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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*.
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
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".
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
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?
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!
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?
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.
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.
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
Although sometimes even I get swayed by the spinola.
Working for the (other) man
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
http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000912/263219 2s.htm
I would never allow innovations to occur. Why? because someone might do it better than me, and eventually put me out of business.
Look at how fast the computer industry changes today. IBM is kicking themselves in the ass for letting the PC get out of their control. Hot companies come and go in the computer industry (just look at Apple, Novell, WordPerfect, oh.. the list is so so long).
So you and I might agree that we'd love to see a new distribution method. We even say that it'll make the Big-5 more money! But the Big-5 see it differently: Research, development, and then competition.
The Big-5 even own the artists. They have everything under control, and every dollar spent in the music industry practically goes to them. Why would they want to change, and maybe lose all that?
I think that if they did adopt MP3-CD's, and rolled with the whole paradigm shift, that it would of course be profitable, but then all of a sudden the artists might figure out that they could do the same thing on their own. It all boils down to that carrot they dangle in front of all the artists... that they too can be rich and famous like [fill in famous artist name here]. -- But only if you sign up 7 years with them.
On a final note... yes, maybe Napster won't get slapped with copyright violations exactly like Mp3.com did, but you can be guaranteed that if they lose, they will owe the Big-5 some big bucks... either in the form of the court costs, and/or "damages" done. If the Big-5 prove that they could have increased sale by 8% last year instead of 6%, maybe Napster will owe that 2%. (what is 2% of a bazillion dollars??)
On top of that, Napster has no other form of interest to users... if next time you log in, and you see only my girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's band available for download... just how long will you stick around?
Have a nice day,
The Big-5 is....
Rader
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.
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 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
Your second fallacy is the assumption that information can be "owned." Only one entity (either an individual or a group acting as a unit) can own a piece of physical property. If I take that property from you, you're deprived of it's possesion and use. That's exactly why there is a legitimate basis for ownership of physical goods. There is no similar reasoning for digital information. The "right of ownership" is as artifically created as it's value. And you can't use the fact that ownership of intellectual property does (legally) exist to justify its continued existence.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
(...note to self... invest in stock of hard drive manufacturers.)
--
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"
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
Almost all of the core of Intellectual Property law concerns profit (and not some concept of "infringement" of rights), if there is no financial damage to the copyright owner and no financial gain to the "copyright violater", then it becomes something very much different (and something much harder to stop through legal action). 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.
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.
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.
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...
Um, I didn't mean it was shared *between* tribes, but I would venture *most* Native American societies were pretty communal, and believed that no one person could claim ownership to land, any more than they could to air; that people were peers with the rest of nature and were not their to dominate it, but to share in it. "Controlled" is also a different thing than "owned". Even people who "controlled" the land had a different view of it than Europeans.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
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 :-)
Yes, innocent people have to pay for the actions of a minority of people who behave badly. Just like when I rent a video I have to pay a 50 cent surcharge regardless of whether I do any damage, because it is their insurance against that one person who will screw up the $18 cassette.
This is not abnormal in itself. The question is, does the recording industry get to dictate that innocent consumers have to pay for the actions of badly behaved ones. The gov could easily say, hey, you're selling a product which is infinately copyable...we'll keep our nose out until you present us with specific cases to bring to court, but until then it's your problem to deal with the market you choose to operate in. I don't see a tax on paper because it is potentially a medium for copyright infringement (I don't know, maybe there *is* a tax on this, although at that point it becomes pretty stupid
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
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.
Funny thing is, the RIAA isn't going after people burning bit-for-bit CDs or copying to tape, etc. They have already convinced congress to tax those media to "compensate" for the potential piracy. So when you buy a writable CD, you are already helping defraying the cost of potential piracy. The thing is, hard drives are not under this taxed category which gives the RIAA room to cry bloody murder about all the atrocities being committed by storing stuff on hard drives, while keeping shut up about CD burning, tape copying, and other forms of storage. Not to say that taxing the media was a great thing in the first place, but I wonder if we just had a small tax on hard drives, like the other media, would that essentially moot the RIAA's argument? We'd ALREADY be paying to defray piracy, just as we do with tapes and CDs, and they'd have no argument.
IMHO, the consumer comes first, so if some company makes some thing they can't control, guess what - that's tough! Find a new business! Nobody is guaranteeing that you can make profit!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Yea, that's the saying. But it's only true until you lose in court and have to shut down. And then pay for each copyright infringement, and all the VC's lose their money. I think Napster was rocking and rolling well before the law suit started, and could have implimented their business plan and been successful (Whatever their business plan might be of course)
Rader
Let me add to this a bit. Jefferson makes his position that what we call intellectual property now, is inherently different in nature than physical property and cannot and should not be bound by the same rules. Ideas are infinately reproduceable and don't deprive the owner of their use. I can almost imagine "ideas" as an atmosphere a society breathes, each breathing in and out and recycling, etc. Now some people over here think you shouldn't be allowed to breath their air, and they will enlist the government to attempt to dilineate whose air is whose and under which circumstances you can inhale and exhale. This gets us into the ridiculous patent situation we are in and generally stifles and suffocates the atmosphere of ideas. Sure this is a very abstract analogy, but I imagine it is something like what the Native Americans felt when the white man came to their universally shared resource, the land, the air, the water, and started talking about who "owned" what land and who "owned" what water and who "owned" what air. It was completely foreign and uncomprehensible.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
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.
>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...
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?
Yes, innocent people have to pay for the actions of a minority of people who behave badly.
This mischaracterizes the "DAT tax"
In 1992, when the AHRA was passed, there was about as much copying of CDs onto DATs as there is copying of DVDs onto blank writable DVDs. None. The only people using DAT were:
o musicians who wanted to make high quality digital recordings without having to give away their copyrights to the recording industry to do so.
o Tape traders (The Grateful Dead sold special tickets that allowed fans to bring in taping equipment.) Tapers and tape traders saw DAT as the end of the "9th generation cassette that sounds like shit" phenomenon.
o A few audiophiles who were using it as a toy.
Blank DAT tapes cost more than CDs. DAT tapes are fragile, wear out quickly, and have all of the inconveniences associated with VHS. It's a tape. You have to rewind it. It can easily jam. There was no reason, and to this day there is no reason to copy a CD onto a DAT.
DAT's functional benefits arise from two features that have nothing to do with copying commercial recordings -- a two hour recording time with no tape flip, and rugged portableness.
There were no signs of consumer abuse of DAT in 1992, and none to this day. The DAT tax was the direct result of the RIAA holding the player manufacturers hostage -- there was a standing threat to sue the first player manufacturer who brought a consumer-oriented deck to market. This was the "problem" addressed by the AHRA, not any actual consumer use of the technology.
The wording of the AHRA reflects this. The "threat" being addressed by the AHRA was the threat of the RIAA suing player and media manufacturers, and consumers. Not consumer misbehavior.
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.
'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