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The New World of P2P Advertising
Katascope writes "Salon is running an article about targeted advertising on Napster and Gnotella. The worrysome part is the co-opting of P2P search databases to build profiles and advertise using instant messaging" I've always believed that targetted marketing might actually make advertising useful again (Any 24 year old who occasionally watches MTV and doesn't need zit cream knows this). This one is scary because people are sending you IMs based on the tunes in your napster share. Course I don't have IM, and use napster super infrequently, so I guess thats one way to not be annoyed. But frankly if I got junk mail about obscure Who stuff, I'd be happy. Much better then credit cards, viagra, and stock tips. As long as its opt-in. (michael: A number of people have written in with Cringely's comparison of Napster and subways. Good read.)
yeah, the DAT tax was at least somewhat valid. *Most* people do not use DAT for purposes other than recording music (although I don't see a lot of pirated music being stored on DAT).
:)
the CDR tax would be a definite annoyance, and it wouldn't really make the RIAA happy. They are still going to attempt to shut down Napster, and they are going to attempt to do whatever possible to stop the illegal copying of music. Bastards!
I say the hell w/the damn taxes, and the hell w/the RIAA. Let us have our cheap CDR's, and free music.
Just my worthless rambling.
Well if you specifically legalize MP3 sharing and such, it will make it all appear more appetizing in the eyes of the advertisers. Getting advertisers is almost always a struggle, I'd think it would help to make it easier in any way possible.
funny munging
You're not complaining.
Neither are many others.
That's the problem.
In Winn Schwartau's book, Information Warfare, he makes mention of over 50,000 databases where you might be so blessed as to find your name, placed there without your knowledge, much less your consent.
You become a commodity, traded and used instead of respected as a human being.
I don't like that.
And unless you believe that PRIVACY is a valid exchange for security, neither should you.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Aaah, CmrTaco; Bless! Growing up...
I have Katz articles turned off in my profile.
So, please stop mentioning his name. I thought I was rid of him and there you go again.
I realized that Napster had an IM function when, in a bored moment, I joined one of the more populated channels and immediately recieved an IM advertising some group's web site. So, yes, there is spam on Napster.
I would find it highly objectionable to have to pay a tax to subsidize an industry that has for the most part gone out of its way to strip me of my rights. Particularly since I'm not doing anything illegal (Fair use allows me to transfer content I paid for to other media.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The difference between data and audio CDRs is that data CDRs won't work in the stereo component CD burners. If you want to burn CDs using the cheaper "data" CDs you have to have access to a computer with a CD burner. Despite the levy that it enacted on these disks they are still quite cheap, or at least cheap enough for making a few mix disks once in a while. They would only start to seem kind of expensive if you were trying to support a major linux distro burning habit on them.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
If I want this kind of government intervention in my computer media, I'll move to Canada.
The depressing part is large media companies doen't need the tax laws. Take Sony for instance. They produce blank media along with being a member of the music industry. They can legally impose their own form of "music tax" on their media production division. I wouldn't be shocked if many large multi-industry corporations did similar price fixing.
There are hidden services fees embeded all throughout our society. To use Cringely's example; I don't ride the subway or the bus, yet I'm still paying for the service. It's going to be a fact of modern day life.
--
Too lazy to come up with a clever sig.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
"Any 24 year old who occasionally watches MTV and doesn't need zit cream knows this."
Yeah right.. anyone who's still watching MTV at 24 years old doesn't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
One of the many things I hate. thingsihate.org
Agreed. You shouldn't have to pay royalties for that. The plan works better for tapes because music was the main if not the only thing people put on them. For CD-R, maybe the royalty should be smaller by percentage of the cost of the CDR than for the tape to account for this change in storage style. You're still paying a royalty, I know, but at least the fact that some percentage of all CDRs are used for music is still accounted for.
This plan can be made to work to keep the RIAA happy at a very small inconvience to CD-R buyers. If it makes peace with the RIAA, let's do it!
Ben
I'm not completely sure that Chopin is one of the exceptions: it's complex, sophisticated elevator music, to be sure, but still elevator music.
Although I agree that it is more relevant, I can't help feeling that this has crossed a line somehow. Planting cookies on my machine, watching what sites I come from and leave to, and all that is a passive monitoring of activity. I am doing things, and they watch. This doesn't bother me, because I can reject cookies, etc.
What is bothersome about this is that they are now actively searching through my hard drive to see what I have done. It is like they just broke into my house and went through my drawers, and now Hanes (C) is going to send me some coupons to buy new underwear. Yes, it is relevant, but STAY THE HELL OUT OF MY STUFF!!!
At the very least this needs to be made an opt-in technology, if not just abandoned altogether.
"I was a geek before it was cool" --Me
"I've always believed that targetted marketing might actually make advertising useful again..."
It's good!
"This one is scary because people are sending you IMs based on the tunes in your napster share."
And now it's bad!
"Course I don't have IM, and use napster super infrequently, so I guess thats one way to not be annoyed."
Still bad, but now not quite so!
"But frankly if I got junk mail about obscure Who stuff, I'd be happy."
Back to good! Incredible play folks--a full 360 in the course of 4 sentences--not just a "360" that's really a 180, but a literal 360.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Because the promary use of a blank audio tape is to put music on it. You can put other things on it, like PXL2000 videos and games for a ZX81, but for the most part it is for music. CD-RWs are only marginally musically related. If the RIAA is getting a cut of the tax, then so should software makers, especially game makers (for both PC and Playstation 1), and the movie industry. If we are talking about CD-RWs use for piracy, I'm willing to bet that software piracy beats MP3 piracy.
-no broken link
Oh no, targeted marketing, it's corporate rape!
Is that a Think Geek banner-ad I see?
But seriously, when you opened your HDD to the outside world what exactly did you think would happen?
"I've seen plays that were more exciting than this.
Honest to god... Plays!" Homer Simpson
I suppose the record companies would...but then we dont' really want to talk about helping them do we?
Rader
Related to your link, I voted against that woman...I wish I had convinced my SO to do so also.
As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA can harass Napster out of business. I don't care. I'm not interested in subsidizing the RIAA OR Napster for the CDR media I purchase for totally unrelated purposes.
In other words, I'm not interested in paying a few extra pennies on CDR's to get the RIAA off yourback.
(IIRC, potassium benzoate (C7H5KO2) is a white, flakey powder used as a food preservative. guess it's not all that healthy, like good ol' Red Dye #4
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The blank media that's marked Data (and is cheaper) won't work in the 'playschool' kind of recorder the dummies buy (i.e. the CD Audio recorders that are stand-alone audio components). They have to be used in the gear the rest of us use, the data drives in our computers.
At least with gnapster, instant messages show up in the console window instead of popping up in the foreground, so they are far less obtrusive.
What the hell is he thinking? Why should I want to subsidize record companies?
For the record, a few times a month I copy a commercially recorded CD on a CDR, but this is as an archival method. Almost all of the CDRs that I burn are for music that is allowed to be copied for no profit, ie. the Grateful Dead. If the artist who holds the copyright encourages me to make free copies, how would the RIAA get off in demanding that I pay them a tax?????????
If I want this kind of government intervention in my computer media, I'll move to Canada.
How bout we put a tax on cars because every bank robber uses them to illegally make his getaway?
Be ot or bot ne ot, taht is the nestquoi.
The good thing about the position that we're in with this is that the law isn't on the books. It can be written to do anything. Do you think that SW makers should get a cut too, not just the RIAA? Let's do that too. What's the big deal?
Ben
Every time I use Napster from now on I'll live in fear of receiving a message from Dr. Dre, informing me that "he still got love for the streets, but if the streets should fail to cease and decist, forthwith, from trading his intellectual property over Internet file-sharing media, he will be forced to pursue legal action in persuance of reparations, personal ownership of said intellectual property, notwithstanding."
The targeted advertisments will have to be promoting a product related to music in order to gain any benefit from a user's listening habits.
Almost all studies (formal, and my personal experiments) - show that there is almost no correlation between a person's taste in seperate categories (ie - people who like these books will like these kitchen utencils - based off of purchasing behavior.)
Collaborative filtering has been around for a while now and you would be amazed at the places it's evolved (personalized coupons on the back of your receipts at the grocery store). It's all apart of the retailer's plan to have "one view of their customers accross all channels". Is it a bad thing - depends on who you are I guess.
Oracle.
Bad idea. The way to correct the weird problem is to have ticket sales cover 100% of the cost. Only people who use the subway should pay for it. I live in New Mexico. Why am I paying for New York's subway?
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There is a flaw in both articles.
/usr/local? What if instead of audio tracks, I was making an archive of DIVX movies?
With regard to the IM-spam described in the Salon article, it won't work if the Napster user isn't running IM or IRC. It is quite possible to run Napster without being able to receive IM's, and to ignore stuff happening in the IRC window.
With regard to Cringely's suggestion of a CD-R "tax," I'd like to point out that not every CD-R is being used to make copies of audio CD's, or even archives of MP3's. A CDROM can hold ANYTHING, including a backup of one or more partitions on your system. Why should ANY money of mine be paid to lazy record company execs just because I want to make a copy of
In all, I prefer the method mentioned in the Salon article, as there is an "opt-in" method, if you don't mind the spam.
The Cringely "tax" is regressive, and is as obnoxious as the "Microsoft tax" that people pay when they purchase PC's with Windows pre-installed on them, when they have no desire to run that operating system.
Interestingly, though, both articles show that more than one person is honestly thinking of how to make the Napster model work. Good try, Cringely. Better luck next time!
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
Everyone seems to get their knickers in such a twist about a CD-R tax. I don't get it. Yeah, I know, I know, we all use CD-Rs for plenty of things that don't involve RIAA music, and yeah, a tax for something that doesn't apply to you might be annoying... but on the other hand, we pay taxes for all kinds of things that don't directly benefit us. Your tax dollars support public transit, even if you never ride it. Not a perfect analogy, but close.
But in practical terms, if not entirely logical terms, a CD-R tax could make a lot of sense. I know I'd be thrilled to pay a half-penny per blank if it meant the RIAA would back off and some artists got paid. We're talking chump change here, folks. And if they split it with the movie people, then maybe we could get rid of all these ridiculous and irritating content protection schemes.
Call me crazy, but I'd be happy to pay a few dollars a year in CD-R tax to make the whole copyright issue go away.
I should give you the URL to my 'Spiro Agnew Speaks Out' MP3s. It would be interesting to see if the hard drive would self destruct if it simultaneously held Agnew and Chomsky material.
I don't think so. Nirvana is nihilistic borderline smackhead music.
Chopin's music isn't.
It's not all 'equally good.' Likely as not nobody will give a rip about Nirvana 30 years from now except the producers of 'That 90's Show.'
People will still be enjoying Chopin's music.
I bet your favorite search engine knows.
I'm not saying that we're doing this because it's necessarily the most logical thing to do. I'm saying we should do it because it might keep the RIAA from harassing Napster and so on. I'm willing to pay a few extra pennies on CDR's if it gets the RIAA off our backs.
If it doesn't get the RIAA off our backs then there's no way in hell we ought to do this!
Ben
Bank robbers have been known to use bikes to make their getaway.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
To save their millions they are throwing away billions, because they want 100% of a small pie, rather than 10% of a fantastically huge pie.
reminds me of the old monkey traps.
For those who do not know:
you have a large heavy pot with a hole just large enough to except a fruit like an apple or an organge, etc. (whatever the monkey likes. The hole is also just large enought for you hand. But it is too small for you (or a monkey) to take the hand out while holding on to the fruit. You have to tip the jar over.
You as a human can figure this out. but a monkey can not. It grabs on to the fruit, and won't let go.
Voila! One monkey dinner
The record companies are like the trapped monkey. They won't let go, they can't let go, even if it kills them.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I'm wondering can I rent out the little spot on the door in my bathroom to various advertisers. Maybe a nice add on the ceiling in my living room. Maybe I could rent out enough space in my home so I will not have to work and can spend all day just surfing the net and playing tribes.
If you decide to make a body of information about you public, it should be expected that the information will be processed, and the party observing will form an argument about that information that will benefit itself.
o ne/story.html?s=n/rolling_stone/rock/news/20010208 /20010208002)
thats what marketing is. the most basic is that they observe you are a potential consumer and present their argument.
so they look in your share and now they know you have 50 brittney spears mp3's, and she just signed a pepsi deal. (http://rock.yahoo.com/rock/music_news/rolling_st
now you get an IM to drink pepsi, britneys choice. suprise suprise. you made it public. deal with it.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
I don't think he's saying that they are. His proposal is that a tax should be levied on CD-R drives and media and the proceeds should be distributed by the RIAA according to the proportion in Napster's logs. His assumptions seem to be that Napster logs perfectly represent the illegal sharing of music and that saving said music files represents a constant fraction of everyone's CD-R use.
Why that is a fairer approach than requiring Napster to directly pay royalties is beyond me.
Most people only value things (privileges, objects, whatever) in proportion to their perceived cost of acquiring the thing.
My Mom used to be a social worker and anti-drug counselor. Initially, she gave her services free to those who couldn't pay. Relatively quickly, however, she was forced to change that policy; people would not show up for appointments, or expect unrealistic results in unrealistic timeframes, or even treat her badly. They didn't appreciate what they were getting for free. As soon as my Mom started charging a nominal fee ($5 I think it was), those problems went away. People valued her service more when they felt like they had invested in it.
Similarly, if the subways were "free", i.e., completely tax-supported, there would probably be positive side-effects not unlike those that Cringely mentioned. However, there would probably be more negative side-effects. The majority of people would start to think of the subways as having no value, or even worse, an entitlement. Vandalism would probably go up, and the amount of abuse on the system would jump exponentially.
Napster has the same problem. If the music were free, a lot of people would start to consider it an entitlement -- in fact, many already do. I predict that the amount of "abuse" of the artists would increase; people would expect new songs without appreciating the creative work it took to produce them. And even if the market for CD writers and such was temporarily greater than the market for music, the effect of what Cringely is proposing would be the crippling of *both* markets as soon as the market for elelctronic delivery and storage (the Cd-writers, etc) was saturated.
There are problems with my argument, just as there are problems with Cringely's. For instance, the evidence that CD sales go up because of Napster would seem to contradict my point. But that is only because having the CD adds value to the music -- lyrics, cover art, a physical medium, etc. However, if digital distribution of the *entire album* - including cover art, lyrics, etc - became the norm, there would be no additional value in buying the pressed CD.
Replies and rebuttals are welcome. I'm not saying that what Cringely proposes is bad; in fact, on some levels I support it. But the costs incurred by the tragedy of the commons must be addressed as well.
Want to make $$$$ really quick? It's easy:
1. Hold down the Shift key.
Second, his line about people having "better places to go" than the subway: every time I ride the subway, I see 1 or 2 people per car who don't have anywhere better to go. I can't blame them. If I were homeless in New York City in February, I'd spend all night in the subway, too. But I don't want my subways to become a permanent roving homeless shelter.
Third, the most important part: Cringely doesn't know the MTA budget. Five minutes of research would have brought up this page:
MTA Information for Investors
The Audited Financial Statements show that Operating Revenues account for $2.19 billion in Calendar Year 1999. Of that $2.19 billion, $2.00 billion is farebox revenue. $0.07 billion is advertising revnue.
Total expenses are $4.57 billion. The farebox revenue is a lot more than "10% to 15%".
You might wonder why the MTA publishes an audited financial statement. They do it because they have investors. They don't have any stockholders, but they sell a lot of bonds to pay for all those tunnels and trains and boats. The bondholders want to know how the MTA is going to pay them back before they front their money. They feel more secure when the MTA points to the farebox rather than getting 100% of their money from some politicians who could fuck with their funding whenever it's politically expedient.
This is quite unlike the "group" which often signs away the publishing rights to the label just as they do the copyright on the recording itself.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
This is the worst idea I have heard in a long time. Perhaps Linux should be taxed and the proceeds given to Microsoft, since Linux might hurt them?
This would basically turn the music business into a state supported industry in the worst traditions of communism.
--
Well, I certainly see which category you fall into... so whad'ya think of the Muddy Banks cd?
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
That's good!
The fru-ogert is also cursed...
That's Bad.
Oooohhh....
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
This is exactly why I will never pay to use Napster. Often people assume it's because I'm a jackass freeloader who thinks I have a right to take and copy anything I want, but that's not it at all. The reason is that I don't want MegaUniversalSony making money off of the fantastic artists like Death Cab For Cutie, Super Furry Animals, Arab Strap, and others that I use Napster for. The giant RIAA companies most likely aren't going to help out their own artists with the cash from the deal, much less give money to independent label artists. People need to wise up and realize that most of the best music out there is on smaller independent labels like Flydaddy and Jetset, and Napster isn't giving them a cent. So what do I do? Always buy these artists' cds, go to shows, buy shirts, etc. But screw Napster. Until they sign a deal with the independent labels whose artists I enjoy, I'm going to continue to be a "music pirate."
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
I don't get it either, this way the "consumer" is hit twice while napster, making the money, pays nothing. Nice.
The RIAA doesn't represent *all* artists, it just represents the big ones. You know, the ones in the Brotherhood which is already peeling away the big bucks.... So the little guys get screwed *again*, while the RIAA manages to find yet another revenue model.
How the fuck does Cringely infer a direct causal relationship between Napster and CD Writable sales? Does he really think that CDRs are only useful for music?
And does he really think that most people, once they have music conveniently inside their computer, are going to want to listen to it, using something as clumsy as a CD? Sure, some people do that, but I imagine it's not very popular. Good grief, I have spent the last few weeks of my spare time ripping and encoding all my CDs, so that I don't have to deal with bulky stacks of hundreds of those damn things anymore. The last thing I want to do is burn music onto CDRs.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well, the MTA's site refers to daily paid ridership, so let's assume the number excludes free riders. That takes care of people with passes.
Seniors and the disabled pay half fare. If fully half of all riders pay half fare, then fares still pay 45% of operating expenses, which is three times Cringely's top figure. Again, I suspect the true percentage is much, much higher.
gnotella was (is?) one of the many gnutella clones. Used to be available for dl at gnotella.nerdherd.net, but not sure if it kept up with the times developmentally (i.e., may have been supplanted by bearshare, etc.). As a famous toy soldier used to tell me every AM, "knowing is half the battle."
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I'm guessing that those think geek (TM) banner ads here on slashdot are targeted to a certian audience. I bet that the commercials during 'ER' are likewise targeted. I know that the ads I see when I'm surfing for p0rn are targeted.
Advertising is a useful way of subsidising things that we like. I read somewhere once, long long ago that a Sunday newspaper would cost something like 7 bucks (US) if there were no ads. And I, for one (of course, I'm one who has been desensitized over many years of being bombarded with these ads) would rather have ads that matter to me personally then ads for, say, Depends (TM) or herpes medication (okay, okay... I already have my scrip for that).
As has been said many, many times, if you are going to put the contents of your mp3 collection on a publicly available network, you should by-gott well know that people are goign to look at the files. I, for one, enjoy topical advertising, and would do so on the napster network. "hey, banuaba, did you know that John Flansburgh came out with a solo project? Check out www.ilikecheese.org for some singles and information".
To serve its purpose, advertising has to provide the person viewing/hearing it with something of value, usually information (that, of course, is not an all-inclusive statement, but let's pretend for the sake of argument) that helps the consumer make an informed(er) decision on a purchase. The napster ads, provided they don't start being (ugh, bad grammar) for p0rn adn viagra and driver's licenses and get out of debt free; are a helpful service, at least to moi.
Brant
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
EMusic already does exactly that.
That's been my philosphy too, my man.
Britney Spears can stand too lose a few pennies, but I always buy the indie cds to show support.
uh...I don't actually d/l britney songs.
seriously. I don't
Funk_dat
FUNK!
Umm.. considering its Music TeleVision, they do occasionally, every once in a while, have music videos. Not enough to make the station not suck though..
JeremyI TechSeek- http://www.tech-seek.com
So come on people (well, USians, if you are not, insert country name here, if applicable), WRITE your leaders. SNAIL MAIL, not email, give them something a peon can hold and shake in their face. We need people with BRAINS to voice their opinions, not paid lobbyists.
funny munging
Don't know about other services, but with AOL's IM, it's just a mater of setting a preference to block out anybody not on your buddy list. The adds top & bottom of the buddy list might be better targeted, but you don't have to worry about a message from NirvanaPlayedByBostonPops appearing on your screen.
I know I'm gonna get flamed for this, but it's kind of funny to see everyone up in arms about this. Lots of people are upset about THEM getting into YOUR stuff and giving it away(personal info), but you don't mind YOU getting THEIR stuff and giving it away. Anyone using Napster for sharing files that are in the public-domain (ie not copywritten) I apologize.
I don't know how it is in other cities, but here in Sodom-on-Hudson, fares pay a lot more than 15% of the operating cost of the subways.
Going to the MTA's web site, you can see budget figures for 1998. The New York City transit division's (that is, NYC subways, buses, paratransit, and the Staten Island railway) operating cost was $3.8 billion. There were just over 5 million paid rides on each weekday, and a subway fare is $1.50.
So let's do some back-of-the-envelope calculations. Assume that on weekends, ridership is 30% of what it is on weekdays. (I admit I have no basis for this assumption, but it seems reasonably conservative.) This works out to fare revenues of $2.2 billion for that year, or almost 60% of the operating cost.
The actual percentage for the subways is probably higher. That 60% includes the subsidized paratransit division, and the Staten Island railway. I have heard (but I don't recall where) that fares actually cover about 85% of the cost of running the subway.
Which is why they charge for it.
Erm,calm down dude!
Take a deep breath.
Now THINK.
No-one is snooping round your stuff.
They aresimply looking at what YOU have placed PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE via Napster.
There is no problem - if you don't want people to see it, don't share it.
It really is that simple!
Oh, and you can let that deep breath out again, you are starting to turn blue...
--
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
This seems to be a disturbing precident. I know that Napster directories are available to be read by everyone, but I really don't like the idea of being target-marketed based on what's on my hard drive ("According to our glance at your Quicken folder, you seem to cheat heavily on your taxes. Perhaps you'd care to make use of our legal services!"). Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that they hire human spammers to do all this dirty work. Dollars to doughnuts that they're running bots on Napster's valued no-bot network. Is Napster doing anything about this?
Problem with that is that I *enjoy* sharing my stuff. Most of the stuff I have is Bill Hicks material that is unavailable via retail outlets, Noam Chomsky speeches, Jello Biafra, things like that. I have no desire to have marketing organisms take *yet another* good idea and pervert it for their own twisted materialistic schemes. But I do want to share the MP3s I have collected to people who are interested in these things. Since they are unavailable from other sources, Napster is the best medium for their distribution. Yes, there are other channels available. But I don't have to approve or encourage it. It's Napster-spam, nothing more.
The amount of information you can glean about someone purely from his musical tastes is quite remarkable, and is bound to lead to more focused, relevant advertising for us all, which will be more bearable for us all. The person who listens to Chopin is clearly more intelligent and cultured that the person who listens to Nirvana. The advertising should reflect this. In some cases it may even be useful.
I just hope that they don't use IM too much, and instead use email or something easily filtered. IM is under the power of AOL, and email under the power of Microsoft. It is far easier to filter the latter for those reasons.
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.
Honestly, "targeted" advertising based on my music taste.. I mean, them sending makeup commercials to me, just because I like Marilyn Manson?. I do not like advertising at all, but if it keeps things free, they are OK.
.coms know about them, shouldn't they?
But, they really need to watch out what to send me as ads, based on my music taste. I don't want spice girls commercials because my little sis downloaded one of their songs on my account?.
Also, you should be able to check what kind of ads will pop up, like a status page of their info. People should be able to see what the big
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
anyway?
You can't handle the truth.
Ohhh, c'mon. We know you love the Viagra spam. Don't deny it. We all know your dirty little secret. You just looooove watching Bob Dole get warm bawls.
"The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs."
"People should be allowed to keep midgets as pets."
- Gov. Jesse Ventura
I don't think Napster has a super heavy bandwidth problem. Songs are downloaded from other users, and don't go through the napster server at all. The only bandwidth napster has to deal with is the small amount sent to tell about all the .mp3 files on your harddrive.
That's not insignificant, of course, but its not like the bandwidth required by mp3.com or even a high volume web site like slashdot.
Mike
Nice troll. Oughta get everyone 30 flaming.
Best Slashdot Co
Glass! Long time no see. My point is not the legalising MP3's...My point is finding advertisers will be tough. That has NOTHING TO DO WITH WRITING MY CONGRESSMAN...
Razzious Domini
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
This IM targeted advertising seems like a good idea, appealing to my disclosed musical interestsm but I wonder how Napster woudl screen out European users? Given the nature of the internet, it's almost impossible to be 100% sure where someone is browsing from. Given the nature of the European governments strict policy on corporate secrecy (which generally seems like a nanny state, but might make sense in this context), it seems like Napster's advertising would be inviolation of this. Of course, this is not a huge surprise, as Napster is an AMerican country and as typical of Americans, is poorly informed of any other country.
You've said this may times before, Rob. I agree it's a brilliant idea, and in fact you are in a perfect position to put such a scheme in place.
I don't think I've bought anything in the last year that didn't come from my local butcher, greengrocer, newsagent, or supermarket. Therefore, any advertising from anynywhere but these institutions is wasted. In fact, if it's truly a matter of "opt-in" I wouldn't want to see any advertising from these enterprises either.
Now there's a very simple way you could implement a scheme to help me out here. Get your banner ads from, say, ads.slashdot.org, rather than images.slashdot.org. That way, I can easily block advertising not relevant to me (ie. all of it) without losing all the great topic icons I've come to love so much.
Indeed, you could refine this very easily implemented system by introducing:
Of course all these DNS entries point to the same server, so it costs you nothing in hardware, just a few minutes editing conf files.
Go on. Do it. Somebody has to be the first to implement your dream of opt-in advertising. Tell all your advertisers about it. I dare ya.
Just try to REALLY opt-in. Go to Sony or Microsoft sites and a lot of other companies and look for product info with serious intent to buy or go to one of their sites with credit card in hand. At some point you'll run into some crap about registering as a user or where's your e-wallet, etc. Or they've got the world's slowest servers and biggest web pages. I've voluntarily gone to their sites and I want to find something to buy, and they throw this at me!!! How are they going to be any better at targeting me? They won't even let me target myself!! Even if I told you exactly which Sony site caused me this registration grief, it wouldn't matter, Sony changes its web sites and features every 2 seconds. Too many companies screw-up when I want to come to them but they are working on new ways to target me, anyway. That's sick.
You can almost guarantee that they'll simply 'lump' a lot of music into a certain category... and automatically assume that, since you like this particular band, you must like all of the bands in said category.
Let's say I'm downloading something by Dimmu Borgir... and then I get an ad for 'rare Korn CDs'.
Now, how well targeted would that be?
What if i have songs by tricky, radiohead, portishead, sneaker pimps, etc shared? Am i going to be targeted with prozac ads?
When you put your files in a shared directory that's available to the outside world, you agree to put up with whatever attention that gets you. If someone puts up a public web page, I consider it my right to peruse the information stored there. Being consistent with that logic, it's hard to blame advertisers for scanning your published file information. The Napster IM feature is sort of annoying, though. Targeted advertising's not so bad-- but keep it on the page and stop popping up annoying message windows.
by doing what I think he suggests... pay the hardware royalties to the copyright holders in porportion to the number of downloads. There are a number of technical and business problems with this, but this basic system would allow both large record labels and independents to make money in porportion to how much their artists' songs get downloaded... presumably pop labels would make a lot of money because they own the copyright on popular music that will get downloaded often, and independent artists will receive money for their music directly. Record labels would still survive, because popular music will be downloaded much more often, and to get popular, musicians will still need the same advertising/promotional support they receive now from record labels.
Some of the considerable problems with this scheme include:
1. Is it really fair to tax me for hardware that I may or may not be using for the purpose of recreating music?
2. What happens when people just download music to their hard drive and never copy it? Or copy it onto a re-writable medium that is cheap and can be used many times, and therefore won't generate high tax revenue?
3. How is this stuff going to be tracked technically? And how would we deal with, for example, DDoS-type attacks that, instead of bringing down servers, cause massive downloads of a band's music to boost their revenue?
4. Are the record labels willing to trade the high profits they make on physical CDs for this new and untried system?
Basically, this would be difficult to implement, but I still think it's one of the few plans I've heard that sound like they might be able to keep Napster and similar services free, while allowing artists and record companies to make a profit.
I've already seen napster spam in the form of automated /msg sent by one of the java/web-based napster clients. Whenever someone using this service grabbed a file from my machine, I would get sent a /msg like "Hey, song such-and-such has been downloaded by a user of Java-Napster-Thingy. Check it out at url.com!" Very annoying.
Of course, it's easy enough to just ignore your chat log, but this is a muddying up of another potentially useful means of communication.
I have very ambivalent feelings about the targetted advertising over Napster. I received both the one sent if you had Depeche Mode, and the one if you had Toad the Wet Sprocket (and I own the albums, thank you very much). And I deleted the first, but the one for Glen Phillips made me actually very happy - I was so crushed when Toad split up and haven't been able to follow what's been happening with them.
.mp3, but to Glen's site, and I didn't even know he had his own album out. I've since dl'ed some of those tracks to check them out, and might well be buying the album. Sure, just what they want me to do, but along the same lines, it's also what I want to do.
.mp3 format (and once again, on CD also), and wanted to let me know about her coming in concert, or a new album, then I'd be very very happy.
The IM I received not only pointed to a free unreleased Toad
I don't want to be overloaded with constant "ads" at any rate, and the idea of that bugs me. But if someone saw that I had pretty much every Tori Amos song in
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"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
For all the whining rural states do about the oversized, oppressive government, they mostly make out like bandits from it. And then they threaten to not fill out their census forms. Yeah, that'll fix those nosy Easterners and their New World Order! Hey, go ahead, give up your Federal funds.
The problem I have with this is that in all of my CD-Rs I have ever burned, only ONE (1) was used to burn music. And it was a collection of indy, non-signed artists. So, in essence, I would be paying a TAX to the MUSIC INDUSTRY (and not the artists) just because I'm using a file-storage mechanism that CAN record audio. That's fsck'ed up! I have burnt probably at least 150 CD-Rs and I don't feel the music industry should get a cent from me.
Now the movie industry, on the other hand.... well let's just say I don't use all of my CD-Rs for data storage....
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That's not what I meant.
I've put music onto cheap ass no label on the back CDRs and still been able to have them play on CD player. Aside from a higher price, is there any difference?
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
There's a more detailed article on inside.com (or, go here) that discusses some of the major players involved. This includes a friend of mine, Zach Allison, a CS major at Rice University who does a lot of cool shit on the side (like zICQ, a command-line ICQ client!)
What bothers me most about this is the "snooping" aspect. I have no desire to be part of Sony's demographics regardless of whether I like Incubus or not. Oddly enough, I've never seen any other type of marketing information gathering that monitored people's illegal activities.
No one has ever said that Bud is a good beer because it stolen often.
wetwire
sig
Not everybody is covered under those organizations. Many smaller artists who's material is traded by napster users will never see income from the RIAA license. they're only chance for income is that the listeners like the material and purchase a cd directly from them later on.
ASCAP and BMI (and presumably, the RIAA would do the same for their cut) distribute income from site-licenses (such as public restaurants, bars, store p.a. systems, etc) based on one market value only: Radio Airplay. It doesn't matter that, e.g., Live365.com can log exactly what was played, and to how many listeners. It doesn't matter that a local pub is an Irish pub that never plays pop music.
Brittany Spears, her songwriters, and her producer will all get most of the money.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
Any 24 year old who occasionally watches MTV and doesn't need zit cream knows this
Any 24 year old who occasionally watches MTV is a pretty sad case. Beavis and Butthead disappeared years ago. What else is there?
First off I agree with you. At first glance it makes zero sense. Follow me for a second though. If the RIAA can be convinced that they can recoup the "damage" done to them by MP3 and P2P sharing through a small tax on CD-R(W), then we might be able to have a world in which the RIAA and MP3/P2P coexist. Isn't that what we all want? It seems to me as the ultimate destination of MP3s at this point is most often CD-R(W) anyway, right?
Incidentally, if you've ever bought a blank tape you've subsidized the RIAA. What's so different about doing the same for CD-R(W)? Nothing.
This may be the best way to make peace with the recording industry and keep the P2P/MP3 things that we all want. Where do I sign up?
Ben
...is that advertisers are going to put songs up for trade called "Fade to Black" or "Backstreet Bop" or whatever, which will be decoys actually containing an advertising message.
Or, the record companies will deliberately put poor versions of MP3s up for trade to make people fret about the quality.
Sometimes, it can help to know what you're talking about...
- Benad
From my understanding of Napster, this is marketers taking advantage of how the system works and the IM portion is part of the Napster client and not a separate piece of software. Therefore, there is no way to opt in or out. The marketers are out there searching for "music" and seeing who has that music on their hard drive. Once they see you have the music they IM you through Napster to advertise at you. It seems like Marketers can do this whether or not Napster says anything or you want to opt out.
Actually, the last time I used the Win version of Napster, a few months ago, there was in IM built into the client. I've only had a few people IM me, but 1 person actually asked permission before downloading stuff from my HDD. I found that very amusing.
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
I have worked for 2 failed DOT COMS that tried the whole personalized ads to people and they failed. In my opinion the concept is great. If we are going to have to see an ad why not make it something I am interested in. I just can't think of an advertiser that would "promote" illegal activity. I know immediatly people start on the IT SHOULDN'T BE ILLEGAL!!! FUCK METALICA etc. Fact of the matter is riht now it is illegal. We tried to create a website that had the word TOXIC in the domain and advertisers wouldn't touch it. Much less something this bold.
I can see it now roll papers with little McDonalds double arches on them, or Marriot hotel crack pipes.
Razzious Domini
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
How exactly do the record companies make money on PC sales? And how exactly do musicians make money on them?
And what's this supposed to mean?
So Napster, which cost almost nothing to create
Let's see, 800,0000 simultaneous users. 1.7 billion downloads. I think there might be a penny or two spent on infrastructure there, and maybe a coupla nickels for bandwidth.
People just don't seem to understand what kinda costs go into server architecture and bandwidth these days...