Slashdot Mirror
Napster Usage Quadruples
tewl noted a CNN story that says that Napster's usage has quadrupled... it stands among the fastest growing software apps ever. And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*.
I don't like the lawsuits much, but I am not yet convinced that Napster hasn't reduced record sales. The initial post claims: "Napster's usage has quadrupled...[ ] And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*." The time when Napster usage supposedly quadrupled was during this year (in the last 5 months). So to determine Napster's effect on record sales we need to look for a change in sales during the same time frame... Maybe in the end it will still prove *cough*?
Use hasn't quadrupled, the number of individual accounts has. Thats a totaly different thing with all this Metallica garbage. I know ive recreated about 20 accounts in the last year alone.
If you want to count use, show me some numbers on how many MBs of mp3s are in the system.
>Because this is digital copying, those files are >*perfect* copies of the original
Actually they are perfect copies of a LOSSY COMPRESSED copy of the ORIGINAL. Now, mind you, my ears are too shot to really notice or care...
Of course it is no where as bad a degradation as if you had copied to cassette tape (and then to another tape, ad infinitum) but to listen to Lars and others generalize about "perfect digital copies" is b.s. IMHO
One thing NOT considered is the amount of mp3's that are incomplete available, the MP3's that have that digital hiccup because it was ripped too fast and the error correction couldn't compensate for a scratch on the CD, and other file defects... In other words a lot of the stuff on Napster is NOT PERFECT at all.
No further comment on the other less mundane parts of the argument...(ethical/logical/etc)
YMMV
Enrico
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I think I need a free proof reader.
Sorry.
As I understand it, the main reason Napster is considered different is the fact that MP3s are (for all intents and purposes) lossless, CD-quality recordings of digital music.
MP3 begins to approach CD quality only at 192 Kbps VBR with LAME or Fraunhofer (the best encoders AFAIK). But most of the files on Napster are 128 Kbit, which screams "tape" to my ears.
If you tape a CD, then the tape is invariably lower quality, acoustically, than the original.
If you encode a CD at 128 Kbit (especially with a bad encoder like Xing but there are lots of bad tape decks too), then the MP3 is invariably lower quality, acoustically, than the original.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Ok, then the "question" was answered: No, the recording industry should not be able to push congress to impose these arbitrary taxes.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Free speech.
Free bear.
Free Advertising?
So far, this law suit has been the best thing to happen to Napster.
So? That's not the point. The point is that just because your first, knee-jerk reaction to something is to try to destroy it before it destroys you, doesn't mean it's the right reaction. Back then, people having the ability to record what is played on their telivision was a huge leap in their ability to watch what they want, when they want. Having that ability with digital media is, at best, a modest leap from where we were. Had the movie industry succeeded in destroying the VCR market, they would have lost the enormous revenue source that videos have become. Did they realize this then? Did they even have an inkling of it back then? Nope. This could just be a rerun of that episode.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No politician is going to legalise MP3-trading of copyrighted music, no matter how much lobbying you/we do. He would have to essentially give up copyright for that and it's obvious that in a time also known as the dawning age of information society there is no way to screw copyright.
Fair use is a concept which was devised in times when copying music wasn't possible without loss of quality. A third generation copy just didn't sound like it was worth the work. Instead you bought the record/tape. So maybe a record got copied a few times but that was ok, because it didn't get copied a zillion times and after all, music is a cultural thing and, what the heck, we can't control it anyway.
Then came cd-burners and things started to get ugly. With these a copy of a copy was as good as the original. But still distribution was limited somehow by the necessity to move physical media around and lending your cd to total strangers doesn't sound like too good an idea.
Then came Napster. A copy of a copy is still as good as the original but now distribution is limited only by network bandwith, which is increasing every day. There are still reasons for a fair use concept: Music is still a cultural thing and there is still no way to control individual copying. But copying will get out of hand with ever growing network availability and bandwith, so it can't be allowed from a copyright owner's perspective. Fair use as a selfregulated loophole has lost its regulating factors which were loss of quality and need for physical and thus limited distribution.
What is a politician to do in a situation like this? Programmers and technicians tell you that copying can't be stopped technologically. RIAA et al tell you that there are millions of people earning their income in the music industry who are in danger of losing their jobs because of all these freeloaders. The anser is: delegate. Let others handle the problem. For now we make sure the industry is staying healthy and the people don't lose their jobs. In order to do that, the fair use loophole obviously has to be closed. This is were we got the DMCA from. Next the industry makes sure that the technology which enables mass copying for the average consumer goes away. Napster, bye bye. They are legally and morally in the position to shut down Napster. Napster is a company which hopes to make money by providing a system which even in good-will terms is a means for mass copyright infringement.
Can you do something about that through lobbying? I doubt it. There are few reasons why copying music should be allowed and most of them revolve about the music industry being a big bad monster and artists not getting their fair amount of money anyway. That is, pardon my french, bullshit. The music industry is the direct result of a free market situation and if artists don't get paid enough, well, that's their problem.
But there are still those damn programmers who insist that copying can't be stopped technologically. What can we do about them? Nothing, they are right. With fast networks available to everyone, the copying will continue. Programs are just waiting for Napster to die so they can take its place. With laws becoming stricter, technology will adapt to provide what people want anyway. Geeks are not into lobbying because they know that technology wins in the long run. The time of the music industry as we know it is fading. Copyright laws are prolonging its life but eventually it will die (or transform into something different, as some people might put it).
There is still a long road to walk before you can legally copy all the music you want. You'll see the town of restricted internet access on the way. The city of forbidden encryption can be seen on the horizon, but we still don't know if we have to go through it. Privacy invaders have their huts ligned up near the road all the way. But we will get past these obstacles with our without lobbying, sooner or later. Right now, lobbying will only make people laugh at us for demanding the right to pirate. Give people fascinating technology and they'll walk with you.
When you type a ridiculous and unfounded assertion right in your first sentence, how can you expect reasonable people to want to read on? There is such a thing as Intellectual Property.
Then I would ask you to point out the law or the case where it is defined. I'm getting more and more curiuous over this point.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
This seems like a reasonable argument (on the surface anyways)...
...
The conspiracist in me thinks they are not protecting their profits so much, as protecting their raccateering (spelling, ugh!) enterprise.
Instead of using Bobby the Stick to beat an unwilling contractor to use Mob friendly Union labor, RIAA is sending lawyers out to make sure we buy music in THEIR format only...
I hope all this results in a reasonable online music distribution model.
I like free *alot*.. but I really appreciate value. And if I could preview songs then purchase individual songs that I'd like using some sort of micro payment scenario. I'd go for that... Maybe a Rent-to-own scenario =)
I'd like that much better than buying an album on the merits of one song on the radio and paying for tons of filler tunes and B-sides
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Dunno - based on the popularity of music videos with attractive stars in really skimpy clothing, if Napster ever got around to distributing music videos via its service, I'd still imagine "sex" would be a pretty popular product :)
For example, assume 1 million CDs were sold, up from 900,000 last year, adjusted for a GNP-like indicator. That might indicate that Napster helped, but then one needs to look at the breakdown of the average number of sales per album. An audience that is buying a wider variety of music would cost the average numbers of sales per album to drop, as there are more albums being bought across the board. On the other hand, if one or two albums dominate the market and artificially increase the market, then the average number goes up. So if last year, there was an average of 50,000 sales per CD title, and that number didn't change even though album sales were up, it would tend to indicate that nothing has really changes. If it went up to 75,000/CD, then the market saturation problem is in effect and nullifies Napster's arguement. If it dropped to 25,000/CD, then there's good evidence that people are buying a wider range of music, and thus there's a bit more evidence for Napster here.
Of course, probably the only people with the ability to analyze such numbers is RIAA. In addition, these numbers would probably poorly reflect on the non-RIAA independent music distributors' contribution to the CD market -- most good alternative titles come from here, but doubtful that RIAA would track their sales too.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Yeah, but this attitude about sharing land is a lot easier if you're living in a hunter-gatherer society, where your survival is predicated more on your hunting/gathering skill. Once you start farming, you're probably more likely to be touchy about people wandering off w/your crops if they didn't help you grow them, just because "everyone must share the bounty of the land".
Oh, and you forgot to mention the stunningly simple and infomative infographics in Newsweek and Time. You know the ones that can turn rocket booster technology into an easy three-step design, or tell you how to install a replacement hip in 4 steps...
Now if only they would print a "How Napster is going to win the lawsuit" graphic...
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Why not require all napster programs to keep logs of what songs are downloaded, and at the same time display banner ads? Then, connect to a server (anon) and tell it what was downloaded. The money gained from the banner ads is divided amongst the artists, thus napsterites don't have to pay for their precious music, and the artists get money.
This is incredibly easy - I'm surprised it hasn't been instigated yet. And a very marginal percentage - .1 percent? - goest to the napster people. That still would ammount to a very large amount.
On another note, I'm sick of napster. It's sucking all the bandwidth on my campus college, and I'm quite looking forward for it to be banned. We've got 2 T1's with about 1300 students. At times, I get -bytes- of data. Not even kilobytes... Even at 5AM on Sunday night, I don't get too terribly much 50k/s - because the fools leave napster running. While napster shoudln't be banned, it's being WAY over used and abused. You better believe these same people would start to complain if a group of people started to routinely download multiple distro ISO's at a time, repeatedly.
-------
CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Face it: Napster is the only interesting thing going on in the pus filled trough called the music industry. The only interesting thing in years...
Oh boy. It looks like someone hasn't listened to Pierre Boulez's new one yet.
If, for demonstrational purposes, 100 million CDs were sold in 1998, and 125 million were sold in 1999, that would be a 25% increase over 1 year, and a new high in sales. Now, Napster, or a company like it, comes on the scene, and in the next year, 2000, 130 million CDs sold. Technically, more CDs were sold in 2000 than any other year, yes, but the rate at which sales increased dropped drammatically... only a 4% increase. If you took the Napster-like company out of the picture, you might be looking at closer to 150 million in CD sales...
Applying this concept to reality is not difficult. Record sales are up right now, yes, but the rate of increase has dropped, possibly due to Napster, but perhaps not.
At any rate, that's just my take on that particular point, I still side with Napster, and I still share over 8GB of music on it :)
-DB[ a directive occured while processing this error ]
Our economic system is based on the ability of people to be compensated for their work.
Then why aren't recording artists being compensated?
In the case of the music industry, we protect the artist's copyright so that they can be compensated for their work.
But the labels generally don't compensate the artists enough to make a living.
We buy the CD's, the record companies skim off the bulk of the money and pay some remaining portion to the artist.
According to Courtney Love, our "remaining portion" isn't even enough to buy promotion for the record, let alone pay the bills.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
The lawsuit is about a belief system, alsmost a religion in the case of the RIAA.
Copyright is only effective if enough people follow it.
If everybody copied stuff freely, how effective would copyright be?
We all know that civil disobedience is the best way to get ineffective laws challenged. If enough people challenge authority on a given issue, a democratic system has no choice but to alter the rules or become fascist or dictatorial in nature.
In the case of the RIAA the religion is money. Money is after all it's life. Rather than change from an existing paradigm, i.e. a closed market, controllable source for supply. It is faced with a radical shift in its revenue and thus its maneer of existence.
Given the current preponderance of mp3s and other digital media, there is no closed market ans the media of distribution is the internet, and the controllable supply is non-existant: you aren't limited by raw materials when creating copies of mp3s.
therefore the RIAA is being forced to fight for its own existence, not realising that by embracing the paradigm shift that it is facing it can metamorphasise into a powerful organisation for good.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
There is no such thing as intellectual property. (Patents may count as that in some sense, but they too are a limited monopoly) Copyright is not about ownership, its about just that. Copy rights. The idea that copyright is ownership has been recently publicized very loudly by various big publication industries, with the obvious effect. But I don't think they've managed to push any legislation through yet that changes that.... At least, I hope not.
However, you are right about the loss of profit thing. But that doesn't stop the music industry from screaming about it. And, IIRC, they're also claiming a loss of profit growth. As in, we would have sold MORE CDs without Napster.
-RickHunter
Its a tool not a torture device for RIAA goons.
Awww.... Then why have I been supporting it? ;-)
Seriously, the point that Napster is just a tool needs to be brought up repeatedly in this court case. After all, that's all the service is. If some Napster execs were encouraging people to illegally copy music, charge them. If some Napster users were illegally copying music outside of the bounds of fair use trading, charge them. (Although I'm sure the record industry will conveniently forget about the fair use aspect and just charge everyone)
Napster can be used to legally or illegally exchange music. It can be used to promote individual artists or torture RIAA goons. Oh, wait. Those last two are synonomous. Oh, well. :-P
-RickHunter
I'd like to throw in that I am a Napster user (a heavy one). I do not use a college network to get my music (have DSL.) Also I do not consider what I download to be music piracy. CD's that I particularly enjoy I go out and buy. Most of what I get from Napster falls into one of a few categories.
Live music that cannot be found on CD
"B" Sides that cannot be bought any more in the stores
Artists that I have not listened to before and want to try out before I plunk 13-20$ on a CD.
Artists who are not on major labels that I have not been able to find thier CD's yet
If you want to say that I am stealing go ahead.
Sorry for the rambling. It is still early where I am ;)
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
As a Napster user, I admit to some mixed feelings about the ethics of using Napster but I do think its important to consider the point of view of the artists and others that create content.
Our economic system is based on the ability of people to be compensated for their work. In the case of the music industry, we protect the artist's copyright so that they can be compensated for their work. We buy the CD's, the record companies skim off the bulk of the money and pay some remaining portion to the artist. Its not perfect, CD's cost too much, but the artist (at least in theory) gets compensated.
I've travelled around eastern Europe and was pretty amazed to see the rampant piracy of both music and software. Here's the problem, the system doesn't reinforce the value of creative work. All you need is a big CD burning operation and you get the money instead of the original artist or content creator. How different is Napster from what I just described except you don't have anyone profitting monetarily from the process (except maybe Napster.com sometime in the future)
I like the ability to preview music before buying it using Napster and I will admit that I have purchased music that I never would have bought without the access that Napster provided. Unfortunately, I wonder how often that really happens. Ok everyone, when's the last time you went to the record store and purchased a CD even though you had downloaded the same material on Napster? Right.
1) Its the economy stupid. People have more money. Parents have more money, but less time at home. Buy childrens love with more cds.
2) Demographics. There is a larger population increase for teens and such. (Generation Y, don't ya love being labeled?) This generation has lots of money and loves music.
3)Marketing. We are seeing more and more of it for music. Apparently, it is working.
4) Did I mention the economy and all the extra money people can spend on luxury items?
If the RIAA hadn't made such a big fuss about Napster, do you really think it would be one-tenth as popular as it is now? muhahahahahaha
---
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
No, I'm not. You're assuming that the only system which can be used to make money from music is the current pay-for-distribution system. This system actually serves to enrich the middlemen, not the artist. With our current system, artists make very little money from record sales. There seems to be no scarcity of people making music now. Why then do you assume that switching to a different system where artists make very little money from record sales will result in a shortage of people making music?
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Well, as I said the societies were communal. I'm sure they didn't like other societies stealing from them, but the concept of "ownership" of land and nature was still very foreign. The Iroquios, composed of six sub-nations, had a gigantic farming economy based on corn. But they still didn't think of property as Europeans did. As far as I understand, the treaties they made were more along the lines of "we will allow you to live beside us" instead of "we are splitting ownership of this land at this exact line with you".
Of course I'm not Native American so anything a real Native American has to say on this topic obviously overrides any opinion of mine.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
While it may not be easy to show that Napster has directly impacted CD sales either positively or negatively, one thing is easy to show; Napster has caused more discussion of music and musicians than any other event in decades. There's not a newspaper, news magazine or TV news program that hasn't done multiple stories on the Napster phenomena.
The demographics for Napster are far wider than what the RIAA has been claiming, 50% of the users are over 40 according to some reports. This is a group that did not, in general, consider music a vital part of their lives anymore. Napster has re-awakened their interest in music.
A completely unscientific observation: I was in a stereo store explaining Napster and MP3 to one of the salesguys I know. Also at the counter was a 60-something black preacher, in buying microphones for his church. The preacher's wife overheard our discussion of Napster and voluntered that she loved Napster, that she used it all the time to music.
This was not the 18 year old anarchist "typical Napster user" the RIAA is tring to sell us. Respectable older people are doing it as well. Bucko, when you can't convince 60 year old, churchgoing black ladies that something is immoral - give it up. It's over.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The Recipricol study didn't take into account the number of cd's students are purchasing online. And even in this 'perfect' scenario:
the case study didn't look at whether or not students were buying their cd's online. And in fact since his store's decline began two years ago, when Napster was just rolling out, it would be doubtful Napster could be the sole cause of it. A more judicious study would have examined bandwidth useage in comparison to lost sales.
As one record store owner said, "Sales are actually up because Napster has brought music to the forefront. Everybody's talking about music."
Listen, Sigmund, we'll discuss it in the morning.
It gets worse.
The law refers to it as a "royalty", not a tax. Unlike "digital audio recording device", and "digital audio recording medium", there is no special definition for "royalty" in 1001 of the law. One would assume that the word "royalty" has the ordinary meaning -- the same meaning that it has throughout the rest of Title 17 (copyright law) -- a payment to a copyright holder in exchange for the rights to reproduce a work. When a radio station pays the royalty on a song, they receive the right to broadcast that song. If I'm a record company, and I want to put out a compilation album, I agree to pay royalties to all the copyright owners of the songs on that album, and in return I receive in return the right to use those songs to make legal copies of my compilation album. Etc. etc. That's the entire point of a royalty.
However, according to the White House, unlike any other royalty in copyright law, one receives no rights whatsoever from paying this "royalty"! According to the Administration brief, all that consumers get, having paid a "royalty" directly to the recording industry, is immunization from lawsuits. The administration claims that home taping is still illegal -- even though you've paid real money to the RIAA -- it's just that the AHRA says that you can't be sued for it.
So it isn't actually a royalty then. What is it?
A tax? Taxes are supposed to be for the support of government. If this is a tax, then what is going on is conversion -- this law steals public funds from the treasury and gives it directly to private companies.
What sorts of common words describe payments that insulate illegal activity?
Protection money? Graft? The true nature of the AHRA comes to light.
Actually, it's not just selection of media from the store which is a problem with CDs. It's selection of media for lissening. I wrote a little program called Smartplay which "tries" to do two things: (1) learn your moods to more effectivly chose songs to play for you and (2) minimize the ammount of time you spend chosing the music you want to lissen to (ala no long periods chosing playlists and no distractions from crappy songs comming up under random play).
It's buggy as hell, but it proves my point that a software mp3 player on a computer can be MUCH better then CD players and current hardware mp3 player.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Isn't all those lawsuits a good thing in a way, because in the case periods and if there's a lot of press coverage - people will go to the sites and see whats so wrong with it. It isnt a wonder i believe, because Napster has been mentioned all over in the press. Publicitity is always good wether its bad or good. People do seek after illegal things honestly. Many don't care about copyright laws really :P
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
I download hundreds of bits of software over the course of the average month, most of them get deleted pretty swiftly. Sounds like napster are trying to boost their image by putting out vaguely suggestive press releases like this.
Edric.
"Additionally, in this case, if there is no loss of profit for the artists or record labels, then the claim that Napster represents "fair use" is strengthened a bit"
To say that because the recording industry didn't LOSE money last year, Napster is automatically fair use is stretching it a bit, don't you think? I mean, then all other forms of profit-free piracy would be fair use too, no?
Just because they profited SOME doesn't mean they didn't LOSE profit because of Napster. It's pretty hard for either side to prove how Napster affected profits, although I'm (sadly) sure that the record folks have "projected statististics" and whatnot that they could reference...
I wonder how they'd have done if they hadn't been in the news every day from getting sued by everyone in the world ever...
-- Bah weep grah nah weep nini bong
that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*.
So copyright infringement/piracy is ok, provided they make up the difference finacially?
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
I've experienced the same thing. The problem around my area was games, though- you get an entire dorm playing (insert your favorite/least favorite game) and it sucks the bandwidth real quick.
Of course, YMMV.
What do I do, when it seems I relate to Judas more than You?
Still not dead.
And since the record industry sold more CDs
then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*.
The amount of CD's they have sold proves nothing. The only way to determine whether or not napster had an adverse efect would be to have an alternate universe in which Napster did not exist, measure CD sales there, and then compare it to our world. In absence of that, there is no rational reason to believe that Napster has caused CD sales to rise (by the same token, there is no reason to believe in the converse of that statement either).
While I think that Napster presents a great leap in freedom for computer users, akin to the signifigance of Open Source, it is far too early to declare any sort of victory.
-- Floyd
-- Floyd
And what if you listen to, say, Celtic folk music, and the radio stations around you play Top 40?
Then you subscribe to folk music magazines, and read the reviews, and buy what sounds interesting.
What if you listen to techno, and the only radio stations you get in your car are country & western?
Then you bury your head in shame. What does techno have to do with music?
How many times have you been in a record store and picked up a CD because you thought the name of the artist was neat/you liked the cover art/your best friend knew someone who knew someone who once listened to the band?
About 75% of the 1,000+ CD I own were bought without listening to a single note first, and at least in half of the cases, not having read a review first. Getting a recommendation means it's no risk at all.
If your record store is like most, there aren't any listening stations. Are you willing to pay $22 for a CD you might hate?
No. But I'll risk $15 on what might be my next favorite CD. You can stop the lying right now: if you have trouble finding places that charge less than US$22 for new domestic CD's, then you are really clueless.
Or would you simply download three tracks from Napster, listen to them, and buy the CD if you liked those 3 tracks?
Few serious music lovers like to listen to samples first because it dilutes the experience of the album, and gives a potentially faulty impression. Moreover, you need to listen to an album in its entirety 30-40 times before you make a decision on it. The most significant investment in purchasing a new album is not the rather paltry $15 spent on it, but the 30-40 hours needed to understand it.
Though I question how it's 'stealing', as there's no actual deprivation of property going on, and a lot of times, the people doing the download are the people who wouldn't buy the album after all.
Please buy a book on copyright law. This will help to answer your questions.
Although sometimes even I get swayed by the spinola.
Working for the (other) man
proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Napster is probably poised to make more in way of revinue from this lawsuite that they may have to pay in fines....unless of course they are forced to close their doors.
Who is lobbying for change? If everyone thinks that Napster is such a good thing what are we doing about it. Can't we the people(sorry I quoted that from somewhere and didn't give them credit) lobby for changes in some of these laws to allow for things like Napster(I think I need a copyright thing here). If this should be legal why don't we make it so. After all we did elect them we should have some sort of control over what happens. Since Napster's usage has grown 4 fold don't they make money some how. Can't we pay some freaking lobbyist to do some work for the geeks, maybe start a web sit for people to add there names to for change in the copy right laws. After all, these things are broadcast over the air through my body, doesn't that make it at least a little bit mine.
Because of this, I'm planning to launch "freeslashdot.net", which is basically the entire slashdot site, but without any of those irritating banner ads. We'll just have a script that regularly sucks all the content off slashdot onto our site. A bit rough on Malda, who won't get paid, but who gives a fuck about that, huh, Npaster-fans? Of course, if we end up getting sued by VA Linux, we'll just move to a Gnutella-like distribution system and get the EFF to defend us. Long Live Free (as in loader) dom!
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Isn't this what the RIAA does with CDs?
And you will be the replacing our capitalist system with... What? Communism?
By the subject "Napster Usage Quadruples," I was hoping it'd turn out to be something like "scientists have found that using Napster quadruples your processor speed," or something like that...
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
In an economy that grows at 3-5 percent of course record sales go up. But are they growing faster than ever before. Is there growth tracking with the rest of the economy. I haven't seen these figures so I can't say. But that is the question that needs asking. In My mind they probably have. Because I believe in the argument that napster promotes music and helps the industry. But like the say opinions are like...
`Course, I can't seem to log into the gnutella network either. *grumble*
My logic stated nothing about alternative piracy. My logic is based on Napster cannot be solely blamed. I still believe a more valid study would be to compare bandwidth useage in local colleges compared to cd purchases coupled with polls of college students. Why do some retailers report great sales in their college area stores and others report losses? Inventory, selection, and price are usually the causes.
Listen, Sigmund, we'll discuss it in the morning.
"And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*."
How long will that last?? Once affordable technology catches up, CD sales are going to be huuuurting.
Even if Napster is helping CD sales (which I think it is) by people using it to sample music that they will then purchase, that'll only last so long.
The only reason I've seen this is that I personally have bought a total of 2 CDs this year because of the fact that I have a Personal Jukebox.
I think that the RIAA is being very smart in being afraid of Napster (and clones).
Napster may not be a bullet to the brain, but it's definately an infectuous disease of some sort.
__No, that is not my real address__
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000912/263219 2s.htm
What if RIAA knows this? And what if they're using the lawsuit to get Napster into the public conciousness? I know plenty of people (my parents, professors...) that knew nothing of Napster a year ago. But now that the lawsuits are in full swing, everyone at least has an idea of the concept of Napster.
RIAA couldn't very well directly endorse Napster, as they would then lose all rights to future copyright claims (and I could envision some situations in which the copyright would be useful), so they use the court system and a massive anti-Napster FUD campaign (which is, by the way, really weak) as a marketing tool.
I mean, wouldn't the most effective way of getting rid of Napster to have been to buy out the company (see post script at the end.... I have another thought on this) and quietly slowly turn it into a pay-per use service (or something)? Instead, we have this lawsuit. I dunno.
PS. Why is Napster a company? How do they plan to make money? They just got $15 million in venture capital, but for what? To sponsor more free tours? Develop the app some more? They give away free software so that you can download free music, yet they have VC money coming out their ears! It confuses me. Perhaps RIAA is also quietly funding Napster?
Comments are welcome
Dont forget
*Napster is just horribly written software anyways. Why not use something better, like ftp.
Double J. Strictly for the . . .
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."
Yes, but a giant like RIAA will not be an ostrich and stick it's head in the sand. This would have come to head one way or another.
...but till it supports linux and mozilla
i dont see myself useing it...
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
Overall record sales are up, not because Napster did anything, but because the economy is good and sales are up. If not for Napster then sales would likely have been even higher.
Get Real! Pay for you own stuff. Stealing is wrong!
Just because both have a common variable (music) does not mean that Music sales are up just because people are using Napster. It could be a swell in the number of good artists (I doubt it) but we Don't know, so we can't just assume that it is Napster that's driving record sales through the roof. We're jumping to conclusions that can't be made yet.
So there I was. Naked. In a refrigerator. With a potroast on my knees. Smokin a cigar. That's when it got REALLY weird.
* Napster is bad cause it's just plain breaking the law.
* Naw every revolution went through its share of law breaking. The outlaws are looked upon as heroes today.
* Napster is just an ISP. The users are responsible.
* Let Napster die! That way a better distributed software will take over.
* When will they learn? The revolution can't be stopped!
* Napster boosts sales (see article).
* They can't shut down Napster because I only download songs I have on CDs.
* They can't shut down Napster because its the way I distribute my songs.
* Come on, you know what Napster is used for! 99% of shared music is pirated!
* Hey I have an idea, why not embed DeCSS in an mp3 and name that file metalica.mp3 and upload that in your shared directory!
I think these debates were interesting, but having them everyday is getting old and I'd really rather have news about gnutella and freenet every now and then.
Relinquish
Actually, computers differ from VCRs because software is often copied exactly identical to the original, without degradation on its quality. If you copy a VCR which was copied from a copy, then it would show a great deal of distortion from the original. Whereas with software, it doesn't matter if the file was copied 500 times before you copied it, it would be completely identical to the original.
The kid will then go out of it's way to do what you just told it not to do!
If they really wanted people to stop using Napster, they should've used reverse psychology... "Napster is just the dandiest!" ;>
From a moral standpoint I don't see any difference. The main difference lies in the fact that Napster bugs the RIAA because it makes music sharing so easy. Making mix tapes requires a physical medium that costs money. Trading mp3's with Napster costs barely anything and reaches out to thousands of users (as opposed to just your friends) in a very short amount of time.
Relinquish
You're absolutely correct. It is control of the RADIO that is the biggest stake here. Radio stations, now owned by half a dozen big corporations with well written contracts with record industry all adds up to a giant marketing chain.
What Napster does is break this chain. It allows _us_ to pick where, when and how we want to listen to music. Once you cut Radio out of the loop half of the recording industries business goes down the drain.
Haven't you seen the patterns? New album comes out, single gets played on the radio over and over and over. Then next single from the album gets played, then they rotate it back in. These "featured" singles get you to buy an entire CD which is more often than not, CRAP!
I think it's WRONG for people to not get paid for their music. But what the hell, why don't these rock bands get out of their contracts and sign new ones with napster. Bring forth the brave new world of rock and rollers!!!!!!!
cpeterso
I think what this proves is that the music industry has screwed them selves. They gave napster there name. With all the law suits and contraversy over it, people have come more aware of online music. So more people went and got the software.
This would also work great for the music industry if they could come up for a way of using this. By that I mean make money, but not charge people for it like some companies do because the music is so easily bootlaged. So perhaps they could come out with high quality music besides mp3 that had say an ad at the end of it. You listen to it once then if you know how you can cut out the ad. Though the edited copy would probly still get sent out, but I'm just trying to come up with a GOOD compermise.
-Screw you I know my spelling sucks
But there is financial damage, in the form of value received but not paid for. That's precisely why this whole "information wants to be free" thing is a sham. If you want something that I own, its format notwithstanding, you either accept my offer to pay what I'm asking, or you find something else. You don't just take it. The actual cost of reproduction is completely irrelevant. If it has value, you pay. Pure, simple, market dynamics. Additionally, in this case, if there is no loss of profit for the artists or record labels, then the claim that Napster represents "fair use" is strengthened a bit.
Are you suggesting that if I write a song and release it for purchase by the public, that I lose all manner of choice with respect to the means of distribution - that by virtue of the fact that you might want it, but I have no say in how you acquire it?
I'd wager that both Firestone and Ford would argue about "bad publicity" too.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
"When I was trying it out I used it to download stuff by long dead artists who were screwed by their labels to begin with, and things which were just not available through the normal distribution mechanism."
Like Creedence Clearwater Revival, they got seriously screwed, and as far as I know, didn't walk away with a cent....
...if the statistics had been more recent. Usage quadrupled between February and July. Ho hum. And duh!
I think Media Matrix just released this to get some media attention.
I think it would be more interesting to know what's happened since the injunction was issued and stayed.
Nah. It'll go to at least one picosecond before the end of the universe. By that time, we'll have AIs trading MP3s for us. ^_^
-RickHunter
The college I went to recently banned napster, citing network lag, etc, as the cause.
Of course, they also just upgraded the entire network last summer ('99), and I believe they banned it very early in this school year without even seeing if napster usage would in fact noticeably lag the network. Curious.
I would have loved to see their network stats during those couple of days... seriously wondering if they're just using "oh, the network can't handle it" as an excuse because administration is afraid they'll get sued someday.
gotta love higher ed. sometimes...
As I stated in my original post, I'd also argue that the RIAA could not prove that they've lost money due to Napster usage either. There are other more gross effects that reduce the impact of Napster to a negligible amount.
The RIAA is guilty of being an epsilon minus with respect to mathematics. That doesn't mean that misrepresenting statistics for the cause of the moment doesn't make you less of an epsilon minus.
The biggest problem with most of the advocacy I see for any agenda is that they resort to the same half truths and types of misinformation as the point of view they're opposing. Personally as somebody who despises being misled or lied to it raises my defensive barriers to the point where I can't tolerate being associated with any group. As I result I write off any attempts to gather signatures pro-Napster or pro-anything as just another bunch of charlatans who happen to represent a view I happen to agree with.
I've been trying to find a good way to hear new (to me) music. Downloading random mp3s from Napster or IRC just doesn't seem that productive. I found a new site Echo.com that lets you customize streaming music to your computer. As each song plays you get to rate the song, the artist, and the album. You can also rate them on the web site The web site then uses these rankings plus the types of music you select when you set up your station to send you a custom stream.
Your steam includes songs you've ranked highly and new music that is similar to what you've ranked highly (you get to select how much new music you hear compared to ranked songs). It has an incredible selection of music. Rock (old and new), Jazz, Rap, Country, Religious, and other types. There are well known artists (to me at least) like The Black Crowes, Eminem, Pink Floyd, Dr. Dre, Fleetwood Mac, and Limp Bizkit mixed in with people I've never heard of. Exactly what I want.
You can set up different "stations" with different music types and invite other people to listen. You can also chat with the other people listening to the same station as you. It requires Real Player 8, Flash, and a recent version of Netscape or Internet Explorer and it works great on my Win 2000 box. They also give you points for listening (based on how long you listen), and you can redeem your points for stuff.
This seems like it would be a great way for new artists to get noticed. The player has a BUY button on it that takes you to amazon to let you buy the artists CD, and if people were rating them highly, they would be played more often as an Echo suggestion.
I for one was using their program before they got sued.
The point is, that they got lots of press coverage because they are in court. People hear on the news about a program that allows you to get lots of illegal MP3s and they think "cool."
It like when Bill Clinton was being impeached and his favor rating when up. So there really isn't a such thing as bad publicity because any publicity is good.
Of course, there are expections like Exxon's spilling oil.
One of them even purchased a better Internet connection, reasoning that its cost would be covered by the minor number of CD purchased. (matter of few hundred euros per year, not a big thing)
Of course, they download a lot more music that they would ever purchase, including almost unknown artists whose music would never have been sold in the part of Europe I leave.
So, at least from my experience, increased Napster usage means that more music got listened to (which is good), but also that less CD are sold ( which is bad ... at least for RIAA ).
Ciao
----
FB
Second grounds that I am not stealing or in my opinion engaging in anything but fair use under copyright laws is that I do support my artists. I own around 150+ CD's in my collection. A lot of them from the bands that I think are doing a great job. Looking thgrough my collection now most of them are from non-Riaa members. Alternative tentacles, Henry Rollins studio ect. There are only 2 or three bands that I have CD's for That are involved in this lawsuit. Now I go to my hard drive and look at the music there. Ohhhh look. Low and behold, I download the same music that I buy. Wow look at that collection of live songs from the Dead kennedies that were taped from thier last show ever. Where would I buy those. Or maybe I should fly to Germany to get these German versions of Sisters of Mercy songs. Or look. Copies of bootlegs in my wifes Jane's Addiction collection. I do pay for my own stuff.
Pithy, yet ultimately meaningless, phrase expressed with gusto!
Where are all these "the record industry sold more CD's than they have in the last 10 years combined" statistics come from?
Prove it.
And prove that its progression has accelerated. Obviously there is a standard increase as population grows, but has this standard progression increased, or dropped.
If a companies sales don't grow from year to year, there is a problem.
Quit spouting unsubstantiated facts in an argument that you already aren't being reasonable about. Sout the GPL on one post, and to hell with copyright in the other. The GPL doesn't work without copyright laws.
I would have to agree with this comment. Napster was probably the best thing to happen to the RIAA. If they want to control mp3 trading, Napster is there best bet. If mp3 trading goes back to IRC(well, that is where I used to do it at least) and ftp sites(another familiar favorite) the RIAA is going to have to try even harder to control mp3 trading, and in my opinion, they are going to fail miserably. I have yet to try Gnutella, but, I think that I am going to give it a try tonite and see what is it all about.... Chris
If for example I were to write a song and openly release it on the Internet I would forfeit much of my legal ownership over the property irrespective of any paper legal claims I may have filed claiming ownership.
This is total bullshit, you don't know your copyrights from your patents. If I write a song, then I FUCKING OWN IT, and more to the point, I get to stipulate under what conditions it is distributed. Copyright is the legal mechanism which recognises that fact, I forfeit nothing in distributing it "freely" or otherwise.
If I specify that you may only download my song if you pay me money, then you must pay me the money in exchange for the song, or else I can sue you. If I say that you're not allowed to make a copy for your friends (fair use excepted), and you do, then I can sue you for copyright infringement. If I say that you can make copies freely to all and sundry, then fine, you can copy it for your friends. But at all points in time, I am recognised as the creator and owner of the song, and as such can determine the conditions of distribution.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
In other words, back when relatively few people were using Napster, more CDs were sold. That hardly constitutes proof that Napster usage hasn't effected CD sales. This year's sales figures would be relevant, but last year's don't mean a thing.
(...note to self... invest in stock of hard drive manufacturers.)
--
I can't get used to this American definition of "liberal". Liberal means freedom-loving, not "left-wing control freak".
Also, if you believe the USA has a "Big Government" you should get out more.
You know, escort services are just tools too. They just provide people with a date for the night, it's just that some people use it as an excuse for prostitution (no I'm not against prostitution, but it provides a good example). If these services are found to be providing prostitutes, they are either fined HUGELY or more likely shut down. There may be one or tow guys who use them to really get a date for a party and not have sex, but in general that isn't happening. Sounds kinda like Napster. NApster can't control what it's users do, just like an escort service can't control what it's employees do. They both can be used for legitimate purpose, but aren't be the overwhelming majority. So why should Napster get off scot free when it was designed for illegal activity, encourages people to engage in illegal activity, and turns a blind eye to that illegal activity?
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
When's the last time Trent Lott, Jesse Helms and their ilk were called "liberal"? Those are the guys who want to pass the laws you fear. I'm with you 100% on claiming rights to communicate securely, but it's not a liberal/conservative issue.
scientists prove that consumption of icecream dramatically increases your odds of drowning.
You know why? All the publicity it's been getting has sparked the curiosity of millions of people, and millions of these millions are saying "Woah! Free Music!"
And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*.
That proves nothing. Ground Beef sales are up, because more people are buying skillets. Sure, they're related but not necessarily proportional.
"The notion of copyright was not invented by artists to protect themselves from honest individuals sharing their enthusiasm about their work," he writes. "It was invented by artists to protect themselves from dishonest and hypocritical individuals and companies exploiting their work without their consent." - Prince (The artist formerly known as 'The Artist', now known as 'Prince'), from this ABCNews Article
While I don't view Napster in the same light that Prince does, he makes an excellent point about copyright.
Unfortunately, Napster is raping that copyright from the artists. Don't tell me that all Napster users preview their music before they buy it. That excuse was invented by the company's founder, and people trying to justify stealing. No matter how much you argue to the contrary, you know DAMN well that most Napster users are using it to get free music. (I will admit, there are some users on there who DO sample music before buying. Don't label me one, though. I don't use Napster, and I've only SEEN it used once. If I like a song on the radio, I'll buy the CD - Single, or Album.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
That's not a very useful blurb... I daresay Napster's usage has quadrupled many times since its inception. Now I'm going to have to follow the link, and actually read the article. What's the world coming to?
Ah, okay... since February. Sheesh... doing my own research... thought this was a news site... ;-)
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Thanks for the feedback...But again, just like the 'numbers' type of rationale for criminalizing Napster, the 'sound quality' argument seems impossible to quantify..In other words, how much noise needs to be introduced before the copy can be considered no longer in violation of copyright? And wile MP3's may not lose quality with successive copies, I can still tell the difference between them and the originals (but they *do* sound good on my fisher-price headphones :)...Sorry if I'm veering off topic...
Don't read this!
Kinda have that already, in scour exchage... (client available on download.com, or via scour's website, www.scour.com - currently 19 TB of stuff out there, I've seen it as high as 25TB.
Well, I guess we need to thank Lars for all the free publicity...Kind of Ironic....
Don't pick up the pho*(@)$*@&@!@ NO CARRIER
> You're forgetting that when business and
> copyright mix, the motive is always profit. Of
> course the lawsuits would be dropped if Napster
> proved to increase the profits of record
> producers. As much as I hate to say this, think
> business.
It is also about control. Remember the music industry almost has a monopoly. In fact, given that they are all banded together in the RIAA, I would say that it is a monopoly in every way except legal documents.
They have created a buisness model that is suited to the situation where they control the means of distribution. It is another "Broadcast" "One to many" medium.
The net is changing this slowly but surely. I think that they see a larger problem. Sure, in the short term, Napster may be able to increase profit for them. However in the long term, fostering this type of shareing may cause them to become completely obsolete.
Its not about short term profit, its about long term survival.
--Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Oh excuse me. No, but seriously it proves the point that I have always seend with things like napster. Many people dont just use it in place of cds, they use it in addition to cds. Whether as a decision factor in making a purchase (which is understandable with high cd prices) or as an easy alternative for home listening for cd owners, most folks do not know how to rip a cd to mp3s, (enter napster). The freedom of not having to keep popping in cds and archaicley (sp) searching through your 100+1 or 5 disk cd changer can be a real pain in the ass and it will hopefully be presented in napster's case. Things have to change.
Its a tool not a torture device for RIAA goons.
New artists will need something like echo.com to get thier work heard by people who will probably like them and support them (cd sales, t shirts, banner ads on the bands web site, or something)
It would be interesting if the napster server logs were ever opened up, to see what people actually downloaded. I wonder what percentage would be Top 40 material?
and control. Which RIAA will eventually lose if they allow other ways of distributing songs. Imagine a universe where every joe shmoe could sell MP3s legally on his website and give a portion to the artist. RIAA wouldn't like that very much...
...but they wouldn't be around to bitch about it.
Um, there's a reason why they started getting sued, and it wasn't because noone was using the program. AFAIR, when Spamtellica started complaining and filing for a lawsuit, Napster already had millions of users worldwide.
no sig
If anything, I've gone back into the closet over time. When "streetlawyer" came out, he was "street", and used to swear incoherently all the time. I kind of lost the fire in my belly for a while (plus I was just getting modded down by people who don't like reading the word "cunt"), so I tried to make it a bit more subtle. There's a bit more information about this on my user page. I've certainly never claimed that this isn't a troll account, though.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
Er, whats so sad about it? If they get their projected statistics from a firm which has a track record for acurate projections +/- X% and have the paper trail to show that those were the projections, it will be viable evidence.
What they will probably have is way more than that, though. They will likely show up with past and projected ratios that will blow all this sophmoric "they made more money *cough*cough*" stuff out of the water.
I can just see it: RIAA witness "I work for an independant accounting firm that was hired to examine the effect of napster on music sales overall and within various subgroups. The overall sales rates were within or slightly below projections and trends from previous years. However, while all previous years showed a consistancy of increase or decrease between demographic groups, this year there was a huge change in certain youth subgroups, which were either statisitically below the increase posted by other groups or were actually decreased from previous years. This sort of disconnect in trends between groups is largly unprecedented, and I can only note that the polling company we hired found that the decreased demographics were those with the highest Napster and file sharing usage. If these subgroups had been within even the lowest range of projected buying given the other groups numbers, the companies I represent would have made millions of dollars more this year."
Slashdotter "Hey, your sales went up, you must be full of it! Lars sucks! When is Natalie Portman coming out with a record?"
Wonder which argument will matter to a judge expereinced with copyright cases?
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Seems like the record companies' efforts to stop Napster are suspiciously effective at marketing Napster's service. I wonder if Napster actually *paid* to get sued... ...or maybe I've read one too many spy novels lately :-)
Between the RIAA market report and the original story, we have some hard numbers:
1) Napster users went from 1.1M (February) to 4.9M (July).
2) Number of CDs shipped in the first six months of 2000 are 420M. This represents a 6% increase from last year (or an increase of 24M units).
Therefore, for the increase to be driven by Napster users, they would have to be buying 5 extra CDs apiece as a result of their Napster exposure. That's nearly one per month. I don't think anyone has numbers supporting that sort of average increase. If it is indeed the cause, we would expect another four fold increase in Napster usage (to 20M) to generate an additional 75M units. Those record company folks are going to get rich, rich rich.
Interestingly, the RIAA article credits the increase to first-quarter releases by Britney Spears, 'N SYNC, and Eminem. No doubt those obscure groups were benefitted by the try-before-you-buy opportunity presented by Napster.
Dale Stephenson
Also, just like the Audio CDRs are only different in that the RIAA gets royalties, they also get royalties from cassettes. So, copy tapes and share all you want, they got your money, too. Or buy "Audio" CDRs and copy and share those...they won't care.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
It's not just ease of copying files. Because this is digital copying, those files are *perfect* copies of the original. Not like analog tapes where quality was lost for every copy of a copy.
The RIAA is not lashing out against Napster over lost revenue in CD sales. Its about much more than that. Its about control. If Napster continues to bring the world examples of music from around the world, pretty soon people will be making up their own minds about what artists they enjoy. Superstars will have to create themselves based on talent and real appeal (not just sex) not just be created by the recording industry's tested advertising formulae. If the masses stop flocking like sheep, the era of the quadrouple platinum album (not a single song created by the artist) will become a memory. The manipulation of the crowds (drink geeky cola, wear goofy jeans) will fade to a memory.
What the RIAA is fighting for here is the right to maintain the monopoly they have created and the right to advertise in it.
Its like shootin fishin a barrel.
I used to be upset 'cause I had no sig
then I met a man who had no feet,
so I stole his sig
he wasn't goin' anywhere with it anyway
Sorry to tell you BUT sales went down near colleges where napster is used most... while annual sales are 120% of what they were in 1997, near colleges it's 98% meaning that around colleges it's 22% LESS than everywhere else, AND it's going down. Reciprocal(TM), Inc. did the study on this.
I have always wondered how Napster will generated revenue, What if the design their software to support non intrusive banner ads? and sell it, sounds like they might make some money? I said "some money" not a lot. :)
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
As I understand it, the main reason Napster is considered different is the fact that MP3s are (for all intents and purposes) lossless, CD-quality recordings of digital music. If you tape a CD, then the tape is invariably lower quality, acoustically, than the original. Say you give that tape to a friend. If your friend makes a copy of that tape to give someone else, the tape HE tape is gonna sound worse than the one you made. So on and so forth until the quality is so bad it's not worth making copies. Now, with today's hi-fi recording technology, that problem isn't as bad as it used to be, but it's definitely still a limiting factor on how many "degrees" from the original source a song can travel. IIRC, that's the only reason tapes and tape recorders weren't banned right at the start, and why the RIAA doesn't chase down 'tape pirates'.
An MP3 can be copied an infinite number of times with zero quality loss. This means that if a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend made this MP3, the copy that YOU got, passed through all those people, sounds EXACTLY the same as the original. The RIAA's reasoning (if you can call it that) is that no one is going to go out and buy CDs if they can get perfect copies for free. Tapes, however, are "ok" because the copies made are lower quality than the original, and will get worse with every person they go through.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
She's a webserver.
She's a firewall.She can be anything you want her to be.
Can she be a female zebra in heat????no sig
Oh my me! When corporations are run over by new technology, everyone crys. What about the tens of thousands of workers who lost their jobs in the 80's due to technology. When technology advances and hurts us, we are told to buckle down, work harder, get re-trained, it's our fault for being so stupid. But when the same technological advancement hurts corporations, we told, technology bad, technology evil! Hey CorpGovLLC, get re-trained, work harder, buckle down, technology good, technology the engine that could, we have a booming economy due to these technology advancements, don't be such a luddite.
an enigma wrapped around a paradox driven by a paradigm shift
It just proves that the RIAA have dont a phenomenal amount for napsters business.
Just like gnutella would have probably quietly disappeared into the woodwork, when AOL pulled it off the site they catapulted it into the limelight.
How many other software packages besides napster and windows 95 have actually made it into the mainstream press. There aren't many.
Sadly what the RIAA dont realise is whilst they may well stop napster the product, they will almost certainly never stop the thinking behind it and the desire to trade in mp3s.
Sadly for them, napster was probably their best chance at controlling it.
I think our forefathers died for marketing.
they were mentioned on Slashdot
"that which does not kill me makes me bitter" -anon
You said it Taco! Stealing music is Cool!1!!11!
The RIAA was friendly enough to build one of the most well known brands in the software industry for Napster, Inc. Thank you, RIAA.
© Copyright 2000 Kristian Köhntopp
Not so much from free speech, but from resource issues. I didn't need CNN to tell me there are more people using the service --- I can see it every time I try to get anything done using the Net. Whenever I want to use one of the public terminals, there's at least one which is taken up by some guy burning another full CD. (Thankfully, they kick you off if you're doing those things when the lab is crowded and somebody needs to type a paper.) Over the past two weeks, the network has gone from slow-but-functional to five-minute-latency, and that's *after* they fixed the outages. (I am not making this up.) I'm not at all comfortable with the ethical implications of the service to begin with, and now it's also getting in my way when I want to read news or look up information.
There was a guy yesterday who mentioned that the University of Tennessee (I think) was going to put the dorms on one outgoing connection and everything else on a different connection. I hope that experiment works, because if the trend continues, you can expect MP3 sharing (at universities, anyway) to be killed on technological rather than legal grounds.
>sucking all the bandwidth on my campus college,
>and I'm quite looking forward for it to be
>banned. We've got 2 T1's with about 1300
>students.
Well, your problem is not Napster. Your problem is that (2*T1)/1300students == totally fscking INSUFFICENT bandwidth!!!
Drag your IT dept into the street and have them shot, drawn and quartered, and their heads impaled on stakes in front of the CompSci building as a warning to the next ten generations NOT to be a totally incompetent MORON!
Then have your new IT staff get a reasonable amount of bandwidth.
But don't blame Napster because some cretinous beancounter got the stupid idea that 3Mbps was a sufficent amount of bandwidth to divvy up between 1300 people.
Hell, I have a 640/640Kbps DSL at home, and I BY MYSELF am able to saturate that line far too often! I'd get more, but I'm too far from the phoneCo's office. That's just over a THIRD of a T1. I can't imagine the torture of shareing it with 216 other ppl! Hell, you'd be better off w/ a 56K dialup!
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
It should be observed that the record industry's lawsuits could be viewed as a defense mechanism related to the legal nuances of information property. According to precedent (at least in the US) to maintain ownership of intellectual property you have to be able to show that you have a clear track record of defending you rights to the property.
If for example I were to write a song and openly release it on the Internet I would forfeit much of my legal ownership over the property irrespective of any paper legal claims I may have filed claiming ownership.
While it seems clear to any outside viewer that from a sales point of view the record companies should embrace the Internet as a new distribution channel, and while their failure to establish any viable Internet distribution solution stands as glaring failure on their part, it has to be recognized that it would have been irrational for them to have simply openly embrace the new Internet music distributors when by doing so they would not only have risked being destroyed by the new technologies but also by the old legal precedents.
Well... Maybe that's not quite appropriate, but it seems to me that the RIAA's done Napster a tremendous favor by suing the crap out of them. Maybe Napster should move their legal expenses into "Advertising Budget" and take a tax credit...
And see, now that all those people have got it in their heads how easy it is to find and trade music on the net, they won't stop once Napster goes away. The big intellectual hump is not finding a method to trade them -- they'll go on IRC or gnutilla or the net news groups. The big intellectual hump is investing the effort to investigate the technology. Installing the MP3 player, making sure the hardware is up to snuff, maybe getting some CD ripping software, etc.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
"And since the record industry sold more CDs then ever last year, that of course proves what all these lawsuits are about *cough*"
The lawsuits have little to do with actual record sales. Sure, that may be the immediate motivation, but the moral issue at stake is the artists right to their own work.
If I make an album, I am the only person who has any rights over my work. I alone can choose where I want that work distributed, and I alone can choose whether I want to share my work. When an artist signs to a record label, they give up some right to their work in exchange for the distribution and development support provided by the label. This gives the label incentive to put their financial backing behind bands, as they will ultimatly receive a reward (money) for their risk. Now when a band starts, they get raped by the label, but the label is usually fronting all the money for the album to be created and produced. As the artist becomes more successful, the label knows there is less of a risk, and they usually only need pay for the production and distribution of the final product, so they can afford to re-negotiate a better contract with the company.
What CmdrTaco suggests, by saying that unit sales should be the ultimate guide to the validity of the napster model, is that bands and companies should not care if their rights are invaded just because somebody waves some green in front of them.
People argue about the how tragic that inventor/researcher is whose work is being included in a broad property patent, but most realize that the company has the right to do it becuase that was part of the contract. How is this any different?
Oh wait, the record companies and a handful of the artists are rich, so their rights in modern society are have been automatically abdicated in favour of those who claim looting rights to their work becuase they are not as rich.
five fingers make a fist amalgamate and resist
Think about this for a second. People have been saying that this strengthens Napster's case, blah blah, now Napster will survive cause the RIAA/MPAA/Uncle Sam/The Man/etc are all makin' money.
Then it gets qualified with at least now. Who cares if the RIAA is still making money the way it is in five years? Yes, it is impractical to carry a laptop and whatnot around when CDs are far more convienient and of higher quality.
I don't think the RIAA should be worried about their revenue for a looong time. Five years is eternity in "Internet Time". The whole world wide web's only been around for 10 years, and its only been useful (well, that's another debate) to Joe User for the last four or so.
In five years, maybe MP3s will be the death of CDs. But if in five years, the RIAA can't figure out some new distribution model to continue to make money, then they deserve what they get.
In fact, with the existence of random events, you wo9uld have to have a statistically significant sample size of alternate universes without Napster and another sample groups of our worlds and compare the results of the two groups.
The number would be a bit higher if opennap didn't exist.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Though I have been following this whole thing and have pondered the ethical/moral/ and okay enen legal aspects of the case, one thing I have never heard adequately explained is how using Napster to share files is any different than what i spent my whole misspent youth doing - namely, making mix tapes of music to swap with friends. Is it just a matter of the *numbers* involved? Or is it just that it's so public and blatant? Insight please!
Don't read this!
There's a truism in the marketing business There's no such thing as bad publicity.
Now I doubt that it's true for Firestone [tires], but it certainly is true for Napster. Now maybe the politicians will stop negative advertising.
You can debate what quadruples means, especially from such a low base. But it's clear the growth rate is unusually high, and the real question is what would it have been in the absence of the suit.
The Napster application is very compelling, but the suit got word out through many channels very quickly, and I suspect attracted more users than it repelled.
Is there Napster type software that doesn't depend totally on a server. I know Napster has servers that keeps a list of users running Napster. Could we make it so it only depends on the users computers. Then the record companys would only have their customers to go after :).
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Just because I had a diet Dr. Pepper for breakfast and the world hasn't ended today does not indicate a correlation.
'35 percent of all Napster users are between the ages of 35 and 54. Just 15 percent of all Napster users are between the ages of 18 and 24.
And, the RIAA have a market report on their site which covers US Recorded Music Shipments for the first half of this year, which roughly covers the period mentioned by the Media Metrix survey.
In the RIAA's own words 'The number of full-length CDs manufacturers shipped to the U.S. market is at an all-time high, growing 6.0% from this time last year'
When VCRs were introduced, "they" said that people would stop going to the movie theatre... Nope, people want to "go out" sometimes - a foreign concept to some geeks though.
When e-commerce started up, "they" said that it would take a bite out of "bricks and mortar" commerce... apparently not - at least not yet.
So, now there is napster - and "they" say that it will decrease music sales - apparently not.
Never believe what "they" say - but always listen - you never know, "they" might be right someday.
BlackNova Traders