cards. Of course, there is the argument that it is different because you don't have to give anything up, but you do provide someone with a song or album. Selling goods isn't about what the customer loses, it's about what the reciever recieves. Thats my take, anyway. Any thoughts on that?
luckman
luckman
I don't involve myself with flames, much less know how to bait one.
Ya know, I went out and purchased a CD the other day. First one in a year or so. When all the bruhaha broke last night about napster and the judge, I checked the recording label: Red House Records. Nope, not a member of the RIAA. I feel good.
Perhaps we should all carry a list of RIAA member labels next time we go to the store. Boycott is just that, don't buy anything on that list.
- just another cosmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
It was going to say something about "don't skew the 'napster users don't buy CDs' polls--make sure people know it a BOYCOTT".
Of course, once Napster is restrained, it can't be responsible for any loss of sales of CD's. Gnutella on the other hand...
The moderator that marked this post as a troll needs a serious beating. Again, just because you don't agree with what a poster has to say doesn't mean you should mark it as a troll. Yes this post might cause some controversy, but for crying out loud take of your blinders.
----
How many SlashDot users/readers are there? Realistically? A few hundred?
I don't download MP3's or use Napster. My choice. I would rather bang on pots and pans than listen to most of the music out there. But then, that's my opinion.
But if you really want to boycott someone, stop preaching to the choir and involve the majority.
"I am not gonna buy my 15 CD's this year"
What a waste of time. Get a few thousand, die-hard, CD-buying fiends to quit buying CD's. Convince club DJ's to stop buying more music. Convince radio stations to quit playing anymore new music. Get sympathy, if possible, from the people who make up those million sales for Brittainy, N'Sink and whoever.
"I am write a letter to my Congressman"
That is exactly the wrong way to go about it.
Write to the advertisers on the radio station whose format you enjoy. Tell them you will no longer listen to the stations they advertise on.
Write to record labels and include copies of receipts for the last year or so.
Stop listening to the radio.
Stop listening to CD's.
Stop buying, borrowing or downloading music.
And have the millions who buy the teen-scream, underpants crowd do the same.
"I am gonna download as much music as I can"
Good. Those numbers will be seen not as a protest, but as validity for what the recording industry thinks of you: You are not rebels but thieves and vandals trying to loot a few more songs before the impending shakedown.
Do them one better. Do not listen to, record, buy, borrow or download any more of their music.
Oh, and convince the "millions of people who do not use the Internet/MP3 technology regularly, and listen to the radio for their music" crowd to do the same.
Otherwise, this is a waste of time. But hey, you will have your principals.
Here is a list of RIAA Members.
/Sig/
You're just plain wrong. Listening to a song with the intent of deciding whether or not to purchase is legally fair use, under copyright law. It is not, repeat _not_, the same thing as "stealing a glass for a day," because _that_ is illegal.
Check out your local Goodwill or other non-profit type store. I go to the one by my house every once in a while. CDs are usually around $1.50 each and there is some decent stuff too.
Heck, I even bought a Sinclair ZX-81 there a few months ago for $10.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The RIAA does not care.
Really? I had a look at a number of other posts by you, for example here, here, here, here, and here. The last is rather interesting, in which someone accuses you of being an RIAA plant and you respond by admitting you are a troll.
Based on the content of your messages, it appears that that is all you are. In the unlikely event that you do work for the RIAA (and are a plant) I find it amusing that the RIAA would invest time and money discouraging a boycott they "don't care about." It is far more likely that you have succeeded in trolling slashdot very well this day, even getting a high +5 score doing it. There is no shortage of extreme Randian cynics on this site, and your post obviously appealed to some of them. Congrats.
(And shame on you pitiful fools who think it is somehow cool and worldly to espouse cynicism, apathy, and capitulation over standing up for your ideals.)
Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records - the stuff that most Slashdot readers (and other concerned citizens) don't listen to. We don't make much money off of your purchases. We make the money in the mass market. And by and large, the mass market doesn't care about your boycott.
First, that isn't true at all (and this exposes you as a simple troll and not an RIAA plant/spokesperson/whatever). The music industry makes a great deal of money on music of various genres which are not top ten. If they didn't, they would have no compunction in ceasing production of the material and killing the artists' careers. Such is standard operating procedure in the industry.
Furthermore, successful boycotts are almost never "mass market actions," they are activist actions taken by a minority. However, even a very small minority can make enough of an impact to threaten the bottom line, and this is as true with the RIAA as it is with anyone else. The difference is that the RIAA is defending a monopoly (of questionable legality), and monopolists often cannot see their business surviving the loss of their monopoly and will defend it to the death, even against all reason.
Finally, no boycott is in vain. A boycott of one person who stops going to a store or buying a product because it offends their principles is a victor -- that person has taken proactive control of their own life, against a torrent of propoganda and marketing telling them to do otherwise.
Your boycott will fail, unless what you want is to destroy the artists that you listen to - the artists who survive on a small but dedicated fan base. You are destroying the art that you love over a legal difference of opinion. We hope you're happy.
And you have the audacity to call us arrogant?
Resistence is never futile. It always costs the enemy something, and is always better than just rolling over and capitulating. There is a possibility we may lose the war, but it is certain that the RIAA is losing money as I type this.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
p.s. tape players are those cheap mini vcr's that do only audio ;>
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-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
What?
There's a ton of great music on mp3.com. I've recently bought a bunch of CDs from there, and have since had a warm inner glow. The CDs I bought were all as good/better than stuff you can get in the shops, and, as the artist receives 50% of the cost of the CD, they're probably better off selling their stuff through mp3.com than going through the more traditional routes (well, that could be open for debate, I guess).
And, possibly just as importantly, mp3.com has been in RIAA's line of fire for a while now.
Might as well support something they're trying to shut down, right?
...j
(a satisfied customer of mp3.com and nothing more)
In fact, the boycott itself may provide just the sort of evidence the RIAA wants to use in court.
How will it matter once Napster is shut down?
That's why those artists are, repeat after me, sell-outs. They signed the contract.
Their interest isn't in making more fans.
Their interest isn't in getting their music out to a broader audience.
Their interest is in making the most money possible.
They're brainwashed by the RIAA into thinking that each time someone trades one of their mp3s, that's one less time that song could be purchased. How many people buy singles any more? I think the last time I EVER bought a single was for Ratt, back when they were popular, and I was young & didn't have mouch money.
Daniel Lev.
I doubt a bunch of Napster users who stop buying CDs is going to hurt RIAA. In fact, it could be a very good thing for the industry.
What's the first thing these people do when they buy a CD? Of course, the go home, RIP it and put it up on the net. Duh.
Thus, I suspect that a boycott will keep new music from showing up on the web through other (gnutella) channels.
If we really want to stick it to The Man, we need to go out and buy every popular CD in the local music shop (certainly not Amazon since they are very The_Man-like) and put it online. Once the popular stuff is online, we need to head for the more obscure tunes. And we need to mirror it across the world so no one can shut us down.
Only then will we have true freedom. Are you with me?
InitZero
(The best part of this post is that the sarcasm will be missed by so many and that the flames will come from both sides. I love hypocricy!)
Okay, folks, I'm confused here:
You're planning to boycott corporations which provide resources for the music you love and enjoy, in support of another corporation whose only purpose (or the only purpose for which it is employed) is to enable the theft of intellectual property.
In picking one faceless corporation over the other, why are you choosing the one that enables the theft of the content you're claiming to support?
It looks to me like you've fallen for their spin-doctoring "We represent freedom of information on the Internet" B.S. hook, line and sinker. As someone else wrote on Slashdot earlier, would you be defending the Napster technology just as strong if it was Microsoft who introduced it?
As evidence, I submit that you are a slashdot reader. Slashdot readers, while many, are still a minority usually with high technical expertise and a sort of rebelisous attitude about some things if not all.
For every Napster user such as yourself, there are probably at least 10 others who use it for free music. They want the lastest Britney Spears album, or the latest NSync single. Unfortunately, I'm related to people like that. They could care less about the artist, the RIAA, copyright law, etc.
In a way, I'm glad Napster is being shutdown. At the very least it will stop these uneducated leaches from abusing a good thing. I hope, however, that some of them will be awakended by what has happened here and fight the good fight for the restoration of copyright spirit and anti-trust laws.
Napster is a drop in the bucket compared with what will happen when electronic distribution makes them irrelevant. However, if they can kill electronic distribution now, they can continue their monopoly.
The RIAA produces a product that, yes, allows people to listen to music. That, in and of itself, is perfectly legal. The point is that they use strongarm tactics to stop the perfectly legal tactics of other companies who get in their way. Furthermore, the RIAA being made up of corporations and all, they plan to make a profit by selling other peoples' music and keeping the lion's share for themselves! (Don't know how the middlemen got to be so powerful, but you don't form a leech league just for the heck of it.) That makes them little better than something I'd scrape off my shoe.
I know I won't be buying any CDs for a while, which isn't hard since most music sucks now days. I do like Metallica's music, but I will never buy anything of thiers again. I'll only download thier MP3s, and if I want thier merchandise I guess I'll have to steal it or something, but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing a Metallica brand right now. Even if all the MP3 peer to peer software dies (like Gnutella, Napster, and others) then I'll go back to doing what I did before Napster. I'll use FTP Search and IRC channels just like the old school days.
On another Note...Since Only Napster has to shut down, can't you still use Napigator (www.napigator.com) to connect to the various Napster Networks not run by Napster and still download songs? I wonder if I'd get taken to court by the RIAA if I ran a site with Napigator and Napster B5 and B6 on it...?
People who read Slashdot have better music taste anyway.
This is exactly the problem: so does the people who use Napster and Gnutella. The only reason they download certains songs is because they don't want to pay for crap.
But if the RIAA (who is watching me...) was clever, they would see this as an oportunity to infiltrate people with good taste, with bad music, and therefore further increasing profits.
That's right, boys and girls.
:)
My R 0.2e-01
I'm perfectly fine with the idea of every last card-carrying member of the RIAA being milti-billionaires, as long as they keep their noses out of my directory files.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
if there are any artists that are starving, send me an email (you should be able to figure it out). Send me an mp3 of one of your songs. If I like it, then I will pay you a dollar for it and ask for more. Otherwise, I will kindly thank you and delete it.
p.s. I don't listen to much top40, country, rap, or classical.
- passion
The question which we should be asking is who they are answering to?
/nutt
As laws stand now a site can only be prosecuted by the country in which the content is hosted.
The world needs sealand...desperately.
As a swede, seeing the US attack countries left and right just plain pisses me off.
The main/best way to avoid the MPAA and the RIAA is take note of teh most important part of thier titles.
Motion Picture Asociation of AMERICA
Recording Industry Asociation of AMERICA
And I say f*ck America...
"What they are telling us is that it's illegal to provide a service that shares information."
So I can start a database (tomorrow) that is essentially a catalog of the kids in each neighbor hood, their hair color eye color, characteristics, where pedophiles all over the world can share information used to stalk, rape, and kill kids if they so choose.
Hey, I'm only sharing information...
If the sales plummet only after this injunction (Especially if they were going up before) I think that'd be a pretty clear indicator that something pissed a lot of people off. Of course I don't think enough people will be pissed off enough to stop buying CDs. It might make for a minor jitter on the graph, but I don't think it'll amount to much more than that.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm sorry my ignorant friend, but you have the intellect of a sea cucumber.
BTW, there's nothing wrong with a little depravity.
Have a nice day!
That said, I think it's time I changed my
- by downloading everything I can get my hands on.
Gee, my boycott was to share everything I have.
"bite the flowers"
What utter bullshit. The music companies don't cater to listeners tastes - if that were the case, there would be much more variety and far less crap.
No, "you" to divine what the "target demographic" is and then you manufacture a product that is intentionally mediocore enough that it does not musically offend anyone, and is only useful enough to maybe get the drooling masses to come back to the trough the next time, in some bizarre pavlovian response. Case in point is Britney Spears and NSync and the rest of this sheer garbage which is exceedingly worse than even top 40 music from twenty years ago. "You" have eliminated risk by eliminating variety. "You" are now entering into radio station ownership deals to ensure that the distribution channels force your manufactured crap on the public whether they like it or not.
This is why people are taking matters into their own hands and putting "you" out of the editing and selection biz.
Here's how it works:
IT'S THAT EASY! And best of all IT'S FREE!
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Well, it seems that my wonderful days of cavorting in a footloose and fancy-free fashion through the world of free online music has come to a halt with this "landmark" (er....um landmine?) preliminary ruling.....pppbbhhtttttt... /.'ers out there could contribute to my tought that the sheer belligerence of the Napster peeps is responsible for their untimely demise. No one seems to be saying anything about hotline, and as far as my neanderthal brain knows, they are doing stuff not too different, just keeping it a little more under wraps...
In my plebeian status, I am hoping that some more experienced
Semantics is EXACTLY the problem. Your definition of "ownership" has a wart stuck on the side. The definition of ownership is something like "having full control of an item". But your wart says "or partial control each by different parties". In the case of Office 2000, you can control some of the use of the CD, Microsoft controls the rest of the use (copying, multiple installs, etc).
Trouble is, that your definition is self-defeating in the case where the multiple owners do not have aligned goals. For instance, you want to share with your friends, MS wants to maximize profit. The only way to make this work is to have a contract among the multiple owners (known as a "license") that lays out what each party can do.
That why I said in another post that copying CDs isn't stealing on the part of the recipient, it's breaking a contract on the part of the donater. And THAT difference isn't just semantics. For one thing it shifts the crime to another person. For another, it brings the entire who-owns-what-and-why issue out into the open.
--
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Dumb moderator. The posts had very valid and good points.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
We should boycott the RIAA not just because of our demand that music be shared online. An even better reason is knowing that in two years our landfills will be twice as high thanks to stacks of Britney Spears and Ricky Martin CDs which will never biodegrade. Notice the prominence, in remainder/cutout racks, of Vanilla Ice--and he was big 10 years ago already! All those CDs will end up in the waste bin. Digital distribution ends the tremendous waste of resources that CDs cause, allows us to delete music once we realize it sucks... and if it's all archived in a digital library somewhere, as the Fonz would say, "heyyy!"
Yeah, in not paying for a song/CD, I am not incurring an expense and therefore profiting. What I (and any other individual) am not doing is creating an industry that facilitates illegal activity in order for me and my shareholders to get wealthy.
I do find Napster odious. I have, admittedly, a shaky position on my pirating for individual pleasure vs. Napster's pirating for corporate wealth. Where then does the individual differ from the company?
So that they could make a few bucks, Napster has introduced a legitimate legal threat to the free exchange of information and ideas. For years, I (and I think most of us here at /.) have talked and dreamed about the free exchange of information and ideas over the internet. Enter Napster (and other profit-oriented organizations). Napster has taken this concept of free information exchange and put a price tag on it. The result: A lawsuit that could very well lead to a Supreme Court decision restricting the free exchange of information and ideas.
What can I say? Damn Napster and every other greedy profit-taker out there who has changed the internet from a beautiful ideal to a sordid instrument of commericalism. If they are going to drag the internet down, I want to sit back and watch 'em drag it down on their own house.
simply that it was a single company with a business model. It could be a target. That is it pure and simple.
As an analogy, consider the early popularity of the 'Net. All of the trafficing in free porn (of all forms), bomb-making instructions, etc., would have brought any SINGLE company down through lawsuits galore.
The fact that the Internet was decentralized and lawsuit-proof (comapred to Napster) allowed the proliferation of everything which legal harassment had supressed.
Napster has provided the model for peer-to-peer music-sharing. On the Web, everyone is an imitator of something.
Caveat: I have never, ever used Napster, or its imitators. I quit buying music years ago when it became obscene the price of CDs for the single good tune in a pile of duds. I'm just lucky to have good radio where I live.
Eric Anondson
All you need to do is go to Radio Shack or your local electronics store and look for a stereo to headphone convertor, whatever they're called. I found one for about $4. (Used to connect PlayStation through computer's 5.1 surround sound as opposed to TV's crappy stereo speakers - you know you're a geek when your computer sounds better than your TV or stereo...) Recording off of this is simple, although you'll need some disk space if you can't compress on-the-fly. (It's about a 10 MB/min, actually a little less (about 8.75MB/min if my calcs are right), for CD quality audio. Plan on 10 MB/min though so that you can encode to MP3.)
This can all be done with a simple Walkman too if you want to hook it up - just get a cable to plug into the Line In/Microphone port. Again, Radio Shack or your local electronic store.
(Yay, Mozilla build 2000072608 will allow me to post again! The latest nightlies kept on crashing on POSTs...)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
It's simple. Someone needs to set up a web site called paytheartists.com, or something similar. Anyone who wants to can pay any artist an amount of their choosing per song they download. All completely voluntary.
I could imagine an "about" page that reads something like this (please point out any innacuracies, either in law or in philosophy):
What is paytheartists.com?
Paytheartists.com is a site dedicated to compensating artists for their work without supporting the leeches who at this point in time are vigorously fighting what they correctly perceive to be a very serious threat to their monopoly. The premise is simple: music is available to internet users through Napster et al, and this site gives you the ability to compensate the respective artists a paltry sum per song.
The desired effect is to show musicians that the Internet can be an ideal way to distribute music while still making money off it, and without resorting to closed protocols that attempt to enforce compliance.
But what about people who won't voluntarily pay?
This is inevitable, and perhaps not all bad. First of all, there are children and others with limited incomes who don't have the money to spend in the first place, so this isn't lost revenue. Secondly, music lovers would hopefully be enthusiastic to reward music they like, and might perhaps contribute more for a song they especially like.
Aren't the activities you advocate illegal?
Yes. However, we believe them to be moral.
First of all, the operation of this site will not increase piracy. Napster and other music distribution systems make obtaining copyrighted music simple already, and anyone who wants music can get it. The effect of this site, therefore, is only positive, because we seek to take all the music "sharing" that is so widespread, and let the artists who created the work in the first place in on a little bit of the fun.
Secondly, we have absolutely no moral qualms about leaving the record companies out of this. They are so rich and powerful today only because they've had a complete stranglehold on the industry for so long, that any musician who wanted to be heard widespread had no choice but to go to a record company. Worse, these artists are now stuck because they don't own the rights to their own songs. Look on any CD, and you won't see (C) The Artist, but rather (C) The Big Record Company. Artists couldn't legally take their own music online now even if they wanted to.
The record companies are further working against the artists by refusing to budge an inch in regard to online distribution of music. The RIAA maintains to this day that it's illegal even to rip a CD you own to your own computer. A site like this would be completely unneccesary if they would simply embrace the advent of digital music instead of fighting it.
We challenge the RIAA to stand by their comments about their litigation being all in the name of the artist. If this site succeeds and begins compensating artists in significant amounts (and with the huge cut the record companies take, it should take too much money per song to get up to what the artist would make off a normal CD), the RIAA should be estatic that everything is working out so well. If they condemn it as a haven for pirates, they'll be caught in their own lie.
--
The music industry argues that it cannot survive in its present form without additional intellectual property protection. There is some justification for this view. After the French Revolution, one of the first acts of the new National Assembly was to eliminate copyrights. Within a few years, only pornography and seditious material was being published. Though such material can apparently survive any intellectual property regime, the French had to reinstate copyrights to provide incentives to produce more substantive works.
OK Damnit, people listen for once.
Stats don't lie.
Except when you make them to lie.
Why did college area sales drop? Let's see, the stats that they site are roughly from the may to june time frame. What happens then? Hrmm.. Toughy.. Let's see. I personally take classes up til the first week of may, then dead week, then finals. What next? OH YEAH!! I GO FSCKING HOME!!!!
Gee, if college students pack up and leave, how are they going to buy cds?? NO WONDER THE SALES DROPPED!!! Did they ever site the drop in other areas?? Hrmm, maybe because it's been proven that it went up??
The stats are telling you what they want them to.
</extreme rant>
I appologize for that, but I'm kinda tired of RIAA, and this is another example of why they're not earning a whole lot of my money right now (I admit, I buy one or two, because I'm moral and understand that the artists deserve money for their work, and if I did buy it the CD has to be good.)
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Time to fill up the hard disk on the old 386 and mail the machine to them I suppose...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
The truth is no matter how anyone wants to sugar coast it is this: Using Napster is stealing. I realize this and continue to employ Napster and many other "illegal" uses of the Net. I have a comfortable income and could easily afford to purchase these things. Why don't I? This country has problems. This is no longer the United States of America, call it the Corporate United states of America. I for one will not sit back and let the top 5% get fatter and fatter while the rest of the country (the people who REALLY make this country run) work themselves to death. I find it eerily reminiscent of mid-evil times or even ancient Egypt. We are essentially endentured servants in this country. If I can in any way, even a very small one take away from this system, I will! This entire country has become far too apathetic. We, our parents and our grandparents let this happen. We let them take away our free speech and our right to this and that through our own selfishness. We are to concerened about our own little worlds. "Well as long as it doesn't infringe on MY rights." Too many people said this about too many things . . . Stealing software in my opinion is nowhere near the level of action that will have to be taken to get these rights back, but every "revolution" has to start somewhere . . . The citizens are supposed to run this country. This is a Democracy. What went wrong?
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Linux is only free if your time is of no value.
People are clueless in general. The American public isone of the worst. In fact, it makes me ashamed for my countrymen.
From the misconceptions and misinformation that Napster is an "MP3 Swapping Web Site" to the pure ignorance of the belief that "Cop Killer" bullets can be shot through the blade of a bulldozer, people don't care about accuracy of information as long as it's entertaining.
Last semester, I had a professor who tried to convinve me that nobody had ever thought the world to be flat. His reasoning was that since people could see that the Earth's shadow was round, they couldn't have possibly thought that the earth was flat. My response, "A Quarter is both flat and round." A few people in the class actually laughed.
Back to my original point, you can't expect government officials to be any less clueless than society at large.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
People who say copyright infringement is theft are the ones who are "redefining theft." Copyright infringement != theft. So stop all the bullshit about theft and this and that, at least be honest with yourself.
I don't mean artists should jump ship and break contracts. They should be pressuring the RIAA to change their practices. If they can point to a boycott and say "Is this what I have signed my rights to you for?", then that will be the catalyst for change. The longer the animosity between the RIAA and the CONSUMER goes on, the more damage will be done to the artists. I don't see how a consumer boycott is bad but ripping off fans is good. Both are means to an end, which do you want?
When it comes to censorship, there are no clear lines. Consider a gun control law that decides which guns are 'bad' and which guns are 'good'? Does that make any sense?
Tomorrow, if I decided to share information about how to build bombs on the internet, there's not a lot anyone can do about it. My ISP could drop me, but I can just post the information in a free NG or a host overseas.
We must tread lightly into areas dealing with such powerful, precedence-setting censorship laws. The next thing you know, they'll be banning books like I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and Huckleberry Finn in schools...oh wait they've already done that.
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
But, it has already been said numerous times on Slashdot that the RIAA takes such a large percentage, the artists don't get any significant amount of money off of CD sales.
Because it's "been said" on slashdot doesn't make it true! In fact, the RIAA is a non-profit company and doesn't make any money.
Assuming you misspelled "record companies", do you care to give proof of this statistic? You need to give a breakdown of the income of several musical acts in order to prove this. One data point I can give is Michael Jackson, who pocketed $6 per copy of Thriller, and sold 20 million copies. He had a three year world tour afterwards, which grossed $30 million. The album took six months to record, and the tour took three years, but the album was still four times more profitable. This doesn't mean the case holds true for all artists, but it is one data point.
They make all their money on concerts instead.
Proof please? And if this is true, why for every single concert I have ever been to, does the artist say, "Please support us and buy our CD"?
Considering the insignificant cost of producing a CD and the percentage which goes to the artist, your profit margin on CDs makes up nearly all of the cost.
Proof please? The average cost of producing a classical CD is $500,000 (this is "insignificant"?), and sells between 2,000 and 3,000 copies in its lifetime. Do the math. There is no profit for 90% of CD's produced. The only CD's which profit is stuff like Britney Spears, but most of that profit goes to pay for the unprofitable music (90% of titles). That is where the money is going; contrary to the myth on slashdot, it is not lining record exec's pockets.
While there are plenty of alternative sources for Music, the MPAA is practically the only way to get movies (I've seen some good indie movies, but no theatres around here show that kind of thing). Movies just cost a lot to make.
If DVDs not produced by major studios (I'm thinking maybe domestic anime releases) were to make a stand and, say, not encode their discs with CSS... then we'd have something to talk about. But a boycott when there aren't any alternatives is only half as effective -- you may hurt the boycottee, but you don't help his competitors.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. Slashdot is not responsible for what they say.
And now here's Napster's fine print:
Users are responsible for complying with all applicable federal and state laws applicable to such content, including copyright laws.
So, if I'm correct, if I were to post DeCSS source directly in here, Slashdot would still be liable..
Kind of makes you wonder.. All it would take is the MPAA deciding Slashdot was the enemy..
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Question: Why is the boycott being organized now, instead of when the case was first brought? Now that the RIAA has drawn "first blood" the boycott will be that much less effective.
Just a thought
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
Who anywhere would not argue that anyone selling burned CD's with pirated ANYTHING on them should not go to jail. That is piracy in its simplest form.
As for millions of people using Napster for public domain music, you're right. Napster would fail, but not for the reasons you cite. It would fail because it's prime competition would be mp3.com who's been at it longer, has more money and a more marketable name.
/Sig/
"What a man does to make a living is no concern of mine" - Vito Corleone.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
Yea, all well and good except OpenNap still provides a list of servers for the RIAA to go after. Gnutella is the only safe bet as there is no central repository for server info, except the server list at the gnutella site.
Go back to tapes! RIAA gets a kickback on blank cassettes. And blank minidiscs.
I was about to post something cautioning people about a boycott. It was going to say something about "don't skew the 'napster users don't buy CDs' polls--make sure people know it a BOYCOTT".
Then I realized: While it isn't my goal to reduce the profits of the RIAA, that is an inevitable outcome of what my goal IS. So screw it, I don't care if study after study finds that "Napster users buy fewer CD's". Good! That means they are sharing! It's not a bug, it's a feature!
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... is some sort of collective legal action against the RIAA on behalf of the independant artists who use Napster as a distribution method. I know that they are not even minutely close to being to majority of music on Napster, but shutting napster down affects a bit more than just preventing the supposed "piracy", and the courts should take that into consideration.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
The RIAA will never even notice the boycott. Even if every user of Napster stopped buying records, this would be a trivial umber of people. And even if they were made aware of this, what difference would it make? They believe that the people who have just boycotted them were pirating all their music anyway.
And then there's Napster. A company just as bad as the RIAA. They rely on all this media coverage for free advertising. They know that people are going to use their service for piracy. They are also willing to put as much effort as possible into making sure that nobody else tries to compete with them.
So who boycotted Napster last time they threatened someone with legal action by (just as an example) using their logo? Anyone?
When it comes to things like RIAA I think we are looking at things in the wrong manner. As long as people are passive consumers the record industry, RIAA, ASCAP and all their minions will continue to exploit musicians and aficionados everywhere. My suggestion to everyone who dislikes the copyright laws is:
1) Buy a musical instrument. Penny whistles and harmonica are cheap, guitars a little more pricey.
Pianos are expensive. Find something in your price range that suits your personality.
2) Learn how to play it. Get rid of the TV and stop being a potato. Invest in some personal development. Lessons, lesson books and sheet music are very inexpensive forms of entertainment. You should be able to find a struggling (or not so struggling) musician somewhere who can give lessons on the side. You will then also have the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting your local music scene. The web also has some excellent resources for musicians.
3) Make your own music. Instead of being a passive consumer, be creative. Learn to pay all your favorite songs and possibly write a few of your own.
4) Give RIAA et. al. "the finger".
If you have a few thousand extra dollars to throw around, buy some gear that can record and digitize
music and share it on the web with other people. You can release under some sort of open license like:
" You may freely listen to perform, distribute and sample this music as long as proper credit is given to the author and this notice appears pertaining to the music you have performed, distributed or sampled."
Anyway, music is information. Information wants to be free. (I will let you finish the syllogism).
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
In this case, you stole from AutoCAD and Microsoft. In the case of mp3s, you stole from the artists and copyright owners. That IS stealing, legally and ethically. Microsoft wrote the code and did not give it to you nor sell it to you, yet you have their crap (crap is an intentional word). The artist created the song and the copyright owners distributed it, neither gave or sold it to you, yet you have it. That is stealing.
IANAL, but I play one on
No, not at all. There's just these thousands of people that all happened to increase their music budged when napster came out... it's totally unrelated.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
I saw an article a day or two back (sorry, can't find it now) which reported that the music industry is starting to whinge about not being able to hire all the best geeks, since this whole affair has left a bad impression on geekdom at large. (The article quoted one techie laughing at the very idea of going to work in the music industry.)
This kind of reminds me of when Microsoft's PR problems started warming up about a year and a half ago (IIRC), when SB admitted that "All this talk about an Evil Empire has made it hard to hire the best". The media turned against them shortly thereafter. Coincidence? Will history repeat itself with the RIAA?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
To those who would accuse me of being an "all talk, no action," let me add that I'd be perfectly willing to write the code for such a site (provided that the idea is on solid legal ground), but I have no graphic design skills nor the hardware and bandwidth neccesary for such an undertaking...
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How do you know if an album had *only* good songs? You had to hear it completely before you know you like all the songs, and if I recall well they only play the "best" song of the album on the radio.
I actually *do* buy CD's for 1 or 2 good songs, and I often discovered songs on the album which I liked much better than the one I bought it for. Also I noticed that (when playing a CD often) you start to appreciate the "lesser" songs.
Besides living in Europe, I have no clue how the RIAA (last A = American, no?) has influence over the music here. Of course there are probably similar institutions here...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Are you really going to hurt RIAA or the artists?
If cd sales go down, how will the artists/music companies know if its because of Nasper alternatives or because of this protest? Will any artists care? Music companies make money from non-cd products too.
Like the gas boycotts recently, passive/quiet protests are not all that effective.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
It seems to me that nearly everyone has overlooked a very simple point. The users of Napster, those that have downloaded music that does not belong to them, have committed the crime.
Because I can kill someone with my car, should we shut down Nissan? Because I can maim you with my chainsaw, is Home Depot liable?
I am sure illegal trading occurs on Napster. I am sure someone will die today as the result of being hit by a car.
Will someone please explain to me why Napster is about to go bye-bye, yet the auto-makers will see the sun rise next week?
1) Big tobacco trial in Florida. Basically, the ruling was that if you were stupid enough to put something on fire in your mouth, it isn't your fault, it's the fault of the supplier. This isn't quite the same as napster since napster is for distributed file sharing and would be more likened to a flea market than a store selling things, but the judge's lack of technical knowledge will see it as napster distributing the content.
2) The lady that spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonalds. This case could be used to show that the napster users are not to blame, it's the napster company. If that lady used coffee (known to be and marked on the cup as hot) in a harmful way, it should have been her fault. However, in this case it was found to be the fault of McDonalds that she used the hot coffee incorrectly.
3) The whole gun issue. Even though I haven't kept up too closely with any of the court cases involving this, I do know that some groups were suing manufacturers of guns because people use them incorrectly also. The problem with suing the manufacturers is that they sell the guns to distributors, then the distributors sell to people.
That's really all I can think of right now but I do know that there are many other cases out there. The MPAA is not going to go after the napster users at this point because there's too many and they are the ones that actually buy the cd's and give them money anyways (apparantly not enough money for the greedy bastards though). They go after napster, who is not under the control of the MPAA, and is distributing music freely. It would be too easy to set up an ad at the top of the screen and generate revenue in a very similar but better way as radio has worked for years. The quality of life in the U.S. seems to be going downhill for everyone...excluding the lawyers. :o)
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
While the oucome sets a prejudice in the states alright, does anyone know what the scope of the verdict is? If I setup a server in say Japan, how legal is that? Serrie.
I fear you miss the point of what makes Napster so widespread and successful. IRC has some wonderful ways to facilitate the transferring of mp3s, but it's still nowhere near as user-friendly or mindless as Napster. Napster succeeds because it's easy, and because absolutely anybody can figure it out; it is a single-purpose tool, it is intuitive, and it brings quick and easy access to mp3s to every person with an Internet connection.
For the computer intellectuals, there will always be easy ways to get ahold of mp3s. Gnutella is nowhere near as user-friendly as napster (new clients that seek to fix this not-withstanding), but it is a means for getting the m3ps. There will always be lists of FTP sites, IRC channels, and other means for a certain class of users to attain what they want.
In truth, what makes Napster and other file-sharing technologies so exciting is that they allow everyone to harness the power of the Internet, to find exactly what they're looking for and to bring that content to their desktop in a simple, straightforward manner. It also allows people to share and contribute to the Internet, another capability from which the Internet novice is often precluded. It's still simplistic in what it shares and does, but as services like these grow, they provide a whole new means of access to the Internet, and another generation of user-friendliness that can't be obtained on dalnet.
Personally, if I want to go buy a CD, I'm going to go buy it. If I want to check a CD out before I make a commitment, I'll FTP it and hear it that way. Does anyone else feel left out of this whole battle of principle? It seems to me that I'm not even effected this thing. I dare to proclaim that MP3s will always exist, in some form. Whether it be on FTP, or Gnutella, or OpenNap, you will always be able to get free music.
luckman
luckman
I don't involve myself with flames, much less know how to bait one.
The main argument is that napster should be shutdown because it contributes to piracy. Nevermind the fact that it can be used to trade non-copyrighted music, too. This is like shutting down Chevy and Ford because some of their cars are used in bank robberies. Gimme a break... mr. seabourn "Guns don't kill people, I kill people."
Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
How many SlashDot users/readers are there? Realistically? A few hundred?
At least 174,382. Take a look at your user page.
And will the boycott do any good? I don't know. Will I do it? Sure. For the same reason I vote, even though my vote a tiny drop in the bucket, often filtered through the electoral college... it's what I can do, so I do it. It's better than doing nothing at all.
you tell me that i make no difference
at least i'm fuckin' trying
what the fuck have you done?
-Minor Threat
A band on Dischord Records, a label which is completely independent of the RIAA, and who offers most of their CDs for $8, postpaid.
Napster did facillitate the piracy of copyrighted music.
The root of the problem lies with the use of the copyright laws on "intellectual property" (though some of the "music" is beyond my intellect).
If there be "grassroots" movement to overthrow the status quo : stop agreeing to pay $15 bux for a piece of silicon with crappy music inside.
But do it for the right reasons, i.e. boycott to protest the exorbitant prices, not against the ruling.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Ok, so I wasn't alive at the time, but once upon a time there was a professional baseball team with a really cool idea.. DISCO NIGHT!
:) Or maybe a "CD Burner's Convention." Then they would realize that Napster is only a small crack in their problem, and they're attacking the wrong things. Maybe they'll realize it's best to just work with us instead.
End result? A bonfire of more than umpty thousand vinyl records, a glorious day indeed. Center Field was a mess I recall from my reading, and there were more fans on the field than in the stands. If I recall right, they didn't even get the game in!! The people were against disco, and just in general feeling a need to be rioting. Needless to say, this was a nice push against disco.
A similar display would be appropriate would be in order, if RIAA wasn't colluding to raise prices. It would just cost too much..
Perhaps a giant microwave would work on RIAA's CDs??
We can only hope.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Don't get me wrong, I like MP3s and I have downloaded quite a bit, but that isn't the issue. I don't profit, nor do I attempt to profit (in monetary terms, anyway) from my pirating of music.
Napster does profit (or attempts to) from pirating. Doesn't anyone here find that in the least bit odious? Napster has taken what used to be a minor annoyance to the recording industry and turned it into what will become a supreme-court decision. Why? For your money.
I hope RIAA reams the bastards.
Lets say you're the master of the world, you are the judge on every panel. All you need to do, is say the word, and every napster and gnutella clone is not just theoretically made illegal, but EFFECTIVELY disappears. What would you, as an intelligent slashdotter do? This issue is not about music either, it's about trading copyrighted information. So, do you allow people to continue trading whatever the hell they want, or do you not allow them to trade anything? Think hard, because I don't have a fucking idea as to what to do about this.
Lars Ulrich is really feeling the pain, so why don't we all help him out. Go to PayLar$.com and help out a poor, homeless rock star. Come on, guys, we CAN make a difference.
-Superb0wl
-Superb0wl
It's not that I'm lazy....it's that I just don't care.
Again... I dont think this is the battle we should be fighting. The RIAA is fighting music piracy, not the facade of piracy (as in the DeCSS case).
As a musician I do not agree with the unauthorized distribution of my music. Whether or not mp3 sharing helps me and gets me album sales is irrelevant. If I dont *want* my creation to become public domain then no one has the right to make it otherwise.
Music sharing is fine and good, but if someone chooses to remove their music from the sharing pool that is their perogative.
Napster claims to be in favor of 'sharing' but (as illustrated by this story) really is not quite the company that they would have you think. Napster was created solely as a means of music piracy. By saying that they do not actually distribute material and only allow peer-to-peer connections is truthful, but misleading. They provide the software to allow for the peer-to-peer connections that transfer mp3's.
I don't like the fact that RIAA has become the all-smothering mouthpiece for the entire music industry, but, I think that something needs to be done.
We need to focus on greater problems such as the DVD Case.
the real shiftaling has user number 5134
Karma: -43 and DROPPING!!!
Where are the grassroots efforts to boycott the MPAA?
I have been boycotting the MPAA for months now.
Slashdot has never been terribly consistent with respect to the DeCSS thing. When I tried to make them aware of Declan McCullagh's (a writer for Wired who hysterically screamed DVD Piracy when DeCSS and css-auth first came out) behavior and its affect on people like Derek (the original author of css-auth who had to quite the project under legal threats as a result of Declan's shoddy journalism) I was pointedly ignored.
Slashdot constantly inundates us with movie reviews and other "free marketing" of the very people who have declared Livid and the open source/free software community their enemy. Worse, they give one of the worst journalistic offendors, Declan McCullagh, very chummy introductions to any story of his they link to (most other authors are not mentioned by name when their articles are linked to by slashdot).
Frankly, I don't understand slashdot's behavior with respect to the DVD/MPAA/Declan/DeCSS thing either, but it sure does annoy me from time to time.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
- by downloading everything I can get my hands on.
.mp3 cast the first flame...
You are LYING to your self if you claim otherwise - I know I've saved myself several hundred dollars over the last few months by hearing a song on the radio, and burning myself a CD when I get home. And I ALSO used to spend about $1G on CD's each year -
Let he who is without a stolen
Ahh, but that choice isn't allways for them to make. People have contracts you know. And not all artists can afford to buy of these contracts. So if you would take this theory one step further you'd make it even worse. The, allready, rich artists might be able to go elsewhere but there would be plenty of artists who are not (financialy) capable of doing this. So we should just ignore them and get ready to ruin their careers alltogether?
Quite simply the ban on napster wont go away. I only use napster as a last resort to find music though. How long until the rest of the world finds another way to get free music? In case a whole lot of you hadnt noticed a lot of files that can be gathered from napster contain rns or bmi or ndb or 2db or.... many other variations. Ever wondered what these are? Well they are the sigs of the actual groups who rip and first distribute these mp3s. The primary method of disemination is via ftp, and is available to those in the know and then only via a very sketchy pecking order. Of course this is the same as how warez are distributed. Well, I am nowhere near the top of the pecking order, but I do know of sites that link directly to some of these ftp sites. This is one primary method of getting mp3s. It may not be as easy and clean as napster, but then again ftp servers can resume and you dont have to search for the same song if the serving computer drops out and reconnects to a different napster server, you just reconnect and continue from where you left off. Why am I using ftp to get my genre of music pleasure? Simply because to buy imported European electronic music here in Australia can cost you up to $50 per cd. Well, I am simply not going to pay that. If an artist I like comes here, sure I will go and support them in concert. A lot of the music I find complete crap, but then again once in a while you find a complete gem, and I still prefer cd quality as opposed to mp3 192/160/128 quality. Yes I will buy it.
Does it go on forever?
In either case someone may grab one and run. Or grab one and pay for it/grab one because they already own the CD [but left it at home or whatever].
Either way, the one who actually does the wrongful stealing is the criminal. Not the store. Not me.
I am not more responsible for locking down my shares than the store is for not locking up all its CDs in theft-proof display cases.
I mean, the main purpose of Napster is already getting the music without buying the CDs. I guess a boycott is really gonna show them. Real smart.
1980: I WANT MY MTV
2000: I WANT MY MP3
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Yes, also, let me add that Napster IS a good idea. Their arrogant "We didn't steal anything" mentality though is not something that is needed. When the RIAA holds all the cards, bluffing may not be the best method. We all have SEEN Napster people online, in the rooms of that place. There's no way they didn't know piracy was going on, and that'll be proven in court in about ten minutes. The rest of the trial will be legal crap about what is and is not first amendment, and whether the copyright should be yanked due to unfair labor practices. (It'll never happen. Then ALL music becomes illegal until relicensed by the original author)
THis is a mess, but please remember that there are right and wrong ways of doing things, and Napster chose the wrong way. Music wants to be free until you watch your friend get ripped off wholesale.
Magnwa
I don't know all the costs, someone who works in the recording industry might better be able to name them, but it's unfair to say the record companies make CDs for 50 cents and sell them for $15.
OK. I'll bite. According to this report (I know it's ZDNet... ugh), the record labels only pay production and promotional costs for established acts. According to the same article, production costs for 100,000 copies of a CD are around $93,000 (the cost per copy goes down as the number of copies goes up). The record companies aren't losing a lot of money promoting lesser known bands, since those bands have to repay those costs to the record companies. And according to this report at Harvard Law School, artists don't actually start to make any money until 500,000 units have been sold.
So don't come crying to me about all the extra costs the record labels have to bear promoting lesser-known bands. It's just not true. 3000-4000% was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but 1800% is not (at the $8-10 sell price).
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
and freenet, and whatever other mechanisms exist for distributing files. Let them know that the court decision means nothing to real life.
[ home ]
Lots of people here are saying that all music coming out of the RIAA is bad, and they don't like it. Well, I think that that is a little extreme; I like some of it, just not all. (Obviously, Britney needs to go find another profession...)
... And who knows, you might even get a thank-you note or something!
Here's what I propose we do:
1. Get the music you want, any way you can (excluding bribery, vandalism, etc.)
2. Send a check or money order or whatever straight to the artist/band.
3. Listen to your music in peace, knowing that you've just screwed the RIAA and helped the artist.
The purpose of the Boycott is to take the moral high ground while making a serious statement to RIAA. It is critical that the boycotters are unpaintable as frustrated whining pirates who lost their favorite toys.
Thus, don't use the word boycott in the same breath as you discuss other alternatives to Napster. It sounds as though you are saying, "hey, I wasn't willing to steal content before --I was buing CD's just as I was sharing them-- but I'll do it now."
While that is another tack -- the guerilla "you can't touch me" approach -- it is inconsistent with, IMHO, the point of a boycott -- to expose a bad for what it is, while making your own point.
By all means boycott if you can get a signficant market force together, but while doing so, DO NOT "share" the content you are boycotting. Don't listen to it at all -- protest and picket at live performances by artists who don't come out against RIAA's position, and listen to free music from artists who do come out.
It may not be as much fun at Dance parties, but hey -- if it is a matter of principle, let's stand by our princples.
But this is more than keeping cash while listening to someone else's music -- so don't prove the RIAA's point for them. Turn away from "big music" in favor of local talent, or talent that takes a "new view." Encourage local radio stations to do so as well.
This would make a difference, and it would also make a point.
Guerilla tactics might work --and they might not work: but you are simply inviting more warfare and litigation. In case you hadn't noticed, that's fighting RIAA in a forum in which they are powerfully equipped.
Far better to fight the fights elsewhere:
(1) hit them in their pockets by not buying (and by not using) their products; make sure the local distributors of these products hear, politely but loud and clear, how you feel about these.
(2) get active -- write congressmen and senators -- do it now, and keep doing it.
(3) stay alert and educated -- there are sound, cogent arguments in support of your position, but many resort instead to pabulum and the language of "underground piracy". That will kill your position in the long run -- you need not only to mobilize those who agree with you, but also to convince those who do not hold fixed and strong positions on these matters.
I, for one, am a strong IP advocate. If anyone would have held a fixed position on these issues, it would have been me -- but I listened and heard the sound, solid arguments in support of Napster, and was "turned." Other smart people can be turned as well -- but not if all they are hearing is pabulum from both sides.
The idea is to have the activists who care active, and the people who don't pissed off at the other side.
For my part, I'm not buying RIAA CD's, but neither will I be using the alternative music sharing servers so long as the injunction is in place. I will be writing and advocating the virtues of the Napster position before the Congress and at every public opportunity, and assailing the arrogance and weaknesses of RIAA's position, while acknowledging their right to protect IP at the same time.
In the meanwhile, trust the system to get this right in the end. They did in Sony and they did in Diamond -- in time, so too will they do so with Napster. At the same time, watch out for the Congress, who can change the law with a word -- make sure it costs any Congressman or Senator in this election period to take the "big media" position -- MAKE IT AN ISSUE.
This morning, Vice-Presidential candidate Cheney was asked about Napster. He begged off, saying he didn't know much about it. This can't be permitted to happen.
Make it a grass roots political issue -- try to get someone in Congress to pass a limitation to exclusive rights expressly permitting space-shifting as a form of fair use or otherwise.
You can make it happen, if you have the right and the will to do so. Do you?
Folks.. the issue is not that napster is a 'tool that can be used for piracy, among other things'. Certainly that is true.. it has several uses.
The issue is that Napster Inc. Is succeeding solely because they *knew* and *know* that people are using their service almost *exclusively* for pirating music.
It's not simply about technology; it's about a business that has been foudned *solely to help people pirate music*.
Do I think file sharing should be banned or even controlled? No way. I think you don't blame the tool; you blame the people.
But in this case napster is more than the tool; it is a company making money off of piracy.
.. I am personally baffeled by the RIAA's insistance that Napster causes people to not purchase as many CDs. Personally, I have downloaded quite a few songs from Napster (Bloodhound Gang, MI2 Soundtrack songs, eminem, etc) and in EACH AND EVERY case, I have gone out and bought the CD because I thought it was good.
The RIAA can't claim to not know that people do this. There have been a bunch of studies, such as this one. Many of my friends do the same thing -- they use napster to sample music, the same way the people use the radio to listen to new music. Based on what I hear, I may go out and buy the cd, but if I don't, I'll erase the mp3 and never listen to it again.
Does anybody else out there do stuff like this?
Dear Lars,
here's another way that bands could handle MP3's:
The Arena homepage
Now isn't that a nice and shiny example of how you *could* handle things?
Here is a band that puts the MP3's from it's latest album on the web as MP3's, including te lyrics (and very good music too, if you're into sympho! Just listen to ' The butterfly man').
How to make a sig
without having an idea
I've used Napster one time and found it too popular and not as easy to use as transfering MP3's on IRC channels such as dalnet. I use channel #mp3z and #mp3s. The downloads are fast and effective. And IRC is cross-platform so it works on almost any OS.
So why do we need Napster? IRC MP3 trading has been around for a long time and no one wants to shut it down
But anyway, if in fact Napster users are legit and genuinely seek ways to support unsigned and small artists, the thing to do is use whatever technique you want to discover them, and then buy your music from the artist directly.
Artists only receive a small portion of a CD's retail price because so many others slurp off the money beforehand. But if the artist is the retailer, they get the retail portion too. Buy a T-shirt and a mag, while you're at it, too. The added benefit is that the people most hurt by this will be the music retailers. And the RIAA is much more likely to listen to them than to you.
Careers should combine three things: what you can do, what you want to do, and what you can get paid for.
And this 'boycott' would be incredibly hard to suggest to other people, especially those who never use Napster or any other P2P system. Again, The World is Not Filled With Angry Young Men.
Bottom line: if you disagree with something like this, a boycott is not going to do a whit of good except maybe proving to RIAA demog peeps that "heavy internet users" no longer buy as many CDs. That's just grease for their fire.
Serious suggestions:
You make a good point, here, but I don't think your reasoning is entirely accurate...
"Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records"
The RIAA is an association with many many member record companies. The majority of these record companies do not have Top 10 acts, obviously.
These companies are RIAA members because they believe it helps them make money. But if small labels start feeling the results of a boycott directed at RIAA member labels, they may not think being an RIAA member makes sense any more. Dwindling membership would be a real problem to the RIAA.
Probably the RIAA could sustain itself with only the memberships of a few Major labels. But they'd be in a much worse position with a Lot Of Little Guys vs A Few Big Guys! (versus now: A Lot Of Little Guys vs A Lot of Big and Medium and Little Guys)
I would suggest Matador and Merge records, two of the bigger "indie" record labels. These guys offer a lot of excellent music (as far as I'm concerned; check my CD List but more relevantly they are very artist friendly. 50% of CD sales go to the artist on Matador, for instance.
You'll also find that CDs from these labels tend to be a few dollars cheaper than RIAA stuff.
An RIAA boycott will be pretty easy for me to pull off... count me in!
Yeah. But this is no different that the government not understanding psychology, sociology, economic theory, physics, biology, nutrition, education issues, but yet making laws and regulations for the medical fields, aerospace, food (im)purity, schools and airlines. So, they have just added another area to screw up. This is no more dangerous than any of the other examples above.
>
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
I know very little about the alternate Napsters. I have used GNapster on Linux, which got search results in half the time the Win32 client took, but I don't know whether it connected to Napster servers or alternate ones. My worry is this: what made Napster great was the sheer quantity of people using it simultaneously. If everyone goes off to whatever server they heard was best, that won't happen. And the non-technical users won't be bothered to enter a new server name. They'll just shrug and say "it was fun while it lasted." GNUtella? I have the bandwidth to get 400k/s downloads off Napster, but I've rarely gotten anything faster than 3k/s off GNUtella.
Is there a little false optimism here?
grep -ri 'should work'
I dunno about other Colleges .. but there are two factors around mine that have made CD sales drop. 1) A mainstream band perfroms every week on campus 2) In order to gain income the vendors in the area have hiked up their prices in the area. Even the people who can't afford internet are pirating .. by copying CD's from the libraries of the area.
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
One possible way for the music industry to make money off mp3s would be to sell them online similar to the way that Stephen King is trying to sell his new novel. They could give the option of downloading the file for free, or paying some small amount for it.
There are some problems with this method of distribution, but it could work. The best way to do this would be to release songs from a particular artist or album online one at a time, and to release the next only if the song before it makes some set amount of money. If it were clearly being abused and almost no one was paying for it, they could stop releasing them. People wouldn't have to pay for it, but they wouldn't continue being able to download more of their songs if they didn't.
With this system they would be able to release rare songs online, making them easier to get ahold of. It would also allow you to buy only the specific songs that you like, rather than buying an entire album that has only one or two that you like. It also cuts down on the cost of the physical materials used to make the CD.
If they did use a system like this, Napster could pose a tangible threat to their profits. They wouldn't be able to monitor whether the music that they spent money to produce was being downloaded without compensation.
Personally, I would prefer to pay money for a song I like rather than pirating it, but right now there's no way to do that with mp3s. And distributing music this way would be so much nicer than having to use files that have been encrypted to ensure that they were paid for, or some of the other methods I've heard about ensuring that the songs were paid for.
"When deep space explorations ramps up, it will be the corporations that name everything."
And if people organize, that is a boycott... it is always voluntary
In either way; you are hurting them and still expect them to take your side? I call that being very naief.
If a group of people organize a boycott, the message being sent is that "You will not be getting our business because of X reason". If enough people believe in the cause for the impact to be felt, then change will happen. Otherwise we are a minority group with no CDs, where is the harm?
It should be up fully by the end of the week. Just click on the link in my sig :)
-colin
-Colin
Oh, sorry, looks like someone's done it...
Microsoft doesn't provide the file sharing as a service that they manage and coordinate. They don't provide central index servers to what's available out there.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
"Fair Use" is awfully convenient, isn't it? Yes, let's lock on to bit of legalese that technically allows something like Napster music sharing within the law. Then we'll be on really solid ground when the law is changed or re-interpreted (say, by the judge in the Napster case, which seems extremely likely) such that Napster-like sharing on a massive scale is no longer Fair Use.
Sure, you and I can trade/loan CDs back and forth or even make mix tapes/CDs and that's fair use. But I think it's safe to say that there's a standard of "reasonableness" here, and somewhere between me loaning you a CD or making a mix CD and me putting the CD out there in MP3 format for millions of people I don't know, the line between reasonable and unreasonable is crossed.
What's "not the damn point" to me is that Napster, Gnutella, etc., shouldn't even have to exist. They've shown that people are willing to pay money ($40/month broadband access, $5 blank CD's, $100 CD recorders, plus Joe Napsteruser's time at $200/hr) to download music electronically, even if it's a bit dodgy legally. Musicians and (potentially) their distribution companies will soon see that this is a valid way for them to make money, if they haven't seen that already. All this "Fair Use" and "sharing" garbage will just go away...
--
101010, 222, 52,
For one, when a band signs a record deal, they are starving, love playing, and will do anything to keep doing it. Consequently, they get some crap deals. A lot of times, a band's contract will basically say that they get 5% of royalties, after recouping all recording and promotion costs, and only on full price sales. That sucks even worse than it sounds.
When a big record label gets behind a band, they often spend over $1million on promotion alone, in the form of sponsored radio give aways, program director schmoozing, etc. Also, recording in a big studio with a big name producer costs a fortune.
So before the band makes a cent, they have to pay all that back out of their 5%, which is probably less than a buck a record, maybe less than $.50. So they gotta sell a lot of records to even make a cent. I heard a pair of NY radio dj's say the other day that they get $.37 cents out of each copy sold. And that's only on full price sales. As soon as it gets marked down to super-saver or whatever, they get nothing.
There's a lot of other really bad stuff about this set up. Say it's a three record deal and the first record doesn't do too well. The record label won't want to invest a million bucks in another record they are not confident in, so they won't pay for you to record another record or tour (plus you have nothing to tour behind). But you're stuck in a contract so you can't go anywhere else. This is the kind of thing that leads to "The Artist" instead of Prince, or AFX, Polygon Window, etc., instead of Aphex Twin. There's a really good article by Steve Albini called The Problem With Music. This is mirrored all over the place if there's any problem with that link. It has actual numbers, is a lot more thorough, and comes from someone with a whole lot more experience than I have. The punchline is, they work out numbers for a band that sells 250,000 copies of the record and then tours. Each band member ends up netting 4,031.25, owes the record company three more albums and $14,000 in royalties, and the music biz ends up ahead by 3 million dollars. I strongly suggest reading this article.
There are other fscked things about the biz and what they do to bands. A kid I know's band was signed by I think Capitol. At first, everything was fine. They were psyched. "Hey, we get to be in a band as our job!" But then, the record company decided that this band should be more like the Foo Fighters, since they were selling a lot of records. They made the band wear different clothes, talk differently. They had producers change their sound. They could refuse, but then the record company will cut them off from touring/recording capital, and they are still locked in the contract. What are they supposed to do?
What a lot of people don't realize is that bands make a huge proportion of their income from touring and merchandise. Take a band like Phish. They've had basically no radio success at all. They've released something like 12 albums, and only one has sold more than 1,000,000 copies, but due to their liberal "give your friends our tapes" policy, they have a huge following, because a lot of people were exposed to the band at no cost to them. They made something like $34 million touring last year.
Frankly, I believe the increased exposure of network distributed free music will dramatically help a lot of bands, since they will be freed from being screwed by labels and will gain a huge amount of exposure (if they are good). This will lead to better tour attendance and more merchandise sales. This will ultimately help bands stay alive if they embrace it.
jeb
jboniakowski@nntllc.com
Surely these are two different issues...
File Sharing:
No-one is trying to make file sharing illegal. Only saying that illegal file sharing should be stopped. Should it be legal to purchase a CD, make an MP3 from this and then give this away to anybody? Not without permission of the copyright holder. The copyright holder holds the rights to any copies. You have purchased your copy from them so thats okay. You cannot give/sell copies without permission though.
Yes, the genie is out now, and banning Napster will do no good, and Napster seems to increase sales. This still doesn't stop the trading of copyright MP3 being copyright theft.
Accountable Linking:
Automated linking cannot be held accountable. Any categorisation or reviewing of indexed databases however should pick up on links to illegal material and remove that from the index. Similarily, links to mature content should be highlighted.
IANAL but this all seems fairly bloomin' crystal clear to me!
What's worse, ignorance or apathy? Who knows, and who cares.
Apparently you missed the other big buzz in the record industry recently. Most labels are cutting back on their Classical and Jazz music albums, ceasing production, dumping contracts, and combining Classical and Jazz divisions. Some have even dumped their entire divisions. See the point?
...
You have actually made my point for me. Of the tens of thousands of different CDs being sold, only a few hundred were ever in the top ten. The rest continue being sold because they make money on them. If they do not, they cancel production and do exactly what you have described: close divisions and shit-can careers.
Clearly, by their own numbers, the RIAA makes money on a lot more than just the top ten best selling CDs of the moment.
Finally, no boycott is in vain. A boycott of one person who stops going to a store or buying a product because it offends their principles is a victor -- that person has taken proactive control of their own life, against a torrent of propoganda and marketing telling them to do otherwise.
Sigh... I remember when I was that idealistic.
It isn't idealism, it is mathematics. If you keep your money from flowing into the pockets of those you despise, and instead spend that money on something else (a competitors product, or a completely different thing) you have denied that person or entity real, hard income. If you spend it on a competitor, the damage is twice that. This is true whether your boycott costs them $5 or $5,000.
More importantly, if you take control of your own life and remove from it that which offends you -- in the case of many here, products of the RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) you have won a victory, both for yourself, and against the offending party who now has a much reduced impact on your life. In effect you deny these people the one thing they crave more than money: power. This is no small or idle thing, and they know that even if you do not.
As an example, my boycott of the RIAA has cost them between one and two thousand dollars over the last nine months. My boycott of the MPAA has cost them four or five thousand dollars over the same time (I used to buy a lot of laserdisks and would have probably converted most of the collection to DVD).
If ten other people were to boycott the MPAA that would be enough to cost some MPAA flunky their $40,000 / year job. As it is, I, alone and acting by myself, quite possibly cost someone a portion of their year-end bonus or a raise.
Don't believe me? Spend some time with an accountant for a large firm. Even in multi-billion dollar companies bean counters make decisions like that based on very small changes in the bottom line (often each department and division is responsible for maintaining its profitability within very strict limits, which accentuates this affect dramatically).
One person makes a much bigger difference than you, or the mass media, would have us believe.
Just because you have allowed yourself to be lulled into a false sense of futility and bought into the apathetic, impotent brand of cynicism being old to the masses today, don't expect the rest of us to.
Now troll, I've fed you more than enough for one day
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Of course, faxing the mp3's (bonus points for creativity in method) to them at (202) 775-7253 would probably be the preferred method. :-)
Sorry for replying to myself, but I'm having a bit of fun with the whole idea...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Can we still buy used cds? :-)
That's what I get usually anyway, and I don't see how it would help the RIAA...
And why is that site using the 'blink' tag? Don't they know that that tag is forbidden and will lower the moral of hackers everywhere?
-- the demiurge
From how I see it, the DeCSS trial is more important the the Napster ruling. DeCSS was open sourced, the public could view it and determined whether this was harmful or postive to world of information technology. Now Napster claims the high ground, yet this service is primarliy a windows client, I use Mac and Linux myself, is non-opensource, and remeber this product is much ado bout nothing. They are also in it for the money, not for creating this utopia of people sharing information. I work as a software engineer myself developing FREE products, contributing ideas for a greater community of users. This product does not do this att all.
All of the MP3's that I have were either burned by me from CD's I own OR given to me by people who own the CD's. Some of them are illegal (under existing laws) but NONE of them are "stolen".
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Wanted: A mediocre band with lots of experience in covering metallica songs. The plan is to rerelease their songs as opensource songware under the name gnutallica :) Serrie.
Now if you want to say that more power should be in the hands of the artists I will not diagree with you. But as far as I can see there is no moral right to have free music that someone else made. Just because it is technacly posible to trade music online does not make it right. Specificly I think Lars from Metalica was right when he said part of his problem was that no one asked him if he would like his music to be online.
The Cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
What similarites do napster and the DVD Decoders that are currently under trial have? Aren't both arguments it makes it easier to Pirate? And what if one gets decided in a good way and the other in a bad way? Can' you use one ruling to counteract the other ruling? I haven't really been paying close attention to either of the cases because Most of my MP3's come from sources other than Napster (FTP, IRC, Friends) and my DVD Player isn't a computer drive, its a real set top(is that the right word?)
Its just the way I see it, the two arguments for each case are that this software is making it easy to pirate. It'd be nice if we got good rulings on both. But seriously what happens if one case goes one way and the other goes the other way?
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Well... there's a lot that could be said, and obviously a lot of sides to every situation.
;-) for movies, VHS/Betamax) It's just so ironic that the artists that probably were lucky enough to get high yielding contracts are the ones complaining the loudest. Smaller-time bands (for the most part) don't care. All this is too petty for them... they won't take part in the billion dollar squabbling because IT DOESN'T INVOLVE THEM. They won't see a dime of all that money that is "lost" because someone downloaded the latest N'Sync MP3. They still play and create music because they want to. I just wonder if both the record companies and Selloutica realise that they're both fueling the fire by raising such a stink.
:) After she started reading all the sides to this situation, she wanted me to help her install Napster so she could start downloading MP3's herself. (Her exact words: "Screw those greedy bastards!") If my own MOTHER could get turned off by the actions of the RIAA and others who protest, what could that say about other non-geekish folks who aren't accustomed to ripping apart their PC's and reading Slashdot every day?
MP3's are favoured as a format because it gives you fairly decent sound quality for a small size. MP3's are despised as a format because the record labels are having a harder time to control the standard as they did with cassette tapes and CDR's.
Let's break that down. MP3's sound like crap at the typical bitrate they are sent out in (128k), but most people who aren't anal-retentive audiophiles like myself, don't give a shit.
Record companies don't like this because they no longer truly have control. Did they ever really? I mean, it's *EASIER* to just have your friend burn a CDR copy than it is to deal with downloading MP3's on Napster... unless you have broadband, which I don't. Plus, relying on others puts you in the situation where you have to depend on them for a good source... and this rarely happens for several reasons: Bad CD ripping, using lousy MP3 encoders (Xing is a good example), or Napster showing incomplete downloads as available tracks. My personal favourite 'bad' MP3 file is the sort where dumbfuck kids use their sound cards to record something instead of trying to bypass it through ripping. What happened once was a kid left his mic plugged in, and it picked up everything he was doing while recording the track. He didn't bother to listen to the track. Let's just say I know what kind of porn he likes best.
I'm going to try to spare being redundant as much as possible, but there are some overall points that really make me wonder every time...
Record sales are up this year, despite the existance of MP3's, Napster and other sharing devices. Hmmm... that kind of speaks for itself. Let's also forget that one of the things FUELING the free-for-all MP3 sharing are the overwhelming prices at the record store. Unless you do online ordering with a slew of coupons for CDNow, etc... you're paying close to $18 a CD at Tower or HMV. Weren't the big-five record companies recently accused of unfair price fixing practices? Why haven't prices gone down since then?
Other people mainly use it as a form of shareware. Try before you buy. I think the record companies fear this idea as much as most record companies don't like releasing singles... because it cuts into sales. How's that? Well... when you buy a single, you pay $6 for one song that you want, plus some goodies, depending on what was put on the single. You would probably avoid buying the album because you have that ONE song you want... same for downloading the MP3. We are no longer restricted to buying entire albums full of filler just to get that one song we want.
People like to use the argument that we're hurting artists by not buying (if that's the case) their actual releases. Uhm, I'm sorry, if you ever saw Courtney Love's rant (and what a great one it was), or even know about the entertainment industry in general, some bands, or most, really don't make that much money off sales in general. Hard to imagine (not) that record companies make close to 70% of the sales on ALL records they sell. She made the very valid point that true artists are more concerned with appealing to their fans and just letting their work being heard, as opposed to making sure that they get every single goddamn dime off sales... (or penny, depending on how their contract screwed the over) After all, TLC, Toni Braxton are just two of the mega-selling artists who have had to file for BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION because of unfair contractual agreements. Everyone should know by now (even Metallica, those dickweeds) that record companies make more than half of the money on all record sales.
What is the issue here, really? Control. Artists have the option. If they don't mind working that 9 to 5 job while doing their music on their own time and giving it out for people to enjoy, then most do that. Punk bands like Dropkick Murphys tour for a living, they don't rely on record sales. (The band ENCOURAGES people to bootleg, HEAVILY)
It's just so hard to believe (sarcasm) that a record company that makes billions would just want to control the latest attempt in which they can be bypassed. Cassette tapes, CDR's, now MP3's. (And DeCss/DivX
My mother was so adamant about not letting me buy a CDR a few years back... I had to explain to her exactly what a CDR was and what I could do with it. She thought all I was going to do was rent music at Blockbuster (shows you how much she knows about things like this) and copy everything. I explained to her that I mainly wanted to get a CDR so that I could put my 400+ piece vinyl collection onto CDR's... for backup. Her response? "But isn't that bootlegging?" Flash forward to the future. She learned about MP3's due to all the stories she kept seeing on major news sites. She read Metallica's venomous statements here and there. (Mind you, she's a pretty hip lady.
But still, I just wish people would rip CD's properly...
Please insert thirty five cents to continue...
"But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it. "
You're only taking into account the physical costs of manufacturing a cd. (even less than fifty cents, actually) What about the songwriters, lyricists, studio technicians, and the other multitude of talent that goes into a song?
Even if you only take into account the cost of simply pressing a cd...How much do you think it takes to produce Coke syrup? Ever wonder why Coke has crazy high net margins? Yet nobody bitches bout Coke reaming anyone, eh?
What does the RIAA gain if Napster goes under? Nothing... at least not directly.
However, this lawsuit just might bully Napster (or some other company that tries to spring up from their ashes) into giving them a slice. That's what the RIAA really wants: a taste of the action.
Of course, if/when open file-sharing formats like Gnutella start popping up everywhere, it will probably prevent Napster (or some other company, if Napster goes under) from sustaining itself, and the RIAA will be SOL.
If you really want to strike a blow against the RIAA, don't bother with a boycott (the RIAA is an artist's guild, not a record company). Instead, do whatever you can to support and promote tools like Gnutella.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Seems to me that the RIAA is probably aware that there are other services out there. The point they are trying to make is that there will be punishment for those who (according to them) violate copyrights. Once they have weakened the arguments of Napster, it will make it that much easier to bring down others.
Their strategy is not to stop the exchanges immediately, but to bring fear of retribution into the equation.
I'm not saying I agree with it. But I'm not sure the genie can't be put back in the bottle yet. The reason they are not working with Napster is because they need that fear-lock on others before they move in and take over.
Yes, this has been said on Slashdot numerous times, and also refuted numerous times. MANY artists *do not tour* and were still clearly successful. Hell, Shania Twain didn't tour for her first album at all, and that didn't stop the money from coming in.
-Stu
Like us in the UK are doing with petrol (gas) purchasing. (given that its around 90p litre in the UK against 26 p litre in the USA).
The way they'll see the pattern.
I wonder how many people would go to bat for Napster if, instead of music, they facilitated the sharing of child pronography or the private information of humans.
Not sure if everybody was aware of this.... Sign the petition to be sent to the RIAA: http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/
I've bought about a dozen albums in my life: as for CD's, fewer than that. I just find the same recordings, over and over, extremely tedious.
Live music is what floats my marshmellows.
It's particularly important since we're talking about paying the leeches in the recording industry, not the artists who rarely see a dime.
2
Astralwerks? Nope
Telarc? Nope
V2? Nope
Looks like I'll be sticking to Boxed (Global Underground) for a while...
Good. Then I'll take the last word. What _most_ people use napster for is not at issue, as far as I'm concerned. The fact that Napster _can_ be used to do illegal things does not make it in itself illegal. For instance, since you're so fond of hyperbolic comparisons, let's look at handguns. Handguns are designed to kill people. Killing people is, last I checked, illegal. But manufacturing, selling, buying, and firing guns is not illegal. It's only illegal if you use it for its designed purpose. There are a lot of tools available that perform similar or the same functions as Napster (photocopiers, scanners, hi-speed multi-tape dubbing machines, VCRs, etc.). The fact that people sometimes use these tools to do bad things like infringe on somebody's copyright DOES NOT MEAN they should be outlawed. The Napster situation is EXACTLY the same. The intent of the programmers is not at issue. Nor is what "most people use napster for." If you have a problem with the people who use it to pirate music, feel free to go after them. Frankly, I wouldn't care if they called it "Music Piracy Machine" or "Copyright Infringer." I still have a right to have it on my PC. Only when I use it to do something illegal does its USE become illegal. But the software itself is NOT the same as the act of using it.
and anyone with half a clue working for AOL
That would be what, two employees? =)
=================================
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I remember about a boycott of the MPAA a few months earlier.
A few days after the start of the boycott, slashdot did a review of Mission:Impossible II
We need to respect those decisions guys.
I love how people use Napster as the solution to the "Evil Corporation" that the Record industry is supposed to represent while ignoring the fact that Napster is a business (attempting to go IPO, I believe) that is sucking in a ton of venture capital with the idea of making a few people rich at the expense of artists all over the world. It's the greatest scam I've seen in a while
Wake up kids - Napster is a corporation - they're just like all the other dot.com's out there that we've come to know and despise and they trade in a copyrighted commodity that they can conveniently dismiss as being a "service" - As far as Gnutilla (sp?)and other free sharing clones - well, that's your conscience - but at least no one's getting rich off of it. That really is power to the people, but not Napster! Napster's just another money-making scheme you bought into.
Napster has the same fat cat mentality as the record companies - and you better believe that if things did work out for them, you'd soon be getting banner ads, fees for services, and a whole crapload of stuff that will remind you how the "little guys" at Napster intend to make money off you at the expense of the artists who created the music. Grow up.
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Profit isn't the only motive for incorporating. Many people do it to protect themselves from liability - a corporation is only liable up to the limit of their assets, private shareholders can't be touched.
This is an honest question to the people that think napster is "bad".
Is it wrong for me to search for and download songs from artists that produced CD's/Tapes that are no longer available to purchase...(oop out of print)...In my mind I would gladly pay for this music if it was made available, however since it is not...Who is to tell me that it is wrong to download it from some lucky soul who was able to purchase a copy when it was available?
And dont tell me to look for an import copy, or to scour ebay -- I have no interest in paying more for a CD/Tape than what the original artists make in a week pumping gas after the record companies gave them the boot 15 years ago.....
Thanks
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
However, this isn't the solution for everyone. Not everyone has the bandwidth, time, or storage space to get their music online (we all have the means: Gnutella, IRC, FTP, Usenet, etc.). However, there is a very, VERY simple solution if you want to purchase a CD and not have money go to the RIAA.
If you buy a music CD at a used CD store, the artist (and the RIAA) get absolutely nothing for your purchase. Someone already gave the RIAA money. The damage has been done. You however, for a lower price, can not only purchase the CD, but also not pay the RIAA. And no moreal qualms since it's legal.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
How many people have we got on here extolling the virtues of Gnutella? Far too many. Of which actually get usable service out of Gnutella? Far too few.
Unless you and all your immediate Gnutella neighbours are on cable-like bandwidths you'll be getting 1-3kbytes/sec at best. With Napster you'd be going pretty much full pelt. Where does that extra bandwidth go? You loose it proxying other people's requests and searches.
Gnutella and other decentralised filesharing systems are a great idea, but in practice trying to do large scale filesharing on limited bandwidth without a central index is a non-starter.
When The Man finally shuts down Napster, OpenNap and all the other Napigator servers, then that's it, game over until we all get megabandwidth into every home.
So all you spods out there, stop telling us how Gnutella is going to save the world, 'cos it isn't. Wise up.
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I bet more than a few of us used to use AOL to gather "trial copies" of our favorite apps, games, and music before we used IRC. People had automated servers, chatroom search engines, the works, and AOL didn't care. They literally made one token "bust" every year just to show off. The room names were simple (server1, server2, games1, mp31, etc etc) and anyone with half a clue working for AOL knew about them, but AOL was more than happy to provide its users with a 500-email inbox limit and some ungodly large limit of 15 megs per message attachment in exchange for all those monthly fees it billed everyone. They just made their little token bust every now and then, closing down a room only to open it up again in 2 days...probably just to use as evidence that they weren't "H4x0r Phreindly" if anyone like Adobe or MS sued them in a Napster-esqe lawsuit...
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Offcourse there is still the small problem of artists who will suddenly see their income drop because people want to hear 'm but now stop buying their CD's alltogether. Is this how you treat the artists? C'mon try and use your brains; this won't help us one bit. On the contrary. How will the artists think of Napster and others when this whole "napster affair" causes them to loose their income? I doubt that artists who now feel positive or not-all-negative about Napster will continue to do the same.
Nah, use your brains and get 'm where it truly hurts. Don't make the artist become the scapegoat.
From http://www.nationalpastime.com/0712tdi b.html
Other info says that 5,000 out of the 50k that were there were on the field, and after an hour and a half delay, the game was forfieted and Detroit recieved the sweep. Found another page that claims July 12, 1979 was when this happened
July 11, 1979, coincidentally, the approximate time that I would have been concieved. Scary. I don't wanna think about it any more. I'm sure you don't either.
Moderators: Don't mod this up informative, it don't deserve it. But please don't mod down either.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Listen, I know that there isn't a whole lot we can really do to stop this kind of crap from happening.
But guess what, I'm not going to go buy that Filter CD that I was planning on getting this weekend or the next. In fact, I don't think I'm going to buy another CD for a long time.
I know it is tough for people to get outraged in this day and age. There are few things that people can't see both sides of. I would like to see people get outraged at what is happening with Napster now, but I realize it isn't going to happen.
In the meantime, here are some programs to use till Napster gets put back online, if ever:
(I did not include GNUTella because that is the biggest bandwidth hogging, least productive program I have ever used in my entire life.)
Btw, anyone else all of a sudden notice that RIAA Sucks is down?
I agree that the RIAA should be avoided at all costs, and not just for the month of August - until they get a clue. That doesn't mean that Napster is a Good Thing, though. Napster is a neat idea, that has folks behind it who are just as greedy as the labels - they just haven't figured out how to turn their movement into dollars yet.
Sharing music is a reasonable thing, given that a lot of trading is of rarities and bootlegs that you can't buy in your local store. My own MP3 usage has been to this pattern:
I rip all my own stuff so I can play it off my PC's.
I download all kinds of TMBG rarities and boots. I've bought all their albums, too.
I download an occasional file that looks interesting, and if it's pretty good I consider buying the album.
Occasionally I exchange files with some of my meatspace friends.
I suspect a lot of Napster users are like me in that sense - it's a tool to complete collections and poke around interesting stuff, rather than just a way of getting all the free songs you can.
I see Napster as being the commercially oriented sacrificial lamb to the greater goal of opening up the distribution system. The cat's out of the bag, and soon the Gnutella's of the world will be dominant and unstoppable - and nobody will be able to stop it since there's no commercial shop behind the software.
If the RIAA had a clue, though, they'd adapt Gnutella to their own ends and provide for micropayments as part of it. The fact that they don't is just proving that the established order just doesn't Get It.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Thanks for not trying to "debunk" my being a RIAA plant - this post deserves to be at +5, not the other angry post at me. I played devil's advocate, and I got the well-reasoned response I was looking for. Thank you.
There are a lot of tools available that perform similar or the same functions as Napster (photocopiers, scanners, hi-speed multi-tape dubbing machines, VCRs, etc.). The fact that people sometimes use these tools to do bad things like infringe on somebody's copyright DOES NOT MEAN they should be outlawed. The Napster situation is EXACTLY the same.
It is not exactly the same, no matter how many capital letters you use to say so. You can't use those tools to make thousands of copies of your copyrighted work at (basically) no cost to yourself. As I said previously, there's a standard of reasonableness here, and personally I think that Napster, Gnutella, etc., cross the line.
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101010, 222, 52,
while this lawsuit may set a huge legal precedent, it won't help the RIAA in the real world.
You ignore the power of legal precedence. If the Napster decision stands, then the service Napster provided is officially illegal. In future cases against Gnutella and its kin, the RIAA will only have to show that what they are doing is similar enough to the Napster decision, to fall under its jurisdiction. Future cases won't be about shutting the services down, they will be about money. I can envision the RIAA using the Napster decision to go after software manufacturers and end users for huge monetary settlements.
As to Google and Yahoo being held legally responsible for the content that they index, the French have already decided that, and no one seems particularly upset.
Posting at +2 because I want more people to see it... Yes it's OT, but I can afford the karma...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
Boycotting a product is only half the solution. In order to make an industry stand up and take notice, you also need to shift those dollars to another product and let the boycottee know it.
During the Birmingham Bus Boycott, people didn't boycott the buses and then sit on their ass... They boycotted the buses and got to work via some other means like walk to work, or piling into a friends truck.
I boycott alot of commercially grown fruits and vegetables, but this means that I buy organic and small-farm grown fruits and vegetables.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Folks,
I think people forget we -do- have laws on the books and international protocols on copyrights to follow when it comes to intellectual property.
Think about it: we in the USA have the Copyright Act of 1976 and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to prohibit the distribution of copyrighted/trademarked material without proper conpensation, and we are also signatories to the Berne Convention protocols on copyrights, which does the same thing more or less internationally.
The problem with Napster is that people can pass around copyrighted music files without conpensating the artists who may have spent many hours of hard work creating the music, which is a real problem especially for less-popular artists.
Besides, all of you folks are conveniently forgetting that advances in technology in the last five years (e.g., better audio compression techniques and anti-piracy protection coding on the music file) has made it technically feasible to sell individual songs in digital form. Already, several RIAA member music companies are developing means to sell individual songs in digital form over the Internet at very low cost, since there is no need to produce an actual CD and add in the cost of packaging. The possibility exists we could buy songs at a rate of ten to twelve US cents per minute.
For example, take Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." That song--just under 8 minutes long--could be purchased and downloaded at a cost of 80 to 96 US cents for this song, which is going to be far cheaper than buying a whole CD at US$13 to US$17 for the disc of even doing a CD single at US$3 to US$4 per disc.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Loss of revenue due to boycott is drastically less than loss of revenue due to Napster and related 'piracy', I'm sorry to say. Boycott's are doomed to failure.
Why would anyone buy a new cd anyway? I can buy twice as many used cds for the same amount of money, and no royalties go to the RIAA or the artist (I don't care about the artist either, as long as they are going to be a part of the blanket problem of a few corporations controlling an entire industry). If I really want to support the artist, I can always go to a concert, buy a t-shirt, or in the case of an indie label, buy the album off their website.
it is is a greedy VC funded company trying to make money of the work of others
/ever/ going to make money off this thing. Isn't that the point of Venturing? Were they just blinded by the fact that it used TCP/IP, and thought it would therefore be The Next Big Thing, like the wild IPOs only better?
Yeah, that's one thing I never understood about napster. It started off with those two guys working on it. So far so good. They dropped out of college to take advantage of the VC frenzy on anything internet related the past couple of years. Great for them.
Then these VC guys start funding them. What the hell were they thinking? They're suits, they should 1 understand that it's used for arguably illegal purposes and is liable to be a bad investment and 2 wonder how in the heck they're
--
Communication is only possible between equals
Ok, napster. A couple points. I feel like I've had this discussion a
million times in the past few days so I'm not going to go overboard today.
For those of you interested, Jenny Toomey from Tsunami has started/joined a
great lobbying group representing the interests of smaller artists (ie not
Metalllica) in conjunction with the Washington DC law firm Bracy Williams.
I'm going to be getting involved with the group also
1. The most frequent argument that I hear is "well, napster isn't always
bad because I got to hear a few of your songs and then I went out bought
your CD. So it was ok!" Here's the deal. I appreciate you buying the CD so
much! But if a band wants to give away some of their songs for free as a
promotional device, that should be their choice. You DONT have the right to
make that decision for them. And just because YOU go out and buy the CD
that doesn't mean everyone else does. Just because you're (somewhat)
ethical doesn't mean everyone is. But once something is up on Napster,
there's no way to screen these people. No matter how you defend it, taking
these songs IS STEALING. And yes, there are lesser and greater degrees of
stealing but it's still stealing. All of these excuses are simply
rationalizations. The point is, you as a consumer don't have the right to
make that choice for the "creator" of the music. It's not your decision to
make.
For the record, sarge has offered free mp3's at different points. We also
have sound clips up in different places. If people wanted to just hear
sarge before they bought a CD, there are plenty of other avenues for them.
I recognize these avenues take more time on your part and offer less than
Napster does but they're legal _and_ ethical. Sooner or later some
musician's going to sue the shit out of an individual napster user for
illegally copying their material and then making it illegally available for
distribution to millions of people. This person could potentially receive
thousands of counts of copyright infringement. You don't want to be the
test case!!!!!!!
2. The other (extremely silly and poorly thought out excuse I've heard) is
that napster is a way to "stick it" to corporations and the big music
labels. Well, I guess you can justify stealing by saying you're stealing
from the right people. But personally, I never thought it was ok to steal
from anyone, no matter who they were.
Anyway, the problem is that the band getting the most attention for
protesting Napster is Metallica. I believe Metallica has every right to
protest Napster (they're getting dicked on a monumental scale) but
obviously they are protesting it more from a political and artists' rights
standpoint. The thing is, bands like Metallica make most of their money
from Alternative Revenue Streams (ARS). ARS are basically money earned
through touring, the sale of merchandise, etc. Bands on major labels only
get a very small percentage (probably a few cents) from every CD that's
sold. Although they may sell millions of CD's, most of their money still
comes from other touring and merch.
On the other hand, indie bands (whom I assume you all support!) can make a
very large percentage of their money from sales and have very low ARS. Mud
and Parasol Records give us a wonderful deal. After the agreed up expenses
are covered, they split money with us 50/50. That means after the first
hundred or two hundred CD's sold for each 1000 pressed, we make $3.50 for
every CD that's wholesaled at $7. That's a fantastic deal and the only way
we _ever_ survived touring 6 months a year when we made less than $50 on
plenty of nights.
So anyway, you may think you only download major label songs. But in
reality you're lending your support to a product that facilitates the
stealing of music from _your_ friends. If touring indie bands can't make
money on CD sales they won't be able to afford to tour at all - and then no
more bands will be cruising through your town anytime soon.
Once again, I'm not taking a pro-corporate stance! Or a capitalistic "bands
should make more money" stance. But we do have to survive.
Ok, I'm tired and this is probably really incoherent so I'm going to shut
up.
Enough.
xo
e
I was never a particularly determined MP3 pirate, but after Elizabeth's e-mail, I'll never support a product like Napster again.
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scot@austin.rr.com
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101010, 222, 52,
interesting way to describe it. however, i don't think that this will make too much difference. i forsee the end of napster. meanwhile, i'm stocking my partition full of mp3's, like a bomb shelter before before a nuclear war...
the odometer lives!
If something is broadcasted over public airwaves, I don't think it's illegal to record it for personal use (of course, cable, private schemes aren't the same legally) - but I think that's the price they pay for using a public resource (the airwaves
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
I'll be doing my part by effectively making the primary focus of The Swindle a tool to learn the truth behind the activities of the RIAA and its member companies, and providing tools to help people share their thoughts with their representatives/advertisers of RIAA-controlled media/recoworms.
Stay tuned.
I don't think it would actually work though. Most likely the RIAA would just point at the numbers and blame it on filesharing. I think class action law suits would be a more effective solution (although I loathe litigation). Fans could sue for them for price gouging, and artists could sue for defrauding them of their creations. As much as I hate lawyers, I think this would make the world a better place.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
While I personally don't side with Napster, et al., I'll agree that RIAA is taking the wrong tack. The fact is that the "genie is out of the bottle", and suing Napster won't change that fact. But it's not surprising that an industry that consistently charges $15-20 for something that costs them $0.50 (a 3000-4000% markup) will sue anyone who tries to threaten it.
Let's face it. Napster is/was not the only game in town, but it was the most prominent, and had venture capital to boot. RIAA knew they stood a good chance of winning, and is desperately looking for a precedent in their favor. And going after Napster makes for good publicity with the media (who still report Napster as a "website that allows users to share MP3s").
The bottom line is that RIAA has been gouging customers for years and it's not at all surprising that Napster would come along. Napster, for it's part, has knowingly been aiding people to trade music that they didn't pay for. Neither side deserves to win.
I honestly believe that if people are given a convenient way to purchase the music online, a large number will. If RIAA realizes this, they stand a chance of surviving. If they don't, they won't be around 10 years from now.
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"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
"my music budget has more than tripled (according to quicken) since napster came out. "
Yeah, but did it triple DUE to Napster coming out? =)
"And like that
When you look at this from above, it's not about the music, mp3, naptser or whatever. It's about right. I don't think this will stop people from sharing files: fact: Napster might be the one heard about, but it will certainly not be the only. fact: It would be trivial linking smaller networks together (multiple searchers, database sharing, etc). fact: maybe you can garbage Gnutella, but you cannot stop it. The idea behind a decentralized network could pretty easily be enhanced to a near unstopable thing. fact: The music industry have lost a lot of their market (according to my sources at least). fact: they wouldn't sue unless they were scared. Maybe they would sue for getting the temporary ban of the napster server. IMO what we need to do now, is to move the thing to a new network (OpenNap for instance). Just to show RIAA that a single trial won't get them any further. But what about making a hybrid between napster and gnutella: Let there be centralized servers, but let them be spread all over the world, run by different people, so they would have to sue numbers. Let these servers behave like gnutella in between. This would create two things: a) you could call for a "blackout" of a fake server, just like fighting spam on the usenet or blocking an IP class in your mail server b) impossibility to sue a single company for their creation. for this to work, servers need to be static (but most ppl are on static adresses these days, so who counts)...
JL
RIAA wouldn't say, "it's because of a boycott"... they would gladly overlook that "by accident"... Lawyers are like that. ;)
--
As you said, those artists are locked into contracts. By the time those contracts are up, 95% of those bands will be beating a hasty retreat back to obscurity, and likely wouldn't be picked up again for contract renewal anyways (where are the bands like Boys II Men and Naughty By Nature who were yesteryear's N'Sync and Sysqo?) Half the bands who have staying power go off to start their own label when it comes time to renew anyways (though yes, they do stay part of RIAA - but that's by choice because of cases like Napster-using pirates when the artists can gang up under the umbrella of RIAA and sue). Most of the music I listen to comes from bands that have never had that elusive "big-label-contract" to begin with... Yet somehow they've found a way, even before mp3, to sell their music to their audience. It's called independant CD stores and live shows.
Addlepated - punk & metal
I think that instead of a silent boycott people who aren't going to buy cds should let the people know why.
If you WERE going to go downtown today and buy a new cd, to downtown anyway, walking into the store, and TELL THEM that you would have bought it if the RIAA decided to work with napster.
Otherwise the RIAA will just point and say "look, record sales are going down because of evil napster".
Sorta like how those people who are quitting smoking drop the money that would have been spent on cigarrettes into a jar, and then count it up.
What was the result of the congressional hearings? We all loved the headline "Senator tells Music Industry: Don't Make Me Come Over There and Smack You" but was that it? Is there going to be any fair use/licensing legislation or was this just a publicity stunt?
This exists! Check out www.fairtunes.com. A website that enables you to pay ANY artist directly. No more need to buy CDs to support your favorite artist (like they were seeing any of your money anyway).
Matt
Good luck finding one that isn't. Here's the list. As pointed out earlier by someone else. Personally, not every label that is a member of the RIAA automatically is at agreement with everything the RIAA does, nor is every artist. A boycott of the entire RIAA doesn't make much sense. I am sure that a large number of labels and artists under the RIAA do not agree with any of it's actions at all.
What?
There is a big difference between the two groups and the formats they represent.
The MPAA is making a dumb move in the DeCSS case, but movies are available in several formats: tape, cable, theaters as well as DVD. DVD represents an increase in quality, but you can get any movie on tape.
What the RIAA plans to do is create a system where you will pay per use or per transfer. They want to control the use of music in a way which will abrogate your basic rights to use copyrighted materials.
There's also a major difference in who gets paid. When you see The Perfect Storm, George Clooney gets money from you directly. He gets a share of the gross. Other major stars do as well, as well as any profits from his image in other media.
Even the smaller stars get millions for their participation. The screenwriter and director make a profit as well. Movies are financed in several ways, by private investors as well as studios.
So the MPAA fight is about using formats, not screwing the artists. They get paid anyway.
Also when you see a movie like South Park, you support the fight against the MPAA's censorship. The best way to fight the MPAA is by supporting those who oppose it and the people who make the films the try to censor.
The RIAA represents the record companies and their interests. The artists are the lure they use to cover their own greed and duplicity. They get a ho like Lars Ulrich to whine about Napster when they steal his money and his right to publish songs.
You want to see a pimp in action, look at the major labels. They and their middlemen make $14-15 dollars from every $16, and that's if the artist is lucky. Roger McGuinn said he made more from Mp3.com than from a 40 year recording career worth of albums.
Ever wonder why Ice Cube and Ice T went into movies? Because they don't owe the record company a dime for that work. They do when they record songs. This is like sharecropping. Massa Sony lends you money to live while you pay him back with labor. He gets most of the money from your efforts.
What needs to happen is a way we can pay the artists for their work and not the record comapnies. When they say theft, it's their bottom line, not sweet little Lars, they're worried about.
The movie studios used to do the same thing until the 1950's, when TV gutted their market. Suddenly people ran their own careers and the studios provided financing and support.
Peer to Peer networking is going to be the record company's TV. Their long overdue wakeup call.
Matt.
This should be the last straw for reasonable web denizens. As a DJ I buy many CDs and use Napster to only legally save time in turning them all into MP3s. If you believe as strongly as I do that the music industry has be ripping us off for years. Charging $10 a tape and $20 a CD in many stores then it is time for us to boycott. What I suggest is buying only CDs that can easily be identified as home grown or CDs from MP3.COM for at least 6 months. Let's all do our part to send a message to the music industry.
Just a thought. Napster is probably not actually hurting sales. Rather, Napster users are more likely to purchase their cd's online. The mailroom at my school has been swamped with online purchases, forcing them to expand. The studies that discuss a fall in cd sales around college campusses did not take this into account.
Has anyone done a study comparing the decrease in sales around colleges with the volume of online sales to addresses near college?
Ok here goes. There is nothing wrong with peer to peer file sharing. The problem is people are attracted to free music like flies on Sh*t. They can't control themselves and they download and download. These people need to think. What are they doing? What are the concequences. This woulndn't be a big deal if only a few people are distributing music.
Music should be free when the bands that make it decide it should be free and not ever else. It doesn't matter if they might sell more by giving it away. If a band gets signed they decide that the RIAA is the way they can make the most money/ get the most exposure then they should be allowed to do that.
A college friend of mine is in a band called "tobin bridge". They can't give away there mp3s (and they're not bad.). Many Many bands give away there MP3s for exposure, it hasn't changed anything. The masses just don't want them. They want highly produced music and they want it for free.
I used to be a photographer at a "college" newpaper (70,000 copies daily. I was the photo editor as well. In my wildest dreams I would not take a photo that we didn't pay for or get legitimately and use it in the paper (public and free distribution).
Napster is about getting music for free that you shouldn't have.
People that want to get music fill find other ways to get music for free, (ftp,GNUtella etc.) maybe a "company",aka NAPSTER, shouldn't be trying to profit from this piracy. That is what this is about in my mind
MP3.com should be more popular, as they have many unsigned bands. But its not. They're are other sites that give away "live" performances from phish and DMB that allow taping of there shows. These bands have made the descion and allow this taping and free distribution of there music to increase there mindshare. But it was the Bands choice and that is the way it should be.
If you want to make a mp3 copy of your CD I think you should be allowed. You should rip it yourself (roll your own?). I think if you run linux you should be allowed to view DVDs. Peer to Peer networking should be legal. I like MP3 streaming radio "shoutcasts".
Napster disturbs me beacause of what it says about people and individual responsibility.
Are music and books so different? If I allow someone into my house to borrow or trade books then there seems to be no problem... but if I allow the same person into my house/computer to borrow or trade music there is.? I don't thinks so. And if the injunction is upheld it seems an infringement on my privacy and the security of my home. It would seem that the onus should be on the RIAA to show that what is taking place is not trading or lending... and to do that they should have to deal with the folks that are doing the trading and/or lending, not the people that built the houses.
There is only one way to figure out what is right in this case. Just ask yourself one simple question.
What Would Robinhood Do?
WWRD
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
File sharing like this has existed for years, look at hotline. This is about distrubuting copyrighted material. Don't even mention ftp and napster in the same sentence, they are totally different. Napster is meant for one thing, spreading mp3 files around.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
I'm sitting here with five moderating points, looking to use them, and I keep on wanting to moderate Mr. Malda's story into the shitter. He clearly doesn't understand why Napster's getting shut down: because it was designed and is almost exclusively used to steal other people's intellectual property.
Maybe intellectual property shouldn't exist, but that's another issue. Just keep in mind that the power of your beloved GPL rests firmly on the foundation of intellectual property rights.
As Larry Wall said, "Open source should be about giving away things voluntarily....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." I think Larry is referring to many of you Slashdot posters.
It's pathetic to hear the same "but stealing I.P. is not stealing because the owner still has a copy" song and dance that I used to hear on bulletin boards back in the '80s. I would have thought that we would have gotten beyond the self-serving, simple-minded assertions of BBS-ing 14 year olds by now.
Oops! I forgot that Slashdot is where today's 14 year olds make their self-serving, simple-minded assertions.
IIRC, the study said that there was a drop in sales at 64 SELECTED record stores near colleges and universities where Napster was banned...
Previous Slashdot story
Here's the C-Net story
and a quote from the article: The drop in college music store sales was more pronounced in 1998 than in 1999--a year before Napster was written, released and began spreading quickly across college campuses.
I have another theory as to why sales drop... according to RIAA's own statistics, the average value of a CD has increased since 1998-1999. Since college students are less well-off than other demographics, an increase in price has led to a decrease in demand.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Gee whiz, Napster gets shut down (or put on hold). Maybe you could prove the RIAA wrong better by actually supporting the artists whose various works you have downloaded. But of course, that might be the "Wrong" thing to do considering it allows for the RIAA to continue funding itself. But again, wouldn't it be more correct to support the artist(s) by buying their CD. Moving those CDs equates more money for the artists, after the record companies are done tariffing the CDs.
My point is to show them how mp3s can positively influence how music is sold, rather than bitch and moan and have these "protests" against the RIAA, just proving the point that you want everthing for free, and if it isn't free, then you can roll it up real tight and cram it.
Or you could just use some other service (like Scour that propogates "piracy" in a rampant and uncontrollable manner).
Take the Napster trial into account: What they are telling us is that it's illegal to provide a service that shares information. Napster, in my view, has not done anything wrong. The problem was that they were trying to apply age-old laws to a medium that changes every nano-second -- it just doesn't work out.
So boycott it is -- we won out over the PID on Intel chips...lets hit the RIAA where it hurts!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
This account is a plant by the RIAA. I've been secretly infiltrating your belief system for the past few months. But, what you say here is the height of arrogance.
The RIAA does not care about your boycotts. The artists who you listen to (on average) are almost starving anyway. Your purchasing of their CD's supports their livelyhood. We don't make much money on them.
Where we make the money is in the Top 10 records - the stuff that most Slashdot readers (and other concerned citizens) don't listen to. We don't make much money off of your purchases. We make the money in the mass market. And by and large, the mass market doesn't care about your boycott.
What you face now is the immense wall of public opinion. They want their CD's. They don't care about some boycott. Others have tried and failed to get the public to listen to some viewpoint - no matter how well put together it is, because the public doesn't even listen to you. They listen to what we say because we provide them with the music that they want.
Your boycott will fail, unless what you want is to destroy the artists that you listen to - the artists who survive on a small but dedicated fan base. You are destroying the art that you love over a legal difference of opinion. We hope you're happy.
I think this is supposed to be sarcastic. If so, the dude was just a but heavy handed.
The complaints about the current music distribution sceme seem to revolve around a few points:
1) the artists get under-compensated for thier work
2) the record companies get over compensated for what little they do
3) the consumers pay too much for their music.
Here's what I suggest. Start with a new record company. The company signs artists and records alblums as normal. The company sets up a website (or series of them) from which to distribute the music. Fans are charged a small amount (like $0.75) to download a song. Of that 75 cents, 25 cents goes directly to the artist (i believe that is more than they are getting now) The other 50 cents goes to the record company to pay their costs (web server, labor, advertising, etc.) If fans want hard-copies of their music they can order it off the website. The record company could also plaster their site with annoying banner ads to generate additional income. It seems to me that this way everyone wins.
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
There are a lot of other interesting articles about intellectual property issues, especially those relating to music, at Negativland's intellectual property page. I don't know if you know the story of Negativland, but it's really long, fsck'd up, and reprinted in more detail than you'd ever want at their site. That's where I originally found the albini piece.
jeb.
As much as I believe the right to 'share files' cannot be taken away, and that it is rediculous to try....
Napster, as software, I have no real issue with (I think it's kind of crappy.... but I have no real problem with it).
Napster, as a company, I *DO*.
See.. the thing is, Napster, as a company, is making money (or attempting to make money) off of their service, which they *know* is wildly popular because people like to pirate music. This is where the problem is.
They are, even though it's somewhat indirect, making money off helping people pirate music. Period. And that is wrong.
What if it was a 'free' service, sort of distributed? Gnutella-ish? NO problem. WHo's making the money? Nobody, a bunch of people are getting together and simply sharing information for non-commercial reasons. THis is GOOD.
Actually you rase an interesting point, blank tape and CDR manufactures are making bucket loads of money becuase of pirating but they keep the riaa from sueing them by offering royalties, now shouldn't napster do the same thing offering the riaa free advertising space, or pay some royalties earned from advertising, after all napster is a commercial company, and i can see that the riaa don't like it they earn money becuase of consumers pirating music. All other company's wich clearly aid pirating music (Radio stations, music television, Blank cdr and tape manufactures) all make sure some kind of royalties are paid so why shouldn't napster? In reality the revenues napster generate won't come anywhere near what the riaa would want from them. But i think it's something to think about anyway.
I've decided that I won't be buying any RIAA CDs for awhile personally (I've already cancelled a couple of orders, and I buy a ton of CDs) but decide for yourself.
Frankly I don't plan to stop buying CDs since I've always been opposed to Napster since all it is is a greedy VC funded company trying to make money of the work of others. Now on the other hand, even though Slashdot is well aware of the DeCSS fiasco, we are constantly bombarded with various articles on buying DVDs.
I'm not one to fault others for their personal decisions but if you plan to make a stand, make the right one. The more I people I see complaining about Napster the more it seems like all they care about is free music and not the issues of digital rights or the power of corporations. That seems to be the only explanation for dissing the RIAA but supporting an industry that uses Gestapo tactics to terrorize tenagers. Where are the grassroots efforts to boycott the MPAA?
There's no question that 99% or more of the traffic generated by Napster is illegal. I LOVE the previous analogy about 99% of people buying chainsaws using them to hack people up. :)
I wonder what is to become of the tour. Granted it was free and all, but theres still people that put advertising dollars into it (sponsors and what not). Napster being the largest tour sponsor, having the company shut down, whos to say they won't pull out and then kill the tour? Not that it mattered much to me. When Fred and the gang rolled through Detroit, I was regrettably working those days.
Search for mozart on napster and then search for limp bizkit or any other sucky band and see the difference in hits. If their music is public domain then cds should cost next to nothing.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
-Legion
It's a story of the record companies using their clout to have a competitor forced out of business because they the record company are unable to compete and move fast enough in their own music space.
Some of you are screaming boycott. I couldn't agree more. But let's remember that in the end the artist does receive some of the money that you spend on a CD. So what to do?
One boycott solution: Don't buy CDs. Don't support the RIAA. Don't let them change the laws to suit their goals. But keep the artist in mind and when you pirate/steal/copy/download your MP3s send money to your artist directly. How do you do this? Go to: www.fairtunes.com. A website that allows you to send money directly to ANY artist completely bypassing the RIAA.
Matt
If napster is "mainstream" what does that make the RIAA? The point is that Napster does not provide songs, only a method of sharing. If I e-mail you an MP3, should my ISP, and e-mail program company be sued?
Personally, I'd rather see them play baseball to inspire ticket sales, but they haven't been able to do that in years.
I went to one of the Disco Nights because I was working at a Disco at the time, as a dance instructor. I got to dance out on the field, on TV. And I have to say, I don't look half-bad in an afro wig.
Now I'm a programmer. But I still don't look half-bad in an afro wig.
RIAA isn't really trying to stomp out the transmission of bootlegs, live recordings, and non-copyrighted material--stuff that doesn't affect their pocketbook. But I would guess that upwards of 75% of the people who use Napster use it primarily to pirate copyrighted material. That's what they're pissed about.
Whenever you recieve a mailing from Columbia House, BMG, or any other music clubs, send the form back stating "I refuse to purchase any further music from RIAA affiliates, due to their heavy handed and unfair anti competitive practices"... It'll cost you a postage stamp at the worst, but it'll (a) make a significant impact, considering the record industries cut their losses by dumping disks on the music clubs in bulk, and (b) The record labels won't look at sales stats based on the end of a financial quarter (which is coming up very soon)... This will take a long period (4 months, eh, long by nethead standards) period, and even moreso, they won't respond to the numbers, unless they notice that music clubs aren't purchasing disks in the future (or better yet, getting letters saying "Do you know about this??? --- Will really get their attention)...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The act of sharing files with other is people is not what is wrong. The legal part comes in on what is being shared. Napster was allow its users to share copyrighted material. That material was not copyrighted by Napster but by other people, and they had not been grant the right to do that. Now, this bring up the question of file sharing through other means. The means is not the problem, its the content. If you have the right to share a file and give it to people, then there is no problem. If the file is copyrighted by someone, then its illegal. This is no different from software pricacy of games or applications or operating systems. Now this site deals in alot of open source software, but I'll bet that 90% of the member have a peice of software that they didn't pay for.
I don't want the RIAA to reform, or to "get" digital distribution. They "get it" only too well. I don't want Napster to survive. I don't want MP3.com to win against the RIAA.
I want the music of artists that make music for reasons other than money, and those artists themselves, out from under the boot of every established or aspiring corporate pimp listed above.
We need class action and anti-trust suits against the recording industry, on behalf of thousands of screwed artists and millions of screwed listeners, for sixty years of the most grotesque and arrogant exploitation.
Night
Heck, record your faourite songs off the radio. Write a letter to the RIAA that you are doing so until further notice etc etc... it sounds like a plan that needs a website and a LOT of supporters/petitioners...
Its the only way to hear the artists you like. There doesn't seem to be much alternative to the RIAA.. the bastards
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Well i've been protesting ever since i played my first mp3 file. And even more so when i bought my first CDR.
I really don't care about Napster's position in this. It's just another corporation with a close source product. I don't think that means shit for file sharing over the Internet.
By concert tickets (not cds) to encourage your favorite musicians and to protest against RIAA.
They believe that the people who have just boycotted them were pirating all their music anyway.
In fact, the boycott itself may provide just the sort of evidence the RIAA wants to use in court. They were already citing a drop in CD sales in College areas, this will just increase that effect.
Maybe a solution is to only buy used CDs. This will demonstrate that there is a market for CD's but that we have no interest in giving RIAA any additional money. Of course, they may attribute the spike in used CD sales to people selling the CD's they have already ripped.
Help
Work for Change & GET PAID!
First, Orrin Hatch seemed disgusted with the way that the record companies were trying to eliminate fair use in the Senate hearings on the matter a few weeks ago. You may recall that he was a primary architect of the DMCA.
Second, it appears as if Judge Kaplan may rule that DeCSS is protected under the first amendment- and he was just as rude to the alleged "pirates" at first as Judge Patel has been to Napster's attorneys so far. The fact that she didn't even know that Gnutella was a free service shows that she's not necessarily evil, just ignorant.
Let's win this case in the court of public opinion so that we can shift the focus of the debate from "piracy" to fair use and consumer rights!
ARRGHH! AHOY, MATEYS! Sausage King of Chicago
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
What I'm hearing is that CD's cost too much. And file sharing allows people to increase their spending power and allows them to get more music.
Freedom of the press and all that...
Well, newsflash... Yes people profit off of those CD's, if they didn't, they wouldn't be making them and then we'd all be forced to go to concerts if we want to enjoy the music.
Boycotting CD's in protest of the 'big companies' profiting off of you is rediculous. We think nothing of paying sports stars millions of dollars, and yet, since this is coming directly out of our pockets we complain about it...
And the worst part is, the muscicians, the real talent get a pitance of the money from each CD sold. In a society where you can hit a metoric rise on the charts and then be a has been a week later-- every little bit you can get helps.
You're preaching the rights of the masses to share the music, when what you're doing is wanting people to perform for you for free.
Yeah, sure stars make lots of money-- when they're stars... when people actually buy their music... but if we take away the money-- will they play for us while they're starving? While the people complain about thier rights to listen to the result of their LABOR and give them nothing in return?
Would you work for free!?
Its an interwoven relationship. You want my opinion... (well you're getting it)
Artists are appreciated because of their work. We pay them to do their work by buying their recordings and going to their concerts.
If we don't like them... we don't pay them.. they move on and do something else.
you want music to cost less?
USE the technology of file sharing... not to steal from the mouths of the people you claim to like... but to give them the money directly... They get more, you pay less... no middle men...
BUT... there are a lot of people who make a living in the middle...
Try to do something, but don't sit there and whine because you want these people to work for nothing and they complain about it.
No matter how you slice it-- If you aren't paying for the music you're stealing from them. Great way to show appreciation huh?
See, I'd like to still support the artists (by buying their CDs), but especially those artists that are on labels that aren't affiliated with the RIAA.
Alex Bischoff
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Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
The RIAA already has a significant number of lawmakers in "panic-mode." They've freaked 'em out enough to believe that money is being lost hand-over fist, and even though the our sales don't appear to be suffering, our revenues could be MUCH HIGHER blah blah blah.
So, what happens next? A bunch of us decide we're not going to buy CDs. What does the RIAA do?
They jump up and scream, waving sheets of sales-data in the faces of those in the commerce-committee; "SEE! WE TOLD YOU! OUR SALES ARE DOWN! THAT'S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE! BAD NAPSTER! BAD GNUTELLA! BAD NAPIGATOR! BAD SCOUR.COM!!"
I don't think that any "Boycott the RIAA" movement will be considered "legitimate enough" to be taken seriously, but a thousand groups with insignificant impact individually makes a significant (or at least noticable) impact, and plays right into the RIAA's hands.
Sen. McCain: "So, even though the 'Boycotttheriaa.org' site is boycotting the cds of the companies you represent, you say that the boycott is not part of your sales dip?"
RIAA Stooge: "No. Well, not significant anyway. See, our research shows that Boycotttheriaa.org boycott only accounts for point-zero-zero-zero-two percent of our sales-dip."
Sen. McCain: Golly! You're right! Send out the jack-booted thugs!
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
The current Napster vs. RIAA legal battle encompasses EVERYTHING we hold true. The effects of the legal precedents set forth here, will determine the balance of power when it comes to intellectual property.
Personally, I believe intellectual property is the right of recognition, and NOT the right of control. Information is non-susbsistance, so any attempt to control it in the same manner as other wordly objects goes against everything I believe in.
The recommendations for the boycott can be found here.
I think we are all well justified in our decisions to boycott the RIAA. We need to place a stranglehold on the RIAA.
If we boycott the RIAA, they need to know! We can't have those filthy record producing animals, screaming about Napster having caused them to lose millions of dollars worth of records. Remember, the boycott is only for the Month of August. If you intend on buying a CD, wait until September 1st.
Hopefully, with enough supporters, the RIAA will look closely at record sales between the month of August and the month of September. If this works, they will see a HUGE difference. And only if they know about the boycott, will they put two and two together.
I understand not buying music is difficult. We all need to band together, and make our collective voices heard!
Hmm. to boycott or not, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler to voice a little innocent protest or just keep back and watch while free market forces inexorably crush this puny obstacle. Look, it's been pointed out before: this is nothing new. Technology is a one-way door; once released, it can't be forced back into the bottle. The technology base is out there: digital recording, distribution, content, motive. Napster's centralized servers were the only chance the RIAA had to participate in the future distribution of music. They shouldn't have sued Napster, they should have bought it and figured out how to charge for the files using Napster's unique choke point. Napster was version 1.0 in the new content distribution model. Version 2.0 is already out there: it is decentralized and unaccountable and killing version 1.0 just feeds the baby. Maybe Lars and his crew should get a medal for killing off a widely despised industry monolith: RIP RIAA, for better or for worse.
There is a forgotten group in all of this ... people who (like myself) share our OWN MUSICAL WORKS via the Napster system.
...
We create music, we control the copyright, and we use Napster as a suppliment to our web site - a way to get our music into the ears of people who might be interested. Our web site is fine, and we get constant downloads - but Napster gives us more exposure.
See - for bands like us, the important thing isn't to own 5 cars and a Malibu home. What counts is getting people to hear our music. As an added bonus, offering our music for free has probably led to more CD sales than an indie band with a very local stature would get otherwise.
So what about us? Did the legal community take us into account? Does the RIAA care about people making music, or just record sales? Our copyrighted music is shared on Napster, and we want it to continue
That's what we should do, huh? Just like that? As easy as can be? Honestly, getting a few thousand die hard music fans to stop buying CD's is going to be a tad difficult. The same w/ the DJs and the millions of pop music fans.
Yeah, Taco not buying CDs won't change much by itself, but hey, he probably knows that. Sometimes it is about principals. If I think what the music companies are doing is wrong, maybe I don't want to give them MY financial support. I'm not going to commit myself to a moral crusade against them, but I'm was never obligated to. I recognize that it won't mean a whole lot to them, but it might mean something to me.
And it's not free, and shouldn't be free. If it were, who would do it? Not I. I'd like to take the high road and say that "art" should be free, but it can't be. SHOULD be, but can't.
I agree with you, but there are a few other things that ought to be on the "SHOULD BE FREE" list:
Food
Clothing
Shelter
Medical Care
If we (as a species) can manage to make those four things free for everyone, I'll stop selling my art/music. Until such a time, I will continue to eake out a living to the best of my ability, just like the rest of you.
Can you imagine a world without art? Without music? Without architecture? If you aren't willing to live in such a world (and I know *I'm* not) then artists deserve to be paid to provide such a world for you.
-The Reverend
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
Each tape/minidisc/CDR-audio disc you buy has a built in tax which goes to RIAA members and lines the pockets of The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, Brittany Spears, etc. The small guys, like the late Muddy Waters as an example, never see a single red cent.
Well, if I have my facts straight, the RIAA is suing Napster for providing a vessel in which 'questionable' activities are taking place. Many have probably likened this to the search engines that provide links to 'questionable' material. My question is, "Why not counter-sue the RIAA for providing a vessel for 'questionable' activities?" When was the last time you heard a song where an artist threatens to kill someone, or even just slanders someone? There are laws that prevent this sort of activity (assualt, slander, etc..), so why can't the RIAA be held accountable for that?
I stopped buying CDs a long time ago; any CDs I get are gifts / from gift certificates.
That's because I think they're overpriced; therefore, until they get cheaper, I couldn't care less. There's always the radio, and mass distribution of mp3's might serve to bring prices down as well. Someday.
If you use Napster, or a peer-to-peer filesharing method, or whatever to download copyrighted music, there are two people liable: you, and the person at the other end. That's it. That's what peer-to-peer *means*! It is exactly the same as if I called you at your house on my modem, and you said "I've got this cool mp3", and I said "let me download it", and we spent 5 hours using XModem or something.
And there's no way the RIAA is going to sue a significant percentage of their customers for this, especially when they're getting so much good media attention and good sales.
Therefore, mp3's and file sharing are here to stay, and they'll have to deal with it.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
No offense to Mr. Taco, but Salon's Scott Rosenberg writes eloquently on the topic of the RIAA being doomed by peer-to-peer filesharing even as they proceed to defeat Napster. A worthy read.
i can't get to RIAA.com .
Here's what thier server spits out.
Error Diagnostic Information
Server busy or unable to fulfill request. The server is unable to fulfill your request due to extremely
high traffic or an unexpected internal error. Please attempt your request again (if you are
repeatedly unsuccessful you should notify the site administrator). (Location Code: 25)
They only get royalties on those CD-R's specifically marked for audio, I think, which explains why they're so much more expensive than others. Just load up on those 100-CD spindles for 60 and 70 bucks.
And OpenNap servers are just as easy to target for take down by the music industry goons as they get the IPs for them.
I wonder if anyone has considered opening a Napigator/OpenNAP server on HavenCo/Sealand where the can know the IP addy of the server all they care, but can't do a damn thing about it...
I believe Lars Ulrich is dead on in his thinking. He thinks that Napster is good, but if you dont want your music traded it shouldnt be. This ruling is going beyond even what he thinks should be done. Some sort of comprimize is in order. The courts do not have to rule in one direction or the other. They should say "RIAA, its not your music get you ugly face out of the way. Napster, if any artist of group ever comes to you and says, 'We dont want our music traded,' then stop alowing their songs to be traded and anybody that does you are to ban from your service." That should be the ruling.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
Coca-Cola is water, sugar, CO2, some flavoring and some coloring. Without constant marketing many people would not but Coke. When Coca-Cola decided to save a little money by scaling back some of its advertising, it saw a decrease in sales. The lesson was that advertising, not taste, actually drove the sales of this soft drink.
A similar thing occurs in the music industry. They spend millions promoting artists, none of which have any better talent than your neighborhand bands, and watch as millions buy their CDs. If you think about your favorite mainstream bands you may realize that many sound pathetic. "What were you thinking?" you might ask yourself (Who is this beautiful wife?).
There was a time in high school and college when I listened to music not for their music, but because no one else listened to them. It's eerie to see people revering these plastic renditions of bands, and thinking that they are somehow rebellious, full of insight into teen angst and depression, or enlightened in some way. It's a marketing machine, folks.
This is why it's easy to ban the RIAA. If you want an MP3 fix, browse over to pages that allow *artists* to play their music, not some middle-aged executive looking to cash in on the billions in allowances and fast-food minimum wages.
I've not heard this explained. If the use of Napster is causing the recording industry to lose such massive amounts of money, how were they able to have over 8 billion dollars in increased revenues?
Heh. I checked the labels on the five CDs I just got:
Mojo, Ultra, Blue Lizard, Sub City, and Cleopatra.
I'm guilt-free!
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
A clueful AC responds:
" Touch & Go
Jade Tree
K Records
Kill RockStars
Thrill Jockey
Drag City
Quarter Stick
Sympathy for the Record Industry
Tiger Style
Made in Mexico
Countless others.. I haven't bought an RIAA label member record in years.. There's better music out there, really. "
I'll second Touch & Go, K, KRS, Thrill Jockey, and Drag City!
Fantastic.
Perfect.
This is exactly what I had in mind, and thanks for pointing me to it. My only comment is, why are you not batching the credit card transfers to help ease the overhead? Do you have plans to do this?
(Why the hell isn't this moderated through the ceiling? Here's our chance to TRULY make a statement!)
--
The RIAA will look at the results of a boycott (fewer sales) and use it as an argument that mp3s are hurting their market.
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm curious if the concept of micropayments has ever seriously and thoughtfully grazed the minds of the RIAA execs. If there were a safe and efficient method of paying a small "moderative" fee for each song downloaded (obviously not a buck each.. maybe something like 10-25 cents, maybe prorated by playing time), I would personally jump right in. I still purchase the occasional CD when I come across an artist I really like, but when it comes to singles, or hard-to-find imports, I give Napster a spin. Even if that UK Import unreleased Prodigy track cost me 25 cents, I'd be more than happy to add it to my tab. They have to keep it cheap, because obviously we're not getting any physical medium and the file itself might get deleted or corrupted. Paying another 25c for the single deleted tune is no big deal.. but having to pay another 15-20$ for a new CD because the old one is scratched, I just don't see myself doing that.
So the essence of this post is amusingly simple : Napster's installed user base is impressive, why try to crush it when the RIAA could instead cash in on it, in a reasonable fashion. Of course the RIAA can hardly be described as "reasonable", a cartel isn't a cartel without having a financial reason to be (think price fixing), but if they'd just stick their heads on right, they'd quit throwing cash down the lawyers' trousers and start thinking constructively instead.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
You're _personally_ allowed to think whatever the hell you want. So don't use Napster. Personally, I don't have any qualms about the way I use Napster.
However, the problem is that some tinpot judge has decided for _everybody_ what is reasonable and what isn't. And the further problem is that she's just plain wrong.
When I hear the question "Should peer-to-peer file sharing be legal or not on the Internet?" and "Should companies like Google and Yahoo be held legally responsible for the content that they index?" I start to ask all kinds of other questions in my head. I believe they fall into a common category, but I'm sure what to call it. Here are some:
Q: Should telephone calls to Columbia be illegal?
A: They're not illegal, and they shouldn't be illegal. A blanket law like this is not justified by the higher percentage of calls related to illegal trade.
Q: Should the phone company be held responsible for listing the phone numbers of drug dealers and hitmen?
A: They should not be, and are not. The phone company is only a party to business that takes place between itself and its customers, and not to business that takes place between its customers. Phone listings, like phone service itself, are provided universally without editorial control.
Q: Should the used CD market be closed because it takes away revenue from new CD sales?
A: The market is not and should not be closed. After a CD is purchased, its future resale and any revenue from it are not the domain of the record company.
Q: Should the sale of fertilizer and other nitrates be banned in light of the Oklahoma City bombing?
A: They have not and should not be banned. Fertilizer and other nitrates have numerous uses other than in explosives.
So, back to the questions at hand.
Q: Should peer-to-peer sharing be banned on the Internet?
A: There are lots of peer-to-peer protocols, and so far only Napster is officially under attack. To make all peer-to-peer protocols illegal would seriously harm the users of established protocols like SMB, who may depend on it for business. Therefore a blanket law is unlikely. Here the answer to the question regarding fertilizer becomes pertinent. Such protocols have other uses. In cases like Napster and Gnutella, it's easy for people to ignore the fact that there are other uses because the first widespread use of these protocols was to avoid copyright laws. That is not the fault of the creators of the protocols and they should not be held responsible. One such use of Napster is for unsigned bands to put their music online in a place where lots of people can get it. Another problem with banning Napster in particular is the Napster, Inc does not place any material on the Napster network, nor do any of the shared files traverse their local network infrastructure. What Napster, Inc does is index what other people have shared. They do this without regard to the status of the files people are sharing. See the answer to the question about phone listings.
Q: Should Yahoo and Google be responsible for the material they index?
A: They are not and should not. See the answer to the question about phone listings.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
This is probably a wasted post since it will remain a 1, but anyway.... I have never used Napster. Neverwill. If they get shut down, I don't care. Boycott RIAA? I've been doing it for years. I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. If you look in my car you'll see 30 or 40 burned CD's laying all over the place. Napster didn't make me realize that the RIAA was ripping me and the artist off. I have 7000 mp3's. I got them all the same way: http:\\www.audiogalaxy.com Good'ol fashion FTP. Yea, you got yer ratios and yer busy sites and whatnot, but I can still get whatever I want. FTP sites will be around long after Napster and all the silly clones get banned. Whatever they do, I don't care. I still get all the music I want. Oh yea, I forgot to say. I'm a music pirate. Guilty as charged. I won't lie about it. Like I said, haven't bought a single CD since I got my burner. I been to more concerts in the last two years, I mean with all these new groups I'm discovering. I have seen that discussion here on /. and I won't bother to debate it again. Just telling you truthfully what I do. Boycott whatever you want. Bitch and moan until your face turns blue. It's pretty much a non-issue for me since I'm downloading some new Aphex Twin at the moment.
*You Said I Won't, I Said I Don't, But I Just Might*
What I would have liked to have seen is the RIAA sit down with Napster and create a way to buy the CD's of the artists directly through the program or at the very least, through a hyperlink to a web site designed for that exact propuse. Would it stop everyone from illegally trading and burning their own CD's?
   No.
But it seems that this would have been very profitable because some people are willing to by the albums of the music they like (and download.) And the easier you make it for them, the more likely they're going to do it. (Of course, cheaper albums wouldn't hurt either.)
But, I'm sure that there are other ways that the RIAA could have and maybe still can turn this into a win by working with and contributing with Napster.
I really have no sympathy for Napster. They were about to make a big IPO. They are really no better than the RIAA. I prefer trading files via FTP and IRC. Screw that mainstream crap.
This is my very first chain letter. Please send it to every one you know, who uses Napster.
The music industry organization, RIAA, is suing Napster.
RIAA has been awarded a preliminary injunction forcing the Napster network to be shut down, friday, July 28th, at midnight - for the duration of the trial, if not permanently.
Many accounts have indicated music purchasing has increased because of Napster, possibly because it has generally spurred interest in music.
If you want to show RIAA your disapproval of their heavy handed legal tactics...
Do not purchase any of their members' products for the duration of the trial. The dominant members of RIAA areSony Music, EMI Recorded Music, Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment, Time Warner's Warner Music and Seagram's Universal Music Group - which pretty much includes all music CDs, except those from obscure independent labels.
Don't accept RIAA's (or Metallica's) labeling you as a 'criminal' for sharing or downloading MP3s. Napster's attorney cited a recent federal court case that decided some noncommercial copying of music is protected by law. That extends even to making a song available for thousands of random Net users to download.
You're not doing anything wrong.
Nothing gets a large corporation's attention faster than a sharp drop in sales.
Heh; a while back, The Wah (I think it was Wah...) was being downright irrational about the whole mp3 / RIAA / Rosen thing, and trying very hard to get his essay and links posted on slashdot, so I got it posted to kuro5hin instead, and I think he kinda liked the place, too.
...anyhow, the point was, I think that article was linked there too, and in any case it's a great insider's view of the industry.
Oh, and sorry about the Rabid Trolls, dude. That does suck. However, it'll take them a while to recover, since their accounts will probably take a beating from their moderation abuse.....
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
OK, economics 101 (a.k.a. modern warfare):
First, increase downloads of MP3. Why? Because it means that shutting down Napster didn't help, it made it worse. So, increase traffic to your favorite MP3 sites and only get your tunes there.
Secondly, upload private data about the judge. Hey, think about it. He assumes he's above the law and inviolate for his actions, that he can intrude on your private legal actions. So, show him all the data you can find on him and pub it to the web. And, while you're at it, let's track down some dirt on Lar$.
Thirdly, write some GPL. Ok, you should be doing that already. But, in this case, let's get something better than Napster, better than Gnutella, and pub it to the world. Then who gives a flying monkey about a US ruling - it's too darned late.
Fourth, email all your US Senators and US Representatives and State Governors. Complain about this. Judges like to pretend that they're immune to politics, but they're not. They go to the same parties, they golf with these people, they look aside when the politicos fracture the law. Well, take the fight to them.
Fifth, write a letter to the editor. Fax it in, with your name, address and phone number to your local newspapers. Or mail it snail mail. Build up a groundswell.
Sixth, make up some cool slogans and print up t-shirts. Sell them or give them to your crowd. See if the local Net cafe will take some. Make the RIAA uncool - they hate that. Have them kicked out of all the VC parties, all the geek shows, and ridiculed.
Then they'll pay attention.
Will in Seattle
Look who's talking.