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Napster Cuts Deal With BMG
n8willis writes: "According to a Reuters story I caught on Excite this morning, Bertelsmann AG (owners of BMG among others) has agreed to drop its lawsuit against Napster in exchange for equity in a new 'membership'-based music service to be jointly 'developed' by the two. This 'service' will allegedly be 'secure.' Anybody smell membership 'dues?'" Probably inevitable for Napster to cut deals a la MP3.com -- but the implementation of this joint project will be the thing to watch.
The music industry has been looking for a way to produce "pay per play" music for a while now.
Looks like BMG is teaming up with Napster to "catch the hype" and lead the way to a system that will allow music lovers to get only the music that they want (instead of a CD with one good song and 15 pieces of crap). This will be good for the music industry because listeners will be more inclined to pay more for the songs they want.
I think the whole "Napster problem" that the RIAA has been having is simply that Napster beat them to the punch. Now they are suing Napster with the covert goal of using the Napster audience to make a bigger profit.
See, Napster was never about "fair use" or consumer's rights, or "information wants to be free" - none of that. It's always been about extortion.
"Let's scare the record companies shitless". yeah, they probably knew they'd get sued, yeah, maybe they thought they could skank around it with "fair use", (which had nothing to do with Napster making ad banner revenue off of other people's content), but in the end, they knew that the music companies didn't have any technology for this high-demand market, and knew that in the process of the lawsuits, they'd end up being the subcontractors for that technology. I'm betting there's already allowances in Napster's architecture for future versions that provide "secure content". Maybe nothing functional, but I bet it was provided for as a feature down the road.
y'all have been sold like a sheik's harem.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
mindwire.org - /. with fewer spelling errors, better science stories, nicer commentary, and no JonKatz!
Shhhh, Signal11'll hear you. He's already posted a story on kuro5hin.
You stupid twit.
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...it says as much in the article.
Hey, good thing for Napster. They wanted to wake up the music distribution business I think, and if that's the case this is their first major success.
Bad thing for the freebies,eh? Yeah, I guess. But if it results in a system whereby I can pay less for a song or two than for a whole CD, I'd use it.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/001031/n31270103.html
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Hmmm. That will be just like the junk email I get from mp3.com.
On the business/legal aspects of this move, what they (BMG) have done is actually forego the lawsuit. This partnership appears to involve a great deal of Napster equity being allotted to BMG (whether this is strictly as a security on the loan or whether this is in perpetuity is unclear). I would suspect that the other four major label corporations will somehow join the partnership (i.e. they will also be bribed with an equity position), or that BMG is sufficiently equipped to fight a quick battle about royalties with those companies.
What I don't see is any mention of the following much more difficult questions: who is going to scan the music (currently done by an army of volunteer rippers), what format will the files be (if not mp3, how do they plan to implement this, unlike the switch from vinyl to CD or VHS to DVD, the industry does not have any control over the mp3 format, nor the majority of the tools used to make and play mp3s), how do they expect to store files (these files require serious bandwidth-- will they be continuing to use peer to peer?), if they continue p2p who will the hosting peers be (I certainly wouldn't host files for them without compensation-- at least the current honor system seems to work fairly well), if the files and hosting are done as now who will verify quality and accuracy (if I'm paying for Napster, why would I tolerate incomplete or falsely labeled files), and finally, how do they plan to change any single aspect of their current service without beginning to erode their user base significantly (most of these questions have very possible answers that I suspect will drive away users, and in combination will have an exponential impact-- that is one change drives away one user, but two changes drives away four, etc etc)?
I do not have a signature
so much for me using napster.. it'll probably once again be US only.. maybe canada.. bad news all around..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't BMG one of the CD clubs that you purchase a dozen CDs for some price and you don't have any further financial commitments (as compared to some others where you have to purchase a certain number of full-price CDs within a certain time frame)? They might keep it free and load you up on ads or make money selling demographic information about you instead.
Broken links suck, sorry. You can find kuro5hin here.
So someone writes some crappy but somewhat useful to the computer uneducated software (napster), it becomes amazingly popular, even though the software sucks....
THen they get sued by every major label out there.
THEN they somehow cut a deal to develop state of the art music subscription systems?
Egads.. that's fucked up.
It'll never happen. Where's the talent?
While it is possible to do that, that means stiffing your previous investors. If you do that, then it's going to be hard to find new investors.
secondly, I'm not siggy, I am Anne Marie.
Haven't you been paying attention you putrid crusty split tail?
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how else could they make money? Ads?
:o)
Yeah you're right... that's probably not the way TV and radio stations make money. Who said advertisment was profitable anyway.
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
So, what's next? The internet backbone companies will make a deal with the RIAA to pay 2 cents per megabyte transfered?
Okay, that's sounds like a bit of a stretch, nobody would go for that. But let's say an author writes a program and doesn't intend it to be used primarily for copyright infringement, but it ends up being used widely for pirating MS Windows (eg. Hotline). Would it be right for the author to be forced to pay MS for every copy that's pirated over his/her service? No. Will they anyway? Probably.
So, what's the difference? Intention of the author? Perhaps, but that's still not much. If an author writes a tool and intends it to be used for evil purposes, but only 1% of its use is for piracy, will the offended party go after the author for forced payments? No. Will this settlement mean that companies will apply more indescriminate and random rules in deciding who to go after, because the public thinks that P2P's have bad vibes? Yes.
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I agree. Napster has been trading in illegal goods. We have absolutely no right to do steal artists music under the current system.
What is important to note here is that the Peer 2 Peer philosophy is out of the bag. I think it would be really funny to pay for Napster. I'm going to pay so someone else can download BMG's music off of my computer?
Its also important to note the precedence that is being set here. Napster is used for illegal stuff, true, but it does have legitimate applications.
Things like this, (and to a much greater extent, the DMCA) are encroaching on our freedoms. If we don't fight them now, it will be even harder to fight later when more serious violations of our consumer rights are proposed. This is why we are all "whining" here on slashdot.
Captain_Frisk
Okay, everyone who has been on /. calling Metallica sellouts had better jump on this and start calling Napster sellouts. And how about the Offspring? Those guys crumbled to the will of Sony faster than you can say countersuit.
Napster had to come to this move. It was a matter of time. And of course, now all we get are people bitching about having to pay for Napster now. Folks, Napster sold out because they didn't have a choice, and were probably planning to do it all along. If you didn't see this coming, I'm sorry for you.
Go ahead, mod me down. I've got Karma to burn.
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
IMO, a membership model that is reasonably priced [*] will be the ideal way for Napster to go. Pay $10 a month to access anyone else that has subscribed as well as possibly the major studio's 'Napster' areas. It'll generate profits for the studios, and would help to boost CD sales, so that's only more money for RIAA and others. It would also benefit the users, as now the trading of digital music would be legitamized, and you can get the latest tunes with minimal fees.
There are definitely security issues; needless to say is the issue of SDMI-like protocols to prevent music that may be distributed by official channels which is only meant to registered users of the Napster client from getting to non-members, without infringing on user's fair use. If Napster does go to the member-based system, you then need to secure the central server, to make sure only registered clients may connect, and this means that new versions of the Napster client would have to be written and hopefully blessed by the RIAA for all OSes (This may require them to distribute a specialized MP3 player that is the only one that will play those MP3s from the membership Napster, which is a very bad solution, but quite possible in the RIAA's eyes). The RIAA may also want to have accountability in the various transfers -- adding a bit of info to each MP3 as it's distributed by this new client so they can tell the history of any MP3 from any server, which is very dangerous in terms of privacy. While some of these issues are definitely for the protection of RIAA's profits, I think the fact that BMG is working out a deal indicates that they may be willing to cooperate to some extent for the end user.
[*] There ought to be a few levels of monthly payments, depending on bandwidth type and expected usage; those with dialups aren't going to want to pay the same price as those with broadband connections, and some will only want maybe a half-dozen songs a month, while others might leech. Prices ought to range from $5 to $20/month to make this fair on all sides.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Go back and read the slash article on Mojo - its utterly convoluted and without the necessary userbase to make it worth the hassle.
WHAT KIND OF WORLD DO WE LIVE IN?!?!
If you didn't see this coming, you are very, very, stupid.
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
The indie side of Napster may be strengthened here, actually. If a subscription service is developed, then indies (a la MP3.com) will have more incentive to participate. Perhaps they should do that first, so the indies can side with Napster in the inevitable format wars...
sulli
RTFJ.
That would be precisly the problem. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable fee per song, but with napster I never know about the quality of the song, whether it's complete, or even if it's what i want. Napster would have to be able to guaratee I got what I payed for before I'd consider using the service.
treke
Then you're a pussy. And a rich one at that.
You are willing to give up your rights so that the mean man doesn't come bother you.
But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, (and I am entitled to call them a pussy).
I however would rather fight for what is legally and morally right. I will move over to opennap and be done with what started out as a good, simple idea, and turned into a very interesting test of peoples beliefs, and moral fortitude.
- I like pudding.
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> bullshit man, you are just a fraud.
How exactly do you know this? It amazes me (yes, even after all this time), how people will say things like this on the net. Do you accuse random people you meet in the street of being a liar and a thief? Presumably only if they say that they use Napster...
Mike
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain
I'm too much of a physical medium kind of guy, I like my CD's and my Vinyl (about a thousand of each). The only time I ever go after mp3's from the net was for (a) good rips of some of my 12" vinyl or (b) impossible to find tracks - like the KLF bootlegs. in the case of A I already had a copy (or two in some cases - DJ's always need backup copies), and in B... nobody was losing out... except the original artists who the record companies had sued into submission... or something like that. I work at an internet music site where I have access to Terabytes of music, instantly, for testing purposes of course ;-).
It doesn't appeal to me.
Napster isn't really a good example of true p2p filesharing (like gnutella, freenet, etc).
Keep in mind that napster requires a central server to function, and that it is completly controled by a corporation. I don't think this has any real implications for p2p.
Finkployd
O P E N___S O U R C E___H U M O R
great comedy company.
Does this mean the only 'sharing' will be by the great and beneficial BMG(and anyone else that comes along for the ride)? I would hope we still have NapsterClassic for independent distribution, and NapsterPay for the rest, i.e. the Music I have little or no interest in.
Yes, this is sad, but it was inevitable. You can't have a small commercial enterprise both making money and fighting the massive record companies -- it is hard to do one, much less both, at the same time. And for a company with no profit model, it makes even less sense.
So we wait, and we hope, and perhaps Napster will turn out both legal and better. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
If it only applies to BMG music, the RIAA doesn't really have anything to do with it.
Opennap. Get yourself an Opennap client and start using one of the opennap servers.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
Does it bother anyone else that the concept of peer-to-peer file transfer just settled out of court? Yeah, I know, a settlement doesn't set a legally binding precedent. But something tells me we can all thank Napster for selling our rights down the drain.
Of course, it's hard to deny that a settlement probably is in Napster's best interests. Maybe this just means that we can't let corporations fight for our civil rights; they are not citizens, and thus will almost always have little to lose by giving up.
Yes, we're still free to fight on our own, but this is going to take a lot of momentum away. With P2P fragmented amongst a dozen different networks, it's going to be hard to be able to point to something and say, look, if 35 million people engage in a behavior, then by any concept of a social contract based government it cannot possibly be illegal. What are the chances David Boies is going to work pro-bono for Gnutella?
Ugh. Well maybe the rest of the big 5 will be typically shortsided and this will all fall through, and we'll finally get this decaying mess of an anachronistic copyright system hauled in front of the Supreme Court. Or maybe this is better; maybe it's best that it doesn't get that far until the costs of letting media conglomerates rewrite the copyright laws becomes abundantly clear to everyone.
What's going to happen? There's going to be another P2P file sharing network built. Gnutella is a start, but it's flooded and impossible to get any information from. Scour never returns any viable results for me, so that's out.
Other posters have mentioned that mojonation is having a problem because of a small user base. OF COURSE they have a small user base; they are competing with Napster, who gets all the publicity, so people think "oh, that's the only one out there".
Once Napster sells out to the big corporations, then another file sharing network will step up and take its place. If that one falls, we'll hack out another program, using a different protocol. Saying (free) music sharing is dead is like saying that because George Washington is dead and buried, the presidency is no longer worth anything. Somebody else WILL step up to the plate and take over.
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Just select seven FREE* music selections. Then just download one music selection within a year at our special Low Member Price (usually $9.95-$15.95 per track). Then take four FREE* more music selections!
That's like twelve downloads for the price of one!
* A handling charge of $4.95 will be charged for each "FREE" music selection purchased.
For more information, click here.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't BMG one of the CD clubs that you purchase a dozen CDs for some price and you don't have any further financial commitments (as compared to some others where you have to purchase a certain number of full-price CDs within a certain time frame)? They might keep it free and load you up on ads or make money selling demographic information about you instead.
BMG is a major record label. They run the BMG CD club, just like Columbia, another major label, runs Columbia House.
Ironically, it is these CD clubs, not Napster, which are stealing from artists. When you get your 12 CDs for 1 penny, those CDs don't just come free from the sky--they come directly out of the artist's pockets.
Yes, that's right. Not only is the artist not making any money (like Napster), they are actually losing it when you order their CD from a CD club. All those CDs are chocked up as "marketing costs", and billed to the artist--along with recording costs, studio time, tour costs, and other promotional costs. (The musician pays every last cent of the cost of recording and selling their album, but the label, not the artist, owns the copyright on their work.) Meanwhile, the label--not the artist, mind you--makes a huge profit by tricking people into paying for all those extra CDs that come along with membership. (For those who don't know, you don't have to pay for anything you don't order; just send it back.)
And finally, unlike Napster, no one who rips off a musician by ordering their CD through a CD club ever goes out and pays for it, because they already have the real thing. A disgusting practice, all in all--one which Napster was helping to end.
:) Wish i had mod points today, i`d mod you up!!
As if `membership` in the story above needed quotes.
Are the knapster et.al. people going to try to clone this new "membership" based version (assuming it materializes)? Will they get sued under the DMCA for reverse-engineering?
Or is BMG just trying to possibly get on the side of the geeks (and failing at it?)
Thus sprach DrQu+xum, SID=218745.
DrQu+xum: Proof that the lameness filter doesn't work.
I really am not interested in paying membership fees to Napster so that I can now "legally" do something that will now definately be considered illegal.
I'd much rather Napster fight the good fight -- but it's probably naive to assume that they will.
I use Napster to check out songs off of CDs that I want to buy or from bands I've heard of but never heard.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
IIRC, Mojo Nation allows one to Either pay for service, or share a lot of files. This satisfies both.
If Napster could move to this sort of model, where I can continue to use it for free, as long as I share files, I would not be upset. Napster is a business, and is out to make money. This is not a bad way to go about it, and make the music companies happy at the same time
--
This message brought to you by Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Isn't Napster still facing a potentially multibillion dollar judgement from the RIAA case? Could the finance guys somehow file bankrupcy for the current company we know as Napster and start a new company to parter with BMG? Also, I would think that this would hurt the RIAA case because it somewhat acknowledges that what they are doing for free is illegal. I have always thought that the Napster business plan was horrible and couldn't believe anyone put money into it. Well now instead of getting "11 CDs for 1 cent" envelopes in my mailbox every week, I can start getting "110 downloads for 1 cent" emails every week.
-B
never underestimate the idiocy of a bunch of dalnet losers putting their heads together.
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In any event, nothing will stop people from trading the music on free networks.
Record companies are still focused on the way they made money in the old days: controlling distribution and charging for every copy made. They seriously do not understand that they have lost control over distribution forever. Instead of expending so much time and energy trying unsuccessfully to control the flow of data throughout the 'Net (impossible), they should concentrate on making it as easy as possible for people to compensate the artists after they download music, no matter where they get it from. Directly compensate the artist/publisher for music you like. If your friend e-mails you an MP3 and you hate it, should you have to pay anyone for it? Hell no! You took nothing from them.
If it were as easy clicking a button on your MP3 player to send a 'tip' to the artist/publisher, people would do it. After all, everyone knows that artists have to make some money to keep producing art. People trading MP3's want to give money to their favorite artists, the problem right now is they cannot! About as close as you can get right now is to go buy the physical album or go see a concert and/or buy t-shirts and whatever. What if you live in Abu-Dabi and can't buy the album or go see a concert? Centuries of experience with busking and recent tipping experiments on the net (such as Steven King's _The Plant_) show that people will compensate artists if they like what they hear.
Let's face it, the 'Net provides the opportunity for more music from more artists to reach more people than ever before, for almost no cost to the artist/publisher. Instead of capitalizing on the inexpensive and efficient flow of data on the 'Net, the RIAA is trying to restrict it. It won't ever work and they will loose out as a result of it.
Setting up compensation systems for artists/publishers will be a long and political process, but people are working hard on the solutions.
Burris
Napster will not be replaced by another p2p system if the deal Napster cuts with BMG satisfies the majority of current Napster users, users who are not committed to Napster for ideology but for convenience.
During Prohibition, as today, it was illegal to do something the public wanted to do badly enough to be willing to break the law. Furthermore, the process the Government wanted to forbid (fermentation then; file copying now) was something that individual citizens could do in the privacy of their own homes.
Ultimately, the failure of Prohibition spoke to the fact that all the law in the world won't help if enforcing it requires targeting tens of millions of otherwise law abiding citizens for intrusive examination and possible arrest.
The flip side of the Prohibition argument, though, works in the music industry's favor. Despite the fact that it is still possible to make gin in your bathtub, no one does it anymore, because alcohol is now available at a price and with restrictions the population generally approves of. To take a more recent example, the civil disobedience against the 55 mph speed limit did not mean that drivers wanted no speed limits, it simply meant they wanted a speed limit they could live with.
Techno-anarchists have often imagined a future where the state vanishes as people flock to anonymous digital cash and impregnable fortresses of data, and Napster is seen in some quarters as an anti-authoritarian move in just this direction.
But the lesson of Prohibition and 55 mph is that when a population rebels against a particular regulation, they are not agitating to throw off the chains of government interference, they are merely agitating for more comfortable chains.
Napster is not a revolution against the commercial music industry, it is a revolution within it.
-cla
Bitching about "now my music isn't free" isn't just selfish, it's ignorant, since there are probably a dozen other protocols and services you can use which ARE free and manifestly will remain so unless current law changes substantially. The only questions in my mind are what's a fair price for N/BMG to charge and what will they offer to justify it? Besides not having to switch download clients.
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It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
File Rogue! *shameless plug*
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads