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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...)
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)
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!
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
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.
.. 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.
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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
"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).
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
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!
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.
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.
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 =)
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CitizenC
... my opinion is that it'll die like Usenet did.
Why do people keep saying USENet is dead? Is it because they don't use it anymore, so therefore it must be dead? Are people so self-centered that they think once they stop using a service it no longer can survive without their participation? They do? Oh, well that explains it then.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
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.
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
The song IS the same length. The trojan is a regular copy of the song, with the noteable exception that BNL breaks in numerous times throughout the song to make statements. It's actually a decent advertisement in my opinion... you get to listen to most of the song. If you like what you hear and you want to hear the song without BNL cutting in every minute or so, you can go buy the CD.
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
Shhh!
It took years to get most of the lamers off of the Usenet (the longest October indeed), but now most people seem to think it is all porn spam and meowers and don't bother connecting anymore. Most AOLers don't even know the Usenet exists anymore, and many of the newbies who found it years ago have grown up and either left or became contributing members.
Plus the Usenet is a great way to get new kinds of music/tv shows that you have never seen before (unlike Napster, which is only well suited for searching out "popular" music you already know about.
I read the internet for the articles.
actually I didn't try to steal anything, and I did not get it. Sending out an ad under the pretense that it is real information is ILLEGAL in the netherlands, because all commercial messages should be labeled as such. before you accuse me of stealing please make sure that what you are saying is true. I prefer stuff like Offspring (who are putting their next album online for free, much to sony's chagrin)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I think the RIAA is trying to wage a publicity and political war against Napster right now, not a practical one. They see Napster as being a long-term threat, so rather than focusing their efforts on causing a short-term dip in Napster usage, they want to make sure it's eventually killed for good.
--
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?
--
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
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.
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
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
Remember the cuckoo MP3 incident?
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
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
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.
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
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."
First you say:
I maintain a copyright, and I have no problem with people asking for credit. I also don't openly support taking of someone's work if they have not expressed a desire for their work to be traded.
Then you say:
Personally, I say screw IP and keep pursuing something new
IP laws encourage people to create new work. You can't get rid of IP laws and then expect any sort of protection or reward for your effots. People should not be so quick to give up their rights, especially since the rogue distribution channels are already disintigrating.
I am very much of the tradition that art and music should be free and artist and musicians should be supported via the community as a whole (call me an idealistic-commune oriented hippie-chick type person). Art and Music should never be considered a business.
So you think artists should live in poverty until the western world gets around to electing a communist government? We should be martyred for your "free art" cause while the lawyers, CEOs, accountants, middle-managers continue to pull in 5,6,7 figure salaries and have no intention of implementing a socialist state? Sheesh, talk about your deranged logic.
BTW, artists don't appreciate facists telling them how to make a living.
They didn't send out an ad under the pretense that it was "real information". They made a remix of their song (with them talking over the music) available for download from their computer via Napster.
Remember, you never get the MP3 unless you request it.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
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.
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.
Going back to the point of a thread in cup (I think), circa 1998 or thereabouts, regarding copy protection schemes:
The data is only as trustworthy as your users. If the system relied upon ID3 tags (or other metadata), then just fake the bloody metadata while keeping the crap contents. As the technology to inspect the data for musical content does not yet exist for practical application, how is the Napster client protect from this? I bet the record companies would love to see an trojan/exploit/virus for the various mp3 players out there...
--
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").
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'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
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.
...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.
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?!