Slashdot Mirror
Sony VP On Stopping Napster
akira-x writes "I spotted a link to an interesting (and disturbing) article on Gnutella News regarding some comments that were made by Steve Heckler, senior vice president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. According to him, Napster WILL lose, because "The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what." The disturbing part is what Heckler says Sony will attempt to do to help them win: "Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this," Heckler told the Summer Forty-Niner. "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC." "
one example where that would not "work". To my satisfaction anyways -
There is a very talented musician that I know of. Andy Partridge, of the band XTC. He has an unfortunate circumstance; a psychological problem, he can not perform in front of an audience, or even on camera. He has severe anxiety attacks. XTC has toured, and has had to cancel performances, and end tours early, every time he thought he had it whipped. That said, XTC's recorded music is absoltuely fantastic, and I would hate for it to not have a shot at existing, just because it is necessary for an artist to perform in order to be paid.
There has to be another way - and I believe, quite FIRMLY, that free, noncommercial trading of MP3's on the internet will NOT harm revenue from CD sales. It will change things for the record industry, they may need to work harder, more honestly, to make a buck, but they'll still get their bucks. Many of them. People want music. They want it free, but that doesn't mean people won't pay for it, even if it's available free.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
please, when they manage to do what they are saying, tell me so that i can stop laughing.
bye
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
. . . all sorts of things that they must know full well make it easier for people to use mp3s. Things like portable mp3 players (gasp! what do they think is going on there?). Sony cd burners let people use mp3s to make cd's instead of buying them. As a more historical precedent, Sony tape decks have been enabling people to copy music for years.
You guys are as much cause of the problem as the music industry. You don't play fair either.
I see what you're saying, but the policeman does not have the power to impose a 24-hour curfew in order to stop crime happening. Blocking FTP is like stopping people carrying knives on the street, blocking Napster like stopping them carrying guns.
Hamish
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
if you alienate your consumers, they'll go elsewhere and there goes your brand loyalty that you so cherish and fought YEARS to promote.
Wait a minute. You may not want to go elsewhere. Sony might sue you for changing your brand loyalty after they invested so much time and money into building their name. So it is with this Napster debacle. They think they have a basic right to corporate survival. I say the ball is in their court. Let's see if they can survive these trying times without attacking their own customers.
Gah
The funny thing is that Judge Patel is the same judge who apparently "Got It"(tm) and issued the Bernstein ruling on crypto.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
And our response should be : "We will take agressive steps to stop Sony. We will not buy its walkmans and stereos, we will not buy their computers, we will not buy their CD and DVD drives, we will not purchase music from their record labels, in short we will stop Sony dead in its tracks for trespassing upon our free choice to do what we want on the internet. We will firewall Sony at our wallets!"
If they intend to target MP3 itself- ouch. Modified ouch... after all, mp3 is a painfully encumbered format and there is every reason to believe the patent holders will start putting the screws to ME the musician just as soon as they are ready to. This kind of lessens my willingness to madly defend the format- defend for whom? But all the same I _really_ don't like the idea of a world-controlling corporation shutting off entire forms of media, encumbered or non-encumbered.
If they intend to target ALL forms of media, current and future, being used to exchange Sony music for no money- *tweet* outta the pool! The towering, unavoidable problem with this is that it outlaws non-corporate media. I as a non-corporate musician wouldn't be allowed to function if every time I found a new digital format I could distribute on, Sony pulled strings to get it banned from all ISPs- particularly ugly is the fact that, unlike music-exchangers, I wouldn't find it so convenient to be anonymous or to conceal the filetypes or whatever.
Currently, I put out mp3s (see URL link, as ever) quite openly. If a Sony manages to make it impossible to traffic in mp3 files at all, I'm hosed. (If the patent holders start demanding $30,000 to use the format I'm also hosed- and this is beginning to happen already.) So I move to Ogg Vorbis *tadah* just as soon as I get my hands on the MacHack hack that ported the codec to MacOS (yes, turns out such a hack does actually exist- I want!). This time there is no patent holder, but there's Sony again, trying to get Vorbis outlawed- and that is the problem.
It's really not acceptable, in this day and age, for the individual to be forbidden to produce and distribute media. What Sony _wants_ is for anything that might ever get in their way to be made illegal and ferociously punished. They may not get what they want, but people must remain aware of the overwhelming importance of placing the tools for this media in people's hands. To legally support the position that the common man is fit only for mindless consumption is a despicable point of view- and it doesn't even matter that the common man's art or music may suck compared to a handpicked Sony artist with a million dollar (all out of royalties...) bankroll. That's irrelevant- the fact is, that ordinary person MUST NOT be legally forbidden to create. To forbid this is a shocking development that speaks volumes about the perspective and motivation of the corporate entity in society...
One would hope that the common man doesn't get forbidden IN PRACTICE from creating, either. "Oh, go ahead! That'll be thirty thousand dollars. ...so incorporate and do an IPO why don't you? Stop being a human being and become, legally, one of US..."
Bite the hand.
The AHRA has a specific exemption for computer-based stuff when it comes to SCMS implementation -- because it clearly couldn't feasibly be put into place on a general-purpose computer -- but doesn't the exemption apply to the whole act?
Yep. I think the name for this network is SuperFido (raise your voice and speak from the belly when pronouncing it)
cat
(Anyone ever think of making use of a kind of cookie that keeps tabs on how many times someone downloads/uploads/aborts uploads, and being able to see those stats... think about it... if they aren't going to share (Lots of upload aborts, few successful uploads) or are not stable... no point in dealing with them then. Kinda reminds be of the WLT(win loss tie) scores in Starcraft battle.net)
Not sure of any way you could do this and make it tamper-proof. Battlenet worked because the info was kept on a central server... something that the napster clones are actively avoiding for legal reasons.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Seems like CISCO or somebody is gonna be extremely rich one of these days. :)
Unless, ofcourse, if Sony choose to use Linux as their firewalls
Anyways who can trust these marketing people longer than you can throw them?
Then again, I'm murky on U.S. copyright law, and even murkier on U.K. copyright law, so what do I know?
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
It just sems to me that Sony is trying to play things from both ends. Fighting napster to prevent loss of sales, and at the same time releasing a memory stick walkman designed to play mp3's. If a company has a stance in the matter... fine. I don't agree with the anti-napster angle, but I can respect sony for at least having a stance. However I certainly think Sony is trying to pull a fast one by kind of siding with the mp3'ers as well by releasing products which are specifically designed to play dl'ed mp3's.
the record companies are the ones who were stupid enough to take the risk of investing so much money into the music industry at a period in history where everything is about to change... so what if they lose money! life is all about risk.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
1. Set the price of a CD to $5.
2. Set the price of a DVD to $10
Id be willing to pay hmmmmm $1 & $3. Not this $5/$10 stuff.. be reasonable. Their is no longer a need for MUSIC DISTRIBUTORS when anyone can distribute the music FOR FREE the Internet MP3/MPEG media distribution method cuts these people out alltogether. Money only need be paid to artists now.. and we can finally vote with our DOLLARS to fuel the production of what we want instead of taking what they (media oligopoly) offers.
DO THE WORDS OF THIS SONY VP SCARE YOU? NEED ANY MORE EVIDENCE DEMOCRACY IS CONTROLLED BY MONIED INTERESTS? FIGHT BACK:
Dang! Now I'm gonna have to go back to Usenet. Marlin And the booth...and everything...lifted up...out of the parking lot...and into the Skyyyyyyyyy!
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
There is one problem with your charge per file in the record companies big database scheme. If you already own the CD for an mp3 song, you legally have the right to download or create an mp3 file of that song. I believe it is covered under the same law that allows you put a copy of a song on cassette. You'd end up paying for the song 2 times--once in the CD you bought and a second time when you buy the mp3. Kind of makes me wonder why they haven't implemented the big database scheme yet. It fits into their greedy idea of things.
;)
It's been said before, but it is worth saying again. They, the record, companies have gotten themselves into this mess. If cds weren't so expensive, then this wouldn't be so wide spread. If they had started doing promos with free mps of released songs, this wouldn't have happened. Anyway you look at it, it is the consumors responding to an overly priced product in the market system. Most people with some business smarts would take this as a hint to lower the price of the products. In this case, it would be cds, tickets (to concerts and events), and promo item, but the record industry, and entertainment industry as a whole, has a tight grip on the flow of products. This allows them to set any price they want. Their really isn't a whole lot of competition for them.
BTW, anybody seen an MP3 of "What about me" by moving pictures?
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I can see it now, little stickers labeled "Do not remove under penalty of law." stuck over all the screws on my next pc's case. What fun.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Incorrect. Over 50% of Americans own stock either directly or through a mutual fund/401K. So, yes, a rising stock market does benefit "all the boats" when stock ownership is so widespread.
--
Chaosnetwork
OliverWillis.Com
An Operative with an Agenda
it is all very simple.
one company will go with what people want. one will go against what people want. the first one will win, which only gets easier because the second one does not compete.
no-one needs to worry about sony. sony is a big mad-ass company, as big as they come, but if they shoot themselves in the foot they are not threatening anyone. except napster, which may be a casuality on the way to doom.
that sony is so big jut means that they are shooting themselves in the foot with a bigger gun, and they are going to survive it, too. but not after some painful lessons about the market have been re-learned.
No, never, never! It's 248 on DirecTV, BTW. I was too young to see the original series (and laugh, that is), so I have to make up for lost time.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
I find it disconcerting that my favorite band (Rage Against the Machine), which has openly admitted they don't mind people distributing their music for free through Napster or other means, is on Epic Records, owned by Sony.
The more time I spend as a professional musician the more sick I become.
The artists themselves have little or no control over their own work. In many cases they unknowingly relinquish ownership of their material to simply "be signed". It is very difficult to get signed by any label, let alone a major one.
And so the sick thing is, if Sony called me on the phone and proposed to sign my band and release our debut albumn, I would jump at the chance. Sony's distribution alone would guarantee that millions of people will hear my music, and I'm referring to the so called "normal" channels, like radio and MTV.
To make it in the music world, you must be a business man. Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit is just that. His image is planned and targeted. He actually worked for a label before hitting it big with "Nookie".
I don't anticipate that my life as an unknown musician will be any easier due to napster. I still have to play the same tired game of half-selling my soul to a ridiculous group of suits who care little about my creative talents.
I... I thought I was the only one... so this is what it's like when doves cry...
-=The Rimstalker=-
-=The Rimstalker=-
I understand the difficulty the American Working Man has putting food
After reading this, I like you became enraged. Fuck Sony and it's holes.. That they attack PTP file sharing to begin with is grounds to boycott them, but additionally they've threatened ME! Protecting your interest is one thing, but putting nazi toll booth's and road blocks on the internet is bull shit.
/.'ers will too. Is there anyway for us to enjoy our god given right to playing the best video games, without comprimising our wish to strike back at our evil oppressors? Are we not being bought off to look the other way in the face of tirany? Also, what of movies from Sony pictures? what about all the creative people that come together to make a great movie, that was backed by evil? Should the artists then be punished too for sony's faults?
The problem for me then is this.. I now hate sony and don't wish to cast my dollar votes to their company, but up until today, i was 100% set to buy a new Playstation 2. I've even been holding out on buying a DVD player in anticipation of the PS2. I know I'm going to crumble in october.. I'm going to buy it. I'm sure many of my fellow enraged
The fact is, that Playstation and it's associated products account for more than half of the business that Sony does today. With the addition of PS2, it will acount for more.. Not buying sony products save for PS2 won't hurt sony. So what do we do? Am i just one of the weak few?
Seriously though, its really cruddy that a big corporation can shut down a protocol because of illegal use of it. If they win I can see them going after MS on the basis that IE is used to listen to illegal music on the net. Wait, corporations have alread flooded the web with ads so that I can't find what I'm looking for so they have effectively nullified that threat. *sigh* what is this world coming to. I just want a place to find the music I want to listen to, and unfortunately that is not the record stores these days.
Hmmm what will I listen to today, Brittney Spears or Ricki Martin
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
As was said so eloquently (I forget by who):
The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I think you mean to sound like hitler but instead that sounds like french..
If you want it to sound german its gotta be.
Wir blocken napster an Ihrem PC.
Make sure when you say blocken that its got the hcccghh sound to it. Kinda like your getting ready to hock a lugy..
Thank god for the x-box? At least Microsoft doesn't have any plans to end peoples ability to use computers for what they want, they just want to make sure you buy all the MS software while you are at it.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Oh man......and I just preordered my PS2. What to do now.....oh well...guess I will go download some more MP3's.
ISPs won't go along with Sony any more than Sony went along with the SDMI when they created mp3 players. ISP's know that people sign up for high speed internet in large part because of napster, and they're not about to lose that market just because Sony doesn't like it, just as Sony wasn't about to get cut out of the mp3 player business by a bunch of video card and modem makers just because Warner didn't like it. -Chuck
Correct.
We have no right to use IP in ways other than how the licensor intends.
Incorrect.
Even with GPLed software, you don't have to obey the GPL. Got that? You can completely ignore the GPL and no one will have any right to complain...
...as long as you don't break copyright law.
There is simply no basis, legal or moral, for assuming that people must agree to additional licensing terms after they purchase copyrighted works. Licenses are voluntary. Sony is not a licensor, they are merely a vendor.
If I buy a CD that has shrinkwrap on it that says
I will break the shrinkwrap, rip the CD, and convert it to Vorbis, because when they said "by doing this, you agree to this" they were making a statement, not a contractual offer, and their statement was incorrect.---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
and we should all tell them this, too. via fax and physical mail (somehow, I don't think they "get" the internet thing...)
I can see their point; like Big Tobacco, they're running scared. times have changed yet they refuse to adapt to them; instead acting like the 100 pound gorilla who thinks he can control everything in sight.
well maybe they can control quite a bit; but The Net is quite QUITE bigger than sony - hate to break it to you, sony. if you alienate your consumers, they'll go elsewhere and there goes your brand loyalty that you so cherish and fought YEARS to promote. something about pennwise and pound foolish comes to mind..
anyway, I love a good challenge as much as the next man. I'd like to see sony firewall my box from sending any damned [properly formatted] IP packets I want.
in short, this whole tirade from sony reminds me of the scene in the Python movie, "monty python and the holy grail", where arthur is whacking the arms and legs off that Black Knight and even though he's being rendered more and more helpless with each blow, he still barks as tough as a fully armed/legged man. of course no one is scared of these idle threats from sony; we all know sony will soon be missing more and more limbs as music if freed and their "continual profit stream" is severely reduced.
--
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I don't think I will ever buy anything made by sony ever again. Why doesn't sony just hire assasins instead it sounds cheaper.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Idiots.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
And I will firewall Sony at my wallet.
'nuff said.
I think not...(*poof*)
Id like to se them try and firewall MY pc.
I would also like to see them try to get every ISP to agree with them.
Sure, money talks, but it seems that if they would place thier cash into something more important than getting people to block napster, the world would be a better place.
And yes, whatever respect I had left for SOny even after shitty products and even worse costomer support, just went down the drain.
Yet another company that will no longer be getting my money.
Well, if they (the RIAA) does lose that lawsuit, I don't see how they could posibly manage to get all cablemodem users blocked from napster (and its not like they couldn't just change the port or something.... (port 80, anyone? Napster could easly be layerd on top of HTTP)
Some cable companies might agree, particularly ones owned by the same media giants, but others wont. If napster's growth continues on its upward trend, I doubt people would stick with a cable company that censored their internet access for its own finacial gain, espcialy with DSL just a phone call away..
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I don't know how they think they could possibly legally get away with this.
Granted, they can buy out your ISP, telephone company, cable company, etc., but how in the hell do they expect to be able to block it at your computer? Buy out/bribe Microsoft to put it in their next "upgrade"?
And even if they try to buy those places out, there will simply always be someone not willing to sell - and those not under the control of Big Brother Sony will gain the business of those of us not willing to put up with Sony's shit.
Corporations don't. Plain and simple -- a corporate droid sees nothing wrong in crushing his rivals, in destroying their ability to make a living, in suppressing free expression, or in trouncing basic human dignity.
See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You say "droid" and we all conjure to mind some guy in a three-piece-suit with no morals hunched over a desk analyzing bottom-lines on a print out and deciding which companies to take over and who to fire. You don't actually know of people like this at Sony or Coke or Starbucks or McDonalds, but the next time they buy out a smaller company or fire some employees, you'll bring back the mental image and curse the evil one who made the call. You of course won't do any research and find out all the facts behind the buyout or the firings. They are automatically evil.
Most corporations are as fanatical and dangerous as any cult. True, they don't fixate on their warped ideas of God. Instead they fixate on profit and the bottom line, which they raise to godhood.
See, you're doing it again. Corporations aren't fanatical, because they can't be. PEOPLE are fanatical, corporations are not. Now there may be people in high positions in the corporations who think this way, and they may act on those thoughts. These people are called sociopaths, and I don't believe that there's nearly as many of them out there as you think, but even they don't do blatantly immoral things very often, because doing that can lead to bad press, which in turn is bad for the profits that they are so attached to.
My point is that you don't know these people, and you can't cite specific examples. You just anthropomorphize corporations and call them evil, because you've seen movies and read Slashdot posts that show you these "corporate droid" images all the time, so you're convinced that there's millions of them out there poised to take over the world. It's paranoid delusion, backed up by little or no evidence.
I work for a company making the dangerous transition from a buncha folks doing things well to a Corporation, with an imminent IPO. I've also been in this situation occasionally in the past.
A damn near hard-and-fast rule: when the company's primary mission changes from "to do stuff we're good at" to "to enhance shareholder profitability", you're fucked.
All, ALL that J. Random Investor cares about is the money. If the majority of them abruptly decide that there's better money in, say, milk cows than in widget development, you'd better get used to the smell of hay.
Ah, there's another point I left out. Say you're the CEO of "NiceCorp" and you are doing great, selling, say, blankets. You do so great, that you go public. Lots of people buy your stock. The company is rich. Now a hard Winter hits, and you, being a wonderfully nice guy, decide to give away half your inventory to homeless people. Next thing you know, you're being sued by your shareholders for not doing "due dilligence" with their money. Yes, they can really do this, and yes, it really happens. And they have a point. You took their money and said "I'm investing this, I'll do my best to return a profit on it" and then you gave it all to charity. That's tantamount to theft. But on the other hand, if you went after the profits, you're a "corporate droid."
The irony of this statement is that you are using a web site that makes its revenue from banner ads. What if everyone who used slashdot used Junkbuster? Would it still exist? Would you still have been able to make this statement and have so many people see it?
I modded the Troll Investigation and I got
For all practical purposes, DES takes a 56-bit key. OK, so the standards specify that you have to have eight extra "parity" values but they're of no cryptographic value; it's not really accurate to refer to them as key bits, they're more like key padding bits.
A real 64-bit key is pretty hard to crack; the distributed efforts to crack 64-bit RC5 are still running and won't finish for some years yet.
I should also point out that the export controls have been relaxed considerably, and it now seems to be legal to export strong crypto like PGP from the USA...
--
Xenu loves you!
"This is an outrage! If I were you, I wouldn't pay it!" -Groucho Marx, Night at the Opera
Most decisions are made by committee, and those committees are less than 12 guys in suits sitting on the top floor of some high-rise.
And people like you don't see those decisions being made. You don't hear the facts brought up or the alternatives considered. You really know next to nothing about what their motives are, but since they make lots of money, you assume that's all they care about. You feel perfectly justified in pointing fingers at entire corporations when the decisions are only made by those 12 guys, and you're just sure those 12 guys are evil because you saw a movie about it and read it on Slashdot.
There, I think I've just succinctly shredded any argument you may have had on the matter.
Hardly. But if you had, then your statements wouldn't need to be followed by that sentence, it would be evident merely by reading your arguments. But if it makes you feel better to say "I win, I win!" go right ahead.
I'm sure the extra cost will be passed on to the consumer.
No, their real goal is to make it difficult or illegal for independent record companies to compete.
Perhaps that's true. I think they genuinely are worried about piracy, whether that fear is valid or not, but you may be right about the primary goal being the continued dominance of the "big" record companies. In which case, they'll be hard pressed to find the law or technology on their side.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
That was the most ironic bit, because I took it as a Monty Python reference. The character in MP's Holy Grail was just some dumb asshole peasant who was crying out about repression that was all in his head. That's pretty much how I see much of the Slashdot crowd's cries of opression.
Just a small comment:
It would be trivial to add encryption to Napster.
The only way to filter it then would be to filter all encrypted content, or, to filter all transfers that are not either to or from an "official" web site - i.e. a big, money-making web site.
In other words, rip the heart out of the internet and turn it into TV.
I don't think it will happen. Napster might get shut down. So Gnutella will be there. If people start filtering Gnutella, they will add encryption. If Guvmint, Inc. starts filtering all peer to peer communications they can't read, well, it will be time for the next American Revolution.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Already the MPAA is calling its initial victory in the DeCSS case a warning to all Silicon Valley types, that if they keep it up they will shut the whole internet down if it facilitates piracy!
I had been down for a few days over this entire evil-corporation-taking-over-the-world thing. Then something occured to me that made me feel much better. Let them try. We don't need them. That's why tools like Napster and deCSS exist. Corporations are nothing but the conglomeration of talent into an economically viable format. "Need that music distributed? We've got trucks and stores! Need that video decrypted? Well, it turns out we developed the scheme, and we can give you what you need!" Nowadays, however, we don't need them. I remember when I first saw the web. I was amazed that I didn't have to pay for an expensive tool to build a web page. All I'd have to do was learn something. The barrier for entry wasn't money anymore. It was knowledge. So it is now with music, movies, and ideas. The barrier to entry isn't money. It's talent. And that scares the talentless hacks who've worked for 50 years to accumulate enough money to buy the world! Anyway, I'm going sit back and watch them burn. The courts don't matter. If Sony or anyone else wants to take this battle out of the courts of law, we'll meet them there. That's where we seem to accomplish the most anyway.
I'd love to see them try to shut down the Internet! It would be like watching a pack of hungry wolves turning on each other! MPAA wants the 'net shut down. Time Warner/AOL/Satan owns the worlds largest ISP. Everyone is tangled up in this mess. It would be a great show to see.
Gah
I'll accept apologies now from all the people who called me an idiot 3 months ago when I suggested that this is exactly the sort of thing they would be forced to attempt.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Don't expect Jack Valenti to look and talk like Snidely Whiplash just because he sold his soul to Satan.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Paychecks don't feed children, it's just the way we have chosen to distribute our goods. People often forget this, thinking that prosperity and money are the same thing.
The systems we have in place have served us fairly well, rewarding merit and bringing material wealth, but this has only happened with the aid of governmental control. If the corporations had their way, the children woudn't have much of a "paycheck" to eat. It took years of work by the unions to force a living wage out of these corporations.
Our society exists in a balance between the corporations producing, and thus making profit, and the government and the people keeping them in check when the interests of profit conflict with the interests of society. The system isn't the worst we could get, but it's not the best we can have either. It's not good or evil, it's just another kind of machine, and like any machine, it needs to be upgraded sometimes.
If we were still using analog, that is, LPs, cassettes, and maybe even 8-tracks, and MP3 came along with the Internet, I believe it would be substantially more popular than it is now. It would in such a case be the ONLY medium that does NOT introduce significant wear per use and the ONLY medium that does not degrade in quality per copy (not counting the first transcription into MP3).
The higher quality of CDs has reduced much of the need for copying. I used to copy LPs to cassette because the cassette format had less wear than LP did. The reason I now copy CDs to MP3 is because it is more convenient. The loss in audio quality is there, but it is one we accept in most cases, and many people can't even hear it at all.
If it becomes impossible to extract raw digital data from CDs and DVDs, people will just digitize the analog form. That's way easier to do today than a couple decades ago when analog ruled. But once the initial loss of quality is done, there is no more loss as the digitized bits are now copied further perfectly.
Will most people know how to digitize analog? NO! But they won't need to. Music/movie piracy is about a few people making originals and a distribution of perfect digital copies.
Then there's the issue of whether the guy who has 30 gigs of MP3's on a $200 harddrive downloaded with $200 worth of DSL time would have been willing to ever pay $5000 for that same music. I believe most of those "stolen" MP3s are things he never would have purchased at the rate the music industry rips people and artists off.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
. . . A surprisingly large portion of Napster traffic is that of unsigned artists/artists who have explicitly allowed their material to be traded. Indeed, there are several times more artists in Napster's "New Artists" program than there are signed by the major labels--and all of them allow trading of their music. . .
This may or may not be true, I have no idea. However, I am one of those people who actually did go to the new artists section to see what was there. I found lots of interesting music that looked really cool. But, I was unable to find it on Napster. I simply don't understand how they promote these artists if they don't have their music available. And no, I didn't quit after searching for just one artist.. I searched for about a dozen.
Not to worry, a quick search on mp3.com turned them up.
-Frijoles-
I am going to start hurting them at the pocketbook today. As of now, I am currently boycotting CDs. I would ask anyone who can possibly do without new CDs for a short period of time to boycott also.
Hell, I would be willing to put time and effort into an official CD boycott information website and information dissemination service.
I am not advocating stealing music, bootlegging CDs or anything of that sort. Basically, if I don't hear the music on the radio, or on one of the CDs I currently own, then I won't buy them. I know that I may miss some great music, but I'm not going to supply money to someone who is threatening my freedoms and even my livelihood!!
Stand-up, be heard, and keep your money in your pocket!!
Sound off on this!! Boycott RIAA, Sony, etc...
Lets face it. Sony can't buy the internet. They can't firewall our individual PC's. But Heckler is right - they WILL DO ANYTHING to protect their revenue stream. Here are some hypothetical situations to be aware of:
Everyone, eventually, buys new hardware. It doesn't happen too often.. but it does happen. Everyone upgrades. What is to stop Sony and/or other manufacturers from selling us hardware that is based on censoring or encrypting data? Suppose they DO come up with a scheme to encrypt music and video all the way to the electron gun or the D/A convertor, and suppose further that they intentionally price these products substantially lower than competition (because they can afford to). Then what? Even though you and I know better than to buy these things, Joe Blow America doesn't, and its only a matter of time before it becomes impossible or extremely cost-inefficient to purchase "open" hardware.
Encrypted processing:
Its also only a matter of time before company X develops a consumer-level processor that executes encrypted code. Imagine a public key / private key setup (lengthy private key stored inside the processor, *NOT* accessible). This architecture could be used to encrypt downloadable software: The website dynamically creates encrypted exe's from the public key you submit when you buy it. Instructions are decrypted and executed in CPU memory (*NOT* accessible) - imagine trying to hack CSS without being able to read the code. To saturate the market with these things, all company X has to do is price their processor lower than everyone elses (and what software and/or IP-oriented company wouldn't be willing to subsidize such a scheme if it meant guaranteed protection of their data?).
So -- don't think that just because everything is open now, it can't be closed later. Just about anything is possible, period. Never forget that. Its up to us to make sure that the "right" things happen. Corporations can do everything in the world to protect their revenue stream - but they can't survive if we don't buy from them.
DO NOT SUPPORT COMPANIES WHOSE GOALS ARE TO CENSOR, BLOCK, OR RESTRICT ACCESS TO INFORMATION. If you do that, you open the censorship door just a smidgen. If we all do that, we fuck ourselves. It might cost you more to buy the "right" products. Don't let that stop you.
How eager will Sony be to include censoring / blocking hardware in the US PSX2 or PSX3 if millions of geeks undertake the fairly simple task of NOT buying it. In the end, no company can dictate what their customers will and won't buy - as consumers we have to be aware of who tries to take advantage of us, and not give them our money.
(vote for Nader)
trey
www.treyharrison.com
Interestingly, Judge Patel wrote in her judgement:
I have often wondered what Opera -- and innumerable other software companies -- feels about the attitude of many users that digitally downloaded *software* ought to be free... a fact that undoubtedly prevents them from gaining market share.>just trying to get MP3s of records they own,
>instead of just using a ripper program to make
>their own? Sounds pretty unlikely.
Not unlikely at all, actually. The majority of the MP3s I have *DO* fall into this category.
I personally own about 500 CDs. Let's say that I want MP3s of ten songs, each on a differentt CD. Now, what is a the, fastest, most convinent, more efficent way for me to get said MP3s?
1)
Get up from the computer, go to my CD cabinet and find those ten CDs. Most of my collection is organised alphabeticly, but my more recent purchases are not. Last I reorganised everything was about six months ago, so I have quite a time-consuming task to find those ten CDs. Perhaps some of them are out in my car, and I have to discover this, and walk out there and get them.
Now that I have those ten CDs in my hand, walk back to the computer, start a ripper/converter program, and, one at a time: remove the CD from the jewl case, open CD drive, insert CD, close drive, select track, wait for it to rip and compress, eject disk, place disk back in jewel case, repeat *10.
*OR*
2)
Start Napster. In turn: type the name of the song I want an MP3 of, select an appropiately high bitrate and connection, double click on each, repeat *10. And have those ten MP3s in a TINY fraction of the time it takes to do #1.
Now, the RIAA/metallica would have you beleive that #2 is horribly, evily, wrong, and that I should take the trouble and time of going through #1. I happen to disagree. There is no functional or moral difference if I rip the the CD track myself, or Napster it. The RIAA/metallica want #2 to be illegal, and I don't think they're happy at all about #1, but fortunately, there is a supreme court ruleing protevcting #1.
However, unlike RIAA/metallica *I* can see the difference between what is legal and what is moral. Unfortunately, it appears thay you do not; and have subscribed to the theory that (((illegal==immoral) && (legal==moral)) for all values of x).
All of the above ignores, of course, the fact that MP3 is lossy compression that sounds like crap on a real stereo system (NOT my rio headphones, NOT my computer speakers (at work or at home), NOT my car dash unit, I mean my STEREO), and is no threat to red book audio anyway.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
actually, lately, they've been making me feel more like a consume-ee, rather than a consumer.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I believe this only shows how increasingly out of touch record companies can get with some of its artists... While the band (who actually made the music) doesn't mind me downloading their music, the company who distributes it is threatening to do everything in their power to protect their "revenue stream."
Yes adapt or vanish SONY!
Michael Eisner of Disney has been referring to visitors to his parks as "revenue units" for years.
You mean you actually want to be respected by a corporate megalith? All they look at is your wallet; you yourself are simply the vehicle that brings it to them.
John
Remember who you're dealing with, Sony. Will hack holes in any "firewall" you put up so big you can drive a bus through them. Losers.
This certainly doesn't make me any more inclined to buy one... in fact, from now on I think I'll be buying all my PSX games used just to keep Sony from getting any more of my money.
Guess I won't be boycotting them after all.
"Yes, but it does a lousy job of avoiding eavesdropping. If you've got anything that speaks its protocol (like, say, a PCS phone) then that
device will pick up those frequency change instructions and follow them. It only prevents really easy eavesdropping via normal radios."
Depends on how the frequency hop info is encoded.
If it's on an open stream, then yeah, if you catch the conversation on the right frequency, you can follow the hops.
If it's encrypted (which, not surprisingly, the PCS companies can do (the phones can support triple DES encryption)- they just don't because of stupid laws against the same...), then only the parties that were in on the initial handshake (public key authenticated and encrypted, btw...) will be able to follow the hops. This, by the way, is how the US military forces secure their spread spectrum communications from tracking and snooping.
It can be done such that only someone like the NSA would stand any more than a snowball's chances in hell of snooping a conversation of any kind (I think that's the real reason behind the laws against encrypting the digital PCS phone connects...)
Port hopping is analogous to spread spectrum communications. Since the above is, in fact, possible- it's not hard to extrapolate that port hopping could also work to some degree. Why? Because while you could know the source and destination of a packet, there's absolutely nothing that says that the packet is meaningful data- you can encrypt and then steganograph via blowfish and chaffing. The object here is to not be easily monitored, not to breach blocked ports (though it'd work nicely for finding good ports...).
As for blocking everything but a specific port (Port 80, as in your example) opens up enough of a pathway for someone to up and totally bypass the stupid firewall. All it'd take is for someone on the outside to run a server instance of httptunnel on their machine and someone on the inside to run a client instance of the same. It'd be clumsy and slow, but it'd bypass any scheme they'd come up with. Only normal access methods? httptunnel already uses nothing BUT those. Only "valid" content? What determines "valid"- magic numbers which can be faked? Blocking access to the server site? The site moves to another machine. And so forth.
And that's just with port 80. Do they have an e-mail system that PC's can acces or do they open the mail ports? That too is a pathway- the same individual that came up with httptunnel came up with mailtunnel. Same with any port you open. It all boils down to how hard you want to bypass the controls, how clever you really are, and how much resources you have at your disposal.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
We should create an industry spanning union.
"Help, the internet is down and I can't videoconference in to the bid meeting!"
"I'm sorry Mr. VP; I'm on strike. But maybe we could talk about that firewall while your competitors are making money?"
-- PondScum, SamThe
Just don't buy the games. Sony loses a lot of money for every PS2 they sell, and they make up for it with the royalties they get from the games.
"Silly RIAA, you can't get away with that! We have a constitutional right to free speech, and Napster has a legal right...
Hum, and again, how does "Free Speech" allow you to steal from others?
See if you and I all used Napster to share our ideas, then you'd have a point. But instead we're all using it to share other peoples ideas, and then not compensating them fairly for developing thoes ideas. and btw, yes the RIAA does have the right to make a profit (fair or otherwise, it is a free country) off of the people who hired them! (which would be the musicians, right, no wait, they've all been forced into signing record contracts, whatever)
I'm sick of you stupid people using your constitutional rights for such silly things. back in the 60's people used free speach to speak out againts the war in Vietnam and the killing of US troups for no apparent reason (yeah well it wasn't a good reason anyways). now we use it to steal music. a far less nobel cause, and a disgussting comment on our society.
fuck napster. people use guns to break laws, but there are responsible people who use them for law abiding activites. people who use napster only use it for the task for which it was designed, to break laws and steal music. deal with it, your all criminals.
btw, i've never used napster, i don't listen to mp3's and i'm damn proud of that fact!
(I believe the punchline is, "Neither will a VAIO." Bada bing.)
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
my TV is a Panasonic.
Does that make a difference?
Until a month from now, when the CEO of Panasonic says something really stupid....
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
The most laughable thing about Heckler's threats is that he actually thinks he has the ability to shut it down by technical means. Empty threats and going-for-the-moral-highground rhetoric is really starting to get old. Before their message kinda made sense to the point that you could listen to what the industry had to say but remarks like this are evidence that they are starting to crack. The CD industry is doomed. They know it. They know they can do nothing about it. The first company to admit defeat, be a good loser and COOPERATE (this is getting old too I admit) with their customers is going to reap the benefits. This is encourageing.
Just because people want to make a living, we need not condone all actions. I'm sure the people who made horse-and-buggy rigs were mostly nice people who just wanted to support their families. Would that have justified them in distorting the laws of the nation to prevent the rise of the automobile?
Corporations are driven by the need to survive, just as people are. But in civil society, we reconginze that some things you could do to get ahead are simply not acceptable. We recognize that there are creative channels for such drives and destructive ones. We recognize that there are many values in a constantly-shifting tension, and that personal affluence is not sufficient to trample on all the others.
Corporations don't. Plain and simple -- a corporate droid sees nothing wrong in crushing his rivals, in destroying their ability to make a living, in suppressing free expression, or in trouncing basic human dignity. A corporate droid sees no problem in abusing its workers or its customers (if it can get away with it).
There are people who refuse to compromise their principles in order to make their business grow. There are those who, seeing the cost of "success", decide to remain small. You don't hear about them much because they threaten the premises of the consumer-based, gigantistic corporate culture we know and hold so dear.
Most corporations are as fanatical and dangerous as any cult. True, they don't fixate on their warped ideas of God. Instead they fixate on profit and the bottom line, which they raise to godhood. Anything that stands in the way becomes more than a obstacle, it becomes an unholy threat. And they pursue their ends with the same bloody-minded, single-minded head-in-the-sand blindness as any religious nut every dreamed of.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
There is supposed to be an escalating mechanism to prevent this happening, but there's no enforcement, and if you pay your lawyers enough, they can threaten every connectivity provider. Now, as an ICP, do you cut a feed - especially to a site that's in legal trouble, and unlikely to take action against you - or face Sony in court?
This has happened to me.
A certain nameless California law firm, likely representing a certain nameless cult based mainly in California and Clearwater, FL, has had my ICP cut routing to my site using a DMCA threat. Because they totally skipped the part about requesting that I take down a particular page (which would have given the site's owner the right to file a counter-notification) and skipped the part about informing my ISP, they gave me no chance to resolve the problem. Instead, they threatened my ICP, who immediately buckled and turned my IP off in their router. Which, of course, killed not only the site in question, but all other sites hosted at the same IP (likely part of their reason, since another site was more topical, more embarrassing, and less easy to attack with DMCA)*.
Obviously the DMCA mechanism was violated. But as long as the nameless law firm claimed to have filed in good faith**, the ICP has little choice. In my case, when they realized the law firm was not acting in good faith, they developed some backbone. But if the law firm had chosen to divert a tiny percentage of the group's resources at them, they'd have been in trouble, and even though I would have had legal redress, it would have been damned expensive for me and for the ICP.
Who, in a similar situation, is likely to go up against Sony?
How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet? .
Can we stop trying to use this point as a rebuttal? The fact is that the record industry was posting increasing profits before Napster came into effect as well.
While they posted record revenues, the question is unexplored of how much higher their revenues would have been without Napster.
All this point does is show that people are buying more music. When you consider that the economy is increasing, there is no cause-effect correlation that you can verify here.
Kwil
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Seriously, I'd like to see a boycott work, but I just don't have faith in you nerds.. when the PSX2 comes out there'll be a big /. article about it and the posters will come out in droves to sing its praises, and any discussion of boycott will be poo-poohed.. such is life.
-- neil, who won't be buying one
No, their real goal is to make it difficult or illegal for independent record companies to compete. This is very similar to the Microsoft case. Electronic distribution and promotion can level the playing field between large media conglomerates and small, musician-oriented, independent labels.
I know I keep rehashing this over and over but the piracy thing is really overdone; and piracy is not what they're worried about.
Or consider that in Europe, people pay a tax on blank tapes, money that is then shipped directly to the music industry. The presumption is that you use tapes for illegal copying, so you might as well pay the "legitimate artists" for that.
Do they ask you at the checkout line which artists you are planning on copying? It's only fair that those who get copied get the money :). I know that in the UK, taxes are charged for radios, TVs and I think home computers, but this at least is done by the government to support worthwile things like the BBC.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Whose property? The artist signed a little thing called a contract. The "Cost to produce a CD" argument is a straw man. The whole issue is, it's perfectly legal for us to make noncommercial copies. The record companies don't like that, and have never liked that, but they know that they can still continue to overcharge for CD's and make a hefty profit, even if the same material is available for free, online.
The real issue is control of the medium, and being shut out as the middlemen. When artists stop being such dunderheads and signing into these oppressive agreements with the record companies, and start putting up their own MP3 download sites, is when guys like Steve Heckler stop getting blowjobs from Brittney Spears for making her famous. This is the whole deal. The power. The control. They're going to lose it, one way or t'other.
But they won't disappear either. Did online trading kill off the big brokerage houses? You bet it didn't. Yeah, it squeezed them, but they're still pretty healthy, and you can bet your ass that they would have done something to stop it if they saw a serious threat. We're talking the very gnomes of zurich here.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
moral, not technical
Buzzer. Plato cheated, son. Moral discussion can't leave the realm of the real world and remain moral. Parmenides says: "(Morally)Thou canst not speak of what is not nor indicate it in (moral)speech," which is shorthand for Hume/Kant's: All solutions to a problem fall into four categories:
Moral-Possible | Moral-Impossible
--------------------------------------
Immoral-Possible | Immoral-Impossible
Only one of these categories is "morally acceptable": Moral-Possible.
For you elite hackers and script kiddies: M-P=[1], I-P=[-1], M-I=I-I=[divide by zero].
Therefore, all moral discussion involves discussion the discussion of reality, and reality in this discussion is -what you can do with a computer-. What these kids are doing is possible (napster, gnutella) and what they are arguing falls within the grey area of [soon to be possible], they are suggesting that something likely to be possible will make some moral argument of Sony's impossible.
It's a perfectly valid point, and your argument attempting to remove morality from reality demonstrates you grasp neither.
-jpowers
-jpowers
Yes, moderators, this is OT; so sue me.
Let us not forget that Corporations are chartered
by law therefore they can be undone by law.
more information on this is located here:
http://www.poclad.org/articles.html
This theft will probably cost record companies billions in the coming years, and force them to raise prices to survive like they are doing right now.
Last year was a record year for the music industry. The majority of big sales items came from artists who are "singles-driven", like the various teen groups and hip-hop groups. Hot singles are also what's most likely to be pirated off of the internet. Interesting, isn't it, that sales did not decline at all.
Also... I know lots of people who use Napster. Most of them also buy lots of CDs. I use Napster, and Gnutella constantly. I also spend probably around $250-300 a month on music. I purchase, on average, probably 4 records or cds a week. I love music. Listening to stuff on the internet is an extension of my non-wired listening habits, not a replacement.
The only people I know who download from Napster but don't also buy music are people who aren't into music and didn't spend money on it before they started using Napster. These are the people who "just listen to whatever's on the radio". These people never gave the music industry money before, so the fact that they use Napster isn't hurting them now.
The bottom line is, if people like music, they will buy what they like. Napster can help them find it... Maybe I'm a bad example, since I host a radio show and run a (very small) record label, but I buy music from artists I hear off of Napster. Hell, I'm even going to put out a record by an artist I was introduced to from an MP3!
Personally, I think that if a band doesn't want their songs on Napster, they should be able to take them off. But I think time will show that having exposure on Napster is like having exposure on radio... It can only do good things for a band's popularity. (Not to mention there are many other services that are virtually impossible to monitor.)
Josh Sisk
I hit there site real quick and found a feedback page: http://www.sonymusic.com/feedback/ and left them a nice little note including about not letting there VP smoke so much crack before giving interviews...
They don't have to break any laws to be oppressive they just change the laws! The DMCA is a perfect case in point. As for corporations being just tendencies - bullshit. Most decisions are made by committee, and those committees are less than 12 guys in suits sitting on the top floor of some high-rise. So now we have a society where money becomes the dictating force, in which the majority of decision are made by those with the most money (rich stockholders) and those few lucky enough to be in those committees. And even more disturbing, most members of a corporation's board are also members of at least 6 other corporations' boards. So it's even less people running things that you might have thought.
As far as the accusation that I hate money - I happen to love money. That's why I'm so behind the peer-to-peer revolution - if allowed to continue its ultimately going to completely revolution the economy by bringing more and more of this centralized power base to the people. It will totally decentralize the flow of intellectual capital, ideas, music, movies, and the entire culture. No longer will culture be dictated by large corporations and obsolete marketing driven drivel, but by consumer demand. The economy will work from the bottom up, rather than the top down as it does now.
There, I think I've just succinctly shredded any argument you may have had on the matter.
www.enthea.org
Short, but important point:
I disagree with the distinction between economic and social freedom. By your own words, you have inadvertantly shown that there is no distinction.
An economic freedom is necessarily a subset of a social freedom and social freedom is, simply put, freedom.
By restricting freedom economically, you necessarily restrict it socially. Hence, prefering one type of freedom over another is a moot point.
Granted, in this very line of thought, you run into problems of whether campaign finance reform is right or wrong. Is it a good precedent? Is it not? That's a large topic that isn't appropriate to this thread, and would take far too long to explore.
The bottom line of this argument over Napster is about the definition of the very nature of the information being shared and to whom it really belongs. Obviously, much more hedges on this decision than Napster and RIAA, though obviously Napster and the RIAA have a huge stake in the outcome.
Other posters have described the details much more effectively than I could, so with this I return to lurk-mode.
g.slackerAtWork.e
g.e.
Sony has NO CLUE. They can't clock everything. What.. are they going to block port 80? gee , all you need to to is modify apache source to look like a regular web server and add HTTP extensions that would allow users to search for mpeg 3 files. perhaps a central postresql or mysql database... files could be encrypted and sent through a secure pipe. the bottom line is we can adapt. No problem!
:Its just too funny watching you guys, who would foam at the mouth about the violation of a GPL'd copyright, well, foam at the mouth when these other guys try to protect their copyright.
The difference is, is that the GPL exists so that when you have something(bought/given/downloaded) It is YOURS and you can do what you want with it, and to make sure that that happens, we must copyright it and use the GPL or something like it.
What the record labels and everyone else that releases copyrighted material want to do, is to control how you use that thing that you bought. Thay want to say when/where and how you can use it as if they still owned it.
People seem to forget, that although there are tons of pirates and others just stealing this stuff, these court decisions affect how the internet will grow and change, and if we want the internet to stay open and really be a conduit of information and free ideas, then we must take heed to these happenings and statements and court decisions.
(sorry, fell into a bit of a rant there for a sec.)
.mincus
In the end, Sony will win, they have the money. I can forsee the government charging ISPs a tax on data transfers and awarding it to the RIAA, much like they do on recordable cds. That's why a recordable cd blank costs $10, and a cdrom blank cost $1. It can happen, it will happen, and there's not a lot we can do about it. Money always wins.
Corporations raze millions of acre of rainforest. Corporations strip-mine the planet. Corporations sue to silence critics, intimidate competitiors, and distort justice. Corporations conduct unethical and uninformed experiments on people. Do none of these count as "evil" for you?
First off, no, they don't. People raze millions of acres of rainforest. They do this because they want the money that they will receive from some corporation. This corporation will give them money because some person or people in said corporation decided that it was worth some money to raze some acres of rainforest. The fault lies with the person who does the deed, and the people who approved and planned the deed. Not the corporation that they work for. Secondly, no, these actions do not count as evil to me. Doing anything to get ahead is not evil, it's neutral. Evil is doing these things because you enjoy causing harm. Good is avoiding them because you dislike causing harm. Doing things and not caring if you cause harm is not evil, it's neutral.
So all the downsizing of the 1980s
Has it ever occurred to you that companies are not morally obligated to employ people? If I decide to start a business, I'm starting it for my own reasons, not to employ people. That's not evil or even immoral. So if you realize that you're employing more people than you need to, you fire some. That's not immoral. You don't have an obligation to those people. If those people have skills that are needed somewhere, then they're welcome to go get a job with their skills. It's not up to the businessmen of the world to provide busywork for everyone out of charity.
In the actual real world, on the other hand, there are these things called multibillion-dollar multinational corporations. They have motivations of their own,
Bullshit.
they have decision processes of their own,
Yes, and these processes are implemented by the people in charge. If those people change, they can change the processes.
and they have survival unlinked to any particular employee.
Survival, yes. But if you fire all the managers in a company and replace them with "good guys," I bet that company would act very different. It would survive, but it wouldn't act with the same motivations and decision processes that you attributed to it.
In their professional lives, they backstab co-workers, abuse suppliers, cheat customers, and dedicate all to the corporate (bottom) line. Why? Because, at work, they are just cogs in a larger organism.
That's bullshit. It's like the Nazi trials. You see all your friends committing immoral acts, and you say it's okay because they're only acting as part of a larger organization. It's the organization that is at fault, not the people doing the immoral things. You can't hold a corporation morally accountable. You can walk up to the headquarters of Microsoft and talk to the building all you want, nothing will happen. Take some fucking personal responsibility for your actions, instead of blaming it on some abstract concept of Evilcorp that asks you to act immorally. If your boss asks you to do something immoral, then acknowledge that he is immoral. If you do it, acknowledge that you are acting immorally. It's exactly this "not my fault, I just work here" mentality that lets all the bad shit happen.
I don't doubt it for a second. But you (unwittingly) make an interesting point in that sentence which I'll get to in a second.
The protection systems will become more and more invasive until at some point the industry groups propose something completely ludicrous, even to laypeople...and then they'll be shot down.
The problem is that there's a very good chance such a thing WON'T get shut down... and you've already stated the reason yourself. You felt it necessary to distinguish between hackers and crackers. The problem is that 99% of "laypeople" don't know the difference, and don't particularly care. If this sort of "cold war" thing you've proposed really starts escalating, the mainstream media will pick it up and inevitably paint the hackers as evil, malicious people who are trying to subvert the system. (Just look at coverage of the DeCSS case.) Then laypeople might just be willing to go with something "ludicrous" if the threat of hackers/crackers/whatever the media calls them can be even slightly reduced.
"You are in black darkness. You have been hugga-muggered and caramshotted into a lawsuit which you know nothing about, or next to nothing about. You should not be in this war. You cannot win this war..." No, wait, some other desperate suit said this, not Valenti. :^)
Sure, Sony has a bunch of groups under their umbrella. Something to consider, however, is that each group has their own set of books that they have to reconcile. It is probably unnecessary to make all of Sony look bad, just hurt the Music group (and whomever they directly report to, if you want to go the extra mile).
Case in point: In a previous life, I sold computers in a large retail environment. Whenever I'd get a really clueless customer who really just wanted to play games, I'd send them over to the games department to get a Playstation or N64. The store would make more money (game systems and games have a much heftier profit margin than computer systems), and the customer would end up vastly happier (no system config or hyper-fast obscelence to deal with). When it was discovered that I did this, however, my manager gave me a stern talking-to, as I was screwing up his numbers and making him look bad, regardless of the fact that it was better for the customer and store.
Do the same thing to Sony Music, and that's >90% as effective as boycotting the whole company, and far easier to do.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
Capitalism does indeed have a lot of "less than attractive traits"...they are normally known as capitalists.
The internet will never in the foreseeable future be shut down by anyone intentionally. It's simply too profitable. Why, to have a corporation hold the internet hostage, demanding that all users cease and desist their unlawful activities? It'd take weeks for people to comply. Meanwhile, business for what is arguably the driving force behind the American economy would simply stop dead. Yeah, that'd make the MPAA and RIAA really popular, when 90% of the population realizes they're POOR because their mutual funds just tanked, the company they're working for is considering laying them off. Correspondingly, when we don't have enough money to buy the overpriced Hello Kitty Tomigachis, movies trying to capture the roaring success and depth of Coyote Ugly, and songs that I've mouthed off at the top of my lungs to people singing them, leaving them stunned and silent, these companies sell to us they'll be deep in it too!
EvilSoloman
I'm sorry if the Napster kiddies will be forced to return to asking Mom and Dad for money to buy their music instead of stealing it, but that's how laissez faire capitalism works.
Strange definition of laissez faire capitalism you're using. Most people think intellectual property protection is at odds with it in the first place. Maybe you're not quite so gung-ho laissez faire as you think?
Kythe
(Remove "x"'s from
Kythe
>^..^<   KONala
"Remember who you are..."
Sometimes the market is a nice thing to have around. It's a good thing MP3 players aren't bought by pointy-haired IT managers...
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
are either of you twits a musician? have you ever tried to get an album distributed without the "backing" of a label? didn't think so.
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
I've had it with all this recording companies affiliated with RIAA, can't they accept the fact that monopolizing the music industry will eventually fail?
There is a corporate saying which goes like "If you try to hard to perfect something, then that something will eventually destroy itself". I think that is quite true in this case, a good analogy would the children's story called 'Yertle The Turtle' by Dr. Seus. All it takes it one of their affiliates to succumb to the preasure caused by the top most guy and everything will crumble into oblivion.
So go ahead block it if you can, you may win the battle but you will never-ever win the war, legions of tech-savvy people (read hackers) will arise and defeat your every single obstacle in the way!
"Arise legions of the damned, go forth and destroy every single obstacle in your way"
-----
This is already happening with a Sony system called 'SACD'. This is the nightmare of everyone... instead of PCM data (think your standard CD) it contains bitstream data. Now I'm not an expert in audio and audio analysis, but my friend is, and he says basically with bitstream you cannot do any digital domain processing... no digital crossovers, no digital volume controls, etc. Plus its difficult to rip. Easy to copy if you had a bit for bit cd copier (those wont be around I'm sure). But to turn the bitstream into PCM (think mp3) you'd need to put it thru some major computation effort.
;-)). They have a monopoly of the entire musical process from recording to mastering to the end distribution and finally to the device you play back on.
In other words, boycott SACD!! The sound quality is worse infact, not better and there is not one good reason for SACD, EXCEPT: ripping is very difficult (not impossible, but no more one click rip in 30 seconds) with SACD.
After this sony thing, I can see what sony is trying to do...
Think about it: Sony owns music (they have a label) they own CD production facilities, they design and build musical playback devices (my cdplayer is panasonic
Now I'm worried. Very worried.
Simply stated:
Of course! Don't buy Sony products. There are plenty of alternatives.
Actually, for non-political reasons, I won't buy Sony products. They build peice of $#!t products that break easily. I can't vouch for their gaming system as I rarely have time to play video games, and when I do, they're PC-based.
However, the not-so-easy problem is whether all similar companies with related interests will for political alliances. The answer to that is fairly obvious. (Of course they will, and in fact many such alliances exist...RIAA is only one example.)
So what is the user to do? In the face of mass political apathy it is difficult to accomplish anything substancial. The bottom line is that the lives of most people aren't effected enough by the issue for them to give a rat's @$$. Those who are concerned will act or at least complain loudly and noisomely. The technically savvy, who hang around like geeks surveying the myriad of articles that is /.org, are definitely noisome complainers if I'd ever seen any; myself inclusive. =)
We bitch hypocritically of the pervasive faults of "corporatocracy", and in the face of this, only serve to empower the powerful as we persist to buy their products. Rule of thumb: It's easier to bitch than to act. :p
On corporations
Think about their goals: The infamous "They" (Sony and large corporations like them, M$, etc)need to find a way to produce a product at the minimal cost to bring them revenue. How is this different than any other of life's imperatives, biological or otherwise? Simple: You find the best way to thrive, with the highest payoff and minimum level of work. This is the effective result of capitalism. IMO, once an effective the economic system that is Capitalism is established and internal power structures solidify to enforce only that only the economically powerful may prevail, the constraints in which the system operates should be altered in the form of law. Laws may be created to enforce a high rate of innovation, ensure quality, and stiffle inefficiencies.
The best way to combat such corporate goliaths is to prove that they have effectively stiffled real competition and innovation, and more noble capitalistic pursuits in their respective industries. In the music industry, it may just be possible to do this. The only effective way to revolutionize how information is dealt with, and how real consumer value is ensured is to fundamentally challenge the very definition of intellectual "property."
In the spirit of Neuromancer, however, there is always the possibility of all out information warfare. I mean, why not. Who needs bombs when you can use information? Why risk life when there is only capital at stake? The more savvy of us here, have tools and skills under their belt to physically challenge the status-quo. Granted, this is definitely a last resort approach (war always is). However, if there are ever real imbalances in power, we must keep in mind, that we (the people, in general) are not governed by the savvy. We're governed by the ambitious. Take that as you will.
Enough mental chaff for now,
g.e.
"I know it sucks, but I still dig the Earth."
-Chuck of moe.
g.e.
... he's just another CEO dusting of his company's threats to look good for shareholders.
In the sense I was using it, I was employing "social freedom" to denote something more along the lines of what we consider basic human rights: the freedom to live without fear of being unfairly prosecuted for speaking one's mind, to enjoy a reasonably private personal sphere, etc. "Economic freedoms" was used primarily to denote activites related to the free market: the right to buy and sell commodities, and so on. While you rightly point out that the two are related, there is a bit of difference.
Frankly, you don't have complete economic freedom, even in a laissez-faire capitalist system. There may be no overreaching governmental infrastructure to decree what you can and cannot do, but you are held as slave to the market. To succeed, you can't really go against demand (at least, you shouldn't be able to for very long). And this amounts to what Sony and all the other RIAA-affiliated companies are trying to do. Rather than evolve their business model to keep up with emerging trends, they attempt to trample these trends so they can continue under business-as-usual conditions.
In a healthy capitalist system this doesn't work . Competition forces business to constantly attempt to one-up their competitors, and unless you've got collusion in effect, someone's going to hit upon a model that will utilize new trends and be a hit with consumers. But America has really never been a healthy capitalist system. The RIAA may not be a monopoly in the traditional definition of the term, but it certainly showcases all of the negative effects of a monopoly as outlined in traditional capitalist theory. It wields enough power and clout over both its moneymakers (the musicians) and its consumers to engage in an attempt to commandeer the market. This, to put it simply, just ain't healthy.
I'm not a capitalist, really, and I have some real problems even with the ideal model, but, hey, I much rather have to contend with an system that was at least striving for the ideal of a flawed system than a system which had both those inherent flaws, and some of its own devising.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
I just love watching Corporate America trying to force the rest of the world not to change. The moment Sony figures out how to tweak Windows to block Napster access (and the only way to do that is by blocking specific IP addresses), and someone turns around and shows the world how to defeat it. Just like the NTW->NTServer registry hack.
Not that I want a Sony to begin with -- the VAIO notebooks are nice, but they're said to be closed boxes. Heaven forbid you should dislike Win2K.
/Brian
Making it difficult is quite different than making it impossible. The beauty of digital is that it never degrades in copying (theoretically). All it takes is one person smart enough to "crack" the encrypted data, then the whole world can get it through the magic of file distribution. There was a famous phrase in the 80's copy-protection defeating community: "If it can be loaded into memory; it can be cracked". - Jim
Short and sweet...
I love it.
Rock on brutha!
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Assuming that technically incompetent moron manages to get all 2^16 ports blocked to filesharing utilities, TCP/IP, all fifty gazillion illegal MP3 webpages, mp3board, nutella, metallicster, napster, Opennap, IM, IRC, FTP, *.zip files, and all other ways I can think of that could POSSIBLY get you a few MP3's...r>
You will probably find that if you can still log on to sony's homepage, it won't have been updated in several years (the time of the legal battle) because of their inability to use FTP software to update it.
Anarchy requires a certain amount of intellegence after all...
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
Kris
botboy60@hotmail.com
Nerdnetwork.net
If you really believe in what most of you are saying here then cancel you pre-ordered PS2 or if you haven't already then don't get one in the future.
Bet most of you PS2 hopeful won't be able to resist.
-g
The thought that keeps me up at night is: who's really benefiting from the new world taking shape? I mean, even the corporate droids at the top are still droids. Their lives are being stripped of meaning, too. I see the corporations as a new life form that is gorging itself on the old.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
You wrote:
The electronics industry can't simply tell Hollywood to take a hike. The entertainment industry will probably have a number of standards to choose from and they will chose to support the standard that most suits their needs. Technical superiority has seldom been the top priority, so what else? It is just turing into the opposite. The entertainment industry is climbing onto the driver seat.Only one standard of distributing "content" over the Net is going to be supported by Hollywood in the long term and being among the first to offer (and market) a working device puts you in a good starting position as a hardware or software maker.
At the moment, everyone in the entertainment industry seems to be concerned with a way to control distribution, so one of their demands for the standard is going to be a scheme for just that.
Since there is a lot of money to be made, hardware and software makers will want to please the entertainment guys.
You are probably right that CDRs and Napster don't account for the kind of losses the music industry claims to suffer from. However, that is today's situation and they are afraid of the "wrong" (in their eyes) use of technology. That Sony VP's statements tell us just how desperate they are.
-Hilko
Yes, I've been thinking that it might be possible to bring some form of anti-trust action against them (at the behest of independent record labels and musicians). Of course, if the Microsoft thing is any example, the Justice Department would probably: 1) miss the whole point and focus on relatively unimportant aspects of the case; and 2) come up with a completely useless, ineffective, and just downright wrong solution to the problem. Such is life.
That was the most ironic bit, because I took it as a Monty Python reference.
My .sig kind of tends to come across that way when I comment on stories like this one. ;-) Although, I have to say that I hadn't thought of that particular scene in the way you described it. I'll have to watch it again
Eliminating the middle man
The internet as a whole is doing just this. Companies like Sony, and AT&T are finding themselves in the middle of this buisness evolution. In a way Sony used to be our Internet. They would provide artists with a meas of exposing their music to more people than the group could do otherwise. Now the internet can do this. AT&T is finding that they are loosing buisness to the internet for their product - Long distance calling.
The difference is in how they are both dealing with that. Sony seems to be trying to re-insert themselves by litigation. AT&T seems to be doing it by re-investing into internet infrastructure - eg cable ISP.
Which would you rather be? the prospector or the general store?
The choice is ultimately with the people. Either a company is part of the solution or part of the problem. If they do not become part of the solution they will not survive. Nature as a whole expands and evolves, not contracts and stagnates.
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
So what if they did? People would find an alternative to Napster. How much would Sony have to pay 3Com to block Gnutella at the NIC? How about FTP? HTTP?
Hamish
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
The D/A conversion used to happen in the CD players. Digital outputs were not an option back then, so you could get analog right out of the CD player. Even the newer models with digital outputs still offer analog outputs. From what I'm guessing, a SACD player would not; an analog output would permit easy analog duping.
But on your PC, SACD would cause today's CDDA extraction tools (aka rippers) to fail because the CD isn't storing PCM data. Which, btw, would make the CD incompatible with all existing players. You'd need a special player from Sony to 'break the code'. OTOH, if it's encoded, someone will eventually break it anyway. Then it might be easier to rip! Because as I understand it, the hassle with CDDA extraction is the data organization--or lack thereof. CD audio data isn't stored in sectors or anything, it's just a long stream. If your buffer fills up during a 24x read, you lose your place and there's a skip because you can't tell exactly where you were when the buffer overflowed. If the SACD format is in sectors, you could copy it sector by sector with no skips.
But I digress. Now some A/V gear has digital outputs that feed directly into a receiver. The receiver has the D/A converter, and this reduces noise that would otherwise be induced on the patch cord between the two devices. But eventually--even with digital speakers--a power amp drives a voice coil with an analog signal.
I think Sony would have to create a sound reproduction system completely incompatible with all of today's components to make SACD secure in the least. And as someone has already pointed out, worst case is you put a microphone in front of your speaker.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
So what about MS's .NET? While touted as a highly necessary evolution in internet and computer technologies (by not only MS marketing goons, but IT professionals).
Obviously, a side effect (if not the overall market strategy) is to bring control of applications and more importantly the capital that the applications generate, more fully under control of the corporation. While it produces a massive incentive to apps programmers, it also slices at freedom. Why? Information control...it's routed through central sources.
Yeah, I know it's paranoia, but that doesn't mean they're not out to get you...
enough for now...
g.e. "I know it sucks, but I still dig the Earth." -Chuck of moe.
g.e.
You pretty much just reiterated my point. The War on Drugs is a dismal failure at accomplishing its stated goals. It has however resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of people for very minor and victimless crimes. That's what I'm afraid of seeing if media corps get their way with copyright law. Apparently we agree about the damage that the music industry has sustained (i.e. none).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
My point was that at some point the laypeople WILL know the difference. If Sony's plans, as detailed in this story, actually come to fruition, I predict that some day the industry will be horribly embarrased when they screw up. Say the restrictive new products/laws/whatever somehow cause the release of sensitive information from some large company, who will then sue.
And let's not forget hardcore right-wingers. Usually I don't agree with them much, but I support them in their abhorrence of being monitored. They'll raise a ruckus about this...so all is not lost.
You make a very good point. I hadn't thought to interpret what I wrote that way!
p.s. if you had a point, you didn't make it
Aye, excuse me for being short, but I've said this here about 20 times:
As much as the music industry would like you to think so, unauthorized copying is not, generally, 'against the law.' It is a civil offense, which means, if a copyright holder can show (a) that it wan't 'fair use' or the like AND (b) that it caused the holder specific monetary damage, they can sue. This is a summary; go look at Congress' blue and white papers, or the EFF site, or search google for Pamela Samuelson, if you really want to delve into copyright law.
In any case, the above are fairly hard to prove in each case of peer-to-peer networking. Especially when bigwigs like Orren Hatch say they'd use Napster to sample music :) and they'll expand the legislative definition of fair use if the music industry doesn't stop being pricks :).
In any case,
If they really put their minds to it, I'm sure they can find several ways to help law-enforcement without breaking the law.
This is not a "law enforcement" issue -- because law enforcement agencies don't, by and large, step into civil matters. And if they "really put their minds to it," I'm sure Congress will be glad to use the Law to put them and their revenue streams in place...
Okay, there was a minor fault in my argument. I was operating under a "Locke-ian" assumption of freedom that is limited such that one person's pursuit thereof may not hinder any other person's freedom (and vice versa).
This is somewhat of an idealist concept, but a necessary logical base.
Insofar as a healthy system, the U.S. system has been the most stable and successful in the world for a very long time. We've had a stable government and economic system for longer than any other country in the world (correct me if I'm wrong). Obviously, our system (economic and otherwise) is not perfect, but I would disagree that there are better models out there. This is not to say that there are no helpful hints that we could take from other nations. However, any drastic change would be fatal.
(quasi off-topic, now that I notice that you're an "Obie")
As for not being a capitalist: Fine by me, as long as you don't prosyletize the ISO paper (or whatever Revolutionary-Communist-Weekly is in vogue next semester) in front of Wilder or Tappan Square. };-)>
On a more serious note, if you agree that there should be a system where there is an incentive for competition, and that said competition is enforced, then you are necessarily a capitalist. (Unless, you have some plan of creating incentive other than by economic capital. IMO: This really is the only real incentive that works.)
g.e.
You are more right than you know: Corporations are persons, at least in the eyes of the law (which is where it counts). The horrible consequences of this are that they get equal protection under the law. This means that they have an unbelievably disproportionate amount of power in comparison to ordinary, everyday people like you and I.
So just what can be done about this? Corporations should no longer enjoy the privilege of personhood and be able to have their charters revoked. Get the full scoop over at Adbusters.
i tell you what if they block a port, and everyone starts emailing everyone the new port... i know exactly where i'm sending the bill for my business LOSSES because the net is flooded as a direct result of THEIR actions! i don't use napster, never have, never will. (nothing against napster or the music industry) so, if the music industry and SONY decide to cause my business finacial losses we are gonna dance. i wonder if any of those brainiacs (errr VP's) ever thought that through.
I used it regularly to find copies of live concerts of my favorite bands, or unsigned artists that did in fact encourage distribution. I purchased much more music after using Napster than before. However, I did purchased almost nothing from major labels...
Why would an artist do such a thing?
Simple: As a point another poster tried to get across, major labels effectively control the artist. Applications like napster that allow lesser known artists works to be easily spread, essentially gives them free publicity. Their works are not controlled by major labels. Often these artists have their own labels, and have little monetary clout. Major labels have a very large interest in silencing these independent up-starts.
Why? The infamous "They" control major publicity outlets: Radio, large amounts of capital to pay for conventional advertising. (TV, Record-store promos). Lesser known artists don't have this option due to that very lack of capital. Now keep in mind that the amount of disposable income for purpose of buying music is a constant. If people begin to hear all the lesser known unsigned artists (and there are VERY VERY many of them) who have their own independent labels (which by and large allow them to reap a far larger peice of the pie per the amount of people who buy their albums) then there will be less capital to flow to the major labels that control most distribution. This isn't conspiracy theory 101 here; this is common sense marketing. Hell, if I were on the board of a major label, I want to stifle Napster too!
BTW, my father is a musician, the internet is the distribution of the future. It's far more accessible, it's far cheaper. Anyone can put out a quality cd these days with little money. 30, hell, 10 years ago this wasn't true.
As an aside, show some tolerance and control when posting. Reactionary messages with agressive wording is not constructive and tends to be looked upon as immature and undereducated.
g.e.
I see the point of the record companies and do not agree with the free for all from NapStar....Musicians who are my concern (not money hungry cash cows like record companies). They are losing out on their work. BUT... To have Sony Threaten me with a firewall?..... I do NOT appreciate a big company telling me what I can and can't do. I WILL make my own decision of what I think is appropriate and what is not. As for Sony, I will revaluate weather or not I will purchase ANY Sony products in the future.
I'm pretty safe then. The only thing related to Sony that I have bought in the last three years is a 17 inch Trinitron monitor (and this was three years ago). Oh yeah, and I also have a Sony AM/FM tuner that my dad bought second-hand and gave to me. That doesn't count, as Sony made no money from either me or my dad. You can bet your ass that Sony won't be getting any of my hard earned money now! Firewall it at my PC? Anyone who tries to force me to install anything will find themselves the receiver of a couple of size 13's in the nads.
_______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
How did this dipshit get an "Insightful"? Gnutella is NOT a commercial entity. It's free software that happened to be initially written by someone who works at AOL. AOL has repeatedly exclaimed that they DON'T own Gnutella and don't want to. (And can't.)
If you're gunna troll at least get your bait^H^H^H^Hfacts straight.
The really funny thing is that if you created a napster / gnutella clone using SOAP over HTTPS, there's very little in the way of an ISP filter or firewall that could be setup to stop this because:
A) It would be indistinguishable from any other HTTPS traffic, unless you had enough raw CPU power to crack the 100,000 or more currently running HTTPS servers in realtime.
B) Since you don't know what is being passed via HTTPS, you can't selectively allow credit card ordering and stop other types of data. There's size, but a large cluster of cooperating clients could get around that.
People were complaining that SOAP routed around corporate firewalls by going through regular HTTP / HTTPS. This whole mess sounds like a good argument FOR an ability to route around firewalls.
My real point here is that there will always be a way to get data from one point to another, even if the types of data are restricted. This is what information theory and encryption are all about!
It's like some Godzilla movie where the rampaging giant monsters finally stop tearing down Tokyo skyscrapers and kill each other.
Go go Godzilla! - Blue Oyster Cult.
I agreee -- the clarifications will be coming soon & fast. But not that the comments are ``technically ill-informed". It's because he's about to open a Pandora's box of hurt for the corporate music industry.
There is an old rule about not starting a war one cannot win (variously expressed as ``never invade Russia late in summer" or ``avoid a major land war in Asia"). This PHB has just declared war on all of the warez kiddies out there.
And what are these warez kiddies gonna do? Hmm, hey look Corporate Music depends on all of these sales of pop stars like Britney Spears, In Sync, & so forth. All of their names & sales are printed in the newspaper every week. What if they start burning copies of every CD & give them away? Boy, are those sales figures gonna dip & crash!
And there are probably even simpler & cheaper ways to circulate copies at NO COST to the end recipient. But since I'm not a criminal, nor do I advocate this response, I can't think of what they are.
And if you think the government can stop this kind of theft of intellectual property, then why haven't they stopped the drug trade?
My advice to the suits out there reading this is simple: get the artists behind you. People are making mp3 copies of songs & sharing them because they like the music & respect the artist. If the artists ask people using Napster or Gnutella to buy after they try, they will get the revenue. And you get the artists behind you by offering them decent recording contracts -- not by ripping them off.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
It has already started! My new PC came complete with CD JustBurn, a top of the line CD burning packet. Well,low and behold, I couldn't get the darn thing to work. After a call to Compaq Support, I discovered my problem!! Seems good ol' Bill Gates has his nose up Sony's ass. I am unable to burn anything that I have downloaded off Napster, due to copyright restrictions!Isn't that interesting! Well,now I rely on MusicMatch, an old but completely reliable CD burning software, and it doesn't make moral judgements, the way Bill's software does. Hmmmm, a firewall of sorts? LOL
How about beating all these companies at their own game by creating open-source, freely available content creation/trading systems and software and getting early adopters and users on this before any industry can get their technology adopted. This happened with MP3 and look where it went? Like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle. Maybe other technologies need to be 'uncorked' in the open-source manner, rather than letting big companies and Hollywood lead the way with their version of the future (proprietary, closed and protected)?
Big companies don't like investing in R&D anyway, so leave it to us and we can set the pace and direction then they can follow.
just my $0.02 worth
simply put... napster is a transport that is being used for piracy (we all understand that). but, there are other transports like CDR's, HD's, Tapes, etc. used in piracy. the point is, if they succeed in killing napster, we then can succeed in killing CDR's and such (you listening SONY!). maybe if i find my software on a sony cdr i'll be taking you to court (silly isn't it) but it's the same stance you are taking now. end rant (and sony purchases) and i have never used napster.
Why on earth did they allow a idiot to speak? If that was a prepared speach, it was probally prepared by a dog or cat, or while someone was really stoned. Cummon, Internet traffic travels over ATM, which has little nothing to do with tcp/ip packets, it can only be blocked at the source and reciever, and to tell the truth, if they are the sender and reciever, they don't want it to be blocked in the first place, so they are helpless.
The ISP's can potentially block some traffic, but blocking via file format is not really possible. To a firewall a packet is a packet, and besides, TCP packets contain no information about content type, only the content.
I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times, clueless lawmakers and corporations should not involve themselves in computer or science issues without educating themselves first, which means, that before any law is voted upon, each congressman or senator needs to go to at least two years of college to catch up on what they have no idea about.
All this stupid genetics/nuclear/crypto secrecy that is always insisted upon pisses me off. Its not secret anyhow, my physics book contains nearly all the information about nuclear reactions which they classify as secret, my CS and math books tell me enough about cryptography to figure out how pgp works, or ever 128bit encryption. What's the fricking point of secrecy, we have the internet.
stupid people suck
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
On the other hand, I believe that the assumption that corporations are morally neutral allows people to adopt the "not my fault, I just work here" mentality. It enables a willing suspension of morality because, hey, corporations are intrinsically non-moral entities. Thus, it's not important to evaluate the corporate culture or to do one's part to ensure that the culture is a (if you'll excuse a bit of hokey terminology) "a force for good".
It seems that each of us wants people to demand higher accountability and greater moral sense from the corporations (or their top people), but we see the moral definition as effecting this in different ways. I'll have to ponder that some.
Perhaps some of the difference between us can be traced to
I do not and cannot accept this definition of evil. It is, I agree, evil to do things because they cause harm; to, as you say, enjoy doing harm. But the set of such things is merely (IMHO) a subset of the category "evil". As much as I am a child of the Enlightenment, as much as I revere the concept of the individual, I do not agree that self-interest is the only defining factor in Good v. Evil.Evil comes about, in my opinion, when one adopts a skewed ratio of weights between Self and Other. A person must respect both himself/herself and others. Most garden-variety evil stems from an unbalanced assignment of importance to oneself, ignoring the other. Such people evaluate everything only according to how it benefits or harms themselves. Others exist only as means to one's own ends. This devalues the human dignity of other people and is a path to evil.
Less commoningly encountered or commented upon, evil can also arise when one assigns ultimate weight and authority to the Other, negating the Self. This can often be used to justify the most horrific actions ("It's for their own good") as well as buttress one's own selfish actions ("Look how much I'm willing to give up."). Others are seen only as ends, and one's own self only as a means to those ends. Swinging the balance this way also devlaues human dignity -- the value of your life itself -- and thus leads to evil.
The only true path lies between these. (Hmm. Virtue as the mean between extremes. I guess I'm Aristotelean at heart.) One must recognize that individuals be means and have ends of their own. A philosopher prof I knew (hi, Nell!) once made a profound statement to me: The Enlightment was the recongition that individuals are more than simply means. Of course, they are means to ends; heck, the philosophy prof was a means to my own end of attaining an education degree. But each individual has ends of his/her own, and is entitled to respect. I, too, am an individual and thus also deserve respect. Finding the balance between Other and Self is a lot harder than hewing to an extreme; but it's also much more morally grounded.
Of course, it's clear that our views of Evil are distinct and, to some extent, incompatible. Thus it's not too surprising we have different opinions on whether corporations are (or can be) Evil.
By the way, is it safe to conclude that you oppose the judicial interpretation that corporations possess rights under the Constitution like free speech and equal protection of the laws?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
If sony has something you really want to buy, rather than not buy it at all (or worse - cave in and buy it), buy secondhand.
Sony gets nothing.
You only pay half price.
The consumer junk market shrinks somewhat.
The environment suffers less as less crap is consumed and manufactured.
Sure, this isn't a cure, and it has drawbacks, but it's a good start - it temporarily avoids the fundamental problem that individually boycotting the products of big companies often hurts us more than it hurts them.
Also, I don't think this is the same as "I boycott MS by pirating Windows" whereby mere use of Windows aids its dominance - in the appliance world, all brands of video work with all brands of TV and all brands of stereo, thus merely having sony gear doesn't aid sony indirectly (but watch those CD and DVD titles).
If your unsure, scratch the labels of the gear. No impressionable friends will know that your setup is sony, and if they ask why the label is scratched off, you get to explain and boost awareness of these issues.
Of course, since there's still only one computer on the Disc, and it's the size of a room, I don't know if we'll see an Internet any time soon -- unless Pterry has need of one. :)
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Do I look like I speak for my employer?
= )
Excellent post, this is this kind of thing I'm looking for in an argument.
Of course, it's clear that our views of Evil are distinct and, to some extent, incompatible. Thus it's not too surprising we have different opinions on whether corporations are (or can be) Evil.
My philosophy of arguments is that people have layers of belief, with the low level being things like "I shouldn't do evil" and "fish is gross" and the high level being things like "I shouldn't accept this new job offer because the corporation offering me the job has a reputation of doing evil things" or "I don't want to go out to dinner with this person, because they'll probably want to go to a seafood restaraunt." The point of an argument is for two (or more) people with differing "high level" beliefs to pick them apart into their component low level beliefs. Once that's done, either you revealed a flaw in someone's high level beliefs, (for example, maybe the corp has actually done more good than harm and just gets bad press, or maybe he should take the job and try to improve the corp, or maybe if he mentioned that he didn't like fish the other person would pick a different restaraunt, or maybe he could find something other than fish at the seafood restaraunt) or you've discovered that you have different low level beliefs, and that you aren't going to agree.
In this case we've done the latter, so the argument is pretty much over. Still, I thought I would respond to a couple things you said.
On the other hand, I believe that the assumption that corporations are morally neutral allows people to adopt the "not my fault, I just work here" mentality. It enables a willing suspension of morality because, hey, corporations are intrinsically non-moral entities. Thus, it's not important to evaluate the corporate culture or to do one's part to ensure that the culture is a (if you'll excuse a bit of hokey terminology) "a force for good".
The problem with this is that the people you speak of later, the "it's for their own good" people (like crusaders) are people who try to ensure that their culture is a force for good. The problem with "good" is that it is defined on a personal level. What you think is good may differ from what I think is good.
I don't think people should try to inflict their morality upon their corporation (meaning the other people working for the corporation), I think they should keep it to themselves. But they should apply it to themselves at all times. You don't separate your life into "I'm doing my own thing now, so I should be moral" and "I'm working for someone else right now, so I'll just adopt their morality." But if you accept that the institution you work for doesn't have a morality, then maybe you'll remember to use your own. The belief that since the institution you work for doesn't have its own morality, any actions you take on its behalf are somehow exempt from moral judgement, is a pretty drastic mistake.
I do not agree that self-interest is the only defining factor in Good v. Evil.
You must have misunderstood me, I'm not saying that at all, quite the opposite. I'm saying that self-interest is completely irrelevant in Good v. Evil. First off, Good vs. Evil is a question of intent. If I try to develop a genetically engineered bacterium that will cure cancer, and I unleash it into the world and it inflicts horrible disease and death upon half the world, I'm not evil. I'm stupid, but not evil. Meanwhile, if I did the exact opposite, developed a bug to inflict disease and death, because the idea brought me joy or satisfaction, and it cured cancer, that doesn't make me Good, it makes me evil.
Self-interest is neutral. I've even heard a theory that all actions are selfish. If you give $100 to charity, it was because you want to feel like you helped people, like you're a charitable person. It's this knowledge and feeling that drove you to the action. I haven't decided if I buy this theory, but it's certainly interesting. In any case, I believe that Evil is doing something harmful for its own sake, because you enjoy it.
Using a corporation for an example, say some VP decides to buy and bulldoze a low income housing area, making many people homeless, and put a parking lot or office building there. If he does this strictly because it will profit his company and thereby him, he is not evil. He's a bastard, yes. He's selfish, and by my standards, immoral. But not EVIL. If, meanwhile, he does it because he thinks its fun or because he takes some kind of satisfaction from it, then he's EVIL.
By the way, is it safe to conclude that you oppose the judicial interpretation that corporations possess rights under the Constitution like free speech and equal protection of the laws?
Nope, because now you're bringing the law into this. The law has nothing to do with morality or good and evil, and it shouldn't. The law is about keeping order. It's illegal to kill people, not because killing is immoral, (take the common example of killing Hitler before the holocaust. many people would think this is moral) but because if we were allowed to kill each other anytime, the country would be thrown into constant civil war.
The law recognizes corporations as entities, not collectives of people. In most cases, it holds corporations responsible for the actions of its employees, and with that responsibility come rights, like free speech. However, under the law, corporations have less right to free speech than people do, and less "equal protection."
Under U.S. copyright law, British works are "Berne Union works" or something like that and are subject to the same protections within U.S. borders as American works.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
well I'll respond because you have a point, and i don't nessicairly agree with you.
I do agree that napster can be used legale. refering to my gun annalogy, it is possible. but no where near as possible as you seem to imply. the live concerts which you download are also copyrighted material. when you go to a concert, do they let you bring a tape recorder in? no. how about a camera? again no. if the live recording is produced by a company, then you'll have to pay for it. so you see, even you (and I know that you do mean well, as evidenced by the fact your father is a musician) are using it illegaly.
i'm also a musician (mind you not very talented, but don't tell my parents, cause they'll be pissed for paying for 10 years of clasical guitar lessons). and in response to a previous post, i've never tried to distribute an album or any music for that matter. so, well no, I don't know what its like. the internet being the distribution methode of the future? well maybe (no deffinitly, even if I don't think it should be like that), but if it is, there's going to have to be a major paradigum shift in the way we view fair compensation. See the MAJOR point of trying to distribute music as an artist is to MAKE MONEY! no its true. do you think that people would spend their life making music and giving it away? no because they'd be poor, ie no money. the world works on money. I enjoy making music, but I know I couldn't make a living on it. Some people (maybe your father) enjoy making music and are good enough to be able to make a living doing it. Good for them, they have that right, and they should. The world does not work on recognition. I and millions of others, could view your father (i don't mean to pick on him btw) as the greatest musician in the world, but if we don't give him any money, then it won't matter, he'll quit and start a software firm. Public domain musicians, from metallica to Hole to lesser know bands like joydrop do it for the money. I work for the money, don't you?
the point is, that things like napster do indeed present a good distribution channel and do increase the recognition of smaller artits, but it doesen't pay them. idealy (as i'm sure both you and i probably hope) napster would compensate the artits for their works, but its not likely to happen. this is why. Napster was developed to steal, that's what it was originaly used for, and by and large (by everyone who uses it) it sill is used to steal. and the product? a who new community, and dare I say, genneration of people who view it as okay to get music for free. if you keep letting these things happen, then everyone will loose. the small artits are winning right now, because their music is being heard, but come 2 years down the road, when they haven't gotten a dime from it (cause face it, not very many people are like you and i and would buy the album anyways, and people like you and i are going to be fewer and fewer) they'll pack up and leave. and then you'll have none.
is napster a bad thing? yes, but internet distribution is not. an even worse thing is the society and attitudes that the internet is breeding amongs the youger generation. evidently the majority of people here on slashdot, and elsewhere too seem to think its okay to get something for nothing. the internet is great that way isn't it? cause here, you can be anyone you wanna be, and nobody needs to know who you are or what you do. and your very far removed from the people you harm on the internet. its much easier to commit a crime and not feel bad about it when you don't know who your hurting isn't it?
are corporations such a bad thing? well I don't know, but i certainly don't see the harm in someone making a buck off of someone else. that's called freedom, and its what the free world is built on. napster dosen't work in the free world (i think it would in a communist society, but that'l be for another disscusion, reply if your interested).
and as one last note, please, in the future, do not comment on my posting style, my tone, or my use of words, I may sound immature, but I have that right, and maybe that's the way i want to come off. your final remark just makes you look like a pompus knowitall, and well, you don't know it all, neither do i, and your not better than me, just as i'm not better than u.
"You can take anything you want but you better not take it from me In the jungle.....LOL
I wouldn't get complacient about things like freenet. IP interests hold a lot of sway in Washington, and shutting down P-P systems is quite possible technically. For starters, they could mandate that anyone with more than X level of sustained upstream bandwidth would need some kind of license. Second, they could simply demand that ISPs block all inbound ports. Even if Freenet migrates to a UDP based protocol, technology is already available to allow recognized UDP protocols through, and block everything else. Further, they could make anonymous encrypted file transfer illegal, thus requiring people to have accountability for what they are sending.
Don't underestimate the political power of these corporations. There is a very real threat to the music industry in these technologies. Even if the music industry's profits aren't hurting now, they will be when more people get high bandwidth connections and start getting all of their music from the net instead of from the record store.
It is disingenuous to say that who the music industry is going after are the unsigned artists. Unsigned artists can put their music up on mp3.com or their own websites if they want to distribute it for free. The only reason for systems like Freenet is to protect the distribution of illegal content. While you might disagree with what is currently considered illegal by our government (DeCSS for example), the fact remains that there is no reason for secret file sharing if it is legal. If you content is legal, you can have anonynimity by posting it to geocities or usenet from a cybercafe.
A large number of lesser acts *do* in fact allow and encourage recording of their shows. Cameras are different. Flashes disrupt the show. No one wants morons shooting at the stage blinding musicians. Your comment about if a live recording was produced by a company is also invalid. If it was produced by a company, then I would have made an attempt to purchase it (unless I'd heard that it wasn't worth the effort--which is ultimately, a moot point).
Also, there's the question of how Constitutionally viable contemporary copyright law is... There are definitely flaws to it. There is far too much power given to publishers/recording companies over artists.
I personally, am not a musician. I can play guitar if my life depended on it and can play drums well (over a decade of experience), but all the same I'd rather be scripting or writing a 40 page essay on political discourse. I simply try to sell the albums and do internet publicity on the side. I'm considerably more practical than my father and would prefer to work in a more profitable line of work. I.T. or law (though I still have quite a few years for the latter).
On the point of Napster being good for distribution, but not paying. In all truth, you're missing the boat on this one. Do you honestly think an unknown artist who very few people have ever heard of before is going to be able to get random people to PAY for downloading a song? In short, the answer is no. Even having a full list of songs available (in CD format, or close enough such that it doesn't matter) is enough to garner *significant* returns in CD purchases. Furthermore, it gets people interested and willing to go check out a show. What do you think pays off better, CDs or concerts? (The answer is, concerts, FYI.) CDs, help a lot however. They mean that you don't have to be touring every single day of the year. (Not like independent artists don't need other jobs as well.)
The bottom line from the artists perspective is that they do profit from free distribution. Enough people buy the album to make it very much worth their while, so much to the extent that many independent labels have become significant challenges to larger "big money" labels.
Insofar as your view of Napster as a bad thing.
On the view that people who hear the music for free won't buy the album. I entirely disagree with this. The majority of people I know. Virtually everyone at school, when they have the money, they *will* go out and buy the album. MP3 players aside, people who like music, will buy a CD over listening to MP3s. Why? CD quality is, quite frankly, a hell of a lot better. If you like music you won't settle for less. I won't. Most everyone I know won't.
Also, I always support my favorite artists directly. If they pass through the area, I'm at thier show, giving my support to their cause.
I think what we're seeing here is more of a paradigm shift in the very way we view and consume our art. The fact that more people are able to hear and experience the multitude of artists out there is enriching as a whole. The internet and programs like Napster allows thier voices and respective messages to be widely distributed. Which is better, a few tightly controlled media sources ruling the majority of all art consumption, guiding popular culture or allowing people to take control of it for themselves. Free consumption of music, frankly is the only way that seems to make sense. This also creates a greater incentive on the performer to strive to be better. For an artist to make revenue, his/her talent must stand out. Music, above and beyond is a performance art.
g.e.
Be vewwy vewwy careful if you buy a Sony computer. When you finish installing Napster on it or play an 'illegal MP3' it will explode.
Sony actually owns AIWA. Be careful if you want to live in a sony-free universe...you gotta do your research first.
"Now near I am, yes.....and now, far I am, mmmmm." -when Frank Oz confuses Yoda and Grover
No no no, the response is something like 'Forget it, he's on a roll.'
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
Don't forget that SDMI's "Phase Two" players will not play content that has not been appropriately signed and all "Phase One" players turn into "Phase Two" players when the appropriate signal is sent. They're trying to leverage a near-monopoly in commercial music today into a monopoly on the design of music players and then swing that back around so they can control ALL music distribution. It's actually quite clever in a sick and disgusting way.
You are canceling your PlayStation2 Order?
Well that is because you are an idiot and do not realize that the different Sony divisions are actually seperate legal entities with merely a similar legal name. One Sony company does not effect the other in any way except to generate negative press. The Sony entity that creates your PlayStation2 has nothing to do with the "Jack Ass VP" in this article who is commenting about Napster. So you will be boycotting the Sony name in general for the ludicrous actions of one entity.
But if you want to cancel your Playstation2 order then fine... go ahead! That just means I will get mine sooner becuase of stupid shits like you. So I say HAHA, Fool!!!!!
"Help me Obi-/.-Kenobi,your my only hope!" -$
Although offtopic, I thought I'd point something out here.
:-)
This was a mis-quotation of Khruschev. This site:"We Will Bury You" tells a bit about the incident. I quote here a small portion:
"Living in a world strewn with the wreckage of the Soviet empire, it is hard for most people to realize that there was a time when the Soviet economy, far from being a byword for the failure of socialism, was one of the wonders of the world--that when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the U.N. podium and declared, "We will bury you," it was an economic rather than a military boast. It is therefore a shock to browse through, say, issues of Foreign Affairs from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s and discover that at least one article a year dealt with the implications of growing Soviet industrial might."
Now, Khrushcev didn't actually say "We will bury you". What he said has been subsequently translated as "We will be at your burial", meaning roughly that communism would outlive capitalism. And he said it in Poland in 1956, not at the United Nations in 1959. The shoe pounding incident was entirely unrelated to the misquote in question, but like the misquote was eagerly interpreted as a gesture of aggression.
Interesting bit of Cold War trivia, that!
-cajun
They were supposed to tell us their evil plan AFTER we were strapped into their death machine.
>Most small ISPs won't go for it.. they can't afford the loss of busness they'd get.
:-)
Heck, if the big ISPs made the deal with Sony (as you say, not likely) the small ISPs would benefit wildly. Anyone on one of the big firewalled ISPs will go elsewhere.
All the small ISP has to do is advertise "We don't firewall Napster" and BAM! instant business...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I'm sick of you stupid people using your constitutional rights for such silly things. back in the 60's people used free speach to speak out againts the war in Vietnam and the killing of US troups for no apparent reason (yeah well it wasn't a good reason anyways). now we use it to steal music. a far less nobel cause, and a disgussting comment on our society.
= ) Excellent point there. Basically, the people here on Slashdot (myself included) aren't really being particularly oppressed or violated in any terribly life endangering or impressive way, so they tend to blow things out of proportion a bit. Sony suddenly becomes the flagship of the evil corporate menace, rather than a collection of people who provide a valuable service that is willingly paid for. By coming down on Napster, the government isn't punishing a mediocre company that was founded on the goal of making money off the thefts of others, they're robbing the American people of their rights to free speech.
fuck napster. people use guns to break laws, but there are responsible people who use them for law abiding activites. people who use napster only use it for the task for which it was designed, to break laws and steal music. deal with it, your all criminals.
I believe that there are people who use Napster for entirely legal purposes. Albeit maybe only three or four of them in the world, but it does have legitimate uses. Napster's problem wasn't that it should be illegal to provide a tool that aids in theft, because it should be. Napster's problem was that they willfully and flagrantly set out to aid and profit off of theft, and they got caught.
I used Napster, as well as other mp3s. I didn't cosider it theft, because when I found an album I liked, I deleted the mp3s and paid for the CD. I didn't consider this to be immoral, but I recognize that it was illegal, and I'm not going to whine about them taking away my Napster. Hell, Napster wasn't even that good. It was pretty mediocre.
AU is one of the worst! The gov't claims hacking rights. They have banned guns, so they can do whatever they want. No matter how bad the IP laws get in the US, at least we can still defend ourselves against them. If anyone in the US gov't is dumb enough to actually do a gun ban anywhere near as bad as the one in AU, there will be a civil war that may be worse than the last one. Those guns are what are protecting our IP rights and they can't take that away without blood.
2000 != 1984 Stupid English people.
As for the United States' government and economy being the oldest and most stable, it's not, really, though its certainly up there. Britain has been up there relatively unchanged for almost as long, if not longer, depending on what you consider a massive change, and the U.S. has gone through some significant changes as well, switching from a confederational system up until the time of the Civil War to a more strongly federalist system thereafter.
But there is always a better model out there. To suggest otherwise is to imply that this is as good as it gets, and, frankly, I'm not prepared to accept that. Even if I differ with traditional Marxism on a number of issues, I do strongly believe in the principle of the social dialectic. Culture and society changes, and there is no system that can adequately encompass all of the different forms a culture can take. Social and economic systems must evolve. A massive change certainly could be fatal, but so could continuing along our current path indefinitely. America's present capitalist system would not have worked in the days of Ancient Greece because supply and communication lines weren't strong enough. And I'm personally convinced that we are approaching, if not already past, a point where Smithian capitalism will not operate for precisely the opposite reason: we have evolved, socially speaking, to a point where things are so interconnected that the competition model doesn't pan out the way it is supposed to. To make an appropriately Slashdot-esque comparision, its like expecting hardware manufactured in 1981 for the Apple II to run Quake III Arena.
The same, of course, applies to Marxist socialism. It was concieved as a response to a very different society in the grasp of a very different form of capitalism over a century ago. Any by-the-book implementation of Marxism would fail for the same reasons that capitalism is failing. But just as we have modelled, but not stayed 100% pure to, Adam Smith's version of capitalism, there are definite possibilites to do the same with socialism, a system which (purely IMO) is not so inherently tied to social structures which are dying in our modern society.
As for incentive for competition, I don't believe competition is going to be as vital in the future as it has been in the past. While there always will be advancements to make and new things to accomplish, the point of a capitalist system is to provide a period of massive social, industrial, and economic growth. When that growth starts to level off, as Marx predicted it would, albeit over a century too early, capitalism becomes a burden, not a blessing. Without enforced competition, there will be a much slower rate of growth, but I think its a laissez-faire fallacy to assume that growth will stop entirely. A number of great achievements have been made by individuals who have completely shunned traditional capitalist incentives. Heck, a number of open-source software designers buck this traditional capitalist tenet.
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
nah, you just had your head too far up your ass to catch it
-dk
-dk
Dream with the feathers of angels stuffed beneath your head.
Corporations raze millions of acre of rainforest. Corporations strip-mine the planet. Corporations sue to silence critics, intimidate competitiors, and distort justice. Corporations conduct unethical and uninformed experiments on people. Do none of these count as "evil" for you?
Are you seriously proposing that there aren't guys "in a three-piece-suit with no morals hunched over a desk analyzing bottom-lines on a print out and deciding which companies to take over and who to fire"?? So all the downsizing of the 1980s -- professional hatchet men and all -- was actually the result of ten million mom-and-pop decisions sweated over a kitchen table late at night? Wow. It must be very nice to live in your world.
In the actual real world, on the other hand, there are these things called multibillion-dollar multinational corporations. They have motivations of their own, they have decision processes of their own, and they have survival unlinked to any particular employee. They interact with other corporations in a rapidly-fluctuating hunter/prey mode and they make decisions that, as often as not, have more to do with maximizing their own short-term profit than to respecting the people they work for or sell to.
As for not knowing any of the corporate droids: Heck, I've seen high school friends turn into them. These people are still my friends. In their personal lives they are still relatively decent people who love their kids, donate at church, and send flowers to their moms on Mothers' Day. In their professional lives, they backstab co-workers, abuse suppliers, cheat customers, and dedicate all to the corporate (bottom) line. Why? Because, at work, they are just cogs in a larger organism.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Let's imagine Sony and all those other big fat corporate whores were to block napster usage at the ISP level (yay, we can work around that), well wouldn't Napster be well placed to sue Sony for boycotting the service ? Napster is making money out of this, so if any company takes steps to massively restrict Napster, then I'm pretty sure there's some business conduct legislation that can be used against the RIAA.
IANAL but I'm pretty darn sure this is illegal. If someone were to stand outside your business preventing customers from entering, you'd have that person arrested and sue them for lost revenues. Shouldn't the same apply for online services ?
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Amen Winston.
We will fight them in the seas. We will fight them in our towns. We will fight them in the hills. We will never surrender.
Seriously though: this is one disturbing example of how corporate power is going to affect our freedom in the future. We'd better wake up to this fact and do something about it soon.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
If I remember correctly, modern wireless communication can operate in a "frequency hopping" mode in order to avoid jamming/eavesdropping. The device doesn't use a fixed frequency but hops from one frequency to another.
Yes, but it does a lousy job of avoiding eavesdropping. If you've got anything that speaks its protocol (like, say, a PCS phone) then that device will pick up those frequency change instructions and follow them. It only prevents really easy eavesdropping via normal radios.
How about writing a file sharing application that operaties in a similar fashion by "hopping" from port to another free port in a seemingly random manner?
And what about writing a protocol based on an analogy with "spread spectrum" transmissions? Chop up the stuff, send small pieces through different ports and assemble the pieces at the destination?
Nope, this doesn't help. Say they block port X. You hop from A to B to C to X to wait a minute, what happened to my transmission? Port blocking doesn't occur on a minute-to-minute basis. If you can get through port A, there's no need to change ports. The concern isn't eavesdropping, and if it was, then hopping ports would do any good, because you can still sniff the packets. Ports are too far up the OSI layer. As for the spread, same deal. If you can get through port A, why bother with the others? You're just likely to clip some data when you pick ports that are blocked for your spread.
But all of that is irrelevant, because the secure situations are ones where they have ALL ports blocked except certain regonized ones, like 80 for HTTP. You can't use the same port for several applications without them getting mixed up. But in case somebody decides to give up websurfing while they Napster, many good firewalls can scan the headers of the packets to determine the protocol being used, and recognize that it's not really legitimate HTTP traffic. Gnutella is a step ahead of them, because it actually uses HTTP, so it would look fairly legit. But that's just today's situation in the war. My college actually forwards only certain HTTP commands (like GET, but not PUT) and this pretty well fucks over Gnutella. I'm sure several months from now Gnutella will find a way around that, and a month later the sysadmins will find a way to block the new technique.
It would seem Napster should have an ability for the Napster user community to support and promote their favorite finds. Of course, I'm not a big Napster user so I might be missing an aspect of "community" more savvy Napster users are a part of.
There are three such ways. (Well, two-and-a-half.)
1) You can add any user to your "hot list" (right click their name). This allows you to browse their entire MP3 collection. That way, you can, for example, do a search for your favorite band, and then find out what else people who also like that band listen to. This is my favorite way of discovering totally new music on Napster.
2) Plus they have chat rooms sorted by music genre where you can a) find people to add to your hot list by genre and b) get people's recommendations directly.
2.5) Plus there's instant messaging which can serve the same purposes, although I tend to think it odd when strangers IM me on Napster...
All these are relatively effective ways to discover totally new music that you might be very likely to enjoy, and they all involve at least a modicum of community. In addition, Napster is great for finding sorta-new music, because you can search by artist name only--songs from that band's first album you didn't know about, or B-sides, or live versions of everything, or, best yet, compilations with other artists you hadn't heard before. Yes, a google search will most likely turn up a fan site which contains this information, but Napster just makes it more convenient.
All in all, I'd give Napster about a 6 out of 10 in terms of fostering community, and maybe a 7.5 in terms of introducing one to new music one is likely to enjoy. It's not perfect in these respects, and it's possible to imagine ways it could do better. (Depending on what they are, they would theoretically get them in more legal trouble, but since the judge has ruled they're not entitled to safe-harbor protection as a content-neutral ISP, there might no longer be a reason it would put them in a worse position legally.) Still, I think its community aspects are significant, and its a more effective and convenient way to find good new music than any other I've come across.
Well, there is one good thing that could come of this, if and when this super-invasive copyright protection crap becomes a reality: As soon as it is released into the wild, hackers (not crackers) will pounce on it and find out how to defeat it. The protection systems will become more and more invasive until at some point the industry groups propose something completely ludicrous, even to laypeople...and then they'll be shot down. Ok, so I'm an optimist. Besides, active copy protection schemes are fundamentally flawed: there must be some way to view the material legitimately. The material can be copied then and there. The media industries will never be able to monitor and cut off raw transfer of generic data, and that's how the material will be propagated. Note to Sony: YOU are the ones who CANNOT win. There simply is no fucking way. Sure, you may take down Napster, but in the end you WILL LOSE. You cannot control other people's transfer of information to the level you want. And you'll take a major PR hit. You'll be the company that tried in vain to invade the PRIVATE communications of the general public--the quintessential Big Brother.
where can I get a sony PDA to help me keep a sortable list of all the companies I am suppossed to be boycotting....
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
If they resort to analog, music will either:
a). not be able to be played on a computer (e.g., in you're cd rom drive). Consumers will not stand for this.
b) will have to be converted to a digital signal, which can then be written to memory.
Sorry, even going to analog won't work.
I must agree with Alley viper. Although I would love to see Sony.com bought to it's knees (I would love to see their logs....and how many ports THEY are having to firewall right now) The media would hammer the whole community for it. I think the guy is a dickhead....Or that this is a real good wind-up.....but there are better ways for us to win.
As Machiavelli said in The Prince: "We must bear in mind, then, that there is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things in any state. For the innovator has for enemies all those who derived advantages from the old order of things while those who expect to be benefited by the new institutions will be but lukewarm defenders."
And they made butterfy knives illegal.
I could see ftp getting blocked on home accounts (have to have a business account to use it), cos after all you can just use frontpage.
hope not, but it's dangerous to underestimate, who would have thought that linking could be made illegal...
~ppppppppö
Mr Coward, I would love some playstation wares, but are you willing to break your anonimity in order to send these to me? If you are, let me know, and I'll take the dusty, broken peice of crap playstaion in and get it fixed, so my kids can spend their days plastered to a tv screen, instead of downloading napster tunes and burning pirated CD's! What a relif that would be, at least I won't have to fight them for puter time. God knows you wouldn't catch me playing silly little video games! LOL
I have to laugh at this one Mr Coward, my playstation is broken, I haven't bought anything electronic in years and I have downloaded songs from everyone of the artists you have mentioned, and of course, it was all FREE FREE FREE!!! I am most grateful to Napster! So, to answer your question, "No problem, I can do it!"
This is a peek DEEP inside the mind if a corporatist. Key phrase: We will transcend the individual....
We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC.
and lever our monopoly against...
Again, deep seated corporatist mindset. Note the monopolistic mentality and naive assumption of technical superiority over "The Individual". I find it disturbing to think that this guy is probably a key decision maker at Sony. Is this representative of the type of mentality found in "high places"?! Brrrrr!
"These strategies," Heckler said, "are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake."
So what I get from this statement is: We will transcend the individual...and (aggressively) lever our monopoly (real or imagined) against...anyone or anything (real or imagined) that threatens OUR revenue stream! Read: our revenue streams transcend the individual, and thus take precedence over individual rights (e.g. fair use, free speech, etc). The statement smacks of the kind of ruthlessness that is just shy of malevolence (IMO). At least thats what I infer from it.
I thought this was evident in my original post, but I'm definately not advocating piracy (you somehow equated "anti RIAA" = "pro piracy"). I am advocating using the internet to cut the big music companies out of the picture. I don't want to get music for free. I *want* to pay artists for their work. I personally really like having physical cd's with artwork, lyrics, etc. I don't, however, want to pay $20 for a cd and have 90% of that go to the shareholders of monopolistic music companies.
Regardless of your personal take on Courtney/Prince, I don't think either one has been advocating napster or piracy in general. Both (albeit, for their own reasons) seem to be advocating the creation of ways to allow artists to sell and promote their music (using the internet) without signing their life away to sony or other RIAA companies. Such a system will be mutually beneficial to both music producers and music lovers, so it's not a question of "if", but "when?" it will become practical and widespread.
The whole napster/piracy thing is a different issue. There will always be pirates, regardless of efforts to use technology to stop it. Oddly enough, most of the "anti-piracy" technology being used (CSS, MacroVision) today is aimed squarely at the consumer (namely, preventing the consumer from making "fair use" of the products they purchase), not commercial pirating operations. The major movie/music industry lobbies are also pushing for laws to severely restrict "fair use" and allow them to have anyone who breaks their security features imprisoned. This Sony VP makes it obvious that Sony (and corporations in general) have no problem trampling you and me if it's necessary to protect their "revenue".
FWIW, I do buy cd's, even from RIAA companies on occasion. I don't have gigs of pirated mp3's, but I do download mp3's to check out cd's before I buy them, which ultimately results in me buying more cd's. I do acknowledge that this is not always the case (some people will just pirate the music), but despite mp3's and napster, cd sales are up. I saw a study a few weeks ago that said napster users buy more cd's than non-napster users - I'm not sure how accurate the study was, but it wouldn't surprise me if the results are right on.
Dude, this is about Napster, not Gnutella. I can understand some people can't be bothered to read the linked article before posting, but not reading the /. header before posting, wow ;-)
Personally my political leanings are corporate anarchist... kind of give power to groups of people, your traditional multinational corporation being one type of group to consider. Ok, having admitted my complete difference in views with yours, how about this: consumer power and corporate power are pretty much the same thing. After all, who listens to consumers but corporations? And listen they do, whether you speak with your overly enlightened brain or your greed and your dollar. If more people put the two together, they might even get what they really want, instead of what they claim to want or what they act like they want. If you want to avoid corporate power, I'm sure there are populist systems that would do it, but consumers is inherently pro-corporate. Finally, I'm on the other side of Napster than you. I don't particularly care, but I'll speculate that the reason is that I'm in the computer field to have fun, and make a living at the same time, not to get cheap thrills or steal from anyone. Sorry for sounding like a flame. I'm sure you can articulate your views better than you did. It's just hard to think rigorously in the absence of critiscism.
If you are modding me down because you disagree with me, use the "Flamebait" category, not the "Troll" one.
Problem: Billions and billions of dollars are at stake for massive corporations.
Consider, thousands of corrupt politicians, lawyers and judges are in the pockets of such corporations, who have a large budget for bribes (legal bribes and illegal bribes ..) ..
So the solution is (a) buying some public lobbies for a "grass-roots" attack on copyright infringement, and (b) buying of a few well-thought-out bills to "amend" current copyright law.
So in a few years time your ISP will practically be held liable for anything you pirate. Suddenly ISP's stop selling you "bandwidth and a TCP/IP connection" and starts selling you "e-mail and the web" (there's already a horrible trend in this direction, if you look at some of the cable terms-of-service contracts out there. And besides, the majority of people out there are not computer literate and anyway think that the internet is only web and e-mail.) So you get massive fire-walling, to the extent that you'll probably only have ports 80, 25, 110 and maybe 119 available.
There will always be ways to pirate stuff, yes, but don't underestimate the power these corporations have to drive piracy back into the underground, restrict it to a small minority of people who have a fair amount of technical knowledge. This isn't the piracy the RIAA care about - they're worried about mainstream piracy, like Napster, so thats all they really have to stop. We've already seen that new laws can practically be "bought". They've stopped Napster, they'll stop other things that come up.
"How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet?"
It always annoys me when (a) record companies, (b) movie companies, (c) computer game industry complains about how much revenue they supposedly lose to piracy. It's always some hugely inflated value; the problem is they work on the assumption that if somebody pirated something, that that would have been revenue had the person not pirated it - in other words, that the person would actually have bought it. This assumption is entirely BS, most people who copy a computer game would simply never have bought it or played it all, had they not been able to pirate it. So it anyway wouldn't have been revenue.
So the recording industry asks Napster, "how many downloads", Napster says, say, "100 million". RIAA multiplies 100 million by the average price of a song, goes crying to the media and the courts that they've lost that much money. It's BS.
Consider these facts:
1) Gnutella was developed and released into the wild under AOL's nose before being shut down.
2) AOL had removed a search function in an mp3 player within a week of its release.
3) Time-Warner is one of the companies who filed suit against Napster *and* the DeCSS case. They have as much to lose as $ony.
4) Anybody out there use Roadrunner, a high speed cable ISP owned by Time-Warner?
Considering these facts:
Replace "$ony" with "AOL/Time-Warner" and re-read the statements.
I smell a rat.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Aw, sh*t! No wonder it self-destructed!
Anyhoo - all this boycott talk got me thinking...does anyone have a complete (or even somewhat complete) list of companies/group the geek community is boycotting/protesting? It just seems like it grows on and on and on....
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
IMHO this proves that the big 8 are nothing more than monopolies that will stop at *nothing* to make sure that I do not do something that the exec. staff of RIAA say I can do.
That would make them an octopoly...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
MP3 is a proprietary format. They buy the rights to the MP3 format, and charge any site that distributes MP3's a "license fee" similar to the one that Unisys tried to levy against websites that use GIF's. Remember, this is the company that threw mad cash at ZZ Top just so that their label would appear "more American" a couple of years back. (I think it was 10 mil or so...)
The truth is that the music industry will protect its buisness. If someone kept breaking into your house, you'd get a burgular alarm, and the record companies see themselves in that same situation right now. (Whether they are or not is another question entirely and beyond the scope of what I am trying to present.)
Furthermore, they could change the format of the music they sell, making piracy (can't really think of a better word) more difficult at least or impossible at best. (Impossible is not possible. The music will eventually be converted to an analog signal where it could be converted to something digital.) If we were still using LP's, I'm sure that the MP3 thing would not have taken off. Most people out there can't figure out how to get AOL working, I can't see them figuring out how to hook up analog inputs to their sound card and record an MP3. By reducing the number of people that can produce digital copies they create better targets for the law to go after.
Remember, Napster's defense is that they do not pirate the music themselves, they only provide a service for sharing the files. In scenario #2, the actual producers of digital copies can be made liable.
So long as Napster and related services remain (in their eyes) a threat to their revenue, the industry will do whatever it takes to stop them. This is called survival. If the record companies think they're going to lose a billion dollars because of this, they will spend a billion to stop it. "Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day..."
~Hammy
"You're listening to American Bandstand and who gives a shi*" ~Casey Kasem
Go ahead Sony VP.
Make my fucking day.
We, the people, will firewall YOU off. We will refuse to buy your music. We will boycott you. We will route around you. We will make you irrelevant.
No more will you rape the consumers and the artists, taking 95% of the profit for your own pocket while people are out there starving to death, trying to make a living.
You are not the information creators. You will not be the information and content providers. You will be made obsolete.
Mark my words.
diskiller.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
I believe people are already working on this at the protocol level in distributed file servers, just because they're hte buzzword of the day. But that's not enough. A middleman can still sniff otu the type of traffic that is going around. We need to work around the IP protocol so that middlemen (ISPs, corporations, evil) can not tell what data is being sent or recieved from my computer. I imagine a new service which handles encrypted IP, which sits on one port. When a packet comes in a layer of encryption is stripped off and ONLY THEN can you tell which service the packet is intended for. The packet is then forwarded to the appropriate program. Kind of like tunneling EVERYTHING through SSH.
The only way we can pull this off is to make it easy to set up on both the client and server side, to that people start running "legit" applications (internet commerce, Web servers, telephony, buzzowrd-of-the-day, etc.) on it at once.
Doing it so that routers will only see the minimum amount of information is another task, but I believe it's technically possible, if not possible under IP protocol.
Does anyone see what I'm getting at in this idea? We would perform the ultimate Internet route-around-damage, if we could pull this off.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
I think this is what they mean when they say that leaders begin to get out of touch after being in power too long. This guy is implying that his revenue stream is more important than my civil rights.
Message to Heckel: Dude, chill out! Hitler thought he could dick with civil rights for the better good too! Fight it in the courts where this belongs. You've got plenty of money, go after each and every Napster user if it suits you. After the first million or so I'm sure you'll get the attention of the rest of the community. To be quite honest, I'm with you on this one. I believe people should pay for songs that you sell. I have a lot of philosophical issues with how you get that content, but, as you should, I will be taking my case to the courts and in public forums rather than send in jackbooted soliders to restrict any movement on your part that I don't agree with.
In short: Stop being such a dick!
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I'm sorry if the Napster kiddies will be forced to return to asking Mom and Dad for money to buy their music instead of stealing it, but that's how laissez faire capitalism works.
Well, its certanly a good thing we don't live under laissez faire capitalism.
(I'm almost certan this is a troll, btw, but just in case it isn't)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yeah, I thought that was pretty ironic too.
wrighty.
Head Office Sony of Canada Ltd. 115 Gordon Baker Road Toronto, Ontario M2H 3R6 Main Telephone: (416) 499-1414 Main Fax: (416) 497-1774 E-mail: general_enquiries@sony.ca
I was in #yourmom today
Even paraphrased, it's still inspiring. It feels good to remember that no matter what the world's turning into that we are still the philsophical inheritors and guardians of the ideal of freedom.
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
...is all the vermin it flushes out of the weeds.
The funny thing about this guy's tirade is how jazzed he appears to be about having learned the word "firewall" (Note, I didn't say having learned what it meant").
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
You were marked down as a troll beacuse you exspressed arguments that are time tested, proven arguments to make if you are trolling. In fact, the RWM troll technique is actualy considered obsolete at this point. Not only are you probably a troll, but if you are, your using obsolite techniques.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Go with Indrema
www.indrema.com
"Doctor, wait, their corporate prospectus, It's a cookbook!" (evil music as the door closes...)
~Hammy (Outer limits rules!)
I am no proponent of Napster. Napster is the same as the US Postal service, in that people use it illegally in many ways.
The comments made in that article are very offensive and only serve to show how ignorant big business is of the real world.
When someone comes up with a way to defeat open trade of data in ANY form someone else finds a better way to do it.
That's Hidy's law, and it will never be broken. - -
You can't take the sky from me
the only way for Sony and others to stop napster is to make their music accessible online
wake up, Heckler, and join the 21st century
when the world is online, the music must be online
We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC." Was this guy beating the podium with his shoe?
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
Reason being?
I can't believe that after EVERYTHING that has been tried so far, and failed, in regard to anti-music-piracy, they still haven't realised the simple truth:
If you can actually listen to the music, then you can simply re-record it and mp3 encode it. What are they going to do? Ban file transfers over the net?
Record companies are fucked. They should just face the music (hah) and sell their stock, or drastically alter the way they do business to suit the way the world IS, not the way it WAS.
nf
for playstation games. Look how Sony has fought that tooth and nail BTW. Even though it would actually help their market share, they fight every emulator as if it was nuclear war. That's what really makes this statement so scary. It might really be true. I wouldn't put it past them to try to haul individual PC users into court as well as companies just to make examples of them. And you thought that the next totalitarian state was going to come from the government - it's going to come from the corporation.
We'll firewall it at your house
We'll firewall it at your mouse
We'll convince the phone execs to interject!
We'll convince the cable execs to interject!
We'll get you at your mouse
We'll get you at your house
We'll get you, you evil hax0rs!
--
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
25: ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I've got a 13 year hacker friend who can crack any protection you throw at me... face it they're fighting a lost battle.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
you think the unwashed masses would rebel against an internet where the only thing you could read or see or listen to or watch would be what had been approved by a large multinational corporation?
ever heard of AOL?
if it really does come down to this: corporations vs. consumers, we better all get down on our knees and pray for salvation from a hell worse than Orwell's 1984
A lot of stupid laws restricting technology have been passed, both here and in Europe. For example, in the US, you cannot buy a receiver that covers the analog cell phone bands anymore (although it's easy for a criminal to put one together). Why? Because rather than holding the cellular companies responsible for their appalling lack of security, the cellular companies prevailed on congress to simply outlaw the production of receivers. It didn't make the world much safer, but it removed the responsibility from them and put the burden on the tax payer and consumer.
Or consider that in Europe, people pay a tax on blank tapes, money that is then shipped directly to the music industry. The presumption is that you use tapes for illegal copying, so you might as well pay the "legitimate artists" for that.
And, of course, in the US, the industry already succeeded in getting cumbersome copy protection devices into digital audio systems.
Don't take the current situation for granted, where computer hardware is reasonably open, well documented, and programmable. We may well end up with a situation where most people use proprietary, limited hardware (like a future PlayStation) with tightly controlled interfaces and software, and in which other people have to pay a steep premium for "professional" equipment that is programmable; and even that kind of "professional equipment" may be tightly controlled.
It's pretty clear that Sony and other content providers are going to fight tooth and nail to protect their obsolete business models. We need to be vigilant to keep them from succeeding. Sony needs to figure out how to make money in a world of open hardware and cheap distribution; if they can't do that, they should go out of business. As a society, we have no obligation to protect companies that can't adapt to new technological realities.
Sony, the victim of a self fulfilling denial of service prophecy.
Yet again, I find more reasons to be happy I stopped playing Everquest.
But he was the first
"What we're saying [to software developers] is that all these kids [worldwide] have Play-Stations," Heckler said. "So don't fight it. Join it."
I think this "VP" should be aware of the following:
- I am not a kid (anymore) since I am 30.
- I use Gnutella for PD-progs downloads (but If you want music for free I can give you some of mine which is Free).
- This guy sees a money stream instead of an artistic flow. Napster proposed me to publish my music for free on their web site. Why would he close them ? Does he want money for what I give or does he want to be the only authorized music publisher in the world ? We already have such a disease in France, this is called SACEM and they don't only help artists but make a profit from their music.
- I don't have a television, hence I don't have a Playstation.
- I wouldn't buy a PSX2 since its DVD player is hard-region-locked. (just move as often as me and you'll understand this does't make me a gangster)
- Sony is a Japanese Corporation. M. Heckler's name doesn't sound like he is. He is quite violent in this interview, unlike his employers from the Zen country. This is bad for Sony's reputation. I then suspect such a speech (errors, lack of accuracy) should not be considered as reflecting Sony's spirit but only denotes its author's lack of self-control.
- Sony's advertisings are usually smarter ("I dreamed of it, Sony did it") who actually dreamed of being sued or of keep paying for Art ?
OK, I wrote lots of things here but this is a normal reaction to this bullshit.This actually reminds me of my former company:
- Something happened.
- Somebody sends a mail about it toall the employees (at least in the building).
- An executive about to be evaluated just adds one detail and resends the mail.
- Evaluators who never read mails just see that he wrote about the event and consider him as a [Negociator|Leader|Communicator] and give him a good note.
- Other employees do the same
- And this way, a forgotten laptop that was found behind an open door one month later was declared stolen and the company's Lotus Notes system almost melted under the mail load (and the guy who finally told the laptop was found almost got fired for political uncorrectness)
Here, we have the event (Napster), all the american VP want to be involved in the suit (in case they get known or even money), we are flooded by these news though we are not even sure that the artists lose money because of Napster.It might be an advertising.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Right, but guess what I think is going to happen eventually... A school is going to say 'We are filtering such-and-such bad stuff from your childrens precious eyes'[which sounds like censoring to me] then some of the kids are going to get ahold of some of the bad stuff, and the parents are going to blame the school for not doing as they promised.
If you don't promise to filter, you can't be punished for failing to do so...
Ender
Nothing to see here
Wow! Well said! I can only hope that your right in the end. Please read my post Corpocracy: End to Freedom.
www.enthea.org
*Laugh* Sony can't stop peer 2 peer file sharing. As long as your computer is connected to the internet there is a way around EVERYTHING. This VP is talking smack right out of his ass. Firewall my PC muahahhahah. Sure buddy. In Fact, i'm gonna go to all my local record stores tommrow, and tell the people to stop buying cd's. and use napster + cd burner instead. Lets see what Heckler Does about that! I'm gonna make sony potentially loose $20 ! MAYBE THEY WILL SUE ME FOR $20 MILLION NOW! Bahahah, uneducated people make me laugh.
But the main point that EVERYONE in the industry forgets is that the Internet community, especially the Average Slashdot Reader (TM) will FIND A WAY. These are the same people a few articles ago that are talking about hacking a free barcode scanner from Radio Shack. These are the people who went on for weeks about hacking the Netpliance I-Opener, even after Netpliance made *numerous* attempts to prevent such mods. They now have an entire new unit coming because of this.
This community finds a way. You can kill Napster, but you can't kill Gnutella or your favorite variant. But you can't stop the same community that created its own OS when there wasn't one that suited their needs.
To cheesily quote Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park, "life finds a way."
Ahem... except perhaps when the product is food
(which, fortunately, isn't the case with Sony. But we hardly can out-vote malbouffe now, even with our wallets).
It might have been a joke that was taken out of context.
So in retaliation, I'm going to set up a huge multinational all encompassing music, film, and electronics company and make sure that I can offer a better deal to customers and artists than they could ever manage.
Action -> Reaction
Filter by port -> Change ports
Filter by IP address -> Multihome or distribute database
Filter by content -> Hide or encrypt data
Shut down central database -> Restructure into distributed database
Granted, this sounds easy, and I'm no wizard at any of these issues (so don't nitpick and argue with me over it), but you get the point. Napster will die, two dozen more will appear, and each will address these single failure (or kill) points. It will simply continue to evolve, pure and simple.
Even though they may like to think so, they just don't HAVE that much control, and contrary to what they may think, the generally ignorant public, if even minimally informed, won't stand for that sort of data stream censorship.
Think about it - it's the classic definition of censorship. "You can't have it because it's wrong/bad for you/illegal/immoral/stupid/etc."
It just amazes and amuses me that the powers that be REFUSE to acknowledge that the Genie is out of the bottle. You can't undo it, you can't put it back in. It's over. Concentrate on developing a decent cross platform secure digital music format that allows for the distribution of music over the Internet, for a reasonable fee.
Mr. Heckler, what color is the sky in your world? What does it smell like there?
Even though I only control a handful of "fringe" routers for a small ISP I own, this is one company that won't be doing a thing to filter or censor content - EVER.
Time to sell/auction/retire/smash/burn/scrap my Sony A/V equipment? Starting to look like it.
Brad
Isn't piracy defined as 'copyright theft'? I'm not lawyer..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
The old artilce on salon is the transcript of Courtney Love's speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference back in May. It's about who is the real pirate, technology or the industry, from an artist's point of view.
This may not be the Outer Limits, but a company like Sony or TimeWarner that has horizontal and vertical integration might be able to get pretty close to doing what they are saying.
I mean, I'm on RoadRunner cable modem: TimeWarner is my cable company and my ISP, and in some areas they could be my phone company too. Sony has its own line of PCs. This may not be as incredible as it first seems.
Actually, I believe most of this to be a first ammendment issue. Arrest the people who distribute copyrighted music, but all napster is is a forum. Its much like banning people from entering central park because a large number of pedophiles frequent it (speaking hypothetically of course).
eggs in one basket
sony exec fumes and fumes
napster kitty smiles
--Ks9
It's statements like this that make me very happy that the internet was designed to be run independantly of a centralized controlling body. In the end, the more they (corporations, now) tighten their grips, the more sand will slip through their fingers.
"Blue Elf shot the food!"
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
Hypocricy? Hardly. I could care less if they steal it outright. Becuase they would be taking an open-source creation and making it propietary, thereby killing any real improvements to their version from then on. The code that remains open continues to improve while the locked up code increaingly falls behind becuase it not open to wide-spread scrutiny.
www.enthea.org
You make a good point. However, the way I see it, I NEED proper encryption on many more things than I currently have them on.
I also need the choose what I leave public. Copy protection does not directly address this... but the more ubiquitous encryption becomes, the more encryption will seem justified in the eyes of Joe Q. Lawmaker, and the more I will be able to blend in. Much of the data contained in my computer can be copyighted to ME... I obviously need "copy protection!"
I want to run all of my Internet services through encrypted channels. See my other post (which was not modded up here. Perhaps I should go to ShouldExist with it, there's less whoring there...)
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Slashdot needs to have a "Correction" field for comments, just like the always have for stories. :P
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
translation: our law-buying department has an unlimited budget to defeat this napster thingy.
Be very afraid, people. But more importantly, write to your congressfolk (on paper and fax! email doesn't work!) about it. Don't assume the good guys will win. We won't unless we fight.
Let's do our fighting in a way it counts: lobby the right people the right way and educate the public.
Once upon a merry time there was a guy known as Martin Luther (read MP3 creators). He disagreed with the church (read sony/riaAssholes) in many ways, and started to publicly announce that fact (read share files).
The church got really really pissed off. They tried censorship (read ignore it at first with a couple of idle threats). They then tried persecution (read law suits). They tried killing him (read firewall everyone HAHA). But the more people heard about this, the more they jumped on the bandwagon or at least accepted this new radical group.
This group of people is today known as protestants (read Geeks/general public smart^H^H^H^H^H living enough to use napster). Protestants came from PROTEST which means... well duh, and -ANTS which means a member of (roughly). In a sense, we MP3ers are protestants against the RIAA, and are just as ready to start a jihad over our beliefs.
Today those original organizations of protestants are alive and thriving, doing well, and even picking up people (in sony terms, read market share). The church (in this sense the Catholic church) is still around today, as the RIAA will unfortunately probably be after this, but not doing near as well as they used to. The church suffered greatly from the monopolistic tactics, as will the RIAA.
The church, however, saved face by eventually accepting the protestants as another group, and respecting them.
I don't forsee the RIAA ever doing this, but it sure would help them a lot to look in the history books...
(Note: In no way am I knocking Catholics, or trying to degrade them by making a comparison between them and the RIAA, but instead honoring them by saying they eventually made the right choice!)
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
This is the beginnings of the old argument: if it wasn't free, would you buy it?
I think you will find that most people who pirate music, software, video, etc. wouldn't buy those items even if the only way to get those items was to buy them.
How an industry claims loss of revenue when they report record earnings is the real problem here. Record companies are making more money this year than last year. Where is this loss of revenue caused by the Internet?
Radio was once thought to be a potential loss of revenue to the recording industry. ASCAP charged outrageous radioplay license fees because of this fear, uncertainy, and doubt. BMI came along and offered substantially cheaper radioplay license fees: crowning Elvis as the King, selling millions of albums because of his exposure to the radio audiences, and pushing many ASCAP artists into obscurity.
The questions are, who is going to be the next BMI, who gets to be the King because of that company, and how many artists is the RIAA screwing out of exposure (like ASCAP did) which could have catapaulted them to King status.
In the words of Purdue University's Professor Steven Robb: "The problem with you kids is you don't bring enough history with you to the table." Mr. Vice President Heckler would probably get the same lecture.
I agree, you are smart. I like you. You and Me, and others like us should take over the world one day.
This guy is trolling for sure. I mean, Sony has gone crazy over Bleem! and the others, but they couldn't block either PSX modchips or PSX CD ripping... If they can't control *hardware* that *they* produce, how can they think they will control *software* that *others* write ?
Just my $2E-2
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
"The [music] industry," Heckler said, "will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
But, I thought they were looking out for the artists rights?
We are (i think) beginning to see the evil empire to end all evil empires (Microsoft of course) use it's influence to try and sway the decision away from splitting Microsoft up. On top of the legal battles we all know about M$ is also reving up it's propaganda machine to sway public opinion. I also saw on CNN that they have made significant contributions to BOTH the Democratic and Republican parties in hopes to buy more influence. There are probably more things that M$ is doing that that others have heard about, and there are probably still more that NONE of us know about. Just how much influence does M$ have? We'll find out if/when this case gets resolved i guess.
Of course we are talking about large music companies who have resources that probably can rival Microsoft's and then some. How much influence do THEY have then? We already know that they managed to push the DMCA quitely through without many knowing about it until it was law. If we know that the recording/movie industry has the power to make a law that they seem to be basing many of their significant legal proccedings on (DeCSS and Napster?) then i would assume it is possible for them to change the rules on everyone again.
We all thought it ridiculous that they could prosecute Napster at all since it was supposed to be treated as an ISP rather than a content provider... we were wrong.
We laughed when we heard the first news of the MPAA taking a creator of DeCSS to court and thought it would never stand up legally... we were wrong again.
Now we laugh at this idiot who thinks he's going to firewall our PC's... With all that is happening around us, it wouldn't really suprise me if they eventually found a way to do what they say.
Basically all i am saying is that we have to stay on our guard for any more erosion to our privacy and our rights and when we see it kick and scream and fight for what is ours. If we lay back and say "naww... this guy is wacko.. it'll never happen" then we will find ourselves cornered sooner than we think.
Ceres
I would like for them to shut down the internet, and just see what happens. It could lead to a great awakening to the fact that corporations are not your cuddly friend. It would be quite ironic, that shutting down a medium that inspires free thought would in its death inspire even more free thought in others who never had it.
If it ever gets to the point where they try to shut down the internet we'll get MPAA, RIAA, Sony, EMI etc vs Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, IBM, AOL etc.
Those old comics with "Future Wars" where corporations instead of nations took to arms against each other loom menacingly.
I for one hope we get decent space travel first, because I want to be off this planet when the war starts.
Phil.
I don't know when these corporations will learn that the pirating of music is here to stay, if there is not napster there is gnutella (spelling??), ftp, www, hotline (and similar apps), irc, etc... Corporations have to learn to use digital pirating to their advantage rather than to bitch and moan about it. How can they use pirating to their advantage, I don't really know, but i'm sure it's possible... Nothing they can do will stop it, and nothing they can do will get rid of it. Mp3 (if not vorbis) is here to stay... Well thanks for reading my rant...
I believe 'cartel' would be the word to use here.
If Al Gore gets elected, there will be plenty of "Friends of Al" who will be advocates for the MPAA and RIAA.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It will always be easier for Nap to change port number than for sony to firewall it...... in the end such people are going to understand that either they'll adapt to a different environment or they'll be kicked out.
"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it." - W. Reich
I agree. nice comment, if only HEckler was to ever read it. i'm sure it would piss him off. thats what i like. good job. D
The federal govement has introduced new legislation demanding ISP's block packets destined for every port TCP/IP allows. This is to stop the scurge of Gnutella threatening Sony's product.
To quell the anger generated by ISP's on this decision, the federal government has anounced it will give a FREE SET OF STEAK KNIVES to every citizen subscribing to the NEW MSN
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Why would Project Gutenburg, a not for profit project that makes available public domain (due to copyright expiration in the most part) texts available to the world, want to help out a comcercial entity whose business is to help music pirates?
Its just too funny watching you guys, who would foam at the mouth about the violation of a GPL'd copyright, well, foam at the mouth when these other guys try to protect their copyright.
This press release isn't about MP3 or digital music. Its about stopping a major source of piracy. That is all.
And for all the talk of using other distributed file copying systems, I seem to remember that before Napster dominated the scene there was another that was much harder to shut down. FTP. Thousands of site all over the world, thousands of people to be tracked down to put a stop to it, and hence too much work for anyone to stop it. Just a bit less convenient. So really, has the beloved Napster done the world a favour? Or has it just blurred in many peoples minds what piracy is? "Hey, these guys are a company, it must be alright to download this from them..."
So when ya gona sue radio stations hmm?
Napster is not a major conspericy to steal music and just give it away... Napster isn't some assult on the music industry...
Napster is legally vage... not armagedon...
It's a tool for trading music files. Was the idea to trade files illegally? Prove it... no really PROVE IT... don't go ranting about it.
Thies are straw man arguments and only weaken the case...
Develuping the technology makes the guilty?
Ok cool... sue Yamaha for making sound chips...
Sue Memorex for selling blank CDs...
and.. sue.. Sony... for selling a wide range of profesional quality audio equipment that could press out larg qualitys of pirated CDs.. as well as reel to reel audio tape and casset tapes.. for YEARS.
Unless I am mistaken Sony makes dual casset tape recorders that copy from one tape to annother quickly...
Ohh but thats not for piracy....
Bullshit.... Sony knows exactly what they are for... so dose every audio phile...
Napster isn't the dual recorder but the single recorder... it's just as useful for free music as it is for pireted music...
The question isn't even dose Napster hurt the music industry.. quite simply it dosn't. Napster has proven it's benifit as a premotional tool. Just like radio...
The problem is.. Was Napster made for an illegal perpous?
You know... not even Sony seems to answer that question... It seems to me they dodge it...
Can they prove it? In corts they are trying...
They can't firewall at my PC and Sony knows better....
But then Sony is the original Napster.....
I don't actually exist.
when they pry my linux box from my cold, dead hands.
Who does he think he is, Winston Churchill? "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender..."
They'll look at omni-present header at the beginning of the transfer. And implementing out-of-band meta data is a pain in the ass.
cat sony.wav | lame | pgp | gzip > pronmovie.gz
Ryan
So if the content providers have this level of control, then they can do they same as they do on game consoles?
Subsidise the hardware and make the profits back on the software?
Then just to push the paranoia up that touch further seeing as they seem to think they can licence everything to us rather than sell it to us the next step is to provide licences with the hardware (probably on the grounds that they've got software written onto the hardware.) then if we use 'unaproved' software (read open source) then they won't be getting their dollar here and there through our using their net based software so they can come and take our hardware back for breaking their licence conditions?
Is it me or am I just being driven to paranoia by these people?
Someone should cut down this guy's ritlin doseage. Seriously though, I never thought I'd see a representative of a company so blatantly admit that it's really the consumer they're fighting, especially without choosing J. Random Artist to be their poster child. At least he's honest, I suppose. If you can call that honest.
:-)
Personally, I'll still stick with mp3.com. I personally find quite a bit to like there, esp. the comedy sections... Gotta love that "Internet Help Desk" skit
GPL: Free as in will
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
Ask for an Aibo...
Let them talk you DOWN to a VAIO...
But ask for an Aibo....
Me.... I'd ask for a fully functional android..
C3P0 fully functional. not Data fully functional..
All the functions a 5 year old could consider...
I don't actually exist.
"Zeese-a keeds ere-a ecteeng illegelly! Shuoold zee cuoorts deceede-a thet zeeur ecshuns ere-a legeetimete-a, zeen ve-a veell poorchese-a yuoor puleeticiuns und inteemidete-a yuoor feed prufeeders."
Cunsoome-a, shoot up, deee-a. Bork Bork Bork!
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
Sony fighting their customers is not a smart idea. If the people who used Napster did not buy their products, then it wouldn't be a problem. But, I know a lot of people who use napster and still buy the CD's. The customer may not always be right, but you don't tell them that, and you certainly don't argue with them.
These statements from Sony are the words of a worried and dying man. Sony realizes that they cannot do the things they threaten to, and still be viewed positively by consumers. This is merely a hollow, useless rant from a company that knows it is powerless.
Piss off, Sony.
-This sig intentionally left blank
Their customers hate them
Not really -- a bunch of Slashdot-types hate them, mostly because they hate paying for things (just ask Linux game makers). Most people's lives deal with more substantial things than the price of CDs.
[The artists] hate them (Courtney Love and Prince)
Just stop. Fucking listen to yourself, will you? Courtney Love? Courtney Love?? Who other than the most dope-addled adolescents walking the planet ever says, "What would Courtney think?" I'd be willing to bet money that you don't give a shit what Courtney thinks 99% of the time, you just picked her because she happens to agree with one thing that you believe.
And Prince, his beefs have nothing to do with real support for Napster, they have to do with the fact that he's been bickering with his record label for about a decade now, and always picks his views based on trying to needle them. Why? Because his label isn't happy with him because he continues to make music that nobody wants to buy anymore. It's pretty easy for the likes of Chuck D and Prince to be gung-ho about Napster because they have nothing to lose -- nobody's buying their albums anyway.
Both groups (artists and consumers) will benefit from this.
Spare me. You're just looking for what you can get for free. The songs could cost a fraction of a penny each, and the freeloaders would find some new excuse for stealing them. If you really gave a shit about the artists, then you would respect the wishes of those particular ones who don't want their music passed around for free.
A lot of you (the general you, not you personally, CodeRx) get this big swagger going, thinking you're pulling one over on the big bad record labels. Everything being relative, it's not at all impressive -- it's the same swagger of the shoplifter, the pickpocket, or the office drone who lifts a box of pens to take home with him. Just like people stealing music, none of those things will ever completely go away, but just like inconvenient precautions are taken to prevent those other things, the same thing will happen to music. It'll make it more difficult for the freeloaders, and their numbers will go down as most people will decide that it's not worth it, ethically or practically. And just as legit customers are subjected to more hassles (monetary and time-wasting) as stores protect themselves from shoplifters, legit music lovers will be inconvenienced by whatever new steps are enacted to cut down on the number of music thieves. But hey, keep telling yourself that you're doing it for the artists and the customers if it makes you feel better.
Cheers,
From these credentials, he seems like too intelligent and educated of a man to let that sort of bile spew from his mouth. I wonder what happened... Maybe he got a good talking to by his CEO (or CFO :) ).
"Blue Elf shot the food!"
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
If it comes down? It already has come down. Right now the corporations are winning becuase they are the ones who can afford all the lobbyists, and large pay-offs to our elected officials. So the threat to out liberty is both technological and legal. But I remain cautiously optimistic for the following reasons:
1) Creators and Consumers will find each other through through more open-source channels. Intel, Sony and Hollywood may make extremely propietary systems of distibution like DivX, but when open source standards of distribution and copying take off and more and more upcomng artyists start putting out their works on this format - what are you going to buy?
2) These IP laws are becoming so draconioan that a consumer backlash is inevitable. And what is a company going to do without a customer base, or at least an angry customer base? Your going to start seeing larger and larger boycotts, with the Seattle Boycott last year as a humble beginning.
I'm getting really tired, so I'm going have to stop there. But I hope you can think of other ways that consumers can fight back. Please add to this list if you can. Thanks!
www.enthea.org
source:
http://www.3com.com/nsc/netage/v6n8/p12.html
begin qoute
Steve Heckler
Steve Heckler has been senior vice-president, Information Systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) since 1995, managing a worldwide staff of 200 IS professionals. He directs day-to-day IS operations for SPEës Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, Columbia TriStar Television, and Columbia TriStar Home Video, and develops long-term IS strategies. He also helps senior management explore opportunities for leveraging information technology in the companyís core divisions and among sister companies within Sony.
Before joining SPE, Heckler served as vice-president and CIO at Health Net in Woodland Hills, California, overseeing all corporate information systems, data processing, and telecommunications for the multibillion-dollar HMO. Prior to that, he held the CIO position at Pactel Cellular in Irvine, CA, and was senior vice-president of MIS for Lorimar Telepictures in Culver City. He began his career with a 13-year tenure as programmer and manager at IBM. Heckler holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from City College of New York, and both an M.S. in operations research and an M.B.A. in marketing from New York University.
end qoute
an MBA in marketing? no wonder, a damn market droid.
"Lawyers, firewalls, Jack Ass Vp's? A jedi fears these things not! "
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Then the fault is truly with ourselves, my friend.
I'm probably going to get ignored or generate a lot of flak for saying such things, but it seems to me to be true.
I'm not suggesting that Sony, the MPAA, or the RIAA have not done some very bad things, but the simple fact is this: WE ARE ALL BEING GREEDY! Them and us. And why? Because they produce something that we do not need, but want. If we cannot change them, then change ourselves: do not want what they offer. We DO have the power if we choose to exercise it.
sig fault
Seems here's the time to take countermeasures. Like consumer boycott. Like "Burn a Sony product" days. If they are so arrogant to tell me they will invade my home to protect their revenue stream - well, they revenue stream doesn't come from my home anymore. There's a lot of non-Sony products, we can really live without a company that somehow got the idea it's a Big Brother.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
Technically impossible? Sure.
On the other hand I'm sure they could find a way to get more censorship laws passed, forcing ISP's to block something ambiguous like "services deemed by govco to be inappropriate and unnecessary."
Of course it would only be trackable and enforcable on centralised services like Napster.
===
[i]The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what.[/i] Wow, that was Candid! While tact isn't this guy's strong point, you do have to give him props for being totally honest! (Too honest...) None of that "it's the artists that suffer..." tripe. "We are in it for the money! The MONEY!!!!! you will not stop us!!!! Do you hear me??!?? THE MONNNEEEYYYY!!!!!!!" -maniacal laughter, followed by a severe stroke-
His reaction is entirely understandable. Perhaps he's sick of annoying Slashdot zealots who confuse open-source for copyright abuse.
The people who wrote the songs, performed the songs and recorded the songs signed a deal with a record company. They did not sign a deal with you bunch of wouldbe hippies.
They made their choice and if you're going to listen to them singing and playing their instruments you must respect their right to have the record company return royalties to them. If the record company are ripping them off, that's the band's business.
I admit that I download songs from Napster. I don't think that's hypocritical because I don't blame anyone else for doing the same. But I'm not going to justify it with some airy-fairy crap about everything being free as long as the artists themselves want to get paid, and I'm not going to blame the record industry for wanting it to stop.
If you were a bigger music fan and less an anti-capatalist whinger, then you'd realise who's really at the heart of every album. Unless of course you're buying Celine Dion or Britney Spears albums in which case I really don't want to speak to you.
Clebin
This is a plea for people to wake up. "Citizens" have rights and responsibilities, minds and talents and souls. "Consumers" have disposable income and a valuable database of spending preferences.
By transforming citizens into consumers, we have laid the foundation for a new government based entirely on money. It's becoming more apparent every day. The frightening part is that we see it coming, but we feel we have no way to stop it, perhaps even no right to stop it.
From what divine or constitutional source did Sony get the right to an uninterrupted "revenue stream"? Where did we as a society come up with the vocabulary that says a corporation has a "right" to anything at all? Particularly since the largest of them don't seem to have very many accompanying responsibilities.
I think Sony's PR machine is passed by. Certain people reading this might think, well, let's destroy Sony's revenue by not buying their products.
Same as here in Holland, a dutch media station put their radio shows in real-audio on the web. Sony didn't want that because the fan could listen to their favourite artist as many times as they wanted. No, the real fan is patient, and waits until his song appears on the radio.
This dutch (public) media station took action by boycotting anything coming from Sony (like Oasis).
It happens that this story is not even a month old.
Seems like the Sony PR machine is passed again, and no concessions with the public is sought.
Bizar technology?
(nt)
We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC.
:)
And then WE will go and change the port number
1. Set the price of a CD to $5.
2. Set the price of a DVD to $10.
3. Watch sales go through the roof, easily making up lost profits by increased volume.
4. Most consumers wouldn't go through the hassles to do unauthorized copying.
5. Everybody is happy, except the lawyers.
Oops, it's just a dream. Time to wake up.
. . . p u n t o . . .
. . . p u n t o . . .
. . . come to me, punto...i have seventy-five million copies of "genie in a bottle" for you . . .
. . . i t ' l l b e j u s t l i k e h a v i n g a h u n d r e d a n d f i f t y m i l l i o n r u b b e r y s e v e n t e e n y e a r o l d b u t t c h e e k s o n y o u r h a r d d r i v e i f y o u g e t m y m e a n i n g f o r f r e e f r e e f r e e . . .
. . . p u n t o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o . . . .
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Other things to try for Sony in case this doesn't work...
- Buy Soundblaster, tear it down.
- Cut of the cables to the speakers
- Cut off everyones ears
- "The final solution" Kill them ALL !!!
Hurry, we better patent this technology !!!Am I going to have to live an a f*cking tent? Don't make me live in a f*cking tent. I don't want to live in a f*cking tent.
(See my other posts if you need a frame of reference.)
sig fault
Walkman??? me no walkman, mesa gotsa rio + empeg car ...
(Your salary arguements mark you as yet another asinine troll. I'm replying for the benefit of those who understand neither software nor law.)
This is why we have class action suits.
But that's neither here nor there since reasonable people understand that when you have to use the law to *enforce* your business model, your business model is on its last legs. Most of us "dipshits" understand that future iterations of sharing software will integrate port forwarding and encryption.
This whole thing reminds me of the Knight challenge in The Search for the Holy Grail.
you spent hours finding and ripping and downloading and burning a bunch of songs that are barely even worth a dime or two each. Oops -- I just remembered that "Time is money" doesn't really have much meaning to people like you
Dont compound your idiocy. Maybe *you* stare at the download progress bar but most people actually use multitasking. The rest of us have broadband access. A cd full of songs is worth a dime or two - at least you got that part right.
Or oligopoly?
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
It reminded me more of the Winston Churhill quote:
"...we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Funny that I was just looking at that Sony music Clip that plays mp3 and ATRAC3
I bought one of those. Doh.
I was foolish enough to not read all of the stuff about it too carefully _before_ I bought it... *sigh*
Now I have a very nice mp3-ish player, which of course only works with the windows software to download to it...
Is anyone working on a Linux client for the Music Clip, or any of the other SDMI players? (Are there any other SDMI players?) A first feature should be an `About' box which reminds you not to buy any Sony hardware ever again if you wish to do something non-consumer-hardware-like with it
/rant
I'll do it.... Closed source... sure no problem..
Once I get my check cashed... I'll post the back door on Slashdot...
I don't actually exist.
We banned Amazon for patents, we can bann sony too.
Will someone start a website against sony to let a larger audience know what they are doing, and perhaps on the site, there should be links to each alternate of any Sony product.
For example, in sony Monitors section, we can have links to other Monitor verdors, do a price/feature comparision etc.
Sony cannot beat the internet.
--
If Microsoft is the solution, I want my problems back
Perhaps the unholy octopoly -- like the trinity only different. All 8 in one going forward in union heh...
>We have no right to use IP in ways other than how the licensor intends.
wrong. very wrong. I cannot use it for just anything I want, but I am NOT bound by what the licensor INTENDS me to do with the stuff. Just like with real property. Webster's dictionary is INTENDED to look up words. But it also comes in handy to prop up a chair with half a leg missing. And I can freely use it as a leg-replacement.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
What if everyone ran IP over encrypted, point-to-point, tunnels? A snooper could see the source and destination addresses, but the ports and packet contents would be protected. It would make it difficult for an ISP/NSP to filter out "bad" protocols and services.
The problem would be implementing this without killing servers under the load of encrypted connections, something that I've heard is a problem with current secure web servers.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
MP3 is a proprietary format. They buy the rights to the MP3 format, and charge any site that distributes MP3's a "license fee" similar to the one that Unisys tried to levy against websites that use GIF's.
But Ogg is not, so everyone can (and should!) just switch to that.
maybe it is in the US (but I doubt it)... but I'm not a lawyer, let alone a US lawyer. we just had some short lessons on dutch copyright law. It just plagues me if I get called a thief. And better this than go off on some crazy crusade against someone for silly reasons :)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Remember, Napster's defense is that they do not pirate the music themselves, they only provide a service for sharing the files.
Actually, no. If you read Napster's legal filings you will find that this is not their defense. Nor can it be. They are being sued for contributory copyright infringment, not actual copyright infringement, and contributory copyright infringement is an uncontroversial part of copyright law.
Instead, Napster's first line of defense is quite a bit more simple: the sharing of files on Napster is not illegal. No one is breaking the law on Napster, and thus neither is Napster. The basis for this shocking (well, shocking if you get your news from large corporations as most of us do) argument is quite simple: the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act, which quite plainly makes all noncommercial copying of recorded music legal. Since no one is making any money or getting any commercial benefit for sharing their music on Napster, there is no copyright infringement going on, and thus no contributory infringement.
The RIAA is arguing that when the bought and paid for the AHRA in 1992, that wasn't what they meant for it to say. What they meant for it to say was that noncommercial copying was ok only if it was done on DAT, because the other part of the AHRA allowed the RIAA to charge ridiculous royalties on every DAT tape sold to compensate for the loss of royalties due to copying. This isn't what the AHRA actually says, but the recording industry hopes the judge doesn't notice (so far it looks as if she hasn't).
Now, Napster's second line of defense, if the above fails, is to note that a significant portion of the uses of Napster are fair uses. According to the standard set by the Supreme Court in the MPAA vs Sony Betamax case, this is all that is necessary for a provider to be absolved of contributory infringement. (Actually, according to the Betamax case, it is only necessary that the system be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.) There is little doubt that this is true. A surprisingly large portion of Napster traffic is that of unsigned artists/artists who have explicitly allowed their material to be traded. Indeed, there are several times more artists in Napster's "New Artists" program than there are signed by the major labels--and all of them allow trading of their music. Furthermore, many copies of RIAA-copyrighted songs are made for protected fair use purposes, like sampling and space-shifting.
Amazingly enough, Judge Patel managed to get around this point by insisting that it doesn't matter that Napster is capable of substantial noninfringing uses, or even used for substantial noninfringing uses, it only matters that its "primary" use is infringing. No matter that this test was explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court. No mention of how she even figured out that Napster's "primary" use was infringing, except that Napster's internal memos alluded to it. Well, Sony's advertising for the Betamax played up its infringing uses and didn't mention its fair uses, but the Supreme Court ruled that it doesn't matter what the company says, only if the product is also capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Judge Patel doesn't seem to care.
But Judge Patel is going to get overturned on appeal, and that will be sustained by the Supreme Court. Without a new law to replace the AHRA and change the Betamax standard, the RIAA doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Indeed, they're pushing for such a law now; they held hearings on it a couple months ago, although the Senate wasn't too impressed by the RIAA's whining this time around.
But just so you know, the defense of "it's not us, it's the people using our system" doesn't legally hold water. Luckily all of Napster's other defenses are pretty watertight.
Trading MP3s of copyrighted music is theft. Have people forgotten that this is actually against the law?
.. Whats this? Its Sony MusicClub. Sony's own download site. Ok, the files are in an odd 'OpenMG' format and only playable in LiquidPlayer (LiquidAudio).. But version 5 of Liquid Player has a nice 'Burn to CD' option.. heck, WinAmp doesn't even go as far as letting you make CDs of your downloads.
Sony certainly appear to have..
Check out http://www.sony-europe.com/com/po pkomm/index.html.. Yes folks.. its a link to a music site.. with downloadable MP3s of Limp Bizkit..
And it gets worse.. or better.. depends..
http://206.132.60.30/
When Sony say they are anti-Napster, it seems that its only because its a competing product.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
"What we're saying [to software developers] is that all these kids [worldwide] have Play-Stations," Heckler said. "So don't fight it. Join it."
Man, I'd really hate to be Sony's PR department. This is what happens when Ego's get too big. I mean, besides the absolutely ridicules statement about MP3's, he further enforces the fact that he has no business in the new economy .
:-)
Got his email address?
Just guessing, maybe we should try steve.heckler@sony.com
At the very least, Heckler is being truthful about the real intentions of the music(or movie, or publishing) industry. It has nothing to do with the compensation of Lars or Dr Dre, but everything to do with the slow degredation of a billion-dollar empire.
Hell, if only all corporate executives were this honest: "Damn right we expect Dubya to do some big favours for us in the White House - you think we're donating $250,000 to his campaign because we like his education plan?"
hoser: Slashdot reader since 1987.
crayz is totally right here. Think of what Sony/RIAA could do, if they really tried. It's scary.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
Beautiful. Thank you.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Thank you Mr. Heckler. I was trying to decide between a Vaio or a Powerbook, and you just made my decision a whole lot easier.
andy j.Stupid Cheap Guitars
I've said it before (though maybe not here) so I'll say it again: Napster is the whipping boy for the record companies because it's a corporation, with money, that the record companies can sue. Enterprising techies don't need corporations to trade their files. I need not list the options, I'm sure most of the people reading this are familiar with them.
Sorry, was that protect 'musicians rights to have a say in what is done with their art', or protect 'that revenue stream' - I couldn't quite hear.
Short answer: Touche.
Long answer: The record companies haven't given a damn about the artists for a while. Not necessarily a new revelation, but a correct one. When was the last time you (general sense) ever heard a band say they LIKED their record company, except immediately after receiving a massive contract?
...We will fight on the seas, we will fight onthe land... We shall never surrender...
Bwahaha.
But alas! They do not want to stop milking their cow! They know that, on the Internet, they cannot have the same control as in the CD market, and therefore they will not able to do things like overpricing, deciding what should we buy, etc. They are a big, slow and non-maneuverable dinosaur and they know it; they also know that they have no chance of competing against "alternative" companies (small and maneuver-capable) in a really balanced market.
The fact that guys like Prince can start from zero and sell their own music without enslaving themselves to any megacorporation scares Sony to death.
BTW and as a statistical curio: how many /. readers have decided to start a personal boycott against Sony? I guess lots! (-:
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!
If you have a problem with current IP law, you should contact your representative in Congress and make them understand your vote goes to the candidate who protects your rights. There's plenty of blame to pass around, and any who do nothing more than rant on Slashdot bear part of it. Sony has an understandable motivation: money. What's yours for doing nothing?
Funny that I was just looking at that Sony music Clip that plays mp3 and ATRAC3
You have become bad for busness...
Therefor we will kill you...
Nothing personal...
Yes it is about MP3s and digital music....
Yes it's also about piracy...
But the logic is... you lissen to MP3s.. therefor you are a pirate..
The same logic apply to cars.. you drive... therefor you run over cats....
One dose not lead to the other...
Just as owning a Sony dual tape recorder dosn't make you a pirate.. but you gota wonder.....
Project Gutenburg would help for one reason....
The same kind of people want to reserect copyrights that have expired.... On text Project Gutenburg has allready published...
On the other hand... GPL violations is nothing... I mean all your doing is selling someone elses gift to the world.... What could be wrong with that? Hmmm?
Do you lissen to music on the Radio? If so.. your as much a pirate as any Napster user....
All music..all the time.. radio 31337 FM.. NAPSTER
I don't actually exist.
Statements such as those made by Mr. Heckler smack of modern-day corporate imperialism. It is apparent that Sony feels that an illegal acts they commit -- and believe me, firewalling someone's Net service without permission is illegal -- is justified as it protects their holy revenue streams. Firebrand statements such as these are merely stirring up a hornet's nest. Do you really think that the millions of crackers out there are going to let Sony go unpunished? Furthermore, is it really effective to spend the time and money to block Napster when people will find ways to bypass it within 24 hours of the wall coming up?
Sony needs to realize that it relies on one thing: consumers. If you piss us off, you lose us and the revenue we generate for you. Your colors are showing through, Mr. Heckler, and on the Internet, no one likes a big-money control-freak corporate imperialist.
Personally, I had plans in the next few months for a Playstation 2 and a new Sony DVD player. Those plans have changed. I am now calling for an open boycott of Sony until they retract Mr. Heckler's statement and confirm that they have no plans to engage in what amounts to "net-based warfare".
The legal systems in the United States and the rest of the world exist so that you may seek to resolve your issues peacefully without causing overt inconvenience or harm to others, and Sony's blatant determination to do "whatever it takes" shows complete and utter disrespect for the legal system.
Boycott Sony.
blog |
Founder's Camp
Founder's Camp
News for non-Nerds. Stuff that matters.
As much as Sony can complain about loosing IP and that Napster serves just to steal etc. they have absolutely no right to interfere with my personal software, hardware, make business contracts with my ISP, my ISP's ISP, phone companies, etc. They think that they are above the law which is exactally what they are saying Napster thinks. IMHO this proves that the big 8 are nothing more than monopolies that will stop at *nothing* to make sure that I do not do something that the exec. staff of RIAA say I can do.
I can live without their products.
Let's look at it this way. This is what we need to do:
We will develop technology that transcends the individual big money hungry corporations. We will firewall the PS2 online service at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your corporate Sony laptops.
At least he's not worried about satellite service...
If they can do this to music, what's to prevent them from doing it to any type of file?
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
So what are we stressing about? Another day, another crap encryption scheme...
They are scared. REALLY scared. For the first time ever, a mechanism exists for music to be distrubuted worldwide to millions of millions WITHOUT THEM! They HAVE to kill Napster and use FUD to frighten the rest of us, just as Microsoft HAD to kill Netscape. Napster and the sucessor programs that the concept will spawn will make it possible for the ARTIST to escape perpetual bondage with the RIAA record companies, and make more money. CD's cost $18, but the artist receives less than $1 from each sale, and from that $1 or so, the artist has to pay back the RIAA label all the costs of production, promotion, etc. It's about the highest profit margin buisness there is, except for the artists, who created the product in the first place.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
While this may seem like a heavily Draconian method, the question is: what else can they realistcally do to curb piracy? It's their market, their industry, their product... hence they should have control of its distribution and selling.
Call it what you like, but Napster and its kin amount to theft of intellectual property. This theft will probably cost record companies billions in the coming years, and force them to raise prices to survive like they are doing right now. I would know that if I were to publish a writing of mine in the near future, I would want some reasonable level of control on how its distributed. The majority of Napster users use the product to steal piecemeal tracks from albums, circumventing the sale of the album itself. This is not fair! You cannot go into a bookstore, rip out a few pages and expect to get a way with it. The same principle applies here. Sony is taking drastic measures because Napster is a sincere threat to them. They're not hacking your computer, they're merely making a deal with ISP's to prevent piracy.
I'm sorry if the Napster kiddies will be forced to return to asking Mom and Dad for money to buy their music instead of stealing it, but that's how laissez faire capitalism works. You will appreciate it when you grow up and perform a viable service in exchange for an income. Nobody should deny you of your income, so why do you feel inspired to deprive hard working record companies and artists of their justified income?
Emerson Willowick: Thinker, Writer, Human Being.
Hmm,
it is only intimidation.
Mr Sony dude, I fart in your general direction.
Just good to know that they can't get their heads out of their collective poop-chute to realize that we'll buy their stuff if they just bend to the market, not the other way around.
.02
My
Quux26
My
Quux26
www.crashspace.net
That does sound somewhat similar.
:-)
Although personally I would be much more likely to throw my support behind WC than some ill informed Sony exec who feels the need to shoot his mouth off
looks like they finally went over the deep end... "Ve vill block ze napster at your pc, ja?"
How funny, then, that when the music industry complains that we are doing something similar to them by violating their intellectual property rights wholesale and distribute their IP against their express wishes, we call for their boycott.
Perhaps we are more than a little hypocritical?
IPR is IPR, whether it's licensed using the GPL or a commercial license. We have no right to use IP in ways other than how the licensor intends. We should honor their wishes before someone does to us what we are doing to the music industry. Payback's a bitch, right?
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
Hell, if I was vice president of a horseshoe company, I'd try to outlaw cars and get streets blockaded.
It's a desparate, dying, gasp from a soon-to-be extinct species. They have alot of money, and alot of lawyers, but sooner or later they will be forced to evolve or DIE horribly like the rest.
You can safely ignore the rantings of that particular lunatic.
That said, it will proably get worse before it gets better as the monied interests circle their wagons. The end result, however, will be the same; good riddance.
The problem is that no matter how much money they throw into killing Napster and similar programs, there will always be some people who are both very devoted to making anything free and very talented. Napster has become almost as common as ICQ or Winzip( or their equivalent on *nix and Macs), yet it wasn't started to make any money. I remember the guy who wroted saying that he did so to see if he could find a better way to do things.
If Sony were to manage to get Napster blocked at the source (technologically, not legally), then this could be done with anything. Politically unpopular speech, Financially threatening free software, whatever. But someone is going to want to get around it, and actually wanting to see a project through to completion can be more important than the skills of the programmer. It's hard to get interested in doing something, much more difficult than learning to do something that interests you.
Legal issues would be trickier, if for example ISPs were successfully sued(read: easier to cancel customer account than to go to court) everytime a napster server was run, then the technology would most eventually die.
treke
...and in other news the UN announces a resolution making nuclear fission impossible, and the International Association of Concerned Morons lauches a plan to add chemicals to beer which render drinkers unable to operate machinery while intoxicated.
-- veni vidi nuclei deceri --- I came, I saw, I dumped core.
You can have a V1000 for all that it will matter. People will still share their shit. People will buy the stuff they really dig, download, listen, and delete the rest.
What's wrong with that picture? Correct. Nothing.
Will Sony, Lars, et al make less money? Sure. About fucking time the market in music has a say in the price of that music.
I would hate to break your confidece in distributed systems but,
the government/large corporations could easly stop gnutella.
simple, they could sue/villinaize some users that are distributing copywrited works. Once a few users have been sued up the wazoo, the rest will see. Most will stop, and the rest will become "evil haxor pirates" that will "take down the world because they are pirating 3 metallica songs".
The media works thru corporations, and everyoine will know how terrible it is when you get caught pirating music on any p2p software.
I quess this means that Sony will not develope a version of Napster for the Playstation 2.
I was going to get a PS2 for its DVD playback capability, But I think now I will get the APEX DVD/MP3-CDR player for $150 at Circuit City.
SCREW SONY !!!!!
Science is the Real TRUTH!
.....it was either the "This England..." speech or "By any means necessary..." Can't tell. Either way, in the context of the music industry it sounds like some coke fueled delusion. Sony will:
1 Control all networking technology
2 Control by legal means all networks throughout the world
3 Anything else it fucking feels like
Only thing missing is something like "God is on our side and we will cleanse the world of these infidels!" Hey Steve why don't you go back to blowing coke off the thighs of supermodels?
Cable modems exempt sence they are monopolys regulated by the PUC...
and some phone companys only allow you to select them as your DSL ISP.. thus also under PUC regs...
Most small ISPs won't go for it.. they can't afford the loss of busness they'd get
That leaves... AoL and a few larg ISPs...
They'd be worryed about the bad press that any larg ISP gets when they pull something like this...
That leaves.... nobody...
I don't actually exist.
Well there you have it the powers that be starting to show their true colors as their power and financial base becomes threatened. Lets face it, if and when peer-to-peer file sharing becomes a dominant paradigm of the internet, all traditional ways of doing business will be fundamentally altered. The vacuous rhetoric that the internet would usher in a world of global grassroots democracy and the end to centralized power structures could actually happen if P2P becomes reality. In fact P2P was supposed to be the operating paradigm of the internet in the first place until corporate interests have co-opted it.
Until the ridiculous Napster decision came down, I hadn't given IP much thought. But as I've watched the rhetoric fly both ways in the Napster and DeCSS trials, I began to see that it has nothing to do with IP in the end, but the beginning of a global war between corporate interests and the forces of democracy. Although the corps make a good argument about compensating intellectual creators, does this justify the complete elimination of freedom online? Already the MPAA is calling its initial victory in the DeCSS case a warning to all Silicon Valley types, that if they keep it up they will shut the whole internet down if it facilitates piracy! Such a statement is completely insane, yet Jack Valenti, president of MPAA actually said it. And since he and the majority of corporate interests agree with that sentiment, their wishes could become reality. This despite the fact that there are already 25 million people and growing who feel otherwise.
If the courts and politicians decide to ignore their constituents and pander as usual to their corporate backers, it could mean a complete re-engineering of the infrastructure to prevent so-called piracy in the future. The nature of the internet is so dynamic, that to accomplish such a monumental task would effectively mean squelching any remaining freedom left on the internet. We'll be left with some draconian super-surveillance network, where all communications will be monitored and censored, and all communication will be increasingly centrally channeled. That is the only system I can imagine that could possible have any chance of stopping piracy. Since such a system is completely repugnant to most people, rather than stop piracy, the nature of business and society should accept it for the prosperity that it really is. Prosperity for the people that is. Imagine that - a society based on individual rather than corporate profits!
Regardless of how anyone feels on this issue, they need to ask themselves do they want a society based on consumer power or corporate power? When corporations start telling its customers what to do, rather than vica versa, then we can start saying good bye to a democratic society. If only the Democratic and Republican Parties, both supporters of stronger IP laws, got a clue. But since when did they give a hoot about the people anyway?
www.enthea.org
This is not about MP3 and digital music, because they are trying to shut down Napster, a distribution system, not MP3 itself. They are not trying (in this case) to stop you making MP3s of CDs you own (or even have in your possession), they are trying to stop you being able to get hold of their copyrighted material at no cost to you and no remuneration to them, in such an easy and increasingly mass-approved of manner. Seems fair to me that they might want to do that. Or are you suggesting that most Napster users are just trying to get MP3s of records they own, instead of just using a ripper program to make their own? Sounds pretty unlikely.
This is nothing like radio at all. Legitimate radio stations pay royalties to the record companies for each track they play. Pirate radio stations don't, and surprise! They get shut down. Napster doesn't have any mechanism for paying royalties, so if it is in anyway like radio, it is like pirate radio, and deserves to be shut down.
And your understanding of the GPL is plain wrong. What you say applies to code released under the BSD license, but the GPL firmly prohibits this sort of copying without complying with its strict code-release and future licensing clauses.
If you no longer want what these corporations offer, they will lose all power over you.
Napster becomes irrelevant. DVDs become irrelevant.
As soon as we no longer want what they offer, they, and all of the strings attached, will disappear.
sig fault
Them story posters don't have the benefit of the "preview" field. :P
One can't help but feel sorry for people like this. This is a perfect example of the blatant ploys to monopolize cd sales that we have all been talking about. Of course they will stop at nothing to do it, they already do so!
They pay people off, they corner the market, they squash competing products, alternative technology etc.
The beauty of all of this is made more clear from the public. When they enter the equation with new knowledge, the companies HAVE to listen or they will lose their treasured moola. MP3s exist, if they die some new format will come forward. People are not willing to pay these stupid prices to line the pockets of rich arrogant bastards. This is only the beginning. Let them come up with new technology. Let them waste their money. We know that someone will circumvent this and we will once again be victorious in battling the Corporate Giants.
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? NO!"
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
I should note that my TV is a Panasonic.
Does that make a difference?
The only problem with banning Sony products, personally, is the fact that they've created my Playstation, and soon my Playstation 2, those would be impossible to give up, as a true gamer geek.
Fine. Be spineless and short sighted.
Just don't come bitching to the rest of us when Sony "firewalls you at your playstation."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Imagine the lack of sleep after a Sony official made a comment like that. "Oh no, here come all the linux hackers!" And I was seriously considering the CD-R camera. There's $1200 that's not going to be converted to yen!
Yeah, Sony is going to fight back. The problem is, it's already too late. Sony and the rest of the members of the RIAA are basically fucked. Their customers hate them (thats you and me, bud). Their suppliers hate them (artists - see articles by Courtney Love, Prince). These two groups now have an easy way to cut the big music companies out of the deal. Both groups (artists and consumers) will benefit from this. It is only a matter of time. The cool part is, this is just the beginning.
What's this about a more American ZZ Top? I'm curious, I've never heard of it. Anybody got any more info?
Okay, I can understand them wanting to get rid of Napster but this is scary! You don't like Napster and since you haven't been able to get rid of it (yet) you're going to cut it off the net (essentially)? Hell, I hate child porn but some of it's legal in Holland (15 y/o and up I think). So using their logic I should try to cut Holland of the net?
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
I suppose he is implying that either through coercion or force (legal or technological) individuals are going to subsume certain civil liberties to the benefit and/or outright survival of producers of content (usually represented by some corporate legal entity). Does this mean that they will attempt to establish hardware/software standards that will somehow defeat distributed file sharing? Seems a bit overly optimistic, time and again individuals or losely organized groups of them find their way around restrictions on free association and communication.
I have great faith in fools. Self confidence, my friends call it.
These days, when a corporation becomes large enough, it can gain influence in two ways - the exploitation of horizontal expansion, and the legislature. These days money will buy you enough lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians that don't know or don't care, that industries get to set a lot of the rules that they're 'governed' by - especially when the 'experts' that governments turn to for advice often have something to gain from pushing a particular standpoint (remember the Y2K scare?)
As for horizontal expansion.. well, for some reason the antitrust laws that are meant to prevent that are levered in a case where the market expanded into is rather similar (browser software, as opposed to systems software), but not exerted when a company manufactures games consoles, screens, cameras, televisions, stereos, games, music, etc...
This an example of the kind of attitudes that can start to form and have an impact when a company manufactures the content (music), and the player, and competing products (read: computers). It's unfairly leveraging a position in one market to influence another. In this case, it's going as far as to define the market.. I'm sure we'll see the MPAA make a similar move when they phase out tapes in favour of DVDs.
If there's one thing that schools teach wrong these days, it's economics. Consumer sovereignty is dead. A common perception is that modern markets are free and genuinely competitive .. oh, how wrong some people are.
"What we're saying [to recording company] is that
all these kids [worldwide] have Napster,"
Anonymous Coward said. "So don't fight it. Join it."
playstation & napster is a GoodThing (tm)
I can't imagine they would have any better luck collecting the license fees than they would enforcing their copyright. It might obviate fair-use issues, but it doesn't seem like the case is going to turn on those anyway.
And we'd all just switch to non-proprietary formats anyway, which for them would be worse (just like it will be worse when they force everyone on Napster to switch to Gnutella, et al).
If you kill a porcupine, a thousand more will come.
- Asante proverb
-
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
Your comments on using IP "in ways other than how the licensor intends" are also incorrect, but other posters have corrected you on that.
--
--
E_NOSIG
Kinda reminds me of the SouthPark episode where Chef battles the "Big Record Company".. Perhaps Napster should hire Johnny Cochrane for his famous "Chewbaka" defense ? ----------------------------------------------
chown -R us
Nah. They really are this evil. Although, in theory, the RIAA winning their case against Napster (in addition to previous legal cases) just screwed them over big-time. You see, Napster's licence agreement said that users agreed not to trade copywritten files, and that Napster wasn't responsible for any files the users did trade. The RIAA sued them anyway and won. Does anyone know how strong this precident would be for the validity of post-sale click-through licencing? (Which is already illegal?)
Of course, the thing for them to do would be to force distributors to make you sign a physical contract. But this would probably make people wary, and their "you don't REALLY own this" ploy would be more obvious. Or push the UCITA through, which would really let them screw consumers over.
-RickHunter
I wonder if the stockholders are any smarter than this guy (I'd hate to image they are any dumber). Assuming the music industry has taken in massive gains last year (they have), hopefuly the stockholders will question the sanity of anyone who wants to spend all that money fighting some college kids and their software which has YET to be proven to negativly affect their revenue stream.
Finkployd
You can call it flamebait, but he has a point.
Sony, and RIAA in general, has hordes of lawyers out there who actually do this for a living, instead of just posting it on Slashdot because they decide to take an hour out of their day to care about the laws.
Before they make decisions like this, they ask their lawyers if they'll get away with it.
Then their lawyers tell them things like "yes, you can sue Napster" and all the geeks at Slashdot laugh and say "Silly RIAA, you can't get away with that! We have a legal right to pirate mp3s, and Napster has a legal right to make money while helping us!"
Next they win their lawsuit, and all the geeks, who are just sure that they know the law better than an army of lawyers, cry out "What? I can't believe this. That judge is stupid. This is unfair."
So maybe there's a reason why Sony is talking to their lawyers instead of reading Slashdot posts like "Go ahead, firewall me, I'll sue."
Ok, it's quite clear that this is one of the last cry-outs of a dieing business. I pitty all people that depend on these revenue streams; however, this is not stopable. :-)
Many people will be sued, but there is a max to this. Only way to stop this is by world domination and dictatorship.... which is luckely enough not in eyesight
Now, maybe we can say that music becomes absolute art (in stead of big business).
By the way, I wonder if the movie industry will faces the same thread very soon.
Fats
You can't boycott Sony (there are still a lot of brainless zombies that will buy their sh*t (pretty much like M$)).
So play by their rules SUE THEM , ask for refunds on crappy CD's, yank the chain at the consumer organisations, get media coverage!!!
In other words: Screw them just like they screwed you
I believe the chap's gotten carried away. There is no way he can implement what he wants, and get away without _serious_ legal repercussions(sp?) ..
Besides having such passionately feelings against Napster isn't going to help. How is he gonna block Gnutella?
The fellow's just gotten caught up in the momment, and said a few things he's probably already regretting.
Sorry, No sig!
first off phone co's cannot even monitor (never mind block)what kind of data is transmitted over data connections using their network ...for instance in the case of isdn. a typican isdn connection consists of 3 channels a d-channel used for signalling data such as play dial tone or connect to npa-nnx-xxxx(basically phone co stuff)and 2 B-channels wich is what the data is actually tranismitted on between the user and the isp ..telco's only have access to the D-channel to gather the information to set up the phone call they cannot monitor the B-channnels and therefor have no access to the data being transmitted to or from an isp
Although the facist remarks made by Mr.Heckler seem to be over the top, in light of the recent decision against 2600, the original injunction against napster, as well as the DMCA, the Methamphetamines act, Carnivore, and everything else... maybe im paranoid but there does seem to be a possibilty that what he says will happen. the recent study that found the majority of internet traffic traveling through a small number of servers (6 main ones i believe the number was, correct me if im wrong.) what happens when sony goes to them and offers the people in charge of those boxen some very large figure to install their filters into the stream?
Of course it also shows you how scared they are of this new technolgy... These strategies, Heckler said, are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake. Makes you think.
thats just my opinion, i could be wrong.
--Ks9
I stand corrected. I was going by what I was told by a ISP in your country when I reported some one posting under-aged girls in a newsgroup. I was told that 15 or 16 is legal there.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
In the words of Beavis: "Are you threatening me?"
"Blue Elf shot the food!"
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
I aint buying Sony. And this last announcement of theirs, doesn't make it any better..
The whole premise of an ISP's "common carrier" status is that they don't inspect traffic passing through their network. If they start blocking out Napster/Gnutella, it gives me the impression that maybe we should threaten to sue them for other traffic on their networks. Maybe that will keep them out of Sony's pockets.
We shall fight at the cable companies, we shall fight at the phone company, we shall fight at the ISPs and in the PCs, we shall fight in music stores; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
(Woops - drifting off-topic there - sorry)
Are you saying that the purpose of Napster is to try to change the system so that there is no longer any reward for those who nurture bands, pay for music production, and promote music, not to mention being a musician? Further you appear to be saying that Project Gutenburg's true purpose is to make all books available to everyone, now, and without remuneration to the author. Hey, last time I looked, MP3 swapping was still pirating. Did I miss something? If you make a tape of a CD your friend lends you, are you saying that isn't piracy? Let me get this straight, you said: "The MP3 community sees it as sharing something in order to fight what amounts to a corporate monopoly." So 'the MP3 community' don't actually listen to the files they transfer? They don't even discriminate enough to bother downloading things they like, they just pass files around to stick it to the Man?
Historians in the year 2050 will say...
And a few years later Sony found a way to make good on this threat... As they did the Internet changed shape...
And thats why we have a free radio feed Internet today....
ISPs replaced with BBSes...
phone lines replaced with radio relays...
and thus the effort was crushed....
Now pull out your MP3 players while I Napster the speach...
I don't actually exist.
My question is this: Why dont they have a technical advisor working for/with, for them so when it comes time to make a statement to the press so they sound bit more like they know what they are talking about. I mean if they had made a speech with a little more fact behind it I would be scared knowing they know more what they are doing rather than making empty threats about things that are possible only in the minds of people who "Use" computers and are not tech savvie? Personally I hate Sony and they are showing theyre true fascist face and I will NEVER and anyone in my family will NEVER EVER buy a piece of Sony crap as long as they are in the Family......
I can see the headlines now:
Sony sued for:
Of course, they have a lot of money and a lot of lawyers (those seem to go together), so they might be able to bend the law a bit. But I doubt they'll be able to bend it that far...
--frank[at]unternet.org
No US (or australian, brittish or azerbadiani) government can dictate the terms for a multi like Sony. If one country has tough laws, they route around it. Now they focus their legal fight on the US (CSS, DMCA etc), to establish a standard. If they can get a dumbed down, copy secure system established in the states, they might get the world to follow. (cause we want those hollywood movies)
Perhaps the only way to stop this is to lessen the power of Hollywood et al. Look for independant movies! Check out unsigned artists! Make sure that organisations like the MPAA and RIAA becomes just one player and not the big bully who everyone is following!
..when you let people like senior vice presidents talk to the press without being kept on a leash.
These sound to me like, ah, technically ill-informed comments - I'll bet you he's got no idea how they're going to go about all this firewalling in reality, and it's quite likely he hasn't spoken to anyone with half a clue about the technical viability of it. Sounds like he just came out with this rant rather than actually, well, thinking first.
I predict a rush of conciliatory noises and, er, "clarifications" from Sony Music's PR folks to smooth these comments over once it's realised that what they're talking about is, well, pretty close to technically impossible on today's Internet.
"If we lose our precious revenue, we will take out the Internet with small tactical nukes placed on all the major carriers."
I'm currently reading Terry Pratchett's "Equal Rites", and to quote a paragraph:
--
Pokéthulhu
Gotta catch you all!
Berman maintains that anyone who tries to stop progress will be paved over by the giant machine.
Sony is a company that is stuck in the machine of progress that their kind created, and they want out, but the fact is, they are bound to the law of supply and demand. With unlimited supply of free music that Napster and other progs provide, the overall music demand declines. Fewer pop artists will record music, and less money will be made by music.
That means... Sony is in for an ass whooping by their own damn foot!
If Sony tried to tamper with the Internet, you would see their stock plummet faster than the apple that hit Newton on his head! They would suffer boycotts and protests unlike ever before. If I know one thing about the Internet, it's that we can organize efforts better than any other group in the world, because we offer our services usually for free, and we have a passion for life that pushes us toward the greater good.
Any business that tampers with the Internet will suffer.
Just think about this...
CDs sell for 20 bucks and they cost a 25 cents to make! Who is getting ripped off?!
You.
It seems that as today's technology grows ever so much faster, big corps are using scare tactics ever more frequently so as to prevent these new technologies from 'stealing their profits'. You would think that things couldn't possibly get any more ludicrous, but Sony takes it one step further. I think the trend is that because these big corps have so much money, they feel that throwing it around here and there and using lawsuits as a leverage will be the answer to making sure not a penny of their millions of dollars in revenue gets drained by some college kids' utility/program. You have to wonder if they're not losing more money from these lawsuits than from actual piracy. Not to mention the time required to keep up w/ the lawsuits.
But what they don't seem to realize is that we as the consumers ultimately decide what goes and what doesn't. For Sony to say 'we will firewall it at your pc' and all that other great BS is not too far from saying 'please boycott us'. Quite a few slashdotters mentioned that consumers can easily choose to not support such companies. If every one of these big guys decides to use such practices then perhaps we our out of luck (but then that's also when there needs to be laws on such business behavior). However in the long run people will still find other ways of going around these "methods of prevention".
Even if these companies really do mean well (leaves room to laugh out loud), they have now already painted a bad image of themselves. So most people today will just say 'oh, look, yet another greedy bastard of a company is trying to make headlines again...' I wonder when they will actually realize that by publicly stating their views they are actually doing themselves a disfavor. Why not just support whatever causes they want to support (e.g. Sony supporting RIAA) and leave it at that? Why risk tarnishing your company image? I used to think that all my electronics had to have the Sony tag on 'em or they were'nt worth buying... but now I am not so sure.
Their firewall will only run on windows systems ...
I always prefer to start the year off with a bang - or, to be more precise, a series of loud hums, a crackle or two, and
I was going to write a polite letter informing him of the inadvisability of making such threats, but then I realised that noone can rise to be VP of an entertainment industry and not be three times better at manipulating people than I will ever be.
So there must be reason to this madness. Looking back at other recent debates, we have the judge in the 2600 case being openly predjudiced and microsoft intentionally pissing off that judge in order to try to force a mistrial.
When I first heard the microsoft theory, I was more amused than intruiged, but I do get the feeling that the players of these games are playing for the long run. I guess in those cases it is sometimes desirable to get a highly visible defeat so you can yell "DoOver!" when the stakes are hihger.
I just can't figure out why Sony want to piss off their customers. What is the upside to that?
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I suppose since Sony, etc. are oh so frightened by the decreasing revenue stream caused by Napster and such, they are going to try to go to whatever lengths they can. I suppose its their way of keeping the current crap bands on top and protecting their 1 hit wonders who are keeping their wallets fat.
Hear, hear, finally the words were uttered, the greed verbalized. Until now it was the sin that no one dared mention (no, not that one!), tacitly accepted by everyone, yet never acknowledged. Now Sony finally came out shouting it, screaming it at the masses: we're making shitloads of money off you, and we're gonna keep doing it forever, and there's nothing you can do about it. If you try to do anything about it, we'll beat you with a big stick and still take your money.
Yet the masses are sheep, they bleet in an uproar of protest, then get back to their herd and forget. Soon they will line up again at Sony's trough, and everybody will be happy again.
The thing is, as outraged as people might get about the open contempt of a company for their customers, the track record of making a company pay is not good. Most of the time they get away with it, because people simply don't care enough.
Uwe Wolfgang Radu
True. When Gnutella specifically, was developed, it was built to be tough. You can change the port it runs on (aww, too bad, guess the firewall will have to read every packet on every port now...), but it's completely stupid that they would sue AOL over it's release.
After all, didn't AOL shut the whole thing down after it'd been out for half a day? (And again, Gnutella is tough. It'd probably even work by now if they kept updating it.)
And then, our l33t HaX0rz will convert all of your VHS tapes to Betamax!!!
"Blue Elf shot the food!"
Because you can't, you won't, and you don't stop...
People talk as if Napster is the only way to get mp3s. It was just the first folks to design a for-profit company around the idea. If all the easy to scam utils go down the toilet, people are still going to turn around and trade mp3s the way the did cassette tapes back in the day and post them on Anonymous FTP.
These people cannot stop the trade of copyrighted material. They can only make it more annoying for newbies. Go ahead and firewall Napsters and the three dozen clone sites out there providing the same service will suddenly get all the hits. If they block those, I will hit my fave ten or site FTP sites and get them that way. The corporations can't keep up with technology. They can only make sure all the obvious targets are sued. The other ten guys working from the shadows will always be there behind one url or ftp:// ready to serve. As long as diskspace is cheap the music industry is screwed to the wall.
ACK
that're slowly making me into a moderate marxist I believe.
...trans-national corporations with the power to control national governments? They're here, and this is the result. Sony have a lot of power (through political lobbying and lawsuits) to control what happens to ordinary people. We voted for Sony with our wallets, the question for the future is do we still have the power to vote them out?
;)
</Jon Katz>
Mike.
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
dude, sony SAYS it will do it, Microsoft WILL do it.... .... ofcourse there will be a patch available in a few hours for it, but thats besides the point.
Sorry, No sig!
Malda, scrap the icon of Gates with the Borg laser thingie strapped to his head. It's much, much, MUCH more fitting for this schmuck.
Dear my! What are those things coming out of her nose?
Spaceballs!
If you liked that, check out Soul Music, where Pratchett explores that thought in much more detail.
--
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
Why would Project Gutenburg, a not for profit project that makes available public domain (due to copyright expiration in the most part) texts available to the world, want to help out a comcercial entity whose business is to help music pirates?
a) Napster was not started as a business. It was started as a better file-sharing system. That's it.
b) Gnutella, Freenet, Napster, et al were started because there is a fundamental belief that technology not only CAN change policy but that it SHOULD. There was/is no profit motive involved, just a belief that the record companies are too powerful, that the governmental representatives that could correct this problem are in the pockets of the record companies, and that technology can be used to circumvent the political process to the benefit of the People.
This press release isn't about MP3 or digital music. Its about stopping a major source of piracy. That is all.
But therein lies the rub. The RIAA sees MP3 swapping as pirating. The MP3 community sees it as sharing something in order to fight what amounts to a corporate monopoly. Also, press releases are 99% lies, deception, and marketing-speak. Do not believe them.
- Rev.Maybe I won't be buying one after all...
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/c onsumer/ss5/feedback.shtml
to tell Sony that you won't be buying any more of their products.
Unless, they are paid off by these companies.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I can't believe they would say this. I mean.. this could backfire *SO* bad on them. What if sony tried to buy all the cable companies? ISPS? FTC anyone? class action lawsuit in multiple countries anyone? GOod luck sony.. good luck.
Hmm , the only way i see them do that is : Create a server farm , with a 1.000.000 usernames that have a lot ( a LOT ) of titles. and each and every download is just useless bits. After downloading them , the file is not playable. Download for nothing How many times are (l)users going to get a song , if they have a chance of 1 in 10 that they have spend their money ( some people pay for connection per minute) for nothing. Just my .02
Replace the one with a real one , to email me.
Am I the only one who thinks this guy is a Churchill wannabe? Firewalling my PC, indeed.
Five tons of flax.
boy I wish there was a site that listed companies that haven't tried to stab their customers for their money, as I do not do business with mobsters and thugs
---
Sony cannot block Napster at your ISP, at your phone company, at your cable company, or anywhere. They certainly can't "firewall it at your PC." The guy doesn't understand the Net; he may not understand the courts system; and he certainly doesn't understand (or have respect for) U.S. antitrust laws.
All this, of course, is to presume that Napster will survive in its present form. Most legal types don't think Napster has much of a case, that the injunction will be imposed and it will go down, hacking out ugly death-throe sounds.
Sony won't have to "firewall it at your PC." Napster's about to have its air supply cut off.
--
C'mon, baby, kiss The King.
I will prevent Heckler from gettin'any if I have to plug his wife with my own penis.
Yeah,another candyass suit throwin'a tantrum.I am reminded of Nikita Kruschev pounding his shoe on the U.N. lectern and shouting"We will bury you".Obviously that never happened I suspect that Jack Kennedy nailed his wife.(this was well above and beyond the call 'cause she was a pig)
Heckler rants and raves and acts bad,shit I'm surprised he didn't claim to write the code to carry out his fantasy himself.Maybe he should get together with Algore,the inventor of the internet.They could get together,knock out the code,exchange bodily fluids and watch the secret service pull a train on Tipper(I still remember that bitches P.M.R.C. years,unlike most clueless Gen-x voters).
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I don't know about anyone else, but you've certainly succeeded in worrying me greatly. I am personally boycotting the purchase of any item manufactured with a built in copy protection scheme or standard supported. This is fucked. The implications of this are simply mind blowing. Someone, make it stop!
Let's see...Philips/Magnavox TV/VCR, Aiwa stereo, RCA portable CD player.
All I need to be S*ny free is to have my brother-in-law quit his job at the S*ny TV plant in Mt. Pleasant, PA.
But seriously, how do they think they'll firewall everything everywhere? Buy all the ISPs/NSPs that allow Napster traffic or even *MIGHT* allow Napster traffic?
Note that it wouldn't be considered a monopoly if they did -- AOhelL/Time Warner would still have their chunk.
<sarcasm>
I know -- they'll use the AltaVista UK method of firewalling. Say that they're going to firewall everywhere but do absolutely nothing!
</sarcasm>
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
This is wonderful! I've printed it out and posted it up in my cube.
Where everyone can see it.
Do not read this
"We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Do they control the horizontal and the vertical as well? Should I not be adjusting my TV?
The thing is, recently Sony has asked the VPRO to refrain from putting music from its artists online. In response, the VPRO has banned Sony artists from all their TV and radio broadcasts! If you understand Dutch, check out: this article with RealAudio interview for more info.
Reinout
I have an idea. Have Project Gutenberg distribute their official archives on Gnutella. Trying to censor audio and video is one thing, but try censoring harmless, useful, and loved books. Even the common joe should take offense to that.
"Big Brother, Inc. tries to stop 1984 from begin read" is alot worse for PR than "[Insert beloved band here] tries to prevent teenagers from stealing its livelyhood."
No, money does not rule everything. The people and the courts rule everything. Money is certainly the most common, and usually, the most powerful influence on society.. but not always.
And big companies have *NEVER* had free rule over me..
"We shall fight them on the beaches..."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Haven't sony been having some losses which they blame on advertising costs. I find it desturbing that someone obviously as mentally desturbed as this Heckler fellow can run a technology company when he can't even grasp the concept of The Internet.
If peer to peer software uses existing protocols like HTTP, FTP, SMTP, then there's nothing anyone can do to block it.
BTW, doesn't that Sony ranting rather sound like Mike Tyson's "I wanna rip his heart out, I wanna eat his children..."?
I agree. nice comment, if only HEckler was to ever read it. i'm sure it would piss him off. thats what i like. good job. D
Maybe I'm too "secret plots & conspiracy" minded, but do you really think They don't have anyone reading Slashdot, reading comments, paying attention to the attitudes and plots and plans of the evil, evil content thieving community?
So, it might not get straight to him, but I'm sure some blob of weakly firing neurons connected to eyes staring at a monitor somewhere in the lawyer infested Borg cube of The Industry has registered this comment, indexed and attributed it for attitudinal and demographic sigificance, and entered it into The Database.
Maybe I'm attributing too much insight to Them, but just because I'm paranoid don't mean They ain't after me.
What a scary article. It really does show how threatened the music intermediation industry feels by the digital age; I didn't get the feeling that Sony was really interested in merging with traffic, just fiddling with the road signs.
What they and other of their sort needs to understand is that there -is- still a future that will make them money, just not within the old business model. The day media went digital, they should have felt the clock ticking on the old dogma. They currently make their money by mediation of music. That is going away. I'd really like to see some other proposals on business models that take into account that information can't be contained as easily as it used to be.
they'll firewall my PC? so that means they'll partner with the FBI to allow Carnivore to block your PC from the 'net until you sign an agreement not to use Napster. Seriously, I can see the big media giants partnering up with the phone companies(AT&T for cable services, USWorst for DSL, etc) and then the phone companies forcing all their customers to sign an agreement not to use Napster due to "bandwidth" or some other nonsense. Seems to me Napster should be able to take that little statement to court...
I would expect that it would have no effect whatsoever on the validity of click-through licensing either way. The RIAA was not party to the agreement between Napster and the end users, and so can't be bound by it. Check with someone who actually is a lawyer, though.
This was taken off their web page. I'm going to voice my concerns about how I feel that the Management has a defect alright.
"If you believe a Sony Music product has a manufacturing defect, please call our Quality Management Department at 800-255-7514 (609-722-8224 in New Jersey)."
It is time we show Sony how we feel and voice are concerns, and stand up to the threat of oppression. Here is more contat info for Sony.
"General Comments: SonyMusicOnline@sonymusic.com
Website Technical Problem: SonyMusicOnline@sonymusic.com
Columbia Records: feedback@columbiarecords.com
Epic Records: Epic_Records@sonymusic.com
Legacy Recordings: LegacyOnline@sonymusic.com
Sony Music Nashville: SonyMusicOnline@sonymusic.com
Sony Classical: feedback@sonyclassical.com
Sony Wonder: SonyWonder@sonymusic.com
The WORK Group: Epic_Records@sonymusic.com
550 Music: Epic_Records@sonymusic.com
The Store @ SonyMusic.com: thestore@sonymusic.com
Sony Music Special Products: smsp@sonymusic.com
You can also reach us by mail:
Sony Music Online
550 Madison Ave, 27th Fl
New York, NY 10022-3211"
EOF
Sig
I mean at first, when I read this, I thought this guy was a complete idiot, but then, every time I turn on my Trinitron monitor, this line gets appended to my rc.firewall...
/sbin/ipchains -A input -p TCP -d 0.0.0.0/0 6688 -j DENY
Sony - Electronics and Communications
Products include:
compact disk players
mini disc players
Walkman
WEB TV
Digital Video Discs (DVD)
camcorders
televisions
radios
video cassette recorder (VCR)
phones
Digital Satellite Systems (DSS)
Computers
digital imaging
CD-ROM
CD-ROM storage products
business communication systems
audio and video tapes
data storage
batteries
Wireless Telecommunications
JumboTron
Sony - Movies & Theaters
Columbia Tri-Star
Columbia Pictures
Tri-Star Pictures
Jim Henson Productions (partial interest)
Mandalay Entertainment (partial interest)
Phoenix Pictures (partial interest)
Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Columbia-Tri Star Home Video
Theaters
Sony/Lowes Theaters
Sony - IMAX Theater
Magic Johnson Theaters
Loews - Star Theaters
Sony - Merchandise & Finance
Merchandise
Sony Signatures - (entertainment related clothes and merchandise)
Insurance and Financing
Sony Life Insurance Company
Sony Finance International
Sony - Games & Interactive
Games
Sony Play Station - machine and games
Psygnosis Limited - video game developer
Interactive
Sony Online
TheStation@sony.com - online entertainment network
Jeopardy Online, Wheel of Fortune Online
Columbia - Tri-Star Interactive
Sony - Music
Labels
Sony Music
Legacy
Sony Music Nashville
Sony Wonder (children's music)
Sony Music Products (promotional music for business)
Sony Music Soundtrak
Tri-Star Music
WORK
Crave
57 Records
550 Music
Columbia Records
Epic Records
Epic Soundtrak
Shotput Records
Relatively Entertainment
RED Distribution
Relatively Records
Harmony Records
Sony Music International
Soho Square
Dance Pool
Mambo
Rubenstein
Squatt
Sony Classical
Arc of Light
Masterworks
Sony Broadway
SEON
Vivarte
Sony Music Publishing (copyright owners, joint venture with Michael Jackson)
Columbia House (50% venture with Time - Warner)
Music Choice (with Time - Warner, EMI, General Instrument - digital stereo for cable TV)
Music Choice Europe
Sony - Television
Production & Distribution
Columbia -Tri Star Television (programming)
Columbia -Tri Star Television Distribution
Columbia -Tri Star Television International Television
The Game Show Network
International Television Ventures
Cinemax Latin America
E! - Latin America
HBO Ole
HBO Brasil
Mundo Ole
Warner Channel - Latin America
Showtime - Australia
Encore - Australia
TVI - Australia
Channel V - Asia
Cinemax Asia
HBO Asia
Beijing Television Arts Center
Viva 1 - Germany
Viva 2 - Germany
Carlton Productions (U.K.)
Golden Square Productions (U.K.)
Frensch Productions (Germany)
HBO Poland
Sony has licensing arrangements and interest in:
Kirch Group (Germany)
FORTA (Spain)
BSkyB (U.K.)
JSkyB (Japan)
Telemundo Group Inc. (formed venture with Apollo Management, Bastion Capital Fund, and Liberty Media. Sony is managing partner of group and will oversee programming and marketing.)
goddamn shit ass nuckerfucking bitch cunt anus fondeling sony!!!!!
Actually, .zip encryption is laughably weak...
DNA just wants to be free...
Sony doesn't have to hack into your computer to block traffic. Sony is a 'extremely' large multinational company with many corporate ties. Lets say that Sony simply gives 3com $5,000,000 a year to implement filtering, hardwired into their cards. Do you think 3com is going to deny? You can claim that they will, for fear of loosing customers. But in reality, probably 80% of 3com's customers are people who don't care about Napster. Sony most certainly has the power to do what he is claiming (or at least most of it).
So long as I have the right to swap .zip files with other people over the Internet, how can he know if I am swapping .mp3's in them?
WinZip proxy?
-thomas
"And like that
Last week me and a friend went to amsterdam to one of the bigger music stores, simply looked into my palm's checklist, grabbed all the cd's that where unchecked walked to the counter and asked if any of the other cd's I hadn't found already where in stock... the bloke simply was astonished to also hear that I didn't want to hear them first but simply want to buy them because I already had them all and just wanted the originals too because they where worth it. :)
Another funny part too this is that I don't even have a audio-cd player myself and only have a couple of cd-roms and that the cd's I bought will directly be put into the rest of my collection without even getting the cd out of the sleeve. And why should I? I already have the songs in my playlist so I don't have to swap cd's or buy an expensive cd-changer (now I have an expensive computer
http://unfix.org
The only problem with banning Sony products, personally, is the fact that they've created my Playstation, and soon my Playstation 2, those would be impossible to give up, as a true gamer geek.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me
Given the threat to crack PCs and damage their connectivity, shouldn't this story have the DoJ logo, or perhaps it should have provided the rollout for a "Computer Crime" logo?
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
"He who has all the answers has stoped asking questions."
Hey, everyone who wants to write this "transcendent" software for Sony, raise your hand. That's what I thought. Neither do I. Of course, I already have a much better job. The sad part is, they'll probably find someone willing to do this sort of thing. Hell, lots of someones, and then they'll go sign the contracts (with ISPs, etc) to make it practical. Damn, damn, damn.
we will block it at your phone company,
we will block it at your [Internet-service provider].
We will firewall it at your PC.
-Steve Heckler
- No you fucking won't.
Fine.-Me
Kill Napster in court.
Firewall them ports.
We have, uh I forget - is it 2^16?, more ports to choose from.
Go ahead and have your fun. .html files), or we will keep producing new varients of file sharing programs.
Kill Napster and we will replace it with a new way of sharing files 5 minutes later. Either you must ban the whole class of programs to share files of the Internet (ftp & web browsers included, after all web pages are just
So long as I have the right to swap .zip files with other people over the Internet, how can he know if I am swapping .mp3's in them?
And as for his last sentence - if he thinks he can do a damn thing to our PCs, then please would someone explain this whole open-source thing that has been going on around him. It makes controlling people that bit more difficult.
Final Thought:
-
"The [music] industry," Heckler said, "will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
Sorry, was that protect 'musicians rights to have a say in what is done with their art', or protect 'that revenue stream' - I couldn't quite hear.G
That's basically what I'm doing, too. And I think that'll be the most effective. If I recall correctly, most of the market for bleeding-edge technology is among the technically-literate (geeks), who are also generally the type to get concerned about copy protection. And remember that these are corporations. No matter how much they want control, money's their primary interest. If they won't make money from a given course, they won't take it.
-RickHunter
Just what is Napster worth to you by itself? Just sitting on your machine? Without enough other people who are also using it, it's worth nothing. Bupkis. Nada. The fact that a handful of technologically sophisticated individuals can get around it will mean nothing (especially since we could already do file-sharing, anyway) - the value of Napster comes from the critical mass of musically sophisticated people who can use its straightforward and convenient interface without a lot of hunting around. recently I managed to find some new, unusual music (Thinking Plague, Science Group - both of which I have since purchased on CD) via Napster, and I can assure you that I would have been likely to find them or anything else novel or interesting if I only had the tech-geek crowd's collections at my disposal.
Does anyone have a list of what record labels Sony supports, so I can know what not to buy? Because I am obviously never buying anything involved with Sony again.
In fact, while I'm at it, can anyone name consumer electronics manufacturers that aren't in bed with the RIAA?
They can get away with this crap as long as you keep buying CD's. They get a royalty off of every single one. Stealing it from Napster isn't the right answer either. Go see a local band. Live.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Doubtless the Sony sysadmins are already cursing this idiot's name as every 1337 script kiddie on the planet reading these remarks polishes off his rootkit and warms up his portscanner.
Perhaps someone would like to start a book on how soon sony.com gets 0wned or reduced to smoking rubble?
For example: The Right to Read: A Dystopian Short Story
DNA just wants to be free...
--
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
What are they going to do, outlaw FTPing? There's no way they can stop it, and they're grasping at straws, pulling ominous-sounding stuff out of their asses. It's funny, really.
Sounds like Sony is looking for legal fun. And that seems like thats all they will get, considering all the class-actions that would be filed if they did this.
The Internet Declaration of Independence.
..don't panic
Am I alone in thinking he's talking about more than "firewalling" here? If I were the Napster guys I'd get some personal security. And for the central servers as well. Odds are the RIAA knows where they are housed.
"Property is theft, therefore theft must be property, right?"
This kind of technically wreckless rhetoric is usually reserved for stockholders. He's probably just trying to keep Sony shareholders from freaking out over the massive publicity that Napster, Gnutella..et al have recieved over the last few months.
None of what he says has to be true or even Sony's intentions. So long as the stock analyst and shareholders stay in a 'hold' or 'buy' pattern, his job is done.
Although classifiying Brittney Spears music as 'Intellectual Property' is troublesome, that's a different argument altogether... --Heard on NPR last week--
anyone try to install napster on a vaio yet?
hehe.
i guess sony can't even firewall their own products against it.
mandatory vaios for everyone!!!
Sony Pictures Entertainment is the movie subsidiary of Sony. Sony Music is the music subsidiary of Sony. Sony Pictures has nothing whatsoever to do with Sony Music. Sony Music sells soundtracks from movies done by other movie houses, while Sony Pictures' movies very often uses music by artists from other record companies. The two are totally independant companies, linked only in that they take orders from the Sony CEO.
Therefore, why is Heckler giving his opinion about Napster and music distrubution? These are issues affecting Sony Music, not Sony Pictures. His interview is really strange. He's spouting off about stuff his bosses won't give a damn about.
that a company( I know they were just one ) whose encryption was broken by a teenager will 'firewall it at my PC'. They clearly haven't the slightest idea of the technical side of things. Yet, they will soon be able to stop napster in it's tracks with 'firewalls' all over the 'net. RIGHT!!!
Just stick with your lawyers, SONY. You'll do much better ( maybe ).
And they shall know no fear.
very sad that there doesn't seem to be any indication of this changing. Maybe this could be a good thing, because if they step that far over the line, it just may make "the line" stronger.
big companies have always had free rule over the little guy.
________
Now firewalling a program out like this is basically impossible. Think about it, if there are enough people at this and a small group organizing it... change the way they communicate, the port... What can they do? Make a firewall that filters everything out except http? And what if napster-like-programs start to use a protocol that looks like http?
In the end they simply can't not stop it, unless people give up. And when will ISPs start to advertise: "Napster Compatible".
A Firewall for ISPs? To Sony to enforce this I think it would need a new Law, or I suppose it would be easier just to bribe them, how many ISPs are there in the world? Probably would cost more than they lose by Napster.
Ve vill firevall it at your PC, Ve vill firevall it at your ISP, Ve have vays of preventing you from using Napster.
Personally, I'm cancelling my order for the PlayStation2 and anything else made by Sony. I'm also going to email sony and let them know why. If everyone did this I think we might just get their attention.
Of course, Heckler hasn't figured out that Gnutella (which, BTW, is open-source) can be reconfigured or rewritten to use HTTP or SMTP as its transport. Let's see them firewall 25 or 80 on a PC and get away with it. This guy is talking through his butt.
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Consumers aren't stupid. Historically, they have rejected products that restrict their choice, and embraced products that provide freedom, and if the product doesn't provide that out of the box, it'll get modified so that it will. Sony, and the other media conglomerates, will just have to get used to that fact.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
... or your local Mob Boss, and have a contract laid down on these psychos. I doubt that they can pull this off for long (i.e., cracked/hacked around within a week or so), if at all.
:)
These are the kind of people who will stop at nothing to lock the world into their grasp and hold it at the status quo.
Where's a "Free the Media" compaign when you need one ?
_______
2B1ASK1
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Mmm... that's missing the point.
I'm not talking about, "Damn it, I really wanted to see that movie, but these guys are being a bunch of jerks, so I'm not going to."
I'm talking about, "Damn it, keep your freaking DVD, I didn't want to see it anyway."
And meaning it.
sig fault
Neither George Orwell's 1984 nor anything else created on or after 1923 will ever be added to Project Gutenberg because anything created on or after 1923 is under perpetual copyright. This is at first glance unconstitutional (the Constitution mentions "for limited times"), but Congress gets around it by simply retroactively extending copyrights when they are about to expire.
Fuck you Walt Disney Company.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
HA HA HA hahahahha haha hahhaahahah aha hha aha ahha ahha ahh a aha aha ah ah ahha ha a ha ahahaha aha a haha a aha a aha aha ahah aha ha! oooo...... He's funny.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Well there is some quote by marx that goes like: The miner produces coal, the thief produces policemen, [to continue it: ] the music pirate produces internet legislation You guys are as much cause of the problem as the music industry. You don't play fair either. [Apart from that] Any ISP blocking Napster or ftp should be barred from calling itself an ISP and be sued by other companies(offering full direct IP) for unfair competition, since he is only offering a subset of the services he is advertising, no real internet access. (Its like my fucking netsurf.de provider who has been offering only www access and email, but no direct IP). .. like the wave running up the beach ..
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
What is really interesting is that at VP at Sony has essentially just pledged that the company will be seeking vigilante justice. He didn't mention anything about waiting for the court's decision, he simply states that they are going to take matters into their own hands, and bring the 'rogue' company to justice as Sony sees it.
Vigilante justace was both illegal and looked down upon in the old west. The same is true today. If Sony really does take to this course of action, it will most likely come back to haunt them, either legally, or through public relations.
Most people on this thread are talking about this being an issue of corporate vs. individual rights. While this may be true on a broad sense, I think that the most important point is that Sony has decided that the law doesn't work for it, and that in order to best protect themselves they need to work outside (or at least on the boundary) or the law. I'm sure that Sony won't explicitly violate any laws in getting their firewalls up. I'm pretty sure that it will be through strongarm tactics against large providers like AOL, @home, SBC, Verizon and others. Perhaps they will also call in some political favors, and get some laws passed to allow them to do what they want. The end result though is that Sony has decided that living in a democratic society does not suit it, and so it will attempt to force society to it's will.
Only time will tell what this will do to society, but I believe that if Sony does attempt this, this is going to be one of those little tests that our country has from time to time to see how much it really wants to maintain a democratic society. If we rise to the occasion and show Sony that it must play nicely and by our rule system, then I believe that it will be a big step for America. If we allow them to trample about, then we have taken one more step towards relinquishing the rights of a democratic society.
Impossible = A fun challenge
> MP3 is a proprietary format. They buy the rights to the MP3 format, and charge any site that distributes MP3's a "license fee" similar to the one that Unisys tried to levy against websites that use GIF's
I'm sure the folks at Ogg Vorbis are getting a hard-on just THINKING about that possibility.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I'm already boycotting DVDs because of the DeCSS crap... I'll never buy/rent a DVD. The movie industry will never get money from me via any DVD product to fuel their legal department.
;-)
Face it: The only way to make these corporations/organizations come to their senses is to completely boycott their products. Don't go to the movie theaters, don't buy a DVD player/discs, don't buy Sony products. Hit them where it hurts... In their wallets!
Maybe it's time to start an anti-Sony advertising campaign?
Thank you for the link. I've been looking for a place to report the questionable ones (they all seem to come from the Netherlands).
;->
I know I wasn't nuts...., we not too nutes
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
Ha! Which means, "we will firewall, block, and otherwise haX Napster to ensure total domination of our own internet-based, distributed, for-profit music system."
Good Luck Asshole
They shouldn't allow their Vice-Presidents to spew out nonsense about things in which he has no understanding. He's just made because nobody wants to buy his Sony Memory Sticks. They should stick to selling Wegas and Trinitrons instead of pissing off their fans. Firewall my computer... that's good. No no, but a better one is... I'll firewall the brains... BWA HAHAHAHAH!!!!! At least people would laught instead of being pissed off.
Yep , smoking pot on the street.. Makes one really think why people like to go there doesn't it..
Replace the one with a real one , to email me.
The fact is that in this day and age, the end user is in control. We are all powerful. We guard all the gates, we hold all the keys. We hold 'root'. Also, as long as the supreme court remains democratically dominated, I think we will win the legal battle too.
I can just imagine our NRA friends...
"Sony, you can have this napster when you pry it from my cold, dead disk drive."
Thats my rant.
"We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the hills..."
Hmm... It sounded OK 45 years ago but it's a bit stupid for a VP of a company in the 21st century to be paraphrasing it (especially since he's talking bullshit. If he comes near my firewall and tries to reconfigure it I'll kick him in the 'nads).
Tony
http://www.3com.com/nsc/netage/v6n8/images/v6n8p12 f.gif
Steve Heckler
Steve Heckler has been senior vice-president, Information
Systems at Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) since 1995,
managing a worldwide staff of 200 IS professionals. He directs
day-to-day IS operations for SPEës Columbia TriStar Motion
Picture Group, Columbia TriStar Television, and Columbia TriStar
Home Video, and develops long-term IS strategies. He also helps
senior management explore opportunities for leveraging
information technology in the companyís core divisions and among
sister companies within Sony.
Before joining SPE, Heckler served as vice-president and CIO at
Health Net in Woodland Hills, California, overseeing all corporate information systems,
data processing, and telecommunications for the multibillion-dollar HMO. Prior to that, he
held the CIO position at Pactel Cellular in Irvine, CA, and was senior vice-president of
MIS for Lorimar Telepictures in Culver City. He began his career with a 13-year tenure as
programmer and manager at IBM. Heckler holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering
from City College of New York, and both an M.S. in operations research and an M.B.A. in
marketing from New York University.
How many people use Napster, or at least know of it? Thanks to media coverage, even my mom knows all about Napster(my mother doesnt know how to change the channel on the TV, never mind use a computer). How many people who this comment will reach are even going to know *what* a firewall is? The way I see it, Steve Heckler was doing no more than talking big, using a word that does actually sound pretty intimidating/cool
Way to go dick
jungle is massive
These are the statements of a man who has no fundamental understanding of how computers and the internet work. He seems to be under the impression that the business people are in charge and anything they mandate will be done. I was in a company where the executives thought the same way... until practically the entire engineering staff up and left in a span of a couple months.
Actually, I'd like to see him try. It would show more people what an incredibly corrupt methods record companies use to make money. It makes Microsoft's business practices look almost angelic.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Prepare to witness the most concerted and massive engineering effort -- both social and technical -- ever undertaken by mankind: The digital equivalent of damming the ocean.
I wrote about this on Slashdot almost a year ago, in the vague hope it might become a featured article: The music and movie industies are working very hard to prevent you from using your lawfully-obtained material in any way they don't want. To that end, they have formed the Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), which is working hand-in-hand with a ton of high-tech companies to bring pervasive copy protection measures to your PC.
I saved my original screed on the subject, and it's reproduced below, with appropriate updates. Bottom Line: Do not let them sneak this garbage past you or your friends. If you find that a product contains copy protection, don't buy it, and encourage others to do likewise.
____________________
Recent stories on Slashdot have told of the ongoing "tennis match" between digital content providers versus consumers and technically skilled people. The recent cracking of DVD's Content Scrambling System (CSS) lent ammunition to the opinion held by computing professionals and users that copy protection systems are doomed to fail. The effort has been likened to building a dam against the ocean; a foolish and useless exercise. In Slashdot discussion fora, the point has often been raised, "If you can perceive it, you can copy it. What are they going to do, encrypt the bits all the way to the speaker/electron gun?" If the Copy Protection Technical Working Group gets its way, that is precisely what's going to happen.
I received a piece of email spam today, which actually turned out to be useful (probably the only time that's ever happened anywhere). It directed me to a flat panel display industry group. Among others, one of the links pointed to the California Display Network, which had a link pointing to technical info on flat panel technology. Since I currently earn my living writing graphics card and display drivers, I clicked through to see what I could learn.
I found an entry for an overview of digital visual interfaces, provided by Silicon Image. As I reviewed the headings of the slides, one entry stopped me cold: Conten t Protection Status. Content protection? In a flat panel?? Yup: "Implementation of DVI content protection is suitable for PCs and monitors." [emphasis mine]
Thus began an evening of link clicking and Google searches to find out what this off-handed remark could mean. The slide made mention of the 'CPTWG'. This is the Copy Protection Technical Working Group, a consortium of content providers (movie companies), consumer electronics manufacturers, and players in the IT industry. This is the same group that developed CSS for DVD players.
One paragraph from the above page is particularly disturbing:
The most recent meeting of the CPTWG was yesterday, 8 December, 1999. Their meeting announcements may be found here. It costs $100 to attend. According to the site, their last meeting was on 11 April 2000. It's not clear if additional meetings have been held at regular intervals.
The attendance roster from the April meeting (RTF file) lists a very interesting, and possibly worrying, mix of organizations. A partial list of representatives included:
If you download the roster and read closely, you'll see every major piece of your computer represented. There is no doubt that at least one part of your computer -- your CPU, your RAM, your disk drive, your graphics card, your monitor -- is manufactured by one of these companies.
If you look further still, you'll see there are no consumer advocacy groups listed.
What are they all working toward? Quite simply, to prevent you from using your lawfully obtained digital material in any way they don't want.
Here's one example of how they'll do it: If you've visited Fry's or CompUSA recently, you'll notice that full-size flat panel displays are starting to appear. Currently, most of these displays are based on the old VGA analog signals, which are converted into the digital signals needed by the panels. The Digital Display Working Group is working on a new connector and signalling standard called Digital Visual Interface (DVI) that will allow computer displays to go all-digital. You won't need a DAC on the video card; the digital signals will be fed straight through to the display. Image fidelity will be much higher, since there won't be any intervening DAC/ADC conversions. Version 1.0 of the standard has been published and is available for download (PDF format). The DVI spec currently does not stipulate copy protection measures. However, plans are in the works to incorporate it.
Intel is one of the primary contributors to this effort. On Intel's developer site, they have some papers on copy protection for IEEE 1394 (Firewire) digital streams. In two separate articles, 1394-based Digital Content Protection: an Intel Proposal, and Content Protection for IEEE 1394 Serial Buses (the latter being a Powerpoint presentation masquerading as a PDF file), Intel outlines its proposal for protecting digital content over Firewire. By using cryptographic authentication techniques, a device offering digital content will "handshake" with other devices on the bus to assure that digital data is only received by, "compliant devices." In a revised overview of the proposal, IDF Talk: Content Protection for the IEEE 1394 Bus, Intel offers concrete implementation details, including:
The full proposal (currently version 0.91), with lots of technical detail, is mirrored on CPTWG's site (the links to Intel's site don't work).
Intel's proposal also recommends that the copy protection system be field-upgradeable to thwart ongoing attacks, and that it should be possible to revoke (read: disable) a device determined to be "compromised." (The tone of the proposals is also interesting. It's previously been thought that, because of USB, Intel is hostile to IEEE 1394. Yet these proposals suggest that Intel's quite enthusiastic about 1394... Once copy protection is incorporated.)
Intel's proposal mentions only IEEE 1394. However, it also mentions that there's nothing preventing the technique being applied generally to any bi-directional link. So for all occurrences of '1394', substitute 'DVI', and you've got an idea of what to look forward to in your new digital monitor. And your new DVD player. And your new HDTV set. And your new USB speakers.
Intel goes even further in their paper, A Framework for DVD-Audio Content Protection. In it, the author suggests that DVD-Audio recorders permanently remember the IRSC (International Standard Recording Code) of every song the device is asked to copy, so that it may only be copied once, period. They go on to suggest that the recorder could have a modem built-in to authorize (read: purchase) the ability to make additional copies.
In short, through this industry consortium, Hollywood proposes to exert control over every link in the digital chain, from the digital camera, to the disk drive, to the CPU, to the graphics card, to your display. They will decide what rights you have. Even if a court decides Fair Use includes multiple copies for personal use (such as assembling a video montage), it won't matter. Your computer will still refuse to make the copies (and probably fink on you, as well).
This coordinated effort is ostensibly to combat unsanctioned copying (which the industry chronically refers to incorrectly as 'theft' and 'piracy'). However, no one has ever been able to provably quantify the value of unrealized sales due to such copying. All dollar estimates that have been published are just that: estimates, based on idealized extrapolations of what-if scenarios. Moreover, although the industry claims to "lose" billions every year, they continue to post record profits. Finally, despite the proliferation of CDR drives and the Internet, most unrealized sales are the result of organized mass counterfeiting rings, not casual copying. None of the proposed methods I've seen appear to thwart mass counterfeiting at all. So clearly there's some other reason for all this.
The thing that puzzles me most is why the computer and consumer electronics industries haven't told Hollywood to take a hike. Intel's copy protection proposals state, in bold letters, "No content protection = No Hollywood content." This belief is taken as axiomatic by all the players, and appears to be the driving force behind the entire effort. This belief is also false.
Audio on CDs are recorded as plaintext, and the music industry continues to earn rapacious profits. Even the with the advent of CDRs, no music industry executive in his right mind would suggest dropping CD sales and going strictly with cassettes and vinyl. If nothing else, the manufacturing costs for CDs are lower than those for cassettes and vinyl. Likewise, DVDs are tremendously cheaper to produce than videotapes. Videotape duplication is a labor-intensive process; DVDs can be stamped out automatically. The savings in cost-of-goods alone would more than balance against any unrealized sales from casual copying. Corporate shareholders, always mindful of the bottom line, will also demand that the studios move to the cheaper, higher-quality process, copy protected or not.
The fact is that the computer and electronics firms are in the driver's seat, and are free to dictate how the new digital formats will work. Hollywood will use whatever format becomes popular, whether it has copy protection or not. They may grumble about it, but they'll use it. The economics afford them little choice.
We are only now beginning to explore the social and ethical consequences of a Star Trek-like universe where everything can be infinitely duplcated at zero cost. We have no idea where things will end up. But now is not the time to start erecting electronic walls and imposing artificial scarcity. The ignoble and richly-deserved death of DIVX showed -- fairly unequivocally, I thought -- that consumers want to make free, fair use of their digital media, without interference from outside. I believe its death reinforces the future toward which we've been pushing for centuries: Increased abundance at reduced cost. We can only hope that the lesson of DIVX will be repeated until it is learned.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Doesn't this sound a bit familiar? I have this mental picture of Nikita Kruschev pounding on the podium with his shoe shouting, "We will bury you!"
After reading his comments, all I can say is "Good! Let them try". Threats like that could lead to some crackers deciding to DDOS the PS2 netcenter when it becomes commerically availible in the US. Bad press about inability to connect to the games server will cause a drop in sales, hurting their bottom line.
Power corrupts... absolute power is kinda neat!
Impossible is not possible. The music will eventually be converted to an analog signal where it could be converted to something digital
Not necessarily, unless you're planning to put an open mike in front of your tamper-proof speakers receiving an encrypted signal and outputting an inaudible tracking signal.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Doesn't Gnutella use port 80 to do the file transfers? I could be wrong, I don't have it installed at the moment to check. The point is, how are they going to block port 80, while still allowing web access?
Isn't it kind of counterproductive that Sony's own CD-RW drives will allow you to make illegal copies of their own CD's
Look around you. Your computer probably has an "Intel Inside" sticker. You probably have a magazine laying on your desk face down, so there is an ad blasting at you. You probably have Nike sneakers.
Go to the grocery store. Everywhere in there are ads. You can't even go to the checkout counter and use one of those bars to separate your food from the guy in front of you without seeing an ad. Go to the movies. Instead of seeing "coming attractions" you get commercials for websites, Coke, and cars.
You drive down the road and every 1000 feet there is a billboard of some sort blasting some product at you (here in Kansas City, they are closer than 1000').
Hell, you can't even visit a website without getting blasted by ads.
But you can do something about it. I have Junkbuster running (no ads!). I don't buy Nike (they make my feet hurt). I don't wear Levis (because their jeans fall apart 3 months after I get them).
Hell, I don't buy Microsoft products and I am surviving just fine, thank you very much. Why? Because I don't let advertising rule my life. I do something about it. I get very little junk mail. All it took was $3 worth of stamps and about an hour of my time to send off the already made letters they have on Junkbuster. It's simple, and amazingly effective.
Samuel J. Butcher is famous for his insanely cute drawings of Eloi kids. These drawings became the PRECIOUS MOMENTS® figurines.
Now what do Precious Moments haters wish they could do to those kids? Butcher them.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
meldpunt.org is also where you can report cases of kiddieporn.
(link to the english page)
Just a sidenote, I see your point here tho.
To the Sony VP who made these comments:
...And you just lost the business of myself and all my friends and family, as well.
"Screw You." And I'd throw my middle finger up in your face if you were standing in front of me, and laugh, too. If you think you're going to firewall jackcrap at my PC, think again.
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
We will firewall Napster at source we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your Internet-service provider. We will firewall it at your PC. We will create a force, that will go from house to house breaking PCs that have Napster installed on them. We will call this force the "Sony Storm-troopers" or in short the S.S.
"And we will bury you!"
I don't find this scary at all -- it's just a litany of 1950s solutions to 21st century problems, none of which will work. I don't have stock in Sony, so why should I care that the people in charge of the company don't have a clue?
This is emblematic of the whole Napster/DeCSS/DMCA battle that's going on now. The status quo has changed fairly radically and the institutions that profited from that status quo are begging any authority they can think of to shove the djinni back in the bottle. The authorities, who are lovers of the status quo themselves, will try to comply, but this djinni isn't going anywhere.
Sony and the like can bang their shoes on the table all the live-long day, or they can go look for other models to make money from music. If they don't, they will be replaced by others who do.
This is the beauty of the free market, da?
-
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
mp3 itself isn't proprietary.. several encoders are though.
Do they realize that they have just totally screwed themselves? I never liked sony anyway, but now I'll never buy anything from them again.
From now on, I'll check the labels of CDs. If it comes from those bastards, I won't buy it. I'll download it even if I wouldn't have otherwise.
Doesn't the idiot realize that he is representing a large company that does more things than publish music? They'll never sell me another walkman. Stupid arrogant jerks.
So, how would they propose to block napster access at my computer? Hack into it? Change my netfilter rules? Good luck. How are they going to stop OpenNAP, Gnutella or freenet? There is no conceivable way to do so. You'd have to shut down all traffic on the internet. AT&T, Sprint, MCI and all of the other carriers might have something to say about that. They're quite a lot more important to the economy than sony.
This is so far out of line that I have to wonder if it's a hoax. No one in their right minds would make statements amounting to 'we'll hack the computers of all of the people in the world to protect our corporate interests'. This Heckler jackass has just gotten his company in a lot of trouble.
(1) Bands produce the music
(2) Record companies promote and distribute the music with very little money going to the musicians
(3) Consumers buy the music
It looks to me like the record companies are the simply middlemen between producers and consumers. The internet is starting to eliminate the middlemen in many industries. And their product is digital, which makes them more vulnerable. This guy's bluster makes for a good story, but lets come back in 10 years and see where things stand. He'd better hope his salary isn't dependent on backing up those statements.
"We will get you Napster users! We will develop something that blocks anything we don't like. We'll use a moat around Napster. No, a wall of fire. A firewall! And the DMZ will be filled with charred cookies when we empty the packets and blockade the ports!"
Looks like Mr. Heckler had trouble finding the right buzzword to make it on Slashdot. After a few attempts, he finally managed to come out with 'firewall' and stopped using 'blocking'. I wouldn't worry about what this guys says. I'm not sure what he's responsible for as VP, but I'll bet he has trouble getting his Viao to connect to his AOL account.
Viv
-----------
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
By the looks of it he says he needs three of them. must be using Mcafee or something of the same Os environment. i have one to do all the shit i need. Can they really stop all of us ???? (rhetorical question)
AK
I've searched for artists on napster that I first heard of on mp3.com. And I've found them on occasion. These authorized releases ARE available through Napster.
What Napster seems to be missing is a method of promoting these artists. Sure... they have links on their web page. That's hardly origional. It doesn't make use of the Napster client's function. It would seem Napster should have an ability for the Napster user community to support and promote their favorite finds. Of course, I'm not a big Napster user so I might be missing an aspect of "community" more savvy Napster users are a part of.
Of course, that's neither here nor there. The question is can Napster be used for legal purposes? Yes. And it is doing that today.
I mean, when was the last time anyone paid attention to a Heckler? They're worse than trolls, just sitting around making fun of people and trying to annoy the performers. Screw them, do not feed the Heckler. Starve him at your cable company, starve him at your phone company, starve him at your ISP. Starve him at your PC!
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
The great troll Ketzer has spoken.
If your lawyers say you can firewall Napster on my PC, go ahead and do it. Don't listen to the Slashdot geeks who say you can't do it.
Flagrant violation of Ketzer's IP follows:
Sony, and RIAA in general, has hordes of engineers out there who actually design software for a living, instead of just posting it on Slashdot because they decide to take an hour out of their day to care about the laws.
Before they make decisions like this, they ask their engineers if they'll be able to do it.
Then their engineers tell them things like "yes, you can firewall Napster" and all the geeks at Slashdot laugh and say "Silly RIAA, you can't get away with that! We have a constitutional right to free speech, and Napster has a legal right to write and distribute software without a monopoly trying to sue them out of the market!"
--
--
E_NOSIG
That radio shack idea brought this up.
What if cd manufacturers were to issue a bar code scanner to everyone that bought cd's or who wanted one. They could provide a service similar to what cddb does that would issue you a certificate of ownership of that particular cd. This certificate would entitle you to download any/all forms or recordings of tracks on that album. It would also transfer the so called "listening rights" to the certificate and off the music itself. You could even provide online key storage as well as tracking. I don't think this would be that hard to code, and could easily eliminate alot of the licensing issues surrounding music purchase. Either you buy the cd online and they ship it to you, or you buy it in a store and make your own cert. It would be signed by the manufacurer so they can't say you didn't buy it, and would allow services such as napster to remain online indefinately. You could even use the cd player in your machine to get signatures off of the cd itself.
I dunno, just a thought.
-Inetd
Conspiracy theory here, but if I understand Carnivore correctly it could have the ability to route traffic. Now all Sony has to do is go to the government and get them to block Napster and other file sharing programs on Carnivore. I know this isn't the intended use of Carnivore, but could it not be done? Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas!
"The [music] industry," Heckler said, "will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what."
Wow... I can't wait until it starts raining napalm. =) Aren't megalomaniacs fun?
There should be a law that lets you grind people like this up as hamburger so you can eat them for lunch. Perfect solution to world hunger. EAT THE DUMB!