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Compressed Beyond Recognition: An MP3 Compendium
Point Of Order, Point of Clarification Justin Maurer writes:
"it's come to my attention that a lot of news organisations, and napster themselves, have been twisting words around in this whole napster case. if you'll bear with me for a second, i can try and clear up a little bit of it.everyone (including napster) keeps saying that the judge ordered napster to be shut down. this is not the case. the judge ordered them to make sure no one is trading copyrighted material, and the result is that napster is telling everyone they've been ordered to shut down. if you'd like, i can provide sources for this information, though i'm going to bed now :)"
[Note from timothy: Here is a link to the Preliminary Injunction Brief (pdf file) from the RIAA site; given the way Napster works, though, it does seem like its grant would have effect of shutting all but the chatroom, doesn't it?]
Are Bassists Smarter Than Drummers? JHancock17 reminds anyone who hasn't to read Courtney Love's speech as reprinted by Salon a while back, and res0 points to this ABC News interview with Chuck D. in which the P.E. frontman continues his eloquent tirade against the music industry as a whole. But Mr. D and Ms. Love have been famous outspoken in favor of Napster and electronic music exchange for a while: Now those stalwarts are joined by another big name. srcosmo writes "Radiohead have become the first British band to condemn the injunction against Napster. Their bassist, Colin Greenwood, showed enthusiasm for the availability of Napsterized live recordings, saying "We have just finished a tour, we played in Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful." An interesting change from the Metallica look at things- hopefully more artists will follow their lead."
Follow Your Conscience: What You Can Do cLn writes "Napster has been shut down and irc mp3 channels are being flooded by desperate mp3 junkies. What they don't know is that there are ways around this small problem. Napigator is a windows program that'll help the napster client connect to other servers other than the few it trys. Tripnosis works alot like napster, but you can download other files (zip, arj, rar, mov, avi, mpeg, jpg, gif, ect...), you can also search through online users files using the sites search engine."
And DrEldarion points to "http://www.kripto.org/blocks/, "an anonymous distributed file transfer system designed for people with permanent 'always on' Internet connections;" good explanation on the site itself of how it differs from other such systems.
Mad Ross (Ross McKillop) writes "Everyone now knows of the recent decision about napster's future. This is unfortunate and many still agree unreasonable but I am attempting to gather all the open source clients and alternative servers in one place and create an organised network of replacement napster servers... If anyone is interested in helping by...
- contributing a client
- helping as a server operator
- running a napster server
- etc...
What Else You Can Do: Alert The Media (Mavens) battery841 writes "In light of Napster getting an injunction against it by the courts, someone decided to register riaaboycott.org and setup a petition. You sign the petition, and once it's gotten enough signatures, it's going to be sent to numerous sources, including Napster and the RIAA." And as CmdrTaco posted the other day, there are boycotts in the air.
Another Angle On The Big Picture: Danse writes "Salon is running an article with reactions from all sorts of people connected to the music industry, Napster, Napster alternatives, etc. It's pretty interesting reading. Everything from the arrogance of Jack Valenti to the apparent cluelessness of Erwin Drake to the insightfulness of Glenn Reynolds to the amazingly short (obviously not written by Lars) comment by Metallica. To sum things up, the industry thinks this is a big win and that they now have a chance to offer consumers music downloads on their own terms. This displays their current lack of understanding of the real problems that users are seeking to remedy with Napster and the other music/file trading options. Napster supporters and alternatives feel that it's a loss for free speech, but that in the long run it will only hurt the record industry as people move to litigation-proof solutions."
What if Napster went off and hosted in Havenco on the territory of Sealand?
How fat a pipe does Sealand have? Even just providing a centralized list (or several, to be more accurate) of people with song X, and not actually CARRYING song X, with several thousand users per server (pre-lawsuit) that's not exactly an insignificant bit of bandwidth.
And, if you'll excuse my paranoia for a moment, how easy is it to pull Sealand's plug if they get deemed "too dangerous"? While the connection from Sealand is by satelite, the signal has to come down at some point and travel on physical wire/fiber.
Backhoe operator says "Oops, I didn't realize that data cable was there!", then goes home with a nice wad of $CONSPIRACY_THEORY_SUBJECT cash to buy little Suzie a new dollhouse.
Dan "Of course, at the threshold=2 I normally browse at I'm not likely to see this post, let alone any replies..." Poore
[insert witty quote here]
Well, if you don't want to support major labels that presents a bit of a problem, since Nothing is a subsidiary of (or is it just distributed by?) Interscope Records.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Better yet, vote Jello Biafra for president. He is running after all
He would have my vote, but he's out of the election. He was going for the green party nomination which was given to Ralph Nader.
I'm sure he'll try again in 4 years >:D
We're not going to see eye to eye on this subject, no matter what. I think my argument, and the primary argument of many, many others is that we KNOW it's illegal. We don't care, because we don't see it as wrong. There may be laws on the books, but maybe it's time to revisit them and get a bit more specific. It's time that the consumer get some feedback into what makes up a copyright law. It won't necessarily be bad, just different.
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
I know I left that asbestos suit around here somewhere...ah, here it is.
/. do not say that Windows is a low quality operating system because it is popular- well, some of them do, but they are for the most part ignorant in many respects, but regardless, it is labeled as being that way, not because it is "bad", but because it is poorly designed, inefficient, unstable, and insecure, and leaves much to be desired for those who want powerful tools- to sum it up, it is looked down on because it is a cheap product. The point is, it is popular because anyone can use it, "understand" it per se- it is taylored for the masses. It is very poor though, if you want a well designed program."
"It is no different than with an operating system. People on
Or maybe some people want an OS that can be used without having to to go the lengths of learning all the eccentricities of *nix. Most people can use windows 98 fairly well right out of the box. For those who understand windows and *nix, there are also other reasons:
-Only one distro, meaning everything is STANDARDIZED
-Highly optimized drivers written by someone who is depending on them for money, not by some 1337 h4x0r in their spare time.
-More drivers and software than any other platform.
-Nice little pieces of hardware, like Winmodems (my dialup ping is 95ms).
-Nice multimedia support. The ability to encode movies in real time, VHS quality on a PII-350 is a "powerful tool" that I don't see linux having in the near future, if at all. Linux's current idea of a "powerful tool" is grep.
-DVDs
-Half-Life
If there are any I haven't mentioned, feel free to add them. The Linux community can't get it's collective head far enough out of it's collective ass to figure out that there are REASONS that windows is on top. Try giving something a chance before attacking it, or at least give it its own paragraph. Now where's my extinguisher...
The preceding was composed while listening to the best music ever: no music.
--
Win98 sux without these 1337 toolz !!
Before suggesting you have to go to an Internet Cafe, because you cannot enjoy the pleasures of anonymity, or pseudonymity from home, you should try Freedom from Zero-Knowledge. Freedom allows you to do what you do online, leaving no trace of your true IP address in postings, chat, web browsing... It also has crypto mail. It's a nice piece of software, and there is no back door. Even if they are subpoenaed, they still cannot tell who is using which "freedom" identity online. The software has been available since December and it appears people are being pretty mature about how they use it. Try it yourself: http://www.freedom.net So for all you people who think it just cannot be true, Internet privacy is here! Yours truly, admiral_nelson Sailing for truth, justice and the anonymous way.
I think that commercial radio stations pay to play the music that they do, so they probably aren't in jeopardy. Smaller, independent radio stations, however...
Right on! You nailed the point precisely. What the RIAA is fighting for is not just for money, but for control. Because, ultimately, control will churn out more money, and easy money at that. And the way they're going to achieve that is to tell you what is good and tell you that they are the ones who sell the good stuff.
Why do they carry certain artists and not others? Because the ones they chose have potential of making money. They don't care nuts about whether the artist is good or not; all they care about is that they can be used to generate $$$. Unfortunately, money-making potential often does not equal talent. Quite honestly, the most-promoted music often is just crappy.
And I agree with you totally about writing music -- I write music too, and I don't do it 'cos I want to make money. I have a degree in something totally unrelated to music, and I can make a much better living than a musician. But I still write music, because I like it. But because I'm not interested in the money, and I'm not motivated because of the money, I probably will never get published by the major music publishers. And this is precisely the problem. There may be hundreds of talented artists out there whose music is much better than the "mainstream" stuff (and frankly, the so-called "mainstream" stuff is garbage in terms of musical content), but they will be despised by the music industry because they write music for the sake of music, and not for the money. And their works may never see daylight, and never appreciated.
All because the music industry claims that it's separating the chaff from the wheat, but in fact what they're doing is separating the money from the talent.
---
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
What I meant was something like Gnutella is harder to shut down than Napster as it's open source and no central file server.
Gnutella isn't open source. It was going to be, but then got shut down by AOL. There are compatable clients, some of which are open source.
oh come on... get over it. this is really not a 'lets preach our purity' issue. I am innocent and pure, suffering for my people because I support free music downloads. fssst
The RIAA is never going to be popular. I'm not advocating them, but honestly, theirs is a thankless job, nobody is going to notice you unless you're doing something bad.
Out of curiosity, do you think the gas station should start giving away free gas?? I mean, people are just going to drive off and not pay for it anyway, why not make people happy? It would accomplish the exact same thing!! Hmm.. no, wait. We have police in the real world. damn shame too, I wouldnt mind some free gasoline for my car.
CyberKnet
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
http://www.gnu.org/philos ophy/reevaluating-copyright.html
Can your IM do this?
I agree that supporting Napster is a little hazy. On the one hand, it's just a distribution system. On the other hand, it's designed specifically to distribute files that are currently about 99% copyright infringing.
As some people have said, boycotting the RIAA may just be a very small drop in the bucket.
A more positive thing might be to go to MP3, and shell out $10 for a non-RIAA artist. If 10,000 people don't buy CDs at Tower, it'd be a pretty small blip.
If 10,000 people went to MP3.com and bought a CD there, it'd get noticed.
That'd be a way to say "Online music distribution is important" without saying "I want to steal my music."
>>Lars has stated this publicly again and again. Metallica basically asked for a filter to be applied to Napster searches. If they had done this comparatively simple task>The straw that broke the camels back was being able to download their MI2 single from Napster before they had even finished recording it. Not our problem. Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back! The same problem existed before (studio employees stealing copies). If thats their bitch, tell them to fix the problem (sack the guy who stole the recording), not attack the new distribution channels.
Try Alternative Tentacles. They do Dead Kennedys and the like :)
They said... Networks were designed to share data, that's what networks do, and it's a very useful thing. Napster is a system that aids in sharing data. So napster seems no different from any network. Napster might aid in finding things, but that's what google etc. do too. Implied in this was that unless the internet is shut down, such data sharing is going to continue because it's a fundamental operation.
--
Well, I can't speak for your school personally, but I know that my school is only using Napster as an excuse. You see, right around the time of the Yahoo DDoS attacks, my schools server went dog slow. The school's admin's knee-jerk reaction was to blame anything which was reported to cause a bandwidth drain, namely Napster. However, even after kicking the top 50 bandwidth users from the network, they still couldn't fix, or figure out, the problem. But they continue to blame Napster even to this day. Check your connection after the shut down (oops, I mean after the "removal of copyrighted material"), and check it. I'll bet it doesn't change one iota.
- Naerbnic
Save a life. Eat more cheese
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
Why would Joe User run an IRC server?
If you want to share MP3's, run a client on Efnet/Dalnet/Undernet...there are established 'scenes' on all of them. It's about as difficult as making toast. FTP site, XDCC bot, hell even one of those horrid polaris-like contraptions.
And all the mp3's you could ever need...
-- Sig (120 chars) --
Your friendly neighborhood mIRC scripter.
* Q
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.
This may be totally off the wall, but an idea just occurred to me...
The central reason why you can't hide your IP after establishing a connection is because the connection is directly from your machine to the other person's machine. The idea is this: why not drop the requirement of a direct connection? You can route your connection through another machine...
And who says this has to resemble anything like Napster's centralized topology? Any arbitrary client machine can act as a "router". In fact, you can even be simultaneously a "router" and serving files through another "router" to mask your identity. And this doesn't have to be just one level deep; you can have several "router" machines between you and the client. And you don't have to worry whether one of the "routers" in the chain will break; since the whole protocol is distributed anyway, I'm sure it's possible to come up with a self-correcting protocol that will allow alternative routes easily.
One way to implement this is for the protocol not to publish IP's of where files are, but just say, "123.123.123.123 is a machine that knows where file XXXX resides", so if you're looking for file XXXX, you connect to 123.123.123.123, which doesn't have the file but knows where it can get the file from (which, itself, may be another router).
I know network people will scream "INEFFICIENT!" but it's just the turn-around time that's slowed down. Once the file transfer begins, it's basically a pipeline between the source host and the destination client, so the throughput will still be reasonably fast. And since any participating machine can act as a "router", there won't be a problem of router congestion.
What do you network experts out there think of this idea? :-)
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mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
You aren't trolling are you? Gonna have to hurt you for comparing MP3 to my beloved MOD and its successors. ;]
Tracking is ("covers" aside) a language used for creative purposes. It's like comparing sheet music and an orchestra to a CD. Sadly, most are content with the CD.
*gel
Save the MODs, burn the MP3s!
Flamebait?
Drummers don't read slashdot. (-:
Ouch. My karma hurts.
alright.. whole list here
sorry again.
[notice my no score +1 this time? (-: ]
Oops, damn HTML, sorry, repost below. >>Lars has stated this publicly again and again. Metallica basically asked for a filter to be applied to Napster searches. If they had done this comparatively simple task>The straw that broke the camels back was being able to download their MI2 single from Napster before they had even finished recording it. Not our problem. Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back! The same problem existed before (studio employees stealing copies). If thats their bitch, tell them to fix the problem (sack the guy who stole the recording), not attack the new distribution channels.
2) MY problem is that I can't legally make copies of a product I purportedly own.
You just need to make damn sure you save it the correct location (in regards to downloaded mp3). We can't have you making copies all over your computer all day long. Each one of those copies takes a bite out of Kid Rock's sandwich.
--
+&x
you have to keep in mind that napster users were split across several servers, and the servers didn't communicate between each other (unless they changed it in the past 3-4 months since I've used it). so it was already kinda diluted on napster.. the number of options is probably still low enough that the popular ones shouldn't be too diluted imho.. of course, only time will tell..
Sadly, CuteMX (great software, stupid name) lockedd their users out yesterday. They have central servers and are could be sued. Besides, they had a lot of people trading movies. Well, corrrection: they had a lot of people talking about trading movies; the vast majority had connections too slow to succeed in actually getting any movies.
In spite of my respect for Justin Frankel, Gnutella is more interesting politically than as an actual program. None of the clients seemed to be easy to use, or very effective at searching. Also, Gnutella lacks chat and the ability to browse other users lists. The whole idea is to see what people with tastes similar to your taste like.
BTW, a nice looking Napster client will be released today: Naphoria's audioGnome. It has resumeing, the ability to view multiple servers at once, the ability to search across multiple servers. Joe Bob says check it out. No, no Linux client yet."How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Everyone can keep their ease of use with napster, while relocating their activities, whether legal or not, to other napster server clones. Personally I usually connect to opennap servers using napigator, and it works fine with the exception of the hotlist. The plus side here is that they are privately hosted servers and not controlled by a centralized entity like napster. Another thing that would be interesting to see is an integration of napigator like features into the napster client, removing the need for napigator altogether.
reality's an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol
Freedom.net seems like a good idea, and it's sure to curb the most blatant of abuses by the 'other end' servers and such.. But in effect, all it really is, is another level of indirection. Right?
They do not gather a great deal of information on you, but you do pay them - so your identity, billing information and where to send your packets, is somewhere in their systems. They buffer you from a lot of the 1:1 mappings like cookies and such, but THEY still know who you are. They say you define your own 'nyms' which they then present as a front to the net. What's to keep them from relating these 'nyms' back to your actual identity? Or cross-referencing them to eachother and then back to you?
What assurance, besides their word, is there to guarantee that they will not compromise your traffic patterns. Or disclose them in a merger or buy-out? Or thet they will not be broken into?
If there is a path from A to B, regardless of the obfuscation in between, there is necessarily a mapping, and so you can make a connection. As I said, Freedom.net is a good idea for the 80/20 rule, but that still leaves the 20%, the truly paranoid (like myself) wondering how such a system can be bypassed.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I use napster all the time.
I use it to :
-find obscure stuff that I figure _someone_ will have but I don't..
-find titles I enjoy but don't have MP3s of.
-listen to stuff I've never bought but know other people like.
None of my uses of napster are insidious, none of them 'rip off the artist.'
I use napster because the monolithic music industry has failed me utterly. I like obscure stuff, marginally rare stuff and the music industry has no interest in catering to me. They want to sell in the millions.
They've continued to price-fix, continued to fight technology and more importantly my desire to _harmlessly_ exchange and sample music.
That's the truth. Not everyone out there is a zit-faced college kid trying to get the latest "pop girls" album without paying for it. Some people like myself don't give a damn about paying for it, I've got plenty of cash - what I am not at _all_ interested in is having to spend half a day going to the music store to find that the music I want isn't there.
I want music that's online, immediately accessible, downloadable, playable and portable. When your 'legal' channels provide this, I'll pay for it as soon as it's a better alternative than the other.
Making me jump through hoops, and pay 22 bucks for a CD will for damned sure prevent me from exposure to unknown music. In my case, napster exposes me to music I'd otherwise never hear.
I don't believe I am that unusual. The RIAA et. al. are painting the most negative picture possible of napster use. You as the artist need to hear another point of view. The record industry is not your friend.
When someone pirates a CD, they steal 12 cents from you- and the record industry steals 20 bucks. Who are you pissed at again?
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Very apt. The head of Universal, Edgar Bronfman's grandfather made the family fortune by being the biggest bootlegger. Yeah, the son and grandson of a bootlegger is a just who I want to call me a pirate.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
"The fact is, content-creators need to be compensated for the work they do. Copyright helps to ensure that that happens."
Ownership is a "natural law". It is clear to everyone what it means to own, say, a car. It is a very basic concept. Copyright weakens the force of that natural law by removing certain rights from the purported "owner". So the situation we have is one where rights are removed from the vast majority to ensure the money-making potential (which, btw, is not a right) of a small number of people.
I'm not objecting to artists (or even the RIAA) making money. What I AM objecting to is their making money at the expense of my rights to do what I want with the items I own.
Therefore, if an artist asked me not to distribute copies of an item acknowledged as mine, I might consider it. If I liked the artist, I would probably say something like "I won't distribute it widely, but I'll still share with my friends".
Let me ask you this: If you could get a CD (copy) for free of an artist you very much liked and admired and the artist asked for a donation, would you do it? Why or why not?
Ending IP would change a lot of things, but I don't think the world would come to an end.
--
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)
Considering that Napster is basically a indexing service, I'd rather suggest a topic called "Napster Google FTPSearch Altavista Lycos...", thus saving the annoyance of repeated changes during the next few months...
After all, neither you nor me are the ones going to set a borderline on who RIAA should sue and who shouldn't, are we?
I was reading the Globe and Mail from yesterday, July 28, 2000. Apparently napster would not be able to be sued in Canada because Canadians already pay a fee to record companies and artists through a charge on blank tapes and cds. Some one should look into this more but I think the only problem is that the CRTC (Canada's big brother - no american programming for you) would require licensing.
illenium.net - ultimate sk8 shop online
http://www.harrodandfunck.com/
http://www.weathervanemusic.com/
they're awesome, especially H&F
Guess I need to start hitting Preview huh?
repost below.
>>Lars has stated this publicly again and again. Metallica basically asked for a filter to be applied to Napster searches.
If they had done this comparatively simple task>The straw that broke the camels back was being able to download their MI2 single from Napster before they had even finished recording it.
Not our problem. Once the proverbial cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back! The same problem existed before (studio employees stealing copies). If thats their bitch, tell them to fix the problem (sack the guy who stole the recording), not attack the new distribution channels.
If you want to send them a message, go over to Give back the mp3's! and join in...
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
My friend Joey has not set up where you can buy his music yet...but for the artists that do have pay for play, or cd's available, I definately DO buy the music I like.
The equation is very simple for me: if I like an artist, I want him/her to continue making more music. The incentive/reward is to pay them for what I have already listened to, and enjoy.
And, as a quick plug of MY fav mp3.com artist, Magic Firesheep.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
You got it. I'm from berkeley, and yes, the same thing happened to me. The so called "Bandwidth cap" is reported to be yet another excuse, administrative jargon for "We don't know what the hell is going on". I got this info from one of the local campus computer people (RCCs for you berklyans). Just annoys the hell out of me that they don't have the guts to say "Hey, we don't know what's going on, but we're working on it". arrrgh.
-Naerbnic
Save a life. Eat more cheese
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
Is it true that you have to publish your IP address before using the service? That's just what I need. The RIAA trying to make an example of me. Are there any services where you can remain anonymous, or at least give the appearance that you're anonymous?
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I just talked about the way the industry was changing and possible ways these changes could benefit the artist as well as the consumer (and of course the fact that the industry is being ridiculous by trying to _prevent_ it from happenning!)
No, only trademarks.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
First, let me state my position. I think, like most everyone else here, that the RIAA is a (typical) corporation, interested in pursuing the dollar. That is what corporations do. Less short-sighted corporations realize the benefits of good PR, good customer relations, and not biting the hand that feeds you, so to speak. But that is an issue for another time.
My problem comes from hearing everyone complain that the RIAA shouldn't be able to restrict my right to trade music with others.
First, let me be plain...No such right exists! The artists are due compensation (and contractually, the RIAA and it's members are the representatives of many of the music artists out there) for each person's being able to listen to the artist's music. If I want to make a copy for my own convenience (to listen in the car, or in the office, etc.) so be it. The law provides for this. What the law does NOT provide for is my providing a copy of the music to someone else and my still keeping my copy. Lend to a friend...sure. Give it away? Fine, as long as I don't retain a copy. But if I copy the material and give it to someone else, there are now two people receiving benefit from another's labor without the artist's consent.
And that is what this is about (yes, money, too, but I'm speaking about the intellectual issue at stake)...consent.
As the injunction points out, Napster may continue business provided they are not involved in the transmission of copyrighted material for which the owner has not provided express consent to transmit. (Actually, I'm not sure if the injunction deals with consent of the owner or not, but I can't imagine the court holding Napster liable for breaking the injunction if they had permission from the copyright owner) Had they started off with that premise in mind, there would be no legal issue (and probably no business case, as I imagine the vast majority of Napster users are swapping copyrighted songs).
But as it is, everyone complains about how they have the right to swap music, even copyrighted music, without the permission of the artist. Let me ask you this. In regard to your precious GPL, what if I made some modifications to a piece of GPL'd software and then distributed only the binary. The GPL, in spite of being called a 'copyleft', will basically be legally challenged (if ever) on the basis of copyright law. In effect, it is a form of copyright. Now, if I'm breaking the GPL, I'm breaking copyright law. And I guarantee that if I made profligate use of such software, in the manner I indicated above, the wrath of the Open Source community would come down on me like the Fire of God. Yet it is this same community that seems blinded to the fact that they are hypocritically defending a company that is putting into place just such a practice, only in the music industry rather than the software industry.
I like the idea of free (speech) software. But I won't go out and steal someone's work to try to 'liberate' it, if they don't want it to be freed. Likewise for music.
That's it. Over and out.
_lpp
When recently watching late night TV I heard and saw perhaps the first piece of popular music I've liked in quite a while, on a chart TV program going between 11PM and 6AM. The track was called Sundown, the group was Elwood. I spent afew hours hunting on the various underground mp3 sites and then realized [about thrity minues ago when I visited napsters web site] they actually make the track available via MP3. If it was on this particular show, it was charting. If it was charting, it was selling - despite the mp3. And perhaps because of it. I knew there were artists that did the MP3 thing, both successful and unsuccessful. But this has to be the first case I believe an artist has actually risen to prominance based on an MP3. And that damned fine track: http://showcase.sputnik7.com/realdownload/audiofil es/Elwood-Sundown.mp3
Because the RIAA defends the distribution interests of their artists. The artists have a say because they created it and because "death of IP" ramblings aside, most people believe that when you create something you have an interest and ownership in it, even if that "something" is non-physical in nature.
In other words, copyright. Don't be childish and reject an answer you don't like if thats the answer motivating your opponents. (especially if in the real world they outnumber you.)
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Let's be real folks. This is not a ruling!
This is a prelimenary injunction. And it makes good sense. In the eyes of the judge, the RIAA has more to lose than Napster. And napster *IS* making a business off of facilitating piracy.
This is a judge trying to limit potential damages before the trial.
As for napster.. if simply being offline for a little while makes tons of other good software spring up, and people realize that napster was actually kind of crappy, and that much better could be done.. that's not a BAD thing.
If they had a real, valuable service/product, then they will still have one after they win their court case.
my vote goes to Meg Lee Chin, Shellac, Lard, Wesley Willis, old butt hole surfrs, old sebadoh, pigface, jesus lizard, unsane, the list goes on but they might not be of your genre...
In short, there are plenty of bands that aren't signed onto major labels, you just haven't heard of them. My question to you is, if you haven't heard of them now, how do you think that the next generation of bands will be heard of if not for the labels?
Nice point.
Not to many people can pull of sarcasm well online. I commend you.
20,000,000 emails, letters, and phone calls WILL get a response from Congress.
Yes, thats right. Tapes.
These seemingly innocent little plastic devices are nothing more than a way to record voice and uncopywrited materials, right? A way to bring store-bought, legal music from place to place, say, while you're running in your nike workout suit?
Wrong!
There are some people in our society that have very shady morals. They are people that do not believe in things like The American Way of making money, and the Christian Values that our country was founded upon. They are people that work in the dead of night, their double-cassette decks whirring away to make illicit copies of the music that our artists slaved weeks over creating to distribute to friends!
THEY ARE THE NEW PIRATES!
These "Copiers" are committing ACTS OF PIRACY against all of us! Just like the pirates of old, they take what is not theirs, pillaging and distroying! They will be the end of all of us! They do not deserve the music they copy! So friends, countrymen, We the RIAA ask you to do a few things:
Report these new pirates before they destroy everything that is sacred to us!
DO NOT ACCEPT their illegal, unlawful wares!
DO NOT COPY any of the tapes you have bought! The music is not yours! It is ours!
REALIZE the value of a tape! Ten Dollars is not that much to spend! The value is much higher!
So remember, you are not simply sharing a good thing when you copy a cassette tape. YOU ARE PIRATING. It is not "Fun", or "Cool". You are not "Radical" when you hand a copy of a tape to your friend. He should earn his own tape, and buy it from us, the record company. We are rightfully the owners of the music!
Thank you for your time.
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
What we need is an open source protocal for sharing files that way Napster can share its directory of files/share with Imesh and Gnutella and so on through a seires of links. it would be slow and prone to error but after a while these problems would get worked out and you would have all or almost all of the avabile online content accessable via one interface be it web or application.
This isn't the first time I've heard a small-time artist claim that the RIAA is shutting down one of their models of distribution. Although I feel the RIAA is one of the most POWER hungry (and disgusting) organizations out there, I don't feel Napster in its current state, should exist. Face it people, Napster was profitting off the work of others. (Mind you I'm not saying that the RIAA was losing money)
If you really want to get somewhere with digital distribution for small artists, show your support for sites like mp3.com and similar sites. Putting your works on a site like mp3.com surely grants more exposure than simply sharing your works on Napster. Do you actually think all the d3wds that hang out on Napster are goign to take time to download an undocumented/urated piece of music over a 28.8? I think not. Would the type of person browsing through the small artist section of mp3.com choose to download your work if it had some decent user reviews? Probably so.
-Ty
"Don't be silly, you have the rights to a physical creation as well, until you sell or give it to someone."
Ummm...that's my point. Person A creates physical item I. A gives I to B. At this point A has no claim whatsoever on I. B can resell, give, dismantle, copy and redistribute, etc. But if I is non-physical, B can't do all those things.
"If you honestly don't understand a concept that enough other people grasp, its your job to educate yourself, not everyone elses to stop using the word until you personally accept it."
It's not a matter of understanding the word--I'm clear on what "copyright" means. I'm saying that just spouting the word provides no explanation. I've provided an explanation of my position (see above). What you've done is the equivalent of answering the question "why do we sleep" by answering "because we are tired". Duh! But WHY?
There's no need for your explanation to be "drawn out". Just a simple outline will do.
--
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)
You know, Napster's real problem is that there is no way they can claim that they didn't know what was going on. In order to maintain the catalogue their servers had to know what songs were available. Even if you don't log what's going on, that means that you can easily be held accountable.
Now, I haven't been following the details of what's been going on on mp3.com, but I hear that they were actually hosting pirated music. Even if all they did was link to it, they have (from one point of view) even less excuse for not knowing what's going on. Then again, since napster developed napster (what a fun sentence) they should have had/did have some really slick reporting tools for finding out what was going on.
There are other sites which do what mp3.com was supposed to do, like IUMA which have been around, well, basically forever. Hell, when IUMA started it was all MPEG 1 Layer 2 files on their site. The only thing IUMA carries is unsigned or indie bands which need more publicity. It would be hard to bring any kind of lawsuit against them because they aren't actually doing anything wrong.
Mind you, I'll miss Napster. I got a lot of good mp3s from there. I even got some mp3s and then went out and bought albums. Whether I'm in the minority or not is another argument. I definitely didn't buy albums containing all the songs I want (Some of them I just can't locate, some I don't feel like buying an album for a song or two. I also wouldn't pay more than a buck for an individual song in online digital format under any circumstances.) But Napster pretty much got what it deserved, even if it only deserved it due to a lack of forethought. Can mp3.com be far behind?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Quote:
Lars has stated this publicly again and again.
Metallica basically asked for a filter to be
applied to Napster searches.
If they had done this comparatively simple
task [...]
Simple?? SIMPLE?? How the HELL is that SIMPLE?
Just filter for what, song titles? That won't work, they'll just get renamed. Can't find a renamed version? No problem, just hop into the chat room and ask!
Maybe they could use some pattern matching software to play the file and see if its a Metallica song.. OOps, they'd have to release a new client to do that on everyones machine, and thats not exactly simple. And OOPs, the files can be zipped and Wrapstered, or obtusified in any number of other ways.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, the old business model of copyrighted, royalty paid music DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE! The only reason it ever worked was because only a few people could make near-perfect duplicates in large quantities. Now that anyone can do that (and put it on a CD even), that old business model should GO AWAY!
Metallica's attorney, Howard King had this to say: "Ultimately, I think people will do what's right. It's hard in the face of free brownies to do the right thing, but if you have to find the recipe and cook them, you might just do what's right, which is pay for them. " I think this just goes to show how clueless the industry really is. Since when did paying for brownies become the 'right thing' to do? In my household we always baked our own. Especially in college ;-)
I believe that if the RIAA wins this battle, the next subject will be other sharing communities such as Gnutella and scour exchange. The Scour Exchange community is already incredibly huge(last time I logged on there were 10.94 TB of data available) and even easier to use than Napster. The large amounts of porn and pirated movies on it doesn't help it's reputation either.
In closing, as far as music downloading is concerned, in the end it will/should be that only the smart shall prevail.
---------------------------------
I can only show you the door, you must be the one to walk through it.
Lars' slashdot interview was cool and made a lot of sense. He was the little man coming out against the evil corporation that is napster.
But on TV he comes off as really annoying and whiny.
Exactly. Which would be a Good Thing [tm]! :-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
There is no such thing as bad press! I'll bet the RIAA knows exactly what it is doing.
--Fac Iustum Nec Time-- --Veritas Prevalibit--
Unfortunatly, those who want to become idols in the eyes of people everywhere think that if they show any signs of a deisre other than to become a rap/pop/country/techno superstar, they will not be taken seriously. I think that we could do a lot better as a society to allow those second dreams to take place, to accept a Top 40's star who holds a PhD. But until we can accept the fact that multiple talents and intellect are quite possibly a part of a star's life, we will only be hindering our own standard for living. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
- RogueLoup - phoeben9@hotmail.com
poor baby
Maybe some compelling new material would help him afford that new lexus with the cow-horns and stars-and-bars flag on the hood.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
For the whole "Try before you buy" argument, a counterpoint I don't believe that has been brought up yet (although possibly), is that there are many music stores where you can do just this, with any CD in the store.
What?
AArrgggh! Noooooooooooo. Get rid of binaries on usenet. You want one copy of each file, and everyone able to get to it, not 100,000 copies of each file, with only one server actually being used.
Usenet is NOT the place for binary images.
...wehn you can use Gnutella or Myster (see my link) to get the files you want?
Offtopic but I do not think they should call the client "GNU"tella unless they release the sources under GPL. Originally they said that they were going to but now it looks like they may not. If you're going to call yourself gnu software then you should release the source you have. Promising to do so at some future date is not enough. I know they probably had good intentions, but it still bugs me.
(from the gnutella faq)
Will The Source Code Be Released, and if so, when?
If all goes well and development of Gnutella continues you should see the source code during the 1.0 release. The source code has not been released yet and we are unsure at this time if it will ever be released, due to AOL locking it in a closet underneath a large pile of Time Warner's dirty laundry.
If Napster in indeed shut down today, there's going to be a huge wave of kiddies looking for a replacement - RIGHT NOW! And it's probably safe to say that a large number of them will be trying out Gnutella.
I've heard that Gnutella has setup/configuration/usibility issues - not suprising, in that most Free Software starts out with "it works!", moves to "it works well!", and finally arrives at "it's easy to use!" much later on.
If that truly is the case, then the Gnutella folks are about to be deluged with support requests from kiddies to lazy, too clueless, or too impatient to read and undertsand the app. After the, ohh, ten thousandth "plz h3lp m3 instal ur k001 program nootella" message, I think there will be a rash of code hacking to make the app easier to set up and use.
Which, incidently, removes what the RIAA calls the biggest deterrent to using Gnutella (ease of use).
The irony here is hillarious - by shutting down the for-profit Napster - which might have been extorted into paying royalties of some sort - the RIAA is going to provide the sudden surge in user base for Gnutella, which they won't be able to touch!
It's amazing that Jack Valenti and friends can still walk, with the way they keep shooting their own feet all the time.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Because within a week everyone would have Stripster, the automatic ad stripping software.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
gnutella is not opensource. They said they were going to be a version 1.0 but they are not sure now.
it's on their faq page.
yes, they will never stop it. But as long as it's not legal, we're not free.
Fight for your rights. Write your congressman and cite FAIR USE as the main focus of this argument. It SHOULD NOT be illegal to share an MP3 with a friend for non-commercial purposes. We need more explicit laws protecting our rights!
No, this does NOT infringe on an artist's right to make money off of their work. Just because it weakens the market by creating a supply glut, does not completely eliminate the market, nor does it eliminate other means of using their copyright and intellectual property to make, frankly, obscene amounts of cash.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Maybe this will be good for us over all. Without the attention of the clueless newbies we can hold onto (at least for a moment) that feeling that we had when the internet was OURS. Before the great boom of 1995-1997.
*snort*
Listen, whippersnapper, those of us that were here before gopher, never mind the web, when commercial use was illegal, the entire Usenet feed was less than single groups are today, and we could know personally a measurable percentage of people with permanent mail addresses, might be able to say that with a straight face.
You, on the other hand, are a dilettante and poseur, and your ignorant twaddle borders between the amusing and annoying. It would definitely be amusing if it wasn't apparently in earnest...
[Moderators: This is damn well too on topic. It's people like him with no historical perspective who cause the problems with the Internet like the one we are discussing in this thread.]
WHAT?!?
Mp3.com is basically a record label, for all inents and purposes.
To me, this is the crux of Napster's case: they should demonstrate that the RIAA, by refusing to embrace on-line distribution, is denying the
Artists the legitimate opportunity to earn income from their work.
Uhhh.. before Napster could spout about anything like that, they'ed first need to device a way to pay artists AT LEAST wht they're earning from the major labels, no?
MP3.com pays artists. Labels pay artists. Napster doesn't.
this is why we need to fight for our rights. The fight is over fair use.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Still, it could be interesting.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
I agree with you completely. What gets me most is the "holier than thou" attitude of these people who are trying to justify petty theft by claiming a moral high-ground.
Mmmm.. Donuts
The problem with artists on non-major labels is that it's hard to hear their music. It sucks spending around $15 on a CD, and it turns out you don't like it. That's where napster's supposed to come in...
Slightly offtopic:
I'm not big into CDs as I know the artists get a very small percentage of the gross. However, I pay quite a lot, and often travel pretty far to see my favorite artists in concert. Does the RIAA or any other organization get a cut from concerts (excluding like, the event people of the stadium/club/whatever)?
--
I don't follow the pack, but I'll follow a really cute girl.
Despite the often choppy and bad sound quality streaming MP3 servers provide me with much better access to unknown indie music than napster did. (eg indiepopradio.com) So when will the FCC (or corresponding agency) start shutting it down, because it is competition with the broadcast corporations?
Maybe when the sound quality is good enough, or there is money to be made?
I suppose they could really be afraid of people capturing the songs from the stream, much like I would tape the radio when I was young because I couldn't afford to buy every goddamn album I wanted.
Anyway, the same issue will come up again and again, because goddammit the people with control don't wanna lose it. I don't blame them, much.
Everybody reading this knows who the real losers are -- the Net, music-lovers and sharers, artists not under contract to large conglomerates, individual consumers, and the notion of the Internet as a free and unrestricted space that connects individuals to information in culture in new and powerful ways
OK Jon, I'll bite... I'm an avid user of the net, I'm a music lover, I'm an artist not under contract to anyone, and I'm an individual consumer. I don't feel I've lost anything (yet). If the internet ends up restricted to the point where all filesharing is eliminated, then I'll have lost something. Sharing files containing something that other have created and hold rights to without compensating those other people IS WRONG. Maybe Napster shouldn't be the one sued, but I'm sick of your anti-IP rantings. IP is valid property - if I don't own my thoughts, then what do I own?
Addlepated - punk & metal
Not to mention that on a good system, vinyl sounds even better than CD, much less MP3...
-JeremyH
Yeah, Reagan saved your ass , rememember that. Beside, what do you care anyway. Enjoy your "queen" and shut up.
I conceed that Napster is making money off of others. I also conceed, that most people on there are for copyrighted material. The point however is, that napster can and has been used to distribute non-RIAA (however unsuccesfully) material, mine included. Now with nothing more than corporate power and money, they have shut off an avenue of MY right to free speech. I am a napster user and an artist. Did I ever use napster to download copyrighted material? It matters not, as I also used it for non-copyrighted material.
I an analogy to FedEx in this thread or Katz's about if 90% of FedEx's business was transporting bootleg movies, FedEx would be in the clear because they are the courier.
Well, Napster is the courier here, people use it how they choose. Without Napster (or FedEx) people will still find ways of getting the good's because the roads (the internet) are still there.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
I've been using the internet since the early 90's. When I first got my account on the Un*x box at the University. I had to call into the RS6000 with my 2400 baud modem to gopher, ftp and telnet.
You sound like one of those annoying cigar smokers who bitches because he got dirty looks from people 15 years ago before cigars were chic and now everyone is smoking cigars.
No, I wasn't here in the early days. The fact that I was born in the 70s made that impossible. Just because I haven't gone grey and and still have all of the hair on top of my head makes no difference.
I don't care whether or not you happen to like the fact that I'm saying it, but when everyone and their mother starting listing their web addresses at the bottom of TV commercials and when AOL adoped the flat rate fee for access is when the signal to noise ratio went in the crapper.
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Preach on mrfiddlehead! To darthaya's dense and unbenign comment above...Your net admin is a tard for not putting up a firewall to prevent such bandwidth stress at your school. I, as well as many others whom I'm sure will tell you, are not "shameless leeches that just want our music for free." I had bought only a handfull of CDs in my past years, but this year I have bought several hundred dollars in CDs because of Napster. It has introduced me to music I would have never been able to listen to because it is actually good, instead of the crap on the radio or TV. It also helps being able to listen to music before the purchase. I beleive Napster is a great tool for actually PROMOTING music to be purchased.
"naw, shit naw man...I believe you'd get your ass kicked for sayin' somethin' like that"
RIAA did the same thing with music lyrics... Started on usenet between fans, went to ftp & then IRC & finally ended up generating a fan website (www.lyrics.ch I believe). RIAA had this foreigners computer (aka the server) taken from him and he was thrown in jail (very similiar to the DeCSS happenings).
Well eventually he got the computer back (in pieces if I remember correctly) & RIAA threatened to sue him if he ever tried to put lyrics on his site again form fans wthotu the permission of each and every band beforehand as well as the record label.
I'm not even sure if this was invloving money as I haven't ever seen a 'lyrics book'. It was mostly about power and control over IP (or perceived IP). He never did get more than a handful of groups and record companies to let him post the lyrics and so all the fans got their efforts striped from them because RIAA was bigger than them.
Though in this case no other place made a worthwhile effort to release lyrics since and so finding lyrics is much harder than it used to be...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Why the hell was a REDUNDANT post (above) moderated to FOUR? This IS on topic. No offense to the poster, but I call blatant cut-and-paste of someone's post "FISHING".
/. stories have a handful of 4, 5 scoring posts and that's it?
Why is it lately that all
I propose that when a moderator adds +1 to a 4-score post, they actually SPEND FIVE MODERATOR POINTS.
Why charge so many points? Because some moderators are lazy, or just want to enforce their ideology and bump up already high like-minded posts. Since these people do seem to value their moderator points, weighting the price of +1 would encourage deeper digging. Moderation is supposed to be a bell curve, and you can't get a feel for the community when you have a dozen posts ALL at 4 or 5 points when the curve looks like a "M".
I thought about posting this Anonymously, but I know only a minority of moderators would ever read a 0-score post.
The shutting down of napster effectively illustrates why your proposed scheme won't work effectively. Netnews like store and forward networks are very difficult to attack in this fashion.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Seriously, when it comes to minor things such as file-sharing shenanigans, we will regroup and fight back. If the music industry thinks that killing Napster will kill online file sharing, they have no idea how wrong they are and this is a Good Thing. The guy on the TV interview next to Colin (some VP of Virgin Records) clearly had no clue exactly what Napster was, over and above the Hetfield viewpoint, and although Colin wasn't overflowing with technical knowledge, he at least recognised the positive side of what it is capable of.
I really think that record companies are fighting a losing battle here, though they do not know it. One day they will be financially exhausted from trying to fight too many battles against the future, and although we are a long way from a Utopian situation here, I think we should realise this and focus on some more important issues for a while.
Sorry for rambling, just a drunk Englishman. I'll be on my way.
- "How do we do it? Volume!" - The Bursar of Unseen University.
Quite so. That's why sites like FairTunes are the best way to go. These sites let you send money directly to the artist, so you can use file-sharing in good conscience.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Steve Magruder, Technopolist
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
To me, this is the crux of Napster's case: they should demonstrate that the RIAA, by refusing to embrace on-line distribution, is denying the Artists the legitimate opportunity to earn income from their work.
(Yes,I have purchased from both mp3.com and Emusic.com, as well as managed to "back-up" ~75% of my vinyl collection from Napster)
NNTP was never designed as a medium to distribute binaries. The main problem right now is the large drive arrays required for a decent retention rate of all groups. The fact that NNTP servers need to hold the data in a central location that will end up being replicated by many other NNTP servers is also very inefficient. Think about NNTP as a worldwide RAID 1. It just isnt the best way to go for binary distribution.
Napster will always be better than NNTP (for binaries) due to the distributed file system inherent in Napster. There is no central server that costs 5 million bucks and requires an OC-3 for the amount of bandwidth it sucks. All the costs associated are carried by individuals (ISP, Telco, etc), and by half the people opting out at once, the whole system will not go down. If it was a news providership, it would fold in a minute. With napster such a loss is just a loss in availability of material; your selection of binaries will decrease. The system as a whole will persist though.
And persistence is part of how Stuff Gets Done [TM]
signatures are for fools with hands
On a more technical note, when Gnutella first came out, I took a look at the protocol spec and was of the opinion that its flooding protocol generated way too much traffic for what it did. O(N^2) traffic is possible. One of the developers writes:
This is a fixable problem, but if a significant fraction of Napster users switch to Gnutella next week, we're going to see major network congestion. That O(N^2) has to come down to O(log N). It can, but some people need to get busy.
So there was only a market for 90% of the CDs that his label had produced. Someone would get sick of his music and sell it faster than new fans would want to buy it...
Doesn't sound like used CD stores were putting him out of business, sounds like pathetic music was putting him out of business.
I'll say it again, when AOL introduced the flat rate fee for connectivity is when the signal to noise ration on the net really went in the crapper.
I wasn't here in the 70s. Virtually none of us were. What's more important to you, the veracity of the claim or the one who is making it?
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
My take on the whole Napster thing is that they should be shut down. Pirating music is, plain and simple, a form of stealing. No whining about the "future of music" and how "the RIAA can't shut us down" is going to change this fact.
Shutting down Napster is not about stopping piracy. Shutting down Napster is making a statement that piracy is wrong, and any company that bases their profit model on the stealing of other people's works will be shut down.
I don't mind piracy when people do it under the covers of IRC and underground programs like Gnutella. The underground nature of these programs gives the end user a reminder that they are doing something naughty. I do mind piracy when a comapny like Napster tries to tell us that piracy is OK, and a God-given right.
Just my two cents.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
How long will it be before we start hearing "You don't buy the music, you buy a license to use the music the way we say."
This was the exact argument made by the MPAA in the 2600 DeCSS case. Their argument at trial was that when you buy a DVD, you are only purchasing a license to play that DVD on an MPAA-authorized and licensed DVD player.
Don't sell yourself short. I don't care about RIAA's bundling problems, or price gouging, or all the issues created by filtering (choosing who gets to be a superstar and who doesn't - in my opinion, the MOST damaging element).
Sharing MP3's with a friend should NOT be equivalent to piracy. Running a hotline server and getting banner revenue, THAT is piracy. But noncommercial sharing should fall under fair use. The problem is, the language isn't explicit enough to protect our rights. This loophole for corporate tyranny needs to be closed and soon. Nobody is going to shut down trading of MP3's, there will always be people willing to risk getting caught and punished. And most of those people will not get caught. It's a technological arms race. And that's a red herring. The real issue is, I don't want to be considered a thief or a pirate for sharing an MP3 noncommercially. That's complete bullshit, and a violation of my rights as of the 1992 fair use provision.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I was looking at yesterday's top downloads at Sourceforge and Freenet is now first. I seen never seen it above 5th. Open Source Napster Server is now 2nd, I have never seen it in the top 10.
Why not make people happy and give away fucking cars, computers, anything... You wanna tell music industry how to run their business ? Bad press they getting ha ? Napster was guilty of breaking the law. Simple as that. Change the law, fuck with your representative but don't complain when RIAA is trying to enforce the law which protects their business style.
I at least admit that I'm a thief. Do I justify it? Yeah.
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Napster's current message:
We're getting a lot of questions about what people can do to help.
Here are three things you can do right away.
It's going to be impossible to prove anything either way. Up, down or sideways. This is about bullying and potential cooption. One of the major record labels will likely own Napster within the year.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I'm a big Radiohead fan too, and I'll purchase whatever CDs I don't currently have of theirs once RIAA removes its head from its ass.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I do agree that many shoplifters are leeches, but there are as many people who buy more because of it. I now have a whole case of Marlboro that I have only come to appreciate because I got the cigarettes for free. Had I not gotten them for free, from shoplifting them, I likely never would have had any interest since my primary addiction was 80% crack. I think it makes good marketing sense to allow people to shoplift cigarettes -- I am now CONSIDERING a purchase I would not have made. Call that leeching if you want, but I disagree.
Mmmm.. Donuts
I have a couple of opinions relating to what you said:
1) $1 for a couple minutes of music is still a bit much if it's all encrypted so I can't take it wherever I want. If it was for a 'unlocked' copy I might go for it.
2) Audio quality is similiar, but not quite the same so it might be nice to be able to grab another copy of the same song at a different encoding rate or a different style of encoding.
3) I'd like to be able to hear an entire song before I buy it... Heck that's why I've searched for some songs on Napster or a similiar search somewhere else and later purchased a copy on CD. Even record stores (normally only allow you to listen to their picks for CD's) and radio stations (which may not even play bands you like or have more than one song from an artist they play) can be really poor about this.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
that would be a good point if it weren't possible to run multiple clients at once.
Wow
Amazing magic tricks
The Napster transfer protocol is already public. There are already several networks with thousands of users and terabytes of files. MyNapster and OpenNAP are the two big ones. And these networks are already able to communicate with each other. with MyNapster, not only can I search the server I'm on, but I can search all the ones on the network I'm on and all the networks connected to that one.
And you can connect to these servers using the old Napster software, with Napigator: www.napigator.com, or with new clients such as MyNapster: www.mynapster.com. There are also several other clients for other platforms.
So now we have a viable Napster replacement, but the opening of the protocol has brought a few improvements.
more decentralized
more connectivity
more choice in clients or GUIs
Unfortunately the RIAA is playing a game of Whack-The-Mole. It can sue all the file sharing services it wants, but another will always pop up. Soon, it's only choice is going to be to embrace digital music and to give consumers alternatives.
If you're in to hardcore: Hydrahead
and
Relapse
There are plenty indie labels with music much better than alot of RIAA crap.
Boycott Shampoo! Demand REAL POO!
Another point is this: the lawsuit against Napster is not about recouping damages. There are no damages. The music industry profits are higher than ever (there's a /. post about this somewhere). No one loses money when you listen to songs you weren't going to buy in the first place. The lawsuit is about making a big fuss, screaming and yelling and hoping that it produces enough FUD in the minds of consumers that they begin to loathe new technology and shy away from it, thereby preserving the RIAA's (and MPAA's, for that matter) obsolete distribution model.
What I am not sure about is whether the RIAA has really slit its own throat. Remember, copied IP that no one was going to buy anyway isn't a loss in revenue. For the RIAA to be done in, people will have to abandon buying CDs altogether.
And mp3s come from someone, somewhere, ripping CDs. So I dunno. I still think that the RIAA is on a downward spiral, but it may take longer for the above reason. What will probably happen is that the RIAA will prosecute one or two people and really make a big show out of it, with hopes that everyone else gets scared.
--
"We have just finished a tour, we played in
Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and
three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the
words to all the new songs and it was wonderful." An interesting change
from the Metallica look at things- hopefully more artists will follow their
lead."
Ok, so I'm a little tired of all this Metallica bashing.
I took the time to read the major press releases and watch the wonderful piece of pulitzer prize winning journalism that was the MTv news special.
Granted that Lars is not one of the great orators of the 21st/22nd century, so it takes a little digging to find out what he was saying.
Metallica does not object to bootlegging. In fact they greatly support it. So the comment above about Radiohead's view being different from Metallica's is not correct.
Metallica objects to having their studio recorded digital masters released on the internet without their permission. The straw that broke the camels back was being able to download their MI2 single from Napster before they had even finished recording it. (technically for this to happen someone first had to actually steal a copy of the song from the studio. This is not the "grey" area of mp3's but the black area of actual larceny)
Metallica went to Napster and asked them to restrict the trading of Metallica's studio mastered songs (*not* the bootlegged live concerts). Since Napster was designed to share live music, they should not have object to this.
Napster refused, essentially saying "ha ha prove it you morons". (Note: do not dare a rock star to do anything, especially when they survived a decade of chugging Jagermeister)
This lead to the media circus we all know and love. After the circus, Napster banned 300,000 users.
This ban is not what Metallica asked for, nor was it what they wanted. Lars has stated this publicly again and again. Metallica basically asked for a filter to be applied to Napster searches.
If they had done this comparatively simple task, Metallica and the people that Napster alienated would be on the side of Napster instead of against them.
Given Napsters actions to date, I am not surprised by their story of being shut down:
everyone (including napster) keeps saying that the judge ordered napster to be shut down. this is not the case. the judge ordered them to make sure no one is trading copyrighted material, and the result is that napster is telling everyone they've been ordered to shut down
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
Don't make me get out the cluestick....
Let's look at this for a moment and see if maybe, *maybe* we can come up with some plausible explanation.
Hmmm...DDoS attacks are taking out a bunch of high profile web sites. At the same time, students in teh dorms notice that their bandwidth drops off to nothing. Could it possibly be that all those student owned, unsecured, non-admined machines in the dorms with high bandwidth always on Internet connections made perfect DDoS zombies? And that maye afterwards the admins throttled your bandwidth to keep them from being such attractive targets? You might even suspect that they might want to avoid talking about it, and even go so far as to concoct a cover story about Napster being at fault, to avoid any legal liability.
After all, look at the bad press UCSC got for admitting they had one zombie on campus? Most of the media outlets made it look like all these sites had been DOSed because one box in Santa Cruz got r00ted.
Furthermore, I don't have much sympathy for your bandwidth problems. When *I* was a student at Berkeley, the only access we had from outside of Evans was renting a Televideo terminal with a 300 baud modem from the ASUC store.
Of course, if you ever got stuck with some weird command in vi you could just go to the lab and find Bill Joy and get him to emplain it to you...
I don't think there's much of an argument about the fact that a significant amount of mp3s on Napster are copyright violations. What I'm more interested in is the potential legislative result that'll come out of this case.
If legislators can't separate the software from the content the software's sharing out, what could happen to the requirements for making data available on the Internet? I think this is what David Touretzky from CMU was touching on, but it has wider ramifications.
Possible scenario: Napster gets shut down and any filesharing software of that kind comes under fire regardless of content. I find that spooky. Smacks a bit of the silliness about cryptographic export and how some of that is (was? I don't remember) classified as a crime.
Any ideas or thoughts on this?
While I agree that the artists have a right to protect their music, all but a small handful of out spoken, spoiled, musicians have a problem with Napster. The RIAA has forgotten one of Murphy's Laws..."Don't rock the boat, especially when you are standing in it!". Many friends and associates I have spoken with all agree, we hear a song on the radio, hit Napster to grab a few more songs by that artist, and if it proves to be worthwhile, we buy the CD. Studies have shown that CD sales have actually increased, but that is all about to change with all the talk of boycotting. I personally will not buy a CD unless I know at least 3-4 other songs off the CD are worthwhile. That would mean that it will take up to 6 months using radio to actually hear these songs, and that assumes that smaller bands actually get the airplay they deserve. So I sit back and laugh as the RIAA loads the gun and points it at their foot...have fun boys and watch the big toe, you need that for balance
and to those who wonder why I simply say...
True, but at least it's a lesser moral issue than the outright "theft" of property that has the industry all litigaseous.
;-)
It works both ways though. What's to stop an artist from applying DoS and/or viral techniques to line their pockets with hundreds of thousands of "requests" for their adver-bytten MP3s?
--The more you know, the less you know.
I was wondering? Have any of you actually gone out and actually bought a CD since Napster and mp3's? I understand some pepl contemplate buying CD's, but I haven't really seen a reply saying they actually bought one. I think the record companies have a point when they say that mp3's bring down their sales, granted I'm all for not paying for CD's. Hell, I can make them myself. For the 5% of the population that can hear a big difference between mp3's and the real thing, they might want to buy CD's but I sure as hell can't really hear it, so why would I go out and buy a $16 CD. I'd rather buy a DVD @ that price. Anyways, there's no way for RIAA to stop mp3 piracy but they sure as hell can try. This'll just make it a little harder for me to get the MP3's I want.
Blocks differs from other anonymous file transfer utilities in that the following ways...
All 'uploaded' files are split into small 64Kb blocks. 'File advertisements' are broadcast through out the network. Your Blocks application needs to be running to see them. When you do a 'search' you are actually searching the local list maintained by your Blocks application, searches are never broadcast.
The data blocks are routed from server to server rather than from point to point, with content being replicated through out the 'network'. IP addresses are not associated with uploads or downloads in any way.
Each Blocks application acts as a potential client, server, and caching proxy for data blocks.
Blocks uses a large disk bound cache (1-64Gb) that is protected by a 128bit block cipher using a random key based on a strong Pseudo Random Number Generator (entropy provided by user), and the cache is deleted and recreated each time the Blocks server is stopped or started. Therefore, even after a crash or abnormal termination, the disk cache cannot be used to ascertain what data has been downloaded or was being served.
All network connections are protected by a 128bit stream cipher using a session key created from a 512bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange. So, network logs cannot be used to identify what network passed through the system.
Ok: so we've beat to death whether the sharing of copies of tracks off CD via Napster is sharing or stealing; personally, I still come down on the sharing side of the issue: I own the CD, I make a copy of what I own, I can share it any way I want.
That's what I think; deal with it...
I've pointed out elsewhere that two-well cassette decks, and blank cassette tapes, and blank VHS tapes, and all the other paraphenalia of what is obviously a process of copying of either music or movies have been in existence for, well, decades.
The RIAA (and the MPAA) has made absolutely no issue whatsoever of the obvious existence of widespread copying by private purchasers for all this time.
Now, suddenly, when it's become possible to make good-quality copies, fast, and distribute the copies quickly, it's become a Big Deal®
Personally, I think the Big Deal® for the RIAA particularily is a loss of control over their lock on the chain of distribution.
Is there not some legal concept, applicable here, which states that failure to exercise one's legal rights against previous blatant copying, dilutes one's right to suddenly make copying such an issue?
Regarding land, I can lose some of my private property if I do not actively restrain your blatant encroachment and that encroachment persists for ten years.
Obviously, IAGIANAL, but I do wonder if it's possible to ask: "If this copying is such goddam big deal, where have you folks been all this time?"
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
You make an interesting point here: The good rappers are very intelligent. People who have an obvious control over the words they use: Busta Rhymes, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Will Smith, Lauren Hill. They may not give the appearance of intelligence (they probably don't want to- a nerd image would not do well for PR) but obviously they are: It takes quite a bit to put the associations together and make them rhyme.
If you take a look at the interviews that these artists do, you will find that while they may not speak perfect english, but what they say is well thought out. And while they may not be on the same side as ours, I'm not offended by what they say usually because they do back up their thoughts with reason (unlike others we know..)
What I want to know, though, is what would Mick Fleetwood say? Have you ever heard him speak? If you have, you know why I ask...
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
There is no need to get out panties in a bunch. Nobody gives a rip about Napster per se--all we care about is sharing MP3's. That has not ended. Furthermore there is nothing on the horizon that could possibly end it. There is MP3-sharing software other than Napster that doesn't share it's legal flaws (such as having a well-known operator). And even if there wasn't such software, FTP still works.
It's all over but the crying.
--
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)
It appears that RIAA is also starting to sue other Napster lookalikes (i.e. Scour). These lawsuits must (I believe) be filed where the company is physically located. In some of these locations, judges will probably rule more favorably than the Napster judge, leading to a number of conflicting rulings depending on the location.
Ultimately this will end up in the Supreme Court, which will set the ground rules for operating file sharing systems (at least until congress steps in). But it is interesting to think that the business success of these companies depends on whether a local judge allows them to temporary remain open (and gain mindshare) or temproarily close down (and give up mindshare).
If I were in this business, I would hedge my bets. What locations are likely to yield positive legal rulings? What locations do not already have a viable Napster alternative. I would set up my company and servers in those locations. I might even start multiple companies in multiple locations, with the hope that a few will be (temporarily) allowed to remain open.
Regardless of the ultimate Supreme Court rulings (or congressional actions) the systems which remain open in the short term will have the greatest likelyhood of business success in the long term.
I'm glad I'm not the only one around here who realizes "they cost too much" is a strawman. The point here is rights, not money. And there is no "right to make a profit".
--
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)
What bothers me is this notion that their is no reason aside from money to create anything artistic or of value. That idea is completely false, otherwise (monetarily) free software wouldn't exist.
--
napster hasn't made a damn cent of anyone. They lose money daily.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Umm.. because I don't want to wade through gigs of mp3s looking for something. Newsgroups only give what someone posts, and it's only available for the three days the posts are kept on the server. I don't have the time or patience to sort through all that crap.
Imagine going into a record store looking for an REM cd and being told, "I'm sorry! We only have these 80 cds on sale today. Tomorrow we'll have some different ones!"
No thanks...........
Buses stop at a bus station
Trains stop at a train station
On my desk there's a workstation....
Napster has loomed over my school's network for months. At some bad time, I access my hotmail account on a speed of 1.4k/sec through a multi-T1 outlink. It is really a relieve for all the people who use their bandwidth for legitimate and educational purposes. Besides, let's face it, most of the Napster users are shameless leeches who want to get the music for "free".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I couldn't care less if Napster goes down, they are not the only game, just one of the first, and therefore the most visible.
What I care about is the outcome of the lawsuit.
The position that copyrighted music has filled for the past few decades is comming to an end.
Distribution technology has reached a point that the business model of existing record companies is no longer the 'best' method for a large portion of the population.
Today making near-perfect copies of music is something anyone can do, not just the record companies. Distributing music to the masses is something anyone can do, not just the record companies. It seems to me that the nitch that record companies have filled, the reproduction and distribution of music, is now GONE, and the huge profits from that market will dissapear.
Attempting to maintain that market with laws is STUPID, it is not an economicly or technologicly sound business, and it should vanish, to be replaced by something shiny and new.
But wait, you say, the poor artists won't be able to make billions of dollars on their music any more! I say, so what? I'd rather listen to the music of someone dedicated to the production of art than the spewings of a rap-monster that just wants to get rich.
If the advance of technology wipes out a market, so be it, new markets will appear, and people will adapt.
Well RIAA won their case against mp3.com (in particular my.mp3.com which is a division of the other), so no you can't. That's right even though your copy and his are the same you aren't allowed to use copies from someone elses copy no matter the format. Only you are allowed to make copies for yourself and if the MPAA has it's way (as well as RIAA with it's 'audio watermarks') you can't change formats at all of the music you 'own' because you only have limited rights for that format of the original song which is in effect more of a lease so you have only what rights the record companies allow you over it.
my.mp3.com didn't get quite the reaction napster has, but napster si the second services RIAA has tried to bring to their knees over the piracy concept...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
One of my favorite albums of all time is a non-RIAA CD called "Unpop..." by The Previous. The album is the story of a high school loser named Dennis Bland (Who fans might catch a reference there) and his quest for love. It's darkly funny and every song is outstanding, and the production values are very, very high all the way around. It's $10 at CD Baby's Previous page (with RealAudio samples) or check out their home page. Seriously, it blows my mind that an album this good could be so unknown... give it a look!
Yeah, it was campy, but definitely relevant to the issue of controlling information.
Once basic human needs are met, life's all about power--who has it, how you get it, what you do with it. "good" and "bad" are meaningless semantics based on the philosophy or religion of the group that has the most power.
Political and Corporate forces are going to use force under the guise of law to retain control (power) over the distribution of information.
Until we have access to distributed power generation via fuel cells or other alternative to the centeralized energy model, there will be no real way to combat this.
Think the internet *can't* be shut down? Think again.
Until there are distributed power supplies and wireless transmissions shutting down is a distinct option, and still possible (probable?) even after a "PowerNet" is created.
In the meantime, do you know where your government officials stand on copyright law and new technology?
The RIAA will NEVER succeed in stopping online music trading. Never. They're getting themselves bad press while doing NOTHING to get rid of the trade.
Now I don't really think that what Napster doing was completely legit, nor do I believe the "It's for trading uncopyrighted music" because we all know what it's for. Pirating music, plain and simple.
But as it's been noted countless times before there are at least half a dozen alternatives to Napster, including Gnutella, CuteMX, Freenet, OpenNAP, IRC #mp3z and #mp3s, etc. The RIAA won't touch many of those. They're just getting bad press, that's all.
Why not make the people happy? They'd be accomplishing the exact same thing!! And they'd also gain the general public's trust and liking, too.
Just a few thoughts.
-----
------------
Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
Well I would argue your not using Napster to its full potential. I search for artists I already own on napster (own as in bought the CD). I do a search for an artist I like and when the results come up I then select browse users files. This allows me to see other artists they like, which in turn there is a good chance I will like. This is more fun then going to MP3.com and reading what they like. allmusic.com does this too, but frankly reading a web site and have the random luck of finding a good band by doing a search is not the same thing. Just my thoughts...........
People are talking about sources of new non-RIAA music, and that's cool. But there's a lot of good RIAA music I and others would like to own on CD. May I recommend Ebay for used CDs. I've found a good number of hard-to-find CDs by mainstream bands, and I've yet to pay less than $10.
Of course, one fear that I've almost been afraid to articulate is that used CD sales will be the next target. The good folks in Redmond have nearly managed to illegalize the sale of used M$ software. How long will it be before we start hearing "You don't buy the music, you buy a license to use the music the way we say."
Could there ever be a UCITA for music?
grep -ri 'should work'
AMEN BROTHER!!!
This is something I've wanted to post for a really long time -- we seem to see so much hatred on Slashdot for "popular" music, and while I'm not a big mainstream music person, I'm not going to dispute the fact that there are a lot of people who do like pop.
Thanks for putting this into words that I couldn't fathom...
Karnal
I think I was unclear when I said they have more than ever. I meant through the search engines, and yes I know they are all renegade OLGA sites. But my point remains, it is still the best resource for guitar and bass tabs on the net.
The reason I have trouble paying $1 per song NOW, though, is that 90 cents or more out of that dollar goes right to the RIAA. I do not want to support such a monopolistic organization even if it means I have to forgo buying a new CD every now and then. If you object to the cost on that ground, then I agree with you. But as long as most of the money was going to the artist, $1 a song is really quite cheap compared to the value it will bring you.
Aside from the anonymous filesharing for always-on internet connections, and perhps freenet, I haven't seen any truly "Litigation-proof" solutions. How many here will continue to use napster-type software? Now, how many here will continue to use it once a few high profile cases come about where houses are raided, computers seized and private citizens being turned into common criminals over copyright infringement?
I say everyone burn all the mp3's you have to CD now, and we can all swp buddy to buddy in meatspace, it's going to be safer that way real soon now.
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
-Jaron Lanier
Hmm... Well if all artists thought mp3's were bad for them than it would make more sense for RIAA to do that, but they don't...
But to me it just seems as if RIAA is attempting to keep you from a new medium of music. As well as trying to squash the small time artists who they haven't signed like they've done for decades. Small time artists are helped by free distrubution of music, because it gets them known to people and makes it possible to later make money from it (as mp3.com artists have for some time now).
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
A quick search of my local news server turns up about 40 MP3 newsgroups covering most of the interesting genres. Why don't the napster users just move over there? There are lots of news grabbers that strip binaries out of a new stream, it's not centralized so there's no one to shut down, you can post anonymously fairly easily, and the only down side is the occasional live goat porn or make money fast file.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Ok, now this is my first ever post here(after about a year of reading), and i know that this is gonna be marked as flame bait..but here goes anyway. I am a musician, and i personaly would love to have my songs indexed on napster, its free publishing, and would benifit me greatly. However, and i know all of you realize, most ppl that use napster arent interested in finding indy artists, or their favorite local bands newest song done on thier home 4 track. they use it to get the newest pop single. and that, is stealing. you can justify it any way you want, but when it comes down to it you all know that it is. an artist ususualy sees about 12 cents off of every record sold, more after they pay back the lable. and you all have to know someone, if not yourself, who has not bought an album because they download the singls/whole album off of napster, or irc or wherever. i guess my point is, that i see the general attitude in here to be something allong the lines of a witch hunt...and i just wonder how many of you have thought about what you are actualy fighting for?? is it the the right of free speach, or is it the right to not have to take your self down to tower records and buy a cd?
The / in
Virtually all of the servers were split, except for a test group that my wife discovered last week. They had been planning to link all the servers before all this nonsense happened.
For those who are curious, the linked servers were:
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
Maybe because if it's legal to copy CD's, and becomes even easier form a technical standpoint (which is already the case), they'll make significantly fewer sales, because many more people will be happy with copies (which are bit-for-bit identical to the original...). Fewer sales mean they need to increase the price, which means fewer sales again. It's a vicious circle, where you end up with the first guy paying the entire price for one CD.
Yes, that's a bit of an exaggeration. And yes, I know the labels don't pay artists enough, etc., etc... The destruction of copyright won't solve that problem though, it'll only make it worse. It would probably make it worse for consumers too, because what they can't do via copyright, they can always do via contract.
The fact is, content-creators need to be compensated for the work they do. Copyright helps to ensure that that happens. Unfortunately, middle-men like the record labels, RIAA, MPAA, etc., muddy the waters by collecting the money from consumers, but not giving nearly enough to the artists who originally produced the works. Removing copyright won't fix this, but altering copyright might. If it was impossible for artists to lose their copyright, even by contract, then the middle-men would make sure they treat their artists fairly, or the artists would take their work and go elsewhere. But we would still need copyright. Perhaps people like you would also be less cavalier about flouting copyrights, because then you'd be directly hurting the artist in the process.
Let me ask you this: if you bought the CD directly from the artist, and the artist asked you not to distribute copies, would you have a problem with that? Why or why not?
Oh my gosh, this song has been playing on my radio for weeks and I just realized that Nina Gordon is part of artist direct network! It is a really good song. In cast the rest of you have not heard about it I encourage everybody to check out the mjuice downloable music at Nina Gordon's website
Hasdi
I realize that this is an unpopular opinion in some quarters, but it's entirely possible that the reason that so many people are downloading those groups is because they actually like that kind of music. Maybe, just maybe, the music companies aren't cramming that music down unwilling throats, but instead are responding to a substantial and real demand. Not everyone shares your taste in music, and there are quite a lot people who are more interested in music that is fun and energetic than deep and meaningful.
That certainly goes along with the way that many people "listen" to music, which is to have it playing in the background rather than actually paying attention to it. It also explains why the most popular music retains the same kind of cheerful, energetic, contentlessness even when the underlying style changes. It's not as though this is a new phenomenon, either; there's an endless well of Baroque and earlier music that comes from the same light, fluffy mold, and that was made long before there was a recording industry to cram it down people's throats.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I create different sorts of music because there are sounds I want to hear that I'm not hearing from anybody else. This can be as direct as having a little analog synthesizer with a resonant filter that I hacked so it can feed back and overload, and wanting to hear an album based on that sound ('Cirrus'), or wanting to hear synthesisers playing in rhythms you normally don't get to hear ('Dragons') or what a dog would sound like as music ('anima').
I could try to find somebody to sell me music like this, and in fact often I have (for instance, I have a big King Crimson record collection bought largely because of my fascination with the unusual time signatures Krimso often uses). But now I do have the capacity, often, to produce the sort of music I'd want to hear- myself. I've found that when I do that, some people simply don't like the result, but then some other people like it a whole lot- or fixate on some small element of what I do, and like that a whole lot.
I feel I'm better off sharing my music for free, and allowing people to show enthusiasm in a direct fashion by downloading more, or by picking up a $5.99 CD, because I am entirely unwilling to 'summarise' my musical interests into one clearly labelled category so people can know what they're buying. You _don't_ know what I'm going to release next. I might do a new age piano album (got new tech- Kurzweil Micropiano and Lexicon Reverb) or a deep reverby 'ambient' album or an album of very well-tuned drum 'n bass. If I need to be able to do that, people need to be able to audition what I'm doing for free so they can _be_ warned how different all the CDs are, and go listen to _everything_ in case they might really connect with some of it.
And of course they can, mp3.com/chrisj is for just that purpose. I just redesigned it to explain better what each of the albums are like, it's no longer necessary to sit there lo-fiing or downloading track after track just to get a sense of what the music is like- or to try just 4 tracks and mistakenly think the whole catalog is like that ;) And all of it is still free- my expectation is that _some_ people will want CDs too, and those that don't are at least giving it a listen. I swear, there is a 'business model' in that- it just doesn't include _guilt_ of giving out 'shareware' music. Imagine it like this- my mp3.com page is the ultimate radio, one I'm very proud of. By using it I can convey broadcast music anywhere in the world at any time of the day or night- anytime someone listens to one of the mp3s, that magic super radio is going 'bzzzzt' and broadcasting it out to be listened to, at no cost to me- in fact, I get a little bit of money for the initial download! It's not much- the total over all the months I've been doing it is about $300, but that's nearly enough to get a Yamaha DX7, and some music that I do would be much better if I got to program a whole Yamaha DX7- it's a six operator FM synth and the one I've got is only a two output 4 operator FM synth. So it does help me make better music, pretty directly...
The injunction as it stands is very possible to
enforce. It requires Napster to prevent trading
in copyrighted materials. Napster says, "We can't
do that! We can't differentiate between copy-
righted and non-copyrighted material! The only
way to stop trading in copyrighted material would
be stop *all* trading!" The court then replies,
"Well, if that's the only way you can think of
to comply with the injunction, that's *your*
problem..."
That's why everyone is treating this as a shutdown
of Napster. Tendentious RIAA protests to the
contrary, that is effectively what it is; the
only way to comply with it is to shut down.
Chris Mattern
Tell you the truth, I completely agree with you. I think MP3.com is far superior, and far more worthy of being supported. I have no problem with attacking the Napster corporation, which is probably making money without giving it back to artists. But Napster users are not the same as the Napster corporation.
Can your IM do this?
To hell with the record labels, RIAA or otherwise. Download what you want, or copy it from a friend, then go to FairTunes and send some money to the artist.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
If napster stays shut down for long enough it would be interesting to see the impact on CD sales - or CD sales around universities, or whatever exactly it was all of those damning studies proved.
Of course given how subjective the studies were before it would be hard for an apparent further decrease in sales to "prove" that Napster was good for the recording industry.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
First, a word of support... yes, there are good bands on mp3.com believe it or not. :-)= Generally a good way of finding them is to find a channel dedicated to a genre you like and listen to it. A couple of artists I've discovered on mp3.com that I really like are Lizette& and Ian Gibson.
BUT: I don't recommend buying CDs through mp3.com. Why? Sound quality. The audio on mp3.com CDs are 128kbps mp3s and have noticable mp3 artifacts. If you see an mp3.com CD that you want to buy, I recommend contacting the artist directly and asking them if you can get a real 44.1/16 CD from their original audio files.
I also recommend telling mp3.com that you're doing this, so maybe they'll change their policy and allow artists to upload 44.1/16 files for the CDs in addition to the mp3s that can be downloaded.
[TMB]
With all these Napster alternatives, isn't the collection pool being diluted? One of the reasons Napster was so successful was its large community and hence its large selection. The above links as well as Gnutella and the slew of other file sharing programs means that it will be just as hard to find what you are looking for as it was in the good 'ol days of web pages.
Wouldn't it be better to move to a single (or at least as few as possible) communites - possibly something which would have a harder time being shut down? Of course, there would probably be a whole bunch of flaming with respect to chosing those few communities...
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
Come on. You all know this.
How do all those packets know how to get to your computer?? Really. In technical terms, you are NOT anonymous. The only way that you could be, is if you walked up to a public kiosk in a major city, that was already logged in to a 'guest' account.
Anything else has your name all over it.
take responsibility for your actions. If you like to copy someone's music against their wishes, at least sign your name.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Read Napster's brief. It says that the RIAA is abusing their copyrights by preventing on-line distribution of music. Napster's interpretation of copyright law is that this lets them do what they've done. IANAL, but it sure looks to me like this is their strongest argument. When a $15 CD returns pennies in royalties to the Artist, there's something seriously wrong with the business model.
Anybody ever stopped to think that mabye, just mabye, napster was actualy a bad thing?
/. from jail for a year or two (at least!)
Face it, even if you use the "home music copying act thingy" (whatever the full offical name is) the spirit of the law was basicaly that you shouldn't be sent to jail for giving a friend or two a boot-legged copy of a tape.
It was not intended to allow people to have thousands upon thousands of songs illegialy, nor was it intented to allow people to give out their sonds to thousands of other people.
MP3's are a bad thing, they ar illegial, get over it! Every MP3 collecter I have talked to admited (after a bit of mental shoving around) that yes MP3's are illegal but that they DON'T CARE.
They don't care that they are breaking the law! Sheesh, is that what america's morals have come to? A situation where america's public is darn near just as corrupt as its politictions? They don't CARE if they are breaking the law? Whats more, people actualy start complaining WHEN THE LAW IS ENFORCED!
You actualy expected the courts to uphold a service which you all knew was used to share files illegaly, you all actualy expected the courts to go and say "sure, keep stealing music".
Try walking out of a music store with a number of CD's containing the total number of songs you have on that 20gig partition of yours, let me tell you, the price of those CD's will begin to add up towards grand theft pretty darn fast! (heh, what is grand theft considered now days anyways? I remember that it isn't really all that high, but still)
If you where held accountable for each MP3 you have on your HD, think of all the world of trouble you would be in. You would have to access
Yet here you go on, considering MP3's OK just because it suits you.
Is it OK for a person to steal a car from a car-lot just because they want to? The car manufacturers are large, bloated, and corrupt. Yet the only moral difference is the price of the object that you are stealing. Want to add a legal loop-hole? Say you are taking it for an extended test drive! Same thing, right?
Of course its not, any idiot can see that a test drive is not the same thing as theft, and any idiot can see that sharing a tape with 2 or 3 friends is not the same as offering cd's up for the whole world to copy and take. There IS A DIFFERENCE between sharing music harmlessly, and illegaly giving dozens of copies out.
Napster was designed for illegal purposes, the law saw this, they shut it down, get over it!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
The entertainment industry as a whole wakes up fom their weird unrealistic dream world they live in to see the real picture. Their method of tackling the problem (lawsuits, cease and disist, etc.) will not work on the internet generation. The internet genration is not happy. If they were happy with the way things are now, you wouldn't have this big problem.
If they keep this up, they might realise they'll run out of money when people start to realise how igorant they really are and start to seek other free methods of entertainment.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Why do you need to be so anonymous? Are you so afraid of spreading illegal material around that you must hide in dark alleys? Real anonymous, just type netstat to see who you're downloading from.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
nt
To sum things up, the industry thinks this is a big win and that they now have a chance to offer consumers music downloads on their own terms. This displays their current lack of understanding of the real problems that users are seeking to remedy with Napster and the other music/file trading options.
I have said and always will maintain that my problem with the RIAA is by inability to purchase single songs at a reasonable price. If they want to offer me downloadable music on a song-by-song basis for about $1 a song I'd be happy to pay. Until then piracy is the only option if you cant afford the whole CD for 1 song. You don't need to shut Napster down to convince me to switch and sharing still has its legitmate uses for unsigned bands and concert bootlegs.
http://www.smg.org/
Sister Machine Gun (SMG) recently broke away from TVT after a bit of falling out. Unfortunately, SMG's music is not exactly categorizable (hard rock, jazz, and "industrial" all mixed into one fun batch), and the frontman Chris Randall does a lot of interesting stuff (including some "electronic" music under the name "Micronaut").
They're probably best known for their song "Burn" which was on the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack. Micronaut also had some MP3 favorites over at MP3.com in the "electronica" section, including "Northern Style Kung Fu".
SMG recently independantly released a CD, [R]evolution, which is pretty cool. The prices are pretty reasonable for quality of the CD. They've started pressing their own CDs for the fans.
Check out the site. They're fans of MP3's so, you can listen to a nice selection before you put your hard earned money down.
BTW, the live shows are not to be missed. Unfortunately, they're in Chicago and I'm in the Bay Area....
Just advertising for my favorite band.
-Psychochild
Brian "Psychochild" Green
MMO developer's blog
On the Newshour yesterday, they had some bozo from RIAA saying something to the effect that Napster was illegal because it was enabling the copying of information without permission from the copyright holders. Isn't this what most search engines do? They don't get permission for most of their links, and that's all Napster does really, is link. And when ...what was it called..."deep indexing" I think it was, becomes more widespread, linking to documents a site expects you to see only after wading through a few other pages (and a few other ads), couldn't this be just as harmful to many copyright holders?
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1) Napster is a service. Napster has a web site. The Internet is not the World Wide Web.
2) Mr. Valenti, Scour is not the most obvious example of copyright violation _anyone_ has seen in their life, let alone you.
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
everyone (including napster) keeps saying that the judge ordered napster to be shut down. this is not the case. the judge ordered them to make sure no one is trading copyrighted material, and the result is that napster is telling everyone they've been ordered to shut down.e ()} won't cut it...
Reason being, Napster can't (won't) implement a sharing filter to remove copyrighted material.
if(song.matches("[Mm]etallica")==true){song.remov
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The CDs usually run you about half of what they'd cost from an RIAA affiliated band, too.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The Injunction is impossible to enforce as it stands now. Although Napster has been told to prevent copyrighted music from being traded, how are they supposed to determine what's copyrighted and what's not?
Is the RIAA going to supply a list of every song title they own and the checksum for that file? What if I name an MP3 of me farting as "Metallica: Master of Puppets"?
I'm gonna go get me some M_E_T_A_L_L_I_C_A songs. . .
Nothing funny here. . .move along
There are exceptions. The ones that I know of are small, niche publishers. But then again being small, being in a niche, they have to do what they can to compete with "the big boys".
:-)
For instance in the Celtic category, Green Linnet makes it a policy to make available (unfortunately not in MP3 format though - their clues are limited) all of their songs.
Strangely enough, I buy the CDs anyways...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Uh oh, Salon thinks the Star Trek Replicator is a burglery tool
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Since Napster was designed to share live music, they should not have object to this.
Napster refused, essentially saying "ha ha prove it you morons".
I just like looking at that. If there's one thing I admire, it's an ability to so objectively and consisely sum up what Napster said.
This ban is not what Metallica asked for, nor was it what they wanted. Lars has stated this publicly again and again. Metallica basically asked for a filter to be applied to Napster searches.
If they had done this comparatively simple task, Metallica and the people that Napster alienated would be on the side of Napster instead of against them.
I have a "comparatively simple" task for you, then. Write an algorithm that can decompress MP3s and determine whether or not they're live or studio-recorded. In fact, while you're at it, make it fast enough to run in realtime screening every Napster download. Don't post it here! Sell it, and make a fortune. And apparently it will be "comparatively simple" to do this, too!
OK, I don't think the artists are hurting because of napster. It's been said before, some musicians actually think napster helps promote their albums. Even if they didn't sell any albums because of napster, fans would still pay $100 a pop to see certain musicians live in concert. And for the less popular musicians, it only gives them a chance to get their music out there for everyone to hear. Let's face it, the radio doesn't play 'unpopular' music.
Note: Alternative Tentacles is the music label owned by Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedy's fame. Jello, Alternative Tentacles, and the ex-members of the Dead Kennedy's have been embroiled in a vicious battle of late over the rights to and royalty payments from old releases. I personally don't know enough to pass any kind of judgement on this situation, but do feel that it is ridiculous to have these individuals violate the "punk rock" ethic" and use the sytem to bring down people who were once friends and who made muci with each other not out of the need for reprisal but out of the need for release.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Put a piece of music in front of him.
That wouldn't agree with the uniform licensing requirement that they agreed to when they submitted the codec to ISO for the MPEG standard.
They've already allowed royalty-free use for free desktop software players that are obtained by internet download, which was a smart move, as it has created demand for non-free licensed hardware decoders, and non-free encoders. The hardware decoder chips sold by Micronas and (suprise) SGS Thompson already have price committments to the manufacturers of players. Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, as I'm about to order a couple hundred chips for my open-source hardware-based player. (ok, that was a shameless plug, but it really is open source and the code is available on the web site right now).
As I recall, the patent was issued in 1989, so even if the RIAA could lean on Thompson, it would only last six or nine more years. The USA patent was issued in 1996, but somehow I suspect the ISO 11172-3 standard, published in 1988, could probably be considered prior art.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
No one works for free all the time. C'mon. Would you really want to be a full-time Rock Star if you weren't getting paid pretty damn well? Would you want to have to work another job to pay your bills? No. I like Napster, I despise the RIAA, but let's quit this 'Music should be free for all!' bullshit.
I dont know if Napster is the battle we want to put all of our energy into fighting. As much as some of us use it, we DO know that it is being used for a lot of piracy that is beyond the terms of fair use.
BUT Napster also highlights the problems with the concepts of IP, fair use, and copyright, especially the model that is currently being forced down our throats by the RIAA.
Some of my very best friends are independent producers. Their music is up on MP3.com. MP3.com has ways for the artists to promote themselves, to link to other artists they like, runs contests and promotions to encourage the artists. I have found some great people whose music I would have never heard otherwise... because people whose music I already respected suggested them. This is a model that can, and does work. And a quick comparision of mp3.com to Napster leaves Napster very much lacking in these sorts of features, which ARE the features that link the artists directly to their listeners.
MP3.com has my full support. Napster... I have a hard time justifying it. Its VERY grey...and I think we all need to pick our battles carefully on this one.
just my thoughts.... *dons flameproof suit*
Check out Magic Firesheep!
I just went back and checked and The Previous has a new deal with an indy company called Great Big Island, and they've got a pretty good order page with Real samples for all of their albums, and you can also buy "Unpop..." songs in MP3 for .50 each. The Previous have a whole slew of other albums, and they're good too, but the best by far is Unpop.
Great Big Island
This is exactly why smaller artists don't get a chance. You complain about how all the "mainstream" music is "garbage", and how they don't promote "real artists". I hate to break the news to you, but musical talent is not somethiung that can be measured. It's a tase. You don't like what's out now, so it's garbage and you are a "real artist" who will never get anywhere because people don't like what you are putting out. I don't like Christiana Agulara, but does that means that everything she puts out is crap? No, because some people think it's really good, and get a lot of meaning and enjoyment out of it, and THAT is what music is about. People think Napster is great because it opens up the world to smaller artists, and that is a benefit of Napster. But it also helps to close the door on emerging major label artist, but that's okay, because they aren't "real artists" anyway. Just because someone sells a million records doesn't make them great, but just because you don't like them doesn't make them "hacks" or "sellouts" or "crap". Popular music is called that because it is "popular". If you want to be a part of popular music, you have to be popular, and it's a shame most people think that as soon as you join the ranks of the "popular" bands, you automatically suck.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
I don't care whether or not you happen to like the fact that I'm saying it, but when everyone and their mother starting listing their web addresses at the bottom of TV commercials and when AOL adoped the flat rate fee for access is when the signal to noise ratio went in the crapper.
*sigh* you SO miss the point.
The S/N ratio "went in the crapper" around 1984. The absurdity is that you think it wasn't already there in the early 90's. Do you get it now?
Regardless of where you stand on the ethics of Napster, you have to admit some of the people quoted in the Salon article Just Don't Get It. My favorite (from Erwin Drake):
Napster is supplying burglar tools to a public that is not aware of the circumstances. That same public, if it can not afford a car or a home, knows it can not have them. They can not download that car or home. That would be theft if it were technically feasible.
That just makes my head hurt.
I was thinking about this whole napster thing. What if Napster went off and hosted in Havenco on the territory of Sealand? What forces would be able to bar them if they were based off Sealand? I feel this seems to be the only logical step Napster or a future derivative of that company could take to minimize all this legal fights with RIAA.
Havenco is also letting people who are proseucuted by their gov's host their sites free of charge. Very nice deal.
--
Vorbis is a great idea, but it simply doesn't have the popularity or momentum of MP3.
What styles do these artists play?
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I pay for city water by the gallon, but the city doesn't tell me I have to use 45 gallons per day for showers, 20 for dishes, 50 for the lawn, and 50 for boiling cabbage. This is a good thing, because I don't like cabbage.
If the recording industry would get its act together, it would realize that consumers might not want the other 8 songs that waste CD space on an album that nobody likes, aren't played on the radio, and that nobody would have bought in the first place if given a choice.
Bandwidth is a great way to offer content/information to customers because it is incredibly flexible -- It allows for any 'basket of goods' that a customer wants!
It's buffet-style music... Hold the cabbage, the public is eating it up!
Amazing magic tricks
Not only that, but he taught/teaches math a a university (Harvard?) somewhere. Besides, it's really not that surprising, Tom Lehrer's music wasn't "pop" anyway, it required some form of intellect. Especially "New Math" :)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Buy RECORD! LP's! Yes!
Although much of today's music is not available (for a cheap price) on LP there is tons of excellent music on LP!
Further, you can find these records for as little as $.25 -> $1.00
Dirt cheap!
I own more LP's than CD's and refuse to pay the price of a CD for one or two songs. (exception: real good CD's i have bought)
F.Y.I i am not old enough to have owned hundreds of records previously. I started purchasing them 2 months ago and have about 150 records now.
Screw the big-boys and still enjoy music: Buy LP's!
(also remember to support independant and local music groups or labels)
Freenet, a new type of internet connection is anonymous for sharing and storing files. http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ From their website: "What is Freenet? Freenet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship. Freenet is completely decentralized, meaning that there is no person, computer, or organisation in control of Freenet or essential to its operation. This means that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster. Freenet also employs intelligent routing and caching meaning that it learns to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirrors popular data, makes network flooding almost impossible, and moves data to where it is in greatest demand. All of this makes it much more efficient and scalable than systems such as Gnutella. "
~~~Please pass the salt, I hate unsalted MD5s
As I understand it, the orignal Gnutella project at Nullsoft is dead; AOL presumably didn't approve, particularly considering their impending merger with Time/Warner. There are now a number of independent Gnutella clones, most of them fully compatible with the Nullsoft Gnutella protocol, and I think they're all open-source. Consult the Gnutella site (not hosted by Nullsoft/AOL, nor operated by Nullsoft employees AFAIK) for details.
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
At one point in the brief, the judge writes:
Every user of Napster must download Napster's proprietary software, must connect to one of Napster's servers to use the service, must use Napster's search functions in order to locate files to download, and must be hooked up to Napster to initiate the downloading process.
Gee, I guess I haven't been using Napster, because I use an open-source client. :)
my old sig used to be funny, but then slashcode ate it and now it's not funny anymore
Depends on your definition of signal to noise. I've only been able to glimpse the internet since 1992 (but not interactively). All the newsgroups (usegroups?) I read didn't seem to have any noise...
.99, a fact that seems to have been lost on EVERYONE, including official FAQs. But I digress) Would you be able to download a game demo today from exactly one server without a feeding frenzy killing your download speed?
And let's not forget December 10th, 1993. The ftp server wasn't hosed when I downloaded the greatest game ever (I know this isn't relevant, but it was version
Go Kathryn Thurber!
They do tip us tho- we get a fixed amount divvied up among us for downloads, and we get 50% of CD sales. That alone is way better than anything any RIAA label has ever offered... so I have to encourage mp3.com, just don't think they will support their own bands as in promote or fund, because they totally won't :) they aren't loan sharks like the majors- break-even point is 'the moment you sign up' and you have to bring people there yourself. Once you do, you and mp3.com peacefully divvy up the returns if any :) in a way, this is a much humbler and more sensible way of working in the music business.
So, exactly how much are song royalties anyway? I have no idea. Is it something that differs depending on what band it is, what song it is or what record label it is??? I really have no idea and would appreciate any comments on this.
They'd be happy to sell you songs individually, but those songs will be encrypted, digitially signed, and permanently linked to a particular player, (a closed source, obfuscated player program or hardware.) And you gotta give them you player's serial number.
Oh, and they'll also be licensed and not sold, and, because they're now selling songs, they'll claim that there's no reason for any player to play unencrypted music, so all THOSE players will be made illegal. Of course, like software, they won't accept returns.
And if the player they've licensed for goes sour, you'll be stuck with megabytes of useless crap. They'll never let you convert your music to a second player, as you might be lying about your origional one breaking and you might be a pirate. So you'll have to buy it all over again.
Need I continue?
Oh, and once they've made everything else illegal, they'll put on limits. You can only play the music so many times before it disables, or so many times a month, or a limited timeframe to play it in.
And of course, once people forget about free music and think 'public domain' is a dirty word, the price will go up. $5? $20? a track. The monopolies will screw you for as much as they [safetly] can. And then they'll work to make copyrights perpetual.
This is what the record companies want out of the digital future. This is what any 'copyright control' company wants. Music, lyrics, video, photography, software. This is what they all want.
Napster and any other way of letting the MASSES trade media that's unencrypted and not digitally linked (Masses != computer nerds who know FTP or IRC.) risks that bright future for record companies. It gives the heretical idea that people should question copyright. Something which they haven't seriously done in decades. Like the witches at the stake, Napster must be destroyed for that reason.
Computers don't necessarily make information free. They're good at processing information, duplicating it, checking it, debiting accounts... Thus, they allow control at a fine level that would have been impossible in the past.
The internet gives everyone a press. As a famous quote goes ``Freedom of the press is only for those who have one.'' The internet must be controlled to protect those who already have presses.
Napster has urged its fans to run a "buy-cott" this weekend. Oh, Napster! Why have you turned your backs on your fans like this! This is a classic example of an ends-justify-the-means tactic; even when the means contradict the ends you are trying to reach. They can't ask us to support the institution that is trying to destroy them!
Napster changed the face of music distribution. No longer are fans forced to buy a $15+ dollar Britney Spears CD in order to listen to one or two "decent" songs. The digital music revolution gives fans the choice to download and play the exact songs that they want. And yes, under current laws, it's probably illegal. But, the problem is that it's entirely unstoppable. Laws will have to adapt to the digital landscape. Everyone knows the obvious conclusion.
But, the Napster case isn't about Napster proving to the industry that they'll drive more sales into a sinking institution or that digital music will give Hilary Rosen new sales channels. It's about a new paradigm in music distribution. It's about the collapse of the music industry as we know it.
Napster has an arsenal of arguments at its disposal, probably the most effective is that they're just hosting a platform and can't be held responsible for what is traded. But, the underlying theme is that the control of information has changed in the digital world. Without an effective way to control distribution, information is becoming virtually free. Music is just the first controlled digital substance to be unleashed.
It saddens me that Napster won't stand up for this inevitable stance. They have to resort to begging their users to give more money to Hilary Rosen so she can fight Napster with even more lawyers. Is Napster crazy?
Napster has failed: and they have proven that they are not strong enough to stand up to the challenge. But we know that the revolution isn't dead. Use Napster for all it's worth until its shut down. But when it is, don't go out and buy CDs. Download Gnutella and continue as your were.
Invidia fortunum ovit.
No -- it's not completely flawed because unlike napster, it does not completely bypass the artist's compensation. Sure, the RIAA are greedy f*cks, but so are the napster mob. Both sides want to take as much as possible and to hell with anyone who gets in their way.
They control (for the most part) the media that influnces what you buy (think radio
Don't know about you, but I suibscribe to member supported radio -- I support alternatives. These stations are not controlled by anyone. ueah, I know, someone has to pay to support them, and the napsterites don't want to pay for anything.
Now yes, I put my music up on places like mp3.com and napster for public exposure. Why? Because no matter how bad I suck, I want to hear other peoples opinions and critiques (sp?).
The fact that you aren't a professional musician doesn't mean that noone else should be.
The RIAA has spent millions, silencing ME an artist, by shutting down one of my distribution channels.
napster was primarily a glorified warez site. The fact that tere was the odd bnit of legit material here and there doesn't justify it.
Are Bassists Smarter Than Drummers?
What do you call the guy in the band who can't read music?
The drummer.
What do you call the guy who hangs out with musicians?
The drummer.
Heh, sorry, I know, OT. I couldn't resist, one of my roommates is a drummer. (-:
It's not a one-hit wonder, Creep is on there twice ;-)
Seriously though, listen to that again (or just got DL from Napster, it's easier than finding the CD anyway). There are some really great tracks on that album besides Creep, "Thinking about You" "Stop Whispering", "Anyone can play Guitar"...
Remember, it was 1993. Pablo Honey was a very emotionally honest album. Creep did blow my mind at the time however...
Nope, I don't vote for leftist idiots.
"and the result is that napster is telling everyone they've been ordered to shut down"
Uh.... How could they possibly ensure that no material is traded in violation of copyright without shutting down? They have no (legal) way of determining what is what.
Perhaps that wasn't the best choice of words on my part. In my defense, I was trying to be brief enough that the story would have some chance of being posted :)
I agree with what you're saying though. I've been saying the same thing. Regardless of whether they understand why people use Napster or not (and I'm not really sure whether they understand and are in denial, or if they just plain don't get it) they will do whatever they feel is necessary to retain control of the industry.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Or, you could always secretly set up a server on that bunker in the ocean off of England. That'd be an interesting test to see how secure & secretive it really is.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
The whole net took notice, and now with growing popularity, we have to fess up to our actions. I love music, can't get enough, and get a lot of MP3s, but well, it's illegal. I don't have to tell you guys that.
When, however, did the line get so blurred? I don't want to see Napster go, as I learned piracy from my father, but instead I want an underground I'm not going to hear about on Headline News.
Lets keep surfing this wave, and lets hear more from the OSI community. Gnutella is good, but we need to keep going.
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Why is there a record "industry"? If the artists make the music, what exactly does the recording industry provide? The answer, at its most basic level, is essentially recording and promotion. With the advent of computers, talented amateurs are able to produce their own music with studio-quality sound. With the advent of the internet and MP3, artists can now manage their own distribution. What is lacking is the ability to get their music recognized by the mainstream media (i.e. radio, television, etc). So basically, when one signs a recording contract, one is buying promotion and little else.
Unfortunately for the "industry", they are becoming obsolete. If numerical computation had been copyrightable, the sliderule industry would have sued to prevent computers from being sold. The gravy train is over.
Since Pandora's box has been opened, there will be no way to confine music to the traditional distribution methods of the past. What if there were no record companies? Artists would become directly responsible for their music. By distributing their music directly over the internet, they would be responsible for their own promotion. Talent would out. Can we really say that some of the "musicians" foisted on us by the recording industry are actually *artists*? Money would be made in a few ways.
- Live performances. People will always be willing to pay to see and hear live music.
- Promotional merchandise and collectible cdroms. Tangible merchandise is easier to control than intangibles such as the music itself.
- Commercial tie-ins. Whenever music is used in a commercial capacity- advertisements, in movies, on the radio, during sporting events, etc., a license to use the music could be sold. The burden for paying for the music would fall on the backs of the corporations.
The reason why the RIAA is scared is that there is no place for them in the coming years. This is why they are desparately trying to pass legislation to shore up their dying business. They may have the law on their side, but there will be little will to enforce it. They won't be *able* to enforce it.
Does anyone wonder why there even *is* an RIAA? Are Sony, Warner Brothers, etc. so powerless on their own that they need to form their own trade union?
Anyone else notice how ABCNews.com first started out changing some of Chuck D's words to "[expletive]" but later on in the article printed those same words verbatim?
attack the MP3 format itself? I mean honestly now, why don't they just go ahead and sue the person who came up with the MP3 file format, and then sue Winamp, Real, Microsoft, and everyone else who publishes a player that is capable of using mp3's.
The RIAA has a problem with MP3's. It's not just they don't want people trading copyrighted material, they don't want them doing anything with a format they don't have any control over. I want to see the RIAA sue Microsoft to attempt to force Microsoft to remove support for MP3's from Windows Mediplayer. Obviously all MP3's contain illegally acquired copyrighted material (never mind all the songs I download because it's easire for me to download songs I have the CD for than for me to rip them myself), so of course an MP3 player should be illegal as well! Please. This is ludicrous to say it's the deathknell of whatever it is the RIAA thinks they're fighting.
Moller
t_t_b
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I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
I think that if we want to promote innovation in intellectual property instead of giant corporate octopi, what we need is a complete re-vamping of IP law.
The current law gives copyright protection for far longer than would be required to promote innovation. If a musician had exclusive copyright protection over his work for five years (for example), after which the work entered the public domain, he would be able to profit from his work, while he would also be motivated to create more, rather than resting on his laurels (read: catalog sales royalties).
I fail to see how the current system (recently extended, no less) helps consumers, musicians, or innovation. Rather, it is used to maintain a brutal control over the distribution channels, and ensure a constant stream of income in perpetuity (mostly to the suits who run the record companies, anyway)
so i think we should rename a gnutella archive gnutella.mp3 and start transfering it via napster. get the most out of the last couple hours..
Two comments on this one:
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Q. What is the difference between a drummer and a drum machine ?
A. You only need to punch the information into a drum machine the once
Q. Why does every band have a bassist ?
A. Cos some f***er has to drive the van
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
No, they have made money, just not enough to offset their debt, which is why they are in the red.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
The real issue is:
We will always be able to share MP3's. Maybe not on the same scale that Napster permitted, or maybe so. but there will ALWAYS be a risk of getting caught, and going to jail, that's why the concern about Gnutella, and need for Freenet.
The way I see it, it all depends on the interpretation of "fair use". Like Orrin Hatch said. If fair use includes the non-commercial sharing of an MP3 with a friend (or x friends), then what users on Napster are doing is NOT illegal. Why has the argument focused on abusive contracts, price gouging, etc.? This is the real battle. Fair use. If we don't win the fair use argument, then the RIAA comes in and has congress right some nasty provisions - and the end result will be, you can download music from record company servers, at the price they want, probably won't be able to copy it or share it (SMDI), and possibly, they'll be able to limit your listening of the file so you pay a fee every listen. Plus, what will be available will be a subset of music that exists, probably current top 40's only. That is not a regime I would like to be a consumer in. I would probably just not listen to music anymore. The day the music died.
Screw all the other bogus arguments, about "how will the poor artists eat" and crap like that. Our rights are at stake here. Fair use is important, and that's what we need to be aware of. Artists will still make music, and still become fabulously wealthy, and there will still be record companies, and they'll still be able to charge for people to download music - even if you can get the same file free from your buddy over the internet, that does not destroy the market for sale of legitimate first-time intellectual property, or a physical CD with liner notes and cover art and other value-added features. But that is fighting a bullshit argument anyway - focus on fair use. It's our right, let's not lose sight of that.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sigh. I wish people wouldn't lump Eminem into the same category as Britney Spears and the like. The Real Slim Shady is his only pop song right now, and if you heard other songs off The Marshall Mathers LP, you would realize the difference between them and the single (it's a really dark cd) and appreciate his talent.
Note I didn't say you had to like him, but he does have some talent when it comes to rapping.
I'd like to see the expressions on RIAA exec's faces if CD sales showed a downward trend after Napster's fall, due to boycott or lack of musical promotion. Whoops.
CNN is reporting (as of July 28, 2000 05:48 p.m. EDT, 2148 GMT) that the injunction has been stayed. They are supposed to have more news soon.
He seems to honestly believe that he didn't tell Napster to shut down!
Telling Napster to prevent the unauthorized copying of copyrighted music is like telling a telephone to stop people from telling lies over the telephone (or, more topically, preventing people from playing copyrighted music over the telephone). Not only do they not have the resources to listen in on all of the communications, they don't have any sure way of knowing what is copyrighted (or not licenced for distribution).
They would need to listen to every file that was listed on Napter, as it was put up. You can't just go by the names. You certainly can't automate it, it would have to be people listening in.
But that wouldn't do it. How do you know who gave permission for what? How do you even tell obscure band XZY's promotional release from obscure band ZYX's CD track #7?
Sure, with some effort they could cut out a lot of really flagrant abuse, like the top 100 songs, and anything by the most popular few hundred musicians (who don't tell them otherwise), as long as people label them correctly, but the order wasn't "do the best you can without having to shut down" it was "do it perfectly, now! and I don't care about your customers".
This killed Napster. They are never going to turn a profit, whether they come back up or not. Now that it's down, people will share their music in other ways. They'll find better ways, and nobody will bother going back to Napster.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Yesterday my Grandmother mentioned to me the Napster case. She's by no means a techie and she didn't understand many of the details of the ruling, but it took me nearly 10 minutes to describe to her that Napster wasn't the only game in town.
People think that Napster is the only thing out there. Just like many users of a certain three initial ISP seem to think that there is no other way to get connected to the internet.
Maybe this will be good for us over all. Without the attention of the clueless newbies we can hold onto (at least for a moment) that feeling that we had when the internet was OURS. Before the great boom of 1995-1997.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
One of the things I like about mp3.com is being able to look up lyrics, stories behind the songs, and often artists have given out not only email addresses, but also ICQ #s.
I have talked to a number of artists worldwide, including a pair producing trance in Russia (PPK) who did some amazing work with samples of MLK Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech. I like that not only can I buy the music (reward your artists!) but I can also end up talking to them as well. It adds a whole new depth to the experience.
(I guess I believe in the Cluetrain Manifesto. Markets WANT to talk to each other, and with the people providing the goods.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
I was hoping to hear someone call Lars the "Paster of Muppets".
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> It's not about the record companies screwing the little guys... It never has been, and I've definitely had enough of this bloody topic!
Not correct. This is definately about just what you said it isn't: namely, the record companies screwing the "little guys". But not only them--which I assume you mean the consumers--but the artists as well. The only people in the entire marketplace who are happy with the RIAA, MPAA, et. al., are the RIAA, MPAA, et. al. Both the consumer and the artist have bitch gripes with these entities; Napster is the lighting rod for brining these issues to the foreground.
Which issues? Namely that intellectual property in the digital age is a conept that needs major legal readjustments, especially in the face of the following facts:
1) MP3 and similar audio & video compression technologies allow media to be stored in a compact format.
2) The slow but steady increase in the availability of high-bandwidth services allows for distribution of these.
3) The distributed nature of the Net makes it very difficult to prosecute individual users. Centralized services such as Napster are easy targets; Gnutella & FreeNet are next to impossible to control.
The issue is whether or not these factors lead to the conclusion that the record companies are out of date. The primary purpose of a record company is as a distribution mechanism. Once upon a time it was economically beneficial for artists to work with record companies in order to efficiently distribute their works. This is no longer true. An artist can simply set up a web page with their tunes readily available; the record company as distributor has become unnecessary. With technology being at the state it is now, BMG, Sony, and all the rest are simply unneeded middleman. They are hurting, not helping, the market in this respect by impeding the free-flow of goods. (And by free, I mean free.)
The secondary purpose of a record company is marketing. Bill Hicks once said "If you're in marketing or advertising do me a favor and kill yourself. You serve no rational purpose." Definately not-PC, but there is a kernel of truth to this: namely, that marketing is about lies and deception. The desire to buy is inflated by advertisers not because of intrinsic worth, but because of chicks in bikinis, or making it look uncool, or whatever means are available that mostly do not reflect the truth of the situation. Advertising is about emotive responses; advertisers get scared whenever consumers begin to actually use their brains as a reasoning tool.
I can't speak for everyone, but this really annoys me. I do not believe people should lie unless it is absolutely necessary. That's just wrong. I don't have many scruples, but this is one that seems to be pretty workable. Since advertising is mostly based upon lying, I hold advertisers to be worthless turds as a whole. This is admittedly a crass ad hominem attack, but it is one that I find difficult to escape.
If record companies are removed from the equation, then musicians will rise to the top based upon whatever factors currently resonate with the listeners. There will be no corporate executives deciding what the market does or does not want (which happens, I imagine, quite frequently.) More variety will be available, and I cannot help but believe that this will be a Good Thing(tm). In my fantasy world, banal tripe such as Backstreet Sync and Brittney Aguillera will be delegated to Saturday morning "Say No To Drugs" propaganda.
By impeding the way for MP3 distribution channels to function unmolested, the record companies are serving their bottom line only, not artists, not consumers, not the music industry as a whole, not the market as a whole. They are an unneeded barrier towards a smoothly functioning economy. They act as a pseudo-governmental entity, using the power of their attorneys to coerce both listener and artist to do their bidding. Their lobbying of Congress is famous, their rhetoric almost religious in its tone.
The facts being what they are, there are two obvious remedies available:
1) Do not change IP laws. Step up enforcement of existing copyright laws. This will entail more law enforcement officers, perhaps even necessitating a new UN enforcement agency or something under the Department of Justice in the US.
2) Change IP laws. Allow artists control of their works to distribute as they wish. Encourage a "common carrier" interpretation of the laws insofar as Napster-ish companies are concerned. Don't panic! The world will not end EVEN IF 95% of the population downloads their songs, movies, or books of of the internet.
There are only two absolutely necessary components to music: a performer, and an audience. Technology has frequently been a means to streamline business processes. This can lead to short-term losses such as when robots replace factory workers, cow-milking machines replace udder-pullers, or spreadsheet programs make bookkeepers unnecessary. Similary, the recording industry is an antiquated business schema that only serves to hinder the relationships between artists and their afficiandos. Radical changes to IP law are unlikly, considering the fact that so much precedent exists. But changes on the edges can (and should) be made, lest we have rapant wiretapping and further swells in our prison population.
Long ago, Roblimo , put the quote at the bottom on Slashdot. IMHO, the record companies have been ripping us o^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H enjoying high profits and FEAR the end of the gravy train, and having to subsist on the profit margins more common in other industries.
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Re:Another victory for the forces of mediocrity. (Score:3, Insightful)
by roblimo (roblimo.nojunk@slashdot.org) on Monday March 27, @09:54AM
EDT (#77) (User Info)
More aptly, what if 95% of all popular music was controlled by only four or five record companies and those companies formed a trade association whose main purpose was to keep its members' products selling for high prices instead of allowing "the market" to determine what a given song was worth?
The end result would probably be wholesale music piracy using technology the record companies couldn't control.
Not that anything like this could ever happen in real life, mind you; this is just Monday morning speculation on Slashdot...
- Robin
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Napster, the company, is irrelevant. There are other methods of trading mp3s than using servers owned by Napster. There are other Napster servers not owned by Napster that can't be touched by this ruling, especially ones in foriegn countries where the laws of the United States do not reach. There is still Gnutella. There are many ways of trading files. I plan on still being able to use Napster after tonight by accessing some of the servers that have not been shutdown. As long as there is bandwidth, there will always be file trading. They can shutdown everything else and we will go back to publishing our lists on web pages and downloading by ftp.
2000 != 1984 Stupid English people.
Now, if you really want to do this sort of thing right, you don't start a company and advertise what you're doing. That's dumb. You also don't have a centralized server whose operators can be sued. Instead, you set up a decentralized system where everyone is a client and a server. Gnutella is one possibility, but it still allows you to identify where the pirated files are located (on various servers, identifiable by their IP addresses, which may be dynamic but do have a specific meaning at any given moment). Freenet is better still; the files are distributed in such a way that you can't tell where they are, and in fact a given file may not be in any one place in its entirety. Now that's tricky to sue.
So I think it's pretty stupid for people to be talking about setting up new Napster servers. You want to get sued? Fine, go ahead. Your pockets are probably a lot less deep than Napster's, but the RIAA will be happy to take whatever you've got. In the meantime, those of us with clues will be working with Gnutella and Freenet, doing essentially the same thing you are, but not getting sued. Take your pick.
The state of affairs today makes it more likely that the RIAA would *PATENT* the MP3 format, as a "business method" or somesuch, and then take anyone to court whose business infringed on it.
Two stupid birds, one big fat ugly intellectual property stone...
I am not saying all Napster users are pirates. I am saying that the very way that Napster is set up is VERY grey, and easily abused.
We are going to have to fight a battle over IP and copyright. But Napster in and of itself has enough greyness that makes it hard to defend. It has chinks, and problems that allow marketing machines and spin doctors to control public perception.
If we are going to fight this war, I would much rather fight it over a model that allows better circumvention of teh RIAA and already has artist support built in, and thats mp3.com. This is definately an IMHO, and to be honest I am rather surprised that my comment got modded up as high as it did...
Check out Magic Firesheep!
From the Salon article: I don't think this is the end but it sends a message that copyright will not be ignored. It shows that the basic principle of copyright protection -- as made clear in the Constitution -- is very important. Except that it's defending the wrong end of "copyright protection", Jack. ARTICLE I, SECTION 8: The Congress shall have power to [...] promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; (Boldface is, of course, mine; if it wasn't, maybe we wouldn't be having these arguments.) You're meant to be able to make some coin off of the creation and distribution of your "art" and then, after a reasonable time, pass it into the public domain for future generations to enjoy. Instead, people still have to pay money to see "Steamboat Willie". Why? Is "Steamboat Willie" really that timeless? It's little more than a historical footnote, anymore; the first appearance of Mickey Mouse. Big deal. Like Mickey Mouse's face isn't slowly becoming synonymous with "rampant corporate greed" to anyone over the age of 7. The court has upheld one part of the copyright trade-off -- more clearly defining what constitutes infringement upon the rights of copyright holders to duplicate or distribute protected material -- but they've been sloughing off on the other end; the part where, after a reasonable length of time, these protected works are released into the wild, to flourish and inspire. I wish the "Ghost of Intellectual Property of the Future" could trip these guys forward, say 100 years, so they could see what kind of a future their efforts would bring. Then again, I don't know if they'd cry or cheer... Jay (=
Check out the following labels. They are non-RIAA, big enough to be available on CDnow, and many band on them rock:
dischord(fugazi)
touch&go(GVSB, Shellac, Man or Astroman)
thrill jockey (tortoise, trans am)
desoto (burning airlines)
quarterstick (june of 44)
alternative tenticles (dead kennedies)
That's just scratching the surface.
Also check out:
Insound
Indypopradio
Pitchfork
For indie new, reviews and audio streams.
For info on starting your own, check out the document written by the folks at Simple Machines, an influentual but now defunct indie label.
There's no monopoly on talent! Go out there and support indie rock. Hell, I can barely remember the last major label album I bought! (Ok, ok, it was the new Modest Mouse)
spreer
Note that this is just a suggestion; I believe that would be the moral thing to do, but you're ultimately responsible for making your own choices.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
They may be cool...
They may have indie cred...
They may have Yo la Tengo...
But they are now owned by CAPITOL!
spreer
Some not-so-random thoughts:
... is that ethical? Is it ethical to complain when people start giving this music away, music that can't be bought?
... how else can I do this? My local library isn't a source.
... I think the RIAA has been the bigger leach for the longer period of time.
[1] The RIAA had no problem selling me the Rolling Stones in record, cassette, and CD format. Why is it that every time the format changes, I get to pay the artist (and the RIAA) again? The was especially annoying when the media suffered from wear, like cassettes and vinyl records did. CDs are not immune either - give it a good scratch, and you get to pay again.
[2] What happened to singles? CD singles existed for a brief period. I hate paying $18 for a CD that I only want one or two songs from, and most of the CDs in my collection are like that. Seems like gouging to not make those songs available in single format, and to charge less for it.
[3] MP3s are generally 128bps, which is pretty low quality. It is slightly better than radio broadcast quality. Why get upset about MP3s available electronically when people can still tape off the air?
[4] How does one obtain (or even purchase) out-of-print music? Try to find "The Screaming Blue Messiahs" on CD - I dare you. (There is a record store with some of the out-of-print vinyl still available.) The major labels have chosen to make music unavailable
[5] What about the people experimenting? I'm discovering Jazz and Swing for the first time
[6] Speaking of which, are libraries the next target? They loan out CDs which can be copied.
[7] Napster would be a lot more defensible if they weren't a commercial enterprise. There are a lot of legitimate uses for it, but we know that most people are leaching. The RIAA can be evil, but some artists insist on being compensated and that is their right. And supposedly, the RIAA is defending that right. Too bad
If you look at just the title of Fraunhofer's patent, it says "Digital Encoding Process".
The "Process" detailed in the claims is general enough to cover all MP3 encoding and is necessary and irreplaceable for creating an MP3 bitstream. LAME infringes.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
According to today's Albuquerque Journal, she player here last night. But she was an hour "late" so people had to kill time at the merchandise booths or tables or whatever they had. According to one mommy:
That's $220 in merchandise from 5 munchkins, not counting the tickets themselves. It was 12000 seats, so if you extrapolate, it's half a million dollars of merchandise per show.And Britney is selling out just about every gig on her world tour.
I used to think it was all pointless noise and a waste of time, but now I see the magnitude of the payoff, and all I can think is, "I want in." Who cares if Britney is intelligent? I just wanna marry her (no pre-nup!) and own stock in the megacorp that created her.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I dont think the music industry has any lack of understanding when it comes to the problems we "pirates" are trying to remedy. They know their distribution mechanism is severly flawed, but it is flawed entirely in their favor. They control (for the most part) the media that influnces what you buy (think radio and MTV). They countrol the distribution method so that they, make the most out of it (and of course the few artists that have mass appeal due to their help). Everyone else get the short end of the shaft.
Why would they want that to change? Even if things like napster caused people to go out and buy MORE music, it may not be the music they are promoting. Having that kind of power over the masses is something I dont think many individuals would give up, much less a corporation. I am not naive enough to think that this is for monetary reasons only. The music industry has power over poeple, power that is clearly illustrated by the fact that as sharaing technologies became more prevalent, the majority of what you see is MAINSTREAM music, Nsync, Brittany Spears, Eminem, ect. Most of the music is fun yes, but talented and emotional, probably not. However it is what is getting crammed down peoples nural pathways by radio and MTV at the cost of millions of dollars. That in and of itself show the gullibility of the masses, and that is what the RIAA and the MPAA exploit.
I myself am a musician. Not a very good one, but you know what my opinion of my music is? I do it for ME. It is a release of my creative energy, my emotion. If other people hear it and like it then great, but if not no loss because I did it for ME. Now yes, I put my music up on places like mp3.com and napster for public exposure. Why? Because no matter how bad I suck, I want to hear other peoples opinions and critiques (sp?).
I have mad all of about $10 from the mp3.com pay for play program, and also put my music out through napster, normally before releasing it on mp3.com. Now what? The RIAA has spent millions, silencing ME an artist, by shutting down one of my distribution channels. Even if I was good, I would never distribute or promote through corporations that behave like that.
I think the RIAA is fighting this battle more for the POWER than the MONEY. The fact that they are still breaking profit records I think proves that.
Ok... rant over.. return to your lives people...
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Corporations are trying to redefine what copyright protection is without having to go through the legislation required to change the definition of copyright protection, even though copyrights are supposed to protect consumers, as well as copyright holders.
Money good...file sharing bad...even though I have some rights to determine how those files I paid for are distributed.
What a crazy planet.
sine puella vita suget
Few people know this, but Will Smith turned down an acceptance to MIT to become a rap star. Now we see Chuck D. with an insightful comment about sharing, and we see an incredibly enlightened comment by the lead of the band "Moebius Dick", who in his spare time is a law professor.
For some reason, we tend not to associate rock/rap/pop music with sophisticated thinking. But to find out how many of these guys actually hold academic posts -- it is far higher than a lot of people think, and that surprises people.
--
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I totally agree that "stealing" the music by downloading it is wrong. What pisses me off is that when you buy a cd very little of the money goes to the artist, who in my opinion is the person that deserves all the money. I have never gotten a clear answer anywhere in my reading but I have heard that artists only get like 1% or 2% of the price. The highest I think I've ever heard those numbers go is like 10%. That means that out of a $15 cd the most the artist gets is $1.50, I'd gladly pay that to the artist and more I just don't feel like stuffing the pockets of the record companies with money when they don't care about the music or the people providing or listening to it.
I think the artists should show some kind of opposition to this, they have the audience as is proven by the popularity of thier music on the online trading venue's. They just need to take initiative to offer the music they preform in alternate venues for resonable prices.
Artists, give me a place to pay you your $1.50! Throw off the yoke of oppression and use alternate distrivution venues.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
This has probably been mentioned earlier, but what the heck:
What if this goes through ? Who's next on the list ? Are they going to start shutting down newspaper because people are advertising "massage parlors" in the ads ?
Are they going to shutdown the phonebook because some of these business are unethical and/or may provide illegal service ?
Face it people, Napster is just one big phonebook, with the difference that it's citizen are band's name and songs name, and phone number get replaced by an IP.
Woudl RIAA go up against a phone co ? Nah. They'd get litigated to a pulp. So they hit on the smaller guy.
I personally listen to AM radio, and I dont give a rat's about MP3's. It just freaks me out that they could go after you just for HAVING a directory of some sort. We all know that Napster facilitates piracy, _BUT_ in theory it has other use. If it only represent 0.00000000000001% of whatever you could use it for, it still warrants fair defense.
Marriage is considered capital punishment for the theft of a goat in some third world countries...
We're all nerds and realize that in give or take 30 years we might never have to get out of bed anymore unless we really want to because we're totally wired up to everything and everyone else. And yet we insist on making a big issue out of this MP3 thing and we realize there are some people in the "establishment" (in this case represented by the RIAA and the legal system) who do not seem to comprehend what is happening.. But think about it, even the greatest social theory can never achieve the kind of total social revolution technology is forcing upon us, right at this very moment.
Put on your mental calculator and use as inputs: developments in broadband technology (you gotta agree those optical network switches are totally awesome); CPU speed, speech recongition, 3d rendering technology, robot manufacturing intelligence, brain wave measurement tech, human-computer interface (cyborg) tech, nanotech... err add in gen & biotech. But don't filter it through the "wow awesome" or "wow scary" filter but through the ole "social consequence" filter, meaning what is going to happen to law, to politics, to the economy, to all those institutions managed by people who have little or no clue at all about what is hitting them.
I think you will agree that bar a major global catastrophe that sets it all back, technology will be introduced within our bodies and in some way will interface much more directly with our senses, or even and eventually bypassing our senses; will be able to talk to us electronically and chemically through our neurons and synapses. "today, I found you browsing through my left kidney".
I feel it so strongly, things are going to change dramatically, and here we are with political and legal and social institutions that are going to be swept away and replaced by ones that are in sync with the demands of us as ... well ... errr ... cybernetic .... creatures. I don't think these institutions have it in them to adapt rapidly enough, and I really wish they could, because really I am conservative and like the understanding in evolution much more than the chaos of revolution. Perhaps for all us "nerds" it is more an evolution because we are involved with it and can piece it together, but what about the people who have no clue?
What kind of a world is being carved out for us? It's really our very own to make, because we are the agents of technology.
I'd very much appreciate your comments.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
That's fairly inane. "I don't mind child molesters as long as they do it in dark alleys instead of playgrounds."
Proof please? You need to provide proof that without a physical commodity that the price of music could retain its current price schedule. You need to prepare a list of the components of the price of a CD and show that 75% of that is the physical packaging & distribution. Please provide this proof here, and give a source for all of your figures. You need to retract your statement and admit that you pulled that number out of nowhere if you cannot supply this proof.
A Dutch newspaper has an article about the RIAA of the Netherlands which says that the industry will find an alternative within a few months.
quote:
ROTTERDAM, 27 JULI. De grootste platenmaatschappijen hebben binnen twee maanden allemaal een 'digitaal distributiesysteem' voor hun muziek. Dat zegt de Nederlandse internetmanager L. Beerens van Universal Music Group, een van de grootste platenmaatschappijen ter wereld.
Which translates into: The biggest recordcompanies will have a digital distributionsystem for their music within three months, according to internetmanager L Beerens of the Universal Music Group. One of the biggest recordcompanies of the world.
nosig today
Aside from the anonymous filesharing for always-on internet connections, and perhps freenet,
The music industry just shot itself in the big toe by shutting down Napster. Through the services of Napster, i have discovered bands (re: Red Snapper) i would've never heard of otherwise, and i've sought out their cd's and recommended the bands to friends. Instead of suing the pants off everyone, the RIAA should be thanking Napster for seemlessly introducing the outdated industry into the 21 century. The mp3 is a digital representation of the song - much of the audio signal is removed and repetitous parts "repeated" for lack of a better word - the mp3 falls seriously short of the real thing in a direct comparison. Speaking for myself, downloading and listening to a mp3 is the same as listening to a cd in Towers before i shell out the cash.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Think about it - long live napigator and gnutella et al...
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
country
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
what you are suggesting here is a decent idea except that i dont think you understand how copyrights work. if i make a joke that no one else has told i have copyright on that joke, regardless of whether or not i register it with congress, etc. if i decide that i dont wnat you or someone else to ever use that joke, that is my legal right, because the joke is my intellectual property. the joke analogy is pretty lame, i know. but i am trying to state a point. if a band plays their music for a concert and decides they dont want it taped/reproduced/distributed, that is their legal right, and many bands etc are that way.
Okay, freenet is anonymous to a degree. Your IP is stripped after one hop on the freenet network, and only your neighbouring nodes know that you are actually connected. This is misleading though, because the notion of neighbours in a peer-to-peer overlay network (such as Freenet, and gnutella) is not the same as that in IP. Neighbouring nodes may actually be many hops away in terms of the underlying IP network. So, if I sit on an arbitrary freenet node and examine traffic going to my freenet server, everyone is certainly anonymous. However, if I sit on a gateway IP node (the carnivore approach) and just sniff freenet packets with a depth (inverse ttl, which is also stored in the freenet header) of zero, I know exactly what you are asking for and what you are sharing. But then, midpoint nodes are well connected, so we don't have to worry about IP sniffing, right? Freenet's author also makes the claim that attempts to locate the source of a file simply further obfuscate it's location by causing the file to propogate more across the network. I think that this may be the true aspect of anonimity in terms of sharing information on freenet. Files are propogated to servers by the network itself, how can I really be responsible for the mp3's on my machine when they are just arbitrary data that has been moved into my cache by the file-sharing protocol i'm using. And besides, if I have a copy of the file, so do a bunch of my neighbours, and their neighbours... Besides, files shared on freenet are not necessarily hosted directly off my machine even from the get go (as in gnutella) I can insert them into the network and then delete them from my local host. So as anonymity goes, I figure the system balances a little both ways. Let's talk about performance for a second though. Freenet is sort of at the far end of a continuum with Napster at the other end and gnutella somewhere in the middle. In napster's case, users log on to a server (or servers) that index everyones files and handle searches. I am always essentially two hops (figuratively speaking) away from a file... I search through the server, who has an index containing a file I want that is also connected to the server. To download though, I establish a direct connection to the machine with my file and leech away. This is good because in all regards traffic is minimized. Everyone talks directly to the central index and downloads direcly from eachother. The problem with this model is that the servers are a central point of failure, and can become overloaded with requests and bog down. They are also vulnerable to failure and other nasty things. Like court injunctions. And when the servers fall, everyone gets upset. In the case of gnutella, the search network is distributed. Everyone connects to a few other people more or less arbitrarily and we all play the telephone game to try to find files. I want a file, so I tell four people, and they all tell four people, and so one... until some number of iterations. But to transfer I still connect directly to a host. Given a well behaving search network (which gnutella's doesn't really seem to be) this is a great model... everyone has to be involved in some amount of the search traffic on the network, but it's pretty small (at least in theory) relative to the resourses that they are using to pull Metallica, ahem, Blueberry muffin recipes, off of the net. The overhead in this system is the search, which as anyone who has used gnutella will tell you can be a little slow at times. Anonyminity is lost also through these direct file transfers... for obvious reasons. In the case of Freenet, everything is routed through the peer-to-peer network, even file transfers. What's more, files are transfered atomically in between nodes. So, If i request a file that is five hops a way on the network, the file has to be copied in its entirety across each of thos intermediate nodes before I see it. This leads to what has got be be a rather shining example of network latency. Of course, the network 'adapts'. Which means that since there are now all these copies of a given file lying around on intermediate nodes, it will be much faster for other people to get copies in the future. In that regard, the model has some great benefits: Files become highly available - a single request results in a file being replicated across all the intermediate hosts. The network is survivable -- if the original machine crashes, and someone has asked for the file before, it is probably kicking around somewhere. But the overhead... By participating in gnutella, your node agrees to forward search requests to all neighbouring nodes. By being anything other than a client-only node in freenet, a host assumes the burden of receiving, (maybe) saving, and passing on entire files. In the case of mp3's... this would be like passing search requests through gnutella that are three to six megs in size each. That is a LOT of overhead. But, maybe the model will work. Maybe you build a network of high-powered hosts across the internet that are capable of routing and caching entire files and just about everyone at home acts strictly in the sense of a client. If you encrypt everything that you put on to this and provide a semantic to make sure that things don't accidentally dissappear forever, it starts to sound like a pretty reasonable highly-available distributed file system. But wait a sec... wouldn't the notion of a smaller set of powerful centralized servers that were inevitably managed by beaurocracies such as ISPs and universities be exactly the sort of points of failure that a peer-to-peer sharing system hopes to avoid? For the simple reason that the organizations that end up owning the big servers will inevitable cave under the pressure of things like, well, court injunctions? The bottom line... if this rant even has one: Freenet looks like a pretty good system, at least the start. I'd love to use something like it to store code and documents for distributed work across the web (it wouldn't be that tricky to build a versioning system on top of it). But I think it's pretty likely to cave under the load of mp3s and isos. Not quite the the right model.
I recently read an article about the association between Napster and Open Source. The author of that piece was pised that people use OSS philosophy to support Napster. Maybe they do but I have a slightly different view of the connection.
Napster is almost exclusively used by computer savvy music lovers. Right now a disturbingly large percentage of computer lovers are Linux users and most of those buy OSS philosophy, at least in part.
Just because the same set of people like something doesn't necessarily mean they are connected in the most obvious way. I.e. Geaks with Guns doesn't mean guns are part of OSS culture, the recent flapping on Linuxtoday over that testifies to this.
As for Napster itself. Sure Napster users buy more music. If they didn't like music they wouldn't be going to the hassle of installing Napster, WinAmp and CDeX. Both Napster and the RIAA are claiming something which is just not true. Listening to MP3s doesn't cause people to buy more music and downloading free MP3s is not a substitute for buying CDs.
Personally, I never buy the songs I download off the internet. However, I buy all my music locally ( No credit card or confidence in EComerse ). The songs I download simply are not on the shelfs here. Specifically, I don't see any Weird Al or other comedy music.
On the other hand, I don't download Buju Banton or Bounty Killer mp3s off the net. Maybe it's to support local music or because these goys consistently give me at least 12 1st rate songs per album. somebody else tends to love the few songs, I don't like so I chalk it up to subjective preferences, rather than objective crap peddling.
As for lost revenue. I buy 2 CDs per month. I used to buy 3 before the cost went up. I don't ever buy less but I will buy more again if for some reason I have more disposable income. I suspect most people are in a similar situation. Why else would people try to play with Autocad ( U$ 3,000 ) on a 486 ? If they could afford to pay for it they would also have bought a better computer.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I expect that other services will be shut down too.
Only the strongest ones will survive - i.e. those that
1) Are relatively immune against court orders
2) Do their best to protect users from prosecution (I mean the technical side of the issue)
3) Can attract a big number of users (i.e. good interface)
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is"
Vidi, Vici, Veni
It looks like the biggest pseudo-legal movement since the moonshiners of Prohibition... Sure does say a lot about how fast things move in this day and age.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
I must give credit where it is needed, so this piece came out of the salon article Courtney love does the math. It does an excellent job of showing that we should be against the RIAA and record labels, not the artists, and not lars ulrich. Lars is worried about people stealing his music because he gets paid so little. This article made this very apparent to me.
... zero!
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Right and then Boies told the judge that there was no way that Napster could do that without shutting down, that the RIAA couldn't even come up with an accurate list of copyrighted material after having several people work on a SMALL subset of traded material for several days, so it's impossible for Napster to do that in real time. The judge responded that she was sure that the clever people who came up with Napster could find a way to do it. This is according to the NPR report. I hope the reporters got this wrong, because if not, the Judge Patel is living in an alternate universe with hostile intent on ours.
The only way to break the RIAA is to circumvent them. mp3.com has already started doing this. By supporting their own bands, mp3.com is bucking the RIAA. If mp3 swapping downloaders supported un-signed bands, or bands on labels that are amicable to mp3 swapping, or bands on labels that aren't part of the RIAA...it keeps the RIAA from trying to get file-sharing regulated.
True, this means that most current commercial music would be off-limits....I for one think that's a plus for pop culture as a whole.
TGL
--- this space intentionally left blank.
Following the injunction against Napster, 20,000,000 Napster fans worldwide flooded into the Slashdot website en masse, desperate for up-to-date information on alternative sources for thier free misic fixes. /.'s front man Commandante' Taco, "all you're really doing is swishing the water around."
"[the injunction against Napster] is like trying to smooth out lumps in a waterbed," said
Slashdot, a news forum for self-styled "geeks", is a leading advocate of free software (including many free Napster alternatives), Star Wars, and Hot Grits.
"People are realizing that only through free software can men be truly free, t'was always thus, and always thus will be." Said Slashdot's verbose Mr. Antonius Coward, "People understand that Gnutella (a Napster alternative) can never be blocked, sued or injuncted. It has been a great coup for our wicked underground agenda".
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
This is just another step in the record companies long slow suicide. If they really had a clue about the future, they would not have shut down the lyrics databases when they should have just bought them out. They wouldn't be trying to stop Napster, they would be pressing ahead with colateral merchandise and expanded experiences. They would be giving music videos away and using the web to create affinity groups of music types, collect ad revenue and build brands. They would recreate themselves as a modern business capable of dealing with changes in the marketplace.
What do you do when you have a song stuck in your head? Since there are no lyrics databases left to search openly, I go straight to a text search engine like Altavista or Google and find whatever fragment of a phrase I can scrape together. Most popular lyrics seem to be online somewhere, and I usually find the song in a few searches.
Since the record companies have done absolutely nothing to help find one song on an album, let alone make it possible to buy just that song, hello Napster. Custom CDs are not the answer. When blank CDRs are for sale at KMart, it's a little late to try and convince us that CDs are hard to make. If I want one song, I want it now, and I don't want to be forced into buying 10-15 other songs for $20 and having to wait a week for delivery.
Music has been digital for years, and that means that there are no originals. Everything is a copy, the only original is the music being recorded. Without copies, there is no music. There is absolutely no difference between the content on a CD I purchased today and 10,000 of the same album purchased anywhere around the world.
I'm glad Radiohead came forward, again they prove to be among the most forward thinking musicians out there. I'm also glad I own all their albums. And I'm going to go download their live shows right now...
strangely enough, OT but you made me think of it. at times AT&T acts very closely in conjunction with the government by helping the gov locate illegal activities over their systems. i'm not just talking phone systems here either.
Surely a trade implies a (two-way) exchange.
Getting music for no consideration is a one way exchange and thus not a trade.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
It's about time these big money makers get confronted with themselves this way. Sur I understand money making is good for you, but let them get a little creative by now by looking for a win-win-win situation (resp. creator - seller - concument).
---
fm
Thomson Multimedia controls MP3 patent licensing. If the RIAA wants to stop MPEG Audio Layer 3, it could just work with Thomson to get the patent royalties upped. This will cause League for Programming Freedom to throw up a site called Burn All MP3s Day and everyone will go download Vorbis software from Xiph.org and re-rip their CDs.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's a lost cause anyway. It's much harder to attack a file format, because it has so many uses. I've seen MP3 being used for so many legal uses that it's highly unlikely it would ever be judged illegal. It's just a compression format.
I play drums to...
That should be: I play drums too
I just thought that funny, considering the subject.
Actually, the lead singer of the Offspring has more than a "degree" -- he has a Ph.D.
It's written in Perl, and works on Windows, Unix, and probably others. It establishes a proxy that you and others use, and it can pass requests on to other Crowds servers. This would still revolve around HTTP, I would guess.
Why don't the napster users just move over [to alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*]?
Many ISPs don't subscribe to alt.binaries.* You generally have to pay to get binaries access from a third party.
it's not centralized so there's no one to shut down
But it makes it easy to shut down the news accounts of everybody who posts. Most news providers include tracing information in the headers, and this tracing information can be reported to the provider, shutting down the infringer's access to the binaries server.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
As a bassist i would have to say yes! ;)
p.s. I play drums to, just playing around
If I own a song, and so does my friend, I can persumably give him a copy legally.
If he loses his CD, or scratches it to CD hell, does he still own the copyright? Can I give him a tape of the CD he bought leagally?
And what if he breaks his CD and then sells it? Does the buyer have the right to obtain from a mate the a copy of the working version? And does the seller have to destroy any copies he has made for himself? He certainly can't sell them on!
Can anyone see where I'm going here? If I go out and buy a bunch of fubarred CDs for a penny, I can legally download all the MP3 tracks from them.
What implications does this have?Well now I actually come to write it down, very few. But it does illustrate the gray area copyright is. But stealing is still stealing.
When it somes to it, 98% of Napster users were stealing. As pointed out in the body, the Judge didn't order the Napster service to stop, only that it isn't "abused" (although would you call illegal mp3 trading on Napser abuse?).
In light of this, how can we critisise the Judge's desision. The Law is the Law, and its a Judge's job to uphold it.
I mourn Napster's death, and will miss my 3-a-daydownloads. But I never let myself think it was anything other than stealing.
These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined. -- Homer Simpson
Okay, I'm not a Napster user but I do have directory full of mp3's which are, I estimate, probably 80% copyrighted material. There is a problem here but I feel that Colin Greenwood of Radiohead may offer a possible route forward. Bootlegs of live gigs are generally tolerated by both bands and record companies (we could all name some bands which have actively encouraged bootlegging...). Why not decide that mp3s of live gigs/tracks are free from copyright as they have been "broadcast" and paid for, and allow record companies to slap down hard anyone distributing or "aiding the distribution" of studio processed tracks available as mp3s unless specifically released by the artist? This would also have the advantage of removing those heavily doctored "greatest hits live" albums that some groups have taken to using as contractual obligation fillers and the "live" shows in which divas mime to a vocal track over a backing track. It would allow new bands to come into the market with live material or studio tracks as they wish, artists and companies to release sampler studio tracks if they wanted to. It should also improve quality control at live gigs as the band would know that there was every chance that their crap playing and appalling sound would almost certainly be available to their fans the next day.
I dunno, Jack...Maybe because they're artists? Or because people like contributing to things society as a whole can enjoy? Maybe for recognition in one's field?
Not everything has to have a price tag.
--
I guess I just have to lie and say that I did rip all those mp3's myself when I actually downloaded them.
:-(
I might rip them myself...but my cd rom is of such low quality it takes 5 tries to rip a 3 minute song
Transportation and shelter: What terrible things to let people have for free.
I mean, to download copies doesn't destroy the original car and house (perhaps Mr Drake's)
I think a lot of people are trying to drag ethics into it, possibly people who fit into the above catagory and are trying to legally justify it. Frankly, I don't really care what means you might say it's legal by, but I think I and a lot of other people are just going to pursue the way they think is the easiest or saves them cash.
Besides, do you really want to fill Elton John's pockets with more money after you've seen what the guy does with it? Hehe.
RevHQ: these guys are the music distribution division of Revelation Records, an old punk/hardcore label. You'll find everything from LP versions of Rage Against The Machine records, to good indie metal/hardcore, to stuff like independent pop and rock (emo / indie rock / etc). They sell pretty much everything from all the bigger independent music labels, so its a great easy place to start. The site is also very slick, with online ordering.
:)). Zines are usually chock full of ads for smaller distro houses that will cater to your specific tastes.
Very Distro: this is a very popular punk/hardcore/indie distro. They don't do web ordering, but have a great catalog that costs only a buck. This is more hardcore/metal oriented, however.
The two above should keep you busy for a while. The best way to get into the loop of independent music is to start off by buying compilation records, this way you'll be exposed to the most bands for the lowest cost. Buy lots of zines! I personally prefer Heartattack, it is a very politically oriented punk zine (punk as in the philosophy, not the music
Hopefully getting this stuff will encourage you to go to local shows. Its a really great thing to be involved in a music scene where there aren't any rock star personas; everyone is usually down to earth. You'll often have the pleasure of meeting members of your favorite bands, and they'll be glad to chat with you, exchange contacts, and possibly become friends with (that's my favorite part!). Much better than idolizing some boring "artists" while watching MTV!
Have fun! And let me apologize for my punk/hardcore music bias. But there is an independent scene for practically every genre of music!
Lars on Charlie Rose a couple weeks back said that they had no problem with cassette tapes of albums, because of the loss of fidelity. But they have a problem with mp3 copies from albums, because they are "digital" and, he implied, therefore have no loss of fidelity. Which is bull - a good cassette deck is audibly higher fidelity than the lossy compression of mp3.
So either Lars (1) can't hear the difference because he's deaf or (2) can hear the difference but pretends he can't because, well, it's "digital." An mp3, even from a studio master, is not the same as a studio master - far from it - and doesn't compete with the CD release any more than cassette tapes do. And when you tape a friend's record and decide you really like it, you buy it, or the artist's other releases.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The RIAA would go well to examine the saga of OLGA, the On-line Guitar Archive.
Years ago, people started posting guitar transcriptions on USENET. Someone started collecting them on an FTP site at, IIRC, the University of Arizona; later, this evoloved into a web site, olga.net.
The Powers That Be didn't like this very much - in their minds it meant that they were losing money since people weren't buying books of transcriptions anymore. (Never mind that there's a huge difference between not making money and losing money, that these books were overpriced and sucked, that people have been showing each other how to play songs since the beginning of time, and that composers were getting performance royalties when someone like me played stuff they'd learned off the net down at the local bar.) So they brought down their legal might and crushed OLGA.
Which led to dozens of new guitar tab sites springing up all over the web.
You can't stop people from sharing information. Gnapster has built-in support for OpenNAP. Need I say more?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
gnutella and other file sharing programs cannot be prosecuted, because there is no owner. can they really sue all users of gnutella for file sharing? no. I think it is reasonable to say that people who are into file sharing, namely mp3's, have a higher level of technical expertise. with this comes the experience of getting free music. I have not paid for a cd in over 2 years now. now that napster is shutdown, I will move (like everyone else) and find a replacement for napster. this decision affects the propietors of napster, but not the free-music community in the way the media has versed it. MOVE ON!
Yankees suck. yep you know it.
that I haven't heard of.
Julie & Buddy Miller
Lucy Kaplansky
Kate Campbell
Iris DeMent
John Prine
Del McCoury
Steve Earle
Rebecca Pearcy
Carrie Newcomer
Rhonda Vincent
Lucinda Williams
Blue Highway
Doyle Lawson
Couldn't we have a Napster topic on the preferences page? It's getting tedious avoiding the whinings of people with excessive bandwidth and shallow pockets - in other words cable modem users too tight to buy fucking CD's.
Chris
Suppose a judge ordered AT&T to make sure no discussion of terrorist activities take place on their networks. The only sane way they could comply is by shutting down their entire phone system. It's in Napster's best interest to appear to be the same.
Anyone know how much your average ASCAP member makes in a year? If it's anything like SAG, then 95% won't see more than $3000 a year. Those are only the union artists. There are tons more non-union artists.
I really don't see Napster and ilk really effecting the majority of artists out there. Most of them have day jobs and don't live in mansions. That's never going to change.
joel
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
This is a classic example of a large monolithic institution trying to make an example so others will fall into line, the thing is, it is not going to work. Anyone with an IRC client can go to various channels to find MP3s they want, then there is Napigator, which can hook up your napster client to servers in no way affiliated with Napster, not to mention the Dozen or so more Napster clones such as OpenNap that are floating around out there. With CuteMX anyone can set up an FTP server to serve out MP3s. The options are effectively endless, and basically, all the RIAA is doing is swatting the biggest roach in the kitchen, not to mention that there are hundreds more lurking just under the refrdgerator that are going to dart out into the open if Napstwer Dies. The RIAA is just creating thier own monster that they will never have any hope of controlling.
You say you want a revolution....
pronoblem
Their bassist, Colin Greenwood, showed enthusiasm for the availability of Napsterized live recordings, saying "We have just finished a tour, we played in Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful." An interesting change from the Metallica look at things- hopefully more artists will follow their lead."
ummm... Metallica made big point of saying that fans could still trade their live material on napster. So Radiohead is apparently in agreement with Metallica in this statement.
But really, I tried using Gnutella and I couldn't make it work, so I'm not as worried about it as I was about Napster. I spoke to about 20 people who agreed. Of course, anybody who wants to steal music will do it; the diligent pirate will always succeed, but that doesn't mean we should allow it to become mainstream.
If the history of bleeding edge apps which serve a purpose has taught me anything, it's that rapid improvment comes quickest to those packages which are potentially the most useful. Mr Howard A. King doesn't know it yet, but he should be far more worried about Gnutella than he is now. Napster was easy to sue - public, high-profile, has management in suits etc. Gnutella (and other desperately subversive tools like IRC and ftp) will just take up the slack - untraceable and impervious to lawsuits.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
They still have lawsuits against them, and any other new technologies/access methods that they propose, or that are based on their model creates new opportunities for lawsuits.
Don't mistake a temporary truce for a battle won. And it still has to be proven that the mp3.com model works. Its definately a 'so far, so good' situation, but I would not be so cavalier as to assume all is well.
Check out Magic Firesheep!
We need to divide the world into two halves. One where all the penniless bastards who are too cheap to pay for anything go to not get paid for anything they do - and the other half where we don't mind paying for what we want. I'd like to see how that world would be - hmm.. maybe like the former Soviet Union.
What a spectacular example of not rebutting the original point.
People do things all of the time for free, beause they want to. If anything, current IP system hampers the progress of the arts because record labels convince people that:
a) The reason you want to be in a band is to make big money.
b) [more significantly] Your music is not worth producing if you can't make money off of it.
People used to own more musical instruments than they do now; families commonly had a piano in their house. Sure, we're not talking about the kind of performance you'd pay $20 for a CD of, but the important thing was people enjoyed creating music themselves.
(And for the record, your example is way off-base. Under communism, you didn't "not get paid for what you did" -- you just didn't get paid what your work was "worth". "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" and all that...)
Jay (=
I own a small label and with distribution through something like napster songs could cost around twenty to twenty five cents to download, and everyone could still get payed. The songwriter, the musician the label and even napster. There are only around 2 dollars in roylities on a full length cd (12 to 15 songs). For us small labels getting rid of physical media chould be great for reducing our costs.
Goodbye Napster, my old friend,
I'll never steal music again,
A judges vision softly creeping,
Smashed a gavel while I was sleeping,
And the freedom that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
Goodbye Napster.. it was a good run...
Tom Scholz, the guy behind the band Boston, has a master's in EE from MIT. Tom Lehrer, one of the mainstays on Dr. Demento, has a bachelor's and master's in math from Harvard. I can't recall his name (Dexter?), but the lead singer from The Offspring (yes, the same band that praised Napster and then proceeded to show Napster's hypocracy by selling Napster shirts and getting told by Napster to stop) has a biochem degree from (I think it is) Emory.
Anyone have other examples? It's not nearly as uncommon as you'd think.
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At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
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The goal of this being a way to clear up the "gray" area of piracy issues. Obviously, Napster would need to cut deals with the record labels/RIAA and independent artists that wanted royalties. For other artists who wanted to use it as a means of distribution, they would still be able to do so.
It is clear that the RIAA wouldn't like this either, because they want to be in control of the distribution, and want to be able to make money for every song, each time it's downloaded. But it would position Napster (or similar service) in a much more favorable light. It would be reasonable for them to argue that they have this extremely large user base, an infrastructure for doing something the RIAA currently cannot do, and that now they were doing "The Right Thing" by collecting fees which (theorectically) would make its way back to the artists.
How much different is this scheme from radio? If you view radio stations as customers, they have to pay royalties to the record labels to be able to play the songs.
I would be willing to pay for such a service (the ability to download individual songs of just about anything whenever I wanted) if it meant a) it would resolve the larger issue, and b) would ensure the artist was really getting the money for their work.
TANSTAFL
-phillip
I'm not sure that $1 per track is fair or resonable. The typical CD has about 15 tracks and sells for $15, so were paying a $1 per track now.
Were paying for all those inefficient layers of distribution. Get rid of those, and the track should be had for 25-cents or so.
At 25-cents there should be plenty to split between the artist, the label and the ecommerce provider.
Where this paradigm is going to wreck things, is with the concept of making a "CD" (or album or whatever). Artists could roll out songs in ones and twos.
It wrecks hell out of the existing artist contracts and the way Billboard tracks album sales.
It levels the playing field.
- just another cosmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss