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Napster's Execution Stayed; Not Fair Use
Mirrors:
- http://eon.law.harvard.edu/~wseltzer/napster.html
- http://www.politechbot.com/docs/napster.021201.html
- http://lvalue.com/nap.html
As Michael Sims points out, these 22 words are probably the most important portion of the ruling; everything else is technical details and window-dressing:
"...the record supports the district court's conclusion that Napster users do not engage in fair use of the copyrighted materials. We agree."
That doesn't look good for those who want to swap copyrighted music peer-to-peer. That same comment could probably apply to Gnutella users, for example. Brace for impact.
Moving on to the case of Napster specifically and what will happen in the immediate future...
The court found that the injunction is simply too broad in its current form, but bounced the case back to the district court with instructions, essentially, on how to do an injunction properly.
They were quite clear that an injunction should be issued to stop Napster:
The district court correctly recognized that a preliminary injunction against Napster's participation in copyright infringement is not only warranted but required.
But then went on to explain why the current injunction must be limited to the extent that Napster fails to comply with Metallica-style "here is the list of bad files" warnings. Only in such a situation can an injunction stand:
We believe, however, that the scope of the injunction needs modification in light of our opinion. Specifically, we reiterate that contributory liability may potentially be imposed only to the extent that Napster: (1) receives reasonable knowledge of specific infringing files with copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings; (2) knows or should know that such files are available on the Napster system; and (3) fails to act to prevent viral distribution of the works. ... The mere existence of the Napster system, absent actual notice and Napster's demonstrated failure to remove the offending material, is insufficient to impose contributory liability.
I'm not quite sure how this could be enforced. Obviously, anyone can rename any MP3 "metallica-master-of-puppets.mp3" and Napster is not capable of acting to prevent distribution of same. What Napster can do is kick users off the system who have been shown to be pirates. And since they have shown their willingness to comply in the past, I'm not sure whether the court will ever find that Napster will "fail to act."
Finally, there was this simple comment:
Napster may be vicariously liable when it fails to affirmatively use its ability to patrol its system and preclude access to potentially infringing files listed in its search index.
open your eyes. Most opennap servers are offshore. US law can't reach them. That's the beauty of the Internet -- one country's ridiculous interpretation of "freedom" and "ip" and "infringement" doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
The internet treats US court rulings as damage, and routes around them.
Last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs. can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently
Because the issue is copyright, not drugs or bombs. Copyright law contains a special case, unlike other laws, where a person may not directly violate it, but still violate it in a "contributory" sense.
Thus, if you tell someone where to buy drugs, you are committing "contributory drug marketing" but that isn't against the law, because there's nothing in the drug laws that talks about it. When you tell someone where to get copyrighted materials, you are committing "contributory copyright infringement" and it is against the law, because there's something in the copyright law that talks about it.
Most corporeal females are far too uptight, actually.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Because 'digital music recording' means that all PC manufacturers would have to pay royalties to the RIAA. It's legally correct to state that digital music recording isn't the primary use of a PC.
...
Though this may change
-Stu
In the lawsuit brought against 2600 regarding linking to the DeCSS program, the judge ruled that publishing the plain text of the links was protected speech, but publishing clickable hyperlinks was not
How did he justify that ruling?
A common mistake here is assuming that because you know how the technology works, you also understand the legal implications. A classic, "I am an expert in this field, therefore I am an expert in those areas which overlap with yours." While for some strange reason, the converse is not held to true
In that respect the legal profession seem to be very two-faced. On one hand they say that "ignorance of the law is not a defence" (ie assume that everyone has knowledge of their specialist area), but on the other hand disallow (or require the use of expert witnesses) the assumption of even quite elementary (pre-college level) knowledge of science, math and technology.
If this indexing requires the shutdown of Napster, would it not also require shutting down CDDB (or whatever they are calling themselves now) and Imdb?
so all they are saying is that Napster is still going to be shut down, it's just that the original decision needs to be a little less broad reaching.
Exactly...after skimming it quickly, they're dead. Period. It's just a matter of time now, and a very short time, barring a miracle (i.e., a further stay from SCOTUS). Not very likely...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
"last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs. can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently? as far as i can tell it's just people failing to see the parallels to existing situations only because they're ingnorant of the technology."
So the ruling IS consistent with your argument. Napster is NOT being shut down. It WILL be shut down if it is found (hopefully by due process) BROKERING an illegal deal--for example, a person making copies for someone else that the person doesn't know. And we all know that this in fact happens using Napster. So they will eventually get caught and have to shut down based on just one teeny weeny case...
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
1. They call MPEG the Moving Pictures Expert Group. Isn't it Motion Pictures Expert Group?
2. Was MP3 really created in 1987?! Why didn't I know about it?
3. MP3's are encoded, not ripped. Audio tracks a ripped and then they are encoded into MP3's.
These all seem minor, but it makes me wonder if the court adequately understands the situation.
I have a woman and money. Life is good.
By that time, the internet generation will have its own moneyed interests to protect, and the youth of that time will agree that:
Sure I'm cynical, but unfortunately history bears me out on this one. Ex-flower children may be still hip to the important issues of their teens and twenties, but they don't seem much more open-minded with respect to the issues of today, do they? Present company excepted, perhaps.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
For Napster to work, the title of the music has to match up to the content. If I rename a Metallica song to slkjghslfhsdf.mp3, no one is going to download it because they don't know what to search for. If I take a Britney Spears song and rename it as a Metallica song, its not really doing anything but making the system fubar.
What I'm trying to say here is that they can effectively track titles based solely on filenames. If filenames don't reliably match up to content, the whole system is useless to anyone looking for a particular song (i.e. probably everyone). Someone can come up with a naming convention, like 1337-speak or something, but that has to be widely available for it to be useful - which means that its something the 'watchers' can easily discover and add into their filters.
^X^S ^X^C
The court is not aware of your existence. Might wanna do something about that.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If PacMan had affected us as kids we'd be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to electronic music
Funny, that sort of describes young teeny-bopping ravers nowadays. Does the "Pac-Man effect" have a 15 year delay? :)
George Lee
What napster does isn't quite like you telling people where to buy drugs. With napster it is more like you own a giant flea market where everybody is selling drugs. You know it, the cops know it, and everybody who attends the event knows it (which is why they attend). The important point here is that Napster's network and software facillitate the trading.
To illustrate the difference, let's look at lycos' mp3 search. You can do the same sort of searching that can be done through napster, but lycos doesn't provide any facilities for connecting you with the other people. This may seem like a subtle difference, but it is important.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
(I should note that by "reasonable effort", i'm refering to the phrase stating that Napster cannot "(3) fail to act to prevent viral distribution of the works". They have to act to prevent the distribution... they don't neccesarilly have to be successful)
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
If their indexes are readable by anyone, they have to be readable by Napster too. Napster would be forced to de-list copyrighted works.
Good point.
I wonder if it would be possible to design some sort of one-way encryption function. The index itself is encrypted, and rather than indexing the function, the queries are encrypted and compared to entries in the index (rather like UNIX passwords are verified).
Once the root index is encrypted, the only way for Napster to verify that no copyrighted material is being traded is to decrypt the index ("Ok, RIAA, we've started the decryption process for the 2/12/01 index. It'll be done in a few thousand years - let us know when it's finished.").
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Hey, hey, RIAA
how many customers did you screw today?
It seems to me that you are incorrect in number 7. That is, in my opinon, the most important part of this decision.
-=snip=-
B. Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Napster also interposes a statutory limitation on liability by asserting the protections of the "safe harbor" from copyright infringement suits for "Internet service providers" contained in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. ß 512. See Napster, 114 F. Supp. 2d at 919 n.24. The district court did not give this statutory limitation any weight favoring a denial of temporary injunctive relief. The court concluded that Napster "has failed to persuade this court that subsection 512(d) shelters contributory infringers." Id.We need not accept a blanket conclusion that ß 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act will never protect secondary infringers. See S. Rep. 105-190, at 40 (1998) ("The limitations in subsections (a) through (d) protect qualifying service providers from liability for all monetary relief for direct, vicarious, and contributory infringement."), reprinted in Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright: Congressional Committee Reports on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and Concurrent Amendments (2000); see also Charles S. Wright, Actual Versus Legal Control: Reading Vicarious Liability for Copyright Infringement Into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, 75 Wash. L. Rev. 1005, 1028-31 (July 2000) ("[T]he committee reports leave no doubt that Congress intended to provide some relief from vicarious liability"). We do not agree that Napster's potential liability for contributory and vicarious infringement renders the Digital Millennium Copyright Act inapplicable per se. We instead recognize that this issue will be more fully developed at trial. At this stage of the litigation, plaintiffs raise serious questions regarding Napster's ability to obtain shelter under ß 512, and plaintiffs also demonstrate that the balance of hardships tips in their favor. See Prudential Real Estate, 204 F.3d at 874; see also Micro Star v. Formgen, Inc. 154 F.3d 1107, 1109 (9th Cir. 1998) ("A party seeking a preliminary injunction must show . . . 'that serious questions going to the merits were raised and the balance of hardships tips sharply in its favor.'"). Plaintiffs have raised and continue to raise significant questions under this statute, including: (1) whether Napster is an Internet service provider as defined by 17 U.S.C. ß 512(d); (2) whether copyright owners must give a service provider "official" notice of infringing activity in order for it to have knowledge or awareness of infringing activity on its system; and (3)
whether Napster complies with ß 512(i), which requires a service provider to timely establish a detailed copyright compliance policy. See A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., No. 99-05183, 2000 WL 573136 (N.D. Cal. May 12, 2000) (denying summary judgment to Napster under a different subsection of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, ß 512(a)). The district court considered ample evidence to support its determination that the balance of hardships tips in plaintiffs' favor: Any destruction of Napster, Inc. by a preliminary injunction is speculative compared to the statistical evidence of massive, unauthorized downloading and uploading of plaintiffs'
copyrighted works-as many as 10,000 files per second by defendant's own admission. See Kessler Dec. ? 29. The court has every reason to believe that, without a preliminary injunction, these numbers will mushroom as Napster users, and newcomers attracted by the publicity, scramble to obtain as much free music as possible before trial.
-=/snip=-
What this means (IMO, IANAL, etc) is that what I think is Napster's most important defense (Common Carrier), is really still alive and kicking, according to the Appeals Court. What they conclude is that while they don't think that Napster's contribitory infringement necessarily procludes it from protection under the DCMA. HOWEVER, considering that they left the issue to be resolved at trial (remember this is only a trial on an injunction), NOT granting an injunction would potentiall cause more harm to the plantiffs (the record companies) than to the defendants (Napster).
So, even if Napster gets smacked down with an injunction, it doesn't mean that it's down for the count!
AP report has a different spin ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 12 -- A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the music-swapping service Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material and may be held liable for "vicarious copyright infringement" when it fails to patrol its system. NAPSTER MUST PREVENT users from gaining access to potentially infringing content on its search index, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, a ruling that Napster officials have said could force them to shut down the service. In its ruling -- which Napster officials have said could force them to shut down the service -- the appeals court says the company has to keep users from gaining access to content that could potentially infringe on copyrights."
When it the last time you used Gnutella? It works just fine. I get just about any mp3 I want on there. I might have to work awhile for some, but I get them. Try out LimeWire, its the best client for linux so far. (java based)
can your bookshelf play music and movies while at the same time sending them out to various people around the world? If so, I want one, mine just sits there.
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+&x
it's not really recorded music though, just a digital representation of it. Unless you have a really pure source.
:-)
Just nitpicking a nitpick.
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+&x
this is a good point. it doesn't take too much imagination to envision some sort of extra storage being implanted into the body. when the "hard drives" become internal what happens to the rights. when the technology exists to make it possible can the FBI seize your body and extract your information (memories)? right now computers are entirely external devices but I would bet big money this won't always be teh case. Do we allows the government (or insurance, or employers) access to "internal" information under ANY circumstances?
ej
A mirror has been made: http://tomcrooze.myip.org/napster.html
Now, Napster has claimed that it cannot operate while finding out which items were stolen and which were not. It is relying on various precedents (VCRs, auction sites, ISPs) in the US Code that would protect their liability if they have a legal use other than the illegal one to which they are being put, and they don't know about the illegal ones. A tool with legal uses cannot be banned simply because it has illegal ones. However, it can be forced to try to prevent the illegal uses.
Whether Napster will be able to police its trades so much is questionable. What is clear, is that most of the traffic that goes on is illegal.
It sometimes happens that, by the time I've searched for a song and decided who I want to download it from, that person has all ready logged off. The internet is incredibly dynamic, it would be difficult to publish a paper newsletter that would be sufficiently up to date to be as convenient as napster is now in its current incarnation. Of course, they could host the files on dedicated servers... but then that goes into different legal jurisdiction. :-)
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I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
Since the earliest days of "Crossfire" they've always paired authentic right-wing extremists, e.g. Pat "What Holocaust?" Buchanan, with moderate to centrist representatives of the left, e.g. Michale Kinsley.
Given the supposed liberal bias of the media, how do you explain the fawning coverage of Microsoft over the past decade? How do you explain the uncritical coverage of every single military action since the first Bush administration? How do you explain Wen Ho Lee? How do you explain the free ride given to NYC Mayor Giuliani? How do you explain the non-coverage of Ralph Nader? The way you explain everything; if the press agrees with you, obviously their arms were twisted by legions of Americans rubbing their faces in the stars and stripes of reality, while if the press disagrees with you, it's some weird conspiracy. Reality is not so black-and-white, unfortunately for you.
The media is, more than ever, controlled by a few corporations, less inclinded to do real journalism regardless of the political conclusions, and more ratings-driven than any time in decades. In this climate, presenting any thoughtful point of view will not get you far at all. Fox News gets crap for sensationalistic, crappy reporting, not for their conservative yakkety-yaks. Of course, you seem to confuse the yakking of pundits with "news", but then again, that's the real problem. As long as you're focused on the bow-tie count among the punditry, you're not really paying attention to the coverage of real news stories, which makes you their patsy after all.
The point is, there is substantial reason to see the coverage of the Napster decision as evidence of a bias. The decision really is better for Napster than the screaming headlines would have you think. Unlike you, I don't need any grand conspiracy or parroted, strained allegations of bias to explain their slant. It's very simple; bad news for Napster is more exciting, and gets better ratings.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
The precedents that would be set were Napster to use would be horrible. What is particularly outrageous is that the overreaching DMCA already addresses the proper way to handle this; copyright owners notify, in writing, that an infringement is occurring, and Napster, in an ISP-like role, has 24 hours to stop the infringement, which in this case means cancelling the user account.
Worse, space-shifting will be dead, fair use will be dead, the presumption of innocence will have been dealt a mean blow, and all digital expression will be presumed to be infringing unless backed with a Fortune 500 logo, and this will be backed up with technology as well as laws, thus freezing freedom of expression to the analog universe. Which means that an entire nascent culture, one which frees us from being passive consumers, will be ruthlessly annihilated.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
this is especially an example of fair use since I doubt their Dischord records is suing Napster... being the populist band they are.
You are right though, I haver used Napster to put albums I have on tape onto a CD, and I feel this is probably legal and if not, than the vile industry should take its DMCA fuck off.
Juln
Ronald's
Irrigation
And
Aeration
Suddenly the van doors fly open and 7 men in black suits pour out and secure the area. Two men go through the front door. The kids scream, Dad is sitting down pulling off his shoes and turning on the evening news.
RIAA Gunman 1: Put your hands in the air, sir, and no one has to get hurt.
Father: (Raising hands in air.) What is this?
RIAA Gunman 2 dashes across the room and hits Father in the back of the neck with the stock of the gun.
RIAA Gunman 1: (As Gunman 2 drags body out to van.) Maybe next time you'll think before you hum Britney Spears at work, fucking pirate.
I guess this means that I'm going to have to digitize all of my own records starting a few weeks hence (I still own more vinyl than CDs).
It's pretty clear that the Court of appeal essentially directed the lower court to slit Napster's throat with a scalpal, rather than an axe. The one bright light is that artists now have to explicitly say that they don't want their work copied. I think that it's entirely possible that some will decide to take that route.
My hope is that those companies/artists that decide not to have napster remove their files will find that their sales increase because they'll now stand out in a much smaller crowd.
One thing that I would like would be for Napster to explicitly say when something is blocked. That way, users will know what the problem is... (and can react appropriately).
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Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Now that the US Courts have clearly announced their allegience to the moneyed interests piloting HollyWood, the need for CopyLeft content is even greater. Let's not forgent that we all ultimately hold HollyWood's "Purse Strings", giving us the power to punish the perveyors of Proprietary Content. Can we all declare a Boycott? Can we all create CopyLeft forms of entertainment? I happen to believe we can and that audiences will approve with resounding athority. HollyWood is truly History.
oh....my!
Well, I'd pay for that *if* I got the music in unwatermarked, unencrypted, gzipped 44100 Hz 16-bit Stereo PCM format. None of the MP3/SDMI crap.
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Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
What it said to me was that the appeals court upheld everything the district court did, except that it could only hold Napster responsible for failing to police the system. Judge Patel can craft an injunction that requires Napster to prohibit transmission of any work with a title and/or by an artist which Napster has been notified is copyrighted and may not be sent over the service, and to remove anyone who makes such a work available. Yes, people can rename their MP3s to not be obviously infringing, but then how do others find them? Either way, the injunction is effective the end of the road for Napster.
The appeals court's ruling makes Gnutella or something similar a certainty: without the power to police users of the service, there can be no contributory or vicarious infringement. Anyone providing a centralized indexing service for it, though, is in trouble if they allow copyrighted works to be listed.
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Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
If you buy an mp3, you are still buying the packaging of the music, not the rights to the music itself. Like I stated in my previous post, the analog or digital encoding of the music itself is part of the packaging.
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
And so we have our current mess. The recording company owns the actual "idea" of the song and they've been able to package it up in a number of convenient ways for you to buy at your leisure. This is why they're so screwed by Napster and the like. They no longer have a monopoly over the distribution of the packaging.
Now, what the courts are going to do with this mess is anyone's guess. They'll probably continue to reword things again and again over the upcoming years to try and strike an even balance between the rights of the recording companies to distribute their "property" and the rights of the consumers to use this property for their personal enjoyment.
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+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
>it still boggles my mind that anybody could
>actually argue that Napster should be shut down:
>they don't even distribute any copyrighted
>material! all Napster does is to tell people
>where to get information; information that may be
>copyrighted
I guess napster has changed since the last time I checked it out. Apparently now, the client software isn't involved in the transfer. The client software just gives a list of IP addresses to which the user can then initiate an anonymous FTP session, knowing that the destination computer is running an FTP daemon. It's nice to see that napster does not in any way participate in the transfer, either on the server end or the client end. This should help their case a lot.
First off there are about 3 layers of courts to go through before it is legally dead. If Napster decides to stop fighting then they could be dead before that. This all depends on money, since that is Napster sole driving force.
An appeals court can say whatever it wants and that only makes it law as long as the loser gives up.
Secondly, the injunction has to be modified to meet the appeals court criteria. The criteria says that they have to shut down if they don't follow the model set by Metallica supplying a list of names, and Napster kicking them off, then the user saying "I object" and Napster putting them back on and Metallica deciding whether they want to sue 30,000 users.
I listed the three changes the courts demands on the injunction below. These are HUGE loopholes.
Number 2 is the difficult one. What effort do they have to go through to check that a work is copyrighted material. As I have said previously, I can make an MP3 of me doing my armpit fart rendition of "Little Brown Jug." Call it "Metcallica - Holier Than Thou.mp3" and put it on Napster. This is not copyright infringment, but who is responsible for finding that out? I think they can get around it, or users can create a naming scheme, or encryption.
Napster:
(1) receives reasonable knowledge of specific infringing files with copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings;
(2) knows or should know that such files are available on the Napster system; and
(3) fails to act to prevent viral distribution of the works.
What I am curious to hear is the supreme courts exact definition of what fair use is. Instead of us going around and around, give a f*cking straight forward definition.
- I like pudding.
long live Gnutella
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal...
Probably because not that many people want to read a decent-sized book off a computer screen, or are willing to print 'em, whereas digital music tends to go to the same place regardless of source or medium: a set of speakers or headphones. No additional inconvenience is added.
Plus, many books are pretty cheap, especially mass-market paperbacks and used books -- at least for those people who don't mind "authors" who crank out basic, self-copying formulaic stories en masse.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
They could block, or at least flag, many searches -- it's their engine, after all. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that many searches were either just a complete singer/band name ("Brittney Spears") or a song title ("Eve of Destruction". OK, so more likely something a bit more recent...).
It'd be easy to argue that a search for "N'Sync" very, very likely is, in fact, a search for "N'Sync" MP3s, and therefore should be blocked. If they periodically look at, say, the top 50 most popular searches, they might be able to accumulate a decent blacklist.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
If you were watching Millionaire last night, you'd know that Lars' mental program would fit quite nicely in 640K.
.sig: Now legally binding!
You need a Napster topic.
so all they are saying is that Napster is still going to be shut down, it's just that the original decision needs to be a little less broad reaching.
so we've got about a week to get all of our MP3's through Napster.
bottom line is that free Napster is finished, it's now just on life support until they're told to pull the plug.
In the meantime, get used to the OpenNap servers, like those listed in www.napigator.com. The last time napster went down, www.musiccity.com opennap servers had people in like never before, it seems they are the next napster replacement. Just wait until the clueless napster users learn that they could also exchange *video* the very same way they exchange music with napster now. And yet OpenNap is only one of the many alternatives... Besides, everyone knows napster.com is dead by July...
--
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Clearly, Napster will replace Napster. Or rather, OpenNap. People will just connect to the free servers. Hell.. they could even use napster's software to do it.
Funnily enough, I see myself as a conservative and I agree that the "mainstream" news sites have a strong liberal bias which pisses me off. However, they are definitely more professional with their news coverage than Fox News which is more sensationalist in its coverage.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Yes, but NAPSTER is not the one making and distributing millions of copies of music. The service is merely telling others where to access the computers of those who are. Please don't confuse the two.
Let me give an example: I can legally tell you where a drug dealer is, what he's selling and for how much. I can even give you a ride to the street corner he's standing at. I cannot, however, buy or sell the drugs themselves. To relate this to Napster: Napster is telling you where the dealer is, but it's the users who are doing the buying and selling. The users are the ones that should be sued.
The RIAA, however, goes after Napster because that's easiest. It woudn't be very popular- or cost effective- to sue 20 million users.
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Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
No, and it can't dance the cha-cha either, but it still stores stuff.
The original poster said that if the computer is not a recording device then the information it stores cannot be called recorded music. I was attempting to point out the logical flaw in that idea.
OK, so what does this do to ALL the other Napster clones out there? OpenNap servers for one, as well as Napster clones operating in other countries?
As has been said before Not only is the Genie out of the bottle, but he's replicated himself a million times over.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
I drive a taxi. If you come to Eugene, Oregon, and climb into my cab and say "Where's the heroin sold? Take me there!" Perhaps I legally can drive you down near 6th and Blair and turn you loose to find a pusher. Perhaps.
The police and District Attorney have a different opinion, however, and can impound and perhaps confiscate the taxi (not mine, though) and pull my driving permit, denying me an income, without convicting me of any legal infraction. I won't, of course, appeal, I'll have no income.
But when I don't know why you want to go to 6th and Blair, or downtown Springfield, I'm safe, you have a taxi, but if you ask me to take you to do something illegal, I'll decline to drive you, regardless of whether I approve of the law.
Judging by the rate of fatal overdoses in Eugene, this policy has no beneficial effect.
This applies to Napster, who apparently hyped themselves as enablers of copyright infringers. This was blatently stupid, guaranteed to really tick off fools who think some behaviour of masses is controllable by some elite.
This will have its desired effect, and provide employment for lawyers and even the police for generations. The spread of either intoxicants or music will go unchecked.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
...from washington times
From the Drudge Report: "THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: NAPSTER TOLD TO STOP
Court directed NAPSTER to remove links to users trading copyrighted songs stored as MP3 files... "
Click here to read too much about my personal life
This is what I get for posting during CS class ;)
Click here to read too much about my personal life
actually, thats exactly where he got the name from. His hair was nappy, and people called him "napster" it was a sean's nickname :) (and his irc nick, btw)
no
Napster does not steal from people,
People steal from people.
what a brainwave...
Anyone care to add to the list of *other* ways to share music files?
;)
I can think of:
Gnutella
Freenet
Hotline
Carracho
Geocities
(And the napster-clones that will appear in russia in about 2 days.
I have an idea - I happened to be browsing freshmeat a few minutes ago, and noticed this program called findimagedupes which performs a "visual diff" of image files and proceeds to weed out images it thinks are "visually similar".. It claims a 98% success rate...
Couldn't a similar technology be used to "profile" an known commercial song then find mp3s that were "audibly similar"? As good as current speach recognition technology is getting, isn't this just simple waveform analysis? Couldn't this be applied to entire songs? The idea being that by the time the song is altered enough to NOT be audibly similar it would be undesirable anyway. This way napster could stay open and allow swapping of non-commercial music, but if a label finds napster is allowing trading of a copyrighted song the label simply uploads the "profile" (or maybe "fingerprint"?) of the song for them to scan against.
Maybe I'm just talking out my head.. Is something like this even feasible? (legit question)
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
I do see your point on the huge CPU requirements though, but you could offload this to the client software. When a user puts a song in the napster dir to share the software uncompresses it and generates a "snapshot" of the wav which would be sent to napster servers and compared against a database of known commercial song "snapshots" which would be provided by the record label if they determine one of their songs is being offered on napster.
Shayne
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
So we change one letter in the artist's name and guess what? That's right, that track won't show up on anybody's "naughty" list. They've created an impossible task by ruling that Napster must ensure that copyrighted material must not be exchanged knowingly. Maybe that's the key... change the name of the artist just enough that it can still be recognised by a human, but not by a machine (example: Oink Floyd-comfortably numb.mp3) and Napster cannot be realistically expected to determine with any certainty whether this is really copyrighted material or some unsigned "spoof artist", and it's business as usual.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Hah, you basicly just described a rave, everyone there (well ok not EVERYONE, but most) is selling or buying drugs, you know it, the cops know it, and everyone who attends the event knows it. But the cops don't arrest the promoters, they arrest the dealers.
The ONLY way to tell if a file is infringing is to download and listen to it. There is no technology that can do that except human ears.
Not quite. Cantametrix is working on technology to "watermark" or "fingerprint" audio files. If Napster built this into their client, it could analyze an MP3, send the fingerprint to a master database to check for copyright infringement, then either allow or disallow the file to be shared.
I don't think they have perfected the process yet, but I've seen some betas, and I'm impressed.
Copyright protection would be upheld in this way. There would be an "accepted song" list on the server, each song would be hashed and the hash would be compared against the list of acceptable songs before it was added as "available on the network". That is basically just a filter placed on napsters already existant file scan.
Any band would be able to get a song on the accepted song list by providing an mp3 of thier song. They would have to sign into the compensation deal (like $0.02 per song transfer or something like that). That way people could pay a resonable rate for music, and the artists would get paid directly. Advertising could be done via the web as well as in napsters little advertisement window. Record companies would be stupid not to buy into the system because its an incredible vehicle for distribution.
Anyways thats my $0.02. I am sick and tired of people whining that they don't get free music under the guise of wanting alternate distribution. I am also tired of the record companies fighting so hard for a status quo that really isn't great for anyone involved. I hope someone would look at ideas like the one I presented and really give us alternate distribution that works.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Trying to ban Napster/shut it down/whatever is the same as trying to ban quadratic equations.
My (fuzzy) point is that once something has been discovered, you can't just pretend that it never happened. This ruling is the biggest piece of burying-head-in-sand ever.
I despair. The stupid record companies are shouting "Hallelujah!", and to me they just look like luddites (especially that quote about Napster having to do business "the old-fashioned way"!!!)
The BMG thing looked like a good initiative; there must be a way for this all to work. It's all not going to go away just because of a court ruling.
While Australian CD sales were up 2.9% last year, it's quite possible that number was depressed by online piracy (as the recording industry would have us believe). Who's to say it wouldn't otherwise have risen 6%?
Oh, how ignorant are our judges. In the CNN article the judges state that it does not fall under the 1984 ruling in favor of the VCR by the SC, and the the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
Tell me, who even had CD's in 92? What about CD-ROM's for your computer? In 95 the fast ones were 4x, I can't remember way back to 92 (too young) but I don't think computers came with CD-ROM's. Maybe they did.
You are right, there was no leeway for new technology. We really need a new generation of judges to take over these current ones, especially in technology issues.
What if you hooked up a certified "recording device" (according to the 1992 law) to your computer? Would it qualify then? I know, I'm preaching to the choir.
Like my hard drive is not already full....
Je t'aime Stéphanie
They don't need to, just their lawyers (who, admittedly, can't spell it themselves, but the point remains).
Besides, once they figured out that Slashdot is the pinacle of geekdom (ha ha ha) and everyone who knows anything reads it (ha ha ha) I'm sure they stuck a minimum-wager in a corner with an iMac to read similar web sites looking for people to sue.
--
Napsters probably dead. Here is a summary of the court's conclusions:
The court must reissue their injuction with the following restrictions on napster:
1. We nevertheless conclude that sufficient knowledge exists to impose contributory liability when linked to demonstrated infringing use of the Napster system.
2. We affirm the district court's conclusion that plaintiffs have demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of the contributory copyright infringement claim
3. We conclude that the district court did not err in determining that Napster financially benefits from the availability of protected works on its system.
4. The court can require a $5 million bond on the part of Napster due to the likelyhood they will lose their case
5. If they loose the court can count each instance of someone shareing a file on Napster as a copyright infringement (Damages could be billions at $200K each)
6.As stated, we place the burden on plaintiffs to provide notice to Napster of copyrighted works and files containing such works available on the Napster system before Napster has the duty to disable access to the offending content. Napster, however, also bears the burden of policing the system within the limits of the system. Here, we recognize that this is not an exact science in that the files are user named. In crafting the injunction on remand, the district court should recognize that Napster's system does not currently appear to allow Napster access to users' MP3 files.
I wonder what would happen if you got rid of all the middle-aged judges, lawyers, and record industry execs, and replaced them with geeks.
Well, let's not even go that far. What if we replaced the judges with a few ordinary citizens of the 18-30 crowd -- people who grew up on the internet. No offence to any older people who are in touch with technology -- it just strikes me that most of the legal types out there seem to believe that their job is to maintain the status quo. Are they really representing public opinion?
I wonder what will happen when the internet generation gets control.
Care to bet?
Telling someone where to buy illegal drugs can be criminal conspiracy, depending upon circumstances. As for the pipe bomb books, have a look at some of the lawsuits that Paladin Press has lost over the years. Publishing a book about how to be an assassin made them civilly liable for an assassination committed by a reader.
"Nudge, nudge, wink wink" is not a defense under US law. Handing someone info knowing that they will likely use that info to commit crimes is chargeable as conspiracy.
Irrelevant. A distinction without a difference.
Let me give an example: I can legally tell you where a drug dealer is, what he's selling and for how much. I can even give you a ride to the street corner he's standing at. I cannot, however, buy or sell the drugs themselves.
Also irrelevant. That means that you don't get charged with the actual sale or purchase. Instead, you get hit for conspiracy to commit one of the above. To knowingly (which includes "reasonably should have known" the way juries usually see it) facilitate a crime makes one a conspirator in this and most other states. Or would you rather I just typed in my state's general conspiracy statute?
Also, bear in mind that civil remedies are usually a lot harder for a defendant to beat. The standard of proof is lower, the dollar penalties can be greater, and there is no legal right to court-appointed counsel.
"The future: Music will be only permitted via direct brain transmission that is immediately wiped from memory after listening. This allows an artist to sell the same song over and over again to the same people since no one ever gets tired of it. Ice Ice Baby and Chumbawumba top the charts."
Gosh, I love your version of the future. Music as crack and RIAA as drug pushers! Didn't G.W. campaign against drugs? Lets break the cycle. Lets get Congress in a rehab (to wean them from the RIAA) and then we can put the smack down!
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Yeah, maybe I do feel a little bad for taking for free the property of hard working artists. I feel bad when I take 60-90 cents out of their pocket for every ENTIRE album I download, but what I do not feel bad about is the remaining 14-20 bucks that would have gone to a record company that is suckering artists into signing over their work in exchange for pennies because the industry refuses to take adavantage of technological advances in the interest of protecting an antiquated distribution system that they have grown comfortable with.
Do I mind paying for music, no. Do I understand that production, marketing, and distribution of products cost money and the producers of such material are entitiled to a profit, yes. But, I also believe that there is a better way for everyone involved, and that the P2P revolution will tear apart our perception of intellectual property and our methods of distribution and protection of it.
The industry is going to try to throw laws and legal intervention at the problem, but as with any regulation, there is a price to pay for it. There is a competative business model out there that will bring more money and return control back to the artists, as well as provide a healthy profit for the companies that market and distribute the artists' works.
Free market economics are a lot like biological life. When things are left to be, normally the strong will survive and a balance that serves (most of) the interests of the participants will evolve. I believe what we will see is the extinction of the record company as we know it soon.
The Napster/MP3 movement is nothing but a revolte against profiteering by music industry. Give me a CD for $3-4 and Napster is out of business, except for finding new and exciting artists you've never heard of. For every Napster shut down, two new ones will pop up. It will not stop. The RIAA will increase prices for CD's and cut Artists portions of the sale in order to pay for the legions of lawyers. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a real "paradigm change" if I've ever seen one. Then, of course, we cannot count out an adaption of Carnivore (or DCS 1000), that will seek out MP3 transfers and our own government will put an end to it all by hounding us down. My only question is, can we pin this on Microsoft somehow???
I don't know what I'd do without my daily dose of Copyright infringement! I'd hate to have to be resigned to decoding DVDs with DeCSS for cheap thrills.
Viva la Napster!
NO CARRIER
Maybe the courts will take the time to make a few copywrite/intelectua prop. law suggestions while they're at it. We need some smart people to sit down and figure out some new laws.
When intelectual property can instantly be possessed for free by everyone, is it property?
-- Joe
PS: if you copy this post or email it to someone, I'll sue.
If Slashdot is where the spelling-challenged go when they die, I'm in heaven.
Have you ever borrowed a CD/cassette tape from some one and copied it onto another tape? I'm sure most of you have. Have you ever taped a TV show/movie off of TV? Are these things illegal? No. You know why? In the copyright, it allows these sorts of things to be done legally. Songs, mp3, etc fit under this copyright. It allows you to legally share these forms of copyrighted material.
I liked the comment by Cortney Love on this page: http://www.napster.com/speakout/artists.html.
I know I wouldn't buy a Metallica CD if I heard all the songs on their CD. Because only 2 or 3 songs on the CD are any good, the rest...aren't. I have some CDs where I can listen to them all the way through with out having to skip all the songs to listen to 2 of them. Artists shouldn't be scared of Napster, if they make good music, their albums will sell.
Limp Bizkit, his record sales are in the millions. But, how could that be when people could just download the songs off of Napster (which is what I did)? Simple, because people think his music is good (which most is, some isn't). Metallica is just complaining because nobody likes their new album (don't blame them).
Are you telling me that you don't see the connection between government and laughing at people? - Interviewer
"how do you possibly protect against this?"
Only one way I can think of....shut down the service.
It'd be nice to see Napster set up a recording studio and have artists quit their current label and record exclusively for Napster, and everytime you download one of their songs, a small add appears under the download bar, nice and unintrusive, and make money that way. Free for users, Napster gets ad money, eveyone wins.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
--DrMyke
-DrMyke
"mmmmmmmmm, doughnuts" - H.J.Simpson; super genius
And would that be 640k of memory? since that is all anyone would ever need?
--DrMyke
-DrMyke
"mmmmmmmmm, doughnuts" - H.J.Simpson; super genius
Why don't we all stop beating around the bush. We all know what everyone uses Napster for. Heck, even I used it to trade copyrighted material (before my college decided to limit the transfer speeds with napster down to basically nothing). While i understand the ideas behind file sharing and how it can do things like promote smaller bands, and i understand that the RIAA is basically going crazy, and that the laws on the books suck, the RIAA is most likely going to win this in the end. Not that I'm happy about it...
Hire a bunch of people at minimum wage to listen to possibly-copyrighted-infringing downloads. Take those lists from RIAA, get the first 15 seconds of each song from them for comparison purposes, then download something whose title makes it look as though it's infringing. Play each sample to one of your employees, then have them press a "same" or "different" button. If it's "same", the user gets booted off Napster.
To keep your employees honest, every 10 or 15 songs play some predetermined ones, either same or different. If they get it wrong, they're fired.
To pay for this, charge Napster users $10 when they create a new login name (starting now, existing users can keep their current accounts). $1 of it will go to Napster to pay the minimum wage employees and pay for the system they're using to download/compare; the rest will go to RIAA if the user is found to be infringing, as a fine. No profit, still not commercial, just a processing fee for costs, and an escrow so the user is guaranteeing they're honest. The fee will also prevent RIAA from complaining that booted users can just sign up again under a different name. Sure they can, but if they're infringing, it'll cost them.
With a few hundred employees, Napster should be able to be considered to be making a fair attempt to keep copyrighted materials off their servers, and in addition, it'll avoid the possible unfairness of banning anyone for having a parody or a song that just happens to be called "Why I love Metallica, by Jane Smith"
Writing is the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E. L. Doctorow)
Now, perhaps the very literal would say that the cells of your brain are a form of tangible object which constitute a tangible medium of expression, and perhaps one day technology will progress to the extent that that which you are remembering or thinking via your brain cells can be perceived by or communicated to other people, but at present you would have to write the song down or sing it into a tape recorder, thus "fixing" it in a tangible medium of expression, before you would violate the owner's right to control copying.
So, no, they can't control what you think.
Ed
They also don't allow you the convenience of reading it in your home.
I take it you've never been to a library?
Josh Sisk
I think Slashdot and politeness are not always mutually exclusive. :)
Josh Sisk
Napster corporate headquarters moved to Antigua.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Nice thought. I wonder if I'm the only one who remembers this same cry from RIAA 30 years ago. They said a new technology would destroy the recording industry. Of course recording a song from the radio on this new cassette tape just never seemed to sound like a store bought tape, but the arguments were damn near identical. No judge fell for their line of crap then, but the country had some people in responsible positions with spines.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I was amazed to read this in the 9th Circuit's Napster decision, posted today: "We agree with the district court that the Audio Home Recording Act does not cover the downloading of MP3 files to computer hard drives. First,"[u]nder the plain meaning of the Act's definition of digital audio recording devices, computers (and their hard drives) are not digital audio recording devices because their 'primary purpose' is not to make digital audio copied recordings." Recording Indus. Ass'n of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 180 F.3d 1072, 1078 (9th Cir. 1999). Second, notwithstanding Napster's claim that computers are "digital audio recording devices," computers do not make "digital music recordings" as defined by the Audio Home Recording Act. Id. at 1077 (citing S. Rep. 102-294) ("There are simply no grounds in either the plain language of the definition or in the legislative history for interpreting the term 'digital musical recording' to include songs fixed on computer hard drives.")" ***** The people writing this have no idea what they are talking about. First, a computer does not have any "primary purpose." Secondly, there was nothing in the Act or its history that contemplated including computer hard drives in the definition of "digital music recording," because the Act antedates the widespread adoption of such digital technology. Law firms in general are way behind the times technologically; this is true of judges as well. These people are not technically competent, and they should not be making technical policy in the dark.
I think the radio stations and TV stations should be responsiable for any cases where someone pirates them. This country has got the most screwed up goverment that I know of. Come on how many jack ass countries would even listen to a court case from a crook who is sueing a house tenant because when he broke into thier house he slipped and broke his leg in their entry way. The only ones this goverment seems intrested in protecting is the criminals and the rich. (which is which is hard to tell sometimes.) Anyone up for a little Boston Tea Party?
Well then he should patent it. Move along folks, no prior art to see here.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
The RIAA has been focused on eliminating Napster.
What will it do? Not a whole lot, as there are several alternatives (WWW, FTP, ICQ, etc). Instead, they should be looking at why people are getting music online in the first place, and offer alternatives.
An interesting experiment would be to offer a discount on a cd, when a particular song is downloaded from Napster. This might finally settle the argument of whether Napster contributes to CD sales.
The computer has made drastic changes in many areas, including music. Digital music is not going away. Yet the RIAA is trying to go back to the "old way", rather than evolving.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
What client do I need Well there's gnapster for gtk lovers.. probably other clients floating around too. Opennap is much more hydra-headed than napster the company.. there are tons of networks and thousands of servers.. even though some of these are just plain fucked, it will be hard to shut down or even block it. What I suggest now is a complete boycott of music cds to send the damned bloody RIAA a message.
Software patents delenda est.
Remember, Mum's the word Da Cr33p
I guess it's time to start rot-13'ing the names of my mp3's. Now if I could only convince others to do it.
--
I only post to slashdot when I'm sleep deprived.
"My religion is to live --and die-- without regret." -- Milarepa
Interviewer: So Lars Ulrich, you just shutdown Napster, what are you going to do next?
Lars: I'm going to Disneyland!
Don't bite my balls if this has already been brought up but: If napster is in trouble because they are a US company "breaking" US laws, why not relocate somewhere where the laws are less constrictive? What about that Sealand guy that made(bought?) his own country/nation out of an artificial island? I'm sure napster doesn't WANT to move, but they could, right?
from what i read, napster will be required to stop allowing copyrighted material to be traded only after it's been made aware of the fact that copyrighted material is being traded via its service. what that sounds like to me, is kinda like the metallica ban all over again. someone has to tell them that a copyright piece is being traded (probably the username sharing the file) and then they will have to take action. i don't see them limiting the song searches or anything like that. regardless, their servers are going to be hit for the next few weeks while people go on a frenzy. gnutella anyone?
I think it laughable that any rapper would sue someone for using someone else's song. Remember all those top 40 rap songs that heavily sampled previously successful pop songs? Must be the action of record companies. Besides, from what I've heard, the song was barely released, since the recording company was in the middle of bankrupcy hearings.
I found the song myself searching for Ween songs. On Napster, it is often credited to either Ween or Phish. Go figure.
i like how they only partially upheld the injunction... which may leave a loophole? IANAL
Runnin' On Empty
I agree. My problem with the DMCA (which I haven't actually read) is not that it is being used to stop piracy, but it is being used as a profit-generating device for the RIAA/MPAA. As many others have stated, Napster is only a file-sharing protocol. How do they know what I'm doing with it? I've downloaded a few songs that I also own on cd off of Scour just because I didn't want to walk to my stereo. That's the definition of fair use (and lazy).
Trying to stop a flood by standing in the way is not an effective policy and I'm tired of them complaining that it doesn't work.
That's quite a nasty cough you've got there.
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
Thank God the Appeals court upheld the lower court decision. Now Napster's lawyers can appeal to the Supreme court and we can finally get this crap over with.
In case you don't get where I'm going with this here's the key: lower courts do not have the ability to create or change laws, they can only apply the existing laws. It is up to the Supreme court to decide if a law in unconstitutional and needs to be tossed *cough*DCMA*cough*.
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
(I think...)
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
napster has always said it was in it for the profit, and now it has lived up to that promise. those interested in busting up current copyright laws or the way they're enforced have nothing to celebrate here. napster is, or very shortly will be, another cog in the industry's machine, polished and working properly. in fact, napster has probably turned the tide irreversibly against the idea that people should get music for free. already, they are convincing the mainstream that it's fair to pay a fee for this content. i'm not saying they're wrong, i'm just saying that is what they are currently doing. the revolution has been defused.
anyway, as a musician in a band that, when not touring, still plays 7 times a month, i must say i am SORRY to see so many other musicians happy that the status quo will be maintained. my bandmates and i are wholeheartedly in it for the music and for the fun. if there was NO money to be made in this business (and trust me it ain't far from the case, for a real live band), it would not affect our schedule in the least.
i could live a little longer in this prison
Point well taken. However, I'm not convinced now that either is necessarily correct, because as I read it again, it seems open to interpretation. Nothing in that paragraph seems to rule out either possibility.
For example, "Napster has the duty to disable access to the offending content". What does disable access mean? They don't say how or what meets that standard. Napster could make the case that by banning users with "metallica" in their lists, they are disabling the content. Sure the user could find some way to get around the band, or other users could start sharing "metallica" but that isn't necessarily Napster's problem. ie "Napster, however, also bears the burden of policing the system within the limits of the system ". That sounds like it could be a loop hole.
puck
we place the burden on plaintiffs to provide notice to Napster of copyrighted works and files containing such works available on the Napster system before Napster has the duty to disable access to the offending content. Napster, however, also bears the burden of policing the system within the limits of the system. Here, we recognize that this is not an exact science in that the files are user named. In crafting the injunction on remand, the district court should recognize that Napster's system does not currently appear to allow Napster access to users' MP3 files
:)
puck
Despite all the decisions against Napster, I think this is an important decision in its favor. I interprete this to mean, Napster is not liable to police its users, rather this responsibility is placed on the copyright holders. As such, it sounds, for practical purposes anyway, like the status quo. ie. it is up the the Metallicas and Dr. Dres of this world to moniter their materials on Napster and report the violators.
Please correct me if I'm wrong
I love the Gourds! Good ol Austin,TX guys who can jam like nothing else...too bad the Austin shows are always so packed nowadays.
Funny coincidence, though. The Gourds were actually sued for copywrite infringement for recording "Gin and Juice" without permission. Ok so they aren't the smartest guys, but who would've though it would turn out so good? Anyway, it's just funny that you are now copying a song illegaly on napster that was illegally recorded in the first place. Whew! So much hubub over a couple fun-lovin guys jammin out to a rap song...
Funk_dat
FUNK!
I don't know about the US but here in Denmark, the (national) writers gets a small fee everytime someone checks out their book.
--------
MPAA and RIAA don't even know how to spell the word C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R and you think they read /.?
The problem with this line of argument is basically it has so many holes, it would never stand up in a court of law.
For starters, information is valuable, a fact which is fundamental to copyright laws. Giving people directions is therefore giving people something of value, and in Napster's case, they attempt to profit from doing so - they're engaging in a commercial activity. That is of major importance in the area of copyright.
If you were to charge for information on where to purchase illegal drugs, you would quickly find, I suspect, that this is considered illegal. (IANAL, but the law is littered with terms such as "conspiracy to commit..", "accessory to.." - they'll get you somewhere!). Maybe once or twice is excusable, but by setting up a public busiess to do so? Were you to write a book on making pipe bombs that happens to be remarkably similar to someone else's, you're infringing on copywright. Last time you checked, I don't think you checked very hard.
A common mistake here is assuming that because you know how the technology works, you also understand the legal implications. A classic, "I am an expert in this field, therefore I am an expert in those areas which overlap with yours." While for some strange reason, the converse is not held to true. From my limited (i.e. non-existent) knowledge of the law, the appropriate defence in a situation like is, "You can't prove [beyond reasonable doubt] that my income derives from this activity." Unfortunately, like them or not, Metallica were able to prove a significant amount of illegal trade was taking place. (Incidentally, Napster's assumption this couldn't be done implies that Metallica, the RIAA et al have a better understanding of the technology than people are willing to grant them.)
Saying that, "Napster still just provides information, and no actual files," is a rather disingenuous way of dodging the issue. To claim, "I only put the two parties in contact each other, knowing that they were planning to break the law, and charged a small fee for the privelege. I fail to see why that is illegal," and actually believe it is one of those either-stupid-or-nieve beliefs. That is Napster's original business model, and can be paraphrased as, "I helped two parties break the law, and charged for my part in the process. But because I myself did not touch the illegal substances, I am innocent." Yeah, right.
Napster helps people break copyright, and charges people for the privilege. They do this in the full knowledge that this is how they are making their money. They contradict their supposed philosophy by taking others to court, contesting intellectual property issues. Personally I find it hard to have sympathy for profiteering hypocrites.
I hit submit rather than preview. Doh! Apologies for speling misteaks.
Under the ruling Napster can STILL OPERATE if they
take steps to remove users who are "MADE KNOWN TO THEM" to be trading copyrighted material.
Napster already has done this when Metallica sent
a list of users trading their songs. The new
injunction when enacted will not close them down
and any users bumped from the service can simply
make a new account in seconds.
Where's the problem?
- A Frog in a pond utters an azure cry. -
from the c|net article:
"But the judges also warned that Napster could be liable for huge damages, which could lead to spaweeping changes in the way it operates its service."
it's not like me to pick on obvious typos, but this one instantly made me think -but it's the record label execs who have the cash and the time to go for spa treatments!-
that's as apt a summation of my attitude towards this as any...
So, according to the ruling as I understand it, napster must block the trading of copyrighted material. How is this to be determined?? Sure they could have a database of bands and songs, but what about mis-spellings?
Let's say the song Metallica - Lars is a pain.mp3 is in the database... what happens if I were to rename it say:
Metallica - Lars_is_a_pain.mp3 okay, might still be blocked
Metallica - LarsIsAPain.mp3 maybe blocked
how about this: M37a11ica - 1ar$ i5 4 p4in.mp3
how do you possibly protect against this? as longs as the napster servers are running, all it takes is creative spelling. Some thing could be said for length/size... all I have to do is add a couple seconds of silence to the end and the song's length and file size have changed too.
Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
go STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN match against the riaa
hey loser like STONE COLD SAYS(gimme me a hell yeah)and then he opens another can of whoop asssand slams your boney butt!!!!
I have two questions I would like to ask:
1. Have your CD sales went DOWN? (Not just because of market fluctuation, but a steady decrease that's indicitive of less people buying CDs)
2. How does this effect overseas? (e.g. Not USA. It seems that this sort of thing is a legal grey area, caused by the difficulty of different legal systems)
The first one I would personally like to go to court and ask them. It seems that this is the entire point of the suit, yet not once have I hard of actual facts and *gasp* research that points to that. I, and many people that I know, are more likely to buy CDs if we can hear some stuff from it.
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This space reserved for valid arguements, not pointless ramblings.
And what happens with the original wav is layered with "junk noise" that humans can't normally hear? The waveform is now altered and does not match the original, unless we're searching for a subset of the waveform, which is it's own headache since there are only so many notes, frequencies, etc.. how many songs have you heard that sample portions of a bassline from another song? Or if it is a legal remake of an original?
Offloading this work to the client software would turn people away from it and to something else completely, not that I use napster now, but I wouldn't want to sit at my screen for a couple hours because I decided to add a couple dozen songs to a directory and the client has to decompress and snapshot them all. Not to mention the fact that a wav generated as a decode from an mp3 would be missing a lot of data that the original wav had. Bad cpu timings or such could completely throw the process for a loop.
A computers hard drive is a device designed to record information in a digital format. Where does it say that the primary information source has to be can't and never could be audio? I think that since the advent of sound cards hard drives have been used as an audo recording medium. Not to mention those synthesizers that recorded to floppies or hard drives. In that case a hard drive is an audio recording medium. I have heard of audio mixing stations (personal recording studio) that use hard drives, and have very little processing power, but by definition they are still computers. Also by your definition cassette tapes aren't legal since at one time they too were used to store computer data. Primary purpose is what we define something to be, doesn't mean that definition can't change. Of course this is all just my opinion.
I suggest using audioGnome (audioGnome.com), Opennap (opennap.sourceforge.net), or something to a similar effect. Opennap has a list of some other clients that may be useful. Since I know audioGnome, I'll describe that: many smaller servers (you can connect to Napster too, but only 1 server at a time) are available. you connect to a ton of them at a time. I'm not sure how it gets new servers for you (closed-source) but it either has a central audioGnome server that gets a list of registered Opennap servers or it does a Gnutella thing where you can connect to the servers other people connected to the same servers as you are (wow, that was complicated wording).
Complete and utter bullshit. Fair use includes space-shifting, time-shifting, and media-shifting, as documented in the RIAA vs. Diamond and Sony vs. Universal City Studios.
Napster Forever! RIAA Never!
"My job is being right when other people are wrong." -- George Bernard Shaw
To me, "napster" sounds like a pseudo-cool nickname for a guy with bad hair. It's the napster! Combin' his hair!
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Boil it all down, strip out the fancy words, and it basically says Napster has a right to exist, the RIAA are nazi goons who overstepped their legal authority, and all they can ask Napster to do is a timely removal of copyrighted material upon request and identification.
The only problem is if Napster fails to remove links to files from users who violated their clearly stated terms. Then an injunction can apply. Otherwise, it basically says you're innocent until proven guilty.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
The burden of infringing user identification NOW lies with the copyright holders. They therefore now have to set up a massive trial download system that is constantly looking for INDIVIDUALS sharing their material.
Now...once they set such a system up, we get into a very interesting area, namely an intersection with the Ebay vs. Bidders Edge lawsuit where the judge in that case has essentially ruled that bandwidth is private property and service providers can lawfully exclude commercial users of the service that are consuming bandwidth without permission. Napster should be able to EXCLUDE the bandwidth hogging robots that the record companies are GOING TO HAVE TO SET UP.
Furthermore, I completely expect to see a song dicing system set up soon that distributes audio files around in chunks, with no one holding more than 1 "fair use slice" of each track.
Its going to be an interesting year.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
I personally wasn't banned, but I know people that were and they were back up and running in no time. All napster did to ban people was create a registry setting so that even if you reinstalled napster it would still know you were banned. Someone easily found the setting and created a simple .reg file that any newbie could double click to regain access. I don't think banning people is a viable option.
This app might be a valid alternative...
I spend a tremendous amount of money on music. My CD collection has grown so large that storing them all has become a problem. I've ripped a fraction of my collection to my computer for convenient listening, and I'm running low on hard drive space.
I also use Napster, albeit infrequently. Almost 100% of the time it's to get some old song from my teenage years, or something that's out of print and rare. In both cases, the song is something that I wouldn't pay money for: I wouldn't go buy the fifteen year old album to get a single song, nor would I throw down for some crappy compilations disc, nor am I going to spend hundreds of dollars looking for that rare cut.
If Napster didn't exist, I would probably just hum the song to myself once every few months and then forget about it. But removing Napster from the picture isn't going to get the RIAA, or anyone else, any of my money. I have no more intention of going to spend money on the stuff I'm downloading for free, even if every single avenue of getting it for free were denied to me.
So that, and the fact that the RIAA still gets hundreds of dollars from me a year, leaves me with little to no guilt about the affair. I feel about as bad as if I had taped a song off the radio fifteen years ago and were listening to it again today -- which is to say, not bad at all.
That's just me. I have no doubt my reasons for using Napster are different from a lot of other users.
Ripping off greedy record companies is one thing (they've had it coming for a long time), but how exactly the bands supposed to make a living if they can no longer charge for their work? The typical Napster mentality I'm seeing here seems to be everything anywhere for free. Some people don't even want to pay for a subscription-based service. How many people here would work in their jobs for nothing?
The 9th Circuit is basically trying to make sure that any injunction and/or ruling is sufficiently narrow, preventing its use as a precedent in a case against FTP, archie, etc.
RIAA's real goal is to squash the technology, something they won't succeed in.
Ummm.. Dumbshit? Here is a quote from the Constitution of the United States that talks about what the Congress is authorized to do.
From section 8, article 1: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
When you graduate from high school, you should sue them for giving you such a piss poor education.
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You sure got a purty mouth...
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You sure got a purty mouth...
I'm not sure if that's because Disney owns them or their reporters are simply incompetent. ABCnews wrote: "Napster's Fate Napster's lost a key court battle and the music industry is celebrating. But is it over? " http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/n apsterruling010212.html
(BTW, they also spelled attorneys wrong, 6th paragraph, 1st word)
Found at www.riaa.com
"This is a clear victory. The court of appeals found that the injunction is not only warranted, but required. And it ruled in our favor on every legal issue presented."
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Stop buying cds.
Nothing will send a message better than the loss of your cash.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
It was mentioned in a previous reply, and of course I haven't forgotten about libraries. But what libraries can't do is provide multiple copies of an expensive textbook, if sy 50 or 60 people wanted to look at it. They also don't allow you the convenience of reading it in your home. There are music libraries in the world, it should be pointed out, but that doesn't stop Napster.
Sorry, I was referring to technical journals in a previous post-- they (normally) can't be taken out of the library. But I do thank you for rapidly pointing out the obvious.
Er, I meant to specifically refer to technical journals... Got lost in there somewhere. But I appreciate it-- you were much more polite than some other posters.
Killing Napster could put a surprisingly large dent in this business. For a while. Gnutella's not-quite-there-yet, Scour's gone (for all intents and purposes), and the other incorporated services are going to be rethinking their business model-- it ain't worth being sued when you know you're gonna lose. Will OpenNapster gain wide-scale acceptance seeing how vulnerable it will be? Maybe offshore sites are the solution.
Depends how the other music corps feel about that. Napster's going to end up owing them all money even if they do voluntarily shut down. Will the other companies be ok with BMI taking things over? BMI's going to have to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to get them to agree to that.
It's interesting isn't it, that the net seems to have altogether bypassed massive copy-infringment of the written word (which is much less bulky) in favor of more visceral forms of communication (music/movies)? I suppose it certainly is easier to rip CDs than to transcribe books, but I'm surprised we never saw a major wave of bestsellers appearing for free on the net. Or maybe we did, and I missed it.
Again, another one, misses the point!
It is not Illegal to share mp3 files! Period. That's all Napster is doing, allowing people the ability to share files over the net. Whatever those people do with the mp3s from that point is where the legality issues come into play. And that should have nothing to do with Napster.
It's like a gun shop owner legally selling firearms. And a patron decides to shoot someone with a weapon he legally purchased from the store. The shop owner DID supply the means for the crime but is not guilty of any crime.
Worse, yet, all the news coverage of this (at least in the states) is "Napster - Soon to be banned from sharing mp3s"... That's probably the thing that irks me most. When ignorance is the basis for legal judgement!
-- off my soapbox ---
You're 100% correct! Reading a lot of these anti-napster opinions, I see there's vast ignorance concerning the service Napster provides. Napster DOES NOT store any mp3s on THEIR servers! They don't store, sell, swap, distribute, etc... anything. They just allow net users a peer-to-peer file sharing ability. And Napster isn't the only site that does this. People share mp3s with each other. I guess I should get arrested for buying CDs and sharing them with friends!
So many people are so clueless about Napster and the services they provide. Know this though, mp3 sharing will not stop. There are too many Napster-like sites. The record companies would go broke if they tried to sue everyone that allowed net uses to share files.
I like Napster! And hope it stays. But will just use another service if they are forced to close up shop.
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Ok.. First, I know I'll probably get modded down as redunandt, flamebait, troll ... you name it
...
Just a thought that's been bouncing around my head since the whole Napster fray started:
What's so wrong with a pay-per-use Napsteresque system? Personally, I'd be willing to pay 1.50 per MP3 I downloaded. It would be nice to be able to grab some select songs, maybe find some rare titles that you can't find at your local CD store. Why pay for something that you don't use?
It would be most beneficial to the greedy record companies (They'd get tons of cash, with this system), It would be great for Napster (Napster would get tons of cash for it)
I think rather than shut down Napster cold-turkey, they should consider something like a pay-per-use system. This just seems like too good of a solution to look over.
I know what you're probably thinking, but, consider this:
Yes. It is infriging, you are copying music that you don't own.
No. It is not fair use (Just as the judge today has plainly stated.)
But, also consider this:
You hear a song on the radio, at a friends house, a co-worker shows you, so you go down to the local music store, and check out the CD. You like a few of the tracks on the CD, but there are a quite a few that just don't appeal to you (It's happened to me before, I always feel ripped-off when I get a CD that has one good track, and the others are crap). So, you decide not to pay the 12-15 bucks for a CD, go to napster, download the 4-5 tracks you do like and pay 6 or 7 dollars. Or less, if there are fewer tracks. That's half the price (!!) It's also beneficial to the consumer!
This seems like the perfect solution. It would revolutionize the way the music industry works.
Maybe I should patent the idea
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The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout
For a long time I've been trying to figure out what I thing about Napster. However, I do believe that people should have the right to sell what they have taken the time and effot to create. I'd hate to see what would happen to the video game industry, if piracy becomes the dominant form of acquisition. Can you say no knew big budget games. However, I also don't believe that we can or should be able to stop someone from sharing, so I guess that I assume, that software will eventually use a scheme where you have to connect to internet to use crucial parts of the sofware, and have people pay for that service. I don't know what there going to do with movies and music, as they can just be recorded though.
Napster, as it's designed, isn't designed to track which files are licensed from the record company and which aren't.
This is an opportunity for someone to build a new, better tool/protocol that trades peer-peer and validates licensing.
Two things keep me from doing it instead of PDing the idea:
1. I ain't got the time. Which ordinarily wouldn't stop me from doing something that would make me rich and famous, but:
2. Napster already has a license from BMG; likely it's got an exclusivity clause in it. So BMG-owned files may only trade through Napster. So the new tool would be missing a huge subset of the set of all copyrighted music. Which lowers the cieling on the rich and famous I could get out of this.
Napster's got a leg up on its own sellout, the savvy bastards.
--Blair
You may be saying how dense can the RIAA be. You are right. They are extremely dense. This is how they see the world. A kid who is 14-24 downloads the equivalent of 20 albums from off line. They maybe buy 1 or 2 of them. Through RIAAs blinders: 20 albums * 15 per album = $300 - 30(he did buy 2 albums) = 270 that the brat will not pay us. For some reason sales remain up, but they still did not pay us 270 dollars. Through a microscope of rational thinking: The kid would have only bought at most 4 albums because he didn't have the money. Without napster he wouldn't have the songs. They may lose the equivalent of an album or two. How many people, if napster charaged by the song, would download as much stuff? Not many. --Joey
As the Recording Industry Association of America continues to whine about how Napster is stealing (they call it "shoplifting"), they continue to steal from the general consumer with their inflated CD prices.
... has not been music to the ears of the public. Because of these conspiracies, tens of millions of consumers paid inflated prices to buy CDs."
But wait, that's not just my 'opinion', that's what 28 US States and Territories, the FCC, and the labels say.
The Attorney Generals for these States and Territories allege in a class-action lawsuit that the world's five largest record labels and three music retail chains have been fixing the prices of CDs, costing consumers $480 million over the past decade.
How is it done? Briefly, labels give retailers money to advertise certain CDs. A few years ago, the labels told the retailers that unless they sold the CDs above a "minimum advertised price" (dictated by the labels), they wouldn't give them the ad money. In fact, they said that if they sold *one* CD below these prices, it would jeopardize all future ad money for the entire chain. So, stores *had* to raise prices or lose much-needed advertising dinero for their sombreros.
The result is that we have been paying inflated prices for CDs for years. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer says we've been paying "several dollars" too much for CDs for quite some time; "This illegal action
So, about a year ago, the labels and the FCC met and they agreed to knock all this off (from the current prices of CDs, I don't think they have quite yet) and they agreed that they'd ripped consumers off to the tune of $480 million dollars over the course of a decade. In exchange for this admission, the Feds won't take action - but states still can, and they are.
More information can be found in the Reuters article or the ModernEmpire.com editorial.
Oh, and now Metallica's whining again, too.
"We are delighted that the court has upheld the rights of all artists to protect and control their creative efforts," the band told reporters.
Gosh, it's too bad that artists don't have the right to control anything anymore, eh? No, Lars, the labels took that right away from you with a nice little bill they pushed through Congress called the "Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999".
After all the meetings on the bill were over and before the artists could notice it, a Congressional aide added a technical ammendment to the bill which permenantly gives control over a song's copyright to the labels. Under previous laws, artists could reclaim a copyright on their work after 35 years; now, labels own it, period. It's called "work for hire".
"Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was looking, and with no hearings held, is piracy," said Courtney Love in this awesome Salon article called Courtney Love does the math.
Oh, that's right - Lars is a label-owner, so he's the one stealing from both the consumers and the artists. Shame, Lars, shame.
Could this be the end for the opennap servers as well?
If you guys care so much about the artists, then you should support a free Napster with no copyright policing. If the artists would just raise their concert ticket prices $10 a ticket or so, they would be making way more money than they get right now, and they could record albums as advertising. I guarantee they'd get a lot more money from me that way, plus there would be no bullshit record company middleman, just Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster would then be the next to die. The way I see it, both my favorite artists and myself as a CD buyer have been getting ripped off by the record industry for years, and its about time we take back what's ours. Viva la Napster!
Caino
Don't touch my .sig there!
The courts are insane. How can they order Napster to do something that isn't technologically possible...even for a well-funded group like SDMI?
You seem to be missing out on one key point. The courts are simply telling napster that they need to stop breaking the law. If Napster is unable to stop breaking the law, (which the courts have decided that it is doing) than it must shut down. Think of this analogy.
I run a company that exchanges cars. People have cars, and advertise on my site that these cars are for sale. In fact, they are incrediably cheap. Everyone decides to use my store, and cars are being sent all over the place. The mafia than starts using the store to move stolen cars. I know that 90% of the cars that go through my car lot are stolen. The courts than say that I can no longer have stolen cars on my lot. If I can't find a way to comply with a owner who says "That car was stolen from me last week." than I will be shut down. It is easy with cars, hard with music, but the principle remains the same.
ZBB
"Home is where the bong is."
So the court is saying it's ok for the record companies to charge you again for music you own. How can anyone tell whether or not my favorite CD is scratched and I want to make a new one from MP3's? I suppose since I paid for the license, the distributor should charge a small 60 cent fee for the cd medium containing my licensed music. Heh. Yeah right.
Hey I produce a radio show on the NPR station in Seattle. We are talking about Napster today and would love to get some calls from all of you regarding your feelings on the subject. If you are not in the Seattle area you can listen on the web @ KUOW.org / plus you can call us on our 800 line at 800-289-KUOW. If you are calling from out of state, let us know and we'll try and get you through quicker. The show is on from 1-2pm west coast time today. Thanks, Luke Burbank KUOW 94.9 FM lburbank@u.washington.edu
I agree fully. My use is often very similar. Other times, though, I do download newer songs. My intention is not to rip anyone off or get a free ride, but to make sure that when I purchase a CD, I'm getting something I'm going to enjoy. To put this in the proper context, my CD purchasing pattern may be a bit strange. I don't hear a song (or a few songs), decide I love it (them), and go out and buy it. My purchases are made when I happen to be at a music store with a little extra cash. It has been that way since long before I had even heard of MP3s. As such, Napster has had no affect on the amount of money I've thrown at the record companies; only on which title it goes to. I use Napster largely as a "try before you buy" service. I hear one song by a new band that I like... I download a couple more to see if there's more that I like... and I file the information away in my head for the next time I happen to be standing around the music store looking to purchase something. To summarize, Napster has not altered my status as a customer of the music industry; it has simply made me a much happier customer. As has been said, though, I may very well be a minority in this matter.
"If you don't like it, move to another country." There is still such a thing as democracy here (for the most part). Meaning that if I don't like it, I should try to change it, not just run away to another country. Do you agree with all the your national, state, and local laws? By your argument, if you don't, you should leave. This was an unfortunate addition to an otherwise interesting note. As for the issue of copyright theft, there is a huge difference between someone stealing your work and making a profit on it, versus someone sharing it with friends or others in a non-profit way. The former is clearly wrong according to legal and moral principles. But the latter is a gray area. The fact is, once you have released your intellectual property into the world, you can never completely control how it will be used. It can be parodied, misinterpreted, poorly copied, reviewed, repeated by mouth, and so on. Copyright law can only go so far in preventing this, and when it goes too far, it starts smelling like a dictatorship (doesn't matter whether it's government or corporate: a dictatorship is just that). The point is, there is a balance somewhere to be found, and this stuff is so new that balance has not yet been worked out. But it is clear that peer to peer technologies will play a role, whether RIAA likes it or not.
The only trouble with offshore implementations of Napster is the possibility that those who hold the most power in IP (Intellectual Property, not internet protocol, this time) will push for litigation against ISPs providing access to "offensive material" received from overseas Napster-style operations. Australia already has a complaints mechanism in place, overseen by the Australian Broadcasting Authority, where the ABA can issue a 'take-down' notice forcing ISPs to block access to servers hosting offending materials. Right now that law is only supposed to refer to materials that would generally be regarded as X-rated or banned content, but the precedent is in place. I see a time where materials that would be regarded as 'illegal copies' being added to that list of take-down materials, as imminent. If Napster is forced into the underground, so what, you may say. It won't stop the flood. But folks, it will. The whole point of Napster was that it was easily accessible and free. If access to overseas-hosted Napster-style services is blocked from major nations, then only the elite, or those with the finances for developing/purchasing advanced routing systems will be able to participate in a once free exchange. The goal should not be to prove that Napster hasn't engaged in IP-infringement, but that IP-infringement is no longer relevant. That artists and creators should be seeking alternatvive means of receiving payment for their work. You could well argue that if they are truly artists, they should regard their work as within the public domain. Otherwise, they are nothing more than sales clerks.
Okay, great. Now the courts just have to take out every other way to distribute copyrighted MP3s, and the recording industry will be saved! It shouldn't be too terribly hard to take down AOL Instant Messenger, Gnutella, Hotline, IRC, OpenNap, FTP, all Web sites, all E-mail, Carracho, and every other way to distribute MP3s online. Oh, and then there's the offline trading. They're gonna also have to ban CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and all variants thereof, Zip, Jaz, Orb, SuperDisk, and all external hard drives.
Yeah right. The recording industry is wasting all kinds of money to try to stop MP3 trading. I'm willing to bet they've lost as many millions of dollars trying to stop MP3 trading than they've actually lost from piraters. A significant number of MP3 traders actually do buy CDs that have more than one good song on them, and the crummy artists with just one decent song tend to get their music pirated -- because most people would never have paid for their album in the first place!
If the recording industry had any sense, they'd realize that it's impossible to stop MP3 trading. Impossible. Taking down Napster or making it fee-based will only lead most people away from that option, causing them to switch to one of the many alternatives listed above, or even another that I haven't mentioned or that will eventually pop up.
Now hear this: Artists who embrace MP3, including but not limited to The Offspring, Moby, Dave Matthews Band, Limp Bizkit, Radiohead, Madonna, Ben Folds Five, Foo Fighters, Prince, and every artist on MP3.com, are a lot more likely to sell their songs because they actually show their support for everyone's favorite music file format, and realize how beneficial -- not harmful -- MP3 is to them. The same people who buy from these artists will think twice about buying from an anti-MP3 artist like Metallica, who had thousands of their (former) fans banned from Napster.
In summary, the recording industry and anti-MP3 artists are only digging graves for themselves by attacking Napster. The fewer people who respect you, the fewer buyers and investors you'll have.
http://www.napster.com/speakout/
Nothing, except that once Napster is notified by a non-BMI (say, Sony), Napster can no longer claim they don't know. Napster then has to block access.
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
I use napster for finding bootleg tracks, live recordings, and stuff like that, that have no real copyright to them.
Does this mean now that every search I type in won't return 50 misplaced files and 20 hits for SAMPLE_ACCURATE?
I don't care much for Napster. Never really used it; I tried it one or two times but I just don't like it. And I don't agree that MP3 piracy is fair use.
But at the same time, I hope Napster wins this. Mainly because its loss would set several extremely dangerous precedents. First, the idea that a service provider is liable for its users. Second, the idea of presumption of guilt (not all Napster users engage in piracy, after all). And third, an erosion if the idea of space-shifting as fair use (even this "modified injunction" defeats this important right).
Honestly, I don't care about Napster itself. It can go down for all I care. But I hope it doesn't drag consumers with it, as losing in a court case like this would cause.
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Some interesting points here are the last little caveat in the last paragraph of section eight. The first amendment ("fair use") claim made by Napster and used by many here was completely nuked by the court. It found that Napster users were not fair users and therefore the first amendment protections against prior restraint do not apply here.
In operational terms the modifications to the injunction are also interesting. Basically the court found that the original injunction was too vague because it put all of the burden on copyright policing on Napster. The court pushed most of the burden back to the copyright holder, saying that the RIAA, et al. must notify Napster of a violation to start the process in each case of suspected infringement. Napster then has to follow-through and nuke the content and user, but the court did find that peered content on decentralized systems cannot be held to a higher standard than the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA require given the reality of the architectures of such systems.
jim
AZI/Mojo Nation
The court made several findings related to this point (you can get to the heart of the result in section 8 of the decision) but it basically came down to this -- Napster is not responsible for keeping pirated stuff off of the service, but if a copyright holder comes to them and demands that something must be removed then Napster has to do so, the judge also indicated that Napster needs to stop pretending that it can't do certain things to prevent this from happening again (possibilities here include things like proactive filters on search requests to prevent users from finding copyrighted tracks, stronger user authentication to track "real names", etc.)
jim
"last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs."
People who claim that Napster is just giving out directions to people who then do illegal stuff are really wrong.
Napster has created a (really dumb) business model based on BROKERING illegal transactions. Sure, you're not doing anything illegal by telling people where to buy drugs, but Napster is doing the equivalent of setting up a meeting place and time, vouching for both parties, keeping an eye out for the cops, and essentially doing everything except physically moving the money and drugs. If someone were to bust that deal, Napster would likely get nailed as an accessory.
Not that I think shutting down Napster makes any sense. It just means that someone (Freenet, Gnutella, whoever) is going to release a system that's much more resistant to lawsuits. I just can't figure out why everyone hasn't just jumped ship to opennap and friends.
c.
Log in or piss off.
Napster effectively lost and will be subject to a preliminary injunction while the trial goes on.
The court held that Napster users were infringing the record companies' copyrights and that Napster, if it knew about the specific infringement, could be liable. But, Napster allows for noninfringing uses, so it can't just be shut down completely. Thus, the injunction must be modified so that Napster must be informed about specific acts of infringement. Additionally, Napster must take steps to police the system and look for infringement. These steps make it harder for the record companies to turn off Napster, but the court largely agreed with the District Court below.
Interestingly, the court didn't say whether Napster would be protected under the safe harbor of the DMCA. The District Court has to decide.
What does technical know how have to do with legal and political points of view? Speaking for myself, and many others, I'd be willing to bet that I know more about technology than the vast majority of slashdot users, especially napster users, yet I definitely see Napster as a threat to the greater interests of society. Likewise, there are a great many engineers, computer programmers, and others that are well out of their thirties, often have a better grasp on technology, and take a similar view point.
This is the LEGAL system we're talking about here, it's never ever been about public opinion, it's about the rule of law. The very notion is absurd. If the founders intended the majority to decide legal cases, they'd simply have voting machines as the courts, instead of lawyers, judges, etc. The founders, and most other stable societies, decided long ago that this was a very dangerous system.
Very little. First, you mistake slashdot and similar forums with your "generation". Second, the generation(s) that you refer to are actually relatively conservative when you compare them to your parents', and the vast majority of their rhetoric went up in smoke once they got a real job.
On the one hand, if you just write a magazine article that mentions where a lot of drug sales are going on, you could defend that as journalism, and the First Amendment would shield you. On the other hand, if you published a magazine telling people where they could buy drugs, and encouraged dealers to advertise in your magazine, and set up your business office so the dealers could pay for their ads with cash and not leave records of their identities, I don't think the courts would let you off the hook.
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send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
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Make mine methylphenidate.
Also of interest was the fact that the court only requires Napster to make a reasonable effort to comply with the copyright holder's demands. It's unfortunate that they don't go into detail as to what qualifies a reasonable effort. From my reading of the text, a simple scheme could be implemented by users to get around all this:
Users sharing files use a simple encryption mechanism on the file names, and possibly even ID3 tags. (rot13 might be good enough, depending on how much effort the court expects napster to exercise). This encryption is reasonable, as napster users have a right to protect their own privacy. Moreover, the process doesn't implicate Napster in the process at all, but, if done right, would maintain the same level of service, as well as the same potential future benifits to Napster (ie, banner ads, etc)
At this point, it's difficult for the RIAA to claim laziness as "contributary infringement", as Napster would have to not only excersise the exceptional effort of trying several decryption mechanisms on every file, but also because it could easilly be found to be in violation of the DMCA's anti-encryption clauses. An actual police investigation would be requried to break the encryption with the justification of law enforcement.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
Liquor stores are selling items which they own; bottles of booze. Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music.
The former is a business to consumer transaction of goods owned by the business. The latter is a consumer to consumer transaction of rights they have no legal authority to transfer or bestow.
You clearly do not own the music (you aren't Lars Ulrich, are you?), only the rights to listen to it. Nowhere, implicitly or explicitly, are you given permission to bypass the owner's wishes and start dishing out these rights as if they were yours to give.
In your example, you site drunk driving, which is a possible illegal outcome of a legal transaction, and music swapping, which is an inherently illegal transaction. Apples and oranges. I don't like the law, but we have to live with it until it is stricken from the books.
Eric
Man has it been a long time since I bought a copy of High Times.
Great mag!
Anyone know if it's still published?
--
"...the appeals court says the company has to keep users from gaining access to content that could potentially infringe on copyrights."
Piece of cake.
One, turn Napster into a generic file exchange program. Instead of just MP3s, let them exchange videos, books, or cookie recipes.
Two, implement some form of PKI in the Napster software. Napster sets up PKI repositories, and every time you install Napster it requires you to either input an existing public/private keypair of generate a new one. Then it simply encrypts all traffic before entering a Napster server and decrypts it after it leaves one.
Given that Napster can no longer see what's being traded on its service and can't decrypt the packet flow, Napster can't distinguish between copyrighted and uncopyrighted content, the RIAA can't "tap" the system to determine what's being traded, and end users get exposed to the merits of encryption which they might then be willing to use in their email.
Sounds like an all-around win to me.
--
I find it interesting that The Age web site shows on its front page news for today both an article about the Napster decision and another article that reveals that CD sales in Australia increased despite Net piracy.
It is interesting how the word "piracy" is increasingly being used to describe the dissemination of any information (software, music, etc) without the owner's permission. If that's the case, then surely every company in existence that sells its mailing list without seeking approval from everyone on it is indulging in data piracy.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Liquor stores are known to contribute significantly to drunk driving. Drunk driving is a widespread practice, yet it is illegal. And the liquor stores profit from this. It isn't feasible for them to determine which customers will go on to break the law. I guess you would be in favor of shutting them all down, eh? After all, it is almost a certainty that it would reduce the amount of drunk driving (moreso than shutting down napster would reduce online trading of copyrighted music). So what do you say? Shut down the liquor stores? If not, then please explain the difference here.
You're so right. The legal world is twisted indeed. We need less doublespeak and more common sense in the law. But then we wouldn't need so many lawyers to "interpret" the leagal spaghetti code! By making things so damned convoluted, they buy some job security.
Your statement: Napster users are giving something away which the owner does not want given away; free rights to listen to their music. - that statement only reinforces my basic point above.
In your own words, it is the Napster users that are responsible for their actions, not a technology company which may or may not be used for illegal purposes. The analogy with drunk driving still holds. Napster can lower the energy of activation for an illegal process, but it does not initiate the illegal process any more than liquor stores initiate drunk driving (they only facilitate those who wish to engage in the illegal activity of drunk driving). Napster can be no more culpable than liquor store owners.
You are wrong when you say that music swapping is inherently illegal. If you are paying attention to what's going on, then you would know that certain instances may be, but others are definitely not. Some people will get drunk and kill on the road because of the alcohol they bought from a liquor store, others will not. (And if liquor is just a product, then where is the product liability suit?)
If Napster has to guarantee their service can't be used to trade illegal files, then liquor stores should have to guarantee that their products can't result in public intoxication or drunk driving. And Fed Ex will have to shut down until they can guarantee that there are no drugs being shipped in their boxes. Apples and apples. Understand?
Well then, I guess we'd better shut down Fed and UPS, since it is widely known that they facilitate illegal activities such as mailing drugs around.
The list of technologies which can substantially assist people in breaking the law is loooooonnnnngg. Computers, guns, phone books, cameras, cars, phones, rolodexes, pens & pencils, hammers, etc.
There aren't many things in this world that couldn't be used to substantaially assist me in breaking some law. Should we outlaw them all? I'm sure I could think of a way that a carrot could substantially assist me in breaking some law. Outlawing technologies isn't the answer!
And Dischord is not your usual record label either.
Whether or not it IS fair use... it should be. As a musician myself, it's really about people hearing your music. It's nice to get something back but hte act is what should be rewarding in and of itself.
I have spent countless thousands of dollars over the years on instruments, equipment, rent, studio time, and most recently hardware and software. Playing regionally we might get gas money and expenses the night of the show covered. If we press a small (500 - 1500) run of CDs we hope to break even.
Most of my bands music is available on mp3.com (here) and our website.
This is only not FAIR when the artists and their labels no longer care about music.
Is it fair use when I buy mp3s from eMusic and burn those to CD? I bought an mp3 not a CD.
I own Red Medicine by Fugazi on cassette. I don't even have a cassette player anymore. I downloaded the songs from Napster and burned my new Red Medicine CD.
Was this bad? I payed for the cassette. Fugazi and Dischord got there money and are happy about it, just as I am sure that they are happy that I am still enjoying their music on my CD players now.
Not true. As long as the performance rights society gets it's cut (ASCAP or BMI in the US) you can perform any song for the public and record it and sell the recordings. A friend of mine put together a "tribute" album of covers of a particular artist. He pays a percentage of each CD sale to BMI (the performance rights society for this artist) and everything is hunky-dory.
He does that, but he does not need to do that. As long as the copyright on the tunes is paid, he can cover the song and modify the lyrics. The fact that it is a parody gives him even more rights than a straight cover, as the Supreme Court has affirmed that parody and satire have a special protected status greater than other material (see Larry Flynt vs Jerry Falwell and Two Live Crew vs the estate of Roy Orbison).
I have no idea why Al bothers to ask permission, other than the fact that he is a nice guy.
Not true. There are thousands of cover bands all over the world covering famous songs, lame lounge singers singing Billy Joel songs, etc. As long as the venue has paid ASCAP and BMI for the rights to the songs (look for the decal for each on the window of your favorite club) you can listen to a bunch of fat 50ish guys in bad Hawaiian shirts who are not Jimmy Buffet spend the whole evening covering Jimmy Buffet songs.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
. . . that there are small points on which the district court opinion was quibbled with by the Circuit Court. But it is plain beyond cavil that these are not the most important issues.
If ultimately this case stands for the proposition that the defendant bears the burden of affirmatively enforcing against infringement at all costs, then what purpose is there of an indexing service? Sure, Napster doesn't have to look at the files -- but if it is obliged to cut off anyone who uses the same title and is slammed for not doing so, is that really "better" than the status quo?
ASCAP has a very long list of titles. Combine that with BMI and the Harry Fox Agency, and we have now shut down 100% of Napster -- including songs and records not owned by the plaintiff! By shifting the burden to the defendants, the value of indexing --being able to search by name-- is lost entirely. The fact that we can continue to have point-to-point transfers of code names "xyzzy" means "Stairway to heaven is of no utility without a codex. But the codex is now contributorially infringing.
This is the same as killing Napster -- even for real non-infringing uses, such as space-shifting.
No, Napster needed to win on the REAL issues -- contributory infringement under the Sony standard.
If they survive under a small amount of it, the entire net will be rendered more vulnerable, and services such as ftp, archie and veronica are next. To say nothing of web indexing, etc. . . .
You think DMCA demand letters are annoying now, just wait until the Napster letters start a-coming.
Sorry, this was a slam-dunk loss for Napster and the Net. Let's hope for a prompt review and reversal; or let's start lobbying and see just how serious Senator Hatch is about this stuff.
. . . that the procedural posture of this case is essential to reading the opinion. Napster is appealing the grant of a preliminary injunction based upon a thin evidentiary hearing. Even if 100% affirmed, both sides would then produce their evidence and plaintiff would still bear their burdens of proof at that trial. I disagree that the Circuit court really reversed anything here, except the threshold question whether the DMCA issue should be dismissed without proceeding on trial on the applicability questions.
The Circuit court, unfortunately in my view, suggested that serious issues were raised concerning the availability of the defense to Napster, which supports more than detracts, IMHO, from the defense at trial. I agree that DMCA may be all they have left, but this doesn't leave me feeling particularly happy about their chances under that defense.
I think Napster's best, perhaps only, reasonable chance is to get this opinion reversed on appeal, either directly or after a final judgment following trial. I don't know how much longer they can hold out, however.
Is there any word about timing concerning Judge Patel's scheduling of the remand hearings?
But there are several problems with this; huge CPU requirements, huge temporary space requirements, and - most important - Napster doesn't have the files in the first place.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
Napster may be required to use the architecture of its service to block access to files whose names match those of infringing works, but it's not forced to change the system to prevent those works from being listed under alternate names, for example. "Napster ... bears the burden of policing the system within the limits of the system." Filesharing can go on.
The 9th Cir. gives a bit more credence than the district court to the Sony defense. The problem is that Napster actually knew about and promoted the service's unauthorized copying, not merely that the service was capable of such uses.
There are plenty of other troubling aspects, including the Court's dismissal in a few lines of Napster's First Amendment defenses; its finding that most of Napster's uses were not fair, in part because record companies might begin to exploit a market for digital distribution; and its willingness to find "commercial" activity.
The plaintiffs can probably bog the service down pretty well with numerous notices of infringing files, but they can't make Napster do all the work for them.
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
According to the Washington Post.
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the music-swapping service Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material and may be held liable for "vicarious copyright infringement." Napster must prevent users from gaining access to copyrighted content through its lists of songs archived by the service's users, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The panel also directed the Redwood City-based company to remove links to users trading copyrighted songs stored as MP3 files.
Best Slashdot Co
There is good news in this: the fact that the RIAA actually has to identify specific recordings that infringe.
One thing that the RIAA wanted was the blanket ability to kick recordings off, without proof that the recording in question was really copyrighted. Basically, the ability to convict without evidence.
Now at least there's a prayer that when (not if!!) RIAA tries to get rid of recordings from non-RIAA artists, furthering the RIAA monopoly, the courts can stand on the side of Truth and Justice ... rather than
just the New American Way
(Corporate Money Buys All).
>The future: Music will be only permitted via direct brain transmission that is immediately wiped from memory after listening.
Finally, this is something we need. I heard Hanson on the radio. hmmmmbop. can't get it out of my head! No! The pain! aaaarrrgghh!
I just hope I won't have this inexplicable craving for Pepsi from the subliminable (is that the right spelling, Mr. Bush?) messages embedded in the music.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I believe the crime Napster is being accused of committing is called "contributory copyright infringement". Sort of like being an accessory to a murder, but worse.
--LP
(Oops, I left out the <SARCASM> </SARCASM> tags!)
My comment was not that all computers are recording devices, but that many computers do infact have digital audio recording as their primary purpose. I work across the hall from a mid-sized recording studio that uses PCs and Macs as recording devices only (well, recording, mixing and effects processing).
The ironic part is that several of the people who record there never record to CD or DAT at all, but simply sample down to MP3 and publish on mp3.com. I guess that means they're never using a recording device to publish their music.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
In truth, regardless of the decision, the revolution, so to speak, has started. Even if Napster gets shut down, person to person technologies will end up dominating in the future. It might be a while, but distributed searching, storage, processing, and sharing is still going to be a huge thing. Whether modern systems such as freenet or gnutella will have any part in it is hard to say, but the potential of systems which facilitate these types of mechanisms is limitless.
... it's probably a victory for most of the industry, but it doesn't mean that P2P is dead. Just wait, things will change.
So it's a victory for the recording industry
It's not like all of our MP3's suddenly turn into pumpkins. It's not like the "OpenNAP" servers suddenly will shut down. Does this change anything?
And I still don't know of any way to pay what a radio station pays for a person to hear a song they broadcast. Any higher fee is unreasonable. Any fee for listening to a song that you own on prerecorded media is unreasonable.
OK, RIAA, now it's your turn. Tell us how we can pay you fair fees for listening. Remember that most of this music has been and is being broadcast, so we are legally entitled to record that broadcast. Then go public with the information about how much of the money the artists get.
I don't even feel the least little bit bad about using Napster-like services. How else should I pre-listen to a recording that I'm thinking of buying? Wait for the radio to play it? Heck, if I do that, I can just record the broadcast and own a legal copy. It's up to the RIAA; if they want me to stop buying prerecorded music, it's fine with me.
Yes. The right to free speach is not absolute. Your example of telling people where to buy drugs, if viewed by the courts as a conspiricy to profit from the sale of those drugs, would be a crime.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Right, go watch NBC and be in the "mainstream". Go watch the anti-hussein Minute of Hate. George Bernard Shaw said it best with "Reasonable men change with the world. Unreasonable expect the world to change for them; therefore, unreasonable men change the world."
Just the other day on 60 Minutes, Mike Wallace did a story on a Sheriff in New Mexico. Not once did he give air time of anyone remotely sentient. He included liberal drones who said that this sheriff won't be stopped until he is six feet under. Such childish name calling. And that's just what it ended with. Not once was anyone interviewed backing this sheriff who was hard on crime. Now imagine the flak that would occur if Bill O'Reilly said that about Herr Clinton. He would be crucified! And how can you say that's not liberal?
I also recall a time just before I started watching Fox News during Gore's Un-Constitutional Coup attempt. It was also right before Scalia and the Supreme Court stepped in. The FUD attempted to be spread by the commi-crats was that the Supreme Court ruling MUST be unanimous. I believe Peggy Noonan was on there to refute this claim but then the CBS anchor said "Well I don't recall the Republicans being for the people during the civil rights era." WTF?!
Another incident I recall with that robot, Mike Wallace, was during the feminization of our Military Academies. There was a feminist Air Force 2nd lieutenant and a male Master Sargeant. He asked the Master Sargeant if the only reason he opposed women in the military was because he is a chauvenistic pig. Yeah, I don't see anything wrong there.
And another time with Al Gump going on the mass propaganda of NBC's Today Show. He just made nigger-rigged appeal to the ignorant soccer moms about how "every vote should count." So reminiscient of Josef Gerbils.
Yeah, I see nothing even remotely "liberal" in the media. Oh, and for the record; O'Reilly is more of a libertarian than a conservative. The most conservative anchor on Fox News is Neil Cavuto even if he has a big head :)
A little "Dewey defeats Truman" anyone?
- passion
A number of people have told me that they thought Napster was shut down months ago. I realized that the media, which is owned/controlled by the same conglomerates as the music industry leaders, is controlling what people find out.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
On the other hand, if you published a magazine telling people where they could buy drugs, and encouraged dealers to advertise in your magazine, and set up your business office so the dealers could pay for their ads with cash and not leave records of their identities, I don't think the courts would let you off the hook.
good point, but this example of yours is a little different, because you're inferring that one would be collecting advertising and possibly subscription charges for your hypothetical Druggie's Quarterly. Napster, as it stands right now, is free. i'm not sure: does that make a difference in American law?
but here's an analogy that i think fits pretty well: i had a friend who used to grow lots of marijuana. i'd go with him on occassion to "hemp" stores that sold pipes, bongs, and a whole lot of growing equipment. they would also sell magazines that are about growing marijuana. it's quite obvious that a store such as this is around only to provide people with a means to break the law. if this is the case, then why were these stores allowed to operate? how is Napster different?
also, my original post was pretty much a re-hash of what the cluefull "pro-Napster" responses i've seen. it's certainly not worth +5 Insightful. moderators, go spend your karma someplace else: i already hit the cap long ago.
- j
MSNBC seems to spin it differently too, saying No Napster Reprieve.
I don't think it's media bias, though. Over the years I have acquired more respect for the professionalism of news agencies such as CNN and MSNBC over agencies such as Fox News to a degree and more so over ZDNet and CNET et al.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Call it a win for big corporate media, I guess. Notice that the court said that the Metallica-style censoring of files is perfectly legit, and that Napster can be held liable if they don't act upon such requests. This is extremely bad, because it gives the RIAA a way to deplete Napster's funds.
Just imagine: the record companies can afford to hire an army of trained monkeys to scour Napster looking for their copyrighted songs. They can then flood Napster with requests to block those particular users/files. Napster will have to spend obscene amounts of money doing this, and documenting their actions to defend themselves in the inevitable court cases that arise from such "infringements". This will deplete their funds rather quickly, and we can say goodbye to music swapping in any centralized format.
Napster's only recourse is to continue fighting this. We can only hope that they get more reasonable justices as they go up the appeals ladder, instead of the corporatists that sit on the 9th circuit.
I don't know if they can reasonably apply this decision to Gnutella...I sure hope not.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
Sorry Shayne, but I'm pretty damn sure that public performance of a copyrighted work is explicitly forbidden by copyright laws. You can't even do a cover without permission from the original author.
I know that Weird Al has to get permission from the author of every song he parodies, because even though the lyrics are his, the tune isn't.
If you held a concert for 100,000 and played a Buffett song, you would be hearing from Buffett's lawyers even if you didn't charge a dime. The reason being that by hearing your performance, 100,000 no longer have to pay through some other means to hear that same music, if not the same artist.
Now you can play it for a group of friends but ONLY because that type of activity is considered "fair use" and is exempted from the actual law.
Another example, jukebox owners and music webcasters have to pay royalties even if they don't charge for songs.
Any rights you think you have, you don't, you only think you do because so far the technology doesn't exist to enforce the laws.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The flaw with that argument is that it is rather simple for someone to tell if a whole car has been stolen. If the VIN number shows up on a hot list then it's stolen.
So all the car salesmen has to do is check the VINs against a single hotsheet and they are in compliance.
Napster can't do that because music doesn't have a VIN number, nor is there a hot sheet!
A better analogy is for the courts to say that all cars sold must not have antennas that were stolen from other cars. Since there are no VIN number on car antenna and there is no practical way of reporting a stolen car antenna, how on earth could someone know a car they are selling has the original antenna or one that was stolen?
If I use 10 seconds of Metallica music in a mix of my own personal music, is that stolen? The record companies would say yes, the courts would say "Napster you should have stopped it" and Napster would say "WTF???"
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The Metalica/Metallica convention I mentioned actually exists. For a while Napster was auto-banning anyone who shared files with the name "Metallica" in them, so people started using/searching Metalica instead.
Napster knew about it, but as far as I know they never bothered to block it. Because then they would have had to block M3tallica or any other variation.
As far as how the naming convention spreads, it is actually quite simple. Just look at the Hotlist for someone that shared your same taste in music. Eventually you figure out what to search for to get what you want.
A great example of this are the warez groups that allow or even put their releases on Napster. You can search for the group's tag "-XXX" and instantly see all their releases being spread around for download. Also, in case you didn't know, it is very useful to search for numbers like 01 etc because you most often find people who have complete CDs usually published in the
"Artist/Album/Track # - Track Title.MP3" format.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Okay, sorry, I should have been more clear. I was lumping "author permission" and "paying royalties" into a single category in my mind.
Paying royalties for use of a song is, in my mind, getting author permission. Even if it isn't really the author giving the permissiong but the authorized agent (ASCAP, CMI, SECAM) acting on his/her behalf.
So yes, you can play a song without an artist's direct knowledge or even permission...but you sure as hell can't do it without getting permission (ie, paying for it) from someone, as Shayne implied.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
For the link-fearing:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/528921.asp
For the cut-and-paste impared:
Click Here
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Who is going to volunteer to read that tripe aloud?
H E- PRO-GRAM-NAPS-TAR-TO-BE-EYE-LEE-GAL..."
Although, technically there should be an audio version available from the US Court website for the visually-impaired...although if they can navigate the web then I suppose they must have some kind of text-to-speech technology anyway.
"THE-YOU-ESS-SU-PREEM-COO-ORT-HAS-DE-CLAIR-ED-T
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Conversely, Napster may be vicariously liable when it fails to affirmatively use its ability to patrol its system and preclude access to potentially infringing files listed in its search index. Napster has both the ability to use its search function to identify infringing musical recordings and the right to bar participation of users who engage in the transmission of infringing files.
It sure sounds to me like Napster is screwed, if they have to monitor their servers for copyrighted material.
The finding seems to be that Napster can stay, but they've got to actively purge copyrighted songs from their servers. Not good.
My question is what is going to replace napster when it goes to pay only?
Well, theoretically, 99% of Slashdotters said that they would be happy with a pay Napster service, and used Napster not because it was free, but because of convenience.
Now we'll see if that was just talk, or if they were just trying to get something for nothing.
So now that the ruling is in and Napster has a deal with BMI, what's to stop Napster from becoming the official BMI music trading network, oh, and if some non-BMI music got traded, we didn't know about it?
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
You could put up proxy servers through which people can log into a napster/opennap server, and the only IP address you'd get to report is the proxy's IP.
The additional latency would be a problem, especially if you do the whole chain proxies thing, but it would make tracking a user impossible.
So why hasn't anyone tried it yet?
========================
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!
Burris
(live concert taper)
In this age where information is the key asset in so many business models, strong (and fair!) copyright laws are the only way to continue to encourage innovation and further work into information-based fields. Such copyright-protected industries include music, software, books, etc.
Without protection under copyright laws, why would anyone write a book? Author A decides to write a book and then goes to have his book published. The publisher thinks it's a good book, steals it, and keeps all of the profit. Without copyright laws, it'd be legal. The same holds for the other industries. Imagine writing a hit song and then have the music industry steal it and sell it, keeping all the profits. In the dispersive environment of the Internet, everyone has the ability to be a "publisher" with or without the consent of the author. Napster is a publisher. Anyone who downloads the song and gives it to a friend is publishing the song. Without strong copyright protection, who's to stop it?
If I decide to build a computer and set it out for sale, it's generally agreed that if someone takes my computer without paying for it, it's stealing. If the thief is caught, she gets fined or goes to jail. Why is it any different for information? If I write a song and someone steals it, I want that person fined too. The person may not be stealing a tangible product, but he's still stealing my time to write the song.
If you find what someone is doing useful to you, you should pay for it if they request it. If you don't want to pay what they want, don't use it. You live in a capitolistic society, people. If you don't like it, move to another country.
last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs.
Tell that to ebay. I guarantee you that if 1) people regularly sold drugs on ebay, 2) ebay knew about it, and 3) ebay did virtually nothing to stop the people, that would be illegal. But hey, if you think it's not, go for it, I'm sure you could make a ton of money.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Napster takes your money, gets a cut (they're for-profit, even if you don't pay), passes it to the dealer, and provides the dealer an addressed and stamped envolope with your on it. Sure, the dealer puts the drugs in and mails it, but Napster's involvement is akin to a broker with considerable involvement in the transaction, not just a directory like a phone book.
Of course, copyright violation and trafficing controlled substances are very different under the law, or at least that's my impression. The subject really is pretty accurate, I don't "know" the law, that's a matter for lawyers.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Here's a choice quote:
"There are simply no grounds in either the plain language of the definition or in the legislative history for interpreting the term 'digital musical recording' to include songs fixed on computer hard drives."
Wow-- songs fixed on a hard drive are not digital musical recordings. Then what was the whole lawsuit about, anyway? My friend's a capella group recorded their last album to hard drive first-- if he'd known those weren't digital musical recordings, he probably would have paid that recording studio a lot less! Apparently, music is created during the transfer from a hard drive to a CD. Simply fascinating.
Only lawyers could come up with a situation where we're not storing music on our hard drives in the form of mp3's, and that non-music is infringing on the copyright held on musical works.
"Napster can be shut down and sued if they don't stop violating copyrights."
Natural response: Napster gets bought up by music company, turns into a subscription service, and only shares music from the parent compeny.
Gee, it's almost like a certain company saw this coming...
If you own a home, you pay for the taxes for your local library. It has nothing to do with having a job.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
However, on some small level, I'm a little disappointed, particularly by some of the artists involved-- those not in the monetary leagues of Metallica, Limp Bizkit and Britney Spears-- that we're stealing out of their pockets. I think MP3's are great, and Napster as a concept is good.
But considering that I'm a writer, I would be pretty peeved if my stuff was being passed around for free. That is, stuff that I don't want passed around.
Does anybody else feel this twinge of guilt?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Uh, you pay for libraries with taxes.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently? as far as i can tell it's just people failing to see the parallels to existing situations only because they're ignorant of the technology.
/. crowd enjoys - I cant understand what it would be like to *not* understand how the internet works, but to hear about it day in, day out... to be forced to use it at home and work... must be terribly alienating.
Thats the issue here isnt it. This is a scary proposition. The American system seems to have a problem 'deferring' to more learned authorities. If the USPTO and the Judiciary would simply listen to the 'geeks' (us) we'd all be allot happier - but it appears that the 'status quo' has a greater ability to bend the opinions of both bodies. It is mostly a display of a corrupt and biased system - money matters. Fuck logic.
98% of the Internet Public hasnt a clue about how Napster works. Their computers are magic boxes, the Internet a sea of confusion. Its really a strange existence that the
In the past, when there were massive shifts in 'reality' and 'existence' I wonder what it was like. Meaning: When I lived in the 'country' and went to 'the city' where there were (gasp) Electric Lights(!) I wonder what it was like to be the 'country folk' who didnt understand electricity. When 'country folk' were shown Fireworks and Gunpowder in ancient China, I wonder what it would be like being the Chemist who understood how simply the concoctions were - and I think we all know what it was like to stand back with the match staring at all the 'people in amazement'... how strange that must have been. How strange *THIS* is.
The Internet is a wondrous place - but to those who understand its construction, its basic elements, us, crap like this becomes very frustrating. Illustrating the analogy to the way napster works - to a 'layman' is an exercise in patience, 'they' *DONT* have the capacity to understand... simple items of your argument would require alot of explanation/education.
Until the world at large is better equipped to make decisions to 'legislate' Internet (or computer) technology in general - we can expect to see more rulings like these.
The only bad part about this, is that the Bourgeoisie that rule in America will have a chance to maintain the status-quo by buying favoritism long enough to ensure their future survival.
This ultimately is a display of a rigid, corrupt system incapable of 'new thinking'. America is growing more intolerant by the day - Technology issues will become a Pandora's Box of illogical/non-sensical legislation in the USA as an ignorant public is manipulated by lies.
Really very sad for Americans
I take it you have forgotten about public libraries. You can go in there and check out books for free. The book is purchased once, and everyone gets to share it (provided noone keeps the book and then owes library fees.) Napster really is different in that mp3's are not tangible objects, but the public libraries are the closest thing I can think of for books.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
If you were watching Millionaire last night, you'd know that Lars' mental program would fit quite nicely in 640K.
That's still a few Vic-20s short of a C-64.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Is there anyway to get Lars formatted into a mp3 and just have him bounce on the net forever?
If only! Then, we could e-mail ourselves to work every day.
Course, I think Lars belongs on a heavily fragmented FAT16-formatted 100 megabyte Kalok hard drive with a bad spindle bearing...
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Yikes! And I thought Slashdot was shoddy journalism!
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Months later, I have quite a few singles, tracks that I would have never bought, except perhaps on a compilation. Would I have ever discovered the Gourd's "Gin and Juice" without Napster? Not likely. Despite the record company's protests, if I found enough songs to like, I bought the album. I ripped my CDs, some at home, some at work, and used Napster to transfer the MP3s from home to work, when I wanted a song or two. Life was good.
Now it looks like Napster is going down, at least for a little while, and I say thank you. My hard drive is stuffed with singles, sometimes multiple copies. Only one is a good copy, the rest are bad copies, mixes I don't like, bad live versions. Finally, I will have the time to go through them, weed out the bad ones, and put them onto CDs. I can think about a stereo setup that will allow MP3s to play over the good speakers. I will compile those playlists, for instant parties. I will finish ripping my existing CDs.
In short, I have some breathing room before moving on to Gnutella. Thanks, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals!
Gawd, what a terse docuement! Anyone else bother reading the ruling? It reads like well documented code, where the code itself was completly uncipherable.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Please, these shows are businesses. They maximize profits by appealing to the greatest number of people. If the News is liberal then they see the majority of their audience as being liberal. As it is, the shows are centrist and the vast majority of their audience is as well.
Shit, if John Stossel (evil ultra-liberal ABC/Disney 'member?) is a liberal I am the King of Siam. Get real and stop parroting whiney conservative pablum.
"Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi"
Could a similar workaround be done here? Imagine a scenario where the end user could do a search that would return the equivalent of URLs for various songs on people's host machines, and then do a simple cut-and-paste into a web browser or another application to actually start the download?
Firedog
My question is what is going to replace napster when it goes to pay only? Gnutella needs work.. mynapster is ok, But cutemx is my favorite so far. The funny thing is that by stopping people using napster, they make them use programs that can share movies... Then we'll a whole new bag... Just my opinion...
Monday February 12 1:18 PM ET
Court Says Napster Must Stop
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the music-swapping service Napster must stop trading in copyrighted material and may be held liable for ``vicarious copyright infringement.''
Then the information it stores can not be called a recorded music.
Now for the Epiphany
Some marketing genius is really missing the boat here. RIAA needs to forget about trying to rid the world of Napster and come up with a way to use the Internet to distribute music in a way that people will find beneficial and thus will pay for. Maybe it starts with Internet radio to get you hooked on a song, then make the song available for purchase. There's more to it than this, but when I'm sitting at my (BORING) desk all day long, I am much more likely to buy some downloadable CD than go to the store to get it. While I would much rather get the music for free from Napster - well, that's a problem for the marketing genius I spoke of earlier.
RIAA needs to stop whining and solve the problem on its own. USE the technology for mass distribution. Don't tell us we can order a CD online. Tell us we can download the CD for half the price (b/c there is no media cost, no shipping, no store, no guy at the register) and write the CD ourselves. C'mon guys, be creative...
the scary part of all this is that the case arose because the personal computer does not meet the limited legal definition used in the Sony Betamax case which defined a consumer recording device. so this is all being decided under the laws of two or more generations of equipment ago. and that is the scary part, because in essence we are being told we do not have freedom of press, speech, and association because we are not using a quill, yelling from the top of a hill overlooking the plain, and we are not wearing a common uniform and massed on horses under the same guidon. with little georgie w. bushleague IV and his buds in charge of deciding whether or not to update the laws, turn out the lights, this awful little court case casts a long, dark shadow.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I have a feeling that the brief issues given already are trying to limit the Napster case to strictly Napster, and not trying to extend the result to an overencompassing decision for the Internet, because there's more issues at stake than just what Napster offers. By stating that the circuit court's decision is overbroad, this is a strong sign that the appealate court is avoiding a massive investigation of the copyright system and digital mediums.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Ok, so there is all this hullabaloo over Napster shutting down? Why should this even affect anything. I've always been curious over the far reaches of the American judicial system. Like sure they can state what is legal and illegal in the states but what is to stop someone from doing something offshore (ala: the internet gambling casinos etc.) But even aside from that all this focus is on Napster, so Napster dies big deal, they can't stop a movement of this size anymore .. you can equate it with the war on drugs, something that will go nowhere, sure they can bust Noriega or Napster but with that stem the flow? I don't think so. Hell there are still places out there like Audiogalaxy which have been around longer than Napster and also search a much broader base of files. If anything all Napster did was bring mass markey appeal of mp3's to the forfront. No one cared until mp3's became a commodity on Nasdaq.
Oh well my 2 cents and thats probably over pricing it.
"We direct that the preliminary injunction fashioned by the district court prior to this appeal shall remain stayed until it is modified by the district court to conform to the requirements of this opinion. We order a partial remand of this case on the date of the filing of this opinion for the limited purpose of permitting the district court to proceed with the settlement and entry of the modified preliminary injunction".
---
Napster pioneered 'peer-to-peer'
ROFL
--
A mind is a terrible thing to taste.
"A mind is a terrible thing to taste."
At CNN
Best Slashdot Co
If a computer were considered a "Digital Audio Recording Device" under the AHRA, that would mean that it would be subject to a RIAA tax on both the player (computer) and the media (hard drives, CD-ROMs). On the other hand, Napster-like activities would probably then be legal.
Since the vast majority of soundcard-equipped computers are beeping away in companies running Excel or whatever, and have nothing to do with MP3s, this would be a huge windfall for the recording industry, paid for largely at the expense of every business that uses a computer. So be careful what you wish for!
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Besides all the fallacious arguments about how facilitating crime should be legal, my favorite part of this piece of rhetorical crap would have to be the "They don't have the capacity to understand" remark. Yeah, some people have used computers since they were ten while others struggle to learn the ropes. Despite your arrogant little worldview in which you simply dismiss these people as idiots, they're not bad folks. These same probably know that "alot" is two words. "Fuck grammar." Perhaps they even realize that there is a chasm between the legal interpretation of technology-rooted issues and the way technologies actually work in the real world. At least he remembered to stroke the egos of the knowledge-equipped ./-readers--the bourgeousie-elite of his whole warped I'm smart/you're dumb paradigm. /arrogant shit
(See quote below)
The only obvious error I found in the appelate court response is contained in this section. The appelate court interprets the home recording act as requiring that the primary or main function of a device be to create digital recordings. Computers, however, become misunderstood because they are, by nature, multifunction devices. A home recording device, such as a VCR, can easily be created out of a PC that only runs one piece of software and can be sold as such. Internet appliance devices are already made out of general purpose components and sold as "Internet only" devices although they can be modified easily to be general purpose computers.
There are many cases of recording studios that use general purpose computers running only recording and audio editing software. These computers must be considered general purpose in nature, although they should not be excluded from consideration as audio recording devices. The inclusion of a sound card capable of both input for recording and output of recorded or generated audio ought to include computers as being as capable of recording digital audio as a primary recording device.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
it still boggles my mind that anybody could actually argue that Napster should be shut down: they don't even distribute any copyrighted material! all Napster does is to tell people where to get information; information that may be copyrighted.
last i checked, it's not illegal for me to go around telling people where to buy drugs. nor is it illegal to write a book telling people how to make pipe bombs. can anybody tell me why Napster is considered differently? as far as i can tell it's just people failing to see the parallels to existing situations only because they're ingnorant of the technology.
now you and i know that 99% of Napster users use the service to pirate RIAA music. personally i use it to distribute my own music (yes really, there are those of use who do this!), and to obtain obscure/out of print music. but regardless of how it's used, Napster still just provides information, and no actual files. if Napster were distributing MP3s themselves then it would be valid of course, but they're not. telling people how to do illegal things has always been protected under free speech: the Home Audio Recording Act doesn't even enter into it!
of course i'm still bitter about paying the RIAA every time i want to burn a CD of my own music. i guess i'd better get used to being stepped on by the RIAA.
- j
However, the Appeals Court did find that
In otherwords, just because Napster is currently used mainly for music piracy, that does not preclude possible future uses that are legal and commercially viable. Current uses are not the definition of a system. Thus, a shutdown of the service is too drastic a remedy.
The court also rejected the district court's interpretation of the Fonovisa (bootleg cassette flea market stall case) precedent, in that Napster's ability to police it's "premises" are not as complete as the defendent's in Fonovisa. From the case:
While the Fonovisa precedent is still applicable, Napster's knowledge of their users' files is limited, in that they only know the name of the file, not the content. The Appeals court determined that Napster's "premises" extend only to the file names, thus they must police file names to the extent that copyright holders require, but cannot be required to determine a violation by analysing the contents of a file, since that is outside the bounds of their system. The Appeals court placed the burden of identifying copyright violations on the copyright holders, but also said that Napster possesses and must exercise the power to remove the offending files/users from the system. Blockquoth Appeals court:
That last sentence seems to require that any contributory infringement suit would need to show systematic and willful disregard of violation notices, which Napster has been complying with.
Napster did lose on many substantive issues, but they got off pretty easy on the most important one- the extent of their responsibility is to be balanced with the responsibilities of copyright holders and violators (users :).
Some interesting points here are the last little caveat in the last paragraph of section eight. The first amendment ("fair use") claim made by Napster and used by many here was completely nuked by the court. It found that Napster users were not fair users and therefore the first amendment protections against prior restraint do not apply here.
In operational terms the modifications to the injunction are also interesting. Basically the court found that the original injunction was too vague because it put all of the burden on copyright policing on Napster. The court pushed most of the burden back to the copyright holder, saying that the RIAA, et al. must notify Napster of a violation to start the process in each case of suspected infringement. Napster then has to follow-through and nuke the content and user, but the court did find that peered content on decentralized systems cannot be held to a higher standard than the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA require given the reality of the architectures of such systems.
jim
AZI/Mojo Nation
While the new standard promulgated by the Ninth Circuit, that Napster may be limited, but only when: (1) it receives reasonable knowledge of specific infringing files; (2) knows or should know that such files are available on Napster; ad (3) fails to act to prevent "viral distribution" of the works, may be perceived as something better than simply affirming the District Court, Napster lost big on virtually every key substantive issue:
(1) Affirmed finding of no fair use by users;
(2) Affirmed finding of no substantial noninfringing use;
(3) Affirmed finding that sampling is not fair use or a substantial noninfringing use;
(4) Affirmed finding that Space-shifting in Napster is not fair use or a substantial noninfringing use;
(5) Affirmed finding of material contribution and vicarious liability;
(6) Affirmed finding that AHRA doesn't help Napster;
(7) Affirmed finding that DMCA doesn't help Napster;
(8) Affirmed findings rejecting waiver and copyright misuse defenses;
(9)Affirmed finding that $5M bond for injunction is sufficient;
(10)Rejected Napster's argument that injunction is inappropriate remedy, that a compulsory royalty should instead be imposed.
In short, this sets up a very nice position for the Plaintiffs, and compromises substantially Defendant's main advantages.
I anticipate applying for en banc review and/or Supreme Court review by Napster -- I seriously doubt they can survive going to trial under this new set of legal standards.
In short, while Napster isn't shut down today, unless a change is due, the grim reaper may well come around tomorrow.
Hey, that gives me a good idea -- why doesn't napster just publish a daily bulletin of which computers are hosting which files? That would be printed on paper, so it must be covered by the first amendment!! Get this much assured in court, so they know they have a right to do it.
Then, just for convenience, you can also publish this same list online once a day. Then, why not have a dynamically updated list of who's hosting which files at any given moment? Why not throw in some search capability? Then, why not make people register to use it, for marketing purposes? Hey, it's just a "music swapping" newspaper with an interesting companion website!
On news.com (CNET): Breaking News: Appeals court wants Napster injunction modified.
On cnn.com (AOL Time Warner): Appeals court upholds most of Napster injunction, CNN reports.
To be fair, my quick and dirty read of the injunction is that the appeals court agreed with the district court on almost everything and is just asking that the injunction be modified to apply some procedural polish (so CNN's report is more accurate), but I think it is interesting that reporting of the "same" story seems to differ depending on which pies the parent company of the reporting organization has their fingers in.