Slashdot Mirror
Barenaked Ladies Battle Napster (But Not In Court)
Yet Another Smith writes: "CNN is running a story about the Barenaked Ladies' attempt to flood Napster with trojan downloads with ads for their new album rather than the alleged songs. Say what you want about Napster being right or wrong, at least the band isn't just doing the kneejerk lawsuit, and it sounds pretty tongue-in-cheek." I don't listen to the radio, so I downloaded "Pinch Me" from Napster, and based on that (and the fact that I rank Stunt and Gordon among the best albums ever) I bought Maroon the day after it came out (making it the only CD I've bought since the lawsuit vs. Napster started: and for someone that used to buy 5 CDs a week, that's saying something). Personally I think this is a good way to fight (but unfortunately upcoming technology will make this technique less successful) so I've got no problem with BNL doing this.
-- Oh Well
This is a "good way to fight"? It seems someone would rather have vigilante justice than clean-cut law.
Ultimately, it seems this is all about just wanting to get free music. Would you buy their music if they sold you MP3s online? Would you then respect their ownership, and instead of passing it around, point others to visit the site?
If someone doesn't want to let their music be passed around, they have every right not to let it be. If someone likes the concept of their songs being passed around, let it happen! It's up to the creator to decide (or at least, it should be...)
for my money, you just can't beat the good old Canadian sense of humor...
Have you seen Ironstayn vs Supergovernment yet?
The question is: Will Napster try to sue BNL for 'abuse' of their system?
---
Inquiring minds don't really care.
Why're you disliking the bands that're trying to make money off of their works? IMO, I see absolutely no problems with bands using Napster as a venue of cheap advertisement. However, when recording companies do this....
I realise that sometimes, the differences between bands and recording companies are a bit blurry at best, though. Comments?
--
As many people burn CDs with MP3's, and as many CD's are NON-rewritable, once you burn that ad in, you've got it for the next 200 years (the lifetime of a CD not exposed to UV light).
This may be a neat gimic, but let's just hope it stays a gimic. Never mind the added network bandwidth, my brain couldn't handle yet another corporate jingle.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Then why not like music for the music and ignore the politics of the band? If I had to stop liking bands because of what they say and do, there are very few out there that I listen to that would ever find tehir way to my CD player. However, as long as I like the sounds coming off the CD, I'll buy it.
Addlepated - punk & metal
Do you agree with this Trojan-style approach taken by the Barenaked Ladies?
And the results after 3583 Votes are:
Yes: 57% (2037)
No: 43% (1546)
Really, we have already seen porn banners and usage tracking scams on Gnutella and Napster, here one band is actually using the medium to try and do a bit of self promotion. They (I'm sure) are under no self-delusion that they are going to manage to obfuscate access to the real mp3s of their music, they are just reminding all the people who are hunting for their music that it would be nice if they actually paid for it.
The REAL question is could the RIAA break Napster/Gnutella etc. as a useful tool by bombarding it with files like these (or just corrupt mp3s) and would it be economically viable to do this (just how much bandwidth would they need).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
So now you can download barenaked women via Napster?
Pleaaaaase post more of Natalie Portman!
Heh. I don't know. One might think that BNL's ads might be protected under satire. Or just smartasstire.
I always liked Grand Theft Canoe better anyway...
Of course, if they were really smart, they'd make the advertisements the same length as the other songs. BUT, since mp3's are compressed, the song length would never be the same size. It would be very easy to pick out.
BNL wins approval of CmdrTaco, Canada lets out a collective "Huh?"
Holland, MI (AP) In a post this morning, CmdrTaco gave the nod to the Barenaked Ladies' use of Napster to promote their upcoming album. BNL could not be reached for comment, and Canadians all over the world were saying that it was too early in the day for tacos, anyway.
What they're doing is kinda funny and anyway if you like their music, why not buy their CD's and help support them???
I disagree with the cost of CD's (relative to the manuf. costs) but until there is a sensible way to listen to what I want, and then purchase the songs I like with no hassle and very low cost, I'm still going to download samples from mp3.com and buy the albums I like from HMV or Tower Records.
Wouldn't get them from Napster though - way too much hassle!!
Anyway - when you have a wide enough group of friends, I can get most of what I want through copying tracks from them - and that is still a legal grey area:)
Frog51
BNL do seem to be doing this in style - quipping in the trojan clips, etc. This is fair play, they're not getting lawyers involved, they're reacting sanely - by trying to have fun along the way. The likelihood is that the bogus files won't propogate on the Napster 'network', and at any rate genuine files will soon appear, and be clearly marked as such. Of course, BNL can then release clearly-marked "genuine" files that are still bogus, and it could all become an escalating battle of wits, in which case God help the Napster users...
At any rate, BNL are a fine band. Buy their album!
Is there anyone here who is as sadistic as I am, that would find it extremely hilarious, if BNL were taken to court over their use of a computer for unsolicited commercial email? *grin*
Seriously though,... what if all of the sudden we see a huge Spam outbreak on Napster,... my opinion is that it'll die like Usenet did. Same cause, same effect.
Funny... I just looked up "Pinch Me" and all I could find was versions of the song without the commentary... in fact, I cant even *FIND* the commentary... I guess it worked for all but 10 mins.
Seriously I think spam is excellent. I wish I could get more toner adds in my mbox it would help me find the products I need. And hell if i can get spam via napster all the better. In fact, I'd like to do away with all personal email and just make port 25 be an advertisement port that we could all connect to to download all the latest spam. Then we could get rid of all the how-tos and make the LDP become the SPA (Spam Proliferation Act) once that's done we'll replace all the good useful sites with shitty ones that do othing but advertise. Come fellas a little advertisement goes a long way. I don't think this is a good way to "play the game" at all and makes them look even worse. If they wanna advertise they should post some samples to some leading mp3 streaming sites (like the do for radio stations) and make sure to include the album name and song title in the ID3. SPAM SUCKS IN ALL FORM. It's unsolicited garbage anyway you look at it.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
To combat this, many 'fake' pictures of the ladies are being added to these 'engines's databases. These 'trojan horse' images feature the same women, however they are fully clothed, and contain advertising links to their homepage.
"This is a just a way for us to combat the theft of our hard work" Wippin' Wendy of HardCoreXXX had to say. "This just helps bring back our real customers."
No-one from any of the engines was avalable to comment.
.. there is always Napigator, the napster server browser. Hell, I haven't used the regular Napster network in close to 3 months.. way to much teenie bopper crap. =)
Check out the OpenNAP network in particular -- the service is fast, and the audio is good.
------------
CitizenC
Ok, looking through some of the comments here, I find people gettin' a tad antsy about the fact that BNL have posted ads, or, files that don't exactly contain what they specified.
Napster isn't just about swapping MP3s for free.. It's about filesharing. Any file. I heard this mentioned quitea lot in the napster defence, and also that of GNUtella.
So, why oh why slate BNL for pointing out that they are, indeed, free to post whatever they want, even if this is just advertising for them.
They are making a legitimate use of services offered for all, in the same way that Napster uses services offered across the internet (connectivity etc).
Personally, I'd far prefer this to the kneejerk 'call in the legal vultures' to sort it out.
I think they've made their statement pretty well out there.. "We'd prefer it if you didn't rip off our music"..
I'm all for that. It's just them exercising their freedom of speech, in a fashion. I'm not about to slate them for that.
Malk
Oh, gimme a break. I'm kidding. Still, it gives you a good point to look at when wondering where the RIAA gets its war chest. Doesn't Microsoft wish they could get even half that much from as many people... Oh, wait! They release a new version of Office every year! (Well, they wish they did, but it's getting closer!) That's a 2-CD set that goes for $800... close enough!
Okay, enough sarcasm. I go now.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
"If I had a million dollars...(if I had a million dollars,)
I would flood Napster's network...(and piss off all the script kiddies, too!)
And if I had a million dollars...(if I had a million dollars,)
I'd blow off the R-I-double-A...(and tell their lawyers to screw themselves!)
And if I had a million dollars...(if I had a million dollars,)
I'd produce another CD...(and get a ton of royalties...)
And if you have $17, go buy our CD!
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
A so-called Trojan horse program is typically malicious in nature, designed to conceal harmful code inside apparently innocuous programming or data in such a way that a user can get control or unleash a chosen form of damage. However, the Trojan files deployed by the Barenaked Ladies are not designed to harm a person's computer.
.txt, .doc*, are not PROGRAMS they are DATA and cannot be Trojanized. The exception would be a piece of data designed to exploit a known bug in a particular program, but data cannot illicit un-designed results (bugs are what a programmer designed, not necessarily what he/she intended though). This FUD is a product of recent court cases. I would expect CNet to be a little more clear, there are allot of luser sheeple who read CNet as their tech news source, and if they cant keep it clear were doomed.
.perl & .java.
...because they cannot be.
One major problem with this point - outside of what the MPAA would like you to believe, MP3, avi,
*MSWord '.doc' can contain scripts that are interpreted, but fundamentally anything not compiled(binary) is data - including
I wish people would quit equaiting all retail CD purchases with the RIAA. There are many high-quality artists out there who do not like nor support major labels and the RIAA. Not buying CDs as a whole simply because of the whole Napster fiasco is as much of a knee-jerk reaction as the lawsuits purported to in this Slashdot article. Start thinking about what you buy. Read the back of the album to find out what label it is on. Support non-RIAA artists but don't boycott the industry as a whole if you want to stand up for Napster. The music industry isn't all major labels and big name mainstream bands (like the Bare Naked Ladies are).
My above comment was 40% real, 40% tongue in cheek, and 20% wanting to get the first post.
Of course I'm not going to dislike them *just* because of this. But frankly it's irritating. When I have no bad feelings or dislikes for a band, I like it to stay that way, so when they do something I might not like, well, it tarnishes their image in my mind. Now, if they were being total jerks like metallica, then I *would* have to totally dislike them for it.
Here is where I could go on and on about the recent increases in record sales, but I won't do that. But there isn't currently any proof that I know of that shows that mp3s are hurting sales. So, until then, I don't think there's much reason for bands to get upset. Now, if BNL is truly using this just as a means of advertising, then nevermind. Though that's still kinda irritating.
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
Time is fun when you're having flies.
-Kermit the Frog
Um... this plan of theirs will work for all of 10 minutes, then be completely messed. Why? I'll tell you -- part of the idea behind napster is that, after you download a mp3, you turn around and share it for the world. (In my opinion, at least.. I'm talking out of my ass here.)
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you download an mp3, and find out that it's not the song, but just an advertisement, are YOU going to keep it around? Well, I would -- but not before renaming it, so that users knew what the content of the mp3 was.
Besides that, I'm sure that once everybody figured out where the trojan (I'm using that term with regret here) mp3s were coming from, then that user would be bannished from everybody's electronic kingdom for ever.
------------
CitizenC
Napster has no rule against what you can and can't distribute as an MP3; after all, it's just an indexing service, right?
What, then, warrants the "I've got no problem with this" qualifier? What problem is there in the first place? What aspect of BNL's actions even begins to enter the realm of problematic, or even unethical, for that matter?
BNL isn't battling Napster; they're actually using it to their advantage. It's free advertising to a decidedly interested market, and they have every right to take advantage of it as such.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Offtopic though, their popularity has died down here in Canada. It was our nice little secret until they hit big Stateside, but like Celine and Shania, BNL has sort of disappeared off our own radars...and every American college kid thinks they've hit something big. :)
Calum
Avoiding this kind of thing (and people getting something other than what they expected in general via filesharing) has the potential to be an excellent application for something like Songprint. You couldn't stop someone from putting up a client which submits false fingerprints (though these fingerprints could be checked by the downloadee to be sure they match what's advertised by the downloader and the music database hosted by someone like Tantrum).
This is one of the reasons a free, open music fingerprint database has so much potential to be cool. Let's hope eTantrum or another non-RIAA-lead fingerprinting library (with the intention of helping consumers, not tracking them) becomes the standard here!
The RIAA is like that kid in class that always got bullied but would cry and run to the teacher each and every time to get nowhere, instead of the smarter kid who would punch the living daylights out of the bully by giving it a taste of its own medecine. The RIAA wants loot and you can only get that in civil court by whining to the authorities about the big bad monster that's stealing from you.
This is a pretty a funny way for them to use napster to promote the album.
w trojan.wav
There is a 50MB download called "newtrojan.wav" which you can listen to on the CNN web page:
http://www. cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/09/18/trojan.music/ne
Banter:
Do I have to write "run"?
I spilled a coffee on my flow chart.
We fooled you, huh? We're sneaky like that. You can never trust a Canadian. Next thing we'll be supplying your natural resources.
So using napster to pirate music is justified.
I love the way people justify they're wrongs. The record company is evil, Cds cost too much.
Just say "I like free music." three times..don't you feel better.
Cd's DO cost to much, but that doesn't give you the right to take tracks off them for free. Just don't but they CD's
look its one of those things, if your car polutes and noone elses because they bought polution control devices, does does it make a difference. Not really. Now, if everyone thought like you, we'd all be driving poluting cars and polution would be worse. This is why we need government, since they make the playing field more level.
Does it matter to a band if they don't sell 1 album because you downloaded it. No. Now if everyone thinks like you the band will be back saying "do you want fries..." and not making music.
Why don't you listen to streaming mp3 instead of radio? When you buy an album your paying money to listen to the music you want anytime, anywhere. (Although the overzelous RIAA might question that assertion.)
Also, what ever happened to supporting bands you like to listen too?
Don't they realize that the best ads for their album would be the songs themselves? If I download music that I like, I tend to go out and buy the CD. I support artists that I like; and, in the process, I acquire a CD-perfect copy of the music.
It's the exact same principle that has allowed the recorded music industry to survive, despite the existence of the radio and the tape deck. A second-hand copy, broadcast over the airwaves (or the 'net), complete with static (or CPU hiccups, courtesy of that eye-candy screensaver) just isn't good enough for the serious music fan. But it IS good enough to get the point across.
--LordEq
The Barenaked Ladies can do no wrong. I'm seriously wondering whose side I should take. :)
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
By itself, Napster is not good for artists as anything but advertising.
If you add micro-payment collection from the download receiver (cutting out the RIAA, the MPAA, the record companies and otehr pimps who had no hand in promotion or distribution,) then Napster is very good for artists.
The price for consumers would be VERY nice too.
A trusted source to weed out the jokers (like BNL and others which less noble motives) who spam the p2p broadband, somebody like MP3.com, is all that's needed.
Untrusted Peer-to-peer is fine, if your peers are weirdoes, nuts, anybody who wants to spoof you, infect you and abuse you.
Napster by itself is going to become commercial community television. Its going to go the same way as the news groups... Spammed to death.
This world NEEDS editors (the human sort) and trusted sources...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
this is a malicious trojan these guys are using. if I ever get it, I will mail it to them at BareNaked1@aol.com. May many people do the same.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The mp3 with the commentary is 5:35 in length, while the regular song is 4:44. Sounds like the BNL aren't as innovative as some people claim ;)
(Ironic point of note: I'm listening to Yoko Ono, on cd, as I type this =)
------------
CitizenC
you don't buy cds, but you do buy dvds? that seems to imply that you believe that it's better for a company to try to restrict free speech (decss source) than to protect their own copyrights.
another thing: a lot of you kiddies jump all over anyone who violates the gpl without giving them a second to explain and correct the violation, while at the same time you violate licenses on music and then complain when the riaa, etc. try to enforce their licenses. in other words, you believe in copyrights only when it suits you. you sure don't like it when people violate the gpl, but you don't mind posting mp3s of copyrighted music on napster.
lf.o
I think that is brillant that is just another way to advertise. They are using Napster to help there cause. I see nothing wrong with this.
See? We have to oppose the monopolistic juggernauts of the music industry, the big 5. Sony is the first one that has to go, their infamous "acquire now, monetarily compensate later, maintain profit margin, grasshopper" doctrine has gone too far. I feel that Sony is mainly responsible for the Japanizing of American society. I think a protest should be lead against Sony; each protester with a piece of Sony's legacy in one hand, and a hammer in the other hand to smash the offending merchandise. And, to top it off, this will be done to the tune of "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors. I really have to borrow that Romy and Michelle's CD from my sister so I can rip that track.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
One could call this a hack. Nobody is hurt because of it, it's just annoying to those user that tried to download the track from Napster.
Of course, I'd be annoyed when it'd happen to me, but on the other hand, this is a hackish way to fight. (Or do you prefer lawsuits over and over?)
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
If I Had A Million Dollars, I would download their mp3s fulltime in lieue of work.
Napster will survive - at least in one form or another - if the material it provides is different to that which you can buy over the counter.
MP3 is not a format that is usable in all situations - it's fine for delivering content that you'll happily listen to on your walkman or in your car, environments which do not deliver quality sound.
Therefore the MP3 delivers the bare sounds of the song, but cannot be used in a decent listening setup. So if it is to survive it must deliver content which is unavailable to the paying consumer, so joke tracks like this one, live recordings (of which there are huge numbers of BNL ones out there and which they've said they have no problems with) and such.
Personally I bought Maroon straight off and the MP3s would only serve to reinforce my continual (financial) support for them through CD and ticket sales.
But then that's what the industry bodies don't understand.
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
But the only thing I can think of, is that there are a LOT more legitimate users of Napster than there are people against it. It's a numbers game.
Tune in tonight, when I attempt to login to Napster with 10,000 songs!
Rader
ASCAP(American Society of Compossers Authors and Publishers) does the micro pay collection and writes the artists a check for all the little payments.
Actually where is ASCAP in all this? They're really dropping the ball. They could make this work....
A couple of groups (for example, open source tuneprint, and the company *CD) have developed the technology to create a "fingerprint" of an audio track. The beauty of this solution is that it can tell you how "close", in some quantifiable sense, any track is to a centrally archived version, independent of the track format (mp3, wav, what have you). Since they run their inputs through psychacoustic models, *ANY* tracks which *sound* alike are deemed similar. Corrupted tracks and spam are easily eliminated.
Of course, Napster has enough legal difficulties without attempting to validate what they are serving up. Look for this technology in future incarnations of Napster, after the current one is shut down by the current court case, or yet-to-be-passed congressional legistlation.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Hey, if I can get bare naked ladies from Napster, there's no need to rummage through all those XXX newsgroups!
Will this be Napster's future? Will it become just a big online radio that will have nothing but ads and Top 40 cr@p?
Also, do you think the band or the record company had the most to do with the using of trojan MP3s? I would like to think it was the record company's doing, but it was the band that recorded the ad...
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
--weenie NT4 user: bite me!
"Computers are nothing but a perfect illusion of order" -- Iggy Pop
Only this morning, one of our staff asked for my advice on a Powerpoint presentation. It explains the structure and purpose of her department and is intended for our regional offices. There are slides for each section of the department and an organogram showing the overall structure. I suggested putting hyperlinks into the organogram and using it as a means of navigating the document. Once she understood what I was talking about, she was absolutely horrified and demanded that I ensure that readers would be "forced" to read the slides in sequence. I did point out that, once the document was e-mailed out, she would have no way of controlling the way people read it - but she didn't like it.
Napster should not be surprised this has happened and they should actually welcome it - it means they have become a genuine means of communication between band and fan.
"too"? What other band is doing this? Just cuz slashdot writes it as a headline doesn't mean you shouldn't read the story.
/., but I've never really supported the way napster is used by 95% of the people. I dislike record companies manipulation of artists more, but two wrongs don't make a right in this case.
That being said, I think it's funny. Ban me from
I see a ton of people on here saying that this "trojan horse" is better than a lawsuit. Metallica (and other bands backing them) are 100% correct in taking legal action - that's why the juduicial system was set up! BNL 'may' piss off Napster, but will not shut them down. Legal action will shut those criminals down for good.
Lars for President!
As a creator of intellectual property - I like to get paid for my work.
"Danger Will - my arms are flailing wildly."
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
I purchased Helicopter Girls new Album, How to Steal the World. I did this on the basis of Music people sending me a link to the tune for Subliminal Punk. So I bought the Album, yeah me!
Next thing I know I got a scratcht on it which blasts away tracks 3,4,5 So what I want is to rip the remaining functional tracks, use Napster to make up the difference and then write a new version of the CD, bin the old one and keep what I have legally paid for and own in a up to date format.
That said I am sure RIAA will find a way to prove that that is also Illegal.
So whats the problem... well I cant find those tracks through Napster ( so far any way )
Well there you go people any thoughts ?
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
I've found that the people I trade with tend to have a vested interest in keeping only the best music. So I only get screwed over when I try to get a song from an unknown source. But I listen to it right away, due mainly to the cuckoo fiasco.
I think a Next Gen Napster would have a rating system, kind of like Ebay. Of course, I say this as a honor among thieves sort of way. Napster may be piracy, but who wouldn't want to be the Dread Pirate Roberts?
Listen, Sigmund, we'll discuss it in the morning.
Does this mean that there's a whole new spam opportunity emerging?
---Joe Merlino gnupg public key ID: 1E91EBAF
On the other hand, if you know that a lawsuit won't do much good overall (eg. BNL v. a few fans), then why bog down the courts with a lawsuit that's really just political commentary/PR stunt?
--
If the recording industry REALLY wants to put a dent in the way people share files via Napster, they ought to try :
1) Putting there own, high speed server in the Napster system with 10-30sec of music, followed by an 'ad' on where to get the 'real thing'
2) Try and convince napster to put a file size limit on shared files.
Granted, 2 would probably end up making people go to Gnutella or something (which would solve Napster's problems as well, but not in a way I think they would like)
You should be aware that in many cases several people submit the same story. Slashdot can only pick one and rejects the others. Seeing that, AFAIK, none of the Slashdot Editors are real editors, things like language, grammar, context, and sense are not taken into primary consideration.
Listen, Sigmund, we'll discuss it in the morning.
To those of you who are lashing out at BNL for doing this, you obviously aren't fans. This 'stunt' is typical BNL like stuff. They aren't doing it to be malicious, they are doing it cuz it's funny. Sure, its free advertising, but who cares?
This MP3 is a great addition to my collection of rare/live songs of theirs I have. I've had this version of it for about a month now, so those of you who say 'it will never work', it's been working for a MONTH. I went looking for the song the day the single was released and found this one, laughed my ass off, and went on my merry way.
So stop your whining. Just because someone did something inventive, and utilized a service used to steal music to decieve a bunch of people doesn't mean they should be attacked.
As I said, if you know BNL, you'll understand that this is just the kinds of things they do. I've been a fan since they used to busk in downtown Toronto, I have seen them in concert 11 times, own all their CDs, including the rerealeased ones, and I assure you, this is their style of humour.
laugh kids. you were tricked.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
Is that how they spell 'realistically' in Canada?
Browser? I barely know her!
The BareNaked Ladies themselves see this more as an opportunity rather than a "Battle" per se. To quote the CNN Story:
Terry McBride, manager of Barenaked Ladies, said the band resorted to the measure "because we knew that tracks were going to end up on Napster, so why not have some fun with it?"
"We give you a big enough chunk so that if you like it, hopefully you'll go out and buy it," McBride said.
And that is an excellent approach that most other bands SHOULD follow (are you listening Metallica, Dr Dre et al ?) rather than resorting to the typical, demeaning, and unprofitable "sue- the-pants-off-of-them-and-that-will-teach-them" approach that they tend to pursue. Why not take a negative and turn it into a positive as BNL has done.
More power to them for being ingenios once again !
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
Another way of battling Napster -- and probably more effective than what Barenaked Ladies are doing -- is the Pearl Jam Method: simply give fans what they want and price it reasonably.
Pearl Jam is releasing 25 "bootlegs" -- obviously not bootlegs since they're "official", but that's beside the point -- of their European tour shows. The sound quality on these things -- all of which have been pre-released to fans of Pearl Jam's Ten-Club for around US$10.98 each [for 2 CDs!] -- is fantastic -- just the right mix of band and audience so that (if you're a PJ fan) the shows are pretty damn electrifying.
Moreover, the shows are largely uncut. No post-concert fiddling -- overdubbing, editing -- they even include long stretches of applause, fan-chanting, lyric-flubbing, etc.
Now I realize this doesn't mean much if you're not a Pearl Jam fan -- and to release 25 live concerts, well, that's a hell of a lot of music.
A few of the PJ bootlegs have been "blessed" by the band as their favorites of the 25 (there are little symbols on the backs of the "blessed" concerts) so you can at least zero in on what the band considers to be their better performances (but all the performances -- at least the 10 that I've heard thus far -- are fantastic.)
But it dawned on me when I ordered 10 of these of things at once that, yeah, these are the first CDs that I've bought in over a year. And not only did I not mind spending the 100+ US$ to get the 10 concerts, but I did it with pleasure. I couldn't wait to buy these things. The thought of getting the MP3s on Napster just filled me with repulsion: I mean, not only would I not get the full concerts on Napster, but I'd have to contend with bad rips and crappy normalization by neophyte rippers who wouldn't take the time to carefully rip the tracks.
I hope all this Napster-mania puts pressure on labels not so much to get with the program and start releasing official MP3s (I mean, there is nothing drearier, in my mind, than paying $2.99 for an official MP3) but to realize that the problem isn't Napster, isn't the internet, isn't fans wanting something for nothing -- the problem is the chokehold on product.
Fans of any good band -- PJ, Springsteen, Dylan, Neil Young, you name it -- love live performances. And, yes, getting a CD of the performance is not the same thing as actually being there but my hope is that this move by Pearl Jam will make the companies realize that battling Napster -- and winning against Napster --- starts not with fucking around with stifling technology but with simply giving the fans more of what they actually want: more music and better prices.
It seems *really* simple. I wonder if anyone is inside these record companies preaching this kind of (what I assume to be) common sense. Fans want product -- and they'll pay for more product -- and because of an increased emphasis on performance (thanks to Napster) there is no excuse for not releasing more product since (for the most part) fans (and even casual fans) really dig the live stuff.
This is slashdot. No one is allowed to make money off of anything. Anyone who attempts to make money is evil.
RUSH are Canada's best kept secret and one the most underrated bands ever, its about time they became popular again.
The Barenaked Ladies website is at http://bnlmusic.com.
For more of their humour, go to their videos section and watch their infomercial. ("Make your non-rock star lifestyle vanish!")
I admit, I got the napster ad when I went for one of their new songs. And yes, I bought the album Maroon right after work on Sept 12th.
This slashdot article says that Michigan's new law makes " the unauthorized alteration, damage or use of a computer system a felony."
Hrm. Uploading ads disguised as MP3s sure sounds like an "unauthorised use" to me. Let's see these music industry sponsored laws used right back on their own ranks. After all, juices flow both ways when you start fucking people over. Bust the Barenaked Ladies. Throw their asses in jail on felony charges. Because laws mean nothing unless they apply to everyone equally.
--Clay
program is data.
data is program.
in some way, the data that a program reads becomes part of the program and therefore is part of the program in some way. what way that is depends on how sensitive the program is to its input. for something like a .wav file, obviously not very. for something like a java class file, completely. buffer overflow attacks come somewhere in between the two.
but to say that all these files are "just" data files is to miss the point. even machine code is "just" data if you're using a microcoded CPU...
Since Napster is a peer-2-peer network file sharing thingy, they would need to keep up a server with the fake songs up in order to serve them. Although this is quite feasible, another problem is getting the users to download the fake song instead of the 200 other real songs that were returned in their search. Unless you try to overcrowd the rest and run upwards of 30-40 servers concurrently, which would be cruelly expensive for just a simple publicity prank like this, well you'll just end up wasting time, bandwidth, and of course money.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Bullshit. There's nothing unauthorized about it - the user who downloads it authorizes the download quite explicitly. If he doesn't get what he wanted, tough luck - Napster sure as hell doesn't implicitly or explicitly guarantee that the content of a file is what its name might lead you to expect.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
If the MiniDisc medium was used as a raw transfer device, maybe it would see much more potential. Instead, the players record only in analog (just recently augmented with proprietary digital recording). ATRAC is probably the least spectrum-considerate compression method. My benchmark is Nine Inch Nails; Trent's music is heavy on nearly all parts of the sonic spectrum. Even at 128kbps, it sounds perfect. But with ATRAC, there's frequency cutoffs that make it sound like a bad bootleg.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I haven't bought any CDs since this whole RIAA vs Napster thing started either. The only CD that I plan to buy is one that I've wanted since March, but it keeps getting pushed back. The current release date is October 3.
I figure that I'm still boycotting, because this is a CD I would have bought 6 months ago, but it's release was pushed back.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I can't think of many labels off the top of my head that are still independent(i.e. not owned by or affiliated with one of the big 5) and release any decent music, If anyone can name any beyond this list : matador, bungalow, kitty yo, southern, rephlex, kranky, crypt, acid jazz um can't think of any more (I'm not even sure about matador)
I've noticed this kind of stuff with a bunch of other bands like LL Cool J and some others I can't think of right now.. but this isn't just the BNL's.
"Everyones gotta' be something / Me I'm stupid / It's all I ever wanted to be" -MGB
Why limit yourself to your own fans, make trojans of bands that are similar, this way you may hit a few people who haven't heard your music.
Remember the cuckoo MP3 incident?
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Hey. Get a life. The BNL song that they put up on Napster was funny! FUNNY! If you have an sense of humor, you would too.
Chris Lynch, MCSE IT Specialist clynch@8wire.com ICQ# 85276486 [IMG]http://www.8wire.com/images/sigfiles/MCSE%20
HTML could be considered data, or 'content.' Scripts can also be considered content. The line blurs when you have content that does different things, and as we certainly know, there are $oMe programs which don't handle this data very well.
This is great, I can totally see hard-core BNL fans now digging around Napster trying to 'collect' all the variations of ad mp3's.
Way to go guys!
Well I was going to buy that album today, having never heard it. Actually, I still will - if it's anything like Stunt it will kick ass. But now it might look like I'm buying the CD becase of their Napster antics. Frig. Now if the album sells really well (and it will) people will say "see? it's because it was hard to get online".
Vidi, Vici, Veni
I will echo the statements that BNL is incredibly wonderful to listen to, and despite the fact that I snagged the mp3s from the new album because I didn't have a chance to head to the record store yet, but I can assure you that I will be buying Maroon this week. It will be my first purchased album in nearly two years, and I'm happy that it is BNL.
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Wouldn't work if they get smart and match the file sizes. Too bad there's no hash feature that could verify MP3's contents.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I am now on Napster with the intent PURPOSE of trying to find some of these psuedo-songs, just because I know how funny BNL can be and I am interested in hearing what they did with the ads.
Bonus points to the person who links a few of the mp3 commercials for us!
------
Let me give you the lowdown
The edited MP3 was released *before* the album came out. In their commentary, they give the release date and note that once the album is released "there will be lots for you to download."
The album is out now and if you hope to find the message-version of the song, you have to go somewhere like barenaked.net. (Or I did, anyway.)
Personally, I was hoping for something more playful from the edited track. I already owned the CD when I went looking for the edited MP3. Instead of reworking the song, as they do in concert, or talking over the music like a DJ, they blanked the audio completely in sections. It's designed to be deleted, rather than kept around as one more Barenaked oddity.
Yogurt
(from Scarborough)
Hey, fight technology with technology. Why would anybody get pissed about this? Because your attempt at doing something illegal was thwarted?
There will always be black markets. If it's not napster it's a guy in New York selling copies of a CD that he made in his apartment for $3. I'm just glad they don't have a stick up their butt about the whole thing.
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
I have an independent band (The Who/ SteelyDan-ish) and out of curiosity I went to see if any of my songs were on Napster. Sure enough, there were a few people that had my band's songs from movie soundtracks, etc. To make a long story short: I messaged them "Hey! You have my tunes on your server. If you like those, come check out http://www.currentuser.com/ and I'll send you some more for free!" Sure enough, all those users are now on my fan club mailing list. Why don't the big bands just use Napster to grab some fans for their fan sites? Keep them posted of shows, merchandise, etc.. From all that I read, the bands make their money on merchandising anyway; not on the cd's. BTW if you check my site: The record was recorded on a G3 with Cubase in my living room.
Pablo Piccaso was never called an asshole. Not like you.
Most of the fans downloading the song knew it was pre-release and tampered with: hell, that's *why* they downloaded it! Once word got out about it everyone wanted to hear the interruptions, transcriptions of the jokes appeared in the mailing lists and newsgroups right alongside the song lyrics, people speculated about the identity of Morpheu_10 (sp?) the source of the downloads, etc. The fans loved it, and really, who else cares? It was done wel and in good humour. A lot of bands could do this badly, but I'd like to think BNL set a good example. Not bad for a band that claims that the Internet doesn't really exist ;)
BTW: anybody who thinks they can just look at the song length is wrong. I have two different versions of the "Pinch me" ad and one is the same length as the song.
This is the only comment a sane person could make on this story. I salute you, sir.
OT:I would have posted as AC, but the 'Post Anonymously' button has disappeared. How queer!
I'm a big BNL fan, I preordered the CD, and downloaded the songs on Napster a couple of days before it was released. I'm a member of the fan club (the Ladies Room), and I think it's pretty cool that they're approaching the issue this way.
;-). I'd love to have a copy of the ads, I hope that people will begin relabelling the ads as such and make them available for downloading. (or, BNL could include them on their web page)
As soon as I read the story I went on Napster looking for the ads, but they apparently haven't saturated the market yet, 'cause my 7 download attempts all resulted in the actual songs (darn
... A savvy response to something which shows their collective cleverness (is 'smartassness' a word?). Too bad they've been suppressing that cleverness over the last 2 albums.. I really miss the guys who made 'Gordon' and 'Maybe You Should Drive'..
:p
The live shows are some of the best you'll ever see, but it's still sad that they're trying to get more 'serious', and losing their jazz/rap influences to stay on MTV.. Stephen Page is cool but he should _not_ be driving the songwriting
Or not.
Your Working Boy,
I bought Maroon the day after it came out (making it the only CD I've bought since the lawsuit vs. Napster started: and for someone that used to buy 5 CDs a week, that's saying something).
So what you are saying is that the RIAA is in the right and that Napster HAS caused them to sell fewer CD's? (at least to you?)
If the BNL's want to sell their cd to me, put it on Napster and let me listen to the tunes straight up and if I like enough of them I will go out and buy it. If I don't I won't. Getting spam, and knowing it came from the band itself, is a piss off frankly. Cheers, JHVH1 `The shapes of things are dumb.' -L. Wittgenstein
The entire album was available in a usenet binaries.mp3 group a week before it was even released in stores! Why go after Napster?
Ads are not music.
Wrong. You lose.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
I don't think I am going to buy any more contemporary music. The artists all suck, whatever happened to good 'ole G-N-R?!? :-) I have since decided that the only music I will by is music that will benefit me, not the artist (i.e. classical).
Get it? Napster is for sharing MUSIC. Ads are not music.
Are you sure Napster is for sharing music? It would appear Napster is for sharing MP3s. I have a lot of MP3s that don't contain music.
MP3 is an audio format and there's more to audio than music. Spoken word, e-books, famous speeches, advertisements, random noise... Open your mind!
I've stopped using napster for several months now. I've got a lot of the songs that I want, and I'm pretty much content. Besides, it's too much work to find decent songs on Napster. There are too many people who don't know how to rip properly ("In any large group of people, the majority of them will be idiots" -- my own made up Law of Idiots).
So if I really want a song, and I get it from Napster, I generally have to download half a dozen copies to find a decent version. Luckily, I'm on a campus ethernet connection, so bandwidth (on my end) isn't much of a problem. It still takes me a minute or so per song. On top of that, I have to listen to half a dozen songs to find out if they're worth keeping. So I basically waste half an hour trying to get a "free" copy that doesn't even sound as good as the original.
And if I want to take it with me and play it in the car, I have to take the time to burn it onto CD, which means more lost time.
Considering my hourly pay rate, if I want more than one song on a CD, it's actually cheaper for me to _buy_ the CD. Oh yeah, and I also get the satisfaction of doing my job (which I enjoy), rather than fighting with Napster and bad connections (which just feels like I'm wasting time).
Which brings me to my idea. The record industry has no problem letting us listen to (and record) songs on the radio. So why not make low-quality versions of the songs available for free? Put them on their websites, and flood Napster with them.
I would rather download an mp3 that I know will be "low" quality, rather than gamble with Napster and end up with a bunch of songs that have skips, beeps, and other oddities. And I think a lot of people would have the same reaction. Heck, I'd probably buy more CD's too.
An artist could create several versions, each with the ad in different places. Not only that, but there's nothing that would prevent them from shortening the length of the song to make room for it. This could make it nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Muahahahah.....
Now...if people are REALLY serious about showing the RIAA who is boss, STOP BUYING THEIR CDS! I was soooooo amused when I saw earlier that a group was calling for a boycott of the RIAA, as if it was something special. Like, duh.....
I have no problems with the BNL using Napster to propagate ads for their new album. If I only hear the ad, though, will I really consider buying their album? No, likely I will not. I think the amazing aspect of services like Napster is that those services allow various uses, such as the propagation of ads. Unfortunately, I would be slightly angered by BNL pretending their ad is a song because I would feel as though they are spamming, so as a marketing tool I do not think propagating ads in such a way would work.
It really depends if you look at their use as an exploit of the service or as a planned marketing move (in this case, the former almost definitely wins out).
J'ai juste une chose a dire: On s'en colisse tabarnak!
She's no Canadian. She may have a birth certificate and a passport, but she's public enemy number one up here. If you ever bothered to read the Canadian World Domination web site, you'd realise that she'll be one of the first to go up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Vive le Canada!
The simple solution is for Napster to incorporate some kind of beat detection in their client. I recently ran across some library/utility that claimed it could categorize the style of a song. I forget what it was called or even if it was functional, but the idea is there. If you want to download a Metallica song but it says the genre is commentary, not metal, you probably won't download it. This could be taken a step further to having a "song characteristic checksum" held at a central location, sort of like CDDB. If the song doesn't seem to match then it could be discarded from the network. This would also be great for incomplete songs, and lets not forget simple checking for corrupt frames in the mp3. Bands like BNL can have their fun, it's just a game, and it really doesn't make a difference. Some people just don't understand that anything that can be done with computers can be undone just as easy, and in the long run they're doing us a favor. This whole issue just brings to light that our "standards" for mp3's are too low (non existent really) and must be raised.
Deuteronomy 13:06-9
"Listen to the Barenaked Ladies Trojan-style single "Pinch Me" in WAV format. (47.8 MB)"
It's pretty sad that cnn.com is so afraid of releasing an actual *eek* MP3 of the trojan song, so they release it in a clean, uncompressed, 47.8MB wav file. I'm on cable and I wouldn't even waste my time with a 50MB file that I could get from napster at about 3MB
i just climb trees, and look for rhythm everywhere.
Yep, they got me. The other day I downloaded some BNL songs and they were nothing but a bunch of trendy pop songs that sounded like they were being sung by guys with Canadian accents. I was expecting good music, but their anti-piracy trickery foiled me.
Oh, wait a minute...
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
So. You download some MP3's from a band you like. Burn them onto CD and voila, you have exact copies of the original track. *Insert sound of a Super Mario game over, on 8 bit NES, here* A lot of the files I've found using the Napster service have a lot of digital noise, or, in other cases, have errors in the MP3's which makes music difficult to listen to. (At least for myself). Many of the songs have erroneous fades in channels due to bad source files or improper encoding. Sure MP3's are *good enough*, but I think it's clear that they are not the prime target they have been made out to be. I tend to agree with the idea that it's up to the artist to decide. That being said, I don't think it's wise to feel that every artist can be traded until they opt out. And let's not even begin proding some other piles of manure that have been mixed into this seemingly homogeneous issue. Napster... it might stay, it might go. But whatever happens it will have been one heck of a ride.
-Yoink!
Posted by polar_bear:
Y'know - I'm not even that big a fan of the band, but I may just go buy the latest album to support the fact they're being inventive and not abusing the court system. It's amazing that there aren't already billions of MP3 ads for porno sites and spam anyway...If only the record companies had a clue they could have made Napster go away whimpering by displaying a little adaptability rather than clogging up the court system with their temper-tantrums.
Hey Lars - put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Oh - I have some used Metallica CDs for sale cheap...
You would think that with all the charge-backs and profit-splitting that recording companies traditionally do, that any group or musician with enough fan-base would want to get away from those contracts just as fast as they could.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Still, it's cool to see them taking the spunky route instead of getting all legitious; like we did..
It's nice to see that 60% of CNN poll voters wouldn't lynch us. You'd never guess based on the email we got..
A great proposal except that the majority of society is made up of leeches who don't want to pay for anything. They'll download all the MP3's on the album and never buy a thing. While I wish your model was indeed the case, it will never happen until there is a fundamental change in attitude of the average person. I just don't see that happening.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
Music artists need to quit complaining about Napster and go after the record companys for hoarding so much of the revenues. On average the % that the music artists receive from royalties is small. Why go after Napster when there are bigger fish to fry.
Most people that I know, who use Napster, use it because they don't buy CD's anymore or are just plain sick of paying $15 - $20 for a CD, when they only want one song anyways.
The music industry needs a new way to market their CD's or drop the prices so the consumers will have a reason for PAYING.
Record companies, listup!
I'm a consumer and I'm speaking out.
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I was going to buy the CD for BareNaked Ladies, but I wanted to hear what they sounded like first. Guess I can't now. They'll just lose my business.
I can't see why any band with a brain would do anything to stop another medium of distribution. For christsakes, the more people hear them, the more people will go to their shows, the more people will buy their shirts, the more they'll tell others about them, the more money they make in the end.
Why would they stop this at the source? no brains.
Joe
--
My brother in-law was fooling around in his yard and lightning
struck... four feet away. He said his hair stood up right
before it hit. I don't think he's developed any new pyschic
powers as a result though, so it really was for naught. --
millipede on usenet
Sorry. I don't buy this. I can only speak from personal experience and the experience of Napster users I know personally, but I do still (occasionally)buy cds or use fairtunes to compensate artists if I've downloaded their stuff. And I'm still saving money over pre Napster days because I can hear the tunes before I buy them and, usually, can discover that the "next big thing" is usually a piece of crap foisted on the public by the labels and reviewers. Usually, it makes more sense to download some old neil young tunes Ive got on vinyl anyway than buy something for one or two good tunes. Also, paying by fairtunes means you only have to shell out a couple of bucks because you only need recompense the artist not all the marketing, artwork, video expenses which the internet has made redundant anyway. Note too that the list of major label artists that are looking at Napster as an opportunity is growing everyday. Sorry, the BNL's are playing a cheap trick on their fans, or they're afraid to expose the music other than through the narrowly controlled, "official" outlets, which only let you hear one or two songs. Cheers, JHVH1 `The shapes of things are dumb.' -L. Wittgenstein
The REAL question is could the RIAA break Napster/Gnutella etc. as a useful tool by bombarding it with files like these (or just corrupt mp3s)...
I doubt that the RIAA flooding Napster, etc. with corrupt or trojan files would ultimately have much much effect in polluting the the system. The reason being that these phoney files will be immediately deleted by the downloader after discovering their nature and not left on their computers for redistribution to others. These are PEER to PEER file trading systems and Peers Won't Pass Along Phoney Files to Peers.
Therefore the only source of corrupt files will be the RIAA moles themselves, meaning they will always be a tiny minority of Napster users. In addition, known mole user handles can be publicly posted on black lists to warn people against the dubious nature of their offerings.
As for the Barenaked Ladies promotion, I think their fans will get a kick out of it, since it features some witty banter from the artists themselves (instead of just some corporate commercial) and they will actively seek it out. It could definitely ending up working in favour of promoting the BNL album. At least it is not as likely to piss their fans as Metallica's tactics in fighting Napster.
Trickster Coyote
Reality isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
Ideology is for ideots.
That's what pissed me off...the ad's right in the middle each time the chorus comes up. I don't care if BNL puts something in at the beginning and the end that advertises their album, or embeds it in the ID3 tag, but that's like listening to the radio, and hearing the DJ interrupt with the station name. (If you live in Southern California, the assholes at KIIS-FM do it ALL the time.)
And if people are going to tell me that they didn't put the ads at the beginning and end because someone would just take them out, well that argument is shot to hell...the day after I found the track with commercials, I found it on Napster with the commercials taken out.
I prefer the Offspring's method of fighting...their upcoming album will be released on the net for free.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Pearl Jam is releasing 25 "bootlegs" -- obviously not bootlegs since they're "official"
Heh. Sounds like something you would expect from everyone's favourite (semi-)fictious band:
New from Spinal Tap! The Official Bootleg Live Album!
Trickster Coyote
Even illusions are real.
Ideology is for ideots.
That, IMHO, is just great! I've always thought that most groups don't realize the advertizing potential of mp3s -- apparently The Barenaked Ladies do! A very creative solution (even if the band's name isn't!). It's little wonder Metallickya didn't think of this -- they haven't done anything creative since the '80's.
The next generation search engine -- TRY IT!
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -- "Step Right Up", Tom Waits
Here's a band that's using Napster to promote themselves. They're not taking them to court. They're taking advantage of the increased exposure that the particular media can provide. If more bands did this, say putting the ad at the end or the beginning, it would certainly lend more legitamacy the whole business. After all, the courts will have an even tougher time saying that there's no legitimate use for such things. I think this is the wave of the future, and I certainly don't think it's a bad thing.
Chris Hagar
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Compensation? Do you know that in france, only 3% of the total number of writers actually live by their writing. I expect an artist to create something because they want to communicate, not because they want money. Money is necessary, but it is not such a motivator in itself. Money is a common denominator in society, but not the goal of life in the universe.
I most certainly don't, considering I'm very much leaning toward libertarian views. I go for no trademark, no copyright, no patent. No corporation owning and controling -for life- every bit of anime or book I've read when I was a kid. Thinking someone (possibly one CEO somewhere) has actually the power to take away asterix or matrix is real scary.
I think independant artists should be encouraged through -less protecting- show bizness. If shakespeare and homère (the greek one) made a living in such tough times, I'm not worried about stephen king or sharon stone. I go for decentralising content production, less power to the big studios and the multinational copyright holders!!!
It's an ingenious tactic, but it brings forward the possibility of companies flooding Napster and Gnutella with spam MP3's containing advertising, rather than the alleged contents in the name.
Apparently, you don't use Gnutella if you haven't already seen the effects talked about in this previous article. The website seems to still be down, but I don't doubt that they'll be resurrected eventually.
I really haven't used Gnutella since the first night I tried it out and found absolutely nothing interesting but SPAM and one guy's personal vendetta against someone by having each search result return a message to e-mail his victim for more about that topic. The guy kept getting flooded by people thinking he had stuff like kiddie porn and the like. That kind of nonsense permanently gave me a bad taste for the future of the network.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Let's See: Chuck D is for it. Metallica against. Offspring is gonna release their album on the internet a month early and Sony can't seem to stop 'em. Primus: for it. Limp Bizkit says 'thumbs up!'. In Hollywood, Bill Maher is agin it, thinks its stealing. Everyone is talking about it and/or doing something about it. Everyone has an opinion. Sounds like democracy at its best, if you ask me. I hope the Justice Dept lets it stay on for about a year just so I can watch it all settle out. It's great spectacle! Bluesee
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
When I get a buggered MP3, I delete it. Since this is a pull, not a push (like e-mail spam), MP3 spam can't really propagate very effectively.
If Napster just added a feature to note who you got each MP3 from, then you can ignore those users when searching.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And the stupid RIAA should realize that people will PAY for a site that they can get music that they know is not damaged or ads.
And trying to copy-protect these files is a mistake. People will go other places to get the same music stripped of the copy protection, because the copy protection is as big of an annoyance or "damage" as an ad and thus negates the whole advantage of the pay site.
I find it really hard to believe that most people who use napster really buy CDs. Most of what I hear people say about napstar is "I'll never buy another CD ever again"
Most of the people on Napstar are leeches and are just too fucking cheap to pay for CDs. It seems that that is what most of the free software movement is now, just cheapskates that don't want to pay for anything. It's not about freedom, it's about their wallet.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
I'm gonna start ripping MP3s with subliminal messages encoded (backwards) into them. Sounds good? I can like convert everyone to my goat worship religion. bladder #UnixPunx/EFnet
I want the "trojan" mp3's too, and so do other fans. Besides they have had full length RealAudio versions of four songs for weeks.
John von Neumann gave some formal mathematical proofs, years and years ago, that all programs were data and vice versa. Most people think that War and Peace isn't a program, but it is--go ahead, type ./warandpeace at your terminal, or ./brotherskaramazov if you feel like something a little different.
Of course, these programs are poorly written and will soon cause a core dump--but that doesn't change the fact that they're still programs.
Programs are data are programs. Thus spake John von Neumann, thus ever shall it be.
If some guy got suckered into downloading these songs ..he is sure going to feel bad about it and is NOT gonna buy the CD's....so what point have they made ?
..and lot of guyz are going to
..i was not fooled "
Surely they cannot flood everything ?What about gnutella , scour
download it to claim "hey
does it make any marketing sense and who are they
fighting..
It is telling that the BNL's response to exposing others to their work is Fraud. What a bunch of twits.
I'm amazed at how the geek community embraced Napster. First off, since when would anyone in their right mind install a piece of software who's whole point is to give unknown users access to your hard drive. We trounced on MS and Netscape because of minor bugs that allowed someone unscroupulous to look at, gasp, a cookie file. And then we install a piece of crap like Napster which is as buggy and poorly written as IM was in it's first version and we defend it like it's some sort of fucking holy grail. We once again allowed a broken protocol, a broken app to become a killer ap, simply because we're stupid.. And greedy. Stupid and greedy, two of the driving forces in the community it would seem. The peer to peer paradigm needs an RFC, a bunch of SMART folks to put together something that's secure, and it needs to be in the open source community so that it can be reviewed by a body of smart security geeks. Gnutella is a step in the right direction, but it's a kneejerk reaction, not a well thought out solution. I think Napster is evil, but not because of what it does to the music industry, but rather what it does to our industry. It sets a precedent to allow easily hackable software to run continuously on our already mostly unsecure desktop machines. Doesn't that just sound prepostrous???
in this age of communication i'm just not getting through
/. users seem to be in this debate about this action by barenekedladies being in violation of Napster's UA. This point is debatable.
I would like to point out that sharing copyrighted music is a violation of Napster's UA. It is clear and precise and this is not debatable. so get the **** over it.
Anything is better than a law suit.
...how would the fingerprint library be useful for copyright control?
You'd have to force people to use compliant players which check the signature of the songs you play. People won't use something like that -- even the end lusers don't want something forcing you to be online to play an MP3, and if they hear about the privacy/legal implications, so much the better.
Fingerprinting alone is a pretty harmless technology which can do a lot of good. Only when combined with quite a bit of infrastructure does it become a threat.
Agreed. I love BNL (they're right up there with Guster and Metallica) and I think what they did is cool - and should even be supported. I bought Maroon and it's really good.
Though, if you really want GOOD BNL, I suggest Rock Spectacle, their live album. Fantastico.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
They didn't want to get sued. After all, MP3's are illegal and are only used by hackers, right?
*cough* *cough*
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
If you'd been paying attention you might have noticed that adam durtiz of the crows said that he thinks it's fantastic that people can use the internet and mp3 to trade in the bands unreleased and bootlegged songs.
There are a few ftp sites that hold literally gigabytes of crows bootlegs and there have never been any legal moves by the band (or geffen) to shut them down.
Some of the collectors even got together and made a two disc boxed set of the very best of the bootlegs (in the same track order as the first two albums) and presented this to the band.
And you think perl jam selling you their for the bargin price of $10 is good... btw was that 10 dollars for 2 cds full of mp3s of $10 per concert?!
Boy, it's a good thing that I would never in a million years download a song I can hear on the radio over and over and over again. That trojan stuff might piss me off!
-in a fast german car im amazed that i survived... an airbag saved my life!-
Napster is evil...BNL is evil...maybe I shouldn't have thrown that rock through my neighbors window and lied and said it wasn't me when I was 12...I'm evil... This is one of the few instances where no one is getting hurt. I have been a long time fan of BNL, and knowing there material, I'm sure these ads are hilarious, so either way we get entertained. Go buy the CD, download the CD...be evil
and to those who wonder why I simply say...
It would require that Napster users "track" or otherwise keep mind of who they download mp3s from, and considering once a d/l has been completed, the record is removed from your Transfers window, that might make it very hard to remember who was the guy you got this spam/corrupted mp3/etc. from.
As far as Gnutella, they're already working on ways to stop ads, spam, etc. (and I believe successful, thus far) so adding the IP addresses that this band uses doesn't seem too much of a stretch.
I use Napster to find good songs, and to know wether or not to buy there cd. If i want to hear a BNL song (ugh... no!!) and i spend time downloading something with my slow 56k, just to find out that its not the song, just a advertisement, would piss me off. Im not gonna pay $15 - $18 for a cd, then find out it suck, so if BNL cant understand that, then o well for them.