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Napster Ruling Stayed
StoryMan was the first of a flood of readers to note: "Napster ruling has been stayed. Doesn't have to close by midnight! Woohoo!" As of 10:15 GMT, CNN is displaying a note that says "The injunction barring Napster from trading music online has been stayed. Details to come." Watch this space for updates.Update: 07/28 10:26 PM by H :Thanks to Sgt. Owen for the first real link about the stay. Update: 07/28 10:58 PM by t : And to michael hirschorn, who points to this story at inside.com.
Yes, there has always been a third side. But the third side isn't in the courts/news.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
>in its filename, that would make it so much more
>difficult to trade Metallica's works that most
>people would no longer bother.
I have a friend who is in a Ska band. One of their songs is entitled "Metallica Sucks Donkey Dick" (no, that's not a joke, they really DO have a song by that name. Oh, and it predates even the existence of napster. They wrote it because they are of the opinion that metallica sold out when they released the black album, and that it, end everything since, has... well... sucked donkey dick).
They have said, *publicly* at their shows, that they "don't give a flying fuck" if people make and distribute MP3s of their music.
So if Napster conspires with metallica/RIAA to block any files with *metallica*.mp3 in their name, how does my friends music, which the band HAS given permission to distribute, get through?
Sounds like restraint of trade and abuse of monopoly power on the part of RIAA to me.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
Here is what Hilary Rosen had to say about the stay being granted.
"In fact, since the district court issued its order, the illegal downloading of copyrighted music openly encouraged by Napster has probably exceeded all previous records." Who does she think caused that to happen...
OT but:
Another article on CNN states that the RIAA server was crushed by a huge amount of hits July 27th @ 11AM. They say it wasn't a DoS attack, just that there servers couldn't handle the sudden popularity.... they must be running NT.....
---- I made the Kessel Run in under 11 parsecs.
mynapster.com
these are the biggest altertanives based on opennap servers
later
s/(\.\.\. (disco)/ like the Monkees/ and you'd be a bit more acurate. I was watching a show about 60's-70's bands with my parents, and it said the Monkees didn't even know how to play thier instruments. I asked my parents, "Was all of the music from your generation a lie?" And they both turned to me, stared for a second, and said in unison, "Yup."
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
Joe Double-click is probably safer sticking with Napster.
/.s 'audience' who might actually be inclined to do all the extra clkn&drgn needed to slip into these FS alternatives.
After loading up 'gnotella' (now recommended instead of gnutella_v.56), freenet, blocks, and pheed (?) clients, I hate to admit it but all are not terribly 'newbie friendly'.
I'd argue the simplicity of napster is the key to its '20-million users'. That is a whole lot more than
The end is nigh of course, eventually... but this brings up the question whether the success of public file sharing could falter simply because other big name desktop clients (ICQ, AIM, YM, MSM, etc.) rush out a new version with (oh-my-god) public file sharing -- perhaps with some 'small' restrictions, thus creating a few semi-controlled continents of file sharing.
Simply because they have the ez2use interface could FS be severely limited (think exponential network growth factors) for the generations of the future?
Only the U.S. justice system can tell us for sure, eh?
Oliver's Law: Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
http://www.wired.com/news/cu lture/0,1284,37878,00.html
...
After the announcement of the federal court ruling, the number of unique visitors to Napster rose by 71 percent from 443,000 to 758,000, according to statistics compiled by Nielsen Net Ratings.
Prior to the Napster decision, Gnutella's primary Web site generally received 1,800 hits per hour and 30,000 hits for the day, according to Karen Lim of WeGo, which serves as a portal provider for Gnutella.
But shortly after the decision was announced on Wednesday, the site was receiving 72,000 hits per hour and finished the day with 1.6 million hits.
I bet some RIAA execs are beating themselves on the head right about now.
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We believe one answer to this is our website at www.fairtunes.com which enables you to send money directly to ANY artist thereby bypassing the record industry.
Support your favorite artist not the middle man.
Matt
Their PR machine is running, as they are now attacking students and on their web-site you'll be explained what the costs of a CD are.
Back again to technique: any page on their web-site is *.cfm does anyone know any security holes in Cold Fusion? perhaps?
Bizar technology?
You are incorrect about concerts. Smaller bands can maybe afford to pay their own concerts, but mid to large sized bands don't have the captital to pay for a tour. They rely on the record companies would have substantialy more cash to put up the money for the tours. If the tour is successful enough, the band can pay the record company back and still make some money off it. Otherwise they are just as screwed. And I am not personally try to irritate you, but I would like to know why you don't thing it is stealing. I get your point and I agree with it. I don't want to drop $13-20 to buy a CD for one or two songs either, but unfortunately we are in the minority on this. I agree that it is nice to hear an album before you buy it, but most of the people want the free music and that is it.
How likely is it that temporarily shutting Napster down would cost the company more than 5 million dollars?
There will never be a way to figure out what it would cost.
Anyone can provide their service. If I was willing to shell out for the servers I could be doing exactly what they're doing within a few days. Many have already done so. People only use them because they're in the habit of using them, any interruption will mean that people will find another provider and never come back.
Of course, you have to balance that against the fact that they have no income. Like ICQ, they don't get any revenue at all from people getting or using their client or connecting to their server, and if they ever try to collect, people can just move to someone else willing to do it for free.
If you ask me, Napster is just following standard IPO scam procedure: give stuff away (preferably leveraging someone else's content), become famous, vaguely imply that you'll make some money somehow in the distant future, go public, and keep afloat on money of dumb investors, all while drawing hefty salaries.
Yay for Napster! They're the Good Guys, right?
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
The way the music industry looks today seems to me is that it is very industrialised, i.e. a few standardized products are manufactured in positively huge numbers. Once a product (i.e. a song, album) has reached some critical mass, it becomes very profitable to put in huge marketing resources to make it a mega hit. It grows like a tree that shades and quenches the brush and undergrowth. We will buy not because it is fantastic but because it is reasonably good and they're shoving it down our throats.
This effect makes for a very Big Brotherish attitude from the RIAA companies, who play this game. They are shaped by the old mass media technology.
But what will come instead? Will people stop buying new music and be content with what is already there? This is after all how we do when we eat. You don't see people queueing for the next new, hot dish. I think that people do not listen to new music necessarily because it is better than the old, but because it provides for a feeling of communication (communication originally means too make something to have in common, as in "communicable diseases"). We listen to new music because we know others do. To the same music, at the same time. We are with the times, or want to be at least.
If people stop buying new music it could be because it has been turned into a commodity, like food.
On the other hand, the new paradigm could lead to a music industry where more music is reasonably big at the same time. And it wouldn't be an industry anymore, since an industry is targeted towards mass production. In the new paradigm it would instead be a ... thingy?
You guys are all not getting it.
Anybody with half a brain can type "napster" into a search engine and find Napigator etc.
The problem is that Napster users are increasingly the great unwashed masses, who *CAN'T* figure out how to use a search engine.
The beauty of Napster is that the client just figures it out; it asks their server for a reference, and goes there.
The average dumbass on the street can't go use Napigator.
Telling him to use Gnapster as his client doesn't help. Telling him to use Napigator to find servers doesn't help.
Napster isn't about the client, it's about the service.
--
Hank Barry, CEO of Napster
Mr. Barry is stating that because:
A) Like a typical Corporate Monkey, he's saying that to improve his company's image.
OR
B) He is truly ignorant.
I have a firm belief in option A. Let's face it, everyone *knows* what goes on inside of Napster. Sure, everyone would like to believe that they're "Just sampling the music to see if they like it." and if they do, they'll "buy the CD."
See, there are conflicting arguments at work here. The two primary arguments are "We're sampling the music! If we like it, we'll buy it!" and "Music should be Free! I refuse to pay outrageous prices for CDs." Okay, so you refuse to pay high prices for CDs, and Music should be free....but you'll buy it if you like it?
Look folks, deep down inside, we ALL know what Napster is for. No, don't knee-jerk and say I'm supporting the RIAA - I'm not. I think the RIAA is just as guilty, if not MORESO than Napster. They're dicking the Artists AND the public, and keeping the bulk of the cash for themselves. But stealing from BOTH isn't going to solve things.
Lots of people will say "Well, why not shut down IRC. It also facilitates the transfer of illegal material." Um, was IRC *designed* to do this? Are the creators of IRC *profiting* from that? Guess what, folks....Napster is both. Napster is walking in your house, stealing your stereo, and giving it away on the street - and the people buying it are screaming "Equipment should be Free!" and "We're just borrowing it to try it. If we like it, we'll buy one."
But we all know in reality, They're going to keep the stereo.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
[ puts on asbestos suit ]
Here we have the Court of Appeals giving Napster an appeal, and yet Jon Katz wasted all that time composing yet another rambler of an editorial talking about the Napster aftermath (before it happened).
Even worse...I wasted my time reading it!
*rimshot*
[ removes asbestos suit ]
--
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
It's been my finding that attempting to smash a cd is no good - use the microwave, man.
What business? How in God's name do these people make money?
Use some imagination - don't you think bands would pay to have a listing on Napster.com to get the publicity. Also, maybe they could make these songs pop up higher on searches than others (always search Napster's archives first would be one way). Future Napster clients might also become more annoying (like Netscape) and put up adds everywhere.
If you blocked any file with the word "Metallica" in its filename, that would make it so much more difficult to trade Metallica's works
What if I wrote a song "Metallic Sux" and wanted to distribute it on Napster? This would prevent me from doing so.
What business? How in God's name do these people make money?
But more importantly, it is really, really easy to stop the distribution of 90% of the copyrighted works on Napster. If you blocked any file with the word "Metallica" in its filename, that would make it so much more difficult to trade Metallica's works that most people would no longer bother. Remember, people don't steal because they're evil, people steal because it's easy.
...where the concept of intellectual property has absolutely no meaning! Wow, what a refreshing change from Reality, where things like distributing pirated software or (there seems to be a similarity here...) distributing copyrighted music are *gasp* illegal! What fun it must be to live in a dream world where everything that isn't already under the GPL is deemed immoral, and therefore ripe for the pirating!
</sarcasm>
Honestly, though, I can't feel the least bit sorry for Napster, as they are not only providing a means of distributing pirated music (already kinda morally iffy), they are actually MAKING MONEY off of it! If I were the RIAA, I would be pissed too! I can't imagine how the court managed to justify allowing outright piracy to continue in such a flagrant fashion.
Why doesn't Slashdot (the supposed champion of free speech) post more stories about MPAA vs. 2600? Now THAT is actually a worthy cause! It is about the right to link to controversial material that, while large corporations may not like it, is absolutely NOT violating any copyright laws. Its about protest, and free speech, in the name of standing up to the tyrannical region codes in DVDs, and in the name of protesting crappy encryption schemes.
But wait... DeCSS is free... and 2600 is unlikely to go public anytime soon... hmmm... What do you think Rob Malda and company stand to gain from publicizing Napster?
(Moderators: this is not a troll, just because you don't agree with a post doesn't mean that it should be modded to oblivion...)
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
--
What do people think about voluntarily paying your artist online for music you've downloaded?
We believe this is one answer to the MP3 situation and have started a website at www.fairtunes.com that allows you to do exactly that. It is the Stephen King model implemented for music. We allow you to securely send any amount of money using your credit to ANY artist.
But do we live in a society that can adjust to a voluntary system when we've lived so long in a system that has always set the price for us? Can we handle the freedom that Napster gives us? Can we be trusted to use Napster responsibly? Young kids might always pirate music, and we accept that, but is voluntary payment an option for everyone else?
Matt.
stop the copying of copyrighted music over its
servers without shutting down entirely?*
Gee, that wasn't hard, was it?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
and me thinking of shoplifting a few cds this weekend. Never mind that, I'll get them off Napster, then claim the moral high ground by spouting some crap about reclaiming music for the people and sticking two fingers up at the fascist music industry.
How dare anyone feel they the right to try charging money for anything?
Here I was ready to cancel a busy Friday night. Thank the heavens.
And me thinking of buying a few CDs during the weekend...
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
I said Napster facilitates the transfer. And I agree with you that the users should be gone after. And it just might work out that way in the end. I hope that in subsequent court dates that Napster can prove they are providing a service that people are abusing. But I still don't think they should be allowed to continue providing the their service until they can figure out a way to get rid of the 99%.
The music industry wasn't as consolidated as it is today.
Plus, "the formula" was still being worked on. Yeah, the original model was The Beatles, but they were actually talented. It didn't take the industry long to figure out they could milk the formula without talented performers. . . (disco)
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.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/07/28/napster.stay/ind ex.html and http://www.thirsty.com/Common/StoryReview/1,2351,3 ~19842,00.html?
To be fare most of these programs are alpha software still very in developement. freenet in particular is still an experimential software product with big plans for the future.
You are not freaking listening. I use Gnapster daily, I'm quite familiar with what it does.
Listen carefully this time:
THE RIAA IS TRYING TO SHUT DOWN THE NAPSTER SERVICE. IF THEY DO SO, WHICH THEY VERY NEARLY DID TODAY AND COULD SUCCEED IN DOING REAL SOON NOW, GNAPSTER WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CONNECT TO IT EITHER.
Exactly how did you construe my comments that Gnapster wouldn't work on Windows to mean that there was no client available for Linux?
There are several clients available for Linux. I've used two of them.
That is completely irrelevant to the 99% of Napster users who aren't using Linux.
Before you hit "reply", go back and read this post again.
--
Check out Penny-Arcade.com for a rousing political cartoon!
Jump to it!
I agree completely.
What instrument do you play?
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
If mein son had attained moderator status, this would NOT have been moderated as "Score: 5, Funny"!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As such, I am glad I beat him as a child. He did glorious things later in life.
here's a right on article. not only did they (ron harris, associated press writer) explain the news, but they also spent the last half on the fact that freenet was available, worked as well, and was "inpenetrable" to court orders (well ... close enough).
point is, they managed to give some good press to freenet while still covering the story.
did you try saving to disk first? often netscape hangs on large pdf's
Bite the hand.
Nasty dressing down handed down from the higher court... Based off of apparent precedents in this matter, it appears that Patel is out of bounds on this case in several regards. Even if they lose this case, it appears that Napster will most likely win on appeal (not that it will matter as much if they go down in flames in the process...)
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
And if we're lucky, they'll hold on to their business model long enough for independent artists to create/join independent internet-based "labels" with a better business model that will permanently sideline the RIAA.
That's why RIAA in general is against new tech that could make mass distribution and promotion cheap/easy enough for the little guy.
IMHO, it's only a matter of time before that happens anyway. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.
The RIAA is a non-profit organization, and makes no money, and therefore does not appear on the Fortune 500.
The only major American record company, Warner Bros., is a tiny portion of Time-Warner, which itself is #45 on the Fortune 500, and which itself is dwarfed by such Big, Bad, Evil Corporations(tm) as Albertson's and Target.
Time-Warner's revenue is $27 billion per year. The record sales are a tiny fraction of that.
Did it pivot on the notion that the RIAA would not suffer irreversible damage (IMHO, that occurred the very day the first CD shipped - digital music = unlimited copying), or did it pivot on the protection of "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.
The Boycott already started when you started downloading filed from Napster... (You know who you are)
Troll?.. perhaps I'm still confused on the subject.. but does the word troll mean anyone that disagrees with the majority of what slashdot readers believe?.. its amazing that every time I see a poster stray from the norm he gets branded as troll.. I really wish someone would give me a good definition of trolls..
I thought someone said there was going to be free beer!
You can use both Napster AND its alternatives; actually, IMO, that's what we all should do, at least until we get a clear idea about which of the alternatives has the greatest following. As for what I'll do right now: put up my WHOLE collection back for uploading, of course! (AND continue dlding like there's no tomorrow, of course...)
Eat right. Exercise. Die anyway.
Napster is wrong and so is the RIAA/MPAA. These transactions should be between the creator and consumer. The creator gets to choose how much is charged for their goods and the consumer gets freedom of choice.
The distributor is just a middleman easily replaced by whatever mechanism so long as the creator has chosen that mechanism. What has happened is the consumer has said, we want our music via digital download. Now it is up to the creator's to decide how to implement that. Or more realistically, it is time for those of us with a better way to present it to the artists. Not to the distributors whom we'd be competing.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Trying is the first step toward failure. - Homer Simpson
Exactly. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get, for example, J.S. Bach's "Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor" (one of his more famous works, and in my opinion, his best) on Napster? How about "Circumference of a Circle" by Clint Mansell (one of the pieces on the soundtrack to pi)? Napster's great if you're into top-40 sludge and rap and that sort of stuff, but if your musical tastes are outside a standard deviation, you haven't got a hope.
Trying is the first step toward failure. - Homer Simpson
Napster defended its service, saying its members were not violating copyright because their trades were all for personal, noncommercial use as defined by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
Patel, in her decision Wednesday, disagreed, saying that Napster was clearly set up to enable users to evade paying fees for copyrighted material.
Couldn't these both be true simultanesouly? Napster may be set up to allow users to evade paying fees for copyrighted material AND the trading is covered under the 1992 act. I don't see how one follows from the other. The record companies may hate it. Perhaps the Judge had more significant arguments, but if this is the logic behind the injunction, it's wrong.
Dammit, I only realized that problem after I had posted. But still, that kind of thing is rare enough that it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Workarounds can be devised. Also, it should be notedd that it's hardly restraint of trade if a private corporation chooses not to help you trade your files. Overall, though, you make a good point.
GnutellaNews, Gnotella, Gnutella(.wego.com), Gnutmeg, AudioGnome, MyNapster, FreeNet, Jungle Monkey, Scour Exchange, Spin Frenzy Exchange, ChartBox 0.91, Gnutella MP3 Search, Gnute, Metallicster, CuteMX, IMesh, Hotline, FileSwap, OpenNap
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Here's something interesting. I went to napster.com to send an e-mail to their list of label contacts. This is a message I recieved back from the mail server: ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- manthony@sonymusic.com (reason: 550 manthony@sonymusic.com... Mailbox disabled for this recipient) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to mailgw2.sonyusa.com.: >>> RCPT To:manthony@sonymusic.com 550 manthony@sonymusic.com... Mailbox disabled for this recipient 550 5.1.1 manthony@sonymusic.com... User unknown Seems as if at least one of them is tired of getting e-mailed. =P I also got another one back from the BMG contact. You would think they would get the hint by now. =P
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
Would anyone here pay $5 a month to use napster if that allowed you to download any and as many songs as you want as well as letting you share and and as many songs as you like?
How much do you charge for symphonies? The only music based on "songs" is pop teeny-bopper top forty music, and anybody who is older than junior high age doesn't listen to "songs". Is that all you carry (just like Napster), or are you going to carry more serious music?
I thought for sure that napster was a goner. Score one for the p1r4745!!!
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
If that's the case, then one must conclude that it's illegal to post a hyperlink to a web page that contains illegal material. After all, what Napster does is equivalent to that.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
I'm getting confused here, I'm reading multiple stories, and cnet tells us that RIAA can come with counter arguments before 18th August, while CNN (or ZDnet I can't remember) mentions 8th August!!
This story is too big to take some time to sit down and write propperly.
Bizar technology?
How do you know? How many great bands existed that you never had the opportunity to hear?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
OK, let me tell you that I can't speak for the rest of the world, I'm giving only my opinion. You're right about what you said about the small-medium sized bands, but check this out (at least that is the way I see it) a young band needs to have its music promoted in some way. Usually I was "wild" enough to go to check any new band to its concerts or albums but not anymore, so new bands are a little bit more difficult for me to know. The way I see Napster is that it's helping promote younger bands so (in this case) I can have access to them and buy their merchandise if I think it really worths it. And another point is that, how about that old or extremely rare music you don't find in the record stores anymore, would I be stealing if I find it online?. OK, I really agree that there is a lot of people that just want things for free but I'm only speaking for myself and that's why I think Napster should stay
and all that money they make they use to pay radio stations to play their music they make money on...so it's really one giant loop. hell even Limp Bizcuit admitted it...so imagine how much crap you hear (Backstreet Boys, 98 deg, Britney Spears, etc.) was forced upon you.
does anyone realize these are the people telling us what is cool to listen too, or what is cool to wear. does it bother you when you see a car down the street with a nike swoosh on it? sure you may not do it, or subscribe to that crap...but what about all those kids that the TV has made weak minded corporate drones?
its like the cigarette companies telling you that they don't kill people or that cigs. aren't dangerous.
forgive me if i spell wrong...i don't give a rats ass...
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
And the law could very well be interpreted to say that an online distro method like Napster is legal, too.
Not it can't. The home recording act is about copying, not distribution, and limits the property to be shared with a small circle of friends, which anybody with a clue at all, knows does not mean 20 million strangers.
>The Motion to the Ninth Circuit, which resulted in the stay[snip]
:)
Would that be the Ninth Circuit of Hell?
'cept of course these are the good guys, darn.
-----
#o#
#o#
O Moo.
> Of course, at this point, RIAA would rather loose more money and put Napster out of business to protect their business model over the long haul.
And if we're lucky, they'll hold on to their business model long enough for independent artists to create/join independent internet-based "labels" with a better business model that will permanently sideline the RIAA.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The third side has existed for a very long time (you are very out of touch), and is sort of what I advocate (I tend to be between the third side and the RIAA side).
Michael Robertson, the CEO of MP3.com, is the main proponent of the third side and he is against Napster (he is a witness against Napster in this case), and he is also against the RIAA (note the RIAA vs. MP3.com case).
I have a libary full of indie or near-indy bands, I quit using napster because I noticed a sever decline in new hits several months ago. I suspect that the reason that there are some many 'Big Music' bands is because the adverage Napster user is not into that kind of music. Neither am I but try looking up Britityney Spears songs and I would assume you would get a ton of hits. My way of getting good new indie MP3s is from ripping friends ripped CDs of rare stuff and supporting the musician whe the use of the MP3 merit it.
There are plenty of other ways to get good music. The only problem I had/have with loosing Napser is the precedent that it sets.
And therein lies the rub: Napster has a choice whether to do what the law says it should, or to ignore the law so that your song may still be traded freely. I'm not necessarily saying that it's what Napster should do; what I am saying is that for Napster to say, "We have no way to hinder people trying to use our service to copy copyrighted materials" is a blatant lie. Maybe the only solution available is inelegant, and maybe it would screw with a couple of innocent bystanders, but it could be done.
Good, I'm glad to know that all the music from the 60's and 70's was a lie. Your parents were either pulling your leg (which I strongly suspect), or incredibly lame assholes. Or maybe they were just Young Republicans. Who knows.
Well, I wouldn't bet my testicles on this never happening, but I can say that I've been using gnapster for about ...6 months now (I can place it accurately because I found gnapster thanks to this Slashdot Story in January), and I've never seen it fail to connect to a Napster server for anything other than being too full (which worked a few minutes later). I've not upgraded my gnapster either.
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Aieee! Good point! But we were happy ;-)
They don't actually care about the quality, they care about controlling how and when YOU listen to YOUR music that YOU bought. They'll just use this as a stepping stone to cram encrypted DVD audio down our throats, and eventually they won't even release songs on physical media. Why? Because they can't be individually tagged to track down pirates.
The way they'd LOVE it, is for music to be downloadable to computers/set top boxes in their own encrypted, tagged format. If you share music online, they can download it and see who originally bought the music. They can even punish that person themselves, by disabling their entire music collection! Do you want the music industry to have this power while ripping off both consumers and artists? I thought not.
Fight the RIAA. The internet makes them obsolete, and they know it.
--
Actually, the MPEG headers have a field, called, you guessed it, "copyright". Of course it seems that each mp3 encoder randomly decides weather to set it to 1 or 0, so its of no use, but if people actually used the field as it was meant to be used, napster could filter pretty easially.
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
Whenever people are using Napster, there is an RIAA boycott by default.
vinyl is not dead. It is very much alive. DJ's buy heaps of vinyl. :) :)
I totally agree with everything you said except that. This is where the money for artists should come from. Vinyl bought by DJs and money from touring. Not from screwing us in HMV. I don't even know how much CDs are these days because I havent bought one since the day I bought my burner, but I assume they're robbery. I prove your point
I don't use napster... I personally think it sucks, but Go Napster Go!
You have paid for a total of 0 pages and so far 0 have been used up (0 today).
I was mistaken in believing some material compensation had to be a component to make it a crime. Damn, I've been a pirate for a loooong time.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Not only is $1 mil a drop in the bucket, but did you notice how many times "Bill Clinton" has signed the petition already? Maybe 30,000 sigs...
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Over to our correspondent in Reality:
/. cares more about ripping off music than it does about freedom to link to things that upset people with money. Back to you in the studio, Bob"
"Napster, a company that facilitates downloading of copyrighted material (sometimes with the approval of the copyright holder, mostly not) has won a reprieve from their inevitable closure.
Napster have always guarded the protocol they use, and have changed the protocol to prevent others from interoperating with them on more than one occasion. For some unknown reason, the erstwhile 'news for nerds' site slashdot has posted three stories about this today. Interestingly, they have been posting stories about 2600 (which is currently not responding) court case at a rate of less than one a day. Your intrepid reporter infers that
Thank you, Casey. And, right after this break: How much would you sell your birthright for? We have 300 million people right here who don't need paying. But first, listen to these important messages..."
Have you heard of summer term and year round school? Both of those happen at large universities. So, I suppose most of your point is moot. Besides, why buy when you can steal and not get caught? Answer me that? Are these users so altruistic? Not really. Get a clue and stop trying to find the high moral ground for an activity that has none.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
Yes, libraries pay a licence for works they lend out. Plus they buy the books, and they don't distribute unauthorised copies. They don't have advertisement contracts.
Napster is NOT a free, open source utility made for the common good by a couple of enthousiastic coders in their spare time. It's a commercial company, who use other people's work for getting multi million dollar advertisement contracys, without the owner's consent.
This has happened before. The movie people were shitting bricks when VHS reared it's head. After a while they realized that all they had to do was rent movies cheaply enough that it wasn't worth the pain in the ass to copy them.
Whoever "wins" this situation is the party that sells convenient access to music. It will be a little trickier than the video solution, but someone will figure it out.
I'd be happy, for instance, to pay a buck or two per song if I could have them wirelessly (not a word, is it...) transmitted to my portable mp3 player, my car, my stereo, or my computer. Heck, I'm happy to buy CDs now and they're not half that convenient.
Piracy won't go away. There will always be zealots who think they can get something for free. But for the people with the most spending power... if you're pulling in 60,000 in a given year, why waste your time dicking around in napster when you can pay someone to get the music to you easily and at the same time support the creation of more such lovely music.
-Erik
If you read through the stay motion, it looks like the appeals court is drawing a clear connection between the napster case and the Diamond Multimedia case. Basically it seems as if the Appeals Court will rule that file sharing on the Internet is fair use. It looks like Napster is a slam dunk to at least win eventually in appeal, no matter what the lower court decides.
RIAA - But all we want is to take money from artists and consumers.
Napster - But all WE want is to earn money using the artists.
Napster Users - And we don't want to GIVE our money to the artists.
The Pope - God damnit! Look at all those greedy bastards!
When curse words are no longer rude and profound, I will have to find another way to express myself.
What will Napster users do -- continue d/ling like there's no tomorrow from Napster, or look for alternatives out of realizing that other means might be safer?
Any Napster users know firsthand?
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Once you read the 9th Circuit's reasoning behind the stay you quickly realize that the RIAA is going to lose this entire case on appeal. Judge Patel broke a huge number of precedents to give this little gift to the music industry, and I'm sure we can count on more such 'gifts' from her as the trial progresses, including a 'crushing victory' for the record industry.
/has to be legal/ or the United States has been destroyed. While the RIAA would much rather destroy the United States, the Internet and anything else that stands in the way of continued milking of this corrupt cash-cow called the record business, it ultimately isn't going to be up to them. End of story.
That victory, however, will be shot out of the sky like a Nazi blimp by a higher court because based on extant legal precedent cited in the stay, Napster is a perfectly legitimate service. People can share information. Sharing information is legal. It
The only news here, which you won't get from listening to the frantic spin of RIAA member lapdogs like Time/Warner owned CNN, is that what we are all witnessing is the death-wail of an out-moded industry imploding in the most spectacular and horrifying fashion.
Night
In the same story on CNN, as soon as Napster won their stay, RIAA lawyers in several courts filed motions to have the stay lifted.
did so! did not! did so! did not! did so! did not! did so! did not!
Hey you kids, stop your squabling, or you will both be sent to bed without any gnutella for desert.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
They didn't need to look hard for reasons to grant a stay: the 9th Circuit judges tore the earlier court's decision to shreds in so many ways that the stay verdict document (pdf) is an absolutely hoot to read. They practically said "You're a load of idiots."
...
I especially liked this little technicality:
Copyright registration is not a prerequisite to a valid copyright, but it is a prerequisite to a suit based on copyright. [Kodadek v. MTV]
Apparently the plaintiffs had merely identified some 200 songs for which they allegedly claimed copyright without providing proof of copyright registration, and to add to their incompetence, they then tried to extend the claim to millions of songs which they didn't even bother to name, let alone declare under copyright. Apparently this is a legal no-no.
And lawyers get paid for all this fun. Sigh
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
This might be out of line from me, but as an indie musician can I ask that you _not_ give money to the RIAA? They're my competition, and they use that money to cut off my air supply.
RIAA pretty much accepts now that they're the Borg of music... go check out RIAA.com, look under their left navigation menu, under "Licensing and Royalties"...
"The RIAA Collective"
I KNEW IT!
NO CARRIER
The link is here
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Gee, that wasn't hard, was it?
Not at all. Now let's just block all of the files with this song name...
But wait, these aren't all the same song. Some of these are by other artists, some aren't even music! Well then, we'll just block everything under a RIAA artist's name...
But wait! This one's a bootleg of a concert. Didn't Metallica say they wanted concert bootlegs to be distributed, just not their recorded material? And isn't this something from this other band's garage days, before they were even on a label? Darn. So, we can't block by song name, or artist...
Well, let's add a new MP3 tag that says 'bootleg' or 'non-copyright', then we can block anything else that isn't in this new genre tag.
But wait! Won't people just set all their MP3's to 'bootleg'? Darn.
Now what? Any other easy suggestions?
______________________
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it!"
Time to start running Gnutella!
I don't think the court should even have considered shutting down Napster at this point. Shutting it off before a verdict can even be arrived at is a little like believing them guilty until proven innocent.
So now you say, "Napster sells more records" Nope. Napsters COSTS records. Why pay when you can have it for free? I like the idea myself sometimes, especially when I see a CD priced at $15. So some altruistic souls go buy more, but I doubt that's what most of the users do.
You doubt it do you? Show me some statistics, and not the ones that show that sales of cd's near a university went down -IN THE SUMMMER! Every study (for example)I've seen of the habits of those of us that use Napster (and here I include my 72 year old mother, who has discovered quite a bit of music that she's since purchased) has shown that we buy more music once we start using Napster. Opinions are meaningless without facts.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Bite the hand.
So napster goes down. So what? At best, they can shut down the servers. So people will simply use the OpenNap network. Even if that goes down, people are flocking to alternatives such as Gnutella, which can't even be shut down by the developers. Free music distribution is here. The RIAA either has to work with it or be destroyed by it. And the RIAA has already set it's path by attempting to shut down napster. I sense an echo of the Hackers Manifesto... -Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.
Ironically, this lawsuit and the barrage of news stories is only drawing more attention to MP3 trading. Napster may not survive, but mp3 trading has never been stronger. Look at what we have:
-Napster users in a downloading frenzy to get everything they can before the deadline. Now that the death sentence has been stayed, there's no reason to believe this frenzied level of activity won't continue for a few more weeks.
-Enormous publicity for Gnutella, Freenet, and other file-sharing alternatives, which were little than pre-beta geek curiosities until now.
-An unprecedented public forum to expose the exploitative and monopolistic business practices of the record companies. (really, how many news stories did you see about the RIAA settling with the FTC on their antitrust suit for price-fixing?).
Yes, truly a Victory against Piracy!
If the RIAA wins, there will be no digital music trading. PERIOD. They'll send their watchdogs out like a swarm of locusts searching for crops to eat. So people will go to Gnapster and Freenet. And with that will go the musicians profits, and the labels' as well. If there are no labels, there is no production scheme for modern music that ISNT Digital. And as we all well know we can't trust people to pay for things if they can take them for free.
If Napster wins this suit, then commence the online trading revolution on a more permanent and prevalent basis. Enter the dragon. No longer will artists be able to make a living doing what they are doing.
Sure the current touring bands and the ultrapop bubble gum acts will survive, coasting on a wave of teen sensationalism and washed up nostalgia, but the new artists will make their living scraping by as the starving artists of the 1600s. And yet, we crave that media, that sweet song that soothes our savage soul. No longer will it be possible for a band to take a year off from life and record a thought productive and creative album. Am I bitter? YES. You betcha.
And here's why. I love music. In nearly every form (industrial and country excepted) I enjoy it. And the industry will suffer. We'll get some nice stars, but those people who KNOW that their talent will never be seen will give up. Those bands who might make it now won't make it in the future. It's a sad day for the industry. We've caused the unemployment of thousands of promoters. We've caused the unemployment of thousands of recording studios who won't have clients.
So now you say, "Napster sells more records" Nope. Napsters COSTS records. Why pay when you can have it for free? I like the idea myself sometimes, especially when I see a CD priced at $15. So some altruistic souls go buy more, but I doubt that's what most of the users do.
Here's my deal. I think this whole thing sucks. I hate Napster, I hate the RIAA. I love the artists. Hell, I love the promotions folks more. They work in an industry we all love, but also love to hate. So Let's work on this. Let's get Congress to regulate a digital media transfer source. Let's let our government do their job, represent the interests OF the people FOR the people. So write your congressman, I just wrote mine. It's all doable.
But it sucks in the meantime
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
This just gives me a few more weeks to get all the music I like so I can burn it on CD's. The ruling supposedly allows Napster to keep up until a trial begins (check this MSNBC article). Has there been any boycott sites up btw? I've vowed not to buy any more CD's for the remainder of the trial, and have promised my friends free burned CD's as long as they promise not to purchase any CD's. Is anyone doing the similar?
BTW, on a side note, has anyone noticed how in all the publicized trials, they refer to it as "napster stealing their music" (such as lars on Capital Hill). Why do they keep blaming Napster for their users behavoir? But oh well, hopefully the federal courts will realize that the RIAA has no case against Napster, only their users, and service will continue as normal soon....
Actually, the MPEG headers have a field, called, you guessed it, "copyright". Of course it seems that each mp3 encoder randomly decides weather to set it to 1 or 0, so its of no use, but if people actually used the field as it was meant to be used, napster could filter pretty easially.
______________________
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it!"
Napster is a company that has a closed-source program that is designed for sharing files. They have in the past made efforts to stop other programs interoperating. Recently, they have tried to appeal to some unknown group by saying 'We're an open company'.
Well, they're not. Napster (the product) exists for people who can't manage an FTP session and have no morals. Napster (the business) is about money. We could argue all day about whose money, but you can be sure it's not theirs. All their money is going to lawyers. Just like it always has.
And the basic protocol sucks. I could understand it if the engineering were any good, but it's not.
1. Don't put the CD on the bottom of the microwave, place it on at least a plate or saucer. I have a coffee cup from a SUN authorized dealer especially for the AOL CD's I get.
2. Set power to full, and the timer to no more than 5 seconds.
3. Stand back if sparks scare you. They are all inside the oven, but can be scary nonetheless.
4. Once you see the big flash/spark you should turn off the Microwave.
It may be that the appeals court also thinks Napster will lose, but that the damages are sufficiently unbalanced that they're overturning the TRO. And it makes a lot of difference whether the appeals court thinks Napster's odds are 49:51 or 1:99 or 75:25.
Judge Patel, of course, was the excellent judge in the Dan Bernstein Crypto Export case.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This may be offtopic but since people are mentioning it, I'll say what I need to say.
I think the boycott should continue for the first two items on the agenda. If you don't want to visit the link, they basically state they want CD prices to drop and for artists to make more money. There's nothing wrong with a boycott on those principles. I'd go along with it even without Napster and I probably will but a one person boycott usually doesn't go anywhere.
"Is it really so unreasonable of the artists to object to someone distributing their work without their consent?"
Absolutely not. I've always held the belief that, if you really like what you hear, you should plunk down the $15 bucks to get the CD. As a matter of fact, I'd wholeheartedly support the RIAA if they were to implement a Napster-like system, where you either pay-per-download, or you pay a monthly subscription fee for unlimited downloads. That way, you know your favorite musician is getting some funds back from it, and you know you're not going to get stuck with files that sound horrible, or are mislabeled. But IMHO, rather than working with the technology, the RIAA is more intent on killing the technology.
"It's not just a matter of money. Napster is just the internet age equivalent of a record bootlegger: they make money of someone elses work, without the artist's consent."
Incorrect analogy. Napster merely makes the files available for download, they're not the ones ripping entire CDs. Additionally, AFAIK, Napster is making money because of their ease of finding music, be it legal or illegal. Do you think that, just because some people out there use Xerox machines to copy copyrighted material to give away, we should come down on Xerox like a load of bricks?
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
LOL Millennium hand, shrimp?
http://www.RIAAboycott.org/ has no new info...
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
For one thing, I think I remember reading that they ended up re-instating the banned users. I could be wrong, though. Nevertheless, an ISP who found a website on their server with the title "Prepubescent Sex Acts" has an obligation to audit this website and report to authorities if there's evidence of illegal activity. An ISP who's servers consisted 90% of kiddie porn would probably have some hell to pay if they continually ignored this situation. At least 8 out of 10 file transfers that the Napster service facilitates are unquestionably illegal according to the wording of current copyright law. They have already admitted that they are well aware that this is what the service is used for, and yet they have done nothing about it.
Hooray! or Woo-Hoo!
???
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
The Differences between the MSNBC article and the CNN article are astounding.
I've never been a fan of MSNBC, but they at least mention that there is a question of the appropriateness of the injunction, and the fact that tens of thousands of fans are threatening boycott of the RIAA.
The CNN article, on the other hand, only mentions that the injunction was stayed, and then spends the rest of the article in effect decrying napster and spouting the RIAA party line. Journalism so yellow my urine looks pale in comparison.
If I were a journalist at CNN (and some of the other news sources that so distort the story and hide the "other side" from their readership/viewership altogethre), I would be deeply ashamed.
As it is, I am going to engage in my fair use right, as affirmed by the court of appeals today, to use napster to space shift some more music I own on old vinyl to my hard drive for more convinient listening.
Eat your heart out, RIAA.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The court below expressly sought to try to adapt existing copyright provisions to the new realities of Internet technology. In doing so, the court ignored the counsel of the Sony Court (464 U.S. at 431-432) and this Court in Diamond Multimedia that extending copyright protections in response to new technologies should be left to Congress.
This is a very reasonable statement from the court people. It reconize that democratic poolings where designed to steer and bend laws into a citizen-serving state, even through times of technological and sociological change.
This kind of statement raise my confidence in the court system. Its redundancy makes it a robust and trustable decision maker.
The problem is that in doing the Right Thing, the court is forwarding the problem to the very democatic pools which brough us the DMCA and other similarly loved relatives. The court is forwarding the problem to the module with the worst design.
-
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
Here is an article on salon that you might be interesting in: It is Courtney Love's take on the real culprit in music piracy - the RIAA .
Hope this helps,
Rainbowfyre
Vericon is coming!
Looks like the thieves have won again. :( When will people realize that their right to free speech does not give them the right to rob artists blind? And don't give me "this is all about file sharing and banning FTP." That's called dodging the issue. The issue is theft. So you got yourself a few days. I hope that the law eventually comes down on the right side of this. :(
Don't go around saying you know exactly what everyone is doing!
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Okay, this has got to be Shoeboy
Bzzt. Sorry. Thanks for playing. Shoeboy only has one additional accout (mafiaboy) and is definitely not vladinator. I'm not cool enough to be vlad.
--Shoeboy
I have to disagree with you. Whatever their faults, Fanning and Napster are clearly in the right on this issue, and their attackers ARE clearly attacking things that I hold dear and that I believe to be the very basis of good as it exists (arguments about platonic ideals shoved to the side.)
Napster is a file sharing service. Any file sharing service can be used to break copyright laws - but it is the users who do this that are in violation of the law, not the service. Providing the service is reasonably responsive in shutting down abusers when notified, of course. This is long standing and well thought out case law, deriving from actions taken in the past attempting to hold ISPs liable because they were unwittingly being used by trafficers in kiddie porn.
Defending the ISPs is not defending kiddie porn - it's defending service providers. Napster is just another service provider, everything I've seen indicates that Napster has been responsive and responsible in locking out users from the system when they are made aware of violations, and if they can be shut down because some of their users are infringing copyright, then expect to see ISPs start shutting down left and right as well. It's precisely the same principle.
And just for your information, I have never even used napster. From the comments I have read it appears I am in a very small minority here in that, but it's true. I don't have the bandwidth to dick around with .mp3s, and I've never even considered using napster. I'm very very concerned about bad precedent though, and holding a service provider responsible for violations commited by it's users is very bad precedent.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Supporting Napster==supporting Big Music, sort of. When was the last time you searched for indie bands on Napster? There's actually a lot of good music on mp3.com and other free music sites. support them instead. Besides, Usenet is typically more reliable when it comes to getting mp3z anyway.
NO CARRIER
Just go get gnapster. Works great.
Is this the new "hot topic" to replace the Elian Gonzalez saga for the news media here in the USA?
I happened to turn on "Politically Incorrect" (a light, quasi-comedy based political talk show hosted by a comedian with 4 guests for the benefit of those outside the US viewing area) and the first topic discussed was, you guessed it, Napster.
The host actually had something insightful to say about the music industry's assertion that Napster was killing their sales. (Paraphrased) "When I was younger, everyone I knew taped songs off the radio, and swapped albums and tapes to be copied."
One guest replied, (paraphrased) "Yes, but the ratio of then was like 3 or 4 to 1, who copied. With Napster, I believe that it's like 1 person buys a CD and 20 million copy it." What??? Are we to believe that Titney Spears and Outta'Sync, with that ratio, would have sold 30 Gazillion copies each if Napster didn't exist? The above statement by the clueless guest is what an un-elightened, un-informed public probably really believes.
However, the host had a CLASSIC line, "Record executives are just people who don't have the people skills to be pimps."
Yes, the Monkees were an early experiment - but nowhere near the widespread success and absolute cultural poison that was disco.
At least at the time of the Monkees, there was The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, The Guess Who, etc. etc. When the disco era was in full-swing, much of the actual "rock-n-roll" music was pushed off of mainstream radio. There was a strong popular backlash to this (Disco sucks! Chicago Rocks! - Steve Dahl, etc.), and it eventually went away. Of course, they're trying to resurect it thru "Pop Hop".
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.
LOL!
So true. Napster has to be one of the dumbest ideas I've seen get this much funding. People think VCs are the smartest eggs in the box. Please. They just have enough dough to stay ahead of the odds.
-cwk.
Well napster's not out of the woods yet; this perhaps unfortunately merely delays the inevitable -- unless the RIAA considers its stance they'll be able to at least severely harm napster, but it does give time to establish other networks as viable replacements, perhaps.
The injuction did not say that couldn't distribute music. It said they couldn't distribute copyrighted music. I guarantee in the long run that the only way they can stay in business is to drop the copyrighted stuff.
I dont know about there not being a critical mass yet. IMHO they turned enough against them simply when they sued napster. However, a "critical mass" is an undefined definition and therefore pointless. You say there is a critical mass, i say there isn't and the AC's can flame war over it. Or not.
How come journalists can't tell the difference between a website AND an internet utilising program? CNN, the BBC, just about every news network I've read/accessed/listened to has talked about "a US Judge ordering the Napster WEBSITE closed down. The WEB-PAGE allows users to download music". Rant off.
I don't know of any boycotts except this one:
http://www.RIAAboycott.org/
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
What Napster is doing is not necessarily against the law (the courts will, of course, in the end decide). See my other comment. The temporary injuction didn't decide that (thought it does perhaps show how the judge is leaning). Furthermore, a temporary injunction isn't supposed to do irreparable harm, and this one would definitely do that, and I believe that's why the appellate court overturned it.
I agree with you that Napster is lying when they say that they can't do anything about copyrighted materials. However, I believe that if they do anything like what you've suggested (create a zillion filters) it will very likely eliminate a whole lot that is legitimate too. Also, users will quickly find work-arounds for any such thing. Short of downloading and listening to all songs (and matching them to the list of copyrighted materials) there really isn't much that is feasible.
I think, in the end, the issue will boil down to whether this is fair use. From what I've read, it is - under the law as it now exists (which didn't anticipate anything like Napster). Napster is merely a referal service for people to swap music files. The law doesn't say anything about whether people need to know each other or how far apart they may be, etc. Just as long as they don't sell the stuff they copied (the law applies, I think, explicitly to music, not other copyrighted intellectual property). Congress is of course free to change the law so that such services become illegal, if they think that's the most beneficial (for them, of course) thing to do.
Actually I have never bought a single CD in my entire life so there is no single penny of my money in RIAA's claws. I am 24, came to Canada eight years ago. Before I was only buying tapes. Started downloading music in 1996 (ftp sites mostly, IRC, used a 36 and later a 56k modem), making my own mp3s from waves and tapes, then forgot about the tapes got myself ADSL and still used ftp's and about a year ago started using Napster but never have forgotten about IRC where now I could get all the newest releases of mp3s and movies) burned my own CD's since 1997, use Gnutella, now I am considering a DVD burner. As long as there are ftp sites, HTTP, Gnutella, Napster etc. I will not buy any audio CDs but then again I was never going to, hope RIAA didn't lose too much money...
You can't handle the truth.
Except the RIAA have refused to provide such a list.
Really, I wouldn't expect them to. A thriving, legal, Napster is the worst possible outcome for them. They are just out to shut them down so they can bring their own (pay-for, of course) version online without fear of competition.
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E_NOSIG
Guitar, I'm totally into metal and progressive but also like weide oriental (arabian, indian, etc) stuff. How about you?
more here http://www.msnbc.com/news/438526.asp
Just in case you pop back to read replies to your post... Many artists aren't doing what they do for money and fame. They're trying to express something they think needs to be expressed, or they're trying to offer people something as a gift. Culture is an important part of people's lives. It helps give people shared symbols and experiences, which allow them to communicate in meaning ways. Maybe you're listening to the wrong kind of music ;-)
If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
I tried to reply but I don't know if you got it. I play electric guitar, I'm totally into progressive and metal but also like a lot of weird oriental (arabian, indian, etc.) stuff. How about yourself?
Now, I think we have a major education problem in front of us. How many of the alleged 20 million Napster users know (I mean, really understand) these philosophical reasons? I spent a few hours on napster's chat rooms yesterday trying to do a little explaining on these same reasons and it was very difficult to get my point understood (there's of course the highly likely possibility that I wasn't very good at explaining myself). What I saw instead was a lot of people doing what you just mentioned: flaming, acting like little children whose parents have just confiscated this wonderful toy, people were talking like well it was good while it lasted, so what are the alternatives to Napster?. And it's of course very nice that people are finding out about Gnutella or Freenet, but there's a huge and complicated intellectual property issue that needs to be addressed. Anyway, my point is that an important part of a boycott is to talk to people about the REASONS BEHIND that boycott.
"All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams". Elias Canetti
Here I was yesterday scrambling for an alternative that I could use here at work.
Never mind that Napster nor any other alternative can be set up to get past my firewall here.
Does anyone know of any that can utilize HTTP tunnelling?
nemesis23
--
Crow you big dope, you can't tunnel through space!
There are heaps of open source clones out there that connect to the napster servers. Try a search on freshmeat.
===
So...it's just a way to trade files damnit! When people start looking at child porn over the WWW do you go blame Netscape, IE and the w3c?
Pirating is bad, get the pirates! But let me transfer files!
"I told you a million times not to exaggerate!"
The record companies will be happy to sell you songs individually, or sell them over the internet, but those songs must 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. $1? $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 this 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 media companies want this control, and are holding our public heritage as a hostage until they get it. This is why you they don't release content on the internet.
To those who think this isn't happening.. They're working on a specification for encrypted-USB speakers. Intel demo'ed a graphics chipset that encrypts every pixel to your monitor. DIVX came and (thankfully) died.
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. The media companies own the presses, and they claim to own the content they publish. Generally, they don't create that content, but they're damn good at grabbing control of it. They are powerful, and used to scheming for what they want.
It used to be that recording was a pretty serious undertaking. Even a moderate studio was out of the reach of most. If an artist was able to make their own recordings, they still had a very hard time distributing them. Producing vinyl is/was pretty expensive. Making tapes was/is doable, but still there are risks in that the average joe cannot afford to purchase enough free media to promote themselves in such a way that they have a shot at making it. This is where the recording industry got its start. They could enable these things, and because of their size and resources, profit from them even with the risks. They just had to be smart about who they backed, and who they didn't. Pretty simple stuff.
Now lets fast forward to the present day. Consumer grade equipment is capable of producing very good quality recordings. Modern computers equipped with decent sound systems make all of the pre-production stuff easy, and of good quality. Distribution is now within reach. Cheap CD burners, and the internet complete the picture. This is what the RIAA is resisting. The "everyone has a press" thing.
I did a simple test in my family, and the goal of it was to establish if the recording industry has any value other than the actual recording. I also was doing a little soul searching with regard to napster. I personally have used it to obtain reasonable encodes of my vinyl, saved me a lot of work. I also have heard a couple of things off of the radio, that not-so-long ago I would have just recorded, and listened to for a while.
For the test , here is what I did:
1. Give the children access to free music, just using the computer for playback.
2. Enable them to make CD's. Let them play with this for a while. Throw into the mix the fact that they can get music from friends CD's, the internet, or their own CD collection.
3. Try both #1 and #2 with me doing the computer part, and with them doing their own work. The childeren are reasonably computer literate.
3. Let this cook for a while and watch.
I found out a number of things that everyone here might find interesting. I did this with the kids because it is this next generation that the battle is over. Not us. We have already made up our minds, and to be blunt, have the skills to get what we want. Besides if it is content dilution they are worried about, its over already. Anything created in the last 50 years that is worth encoding has been done, and will be distrubuted. Kind of hard to undo that without a major civil rights issue. It is the values that the next generation hold that are of primary interest to the recording industry and its current business model. If they can get these sort of things to be labeled as "bad" then they will win over the next round of consumers. If not, then they will need to change how they do business. Period.
Here are some of the things I found to be true in my household. (8-12 yr olds + 1 16yr old for about a week.)
1. Kids seem to really like to put what they want on "their own" CD. They like this more when they get to put add-ons in/around their CD. Special cases, labels, pictures & such on their CD's.
2. Music from the internet was perceived to be of lesser value than music from a CD. I believe this to be that it is more trouble (ie. you have to know more ) to get it from the computer than to get it from another source. Also the quality is not always good. Sometimes they would spend a long session, and get parts of songs that they really wanted. Sometimes the computer required enough effort that they lost interest.
3. Music obtained from an original CD was most valued. Even when copies of copies of original CD's sound pretty much identical. (see number 6 below)
4. Lower quality recordings are ok because "it's just my CD. For me to listen to." This one surprised me because with digital music you get the quality you work for. Seems that the group of kids I was working with did not want to do much. This response was almost always associated with efforts that they had to do. Basically if they have to do their own encode, track down tunes, wait for them, check them, then burn a CD, lower quality is ok if it gets the whole thing done faster.
5. They like it much better when I do their work for them, and they get the CD. (What did you expect? They are kids!)
6. Original CD's are still attractive to them, even when they have copies. (good ones.) Lyric sheets, pictures, the cover art. (why do CD's have to be in such a small package? I miss the large cover art!) All play a part in the value of the CD.
There were other things, but the points above were the most significant ones.
This is what I think of them:
The recording industry still has lots of value. Music is not the primary part of it. Packaging, promotion & the quality of the recording seem to be the areas where the recording industry has lots of value. The fact that these kids will buy a CD that they have a copy of shows this. The recording industry also has easy access in their favor. It is pretty easy to go in and buy a CD, (unless it is one of the ones that I like...) and they do have a very large catalog. Most of which sells in specific markets. If more people had access to more types of music, they would buy more music.
The mp3 format is pretty good. It is not CD quality however. If you listen through headphones, it is obvious that there are things missing. Nothing beats a good CD. If it does, the bitrate will have to be near that of the CD. This may change, but not for a while.
Not everybody enjoys scouring the net looking for things. I know that if a piece of music could be downloaded for a small fee, and it was of good quality, kids would go for it. I would go for it. Its a known quantity -vs- the unknown of things like napster. Most consumers will just go for the easy kill because they are lazy. Or they don't care.
Where do I stand on napster? I know that there is now a new market. People have found out en-masse that they can do this sort of thing. Now they want it. As long as there is no official service to download from, then the free ones will see heavy use. Word will spread about the clones, possibly with the service under fire at the time. This is market pressure at its finest. Consumers will do what they will. In my mind this is not really a legal battle as it is a PR battle. In six months, the recording industry could make and promote a service that would enable people to get reliable mp3 tunes, unfettered, and without hassle. They can start with easy, safe services that parents like me would pay to use, market them as being better than "copies off of the net" and be doing something new in a very short time.
Using napster just for greedy collections of music is wrong, but with out a reasonable "right" or better way, napster-type services are the only way.
Blogging because I can...
Napster.com has been updated with a list of Napster-friendly bands /artists to support (buy buying CDs).
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
I've seen a bunch of calls for boycotts today, and I think it's silly. Look folks, you don't need to get RIAA's attention, you've already got it. They know what you're up to, it has bothered them, and they are taking action. If you want to keep making a difference, it's not hard - just keep using Napster, Gnutella, etc. They want to change the way you (and about 20+ million of your friends) act, and they'll use the courts if they have to do so. However, in the end, the law is what the people say it is. That's the whole point of Democracy. If the record companies want to try to fight this one in the court of public opinion, they're more than welcome to give it their best shot. They have been very successful at forging opinion in the past, and they may yet triumph. FWIW, I don't think history is on their side. After all, the Stamp Act (requiring a government mark on all documents, for which a tax was required) was one of the actions by the British that led to the Revolutionary War. Trying to tax (or charge for) the interchange of ideas wasn't too popular then, and it doesn't look like the intervening years have helped any.
Well at least he is consistent and determined. I gotta tell you the first time I saw the infamous penis bird I laughed my ass off.
Napster BUYcott
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
8th day god created napster and downloaded all the metalic he could fit on his HD
-Its like Deja Vu all over again!-
It lets them track statistics on how many people read through to the end of the story. That in itself is often worth more than a couple more impressions.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Whoops! I keep forgetting PayPal isn't international, and I also admit I never noticed you were based in Canada. My apologies!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It'll clear your head, and remind you what's at the core, here: music and musicians.
Executive Summary: It's absolutely fantastic; Highly Recommended!
I went with my kid and her boyfriend; it's not cheap: $20 for adults; $16 for high school kids; $15 (?) for younger kids.. Allow *lots* of time; we had about four hours and didn't even scratch the surface.
If you're not familiar with the story behind the EMP it will seem to be an odd collection: some groups were missing entirely from what little I saw: the "Milestones" exhibit had no reference to the Beattle or the Stones, but covered Britain through the Yardbirds, the Cream, Blind Faith, Derick and the Dominoes, Steve Winwood, and Eric Clapton.
Janis Joplin is very well covered; as is Bo Diddley, BB King, and the very early country/R&B/rock genesis.
There's the hint as to what's going on: this is an entirely personal collection on display here, from someone who loves music and musicians and bands and the guitar particularily.
But there's a lot of depth that you wouldn't expect and couldn't get from a publicly funded "museum" about rock: one fabulous display goes into tremendous depth about the New York grafitti scene of the late 70' and the '80, right down to having actual sketch books from some of the artists involved..
And this segues into hip-hop, and the DJ/mixing scene, and punk, and on and on..
It's fabulous!
I didn't get into the Jimi Hendrix Gallery; I did see "RIAA" once: on the actual gold album award Jimi received for "Axis Bold as Love".
Geek note: the MEG (Museum Exhibit Guide) is a device about the size of, and a little heavier than, an early cassette recorder. It sits down on your right hip and has a strap that goes over your head and onto your left sholder; battery powered; 3"x4" LCD display; headphones; touchscreen and cursor buttons and a numeric keypad; you point the keypad at (sometimes hard-to-see) infrared xmitters at each display and you press "Select" and the MEG reads where it is from the xmitter and "Loading" appears and A LONG TIME later the narration begins and a menu that accesses specific exhibit details comes up...
A LONG TIME is about 5-7 seconds: it's hard to picture *what* is taking so long, and that confuses guesses about *what* MEG is: I'd guess it's got an hdd in it, but what kind of OS takes so long to read in it's location and find and display the relevant naration had me puzzled.
It's not obtrusive at all, but it kept me mildly curious as to what was in it; there's absolutely *no* markings of any kind on the case to give you a clue: it looks as though EMP builds 'em themselves.
I suspect the weight and size of the thing are merely anti-theft: there's certainly no reason it couldn't be a lot smaller...
The MEG was pretty cool, too: when I went off to get in a line for the Hendrix Gallery, I was still able to bring up the narrations for all the specific objects on display at the last place I'd been: the LA punk scene, and listen to stuff as I was waiting.
Many adults seemed baffled by MEG; kids (of course..) took right to it..
Anyway, the EMP is pretty cool, if you *really* *like* *music* - if you live in Metro Puget Sound, Go!
If you're travelling into Metro Puget Sound on business or pleasure, Go!
If you can't think of any other excuse, fly in, see EMP, and then leave ;-) -- and be sure to tell everyone how much it rained.
t_t_b
(* Paul Allen)
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
there are already several napster clients available for linux. just do some checking at freshmeat and you'll find them.
Everything she said could equally apply to a photocopy machine. Perhaps Xerox should be shut down until they figure out a way to ensure that their photocopiers cannot be used to infringe copyright.
I'm on the side that somewhat silently watches the whole thing, in my own mind seeing neither one standing in the end. I see a future where distribution channels for music are irrelevant and transparent. I'm on the side that creates art for the sake of art. Any monetary compensation is nice, but not required for motivation to create. I'm on the side that thinks Britney Spears, NSync, Back Street Boys, etc. aren't music as much as they are an image, a fad, that record companies sell to the kids. They won't be around for long. Sure they have some talent, I just wish that they would concentrate on the love of their art and not so much the image that the record companies that employ them wish to sell. When their fad does go out of style, maybe they will join this side and just enjoy music, and share their art, rather than restrict it.
There are alot on this third relatively quiet side who just shut up, enjoy music for music's sake, and wait confidently for the inevitable shift in the way society enjoys music. It's shifting now, watch closely and you'll have something interesting to tell your grand kids.
Beer wants to be free
Awww, how cute. Looks like some Moderator has a soft spot for napster. It is my opinion, honestly, that napster bites. They say "Yay, for sharing." , but refuse to open the source. Napster maintains control over ONE central server, and sells merchandise off of the website. This is the kind of thing that would happen if Micro$soft mated with the Gnutella devel branch. They bite.
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Crudely Drawn Games
All 5 major record companies were recently found to have conspired to "price fix" in violation of anti trust laws so nobody could buy a cd at less than the fixed price of $16. Why isn't anybody pointing this out so they stop playing the "victim" to consumers like me who don't want to be ripped off to buy worthless "filler" for arbitrary and artifially inflated prices. This probably constitutes a violation of the RICO Act (racketeering).
I can see why the controversy is so strong over how easy it is to copy and distribute music over the net, mostly because it can in a way be regarded as both intellectual and physical property. It's difficult to distinguish between the two because you must buy physical CD's which are more than just ideas and must be manufactured. MP3s on the other hand require no packaging, so all that they contain in essence are ideas, and are thus intellectual property (refer to the link below to learn more about this).
The use of Napster and other MP3 sharing programs is a form of civil disobedience against this intellectual property.
I think that music counts as a collection of ideas because there are many other cultural, educational, and social contributions into a music album from sources outside the artist that they may clearly fail to account for. They may have listened to a previous artist's work and gained valuable knowledge and skill that they could use to enhance their own music. Music has been based upon this very method of collected resources and ideas throughout its history, being expanded upon and improvised throughout the ages. Giving someone an ability to hear a song would merely foster ideas and allow an artist to leave a greater effect on music as a whole.
In the article entitled Against Intellectual Property, there are many similarities that I see between things such as software/MP3 "piracy" and the extremely positive technological/cultural effects if ideas are allowed to be viewed by a greater audience.
- Just some thoughts from a bird brain.
Can't stop MY NAPSTER. I'm useing OpenNap serverers. Thanks www.Napigator.com
Now we can all go back to stealing artists' work against their wishes! Cheers!
do you suppose any of this legal pissing-contest would be taking place if napster hadn't gone and made a corporation out of itself? realistically, Napster Inc. has a pretty shady business model and they really don't produce anything. being a corporation just makes them an easier target for sue-age.
I've already heard the standard cries of "I'm gonna burn my Metallica CDs!" and "I'm gonna send a flaming e-mail to Hilary Rosen!," but c'mon, what effect will that have? So what if you burn your Metallica CDs, you already bought them, right? And so what if you flame Hilary Rosen? You're just giving them ammo to use against you ("Look at this Napster user, see their blatant disregard for us?!?"). That is why I suggest that the planned boycott for the RIAA should go on. If you're going to send a message to the RIAA about how you feel about Napster, hit them where it matters most: their wallets.
If enough people boycott RIAA, then they'll have more ammo: "You see, that napster piracy thing is causing us significient loss in sales!"
AP: Napster wins court stay, can remain in business
http://dailynews.yahoo.c om/h/ap/20000728/tc/napster_5.html
Reuters: Napster Wins Stay in Appeals Court
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/000728/n28399 143.html
There are aready tons of Napster clones for Linux!
If naspter had been shutdown for even a few hours, it would have turned millions against RIAA as opposed to the current situation where there just isn't a critical mass agasint them yet.
Once naspster is shut down, then people (like the bands on my web site) have a real case against RIAA for using their monoploy power to prevent their music from being heard which results in poor sales.
And the next time the RIAA is talking about "how will the artists get paid" ask them about how much the artists get paid for cutouts and "clearance" cds.
Here's a good question: Do we have a right to explore our own culture? I support copyright to the degree that artists should be recognized for their work, and should be able to gain compensation for their work. However, once their work becomes part of contemporary culture I think we all have a right to access it. An artist doesn't become popular all on their own. Their popularity comes about through a relationship between them and their fans. Should the fans be "compensated" for telling other people about music they like? For singing their favorite tunes around the campfire? For inviting friends to concerts? Remember when Bob Dylan sold the rights to "The Times Are A' Changing" to a bank? A friend of mine commented, "He's got no right. That song belongs to all of us now." I think he had a point. If Bob Dylan didn't want that song to become an integral part of our culture, our history, and our social consciousness... well, he should have kept it to himself. I think we have a right to explore our own culture. At $16/CD, most people can't. Suggestion: Combine a pay-what-you-can type site with a good, user driven, collaborative filtering (http://www.thevenue.org/ase.html) system. Then artists will become popular, and gain popularity, based entirely on audience response.
If a pickpocket meets the Buddha, all he will see is the Buddha's pockets.
It's all they carry.
*sigh*
Is it really so unreasonable of the artists to object to someone distributing their work without their consent?
IMHO, yes. Would it be really so unreasonoble for, say, car maker to object to someone distributing their cars without ther consent ?
They sold me the car. I can resell it, I can share it with my family and friends, I open TAXI service and drive unknown people around.
All that without consent of car maker. They sold it to me. What I do with it afterwards is none of their bussines. If they didn't want something to be mine they shouldn't have sold it to me.
Your comparison breaks... you can resell your car, but you can not make identical copies of your mercedes and sell them as if they were real mercedeses
Wanna know why gnutells gone toasty? Crap like This.
What does this button d$#%* NO CARRIER
I disagree. If music companies can sue Napster for providing a service, then what's going to stop anyone from suing a company that makes any kind of client.
For example, lets take Hotline Communications Inc.. Their client/server suit can also used to download MP3's. It is also used to get plenty of other legal media. Does that mean we should shut it down because users of the server are breaking laws?
Perhaps companies should sue Netscape because people browsing the net can ALSO download MP3's. Wait! We could sue people who develop FTP daemons as well! People can use FTP to transfer MP3's!
The whole idea is wrong. Software manufacturers should not get in this much trouble because the end user abuses their product. Even if it was meant to be used that way.
The clash of honour calls, to stand when others fall.
The music industry survives soley on the number of musicians they can contract and control. They don't care about what's good (AKA Britny Spears, NSync, Limp Biskit etc etc). They understand that the more artists they put out there, the more of a chance it is to make money, it's a power in numbers thing
(hold on, I'm getting to my point)
Record labels aren't worried about record sales, which have gone up everywhere except near college campuses. They're worried that musicians will start to market themselves more effectively.
When a label signs a band, they force them into a 3 record deal, this goes with Authors in publishing houses as well. What this deal says is, "We'll promote you, pay for your studio time, roadies, coke habit and the whole 9 yards, but YOU OWE US THE PROCEEDS FROM YOUR FIRST 3 ALBUMS). 99% of musicians swallow it.
How many musicians do you see who really make it past 3 albums? Not many. Think about it. After the 3 deal contract is up, musicians with staying power get a longer contract, and ALOT more money, but they're drawbacks. They have to start paying for studio time, and their coke habit.
When the labels start to see artists who successfully market themselves, they sign them and squash them, think of Concrete Blonde. In the 80's they were huge around the LA club scene, marketed their own stuff, and made some dough. They got signed, forced to give up control of their promotion, and died.
The record industry can only generate so many Brittny Spears's, NSyncs and New Kids. They have to have those bands who worked hard for years to get a contract. If those bands started marketing themselves. The RIAA would be bankrupt.
Kris
What would you prefer, yellow spandex?
i'm so happy, i could shit.
ahhh.
ok, i'm still happy.
10 bux says the RIAA has a group of script kiddies working on DoSing Napster users now, or maybe they're all doing that gay Cookoo Egg bullshit.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
http://boycott-riaa.com/ is another boycott site.
No new info there, either.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.
Is it really so unreasonable of the artists to object to someone distributing their work without their consent? It's not just a matter of money. Napster is just the internet age equivalent of a record bootlegger: they make money of someone elses work, without the artist's consent. The artist has no control over the quality, the format, the packaging, _and_ he doesn't get payed.
Before you label napster as a cyberspace patriot, only there to fight for your electronic freedom of speech, at least try to consider the other side as well. If you compare napster to radio, which should be a good comparison, don't forget that (legal) radio stations pay artists a certain amount of money for their work, and the artist (or more accurately the owner of the work... quite often the record company) at least has the option to decide which of his songs are ok for radio, and which he would rather chuck in the bin than let anyone else hear.
As I understand it, it was this situation that infuriated renowned control freak Lars Ulrich so much that he wanted to take legal action. Metallica were in the studio finishing an album, and were astonished to hear their unfinished, unreleased album on the radio. Someone had distributed a demo using napster, without asking metallica if it was ok with them.
That metallica are filthy rich, and haven't made a decent record in 10 years is completely irrelevant. If open software coders find that a commercial company which is considering an IPO takes their work, rips off the COPYRIGHT notice, and makes money distributing their proprietarised work, then how would slashdot readers respond?
I agree - thats a classic..
That is the moral of the latest chapter in the Napster story. A company that is smart enough to write an application that is used by 20 million people should be smart enough to find a way for that application to conform to the law. And if the company does not think that conforming to the law is important, then maybe it is not smart enough to succeed.
And Ford, Nissan, Toyota (and so on) must implement 'driver access safetl control devices' to check that their cars wont be used: in drive-by-shootings, to run people down intentionally, to be used by drunk drivers, to be reversed into other cars or objects causing property damages blah blah blah. And newsagents will now be forced to conduct background checks on anybody buying paper and pens, since they may be used write fraudulent letters or be used for defamation.
Pathetic..
"He who cannot express himself without using profanity has nothing worthwhile to say." Emerson, IIRC.
MP3 support for linux has been around for ages. Take a look at mpg123 for instance.
The napster alternatives arent being sued, so they servers will presumably not be shut down. They have a low enough profile that the RIAA will probably never come down on them. So, while napster works, use it, and then transfer to another. Fresh Meat should have plenty of options. The one my friends use is called Gnutella. good luck getting music for free, i'll still be using vinyl, -Kabloona
This is a popular and simple minded argument pushed by the napster mob. The truth is that the record company's CD and cassette producing businesses do not exist in some sort of vacuum. The operating costs overlap. Market forces make it easier for them to recover most of those costs on CD sales. Cassette selling is not in itself a viablae business proposition. It is only viable in that the marginal expense of adding it to a CD business is worthwhile.
Unfair treatment of artists. Most musicians that are signed to record labels make pennies on each recording they sell. Doesn't it irritate you that when you spend $14.99 for a CD (or however much it costs in your local currency), that typically 1-5% of that is actually going to the artist you are listening to, while the remainder lines the pockets of corporate executives?
This is an outright lie. The artists probably get more than 1-5%. But the biggest lie is about the rest being "collected by executives". While this line may sound cool to the corporate conspiracy theorists, the truth is that most of the money goes on middlemen and taxes. Markup goes up exponentially with the number of middle men.
Although these services are used for piracy (which we do not condone) they also can be and are used for legitimate purposes
I thought the whole point of these services was piracy ! The napster mob certainly seem very pro-piracy. Napster is a glorified warez site, and the fact that the warez may be downloaded by people who own the software doesn't make it all OK.
Unfoprtunately, this site hasn't provided me with any reason to boycott the RIAA. It's merely convinced me that the boycott-the-RIAA people are the same simple minded, lying greedy f*cks as the napster mob.
And the RIAA was so close too.
HAHA!
Disclaimer: Sarcasm was used in the creation of this comment.
Now, I've never actually bought a CD or cassette (either gifts or not at all) and I listen to mostly the free stuff on MP3.com..
The way they put it makes it sound like having a CD (or whatever medium is popular for music) is a neccessity and that the RIAA is our nipple at which we suckle. I dont think so.
You don't _need_ a CD... you _want_ the music. But if you don't care for the distributor of the information; DONT BUY IT. geez. simple concept eh? I know you guys need your backstreet boys or whatever, but come on...
Every day the RIAA loses $15 because every day I refuse to buy a CD... wtf?
Thats like saying the software industry looses $x every day because you use software without paying a continuing roality (oops.. don't wanna give Microsoft any ideas here... but they may be doing THIS anyway, so...)
Its also like saying Slashdot is losing posts every day because some people don't visit here. hrmm.. if they don't visit..
ack.. get stuffed...
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
The UK broadsheet, The Guardian has as reasonable and balanced an editorial on the Napster Pirates / Crappy Record Industry, as a person could hope to find: here.
Reuters
CBC
Wired News
MSNBC
CNN
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www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
Maybe I'm just an eeeeevil commie bastard, but doesn't it seem rather odd to anybody that people are saying things like "napster is dead" even though any platform worth using has an unofficial napster client that'll connect you to an opennap server once you get an address & stuff from napigator.com (IIRC)?
I'm just wondering how the fuck we survived without Napster back in the 60's and 70's. Some great music back then, and we never seemed to have a problem finding an opportunity to hear it. Whatever.
"He who cannot come up with his own identity, but has to leach off of others isn't worth the spit it takes to say these words" Vladinator, an original.
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
The Motion to the Ninth Circuit, which resulted in the stay, is available here, in .pdf. Makes for a very interesting read.
The MSNBC story is here.
It says in there how some Napster users are using Scour instead.
I've always been partial to finding MP3s with Altavista myself.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Sounds pretty good, until you realize that $1 million is a drop in the bucket to the recording industry. I don't know what their revenues are off-hand, but I will say that I work for a large corp. (somewhere around #150 on the Fortune 500, I think), and we don't even blink at the gain or loss of $1 million.
The boycott has a long way to go if it wants to have an impact on the recording industry.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
I can't help feeling that being on either side is right. The side we should be on is the artists' and not napster or the RIAA. In my eyes, they are both (at least partially) thieves. Think past all of the "they are taking my freedom" bs and think about what napster is REALLY used for and then choose a side.
I might as well get this thing on again while the comment count is still low. It's basicially a message post poll.
Would anyone here pay $5 a month to use napster if that allowed you to download any and as many songs as you want as well as letting you share and and as many songs as you like?
The way I see it, the RIAA says that they lost 300 million dollars between now and this decenber. based on 20 million napster users and 7 months, if every napster user paid $2.50 a month, the 300 million would have been paid off by now.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Because *I* want to participate without idiot trolls like you harrasing me. This is why I screw with the trolls in the troll sids - you are a bunch of immature loosers of the first water. Here's a quarter - go buy a life.
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
The one page stay order said that questions about the ruling were raised, and Napster had until aug 18 to file a detailed brief explaining why the order should be stayed. So you now have 3 weeks to download. A little more detail is available in the ZDNN article.
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I just recieved my MPTRIP - Cool! Just threw in a MP3 cd and pressed play.. 14 HOURS OF MUSICAL GOODNESS- Now I could rip all my CD's, but its much easier to download them..
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
Suppose we were to celebrate by only using Napster to download songs whose owners intend for them to be spread without charge?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I don't understand why the court granted this stay.
Napster claims that the injunction would have put them out of business. The injunction did not state that Napster had to shut down, merely that it had to stop helping people copy copyrighted music.
Further, the court asked RIAA to post a 5 million dollar bond to cover any losses suffered by Napster as a result of the injunction if Napster ended up winning the case. How likely is it that temporarily shutting Napster down would cost the company more than 5 million dollars?
What reason did the court have for staying this injunction?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Put mp3 support in the kernel along with http and even xf86! Then we can compete with windows!
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Why when one is respected for their works that their opinions are then held on a pedistal above those without that respect. In my business my intellectual labors are owned by my employers. They choose how much I deserve for that work. Why in the fight for intellectual rights is their discrimination between those who create works of "art" and those who create usefull applications that actually help further the human race. This discrimination is a disease in society that should be eraticated. Who has a more noble purpose, a music writer who's inspiration to write music is fame and money, or a software writer who's inspiration to write software is to create something of worth that others can use and appreiciate the sacrifice they have made. My reward is not my modest salary, compared to others in who create intellectual property, but the satisfaction of creating something I am proud of.
Just because Napster's off the hook for now, doesn't mean we need to back off of this. RIAA (and their member companies) need to come to the understanding that they rely on the consumers to exist- and we're no longer happy with what they're offering as a value proposition. The only way to do this is by way of their pocketbooks.
Spread the word about the boycott.
Spread the word about the reasons for the same.
This is why I screw with the trolls in the troll sids.
Okay, this has got to be Shoeboy. Ha, ha. You made your point. Now can you kindly slither back from whence you came?
Neuracnu Coyote presents:
The RIAA vs Napster: A Diologue
aka: Monty Python and the Holy Internet Startup ---
[SupremeCourt] Bring out your copyright infringers!
[SupremeCourt] Bring out your copyright infringers!
[SupremeCourt] Bring out your copyright infringers!
[RIAA] Here's one.
[SupremeCourt] $2500 in court costs for the injunction.
[RIAA] Here you are.
[Napster] It's not illegal!
[SupremeCourt]
[SupremeCourt] What?
[RIAA] Nothing, here's your $2500.
[Napster] It's not illegal!
[SupremeCourt] Here now - he says it isn't illegal!
[RIAA] Yes it is!
[Napster] It's not!
[RIAA] Well, it will be soon. Our lobbyists are working on it.
[Napster] Stealing music is freedom of information!
[RIAA] No it's not. It'll be illegal any moment.
[Napster] I don't want to file Chapter 11!
[RIAA] Oh, don't be such a baby.
[SupremeCourt] I'm sorry, that's an impropper injunction. Here, little Internet Startup, have a stay against that injunction.
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How will it continue? You decide! Get involved, send emails, sign petitons, write your congressmen, boycott the RIAA. Do something!
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Here are a couple of quotes:
Napster went too far. A wildly popular software application and Web community for its millions of users, the company took already-existing Internet protocols (FTP, gopher and HTTP), added a nice Web interface and marketed itself as the best place to "share" music.
The judge was fast to point out that if these uses were so substantial, then it should not harm the company's bottom line to prohibit the infringing uses, but save the noninfringing uses. And, if the company cannot find a technological solution that allows it to separate its legal uses from its illegal uses, then maybe "the 19-year-old who was clever enough to invent the program" is not so clever after all.
That is the moral of the latest chapter in the Napster story. A company that is smart enough to write an application that is used by 20 million people should be smart enough to find a way for that application to conform to the law. And if the company does not think that conforming to the law is important, then maybe it is not smart enough to succeed.
I think up until here recently, most of us probably thought that we were pirating music when we gave a copy to a friend. Now, thanks to RIAA's publicity, we know that isn't the case. And the law could very well be interpreted to say that an online distro method like Napster is legal, too.
Okay. In a way, I consider this a license to steal. But for once, I thank congress. Let's hope Napster prevails!
Napster is not out of the water yet. Just because the Court of Appeals gave them a reprieve doesn't mean that Napster still can't get shut down by the RIAA. I could get into the philosophical reasons why Napster shouldn't be shut down, but a lof of you know them already.
I've already heard the standard cries of "I'm gonna burn my Metallica CDs!" and "I'm gonna send a flaming e-mail to Hilary Rosen!," but c'mon, what effect will that have? So what if you burn your Metallica CDs, you already bought them, right? And so what if you flame Hilary Rosen? You're just giving them ammo to use against you ("Look at this Napster user, see their blatant disregard for us?!?"). That is why I suggest that the planned boycott for the RIAA should go on. If you're going to send a message to the RIAA about how you feel about Napster, hit them where it matters most: their wallets.
And yes, I realize that this may give the RIAA more reason to cry "They're downloading music from Napster, so now I can't afford my new Lexus!" and the such. But then again, they're going to latch onto whatever they can squeeze sympathy for their side out of.
And if this doesn't make the RIAA listen up, I don't know what will.
Further reading:
www.boycott-riaa.com
www.riaaboycott.org
Napster Buycott (that's not a typo :))
RIAA Member List (for the boycotting, duh!)
RIAA Contact List (let your voice be heard!)
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The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Napster winning a stay on the injunction does nothing aside from free up a couple of songs from being remotely queued. Oh, and allowing us to use it a little longer. ;)
Seriously, though, the only way anything will come of this is if we can assist the technically and legally challenged to understand that certain things have changed in the past couple years. When the injunction was announced I saw a myriad of brilliant ideas promoting thinking, acting, & changing. A bunch of geeks giddy over the stay isn't going to change a blasted thing. We still need to do something.
Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Napster's still running...I just don't think that now is the time to slip into complacency.
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Let's see. The "roblimo" sid hack last week demonstrated how simple it is to spoof user numbers. And now you expect the Slashdot community to be impressed with -- excuse me -- #29473? Come on, whoever you are, this is ridiculous. Again I say: if you don't want to play nice and participate in the discussion, why are you here?
Link
The story has been confirmed in a number of places and has hit the wires, including here.
Napster's fan have called for boycotts of Napster. Napster has called for a "buy-cott".Potentially, these could cancel out, resulting in a failure of both proposals. Is there anything we can do to prevent this?
Here in Holland, a DJ from the National Radio (and that's big btw) is supporting Napster, and has posted alternatives on his web-site.
Napster support is coming through the most ackward channels.
Bizar technology?
I'm listening to the audio broadcast of CNBC's market report on the way home tonight and they started talking about napster's stay of execution... this dumb ass Stock & Blond's bimbo comes on and then gives an update of how the MP3 related stocks are doing today and I quote "MP3.com, who's technology is behind Napster was unchanged." Please shoot me now.
when they ban enctryption only criminals wi$21*J *#JF$%!@#$':
Appeals court grants Napster reprieve
Federal Judge Allows Napster To Continue Music Trading
Court grants stay of Napster injunction
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"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
So Napster has been shut down. This is a good time to rant a bit about it. We all know it used to be the easiest way to download pop music. Some see it as stealing, a loss of money for the artists and recording companies, and users are called pirates. Since I've been thinking about these things for some time now, I'll publish my opinions, hopefully it will make others think and reconsider.
Napster is a leech, the company created a program to exchange music, and the most popular kind of music is the mainstream pop music. Since it's so easy to do, a lot of people used it, getting their favorite music for free. However, there's some benefit for others, too. Independent artists could use it to distribute their own music to a broader audience. The record labels probably made additional money on sales of music that people discovered by chance on the net. A lot of artists must have made new fans because of the free availability of their music. Of course, the Napster company is just a corporation, their only real goal being to make a profit. So while their system has had several good side effects, they're not the good guys, just another business. There are no real ethics for corporations, only the bottom line counts, so they are neither better nor worse than the RIA. They were just "better" for their users.
Yet the free exchange of music, or any copyrighted material, has nothing to do with Napster. There's a lot of other possibilities, and since Napster was just another company, it's actually good that they were shut down. Now their users will move on to other services, most notably Gnutella, and the file exchange will be promoted even more. The end of Napster is the beginning of other similar systems, without the disadvantage of a central corporation and centralized servers, so there won't be any way of destroying them by stopping any one party. Napster was merely a first step, the introduction to the future, and now the real stuff will commence.
As a producer of intellectual property, I want to express my opinion on copyright and piracy, honestly and frankly. Claiming that Napster's main use was to spread indy artist music is a lie, but the same applies to claiming its users were pirates, both are merely propaganda claims. Pirates are assaulters who murder and rape people on the sea, not people who copy some files, calling the latter "pirates" is blowing things out of proportion. It's not even stealing, theft means taking something away from somebody else, but by making a copy the original isn't taken away from anyone. One could say you take away the profit of the ones who try to sell it if you distribute a copy for free, but even that isn't really right, most wouldn't buy it anyway. If you really appreciate something, and want to pay for it to show your appreciation, then you'd buy it from the creator. Unless the creator (or their distributor) demands too much. Let's face it, you can get almost anything on the net for free, but songs/movies/games are still getting paid for. And if you don't like something, why would you actually get and keep it, that's not necessary. So my point is that as long as the price is reasonable, those who appreciate the product will pay for it, and those who don't care won't get it anyway. There's no loss of profit. As an example, I'd always get an original version of my favorite song/movie/game to thank the creator, no matter how easy it is to get a free copy. Even if copy and original are identical.
If you look around my website, you can see a lot of intellectual property that I created all by myself, and thus own. I am all for copyright. The only person to profit from your creation should be yourself. But once you gained the profit, the copy should be owned by the buyer, no matter if it's real or intellectual property. The difference is that intellectual property can be copied without degradation, any digital copy will always be identical to the original, it's impossible to distinguish them from each other. So the solution is to change copyright laws, they should only apply to how others can distribute your product for commercial gain, but not non-profit distribution among individuals. They should never apply to personal usage or modification. So when you buy something, it's yours to keep and use any way you want to, as long as you don't make a profit off of it by distributing copies and competing with the original. Also, copyrights should expire a lot faster, so the intellectual property becomes part of the public domain in a more reasonable period of time.
Right now, the movie contained on a DVD you bought won't become public domain before the DVD medium itself will have "died of old age", and the corporate producer of such a DVD tries to make sure it can't be accessed in any other way. Sure, there's DeCSS to decrypt the encrypted contents from the disk to your harddisk, but even that is considered of similar legality as Napster. The thing is, don't think about now, think about the future. If things don't change, all cultural things (music, movies, games) will be access-restricted and copy-controlled, so you buy a license to access and use the contents in a limited way instead of full control by really owning the copy. We'd lose our cultural heritage, popular culture and the past would be controlled by the few companies who hold the copyright, and there's no intellectual property we could actually use freely. The creators have a right to make a profit, but we as consumers must make sure our right of fair use remains, too. Once you have paid for something, you should be the owner of that thing, and be able to use and modify it freely. Of course, you shouldn't be able to compete with the creator by selling copies of your own copy, so that's the balance our laws have to reach to benefit both producers and consumers. And, we're on both sides, after all.
Being a creator of intellectual property, I put my copyright notice on most of my stuff, and it's still implied if I don't. That applies to this message, too, I wrote it so I'm the only one who owns it. You can't legally make a copy and claim it's yours. You can't even make a derivative work and distribute it as your own. But of course nothing can prevent you from copying it, modifying it, keeping it. Or sending it to other individuals. I couldn't control that, and there's no reason I should have to, so as long as you don't make a profit off of it you're free to use it any way you want to. After some time, enough time for me to profit off of it, it should become public domain. Personally I believe that public domain works should keep credits to the original authors, so you can't claim authorship of a literal copy, although you own it as does anyone else. The most important thing is that it becomes free, unrestricted, liberated.
Most if not all creation consists of a collection of other works. As a popular example, Star Wars is based on a lot of different stories and legends, all public domain. So while it's a derivative work of public domain stuff, others can't use it as a base for their own works, for a very long time. If the respective laws keep progressing at the current pace, we're talking about centuries here, not just years. That's too long, not reasonable for any person, and only useful to maintain ownership by corporations. In my opinion, that's totally wrong, companies should never take precedence over people. Society comes first. Our culture must be preserved. It shouldn't be owned and controlled by soulless entities.
So, to sum up my essay, here's a simple sentence to explain what has to be done to ensure our cultural heritage and freedom: "Copyright should only control distribution for a profit - not any non-profit access/modification/usage!" -- Eavy, Saturday, 29. July 2000
-- Eavy (: Linux Is Not UniX
No, it costs the record industry about $333,333, the wholesale/shipping industry $333,333 and the retail business $333,333. Anyway, the web users probably buy via Amazon, etc at a discount to that figure.
And for the record, I buy all my CDs at about ¥2300 or so, and don't even MP3 from the rental store at ¥150 a night.
There are numerous messages over on the chat board at the Gnutella website that indicates that others are having the same problem.
I always thought that something was likely to happen bad to gnutella, seeing how it loaded the network so heavily with only 3000 clients at a time - the most I ever saw was maybe 5000. Napster had a total of 23 million users (not all of whom were logged in at any given time).
Has the gnutellanet gotten broken into islands? Is there a failure in the protocol?
I don't believe there really could only be a few users because there is a message on the Gnutella site that says they had to install a new server and buy more bandwidth to handle all the hits and client downloads they are getting.
Maybe decentralized peer-to-peer isn't all that it's cracked up to be - or at least the kinks aren't worked out of it yet.
Ah, I see this message posted on the development board:
-- Could you use my software consulting serv