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MP3.com Pays Damages to Sony
Spudley writes "According to this story on the BBC MP3.com have agreed an out-of-court settlement to pay Sony music $20 million in damages for their past copyright infrigements. The deal also covers the future - MP3.com will from now on pay royalties to Sony. However, the judge has ruled that the trial must still take place, in order to make a ruling on other copyright cases against them."
i like to call it being a bully
Adler
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
According to quote.yahoo.com, MPPP has a market cap of half a *billion* (yes, b-as-in-Bugatti) dollars, and the cited per-share cash value is nothing to sneeze at, either, given the number of shares.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Yeah, like tell me, what exactly does the music artist or the music listener benefit out of this.
I say it's just another deal above our heads. We get to know about it, but we wont get any effect on us from it.
But wouldn't they still have to pay the $20 Million even if none of the music was pirated?
Now... If only myplay will support vorbis alongside mp3 and windows media....
(Oh - and go and listen to my Downtemp/L eftfield Selection on myplay....)
Can you really blame Sony for the VCR? Weren't they peddling betamax?
Looking beyond the specific case to the general question...
It's surely news to nobody that traditional approaches to copyright don't mix well with the net. What possible solutions to this are there?
We can abandon the notion of copyright. That raises the question of how creators are to be compensated. Personally I give some of the software and fiction I've created away - but not everyone is happy with this, and I wouldn't be happy if some of my favourite authors (say) had to gave up writing because they couldn't make a living from it.
The Street Performer Protocol will doubtless be familiar. That's one approach that might be useful. Another approaches might be for the state to support artists - this already happens to an extent anyway in some countries, but has the difficulty that you end up with a bias towards whatever the state (or its agents) prefer. (But would that be worse than a bias towards what the record companies prefer?) You have to collect the money, too, and new taxes are rarely popular.
We could do it through voluntary donations - charity, essentially - but that could be a bit hit-and-miss.
If we want to keep the notion of copyright, we could enforce it very strictly. But that would be expensive and intrusive even to do badly, and is surely impossible to do well.
We could all fit hardware-supported digital rights management subsystems to our computers, but that would again be intrusive and may be hard or impossible to do well; it'd only take one "chipped" PCs for the copyrighted cats to get out of the bag.
One can imagine a system where the content provider distributes (via the net, radio, etc) encrypted content to a tamper-proof player (hifi, TV, walkman, toaster, etc) in your home that they've sold, rented or just given you, and charges micropayments for each performance. The infrastructure costs would be hideous, though, as would be the impact on individual choice of playback equipment, and again once unencrypted versions of the content becomes available the whole systems falls apart.
We could just ignore the problem, and trust that unauthorized copying isn't such a huge problem after all. This might even be true; I still buy music CDs despite knowing that digital copies are often (illegally) available for nothing, for example.
Any other suggestions?
I pay auto insurance. Does this mean I know driving is wrong/illegal and i will "have to eventually make things right."
well, supposedly the labels are backpedaling on that "all music is a work for hire" issue, so ownership should be back in the hands of the songwriters at _some_ point.
that said, unless you're a top-ten sorta songwriter, i don't think it matters much. the vast majority of musicians don't make much off of royalties.
Every piece of music has two copyright holders - the big record labels have settled out of court... but the publishers still haven't made any legal moves yet..
My guess is mp3.com will have to move away from mp3s.
Had they set it up so that you actually had to transfer the MP3 files to them yourself, there would not have been a lawsuit. Other companies are utilizing that sort of thing now - including Nullsoft, a division of AOL/Time Warner. The problem is that they brought this one on themselves by using a system which sounds good in theory but is a lawsuit magnet in reality.
Lest anyone forget, the RIAA's ultimate goal is to eliminate the MP3 format entirely. Remember, they sued Diamond to keep the Rio off the market - a device which simply plays MP3 files. They will ultimately be unsuccessful...but IMHO the MyMP3 service was set up with the full expectation that they would be sued over it.
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
So now you're reverting to calling the only entities producing Entertainment Content That People Enjoy Listening To (you can forget all the second rate ramblin' noise that 'independent artists' make in daddy's basement) 'fat-but-quickly-becoming-desperate'.
We know who is fat and quickly becoming desperate, and it's the people hunkered over a keyboard getting a monitor tan, not those in the Entertainment Industry.
This analogy is not entirely applicable to MP3's situation.
We pay for auto insurance to leverage the resources of the insurance company in the event of an accident while using the insured vehicle. Also, the state requires that you insure the vehicle.
Insurance is protection against something that might happen - not necessary if you have enough money to cover possible expenses.
The MP3 situation is PAST TENSE. The "accident" had already happened. MP3 already KNEW that they were wrong and simply setup a fund with which to buy their way out of trouble.
Jim
Remember to take out the trash if you want to send email to me.
This is not what this means. The reason that mp3.com got in trouble was that they were giving you their copy of the music without paying royalties to the record companies.
Here is the rational. Any two rips of a track on a CD will produce different mp3's due to changes in variables beyond our control (unless somehow you find a way to control everything). In this way, the court is able to see an mp3 much like a copy of an old LP onto tape, each copy is a bit different.
Thus, when mp3.com makes a rip, they have in effect converted the music into another format (this is legal). However, they then give this legal copy away to people who have "proof" that they own the CD already (this is illegal as it is not in fair use to give away a fair use copy to someone else).
The best analogy I can give to this is that of a radio station. They convert the music they have purchased and convert it to another form, then pass it out over the radio waves. However, they can't do this for free, they must pay a fee to the record companies for the music they play, because they have given their "fair use" copies out for free (even to some people who own copies of the music).
This is why other places which offer to store mp3's which you rip aren't getting in trouble, because they are offering you a way to store and play your own fair use copies. So mp3.com was not letting you play music within your fair use guidelines and that is why they got in trouble. This is a case that I personally think was decided correctly, in a legal sense. I think its kinda screwed up that this doesn't work, but hey, the law hasn't had time to catch up with the new ideas yet.
> I think the VHS tapes were longer too, I have
> to check the betamax at my parents.
Yep. Standard Beta tape was only good for 90
minutes while standard VHS went for 2 hours.
This made a *big* difference since, at the
time, almost all movies shown on TV were cut/
padded with commercials to take two hours.
People doing home recording could get entire
movie on one VHS, but not on Beta.
Chris Mattern
I used to use MP3.com. They used to have a really big well-stocked download area where MP3 related utilities were widely available. Now they have a limited number of 'featured' programs that's a feeble subset of what used to be available. So I really have no use for them any longer.
This has always been the purpose of copyright -- to make money. It seems that because it is a Big Company making the money; we have a "right" to interfer with that.
They really have no say over what you can do with your CD. You can rip it to MP3, put those MP3s elsewhere and play them. You can upload them to your web site, download them at work and play them there. You can do anything you want with your CD except for distribute the music on it. It's the same concept that says I can't buy a book and make photocopies and give them to people. You own what you have bought, which is the CD, you don't own the content, so you aren't free to do anything with the content other than use it for the purpose it was sold for, which is to listen to. Other than in the area of redistribution, the record companies can't tell you what to do with your CD.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
People all over the world want to kill their boss?
I guess I had thought of domain squatting as buying a domain in order to extort money from the current trademark owner. Buying domains to redirect isn't exactly the same thing; cf whitehouse.com. Doubly so since they aren't the exact copyrights - talkcity.com should trademark talk-city.com, IMHO, and then they can complain. It's sleazy, but not illegal since trademarks are exact rather than just "well, it sort of sounds the same".
Granted, there seems to be a pauacity of real revolutionaries in the online mp3 business; maybe only Freenet and Gnutella are the only ones who weren't planning to make a profit.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Another source of income? For what? Buying a song twice? No music company has a right to another stream of revenue from a CD purchaser.
That is essentially the message sent from the settlement: They want you to not only pay for your music, but pay for it more than once if you want to use it in any "non-standard" way.
So if mp3 has to start charging for my.mp3.com to recoupe the costs of royalties to the RIAA, I know that I'll have no moral problems with, say, taking a friend's CD and using Beam-It w/o paying for the original. Why? Because I'm already paying for it.
sorry, but it is now MINE. I can do w/it what I please. That is the purpose of paying for it. You are buying rights to do w/it as you like. I am not selling it off for a profit, therefore, there is nothing wrong with it. This has nothing to do w/BIG Business, I could give a fuck, I already gave them my money...
My point is that Sony doesn't need the money, and they only want the piracy to stop. So it would be in everyone's best interest to just pull all pirated music from the site. It's obvious that they want a part of mp3 future since they want to do this on a royalty basis, so what good does the $20 million do other than corporate greed.
Don't get me wrong, I believe this is piracy and the people responsible should be punished, but a big fine doesn't realyl accomplish much especially if Sony now wants a role in what mp3.com does.
Come on, you didn't expect something like this? The music industry works just like the mafia.. you want in, you pay for it later. Sony is just collecting their 'tribute'.
I write some music now and then, and while I don't expect to ever make money off of it, I like the idea of my work being protected. Even if most of the bands out there are crap, there are a few that deserve to make money off of their work... even if it is just a few bucks..
Plus, record labels are good for telling the masses what to buy.
So to whom has mp3.com been trying to sell the domain? Can you point to some proof of them being a domain squatter?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Hardly. SDMI is crap. MP3 is not crap but is a very useful format. MP3.com used Sony's recordings without permission, so they're being forced to pay royalties for these recordings in the future. The format is unaffected.
sulli
RTFJ.
"This settlement affirms and upholds the right of copyright owners to be paid for the use of their works on the internet,"
Let us not forget, that means Sony, not Bruce Springsteen.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
One thing this shows is that it would have probably been cheaper to come to an agreement BEFORE starting to take in dough using questionable IP policies, but from the amount of money mp3.com is expecting to be able to cough up, there is obviously money to be made in this.
As for the free beer crowd, I don't see how this handles the numerous decentralized free file sharing utilities out there, or makes Freenet any less viable.
But if mp3.com expects to rake in huge sums of cash I frankly am not going to weep for them if they forced by a court to cough up the profits, even to scumbags like Sony, RIAA, etc.
Unlike mp3.com you store material you can store anything you want - rather than what mp3.com has licensed.....
I wonder how much disk storage myplay could buy with the huinderds of millions that mp3.com is spending on licensing?
Sony Corporation is no more an American citizen than my mousepad is.
In our legal system its not about the artist its about the *owner* of the art.
The libertian party stance is something like "I do not support the initation of force to controler others". They do not support IP, only natural property.
First, are you sure the CEO is 19? I don't remember ever seeing that. And twenty million dollars is a lot of money even to a multibillion dollar corporation. Twenty million dollars is a lot of money period. I haven't read the article yet, so I'm not sure what exactly mp3.com did to break copyright from Sony (was it mymp3.com). But it must have been something their lawyers thought would be illegal. Also... it makes me crazy when people refer to the McDonalds law suit as this example of a redidiculeous law suit. Did you ever see the pictures of the cup? It actually MELTED the cup. McDonalds DID mess up. Coffee that will melt the styrofoam they served it to you in is TOO hot. Maybe if they had served it in a ceramic cup that would be diferent, but they didn't :)
Ian
Hasn't myplay.com trademarked the term 'digital music locker'?
Didn't anyone else pause the recording during commercials with the old tethered remote control that came with the first VCR's and betamax? I think I still have Dark Crystal, 16 candles, etc taped on betamax somewhere in storage and might be able to purchase a betamax player somewhere, sounds like a nice weekend project attempting to crawl back into my cheese-infested 80's youth.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
that's chutzpah
/'hut-sp&, '[k]ut-, -(")spä/
Variant(s): also chutzpa
Function: noun
Etymology: Yiddish khutspe, from Late Hebrew huspAh
Date: 1892
: supreme self-confidence : NERVE, GALL
synonym see TEMERITY
News for UW students
Sony Corporation is no more an American citizen than my mousepad is.
Hey, I never said it was. If a foreign company can come into America (and pay taxes, too) and do well, that just shows there was a market niche there that wasn't properly filled.
Sony found a market niche (high quality consumer electronics), filled it, and prospered, while increasing the efficiency of the American marketplace.
This is why the American economy expands so fast.
More interesting (yes offtopic) legal stuff on chutzpah
News for UW students
I think it would work best if everything on the net were treated as shareware/freeware (depending on the creators' preferences). This includes music, movies, software, etc., etc. Music, software, movies distributed on CD/DVD should just be considered more permenant copies. It's no longer practical to attach a license to listen/watch/use to the media something is distributed on.
All we'd need is for people on both sides to be honest and fair. People should actually pay for whatever they download (or copy from a friend) and use. And musicians/record companies/software companies should ask for reasonable amounts of money.
No messy encryption, tracking, IDs, whatever. Just be honest and fair. Sheesh.
Minor differences in mp3s of the same song because they were ripped from two diffent copys of the CD, or because of different compression schemes, or whatever, is really quite ridiculous.
I know what the law says, but in this case it's merely a technicality. I believe the Supreme Court would find this hair splitting as ridiculous as I do. After all, we're not talking about different versions, or remixes, or anything else, and unless quality control at the pressing plant is horrible, their should be no discernable difference in encodings.
So, again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying that this is the point of contention, and it ultimately takes copyright, which grants fair use, and splits some fine hairs and creates a technicality. It's not in the spirit or intent of copyright law.
----------
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Probably not. I suspect it will be too difficult to determine where the money should go, so Sony (or whoever's next) will just keep the whole thing.
Their recording quality is sub-standard
...dynamic range compressed to a mere 10dB...CLIPPING in digital recordings...
This ain't HiFi, yet you're paying overinflated prices for their CRAP
(FUD-o-meter: *.................)
Not all cassettes and CDs are identical. There are some that have different songs or intros. For some you have to buy both the CD and the cassette to get everything.
If you've got a cable modem or dsl you can download an MP3 in 30 seconds, why spend 5 minutes or more to rip and encode the song when you can download it?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Actually, Slashdot did a story on this way back when MyMP3.com started up, and some people reverse-engineered part of the beam-it process.
Apparently, it was actually quite well designed. The server would request a random assortment of sectors from the CD, and the client had to send them back. This doesn't take long, but if you don't have the CD theres no way to supply the correct information.
So it was actually quite difficult to dupe the server.
On the other hand, it would be pretty easy for you and a friend to swap CD collections one afternoon and each add eachother's CD's.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Well it's a sad day. Now we're going to have to pay royalties for music that has already been purchased and is being used within fair use guidelines. Shit.
________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
First, are you sure the CEO is 19?
Wasn't there an article about his mom having to accompany him to some conference b/c he wasn't over 20? I thought that was MP3.com, if not, my bad.
It actually MELTED the cup.
I didn't know that. Thanks for that tidbit.
---
Unto the land of the dead shalt thou be sent at last.
Surely thou shalt repent of thy cunning.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The RIAA is not just Sony. Other labels are plaintiffs in this suit, and they still want their share.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
It may be just me, but $20 million seems like a lot of money for a company that doesn't really do anything. Second, this is going to set a VERY bad precendent for all other cases like this; "maybe if we sue enough people, someone will give in and give us some money." Though I guess that's the American Dream now, isn't it?
Good advice for us all! ;)
I have a bunch of CD's "beamed" to my.mp3.com. Ever since the lawsuit they've been greyed out, and unplayable.
So, the settlement with Sony should mean that soon, I can play any Sony artist CD's once more from my.mp3.com.
But since they are licenced to play all of Sony's music library, does that then mean I can essentially play any Sony CD for free from my.mp3.com, or will I still have to "beam" up my own CD's?
In a side note, I wonder if it would be legal for myplay.com to combine multiple mp3 versions of the same song into one copy (or a few for different bit rates)?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How much "damages" in dollars did Sony pay to movie companies or to the MPAA (before Sony became a move company and bought Columbia Pictures) for its movie piracy device known as the VCR back in the late 70s? Answer Zilch. As usual justice is only for those with deep pockets.
Wow, that seems like a double whammy...first they have to pay an out-of-court settlement, AND the trial still goes on? Sucks for mp3.com... :(
__
For Sony to sue MP3.com is a little like the guy who kills his parents then asks the judge for mercy because he's an orphan.
I'm curious as to how MP3.com will make up this kind of dough. I just can't see how they could possibly have that much to start with. 20 mil is a lot, and the article doesn't state how they're paying. I'd have to say they're in debt.
It may be just me, but $20 million seems like a lot of money for a company that doesn't really do anything. Second, this is going to set a VERY bad precendent for all other cases like this; "maybe if we sue enough people, someone will give in and give us some money." Though I guess that's the American Dream now, isn't it?
To be able to work hard, and profit from your hard work, without worrying about thieving governments or malcontents taking your profits.
But if you think it's alright for people to steal from you, just because they can, please post your VISA number, name, address and expiration date.
I agree on the general issue, however if you look at it they are not really saying you can't do anything with *your* mp3 files, they are saying that mp3.com can not do a nifty market-share grab by using other people's IP.
If they planned this as a money-making venture they were not smart to avoid even good faith efforts at cutting a deal with someone. It would probably have been cheaper to go *just* to RIAA or one of the associations they could claim they reasonably believed had the rights to cut a deal about it, and agree to a royalties scheme. Then if they still got sued (probable), they'd have that to fall back on and RIAA (or whoever else got a cut) on their side instead of against them.
It's all still mafia-style tactics in the music industry, especially when you start threatening turf.
As for how this affects me, well, hell, I'll still do whatever the hell I please, and under whatever name I choose, and with whatever level of accountability I choose.
to kill your boss.
"Kill my boss? Dare I live the American dream?" - Homer Simpson
Tobacco companies were fined $50,000,000,000 dollars. They don't have that much. And since you can't fine a company into bankruptcy/non-existance (and this is law in many states. e.g., FL) the amount always comes down later (but the media seldom reports this).
I really don't like these "deals" - you know, if I put *my* music in my digital locker, then why should anyone have to anything? Am I missing something here, or are we *paying* for fair use?
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
Can you really blame Sony for the VCR? Weren't they peddling betamax?
Yes, Sony had the Betamax, or better quality than VHS, and still preferred by professionals and studios.
However, they refused to license it for porn, and thus lost lots of market share.
I think the VHS tapes were longer too, I have to check the betamax at my parents.
FWIW, you can still buy blank beta tapes in Rochester, NY, since we were early adopters.
Just remember, MP3.com is choosing to license music from Sony.
Don't feel sorry for MP3.com. They obviously feel that they can make enough money to justify these kinds of deals.
And they won't ever get paid by any pirate-like distribution.
Boycott won't work.
Personally, I think we should write to various fair use crusaders from both parties (Orin Hatch of Utah is emerging as one potential champion...), and say the following:
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Now that the big bands will cost money, the little guys can release stuff for free and get noticed.
And if you buy the CD and then later you hear the song on the radio, the radio station still has to pay for the priviledge of broadcasting the song. My.mp3.com is being treated no differently than a radio station.
And maybe that's the problem. The RIAA (and the law also, I guess) is treating transmission of a copyrighted work as "redistribution" even if the receiver already has the copyrighted work.
Probably the whole solution to this is to wait a few years until broadband is more available. If you wanna keep your music at home and listen to it at work, just run your own personal server instead of using my.mp3.com. Not feasible for everyone right now, but pretty soon.
On the plus side, though. If my.mp3.com pays Sony for rights to redistribute music, then does that mean they can transmit music even if the receiver doesn't have it? Can you (legally and rightfully) listen to the Springsteen MP3 from my.mp3.com even if you didn't buy the CD and do the challenge-response check? After all, Sony has been paid for it.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Sony's Memory Stick players (like the NW-MS7)won't play MP3s. Instead they come with software that merrily converts your MP3 collection into hoplessly restricted, SDMI-compliant music files, encoded with their own proprietary ATRAC3 format [nb: different from the ATRAC that Minidisc uses, except for the newest MDLP decks].
Using their Win98-only software, you end up with files that can only be played on your (single) PC, and on up to 3 portables that you own.
Of course, you can't transfer the music files back to the PC. You can't burn a CDR of these files and listen to them at work (they're keyed to your player at home). As it seems to assume that every MP3 is copyrighted and the owners want to have their work subject to SDMI restrictions, any "free" music you have gets screwed if you want to listen to it on your Sony device.
The GadgetSquad review goes into the restrictions with more detail.
On the other hand, Sony are now starting to release their "Internet Audio" Minidisc packages, which include a USB link to your PC (they're also offering the kit free to owners of recent MD recorders). It's still realtime, but way better than the lameass SDMI players, and hopefully will push MD a bit harder to the MP3 market - one that it's very well suited to.
This might be a stupid question but.... if the coffee was hot enough to melt the styrofoam cup, how was she able to pay for her coffee and carry it to her car? Is this a magical cup of coffee that gets hotter as it sits?
"In this house we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics." -Homer Simpson
But the question in my mind is what MP3.com did redistribution? This same argument can carried out of cyberspace in this way:
I buy a cd but don't have a cd-player in my car, nor do I have a way to copy cd to tape available to me. Is it then illegal for me to have a friend copy the same album from his cd onto tape and me to use it? Or is it required by law for me to go to his house with my cd and copy the content myself? It really is the same argument, mp3 is just another medium of recording.
What I am more scared of than audio is this same type of argument being carried over to paper media. If this holds it may well be that we see magazines dissappear from public places, because it would be within the rights of the magazine company to decide that you are only allowed to read the particular copy of the paper media that you purchased.
Ultimately laws like this will fail because people won't buy into the stupidness of it, but until that time I don't like the idea one bit.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
"Choosing" in the sense that if somebody has a gun to your head and asks for all your money, you "choose" to give them your money rather than die.
Well that's not really the point. I don't even play mp3s all that much since my computer is getting a little old. The point is that I don't want the record companies having that much say over what I can and cannot do with a CD that I purchased. The fact that I never even used my.mp3.com has nothing to do with it.
________________
They're - They are
Their - Belonging to them
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Let me get this straight: 19-year-old CEO of MP3.com has to pay multinational billion-dollar corporation Sony $20 million because of copyright infringement? (Heh heh, sounds like the opposite of the 80's lawsuit with the woman who burned her crotch on a hot cup of McD's coffee and won multimill$$$)
Doesn't this seem a bit like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer? MP3.com is wrong, they violated copyrights, but what the fuck... Another attempt by the courts to deter by example a-la Mitnick, perhaps?
I guess this is reassuring because whenever an enemy strikes with such excessive force, and in such a state of panic, it means they are unsure of themselves and their future.
---
Unto the land of the dead shalt thou be sent at last.
Surely thou shalt repent of thy cunning.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
The problem with the referenced story is that it and most other coverage of this issue fail to bring to the public's attention that these major record labels have yet to supply any proof that laws were broken. These legal dealings have more to do with intent than anything else. The bottom line is everybody wants their 'piece' and in the end it all comes down to how much money they are willing to pay and how much the labels are willing to settle for.
Revolutions do not come piecemeal. - James Gleick
I see a lot of bemoaning about the "revolution is over" and "goodbye MP3". This has no effect on MP3 the file format and only affects MP3.com the website. If their name was "Music.com" would we be crying out "now I can't listen to music anymore"? No.
I have never once downloaded anything from MP3.com or used any of their services but I have many MP3 files (mostly ripped from my own CDs but some obtained from Napster and the like).
--
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
You can't blame the companies that invented the VCR only the users are to blame. That is like saying the person who invented CD Recorders is a theif. Well i like being able to backup my databases at work and bring them home. Yes some people use them to priate but not all.
Founder's Camp
Founder's Camp
News for non-Nerds. Stuff that matters.
Actually, the founder of mp3.com bought the domain for about $1,000 from a man who had bought it because it contained his initials. However, they have been around for a few years, and they're no more a "domain squatter" than news.com, tv.com, computers.com, etc.
For more information, click here.
For now, I think it's cool that MP3.com won't get shut down, unlike some other services I could mention. It's interesting that none of the companies that sued mp3.com for my.mp3.com never even used it, kinda like that other trial.
The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong GHOST (mentha lemures)
Alright. MP3.com and Sony settle. Sony drops the suit. So, MP3.com still has to face them in court? In my experience, if the prosecutor drops the case to settle, it is over. Now the judge wants to continue the proceedings, using taxpayer dollars to get two parties to agree on something they have already agreed upon? What happens if MP3.com wins? Will they still pay Sony? I think the might have alterior motives, persuing this trial because he/she wants to be the one to do "the trial that set the precedent." Plus, I'm sure there are many other music companies suing MP3.com (or at least they will in the future) so they can set the precendent. Will the court pay their legal fees (avoiding which is the reason to settle out-of-court)? This whole scenario is boggling me...
I have been considering the issues of copyright infringement and what it could mean to the current election. Currently, infringement of copyright is against the law of the United States. But consider what would happen if a political party decided otherwise.
If any of the third parties come out strongly against the DMCA and for limited copyrights (say 5 years as opposed to life + year-1929), then suddenly there are 20 million people who may just vote for them. It would be interesting to see whether or not Nader or Browne will come out against copyrights. It would be pleasant if one of the major candidates would do likewise, but with all that money from the movie and record industries out there, I kind of doubt that would occur.
I remember reports that mp3.com had >$400 in the bank from their IPO.
Even after the settlements, this still leaves them with a nice chunk of change.
By setting aside $150M, they've kind of sent a signal to Harry Fox and whatever other publishers/small labels that may want to continue to pursue them in court. If you figure each of the major labels will cost about $20, that leaves about $50M for the rest.
yup.
the guy just bought a good domain, he is not in it for the revolution, just the pay-off.
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There's a big difference between going after generic names like "tv" or "news" and what MP3.com's CEO, Michael Robertson, has a history of doing. His domain squatting involved buying the domains of already-known entities -- if you think he was doing it for their benefit, I got a bridge to sell ya. Some of the domain names he owned: talk-city.com, win-zip.com, meta-crawler.com, meta-crawler.net, and four-11.com. He's even admitted that he bought MP3.com when he realized that it was showing up at the top of the search engines' "most searched terms" lists.
(For more info, check out the results from when the real Talk City defeated Mr. Robertson in WIPO arbitration: The Panel finds that Mr. Robertson owns a domain name (talk-city.com) identical or confusingly similar to Talk City's trademark (TALK CITY), has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name, and registered and used the domain name in bad faith. These three factors entitle Talk City to an order transferring the domain name from Mr. Robertson to Talk City. Policy 4(a). [bold mine])
Cheers,
Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know.
Nice quote from the latest issue of Scientific American that just showed up, article about will MP4 do for movies what MP3 does for music???
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Considering that Sony was the defendant in a major lawsuit that Napster, MP3.com, and 2600.com have used for citing precedent. And now they've taken the part of the plaintiff. Isn't that just discouragingly political? Yesterday's revolutionary is today's establishment.
That's why if I were to ever run for elected office, it would be on the promise that my first official act would be to resign.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
mp3.com wasn't about a revolution, but a domain squatter. I'm not sure how you think this legitimizes the SDMI, or how this particular event would convince consumers to adopt it.
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I think a major thing you are failing to understand in your post is the fact that by giving away a copy of the cd to someone that would normally have to buy it, you are actually stealing the cost of that cd from the parent company. I like that part of copyright law.
What really irks me (and I'm saying this again I know) is that we are not limited in our own use of the product. We are not allowed to listen to music we have paid for "fair use" of from sources other than ones sanctioned by the company we purchased the rights from. The law is technically on thier side, but I think the law needs to be stretched for this instance. When I listen to a song that I own the cd to on mp3.com it doesn't steal one cent of revenue from the record company, other than the money they have managed to sucker mp3.com into paying, and that is money thats being stolen in my opinion.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
dr. dre & metalica can't explain bad record sales any other way... Napster in the Crapster
I will still never understand how you can make copies for your own personal use (mp3) and give them away for free and still get sued for it..
Not making a profit is not something that the "revolution" is about (although that is a part of it). To me, it's about control of media, music being in the spotlight now, and creating with less centralized control and protection schemes. The copyright and IP stuff is about who owns and controls our culture, and can make bits of it disappear forever if they want.
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So much for MP3.com being free... how much do you think they'll charge now? Of course, there's already plenty of reasons to boycott Sony anyway...
What about those of us who bought the CD or the cassette(Or both) but still want to be able to listen to the music without searching through stacks and stacks of CD?
I can name several albums that I bought bot the cassette and the CD of but still wanted to make some MP3s of.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano