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The Heavenly Jukebox, From Hell
davecb linked us to a story at The Atlantic about the whole Napster, DeCSS, RIAA blah blah blah thats been all the rage with the kids these days. Talks about how this case is bigger then just Napster: its results will affect the future of democracy. It's a really well written piece that you definitely should read if you're following this stuff.
What do you mean? They have perfect control over what gets out - they just don't play what they don't want to get out to anyone with a recording instrument.
Once they play in a public venue, or burn millions of CDs & distribute them worldwide - well, they chose to let that performance OUT.
No matter how much you think it is, society doesn't exist to be "fair". People *are* liable for the effects of products they create even if it is not strictly their fault. Software is a loaded example because that goes straight to the free speech issue. Remember, society is a shared host that *grants* people privelages. It's not a free ride for people to abandon all conscience. That's why we have laws on the porno industry. Is *that* "fair"? Free speech right? We have laws on tobacco. Is *that* "fair"? Is it their fault if idiots smoke and then are surprised they have cancer (well, besides the fact that someone might believe them when they lie and say it is safe)? There are laws regarding safe toys. Is *that* fair? After all, people should not buy products that are unsafe, right?
The answer is that "fairness" is the wrong question. The question is not whether it is fair, but whether it has a bad or good effect on society. We have all sorts of "unfair" sin taxes, but that's the price of the privelages the society grants you.
That said, YES I think a lot of the control on things like software is just downright stupid and brainless. But there is a reason we have such tendencies to "unfairness".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Dunno how involved you are on this level, but I've made upwards of $400 on mp3.com, where most of 'my competition' struggles to make $40 or $4, and I've told people how to do that and now some of the people I've told make more than me. I would love to think that people would do it your way but I am obliged to share the information of how to really do it with slashdotters, as I've seen other slashdotten musicians :)
First, go to mp3.com/chrisj and download all of my music a lot and buy all my CDs *g* just kidding! *ducks flung boots and stuff* Seriously, I mean, please do, but that was a joke. The real point is simply this:
Free stuff beats restricted stuff for mindshare.
It's that simple. I made all my stuff available free. I know a lot of people who used to, or still are, putting up only 'sample tracks' and making full CDs available with lots more stuff. A lot of those people got trapped by their own tightfistedness- they behaved as if they did such wonderful stuff that people would _have_ to buy their CD, would be _forced_ to do business. Unfortunately mp3.com is like a microcosm of internet commerce in that there are a LOT of bands there, and every time, the listeners would listen to those few tunes, get bored and go somewhere else, to some page that had LOTS of tunes! for free! The top money-spinners of mp3.com ended up being various more or less mainstream-type artists who didn't need to force money out of people (for instance, 'Bassic') and who made very large amounts of music available free.
That's the dynamic, and there's no escaping it. This is how Microsoft killed Netscape. This is how any number of internet musicians will kill the ones who insist on full prepayment. You just click a link or search and bam, you've got 40 different bands and musicians who are just as good and who aren't insisting on any sort of payment at all. Some (such as myself) are happily getting a cut of the ad banner revenue or something- some might just be distributing freely because they want to be heard, and want the freedom to pursue their art with NO compromises whatsoever. That's a good motivation- another motivation might come from recognising this dynamic and realising, damn, the way to get enough mindshare to be _able_ to be paid at all for good work is to begin giving the work away and just don't stop- keep doing it and doing it, and count on eventually selling things like 'convenience CDs' (as I've done repeatedly, even though I supply not only mp3s for burning CDs from but even literally the cover art to print out and use for your privately burned CD- not a joke, go see for yourself) or posters or special vinyl releases or special CD mixes- any or all of those things. Tchochkes. If you can be heard you can find a niche- people manage to find niches even by playing with tacky PC software to layer pre-made trance loops. Even this can sell CDs- given a bit of mindshare- but you can't tell people 'I ought to be able to do something great, give me money and I'll do something awesome!'. This can't compete with unrestricted free stuff...
For the record, I think space-shifting and my.mp3.com is totally valid and fair use.
Some people also use it to obtain copies of music that they would otherwise have bought on CD.
And it is my contention that how they obtain this music should be determined by the artist. For instance the artist could set up a website with that new street corner performer service where people chuck some money in their pot.
I'm not sure if that is legal. Orrin Hatch asked if it would be legal to burn a copy for his wife in the Future of Digital Music hearing. Lending is different from copying because only one person has it. When you copy it then it's up to the copyright hold to determine whether or not you should be able to. If artists were in control they could simply say something like "Yeah, you can let a maximum of 5 friends copy it". That would solve the whole Napster problem without making artists look like assholes. I mean, really, if you are giving it to more than @5 people I think that's sort of crossing the line.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I usually limit myself to two connections on a dial-up, although it can sometimes still take some time to get those two. Even the gnet[2..5].ath.cx servers sometimes get backlogged and won't connect me. Fewer connections also often mean longer, less efficient searches.
For more information, click here.
If Napster is not currently doing anything illegal, it is at the very least doing something very morally questionable and shady, and if anything at least shouldn't be supported as vocally as a lot of us do. If anything it is standing idly by while it figures out how it can make money of this (but not currently making money from it doesn't make it good). See my other posts, including:2 21&cid=215
5 1221&cid=44
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/08/18/1351
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=00/08/18/13
I think we all have a libertarian streak through us, but I for one don't oppose (sensible) gun control. Libertarianism is fine and good but taken to extremes it is just plain irresponsible.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Napster represents a fundamental shift in our economic system that has been in the making for many years.
Our economic system is bassed on scarcity. Basically, as long as there is not an unlimited supply of something, it has value. This works very well for physical objects like pork bellies and RAM chips. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this system falls apart in the virtual world. There is no scarcity... there is an unlimited supply, so the laws of supply and demand don't apply.
The RIAA (and MPAA, and SPA) are trying to apply real world economics to the virtual world, and this round peg won't fit in the square hole, no matter how hard they hammer.
Any economists out there?
Reality has a liberal bias
My point was that Metallica gave up almost all control over what I do with my copy of the CD once I've bought it.
Somewhere there's a line between wrong (making copies and selling them) and right (making an archival copy), with a whole 16-bit gray scale that includes:
making a copy for the car;
making a copy for my wife's car (thanks, Orrin);
giving the copy I had in my car to a friend;
making a copy for a friend;
making copies for 20 friends and
making copies for 20 million friends.
Maybe we need to ask the Brunching Shuttlecocks to do a Good or Bad poll to find the line.
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E_NOSIG
Right now I don't even think the issue is the right of music fans to music. I'm sure every artists on earth is *gladly* trying to get people to listen to their music. The issue is control and power. Right now Napster is just acting as a digital surrogate of the record company middlemen controlling distribution. It's just a horizontal shift in power - the artists haven't gained anything. Digital media should be empowering artists. Before record companies had all the power. Now Napster, and the fans have a lot of power. My point is that we should realize that while this free ride is great, that it is our *responsibility* to give some of that power back to the artists to which it belongs. Sure, fans have some sort of say, I think, and at least some conceptual level of "ownership", but right now where hogging all the power because free stuff is cool. Give the power back to the artists, not Napster, not the record companies.
(see my other posts)
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
And what if the RIAA members (who control both the price of their products and a large fraction of the overall supply) decide to raise the prices on CDs and/or sell SDMI music cheap? Do you really think Joe Average isn't going to sell his Fair Use rights to get Britney's new album for $10 less?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Honestly, the record industry already does just this, and much more- they've managed to seize the intellectual property of most of the artists forever (see the copyright reversion stuff tacked onto the Home Satellite act) and have destroyed the artists' ability to get out of ungodly horrible contracts even when the artists are literally bankrupted. That's 'losing all their money' not simply 'not earning lots of money'- that's 'taking the songs, the performances, the mechanicals and all the intellectual property and also taking all the money away from the artist and leaving them bankrupt and, as Courtney Love astutely pointed out, with no credit'.
Seeing as they already behave even worse than you suggest and Slashdot people are mostly oblivious, why would there be an uproar in support of artists if the record companies formalised this and stated outright what they already do anyhow? Slashdotters don't necessarily care all that much about artists, why should they? Let artists care about artists. Artists may not care as much about DeCSS and that's where slashdotters might find themselves more directly involved.
Personally, as an artist, I'm just happy a bunch of people are fans of a digital file format that I can distribute music with. Some slashdotters have really dug my music, some were like 'what?' and some made fun of me because I'm not Metallica :) go figure! At least there's somebody coding the formats I get to use as a 'content producer' ;) I still can't wait to see Ogg Vorbis eventually get to the Mac where I can make use of it, I'm _ready_ for that stuff...
And what did they say about Warp? Did they say it was a very nice system, or did they say it was going to take the world by storm?
They said very nice things about Warp (you should look up the article), they made me want to try it, but it tanked. The Atlantic has a bad track record writing about technology.
It's just the predictions, and perhaps advice to switch, that was wrong.
If you can't see that distinction, then you're probably one of those people who judges things by their popularity rather than their merits. I bet you're wearing designer pants, Nike shoes, eat at McDonalds, listen to Britney
Spears/Limp Bizkit, and use IIS for your web server.
Reread what I said, I said it was the kiss of death.
I'm wearing Levi's (made by hard working American's), Bass shoes (made by hard working Americans), rarely eat at McDonald's, preferring to patronize my locally owned and established restaurants, don't listen to Britney Spears (rather, that American band from with RMS stole his ideas on free software and his dress code, the Grateful Dead) and use Linux or FreeBSD for my web server, plus whatever xoom uses.
...and big movie studios will make money by providing makeup services to actors and a typing pool for script writiers.
Recording companies can't survive on the thin revenues of services to musicians. Of course the people who work in the studios and set up lighting at concerts will still be able to make a living doing what they know. A few might even acquire the names of the big record labels they work for now. That can't be described by any stretch of the imagination as record companies doing okay.
But they shouldn't exploit artists as if they were strawberry pickers.
Now we're drifting off topic, but I find this funny. Musicians are artists as in "starving artist", as in someone who works in a field that most people don't consider work and many participate in for free (a bit like trying to make a living as a male prostitute who only hires out to attractive women; too many others are willing to do it for free for it to be considered a reasonable business). I could take a walk around town today and find a dozen musicians with as much ability as the the ones I hear on the radio. The labels create their massive commercial value with large investments, it's totally artificial.
The ones who aren't being "exploited" usually aren't even making a living.
I have a lot more sympathy for an honest strawberry picker, getting a wage for a physically taxing job they'd rather not do, than for musicians, who chose their career because it is the thing they most enjoy doing, but they expect to get paid for it anyway.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
I would like to see a world in which artists have the freedom to decide how to create, distribute (up to the point it leaves their hands), and promote their music. I would like to see a world in which artists use the *services* of the recording industry (equipment, advertising), but are still in control. And I would like to see a world in which there are mechanisms for honest people to compensate artists for the work they create. Where artists put music on their *own* servers and attract people themselves.
I don't see Napster promoting this world. As far as I know Napster has no compensation mechanisms, or even promotes it. At best Napster is standing idly by, playing off the all to easily supported image of being a saint, while it figures out how it can make money of this.
Just because Napster uses nifty technology we like doesn't mean it's the Right Thing. In a world where information is infinately copyable, one must rely on fostering the goodwill of consumers and fans towards the content providers, and providing convenient mechanism for compensation. I don't think Napster does this. Napster just seems to me a feeding frenzy for people who want a free ride. It takes control away from artists who want to participate and have control over the way they give or sell their music.
To copy a line from Nader who copied it from Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power". Napster undermines artists' power. And while we consumers looking for free rides love the "power" we are given, it is our *responsibility* to give a fair share back to the creators of the content.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Excellent information. If the moderation system was half-sane I'd mod you up now. I wonder if they considered a hard drive a "digital audio recording device"? Anyway, it doesn't cause me any grief knowing the recording industry is not getting money it feels it "deserves". I just care about the artists.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is an interesting statement quoted from the article said to Lars in regards to Metallica wanting to control their music. A lot will be made of this statement and I must reiterate my consistent point on Napster et.al., I haven't a clue as to who is right or who is wrong.
Artists should be justly compensated for their work but they aren't being justly compensated right now by the record labels. A new paradigm for the music industry needs to be created.
The philosophical question this raises isn't new, but is a twist on an old favorite. Is music considered music if no one hears it?
I believe the statement, "Fuck you, Lars. It's our music too!" was not saying Metallica doesn't have a right to control their music but was saying that without the people who listen to their music, Metallica wouldn't exist.
This does not give anyone the right to deny them compensation for their music. What it does do is establish the fact that the fans, the people who make or break musicians, want a shift in how the music economy works.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
In other words, you may have Metallica on one hand and Limp Bizkit on the other. Imagine Limp Bizkit pulling a sort of 'IE destroying Netscape's business' by making all their stuff free, and hyping that a lot so it's everywhere. To what extent would this hurt Metallica, who will be trying to produce the expectation that you always pay for music? What if _lots_ of internet musicians and bankrupt major label refugees (including the big names of the last 30-40 years in pop music) began to pursue this strategy of keeping the same day job they had to have all along, and recording the music they especially liked, releasing it for free?
I think there comes a point where the amount of artist-driven free material will start to seriously impact the ability of a Metallica to create the expectation that music is something you meter and sell and restrict. That's not to say people won't go to a concert or buy a CD, but the business model of 'all the fans HAVE TO buy the CD' will die. And the consumer will feel no responsibility to pay the artist- when you read a book from the library, do you pay the author?
If there is any artist's power, it is in the rabid fans- the fanatics. In the early sixties they were cutting up _bedsheets_ that the Beatles had slept on, and selling them- how would free access to recordings diminish this sort of frenzy? You look to the heavy users, the fanatics, if you want to do business and earn money, because those are the people who think what you do is WORTH something. The uninterested consumer's natural degree of commitment only goes as far as sparing a bit of attention, and if you think you can squeeze money out of them you're conning yourself...
Yes, short of copyright law, Metallica doesn't and shouldn't have control over what you do with the music you buy after you buy it. However, not only does Metallica give up that control, but, unless Lars handed you the CD himself, Metallica has *already* given up control by allowing record companies to distribute their music. That CD has filtered through a lot of middlemen before it ended up on the shelves for $17.49. This control, control of what happens *before* it leaves their hands, should not have to be given up. And Napster is no better. It undermines control of how Metallica represents and distributes its music before it reaches your hands. At best, power is shifting slightly from the record companies to Napster...and now they are in talks for joint efforts. So no real power is being granted to the artist by Napster. That should be on our conscience, and we should do the right thing by giving artists that control back.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Actually, no, a hard drive is not considered a "digital audio recording device for royalty purposes" The computer industry wanted no part of this scheme, so they were not included in the law.
Interestingly, in reversing the injunction against Napster, the appeals court rejected the theory that because hard drives are not taxed, the AHRA does not protect activities using hard drives. The appeals court said that Congress clearly intended to exempt all non-commercial copying, not just copying on 1201-taxed media and equipment. If you read the law, you'll find that only certain digital equipment is subject to the royalty tax, but the exemption from infringement applies both to analog and digital recorders and media.
If you want to read the entire law, do a web search on the "Audio Home Recording Act." It's worth the read and critical if you want to understand what is going on with Napster's defense.
The injunction reversal is very enlightening reading also. There is a complete media blackout of the actual content of the reversal, probably because the appeals court basically told the judge that she was completely wrong, and that the law is completely on Napster's side. You have to read it yourself. It isn't part of the media coverage.
just like the DAT TAX, I'll betcha pretty soon everyone with an internet connection will be charged a special fee, just like anyone with a phone pays the Gore Tax to pay off the phone companies for all the local calls which go on for hours - the ISP tax will go toward placating the RIAA, MPAA, and anybody else who can scream bloody murder the loudest over Inet media and lines up for a piece of the action. It's the perfect solution, a no brainer - it's quick, easy to institute, and assumes everybody is guilty of making illegal copies. Of course the people who do respect copyrights will get shafted, but that's their punishment for being honest in the first place. :))
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The last part of the article talked about ways of making file trading more difficult on the internet, via laws and such - legal methods to allow cops to police the net, and seize user's machines who were caught trading. A point was made that geeks in SV don't see the govt as a threat because they have never seen the govt get serious.
Maybe not...
But I'll tell you somthing - the day the net becomes this "un-free", is the day I work with every friend and neighbor I can to setup a neighborhood freenet using laser interconnects. I encourage everyone to give this thought, and learn how to do it yourself - there are many links and sites detailing this - heck, many HAM clubs and operators are doing it as well. Look up the terms "lasercomm", "laser comms", "laser communications". Read about the history of it. Buy the Forest Mimms books at Radio Shack that detail how to do it (to a limited degree). Get those interconnects set up, link to the net where you have to (via DSL, cable or whatnot), add radio links as well (2.4 GHz is currently unlicensed - mod an X-10 camera transceiver system - or an AirLink, whatever - add a Yagi - bammo!) for redundancy.
Then get your guns - because it may come down to that...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Sorry, this is old news. It may be that the RIAA is having great success in taking away Orrin Hatch's right to legally burn a CD for his wife as fair use, but he had that right. Let's not be confused on that point- our government people went to a lot of trouble to arrange that we had a reasonable amount of fair use, and the laws are on the books. The fact that the RIAA is trying to overturn all this doesn't change the fact that fair use is the law, and it was put there on purpose, to allow people to do just these things.
Also, so far, the mp3.com contract does require both parties to consent to any changes that might be imposed in future. This is incredibly important as most major label contracts, and a lot of sleazy 'fake-indie' mp3-site contracts, give the label unrestricted freedom to unilaterally change the terms after you've agreed to them- check out farmclub.com's agreement for a particularly nasty example that forbids you to _imply_ they _endorse_ you in any way, on top of everything else :)
This is the new millenium, man- don't _ever_ sign a contract that's like you say. Don't _ever_ sign away all your rights and IP. You need to remain free to move as these issues develop :)
Easy.
Library. I take out Book A. You come in, but find that Book A is currently unavailable until I return it. You cannot read Book A while I read Book A. There is only one copy of Book A from the library at any given time. (There may be other copies, but the library only has one, and cannot easily create another.)
Napster. I download Song A. You download Song A. We both listen to it at the same time. While listening to it, someone else downloads it again. There are now four copies (the original, my copy, your copy, and the random other person). Anyone can create a copy, and there is no reason to destroy the copy once you have it.
The difference can be summed up quite simply: Napster makes copies. Libraries don't. And that's really all this trouble comes from.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I think that the record companies will do fine,
Why would you think that? They have nothing of value to sell. They are simply acquisition-promotion-litigation engines which purchase IP at a low price, and pump the demand for it to sell access for a high price.
It won't work when the the most convenient delivery system is controlled by end-user choice rather than 3rd-party payments. Their only value to the musicians is that they can get the musicians' music into the ears of the paying public, which would be almost impossible otherwise. When, instead of a dozen radio stations, there are a million playlists to choose from, the listeners won't choose those on which a spot can be bought with bribes, and the record companies will no longer have the ear of the listening public. Musicians will start to do fine without signing on with a label, and then it will all be over.
They will "do fine" in the new information media, about as well as the currency traders would "do fine" if everyone went back to the gold standard.
They are dying, with no hope of survival. Their existence no longer makes sense, so we can't expect their actions to make sense. They will continue to thrash around wildly until they run out of money.
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Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
The first time Slashdot linked to 'em, I ended up spending _hours_ there reading article after article. They are _great_ articles, terrific journalism done with style and intelligence. At this point I would be much more likely to click on a link and read an article if I knew it was Atlantic Monthly, that's how favorably they impressed me. I strongly recommend going there and reading all the articles you can find :)
I'm pretty sure this doesn't apply here. Napster is not a common carrier. Whoever sells them their bandwidth is a common carrier.
The service that Napster provides is very different. They arrange connections between people who want to distribute music files, most of which are probably illegal for them to distribute. They charge a fee for the service of assisting in the commission of what is - with very high probability - a crime. This can be construed as criminal behavior.
This is why Napster is terrible for the cause of intellectual freedom and fair use. It's hard to shout "I didn't do anything" while you're driving the getaway car, even if it's the guys with the guns who deserve most of the blame.
The only shift napster represents is the possibility of piracy en masse. It is not as if Napster solved some nagging problem of distribution or manufacturing. The fact is that the cost structure of other digital/online methods was just as good, and maybe even better, than napster long before napster came out. Furthermore, it is hard to even make the argument for the advent of digital/online distribution itself. The very notion of intellectual property is itself testament to the fact that physical rarity is NOT the issue. Nor is it as if even the record industry has been focused around these physical costs, because they've never been that much of a component. We're talking about 1 to 2 dollars of a 15+ dollar sale.
The real costs are in promotions, marketing, and productions. Napster does absolutely nothing to address these concerns. They remain an issue for the artist. The fact is, fair or unfair, the vast majority of artists still choose to sign with these labels because they still need the functions of promotion, not because someone is holding a gun to their head. Napster has done absolutely zilche in the long run, other than feed a certain part of society's immediate desires, which ultimately may have a secondary effect on the long term outlook of the industry.
This is really a seperate argument and it has little to do with production costs. IP has from the beginning been held by force of government. It is not as if napster or digital media has suddenly changed this.The only new question here is the extent of the means and the means which government should take to enforce it. This question is not obvious though and really comes down to a bunch of judgement calls.
Perhaps I'm not quite the optimist you are, but I do not see the realization of nanotechnology (to any extent) as resulting in the complete liberation of man. Sure, you lay it out as a hypothetical situation, but I question the very premise which you base it off of. Your production costs may be nil (and more likely only nil on certain tasks), but you still need brains. That means humans pushing paper. Engineers. Businessmen, etc. So long as there is a need for man, there will be a need for money, which really means a need for capitalism. It is just that simple.
Did it ever occur to you that this unwillingness to work may be present in everyone? In some more than others, sure... Having been a part of a number of startup companies, and seeing innovation first hand, I can tell you that there is a hell of a lot more to it than the mere desire to "stretch" your brain. Sometimes it is necessary to really work yourself and others hard,...I find it hard to believe that there will be a significant population that will organize around the mere desire to "stretch." Sure, you may see some academic-type efforts, so long as it doesn't involve too much blood, sweat, and tears....
...sleep.
I'd bet that when "infringements are brought to their attention" the phone company does a lot more than Napster in aiding the removal of those people.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
No, not legally--I understand why copyright law is usually read such that Napster users might be infringing but library card holders are not. (On the other hand I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that the book publishers tried long and hard to sue public libraries out of existence when they first appeared.) But in terms of its effect on the marketplace for music, its moral ramifications, and its societal implications, I challenge anyone to show me a relevant difference between Napster (in its current form) and your local public library.
/. we see people dismissing Napster as nothing but a bunch of immoral law-breaking pirating hooligans. Guess what, people: you've been trolled.
Both are places where you can obtain a copy of a copyrighted work, and use and enjoy it in its intended manner, for free. In both, the original copy of a work is donated out of the generosity of their own heart by someone who has (presumably) legally bought and paid for the original copyrighted work. (Of course, in the case of a public library, such a person has done a "good deed", while with Napster they have engaged in "rampant piracy" or some such thing.) Sure, a library book doesn't have the same look-and-feel as one you'd buy yourself--yellowed pages, that krinkly plastic book jacket--but MP3's are even worse: no physical CD, no liner notes, no cover art; the risk of getting a bad recording, a recording that chirps or hiccups or cuts off just before the end of the song; and the certainty that no matter what you get it won't play on your stereo, and if it could it would sound like crap compared to the original CD.
Yes, you have to return or renew library books after two weeks, but the point is that's good enough for how most people enjoy most books--they read them once and never look at them again. Similarly, Napster allows you an experience that is "good enough for how most people enjoy most songs"--that is, if you've got some tune stuck in your head, or just want some background music while you surf the web, you fire up Napster and get it. No, a public library isn't good enough to replace ownership in the case of those really important books that really impact you and you just want to have around...but neither is Napster. For a truly moving musical experience, you need a real CD (or good vinyl) on a real stereo, not some 128 kpbs muddle, decrypted in an electrically noisy environment, coming out your cheap underpowered magnetically-shielded plastic speakers. That is, the fact that you don't get to keep library books is a look-and-feel issue, not a utility issue--and the public library is still ahead of MP3 in terms of look-and-feel.
If anything, libraries pose a much greater danger to the publishing industry than Napster does to the RIAA, because once you have checked a book out of the library and read it, you are almost certain never to purchase it. With Napster, on the other hand, downloading an MP3 arguably makes you more likely to purchase the CD than before; certainly there is conclusive evidence that Napster increases CD purchases overall.
And yet, public libraries are held up as the paragon of the public good, the ideal of a fostered community, the sort of thing politicians throw into speeches to demonstrate what's right about America (or, more likely, what used to be right about America but no longer exists). Meanwhile, Napster--which, if anything, encourages more community (libraries, after all, are known for explicitly discouraging chatting), illustrates the possibility for knowledge shared throughout humanity which is inherent in the Internet, leads to more legal music purchasing, and facilitates an alternative to an industry which affords the artists much fewer rights and a much lower share of the monetary fruits of their labor than does the publishing industry--is sued, demonized, held up as an example of everything that's wrong and immoral about today's culture.
Huh? What gives?? Before the entertainment industry bought new copyright laws in 1997 and 1998, there was no legal concept of copyright infringement without corresponding non-commercial gains. And yet suddenly everyone believes that sharing music with others is not only illegal (it's still arguable whether that's true) but somehow immoral as well?? Somehow everyone has this ridiculous idea that copyright entitles a copyright holder to oversee every use his/her content is put to, fair use be damned?? (For those who don't understand why this is so absurd: copyright is automatically extended to every single piece of content ever created, no matter by whom or for what purpose. The above idea would mean you would need to get the permission of a gas station before you could submit the receipt they gave you as part of an expense account.)
Napster should be held up as an example of what's right with the world, of a way the promise of technology is enabling people to share the art they love, to expand their musical horizons, or just to get a copy of the new NSync song to play as a joke. It's an example of how the Internet will revolutionize an industry by opening up alternatives to a greedy oligopoly which stifles artists' rights to their own creations.
And yet even on
On March 14 Stephen King electronically released a novella, Riding the Bullet, in a format that was readable only by using designated electronic books or special software. Just three days later a plaintext version appeared on a Web site in Switzerland. Remarkably, the crackers troubled themselves to break the code even though Amazon and Barnes & Noble were offering the authorized version at no charge.
= )
I love that. It's beautiful.
That is the hacker spirit at its best.
"I cracked your copy protection, even though your product was being given away for free."
And under the current system, the artists actually wind up paying for it! If you read about the current system, the record company will advance the musicians money against their royalties to produce, promote, and market the album. This means that for the most part the musicians don't actually receive any royalties unless the album sells at least a million copies. If it doesn't, the musicians wind up in debt to the record company. It's basically like share cropping, where the system is stacked so that it's almost impossible to break away from one company.
In any case, it's dubious that promotions and marketing are really an essential part of the process, or that they can't be solved by going outside the traditional music industry approach. If you don't think that Napster is changing the promotions and marketing aspect of things, you really need to pay more attention.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
It's funny how so many napster supporters gripe about how the RIAA and even the US gov't are antiquated beasts that need to be pulled into the 21st century, yet they point ardantly to events 100-500 years ago as a means of justifying their arguments.
"sheet music was pirated, and that was good"
"in the Rennecianse (sp?), people just created for the sake of creating"
"Up until this century, artists mainly flourished on the patronage of their most wealthy fans and created for the rest of the world to enjoy".
This is the 21st century. The only way this is going to end amicably is if techologists (you) and the industry meet and device a 21st century solution that keeps everyone's best interests in mind. Musicians want to be paid. Labels want to be paid. You want to download music from the internet. Those are the arguments, aren't they?
How come no one out there is working feverishly on a new micropayment system, since none of the others were ever adopted? Or has Napster already spoiled it, by allowing people to download their music for free, will it increasingly be an expectation of consumers that whatever they want to download from the internet should always be free?
Regardless of the outcome of these cases, I hope the plaintiffs fall flat on their faces, there will still be people out there willing to risk this kind of crap to bring new technology to the people.
What I found very interesting was the history section, about how the the "fight for copyright" isn't anything new at all, and in fact has been fought pretty much since the beginning of recorded music. Heck, Sullivan (from Gilbert & Sullivan) was suing people his whole life! and that was for sheet music... you know? the kind that YOU have to play?
What scares me is that the music industry is using tactics which could affect not only the music industry, but like the article says, the core of democracy. I mean, just imagine if you would, a country where the government's control reached out and checked *everything* you did electronically. I know there are those out there that think this is happening right now, what with Carnivore and like floating around, but at least its not done openly and without harsh public critism/outcry. I'm talking about a society where government intervention is expected and accepted - where the people have completely placed their trust and security in the hands of the all-knowing government.
1984 anyone? Animal Farm ring a bell? "Everyone is equal. Its just that some people are more equal than others." Don't tell me that it can't happen - Russia/USSR is just getting over something much like this right now.
You know, it kind of strikes me as a bit silly, all this running around the RIAA is doing... it seems to me, that what this is all about is one industry standing up and saying:
And as silly as that sounds, this is exactly what's happening. From the article:
I seriously doubt even the law-makers themselves can tell you all the ramifications one little law makes, let alone the massive DMCA! I was very glad to see that the RIAA was hauled before a senate(?) committee to "answer" for some of its actions the DMCA "allowed". It sounds like congress passed the law because of a lot of pressure from RIAA/MPAA - like a kid given a new baseball bat to replace the old broken one. Only now congress is hearing reports that the kid has been beating up the other children in the neighbourhood and taking their lunch money... It'll be interesting to see what kind of "parent" congress wants to play... I hope it'll be the one who leaves things pretty much alone, and lets the market figure things out for itself. 'Course, to do that they'd have to repeal the DMCA and few other things - this isn't impossible either.
Just imagine yourself being put in congress "by the people", and then suddenly finding out that 10% of your constituents are right royal pissed off at you because YOU helped shut down their Napster... Not exactly a perfect description, but pretty close I'd say.
I understand and agree that copyrights have to be upheld and all - but definitely *not* in their current form. Something like a 5 yr limit would be good. (or shorter, 5 is just a number). Hmm, remind you of another antiquated institution? coughUS Patent Officecough anyone?
Anywho, just my $0.035
Neil................
I used to have a cool sig.
Think about *who* you really support (I'm guessing you are pro-[your favorite band] not pro-[free music, gimme!]). While it tastes great, Naptster's free beer (music for free) is blocking Metallica's free speech (self-determination on what and how they express themselves to fans). I think the artists know just a little bit what they're talking about. Get behind them.
I don't care about these "artists" (I'm talking about all popular musicians here). They are absurdly rich because they entered into deals with the promoter/distributors to play their music for free into the ears of youth over the only convenient distribution systems that existed (radio, TV), until they got used to the music and felt a need to hear more. Their fame and riches stem from this deal more than from special musical ability. They are part of the machine, not victims of it.
Yes, good musicians deserve some compensation, but control is not part of the bargain! Any musician who wants to tell me how much I have to pay him to hear his music is never getting a cent from me. There are plenty of other musicians out there, and I've got money for them, when I like their music and when they don't try to attack me legally.
Compensation does not require control! Getting enormously rich from your mediocre talent plus a large promotion budget does, though. That's what Metallica did, and that's what they're trying to protect.
To hell with them. I have no special love for the tiny wealthy minority of musicians in bed with the record companies (who then bitch that they aren't getting a big enough slice of the absurdly large revenue). I have a lot more sympathy for the other 99% of musicians who are working second jobs to support their hobby. Without control, maybe we'd see fewer rich whiners and more decent musicians making a living.
You're damned right I'm selfish. That's the way you're supposed to be in commercial transactions. Not stupidly selfish, but putting your own interests first. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to pick your pocket with his tongue.
---
Despite rumors to the contrary, I am not a turnip.
Whether or not you admit it, the fact is that most Artists still choose to go the major label route. Not just 10 years ago, not just last year, but today, despite the presense of all these theoretically marvelous alternative systems. (i.e.., napster (a joke), mp3.com (some potential), etc.). I, for one, don't believe the artists are totally stupid. They know the situation going in (that they'll get "shafted"), but they also obviously know that they _need_ the labels to be successfull. If anything is obvious, it is that the label perform a function beyond mere production of the physical media.
This function that the labels perform is one of marketing and distribution (not just in the sense that it's economical, but in the sense that it puts it in front of the right eyes). To ignore that, and act as if a change in physical production means they've necessarily outlived their usefullness is laughable. Before these online methods, the production costs were in the range of 2 dollars, yet they sell to the end user for, say, 15 dollars. That still leaves 13 dollars of value added going to various parties. There is nothing necessarily obvious in that the mere elimination of 2 of 15 dollars, means value added should hit 0.
Now you can make up all the warm and fuzzy ideas you want, but until you come up with a better alternative that up-and-coming artists actually sign on (and enjoy success with), it's hardly realistic to say napster and company are an acceptable alternative. Only through this proof, will you make it demonstrably clear that the major labels have outlived their usefullness. Even then, that doesn't mean the merit of IP is injured in the least, rather that the industry was too attached to the physical model of distribution--not necessarily to IP. More than likely, if anything succeeds, it will be something like mp3.com, not napster, which revolves substantially around IP.
i never thought i'd see the day when *I* was correcting someone's grammar
--(koensayrATozemailDOTcomDOTau)
I didn't know Aussie's were so particular about the Queen's English... ;-) .
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I mean "Finally someone who realizes that Napster-like technology is about more than "pirating"."
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Just thought I'd point this out.
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$100 to $150?! I could buy a CD _player_ for that much. What country charges that much for a CD?
For more information, click here.
When that happens, sue your fans. They are the ones who are acting immorally. Sure Napster is one tool, but there are so many other tools (FreeNet, Scour, FTP, college intranets). You can't quantify a loss of profits to any of these tools any more than their defenders can quantify a gain of profits for the record industry. The only thing that can be proven is: USER A has your MP3 on his hard drive and USER A has no right to it.
As a musician ( I have no life, just three hobbies, Im sure you all can relate ), I KNOW when I sign with a label ( I am not signed ) that Im giving them SOLE rights to distribute my music. If I made the decision to sign, I gave THEM ( not YOU ) my music.
This was true prior to 1992. In 1992 Congress took away your right to control non-commercial distribution of your work, and gave it back to the people, in exchange for royalty payments to the RIAA on the sale of blank media. Some of us opposed the AHRA. Did you?
Title 17, Chapter 10, Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title [Title 17, copyright law] alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
I guess the same can be said about Modern Rock. I could name off bands and sound all hoity-toity but I bet you all would have different bands to mention and the conversation becomes flaimbait. However, I think we'd all agree that music evolves, and what once was unheard-of is now pop. It's been like that for awhile... maybe not specific bands, but definately styles.
Like Music, MP3 & other CNNfN buzz words will continue to circulate our media, and I'm sick of it.
Can anyone name something interesting that will soon to be be exploited in the media? Screener/movie piracy? Electronic book piracy? The cycle will continue.
----
Library's have been proven not to be a great threat to the sale of books. The same cannot be said, that napster will not hurt the sale of records. Though I believe you know full well the dangers napster offers, I'll enumerate a few key differences.
When a library makes a book available, they are generating at least one sale and that single book can only be used by one person concurrently. Given the purchasing and acquisition patterns of most library, this means that books in high demand (i.e., brand new best sellers) are scarce, and most times even unavailable. The library either purchases more books, or the patrons run out to the book store and buy a couple copies. Furthermore, except for classic and other highly reguarded books, most publishers make their sales off of these same new books--libraries are hardly able to squelsh this. In fact, most publishers will stop printing most books after a short while. Unless the demand is high, it simply doens't make economic sense for the publisher keep printing it--nor does it make sense for them to print large quantities and store them. In essence, libraries only become a deciding factor at the end, where most publishers aren't selling anyways. Libraries serve a clear and well known public function (not just one of pure entertainment) by acting as a repository for these books, so they don't simply fall out of print and away from people's eyes.
The gist of it is:
Cost for publishers: Low.
Benefit for society: High.
Are you honestly going to tell me the same applies to napster? Are you going to ignore the fact that napster is really much the opposite [despite the denials of some individuals]? Napster traffics the most popular songs in almost instantly, and theoretically, only one purchase needs to be made for this to happen! Yet when you search for truely rare songs, it has been my experience that they're NOT there. Something like 90% of the mp3s listed on there are redundant--only the most recent and currently popular songs. And while you may try to refute that sales will actually be hurt, that is unproven, and highly doubtfull. As that article in the Atlantic Monthly pointed out, CD sales around college campuses were down [though not in huge numbers], while national sales were up. This fact alone is cause for concern, or at least question. Combine this with the growth of the internet, increased publicity for napster, spreading of broadband, and other such factors, and you have a stark picture for the industry. And for all these possible [though I think they're highly likely, if napster, et. al, goes unchallenged] costs, what are the benefits? That people get to listen to music free? You're going to have a hard time arguing that music enriches the mind to the same extent that a good book does, especially when it's pop music!
The gist here:
Record industry cost: High
Benefit for society: Low
...good bye.
It's all relative. From what I've heard from friends overseas, to see a movie in Japan costs over $18.
For more information, click here.
Of course I play music because I like it, not to strike rich to quit my job so I can go to an award show and sit next to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.
Would you rather sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst, so you can talk about the guy Christina gave head to first?
(sorry, I'm not an Eminem fan myself actually)
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Good one! Next time try thinking up your responses before sniffing the rubber cement you stole from art class, kid.
.sig: Now legally binding!
The internet is not some revolutionary force that makes innovation and creation irrelevant. It hasn't made the costs of innovation and creation any cheaper. Sure, there are some areas where there have been some cost reductions in production and distribution due to digital distribution [though those savings have NOTHING to do with the underground heros like napster, 2600, etc.] These costs, however, have been ALWAYS been a relatively small portion of the price. Depending on the product at hand, you may be expecting a ~10% price reduction. None of that, however, cuts away at the burden of the inventor/creator/artist/innovator. Their resources are still every bit as scarce. Artists only have so many hours in their day. Authors still need to be paid. Businessmen still only have so much cash at their disposal, and are only willing to tolerate so much risk. End users only have so much patience for listening to garbage, before the signal to noise ratio becomes unacceptable.
The basic guiding principle behind IP is every bit as valid today as it was yesterday. The relationship between risk and reward did not just evaporate. Just as Henry Ford's many innovations could have been stolen so many years ago with relative ease, software and music can be pirated today. Whether the margins are 2% of 90% is irrelevant, there is still a need to protect them. What you are effectively paying for is for future works and innovation, NOT for that particular product. So when you get on GNUtella and pirate software, it may seem as if you can download infinite copies and not "hurt" the artist , but you are doing nothing to encourage that next round of production.
It is still in society's interest to give legal protection to IP, even more so in many ways. The type of R&D we see today tends to be far far more capital intensive, and most of these products have very low production costs, provided they're produced on sufficient scale. It is ironic that you point to nanotechnology especially. Do you think people just develop these things because they want to? Is that it? What about the millions that have been spent on it already to create just one simple machine? What about new ones? You think they engineer themselves too? Get real.
I have heard that the Church in Galileo's time didn't actually want to suppress his information about the solar system. They just begged him to give them a little more time, and let them publish the information themselves. They knew the truth had to come out, and were hoping they could adapt to the new age where the Earth was not at the center of the universe. Sounds like the RIAA trying to buy time until SDMI works.
Unfortunately for SDMI, it seems easier to make a technology that enables people to do things than one that disables them from doing things. Lessig's warnings in the "Code" book are still pertinent, but the tide seems to be going with those who want to share. I think that the record companies will do fine, like the Catholic Church (which, if you've been reading news stories about traffic jams in Rome this year, seems to be pretty robust).
I guess I should be happy with a vacation of some weeks from the last time I had to do this.
Ahem.
It's impossible to steal music.
Here's why (this isn't a cyber-hippy argument, I swear):
By definition, it is only possible to steal something that's owned. Conversely, if something cannot be owned, it cannot be stolen.
So music can't be stolen, because it can't be owned. And when I say that it can't be owned, I mean it. In order to own something, there are three requirements that must be met.
1)The owner must be able to make full use of the owned item
2)The owner must be able to control if and how others use the owned item
3)The owner must be able to dispose of (eg sell, destroy, give away) the owned item at will
So let's look at music, and how it fits with these things. Remember, we're talking about MUSIC. Not CDs. Not tapes. Not mp3s. Not even sound waves travelling through the air. None of those things are music, they are simply the media upon which music is transferred. Music is ultimately a concept.
1)If you write an original song, can you use it? Obviously the answer is yes. You can hum it, sing it, play it backwards to listen to the satanic messages, etc. (probably by having placed it onto a convenient medium, but hey, you might just be that good)
2)If you let me listen to the song, can you exert control over it? Here, the answer is no. You see, there are many seperate copies of the song floating around at this point.
There is the original copy, which exists within your mind. Don't believe me? Well let's prove it. Surely you know 'Doo Wah Diddy' - well can you hum it? Better yet, can you remember how it goes in your mind, without actually making any sounds? (eg when it gets stuck in your head) Then we've successfully demonstrated that music exists independently of any particular medium.
So what happens when you make a copy of the music in your mind onto a carrier like a soundwave, or sheet music, or a CD or mp3? Two copies exist. When I listen to the music, a third copy is created, within my mind. Even if I give back your CD, I can also do the trick with remembering how the song goes. (bear in mind that while most people have average memories, there are those with perfect recall that won't forget a note of the song)
Can you make me give back the copy in my mind? Not without a lobotomy, I'd warrant. And while you can demand that I not listen to the music in my mind, you can't enforce that in any way whatsoever, and neither can any court in the world. You simply do not have control over how I use the song.
3)So given that, can you get rid of the song? Perhaps by selling it or giving it away? Again, no. You can give people COPIES, but the original is basically stuck in your mind. And you can't give people the copies that exist in other listener's minds (like mine) either.
So music, or anything else that can be memorized, isn't able to fulfill the three traditional legal requirements for ownership. And without ownership, there can be no stealing or theft.
-----
What you _really_ mean is that people are commiting copyright infringement. Copyrights are ownable, but they're a package of rights governing legal transactions over an unownable piece of information. They do not pretend to be actual ownership of that information; that's impossible. (this is why the term 'Intellectual Property' is patently offensive. There is no such thing, nor would it be good if there were)
Additionally, do remember that from the dawn of humanity until about ~1730 there were no copyright laws. And yet the system worked, and there were books and songs and paintings all over the damn place. The system doesn't rely on copyright laws. I don't advocate totally getting rid of them, but they are in need of massive reform. More copyrights, as I've shown in another post, harm society. Few to no copyrights are optimal. And the fundementals of US copyright law exist for the benefit of society, not for copyright holders. Don't believe it? Read the Constitution.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
You can call the future vision part "wishful thinking" if you like,but many would disagree with you. Fans have always been extremely supportive of their favourite bands, and in an environment where they didn't have to pay today's extorionate prices into label coffers there's every likelihood that a very different business model would deliver just as much money into the musicians' pockets, if not a lot more.
However, you can't pin the label of "wishful thinking" to the article's analysis of what was and what is, because it's right on the mark, not just in the author's view but in the view of musicians worldwide, often expressed by them in the music papers. They may not all have the eloquence of Courtney Love, but they feel the financial pain just the same. In brief, they're being sucked dry by the biggest and most cold-blooded pirate organization on the planet, the label/studio system. Anything is better than that kind of slavery.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
How bout instead of suing your fans, who will then promptly never buy anything from you again, you find a new way to make money off of music. As bandwith increases they'll not just face you downloading music for free, but requesting music from a site and having it instantly played for you (hmmm wonder if I could patent that idea ;-) ). You won't actually take the music, and the site playing it for you could well be a legal owner. Its the future of radio and the record industry better figure out a way to make money on it.
The concept of micropayments has been thrown around alot concerning e-mail, maybe music is what really needs a good micropayment sort of structure to be built for the internet. Then my afore mentioned "instant request internet radio" could lawfully pay the people who gave them the content to provide to their users. It has to happen, the only other options for getting music are theft, and being gouged for it.
In spite of the hostile tone of most of your post, I wish you were modded up to 5 for that comment alone.
As a musician totally agree that many musicians (especially pop musicians) have a distorted view of their craft as a result of the last Century of music copyright laws.
Preach on!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ah, finally a reasonable person!
Just to clarify, When I defend IP, I am not defending the industry at all. Far from it. The industry may well be thorougly flawed and corrupt, but those flaws are not an integral feature of intellectual property. Rather, while it is true that the nature of the industry can only exist in an IP-rich environment, these big record houses exist of a certain necessity [not that it justifies or necessitates all of their behavior]. This is an important point that elludes many people. The fact that artists still sign with these major labels today only bolsters my argument. Recording, promoting, marketing, getting spots on the radio, etc. are expensive [even though physical distribution is less and less of a concern today]. Artists sign because they want need and want these things, they can't do it themselves or through other alternatives.
Napster simply does nothing to address these problems. Napster pokes holes in IP, but does not offer a credible alternative in its place. I say, let us not flush the baby out with the bathwater. The big six may be cruel to the artist, but they're still an option. No one is making them sign. By breaking IP, not only do you reduce the "big six" option, but you break other more palatable alternatives that rely on IP.
In essense, I believe we should take reasonable measures to protect IP (i.e., make sure napster is kept in check)--and let the rest of the chips fall where they may. If IP is kept intact, I think it is far more likely a capitalistic evolution of sorts will happen with the dinosuars aka the "big six." Their pricing structures, which have long revolved too much around physical distribution, will fall--prices will come down a couple dollars--maybe even as much as half. Accompanying the fall of physical distribution, will be an increased number of competitors, which will mean more competition in the music industry (a la mp3.com) and better deals for the artist. However, I think these marketing issues will long remain. You may see a few grassroots style bands pop up, but by and large, those artists which wish to go Platinum will sign with someone who can effectively market. Those who already have tons of money, might be able to pay for themselves. But for the vast majority of up and coming artists, that means someone will essentially make an investment in them--someone will take the lions' share of the risk. Someone will still be very rich, there will still be some grumbling....but the situation will have improved.
PS: I don't regard monopolies to be a flaw in capitalism, anymore than I regard, say, assholes a flaw of freedom. Sh*t happens, but that doesn't mean people, or the government, should never intervene.
The problem is, nowadays *everybody* is (or thinks they are) ridden with existential post-modern teenage angst. There is something wrong, but they can't quite figure it out. So the easiest thing is to "protest". Protest what? Anything. Everything. Who cares? It gives meaning. Like the idiots who threw rocks over the fence at the police at the DNC, inciting them to rampage over the majority of *peaceful* *innocent* protesters there. Like anarchists dressed in black just to incite trouble (if it isn't *just* to incite trouble, it is at least an obvious and deliberate effect).
I get angry when the mindless bleating of wannabees overpowers the real issues that real protesters are attempting to make. For instance, like Lars here. I'm sick of hearing every johnny come lately ripping Metallica because it's the cool thing to do. Metallica has a point that some don't have the attention span to consider. Metallica is not anti-fan. Metallica is not pro-corporation. Metallica is not a sellout and corporate whore. Metallica wants one thing that we would otherwise be championing here on Slashdot: *artist control of their own music*. Metallica's point is not that Napster is inherently wrong, or that technology should be banned. Their point is that *they* should be able to decide what they want to do with their music. Not big record companies. Not Napster. And this isn't even about copyright infringement or "lost revenue". Metallica freely allows bootlegging. The problem is that with all our shouting about how Napster is the David to the record industries goliath, we have forgotten that the *artists* are the David to *everybody*. Napster is a great service. Gnutella is a great technology. Metallica's contention is that they, as the artist, should choose how they want to interact with their fans. And they only sued Napster to raise this issue. Just like Metallica should be able to decide what songs of theirs radio stations play, and what image they portray, they should be able to self-determine how they want to interact with their fans. Don't lump artists in with the record companies and Napster as the lone hero. It's the other way around. Napster is entering in exclusive deals with the record companies to jointly exploit artists.
Stop and think about what you're shouting about. Think about *who* you really support (I'm guessing you are pro-[your favorite band] not pro-[free music, gimme!]). While it tastes great, Naptster's free beer (music for free) is blocking Metallica's free speech (self-determination on what and how they express themselves to fans). I think the artists know just a little bit what they're talking about. Get behind them.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is not a popularity contest. The issue is public interest, not just the immediate whims of the public. Our nation was founded on the principles of Federalism for a reason [not to mention law]...
You are being awefully presumptious to assert that you know the public's desires. The mere fact that you feel music and books are on intellectual par does not make it so. Nor do you know how the public would respond to evidence of destruction of the music industry.
Excuse me, but I'm an indepedent thinker. It may be perfectly acceptable for you to swallow what you are fed whole, but I have serious doubts. I can't take this press release at face value. Statistics are very easy to manipulate and are easily skewed. What's more, the conclusion can be made sound very good, while actually remaining irrelevant or without any base in the results.
I don't see how they could gather a reliable sample. Napster is essentially anonymous, it would be virtually impossible to get a truely random sample here. They obviously did not do a before and after, and most likely it was not random in the least. The biggest hint we get is:
"But when we conducted our consumer survey, controlled for key music purchasing factors-such as existing spending level, age, income, gender, and online tenure-we still found that Napster usage is one of the strongest determinants of increased music buying." If you ever studied statistics, you would know this does not mean anything like: Those who start using napster, start buying more music. Quite the contrary, it means: Those who use napster, are more likely to buy music. In other words, Jupiter looked at a certain population based on the above controls, and determined that those who used napster were 45% more likely to buy CDs than those who appeared the same based on those criteria and did not use the service. The problem with this statistic is that it does not tell you whether or not those same music lovers in the selected populations would be more inclined to use napster and would be self-selecting in the survey. It does not deny the possibility that those users DECREASED their CD purchases since they started using napster
Until I see proof to the contrary, I will continue to assert that it is far more likely that these regular napster users have actually decreased their purchasing habits, and thus hurt industry. I'm far from ignorant here. Being one of the original #mp3 ops on undernet [not to mention efnet, etc.], I've been using mp3s for at least 5 years now. I actually bumped into napster a few times myself, and saw the service, and many before it grow. I know many regular users who have, in fact, essentially stopped purchasing CDs. These users are something of a bellwether; having used the internet for longer, having broadband before others, owning CDRs, etc. While they're not fully representive of the population, they are enjoying today [and have been for quite awhile] a fraction of the goodies that much of the population does not yet enjoy, but will soon.
Not that it is terribly relevent, but do you have any evidence to back that claim up? Or is that first hand experience? In any case, napster is _very_ commonly used at most universities, at least those with decent internet connections. In fact, it is used as a replacement at some. For instance, at atleast one eating club at Princeton [which I will not name] with which i'm familiar, the members actually purchased a CD-R with the sole intention of burning mp3s into audio CDs. Many students used this regularly, and most told me they wouldn't buy a CD so long as they could burn what they needed.
Obviously you lack experience with the internet and the vast quantities of warez (pirated software) available to those who know how to get it. If you had, you'd know that the warez groups are able to distribute warez out to thousands, and millions, of people with just one copy, in a compressed format, such that if even one byte is corrupt, the entire package is bad. Similar systems could easily be setup within napster, and in fact, there were atleast such groups when I used mp3s more regularly. They took responsibility for ensuring a clean rip and a decent encoding, not to mention distribution [which is largely moot now] With decreased file size sensitivity, these groups could essentially gaurantee very high quality mp3s.
In case you are not aware, these servers are not that seperate. Let me give you a hypothetical situation. I go to the store, and buy the latest N'Sync CD the second it hits shelves. [actually, which reminds, these groups would actually obtain the software/songs before they hit the shelves]. It takes me about 30 minutes to rip and encode them, and then I make them available to napster. At that very instant, 100 teenie boppers are querying for the latest and greatest songs, they get a hit. I can support quite a few downloads, with a software max of 10 concurrent users. So within, say, 20 minutes, each of those 10 users now has the entire album. Another 10 copy from each of those 10 and so on. Someone signs on, and signs back on, grabs a new server, and suddenly a new server has the mp3s. It doesn't take a degree in mathematics to figure out that napster could easily be overrun the mp3s which I ripped, before stores on the west coast are even open!
Theoretically and empirically, all the ingredients are there for it. Combine this with the above mentioned "mp3 group", and it could happen with reliability [i.e., check summing schemes] What's more, these groups can get and distribute the songs before others can even buy them, they don't even half to wait....but people do anyways. I encourage you to look at the warez groups, it may give you a little insight here.
Books build on each other and on the mind in a way that music does not [part of the reason why libraries are key]. One can go to a library, and providing they have enough diligence, teach themselves hundreds of usefull things--even more than you think you know. The reader can improve themselves in ways that society can grasp and appreciate.
Music may be marvelous, but it is simply not interchangable with the many forms of books. Society has long placed a preference on reading, and has regarded music as a form of entertainment. Consider, for a moment, what portion of your curiculuum has been dedicated to books versus music. Most likely, your answer is something around 1/40th. If you were told that your kids weren't going to read anymore, but would listen to music in class instead, how would you react? You know damn well how you would react...It's a question of priorities, just one more reason why you can't quite make that analogy.
it might be piracy, but it's not stealing. those are by law 2 distinct things.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
- Connect to another host on the gnutellaNet
- Enter the words you are looking for
- Look through the search results
- Download the files
How is this so much harder than Napster with Napigator?<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
If someone says that "Information wants to be free", post your full personal details on Slashdot so we can all share it. After all, it wants to be free, right?
Before spouting off with a bunch of fallacies, unproved claims and ad hominem attacks, why not try understanding this basic phrase: "Information wants to be free"?
It does not mean: "You should be forced to give me information for zero cost." It does mean: "Information tends towards a state of maximum dispersion (regardless of cost)."
You can feel free to join those who want to try to legislate against plain mathematics if you want. Be sure to look up the politician who wanted to set pi equal to 3 while you're at it.
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Napster is for sharing music. That in itself is not a bad thing. But when people systemically use the system to infringe on copyright, then I think Napster has *some* responsibility.
... but if we give you royalties for non-commercial copying, then you have to agree that non-commercial copying is legal."
... Napster is NOT fair use. Fair use does not even enter into Napster. Wholesale Non-commercial copying of musical works (only) is not a copyright violation, and has not been one since 1992. This is the point that the recording industry is trying to bury. But the fact remains, The RIAA has been collecting royalties on all blank digital audio recording devices and media since 1992, and has been (or is supposed to be) paying that money out to artists and writers. There is no need to wring our hands looking for a way to "pay artists." The "way" already exists, and the money is already being collected. The RIAA just doesn't want you to know that so that you will feel guilty and won't exercise the right that you are paying for, with real money, every time you buy an audio CDR.
You're contradicting yourself. Is sharing music a good or a bad thing? Is it a good thing when it is done quietly, behind closed doors, by a few people, but a bad thing when it is used "systematically"?
Napster isn't fair use anyway. Music sharing is explicitly authorized by the copyright laws. In 1992, the RIAA went to Congress in a state of hysteria -- Digital Audio Tape was about to destroy the entire recording industry! The RIAA wanted, among other things, to receive a "royalty" on all digital recorders and media to compensate for the loss of sales due to personal, non-commercial copying.
Congress said, "Ok
The RIAA, more concerned with destroying the DAT format, agreed, and both Congress and the RIAA released announcements that an agreement had been reached that would break the legal gridlock, and bring digital recording to the masses. The result of this little insider lovefest is known as Title 17 Chapter 10.
Title 17 Chapter 10 is a nice little exercise in dirty lawmaking. Let's go through it.
Section 1001 defines all the terms.
Section 1002 says that all consumer digital audio recorders must include SCMS -- which prevents second-generation copies of DAT tapes.
Section 1003 says that anyone manufacturing digital audio recording equipment or media, including audio CDRs, has to make "royalty" payments.
Section 1004 says how much the royalty payments are.
Section 1005 says that the royalty payments are to be deposited in an account controlled and managed by the U.S. Treasury.
Section 1006 specifies how the loot is to be divided up. It's basically a list of the sponsors of the bill.
(1.75%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Musicians, to be paid to "non-featured" musicians (studio musicians)
(0.92%) of the royalties are paid to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, to be paid to "non-featured" vocalists (backup vocalists)
(25.60%) of the royalties are paid to "featured recording artists", including such bands as Metallica.
(38.40%) of the royalties are paid to "copyright owners" (the RIAA companies)
(16.67%) of the royalties are paid to "music publishers"
(16.67%) of the royalties are paid to music writers, including such bands as Metallica who write their own songs.
Section 1007 specifies procedures for distributing the royalties. Anyone interesting in sharing the loot basically reports their record sales to the Librarian of Congress, and the loot is divided up proportionally. Thus, the RIAA, which controls the vast majority of record sales, gets nearly all of the money.
Section 1008 is what makes Napster legal. This is what the general public receives in exchange for all this money being taken by the government and spread around the recording industry:
SUBCHAPTER D. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN INFRINGEMENT ACTIONS, REMEDIES, AND ARBITRATION
Section 1008. Prohibition on certain infringement actions
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.
Section 1009 specifies awards for damages
Section 1010 provides for binding arbitration -- a provision that allows a company to obtain legal assurance that they are selling a legal product before bringing it to market.
So, in conclusion, you are right
Bottom line, if you want to find out what your rights are, don't expect the RIAA to help you find them out. Read the law instead.
I know there's already been a Slashdot interview with Bruce Schneier, but I'd love to see one at least twice a year.
Better yet: put Jon Katz on waivers and sign Bruce as a free agent. Katz has been in a slump since the middle of last season and he just doesn't play like he belongs on the field anymore. Slashdot could offer Schneier a three-year deal with incentives that would keep them out of salary-cap trouble and still plug the holes in Coach Taco's middle line. If Andover doesn't want to eat Katz's contract they can find a place for him on special teams, covering kickoffs and getting his ass whupped.
"They're not booing, they're shouting 'Bruce'!"
Kong
It's true, though -- if you want to watch a high quality film, chances are you're not going to be able to download a DVD from the internet. Music, on the other hand, is already fit for distribution because it was already cut down to 3-4 minutes for radio anyways.
"...the writers of the Constitution viewed copyright in utilitarian terms. By granting a temporary monopoly on distribution to creators, the Founders hoped to stimulate the creation of new ideas."
I just love that qoute -- had to throw it in.
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Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
So ha!
;)
Beyond that, I agree that this argument is getting old and picayune. We've gotten horribly worked up about some trivial details in what, after all, was meant more to be a whimsical but thought-provoking analogy than an iron-clad argument.
I do happen to think I'm right on these details (especially that of whether Jupiter conducts meaningful surveys or misleading ones), but I do take your general point that one crucial difference is that while libraries don't change much from year to year, Napster and MP3 sharing in general may yet morph into something potentially dangerous for the music industry. Or rather, I believe (and hope) that they will turn out at least mildly dangerous for the record labels, while believing quite strongly that they will turn out to spur, rather than stifle, artistic creativity and the overall quality and quantity of music available for society. Of course I realize that the last point is anything but a sure thing, and that no one can predict exactly what will happen. It does make sense to point out that the arts have always survived the emergence of new technologies predicted to destroy them; whether those who have sought to control and profit off the work of artists will make the transition as well is happily less certain. MP3 might turn out disasterous for the record labels and maybe might impact the earnings of a few of the most successful musicians, but I have little doubt that it will not only spread the art of the average musician to a much wider audience, but make him or her more money as well. Still, it's too early to know for certain.
And with that, I think I'm done, unless you have anything else to say. I would like to point out that if you've just been arguing with me because I happened to say something in that Bush/Gore/Clinton/economics thread that, on reflection, sounded rather stuck up (the "look at my email addy" comment), well, I didn't mean it to sound that way and you've certainly wasted a lot of your time being mad at me. Course, you've wasted just as much of my time, so let's call it a draw.
> Face it, using Napster to download MP3's is illegal and immoral, and none of your squawking about how it's "Free speech" and "Information wants to be free" will change that.
Excuse me, but you seem to have over generalized here, only downloading copyrighted works MAY be illegal. There are some bands just trying to get their music out, they WANT you to download their stuff.
Excessive forking causes un-wanted children.
I know it's awfully popular here on /. to say that all information should be free, particularly music. I'll ignore all the ideological arguments, and reduce it to what the issue really is: every Napster advocate out there is just too cheap to pay for music.
Notice how the local population, trolls and otherwise, loves to pounce on anyone who uses GPLed code, or even unlicensed (and therefore just plain copyrighted code) without permission. Around here, that's a stoning offence.
Don't you people think that musicians have rights to their music, too?! Juicy quote from that article:
They're kidding, right? Last I checked, music belongs to whoever wrote it. Same with books. Same with software. Whoever wrote it may then choose to share it. And they always choose to share it under their terms. Most of the Slashdot crowd seems to desparately want to ensure that their creations (for the small handful that actually has done anything for open-source/free software) are only distributed on their terms. They spit on Metallica for wanting to do the same.
I can understand disliking the RIAA for imposing ridiculous contracts on musicians. But in articles like this one, I see that the hatred is focused primarily on the handful of artists who decided to stand up for their rights. If you hate the RIAA because it forces musicians to sign their souls away, then that is a very legitimate concern. But do not fight the recording industry by stealing works that properly belong and should be bringing profit to artists.
Everyone who makes the argument that the RIAA is not losing money from Napster and its ilk must be smoking crack. The only reason revenues are increasing is because the consumer economy is fueling a faster rate of growth than anything Napster kiddies can do to destroy it. For now. Music piracy grows by leaps and bounds, every day. If things were to continue as they are now, I guarantee that in two years time, maximum, the music industry will be posting catastrophic losses. And guess what happens then? No one will get recorded. Independent labels are few and far between for one very good reason: it takes a fucking lot of money to make a good recording. (Granted, most of the stuff that gets recorded these days by major labels is utter shit, both musically and acoustically, but that is a different issue. Plenty of labels, particularly classic ones, release good quality recordings.)
Radio is not free. Radio pays royalties for every single track they air, so the comparison with radio is ludicrous. They finance this by airing hours of advertisements (except NPR, who finance their existence by begging for money from listeners 4 times a year).
Finally, I sincerely hope that record stores do not disappear from the face of the earth. Speaking as a music lover, I'll say that lossy compression codecs suck. I dislike the MP3 standard, because the quality loss, for me, is unacceptable. I find that the only MP3s remotely listenable to are ones I make myself, encoded at 192kbps or more. And even so they do not match the quality of CDs or MDs, let alone vinyl or DAT. It will be a sad day when everyone moves to recording stuff as MP3s, or Ogg Vorbis, or whatever the latest and greatest codec is, and physical media designed for genuine high fidelity is abandoned.
Sorry about the long rant, but the article was sufficiently inflammatory that I had to get this out. Fortunately I have the karma to spare for the inevitable bashing it's going to take :)
Why is it that most musicians I know have a huge collection of cutouts CD? For thouse that don't know, a cutout is a deeply discounted CD thats been cut on the spine of the jewel case. That is done to mark the CD as no longer in the normal retail channel and so the artist does not get any thing from the sale and may even be billed for the production of the CD.
As far as the story is concerned, I can see Lars is concerned. As far as the big money is concerend he (and his pissy band) are the "heavy metal" band so his stuff get pushed on to the 14 yr old market segment. Napster allows that market to hear new stuff which makes them look like shit. Its not like he's got it anymore and their last stuff rocked less than J Jett/L Ford did when there were doing suff under the name the Runaways and they where maybe 16 when they did that.
As far as the recent ruling thanks to the fine price fixers at the MPAA. There is a solution. Its a simple solution but will make people reading this sick. Its write a windows program (yes I mentioned the w word) that rips DVDs and puts them into several ISO images and then another program that takes the ISO images and plays a DVD quality movie. If you think these bozos are hot under the coller now, wait till that gets released. It would be even more amusing if the name of the program was something you wouldn't want to say to a judge. Hell if they don't do something about theater prices in Australia (a movie is now running US$8.50), I may write the damn thing myself.
...or does that CD-looking angel look like it could fit neatly into a (not yet written) Shockwave game at NewGrounds where you throw pirated CD's at Metallica? ;)
For more information, click here.
And that's why you rarely see sports references on /.. I know, I've tried in the past, only to get tagged with offtopic or redundant.
Anyhow, we can hope Katz fails a random drug test for crack.
If you're downloading mp3s for nothing - and someone produced and recorded the music with the intention of you paying to listen to it - then you ARE stealing it.
Except it and shut-up - don't try to justify it with pathetic pseudo cyber-hippy arguements like "big-corporations don't deserve our money 'cos they over charge us"!
I.T. has the some of the most inflated rates of any industry. I'm sure most of you are well familiar with the concept of over-charging!
And has it occured to anyone that in the end someone MUST pay - otherwise the system breaks down. People cannot persevere in any field without making money enough to live on.
If you're so bothered about having a new world where everything is free why not give up your job and go and live in a self sufficient commune, grow you own vegtables and sit in pig shit all day. I think you might miss your Coke, Pizza, Cable TV and other assorted luxuries provided to you by various "evil" corporations.
Or better still, do your current job for nothing because thats is basically what you expecting others to do!
Grow up!
Democracy relies on the ability to criticize, and that will be very difficult when every word, image, sound, or video has a cryptographic lock on it allowing only the people who pay to see it. This will be especially bad when these things are licensed rather than sold, which allows sorts of nasty things, like the no benchmarking clauses on major database software. This is definately the direction the DVD cartel is going.
Imagine this, content could be priced not on the basis of demand, not on where it sold, but on the person is buying it. "Ah, from your credit history we see that you have disposible income, that will be $100 please.'
Content could be produced with restrictions on who it may be sold to. "What, you're not a Republican, well you can't buy Rush's new book, cause, you know, you dirty liberals like to criticize."
Content could be produced with restrictions that prevent its use in an educational setting. "Sorry, mam, but you'll need to buy a copy of Democracy in America for each individual student, even if if you only refence it in your lessons. Yes mam, I know its public domain, but we own the footnotes, you'll have to buy the book to extract the text. Yes mam, I miss libraries too, but its more important for us to make money."
Gonzo
There already is a command line tool for Linux, I wrote it. Not for piracy, but for CDROM RAID backup. Takes a filesystem, directory, DVD, VCD, etc, and chunks it across burnable images in either RAID-0 or linked mount formats. Doesn't do the CSS ripping, because it was intended to be used on data DVDs, but that would be rather easy to add. It has a limited capacity to do pre-processor pipes, eg pass a tree of wav files through LAME before spanning the discs, or in your case pass the MPEG files through a pair of codec to reduce the size.
Want a copy? Pre-alpha, and kind of has a bad habit of padding the last disc, but still workable.
.sig: Now legally binding!
you're complaining because going to the movie theater is $8.50? Most places in Manhattan (New York) charge anywhere between $9 and $15 to see a movie per person. The cheapest I've found on the island is $7 and that's in a section of the city I would not want to be in after dark.
Until CD's are no longer sold, NOTHING, not SDMI, not WMA, not micropayments, will stop the trading of MP3's. As long as someone can rip the CD and encode it and share it, why pay for it? That's the logic of the masses, and thats what the RIAA has to fight. The only way this will ever be over is for CD's to be abolished. And I don't see that happening any time soon.
Using Napster to download MP3s *is* not illegal.
I won't touch the moral question, and I'm not talking about Free Speech or IwtbF. I guess it's illegal to distribute music if you don't have permission to distribute it from the author/owner, so the persons placing music on Napster is doing something wrong. Downloading the music is not theft or property damage. You are not taking away something from someone else. It is not different than going to the library for a book.
Here's a thought; if someone set up a music library, online, with the same intent and purposes as a RL library, would grabbing music from them be illegal? What difference would there be?
Anyway, I take issue with the statement that people are 'stealing'. I think the definition of theft is old and unsuited for music, because it is *not* a limited resource, nor is it a rare or precious commodity. Someone who 'takes' a copy does not deny a copy to someone else. It is 'theft' in that the owner of the music is not getting reimbursed for the transaction. I agree that we have no right to take from them, but I disagree with the statement that it is theft, the same as taking a car or a shirt. We are guilty of violating contract and transaction protocols, the exchange of value for value, but not guilty of taking away value from owners.
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I found the article interesting and insightful. It certainly reflects the the authors own mixed feelings about the technology. This section from part four was particularly amusing:
Not everyone is a network security guru, y'know. But there is alot more in the article, and at least the guy was trying to think about this.Maybe this isn't news. maybe it should be.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Or is there a new law (since 1997) that changes this?
DMCA, 1998.
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E_NOSIG
The funny thing about a good portion of the slashdot community being so supportive about napster is that they are essentially screwing the artists they listen to. Imagine this: /. necessarily supports the geeky start-up. It is amazing how predictable any large group of people is.
The record companies one day decided they were no longer going to sell music. They were simply going to take the music and give it away without giving the artists who created it a cent in return. There would be an uproar on slashdot about how the record companies are not giving the artists the money they deserve. However, since a geeky start-up is fighting a big business,
He's right, it was well-written. It's also the first mainstream news I've seen in a while that correctly notes the distinction between "Napster distributes copyrighted songs" and "people can use Napster to search each one another's hard drives for music."
... Exempt from criminal prosecution reproduction or distribution that is not done "willfully" or that constitutes small-scale non-commercial copying (copyrighted works with a total retail value of less than $1,000)
Another interesting note though, is that the article links to the No Electronic Theft Act, which says the following:
The criminal copyright and trademark provisions in titles 17 and 18 of the U.S. Code are amended to:
Now wait a minute, doesn't that say that if I go out on Napster or Gnutella or what have you, and get copies of lots of copyrighted songs, that I am exempt from criminal prosecution? As long as I don't steal anything worth more than $1,000 (per work, right, not total value?) or willfully distributed these songs?
Is there a catch? Am I to be civilly prosecuted, instead of criminally? Or is there a new law (since 1997) that changes this?
Or can you really not be busted for piracy unless you willfully distribute or pirate more than $1,000 at a time? This is much like making it legal to own and smoke pot, merely illegal to be a pot dealer.
http://www.gnu.org/philos ophy/reevaluating-copyright.html
Can your IM do this?
The articles are longer than what you find in USA Today, and require reading skills and critical thinking skills to comprehend.
Perhaps you should just stick with Aint it Cool News, and other sites that use short words and lots of pretty pictures.
What's actually at issue is the real right (backed by copyright law) of the public, once having purchased Metallica's music, to do whatever they want with it, including making copies and sharing them with their friends. Free use of information, including things like recordings of Metallica performances, is legally recognized as the default state. As a matter of public policy in order to encourage the creation of artistic works, and not because of a "right" of an artist to be in permanent control of his work even after he's sold it, the law grants a limited, temporary monopoly on the commercial distribution of the artist's work--but that's the exception, not the rule--and the law makes it clear that the limited temporary monopoly does not override the underlying right of the consumer to use the work (including making copies for non-commercial purposes, excerpting for reviews, and all the other things that fall under "fair use").
The record companies have been doing everything in their power to convert that limited temporary monopoly into a permanent, unlimited one, and erase the fundamental distinction between information (which can be copied infinitely without making anyone poorer) and real property (which cannot).
"Feed the starving musicians... "
well my response is:
Fucking get a job starving musician. Since when does playing music give you the right to have a upper-class lifestyle? Make music for the sake of music, not your fucking wallet. Hey, sure if you can get people to PAY you to play for them, great! But I don't think that you have a GOD GIVEN RIGHT to expect people to compensate you. You say something in public you don't go around expecting everybody who heard it to pay you if they repeat or record it. Music is expression not product.
I don't use Napster. I also don't think it is useful to pretend that "napster helps the struggling artists" much the same way that I don't see the use in those "medical marijuana" campaigns. Sure there are a percentage that believe that MJ relieves pain that other drugs cannot for some people. But if you want to smoke MJ and you don't think you should go to jail for it, then fucking change the law and be EXPLICIT about it. You do have the right to do what you will with your own mind. And be honest about what you think in regards to our rights to enjoy music and other forms of expression.
Oops, I mean "intellectual property."
I'm saying that just because a company promises you something in a contract, that it's not automatically right. Especially if they promise something illegal or infeasible.