Slashdot Mirror
Emusic Tracking MP3s On Napster
Nice Geek sent us a wired story talking about EMusic tracking
MP3s on Napster. Several issues: mainly the flaws of using MD5 checksums to determine the source of the MP3, but also the problem that using a bot violates Napster's terms of service. I don't really have any problems with this, but it'll be interesting to see what the next step will be.
A few days ago I posted a little teaser about Splooge. Anyone reading these threads would certainly be interested in this. We're currently looking for some beta testers for Splooge. We'll allow about 200 downloads before we take the beta download offline again. If anyone would like help us out and give it a try, it can be downloaded from www.splooge.com. Unfortunately, this is a Win app only at this time, a java client is in the works, however, development has been focused on the Win client. Any comments. concerns, or offers to work for free can be addressed to me at jbednar@splooge.com . Thanks! And no, despite the name, we're not a porn p2p engine. However... now that I think about it, thats not a half bad idea at all...
MP3 trading has been going on for years before napster. Before this, it was simple web site MP3 search engines. Now its in the hands of everyone, and they try and stop it. No matter what, there will always be people getting free music, with or without napster, gnutella, scour (now dead), or any other public service. It mostly all started on IRC, with bots and fserves allowing people to trade their songs. No matter what happens to napster, the record labels need to realized, people dont have to pay for their songs, and theirs nothinig they can do about it. This will not put them out of business, there are tons of people who still go out and buy music, But they need to find a way to live with this technology, because it will never go away; it will just mutate into something else.
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
There're lots of bad laws, that's not much of an argument - I probably would lose in court, but that's not what I was saying - I was saying I don't consider it theft, and that's all that matters to me. They have not lost anything, therefore there is no crime. Plus, I don't see how income taxes have anything to do with this. The only thing it has in common with this is the fact that it involved me paying out money or not. Income tax is not something you can "steal", it's not a product, so it doesn't really have anything to do with music at all.
I did say that if I couldn't get the songs it would be ok, but since I can why not? Sure I'm not doing what the content providors want, but they're NOT LOSING ANYTHING.
Thanks to recent elective surgery, I believe she now spells it "britnEy spEars"
Pete
Or just change something in the ID3 tag...
And here is the crux of the matter. A) The artists often do not own the songs the write and sing, the record companies do. Many artists get little or nothing from "their" music. B) Considering the record industries "creative accounting" practices (i.e., screwing the artists), many people seem to find it difficult to accept the record companies claim of the higher moral ground.
You don't make a case against the theft of music via file-trading. It is theft, as the Napster user is getting the benefit of the music while the licensed distributor gets nothing in return.
I agree that the licensed distributors are sleazebags, fat cats who wine and dine little artists, seducing them into signing horribly restrictive contracts.
To shift the industry away from the fat cat executives,
Get the little indies to STAY independent. Those contracts are signed with their blood.
Organize secure downloads at reasonable prices. A buck a song, or even lower through a subscription service that can handle the microtransactions with a minimum of fuss.
Get debit cards in the hands of teenagers. They're the market for music money, yet so few teens have any purchasing power online due to the credit card hurdle.
[
Jeez. You'd think that /. readers had never used a web browser before or something.
Ignore Wired. Go look at the EMusic press release for accurate information.
Open mailbox
> If you read your CD it says that it is illegal,
> without prior consent, to copy it to another
> form.
And if you bought a new car, opened the hood, and saw a tiny little sticker saying "it is illegal to modify this car in any way, including but not limited to the addition of racing stries, repainting and tinting of glass without written permission from Honda" would that stop you?
Just because someone writes some words on a peice of paper (or plastic) doesn't make you legally bound by them. In truth, it has been ruled that its perfectly legal to make copies for personal use...in fact, the law explicitly states that you CAN.
Legally, the record companies can NOT stop you. they can not take that right away. However, they write their little fine print anyway because they know that they can fool some people, some of the time.
> How would you feel, for example, if a book you
> wrote, was disseminated on the internet, and as
> a result you didn't sell any books?
I would track down the person who distributed it and shake their hand. It feels great to creat something and have someone else like it enough to share it with others. It feels great to have your work accepted and praised in such a way.
In fact, I can think of no greater praise for my work than to have someone hand a copy to someone else and suggest that they take a look at it.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.
No, but I understand that when I go to Piggly Wiggly, I'm paying for something (i.e. The transportation, storage, washing, and attractive shopping atmosphere) of the product. When it comes to music, the artists have to pay for their own recording, production, etc. i.e. The artists do the lion's share of the work, so they should get the money. The record company adds marketing, and probably should get something, but not $17.99....
"According the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, copyright holders can request that Internet companies refuse access to those people who are making unauthorized materials available for distribution." Why do all these things have to come out of the DMCA? the "Devil's Modia Conglomerate Ass-kisser" I like to call it. Actually I just made that up, but well it works. So are they saying that without the DMCA they wouldn't be able to do this? Or what? Anyway, napster isn't everything anyway, there's still a few (hundred) alternatives.
I'd think emusic isn't really concerned about all copyrighted music, but they probably check for mp3s from their site. I'd say that is a "legitimate" source
And do you rip the price stickers off CDs when you steal them from the shop?
And do you spray over the security marks on that bike you stole?
Do you remove the postcode from the things you stole from that house?
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
>"People don't have the right to privacy when they are publicly making available infringing songs," Hoffman said. "A burglar >doesn't have that right when he's walking with a television under his arm."
But they don't know if I have illegal music on my computer, unless they invade my privacy. How come people who try so hard to secure the artist rights so quikly forget about my rights?
SCARY
Failing that, chop the last byte off the file. It won't affect the music you hear - just cutting the last millisecond or so of sound out - but it will make the file size and MD5 hash different.
Finally, in order to calculate an MD5 hash, you need to download the whole file. EMusic plan to download every single file on Napster, just to check for files they claim rights to?? This, I must see!
Violates Napster's user agreement?
Ehr..So does 80% of the Napster users, if not
more, by downloading Music files and keeping them
longer than a day.
Who cares..Sueing individuals for downloading
illegal music is the same nonsense as prosecuting everyone with a VHS copy of some
movie.
Napster's user agreement is a joke..
Then again, it's a very good joke that prevents
them from being guilty of spreading
illegal copies. They are not, and I think Napster
is doing a great job.
Sharing files on Napster is no different than lending someone one of your CDs for a day.
No it's not, because you can lend someone a CD and they can listen to it without making a copy, but when you put your files on Napster, people have to make a copy to listen to them.
The only way your analogy would work is if Napster deleted the track from your hard drive when someone downloaded it. Obviously, nobody would use it then.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
How will this work? If N people mp3 a song, then unless they all use the same software, and the same options, they`ll get different files. Some may normalize the wav file before mp3`ing. Some will trim the file to remove silence at the end (for example, the penultimate track may have loads of silence to `hide` the bonus track).
If this took off, mp3 encoders could invert the song, or add some random bits to the end of the song.
Basically, there is no way they can do this. They`d have to constantly be downloading songs - any song - and then either listening to it, or use yet more vapourware - a tool to analyse a song and guess which song it actually is - before taking action.
I cant see how this would work!
Actually I think you could argue the complete opposite. Napster forced the big 5 Record Labels to acknowledge the Internet as a potential market. I'm sure Napster's press citing 20 million users and previously unrecognised demand helped get the attention of record company directors.
Do you think that without Napster and MyMp3.com, you would be seeing the current rush by the big 5 to start their own distribution sites?
Paul
I don't think so.
If you read your CD it says that it is illegal, without prior consent, to copy it to another form.
Like I said, the owner of the property has the right to do with it what he will. If he doesn't want you copying his music, you shouldn't - just as you don't want people abusing your things. You do not have owner's rights over the music - the fact that MS paid $millions for the Rolling Stones 'Start Me Up' will show you that. You just own the right to use a recording, in that form, and under certain conditions.
If you don't like those conditions, you don't buy the music. It is not right to say that music companies are overcharging you, or that they are monopolies, because nothing forces you to buy their music - just as nothing forces you to come into my supermarket and buy my goods if you think they're overpriced.
How would you feel, for example, if a book you wrote, was disseminated on the internet, and as a result you didn't sell any books?
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The next step, which should've been the first step, is psychoacoustic modelling. MD5 is so inadequate for this application that I'm impressed they've decided to use it in the first place.
Now to distinguish one song from thousands of others WILL be difficult, and I'm willing to see how this works. [in comparison to software that's supposed to screen images for porn.]
Flavio
My thing is this: I don't consider it theft, because most of the songs I download from napster, I would never pay for anyway, so they're not losing any money. See? I'm never gonna buy a backstreet boys CD, but maybe they have a song or two I wouldn't mind listening to once in a while. I'll download it. If I didn't have it, that would be fine too, I wouldn't buy it, but since I can get it free, heh why not?
emusic, IMHO has done more for legitimatising digital music than anyone else. they are providing all of the benefits of digital music, legally! i.e.: lower prices, lower entry cost for artists, higher profit margins for artists, increases variety, less money going to corporate bastard record companies, etc, etc, etc. while i don't necessarily like this tactic, if it is necessary for them to keep their business going then, it is worthwhile. (Situational ethics always rule in capitalism) while i don't neccessarily like this tactic, if it is neccessary for them to keep there business going then, it is worth while. (situational ethics alway rule in capitalism)
i have walked down train tracks, walked down train tracks, drunk at 3 a.m. it not magic, it's no great trick, w
Thankfully I get all of my online music via usenet...
First!
-- Windows security? Sure, which ONE would you like? -me
Emusic is already an attractive alternative. I no longer have to waste my time downloading songs from users with 14.4 connections. I no longer have songs that are poorly ripped. No more partial rips. And no RIAA police banging on the door. All that for $10/month is a steal.
If only they had a system to suggest music I might like based on how I rate the songs I download.
Sounds like the BSA's "Pirate software detector vans" that can detect when you're using an illegal copy of a program.
They just want to scare poeple into behaving.
Haven't you heard? EULA and copyrights are evil.
I just found it incredibly funny that someone would complain, especially a slashdot editor, about violating the terms of service on Napster.
Haven't you heard? Napster can't control what their users do.
Nice. And it will take only a few weeks and then there is a crack which will mask the Files so that they can not be tracked anymore...
--
There is no such thing as gravity. The Earth just sucks.
Now's the time to connect with your 14.4 and 1000-song playlist! That'll keep it busy for a while...
"I no longer have to waste my time downloading songs from users with 14.4 connections."
Just avoid slow users. Hint: ping times can't fraudulently lowered, so they are sometimes more useful than quoted bandwidth figures.
"I no longer have songs that are poorly ripped. No more partial rips."
Stick to high bitrate stuff, and avoid incomplete files.
"And no RIAA police banging on the door."
Same here.
"All that for $10/month is a steal."
All that for $0/month is a steal... even literally, some would suggest. =)
Let's clear something up here. When you 'buy' a CD, or a DVD, or a book, or even a piece of software, the same rules apply: YOU DON'T OWN IT! You only purchase the rights to use/view/listen to it. You buy a license, but the material's copyright still belongs to the company or individual you bought it from. I'm a complete advocate of new business models which revolutionise the way money is made from music, and the crimes committed by Napster users is not theft - but it is obviously piracy, pure and simple. These people are not paying their license fees. The most surprising thing is how long it took for something like this to become an issue on the first unregulated and widely accessible information network ever seen (that's the Internet, for the slow or tired out there).
We have something that can control Napster. Let's hope it succeeds - people think they have a right to steal music, and they don't. Just because it's not physical theft, doesn't make it not theft.
The artists (or the record company) own their recordings and have the right to do what they want with them.
Middle class white collar theft is no less theft than any other kind of theft.
Things about 'banning bots' etc are nothing set next to the fact that Napster is a tool for theft, plain and simple. These things are only used (or at lest 99%) to distribute stolen music.
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
I was going to moderate on this story, but there's no moderation tag for "-1, Obviously Stupid", so I'll have to respond. Last time I checked, farming was one of the few remaining commodity markets in existence, which practically gaurantees that farmers are at the mercy of the few large corporations who buy the bulk of their products, and with the ongoing consolidations in the agriculturally-derived manufacturing industries (look at RJR Nabisco, look at Pillsbury being merged with General Mills), expect this to get worse.
It simple economics, the fewer buyers there are, and as long as sellers are mostly dependent on those buyers, the buyers will be able to set their price about as low as they want to. Where I live in Minnesota, this is a continuous issue-- where families that have farmed for generations are now having to find other means to make money since farming is becoming increasingly unprofitable at the smaller, family-sized farm level. In fact, there is a large movement, especially among the devotees of organic produce, to support locally-owned, family-style, non-corporate farms in a very direct way (through co-ops and such).
In other words, this analogy is flawed, I hear about farmers being ripped off a lot more than I hear about rock stars being ripped off. I also hear about farmers consistently losing ground through no fault of their own. Given the ease of capitalizing a CD pressing and the incredible number of outlets for same, I can't say I have the same sympathy for musicians too dumb not to whore themselves to RIAA member corps.
I do not have a signature
since when is it the responsibilty of napster to track ownership of files of anyone, for anyone?
since when is it the reponsibilty of nampster to observe and report events on the internet to anyone?
i think napster has done a service to the music community, because i find myself buying more cd's, because i can 'test' listen to them on napster. before that, i just waited.
i would dearly love to have my children listen to the wit and humor of bill cosby. but just try and go to the store and buy one of his albums.
i am to busy working on the internet to deal with the nonsense that the music industry is throwing in my face. the 'prosecution' would be well advised to consider the glorious industry of buggy-whips when challenging internet interactivies.
The guy that reversed engineered the protocol said that you only need to change one bit. What is to stop, say something like Gnapster to just change one bit at the start and end randomly? Will this affect the song playability that much? This an example where open-source clients are going to be so much better, especially considering an move by Napster to do this would be against their case.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
Whoever marked the above post 'flamebait' LISTEN UP.
1) The comment might have been serious, in which case it deserves an interesting or insightful
2) if the comment was NOT serious, then it's a TROLL. Flamebait is when I call you a yellow bellied sneech, and besides that, you're a Windows user.
A troll is when you post a bogus comment with the intention of getting numerous followups. Playing the devil's advocate is one example of trolling.
Posting goatse.cx is NOT a troll. It's 'offtopic'
BTW, this posting is also offtopic. If you must mod me down for this, please use the correct selection at least!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
MD5 may not be the real means to track users or the real source of the files, but it may surely improve the quality of the files that you get from others.
Using MD5 you can know for sure if your file is complete and was not corrupted in traffic.
sig not found
Surely the DMCA only applies to music shared on machines within the boarders of the USA? So mp3 that originate outside the USA (which can now be identified by the MD5 footprint) could still be shared around?
Probably not, but worth a try.
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
Note: the system doesn't use _only_ MD5. Duh. Get a clue before flaming, you idiots. =) (Yet again, /. readers are the lowest common denominator)
Listen to eMusic's teleconference about their setup:
http://www.streetfusion.com/custom/MediaPlatForm/C ustomPageTemplate2.asp?MediaEvent=%7BE5B 4EE7D%2DBEFC%2D11D4%2D940C%2D009027EEA37A%7D&Conta ctID=0
(Free streetfusion reg required)
on a somewhat related note, i just noticed today that Dilbert is running a series of strips about musicians being paid with "digital tips." it's one of the funnier Dilberts in a very long while (and here i thought Scott Adams ran out of ideas long ago!)
- j
It doesn't use _only_ MD5. Did you even read the press release? Go away and come back when you're not so stupid, stupid.
Let's face it, Napster has taken the concept of online music back ten years with its blatent support of piracy. Whilst the move to digital, downloadable music is inevitable at this point, Napster has made sure that the RIAA will move as slowly as possible whilst aiming for maximum control over every aspect of online music. If I were in the music companies place, I'd have taken Napster to court as well, they deserve whatever they get.
Digital technology and the internet is doing this. Napster is just a tool. If it had not been Napster it would be some other similar tool. Napster was simply the first easy to use tool. Blaming Napster for this is like blaming the first web-browsers for spreading porn on the net.
To put this into better perspective, distributed.net has been trying to find a single 64-bit key for close to three years now and the key rate is up to 121 billion keys per second without success.
Burris
Why should this make Napster "dead meat"?
Napster's strategy seems to be to hold out for as long as possible, then settle with the big record companies. They've already started. The Napster folks can get rich and avoid getting sued or jailed, the RIAA can hide behind the Napster brand, and maybe there are some bucks to be made from the inertia of all the Metallica downloaders who stretched their brains to get on the site at all.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Apparently the author of this article hasn't listened to any Metallica songs recorded in the last 5-10 years.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
When it comes time to pay for Napster, what will happen to the web based Napster client over at www.invalidpagefault.com? A single Web-Nap provider could purchase an account for the aprox 5$ a month that it is going be and offer access to all at no charge.
I was in #yourmom today
What's an ethical but not-willing-to-pay-the-pay-the-big-record-companie s person supposed to do?
If the RIAA moves slowly this will only encourage people to copy more music illegally, since 99%+ of the songs on Napster were originally ripped from legitimately purchased CDs. Napster should spur them on to find ways to make it possible for people to easily get music over the net. Since searching for a completely secure method of distributing music is going to be futile, anyway, they should concentrate on getting money from people by giving them what they want.
Of course they may well be too stupid/naive to understand this, but then they should be replaced with people who aren't.
--trb
I'm sure if the Napster servers don't, the opennap ones will :)
Bye bye snoops!!
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
next thing you know they'll be telling people they can no longer loan their cd's to their friends...
I agree with you that there is a great deal of crap on the market. There are also some real jems. Lately Blue Note has been releasing some of their prize recordings on CD. Say what you like about music today being a rip off of everything good that was done by Pink Floyd, the Stones et. al. in the 70s, but remember that most of what they did was building on what John Coltrane and Miles Davis et. al. did in the 40s.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Last time I checked the MD5 check used in NAPSTER is calculated off the first 300kb (ballpark). So changing the last bytes of the files won't change the MD5.
---
Inanimate Carbon Rod thanks you for your support. See you in 2004!
It really doesn't matter what you think it is; it matters what it is, legally.
You can go on hollerin' about how, say, income taxes are illegal, and weed shouldn't be, and then withhold taxes on income from marijuana trafficking -- but don't be alarmed when the DEA or IRS comes after you. And, in court, you'd lose.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I hate doing this, considering I just replied to another post, but.. Policing Napster downloads isn't all fine and dandy, it violates their policy. If you agreed to the policy, you're therefore free to be banned from the service. Black and white. On or off. One or zero. That's it - nothing deeper. If there is an investigation system, then the only people who would be authorized to use it are Napster Inc., or people they in turn authorize. Besides, I have author permission on all 700 of my mp3's. I ripped and encoded them, gave myself permission.. Now, I don't allow you to copy them. Nyeh.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
- The system uses Relatable's TRM open-source audio recognition engine in addition to MD5 checksums.
See http://www.relatable.com/tech/trm.html for more info on it.
E-music held a teleconference about their system yesterday morning. There's a copy online... The URL is in one of my later posts to this article.
The system uses Relatable's TRM "audio signaturing" software (which is open-source, btw.).
or use yet more vapourware - a tool to analyse a song and guess which song it actually is
That's what it does. It uses Relatable's TRM open source "audio signaturing" technology. See my post below for a link to e-music's teleconference about the system for much more info.
Also, see Relatable's page on TRM - also, check out the TRM-enabled freeamp.
"People don't have the right to privacy when they are publicly making available infringing songs," Hoffman said. "A burglar doesn't have that right when he's walking with a television under his arm."
What an incredibly misleading analogy. An mp3 is a digital representation of a song, not the real goods. Audio signals are removed and repetitous or similar patterns are looped, so what the listener is hearing is a reasonable fascimile of the music - no more. Comparing it to breaking into private property and stealing a television set is quite a stretch.
Your Support for Napster Can Make a Difference
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
ok, fine.. what do we do then? Stand outside and petition their offices? Sorry, I gotta work to afford all those great new cds. Sorry if I seem harsh but I think these companies have been running the show for awhile now and have it embedded in their heads that they are always right.. This napster thing got their panties in a bunch and their didn't have their fingers in it, which I think was a good thing.. that they woke up to see what's going on.
1) The MD5s are always computed by the napster client and uploaded to the database, AFAIK.
2) But, yes, files will still have to be downloaded if TRM analysis is to be done on them. So that problem will probably come up.
The FCC classifies the internet as a series of transmissions, the FCC also regulates radio transmissions. Why is it that no one argues that listening to the radio is theft of copyrighted material? I mean you can't download yourself to the concert after all. People still go to see those, people still buy tour shirts, or videos of the concerts. People have been recording music from the radio probably since the introduction of magnetic recording media, I see no difference between recording from a transmitted source (radio, internet) to a magnetic storage medium (casette, hard drive). Or do you honestly believe that the recording industry should have the power to throw their weight around like this? I personally don't care to end up having a credit card reader built into my walkman or car stereo just so I can subscribe to content. Which if they can force mp3 to go that way I don't think radio will be that far behind. I seem to recall that sony electronics was under a similar lawsuit when it first introduced it's minidisc technology. (in fact I think they shouldn't even have been allowed to participate in the lawsuit considering that other divisions of their company make mp3 players, storage media, and market and sell rippers along with those devices.) Their argument was that the minidisc was not cd quality of the signal and thus roughly on par with radio. True audiophiles know that radio, minidisc, and mp3 are inferior to a full cd digital track. mp3 samples the signal which means there is a lot of information being cut out. (granted most of that information cannot be heard by human ears). However minidisc does the same thing, not sampling, but cutting out useless clutter that a human is incapable of hearing. However it was proved that minidisc wouldn't severly damage the industry, just as radio and in my opinion mp3 do not. People will continue to buy cds as long as the sound quality is considered the best. As someone who has been involved with music for a while (though not professionally, why would I want to? that kind of job would suck, I much prefer the IT world. :) tours, fans, late hours... that's depressing), I personally would like the proliferation of my music. After all it's about expressing things (or at least it used to be before all this pop britney crap where all the songs are the same and there is no real message to music anymore.) In medieval times the musicians would live on the suffrance of their patrons. Todays musicians have it easy by way of comparison and should be grateful that fans appreciate their music. It's a sad day when people are more interested in money than in getting their message across. And I don't care much of people end up flaming me for my opinions. Because they are just that, opinions. I don't plan on changing my stance, this is just the way I see it. After all people have a right not to agree with me. :P
We have something that can control Napster. Let's hope it succeeds - people think they have a right to steal music, and they don't. Just because it's not physical theft, doesn't make it not theft.
People do not have a right to copy music without permission under the current body of laws designed to compensate artists so that the increased body of art will further the public good. That being said, it is wrong to live under the contract of this society and disregard completely this piece of the contract.
Unauthorized copying is not ethical under the currently accepted system of artist repayment in the US. However, this is not a universal ethical guideline, and in other places it may not apply. Unauthorized copying is in no wy, shape, or form theft. The artist still has the master locked away for themselves and no one looses access to the artwork (actually the record company owns the work). Stealing an idea is akin to talking away the notebook of secret plans, copying such a notebook is simply unlawful replication, and not theft. The only thing that is possibly lost when an mp3 is downloaded illegally is the monetary compensation which the record company is entitled to by agreed upon US law, and this compensation is only truly lost if the kid had some intention of actually buying the work.
I am tired of the theft analogy. It was made up by software and record companies trying to sensationalize this entire process. Later society might realize that IP ownership applied to music has been in no way productive to society, esp. considering the downward spiral popular music has made in the last century, from baroque masterpieces and culturally viable folk art, to trite commercial music marketed to the LCD of the 14 year old population, with large stadium concerts (the worst accoustic environment imaginable) in which overpriced tickets result in riot and death.
Furthermore, as an owner of over 300 legally purchased CDs, I have found that through false promises and illegal trade restrictions, the music industry more of less owes me about $500-$1000. Add to that the piracy surcharge I paid on my blanks I used to copy BSD and Slackware legally. Fair, no?
You must own stock to actually support these theives.
. . . Is what this is all about. Napsters obviously using Emusic as a contractor. Emusic shares their data to the mutual benefit of both companies - Emusic (as was posted earlier) gets a foot in the door as another Napster-type service with a different format and Napster uses the data to pitch the RIAA on its new micropayment system. This information is going to be the metric that decides how profitable micropayment will be. EVERYONE (including the RIAA) is drooling over this and Napster is of course eager to be the first on the block to cash in. My 2 cents.
Could you define the word 'complaint' for me?
;)
Thank you.
Sorry... That URL is very dynamic. Go here and click on the e-music special announcement in the list.
damn damn damn!
and I already had the Milkbones ready for 'em.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Couldnt you simply block them from connecting to you. I would imagine that to do this effectively they would need to connect often, this would expose where they are connecting from. Assumming, they dont use different points each time, but in practice would be limited. Just need a host.deny type file for Gnapster, and they cant get access to your files.
-- Cheer, Cheer, The Red and the White.
You seem to forget that Napster is technology. You're saying that Napster is responsible for music theft...that may be true, but its the USERS that do that. This is a flawed argument. It's like saying "two criminals used the telephone to plan their crime, so therefore, the telephone company should be sued". Sure napster makes it easy to steal music...the telephone makes it easy to talk to people too. (And no, I don't advocate pirating music, but I don't advocate destroying technology either)
//m
What would that accomplish? You'd need to change a lot more than a few bits to change the TRM signature.
It's done more than that. Not all musicians want the publishing companies to have a stranglehold.
Fortunately, we don't have to wildly speculate; it's possible to do scientific, statistical studies. Until there is evidence backing up the claim that Napster is, on the balance of probability, decreasing anyone's sales, they should be presumed innocent by default.
Right - and copyright infringement is not theft. Please do not mislead people into thinking that it is.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Napster specifically told EMusic to take this action. In theory, that could counter the actual language in the license.
There's no excuse for plain stupidity.
Mirror, mirror...
Whilst the move to digital, downloadable music is inevitable at this point, Napster has made sure that the RIAA will move as slowly as possible whilst aiming for maximum control over every aspect of online music.
I would disagree. If anything Napster has accelerated the industry's move to online distribution. RIAA (and the music industry in general) is an established bureacracy who believe the adage, "If we're making tons of money from brick and mortar stores, why should we go online"? Napster et al, have given the music industry a well deserved kick in the butt.
Napster really is not the future of online music, ...
Strictly speaking, I agree, but I think something Napster-like may be.
and has merely solidifed the opposition of a lot of artists to making their music available online
And support from a lot of other artists, especially (but not exclusivly) indie artists.
teenagers won't go out and buy a Brittany Spears CD
You say this like it's a bad thing. :-)
b) theft is still theft - the artists have not given their permission to do this and so anyone uploading their tracks onto Napster is infringing upon their rights to control what they produce.
And here is the crux of the matter. A) The artists often do not own the songs the write and sing, the record companies do. Many artists get little or nothing from "their" music. B) Considering the record industries "creative accounting" practices (i.e., screwing the artists), many people seem to find it difficult to accept the record companies claim of the higher moral ground.
I want to enjoy music I can download, and Napster stands in the way of this.
You're entitled to your opinion. To restate my opinion, I think Napster has been a wakeup call and the record companies will have to move damn fast to come up with a consumer acceptable online alternative.
// TODO: fix sig
Don't assume that Napster's terms of service are enforceable. No one knows whether the click through license during install or the posted terms on the website are enforceable legal documents. I can think of many arguments to defeat both.
When the system finds a suspicious file (apparently through a filename search) that doesn't match a known MD5, the file is downloaded and the fingerprint calculated. Is that legal? Probably not. =)
I don't think that they MD5 the whole file, just the beginning. It should be useful for avoiding the "booby-trapped" songs that some people upload -- you know, the ones that have the first couple seconds of a song followed by birds chirping or something like that.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
What does all of this have to do with napster and you? Well, freeamp allows you to download/stream music from emusic fairly easily (for a fee--something like $10 a month). So, if the napster distribution channel dries up, they become a quite attractive alternative. No more crappy searches, no more little red dots beside the songs, linux integration, artist-tipping support. Now, I'm not saying that emusic's actions here are good or bad, but do have a legal approach to digital music, while napster/gnutella/etc are questionable at the very least. They do support an open source project as well.
Policing the downloads of Napster users is all fine and dandy. However it is not fine when the software used to do it is flawed.
Napster users have no right to distribute music to users without proper authorization to have a copy of the copyrighted music. Yet at the same time they have a right not to be subject a flawed investigative system.
The best analogy of this software is the gene-sniffer (remeber that one?) used to determine if you were in the room, and then having the police say you obviously did the crime because your gene-sequence was found in the city.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You have a point. Stealing things is not right.
But opening a way to buy music while not letting the 'monopolist' record companies be the only ones to distribute it may make very well sense. Music that's not as good as other music may have a lower price. Plus, using the internet as a distribution medium is much cheaper than CD's that need packaging and handling.
sig not found
You know, no one would have to worry about all of this tracking business if they just accepted water marking, and played fair.
Water Marking at least makes it possible to track a music file without having to do all this fancy IP mapping stuff. Personally i don't want some company invading my privacy and tracking my movements on the Internet.
Now, i don't actually use Napster, so it's not my problem. But if this company moves into more mainstream systems, then i'll probably be upset. I would be quiet happy to accept SDMI marked files in return for my own privacy though, and i suspect most people here would too.
T. Lee
The reason you're seeing this come from Emusic and not The Big Five(tm) is that Emusic are a legitimate source of digital music. Unless people go to the effort of purposely modifying the mp3 files they get from Emusic before putting them in their Napster directory, the files will be identical.
Before now, there's never been any reason anyone would go to that effort. But now, I suspect you will see lots of utilities that flip some number of random bits in a file to destroy the signature.
Incidentally, there are plenty of other legitimate sources, and they're growing by the day. The majority are band's own websites... often an exclusive remix or a live version of a song. As a current example, the official Nine Inch Nails site contains two tracks that were not put on the new remix album "Things Falling Apart".
[TMB]
"*accoustic* fingerprint"?? i don't think my metal rapCore collection has any of those.
Let's say that after downloafding you change one bit in order to get a new checksum.
Who will bother doing this? The ordinary user will not have the knowledge or interesert in why or how. If this is to be built into Napster then Napster will be in serious trouble, because this will mean Napster will have functions that are exclusively made to support illegal trading.
So this means Napster will loose and gnutella will win?
I think the lawyers working for the music industry will never be out of a job.
"You can't forge MD5," Weekly said via instant message. "Napster uses MD5 to fingerprint each song. The thing is, if you change one bit in the song, you get a different MD5. Meaning that if you try and track songs by their MD5s, and the users find out, they will be able to very easily modify their songs to have wildly different MD5s."
My suggestion would be to construct a Napster client (there's a list of many open source Napster-type clients at OpenNap) that slightly altered each MP3 when transferring it, effectively randomizing the MD5. Sort of like Active Server Pages - the MP3 would be constructed 'on the fly'.
this issue hasn't been determined. The law allows making noncommercial copies as a "fair use", and Napster users are doing it noncommercially.
1) "Does this mean they will scan for popular modified copies too?" Yes. Listen to the teleconference about the system at http://www.streetfusion.com (it's under the "special events" category, requires 'doze media player).
2) You always have an opportunity to dispute the DMCA notice.
3) They'll try suspending your napster account before going after your isp account.
The napster usage agreement explicitly states that you consent to others accessing your shared files.
If EMusic's bot must download a file completely in order to build an MD5 checksum for the file, that means that it has to download essentially every file out there. However, they can't possibly be claiming that every file on Napster is one that EMusic owns the copyright for. Therefore, EMusic's bot is...wait for it...downloading music that *EMusic doesn't own*.
Which means that EMusic is comitting the very act they claim they are attempting to catch other people doing.
Hmm.
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I *invented* pants!
The fuzzy matching part does require that the file be downloaded.
Couldn't agree with you more. All that Napster really does is make lots more really bad mp3s avaliable to a huge audience and see that they get handed around further. I stopped using Napster quite a while ago because so much of the music there sounds really bad (as if mp3s weren't bad enough to start with) and/or is missing the end of the song. As far as I'm concerned, it's still worth some money to be able to buy an album and know that I'm getting something quality.
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I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
You obviously haven't read Wired much (at least since it's previous owners sold out [souled out? =)] and it became vaporous. =)
Right... Ironic, isn't it? =)
How so?
YOU CANNOT MAKE A WONDER TECHNOLOGY AND EXPECT IT TO WORK FOR VERY LONG!
The biggest security hole sits between the keyboard and chair.
-Andrew McAllister
Let's face it, Napster has taken the concept of online music back ten years with its blatent support of piracy. Whilst the move to digital, downloadable music is inevitable at this point, Napster has made sure that the RIAA will move as slowly as possible whilst aiming for maximum control over every aspect of online music. If I were in the music companies place, I'd have taken Napster to court as well, they deserve whatever they get.
Napster really is not the future of online music, and has merely solidifed the opposition of a lot of artists to making their music available online. You can argue that having stuff available on Napster is likely to encourage people to go out and buy the CD, but this is a fallacious argument in that a) it only applies to a certain group of people - teenagers won't go out and buy a Brittany Spears CD because they downloaded it off of Napster, and they count far more than any tree-hugging Grateful Dead fans, and b) theft is still theft - the artists have not given their permission to do this and so anyone uploading their tracks onto Napster is infringing upon their rights to control what they produce.
So if this company can contribute to the downfall of Napster, then I say good luck to them. I want to enjoy music I can download, and Napster stands in the way of this.
Jon Erikson, IT guru
Is it because on a web page it is considered published and on napster shared?
Why not make this part of the file-sharing protocol? The user could click a box that says "Use anti-signature device" before downloading and a few unimportant bits would get flipped intentionally during download. Then, every file would have a unique MD5 signature.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Think about this, if it is ilegal to copy music, that is copy-written, then transfering that infromation via Napster is just another medium for copying that information. To, argue that whatever company uses this tracking service will eventually have laibilty problems is absurd. There is a trend within US courts, they have become very strict in regulatiing on-line distribution, meaning they don't give a damn about some person's ip address, being tracked to prevent copy-write infringement.
"To know what you know and know it, and to know what you don't know and know that. That is wisdom."
On the legality of eMusic's course of action:
Yes, eMusic has violated Napster's TOS by using a bot. I hope that (a) Napster bans them (I suspect they will, since they're probably looking for any excuse to do something like that), and (b) courts throw out any evidence obtained with this method on the grounds of illegal method.
Now, what about the Metallica/Dr. Dre suits? Did the security firm sit down and handpick through all of the Metallica/Dre hits to make sure they weren't live or mislabeled, or did they use a bot?
(... please tell me they used a bot, because then people can raise a fuss about it...)
Also -- what about identical files? If Person A, in, say, Connecticut, buys a track from eMusic and shares it, and Person B in... I dunno... New Mexico has another legitimate copy of the song (but not the one bought directly from eMusic) and downloads it, is that infringement? What if his CD-ROM drive can't extract digital audio (that was a problem for me until I got my burner)?
Basically, I'm not convinced that eMusic has the right to restrict access to content on the basis of whether or not the file originally came from their site (heck, when I think of it in those terms, it looks like an attempt to monopolize!).
inigima
...the filename must match fuzzily to the name of a controlled track for the system to do a download...
I'm not saying Napster or p2p is bad or good, I'm just saying that it needs work. As for it being a bot, since Napster wants to "comply" they'll surely let it run. But what about all the Napster and Napster Server clones?
EMusic's Napster-seeker software uses Relatable's TRM engine to do the "acoustic signature" matching that takes care of non-bit-for-bit copies.
They go through Napster to find cuts with "their" particular MD5 checksum. Every ripper, of course, creates bit-by-bit identical .mp3 files (needed to get the same MD5).
Looks to me like it would be useful only for detecting stuff that was downloaded from a "legitimate" source (are there any?) and put unchanged onto Napster.
As soon as Napster starts letting the record companies run bots against their servers, they're dead meat. All the record companies have to do is look for people serving stuff that *might* be theirs, and then download it to check it out. Of course, they'll have to keep downloading it to see if it has changed. Bandwidth? What bandwidth?
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Welcome to the Turing Tarpit, where everything is possible but nothing interesting is easy.
Just thought I'd pass the word along on this really good deal they have.
Mmm, TMBG fleece jacket.
BilldaCat
The article says if you are determined to be distributing illegal/unauthorized copies then
Emusic can "request" that your account with your ISP can be suspended? Yet this thing isn't even out there yet and everyone is already talking about how the MD5 fingerprint is easy to modify. Does this mean they will scan for popular modified copies too? Then will they report me to my isp because I am making available an mp3 that in reality doesn't belong to them but by some strange coincidence matches one of the MD5 signatures they are scanning for. This all sounds way too iffy to me for them to have their thumb on my freedom to be on the internet.
Napster will hopefully evolve into a marketable delivery method for today's media but letting some half-cocked geeks who only spent three weeks thinking about it scan my computer for possible terminable material, well that is just not something that sounds very legal or intelligent for that matter.