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Courts Gives Napster 72-Hour Deadline
Several folks have submitted a variety of stories proclaiming that Napster has been given 72 hours to remove copyrighted materials from its servers. Meanwhile, websites are cropping up everywhere to encode filenames to simple things like Pig Latin, as well as more complicated stuff. No doubt open-source Napster clones will have that built in within a few days.
Thanks goodness! If it had said they have to block all copyrighted songs they would be in trouble. Now, they just have to block two and they will be ok. My nominations are "REM - Shiny Happy People" and any of the songs by Souxie(sp?) and the Banshees.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
Then renounce your citizenship and move.
Or try to change the laws -- but until they're changed, your obligated to obey them or accept the consequences. Thats part of the burden of being a citizen.
Your viewpoint has no relevance in the eyes of the law, except as far as it is involved in the ordinary legislative process -- such as writing your Congressmen.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
if you consider that only 100 million people voted in the last election I am sure you can see that there is a majority of people from a political point of view.
if you look at it as a polster you could find that only 15%(fictional example) of the voting public use napster an therefore the law is good.
mabye in the next censis that will bea question on the long form:
-do you think that copyright laws are fair to both the consumer public and the recording industry? oYES oNO
that would be a cool experiment.
-shut up
I have a couple friends who have been running opennap servers for awhile. Both of them have recieved copies of cease and desist letters from their ISPs sent by the RIAA threatening legal action if they do not comply. No ISP is going to want to fight this so they're just going to block it or boot the accounts. This is not soley about Napster, it's about anyone who wants to distribute copyrighted music. People with no legal ruling against them are being edged out by the guys who own the bandwidth. An old adage adopted for a new day; It's a free Internet for anyone who owns the bandwidth.
So, this latest ruling tries to block information by filename. Stupidest idea I've ever heard, but it might just work if Joe Schmoe can't find the Bee Gee's song he's been looking for. I propose we ROT13 (or whatever) the names of all songs in our distributions and see how that flies. ACn't be hard to add ROT13 to every client out their in a day or so.
Damned straight, I would! It's the thick-headed "follow the herd" mentality among record companies that has us swimming in a septic sea of Backstreet Boys clones and Britney Spears wanna-be groups, which themselves were clones of some earlier saccharine swill. Screw what the RIAA think we want, I'd force them to put out different music and let me buy what I decide to - not what small number of groups they've pre-selected for me based upon the buying habits of 14 year-old girls.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
From what the article in the Post said, it seems that the RIAssholesA will have to provide
1)Artist name
2)Song Title
3)Filename (!!!)
The requirement of filename is just beautiful. That means taht the RIAA can't just say block Metallica's Nothing Else matters, kill 'em all, ride the lightning and bla bla bla.
The music companies are never going to be able to make an effective list. I know that a) the songs that I rip for personal use (legal under fair use) are either named wierdly by RealJukebox, or named by me with filenames like 'somegoddamnsong.mp3' because I'm lazy. This is going to be a serious thorn in the side of the record companies. YAY!
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
But wait ... the real news today is John Ritter's ballsac.
That's right -- no kidding -- see the story on MSNBC news: about how in an old episode of Three's Company, John Ritter's scrotum popped out of his pants.
My question is this: which is more dangerous? Napster trafficking in copyrighted materials or a flash of ritter's ballsack popping (and broadcast, I might add, on Nickolodean)?
As a parent, I think it's most definitely the latter. Screw the RIAA. I want the MPAA -- or the TV guys -- to bear down on 'Three's Company' and *rate it properly.* If one day I sit down with my future TIVO with the VCHIP I want to know that my young son (or daughter) can't see ritter's sac flop out from between the fly flap in a pair of loose-fitting skivvies!
This is such a fucked up world.
music city has been upgrading their servers since saturday (I think they have about 30-40 total opennap servers now.
"Do we arrest gun dealers when an angst filled teen kills his tormentors?"
Bad analogy.
Do we arrest gun dealers (pawn shop proprietors) who traffic in merchandise they have GREAT reason to suspect stolen? Of course.
Follow my logic. The legal system is all about suing who has the money. Even those who have a passive role in the commission of a crime are obliged to pay damages. Who has money and facilitates the commission of these crimes? ISPs. With the advent of "technologies" like Carniwhore or POS-2000 or whatever its name is, those who are in court will realize (mistakenly) that ISPs can filter information passing through them. Thereby, injunctions will be slapped on the big ISPs like @Home, etc. (but not AOL, for some mysterious reason). The ISPs will then start filtering for known patterns of bytes of Freenet, Hotline, etc. traffic and block them in either direction. Of course, this solution is ridiculuous to think of, but then again, judgements of law are often unencumbered by the thought process.
Of course, there are obvious ways around this. They will be implemented until the ultimate work-around (use of encrypted packets) at which point entire ranges of ports will be banned. Probably, even worse--everything but port 80 from a list of "registered web servers".
If you think this is absurb, try this on for size. Broadcast something for 24 hours at about 100MHz. Yep, that's right, the FCC will be on you in a heartbeat to shut you down.
To think that these cannot be shutdown is absurd. To think that the government will not try to regulate the Internet in an absurd fashion is hubris. They have done it before (from the sinking of the Titanic onward, the US has regulated airwaves) and they WILL do it again.
The fact that we have licensed radio stations is proof enough for me.
PerES Encryption
Um, it should be easy for them to see what you're sharing, BECAUSE YOU'RE SHARING IT. If you don't want other people to see it, don't share it on something like Napster where you know anyone else can get to it.
And people shouldn't feel sorry for the poor old record companies. They make billions every year, of which only a tiny percentage goes to the artist. They'd just rather use lawsuits to protect their cartel rather than riding the wave themselves. If they sold songs online for 50 cents a download from a reliable server then no one would even bother with the likes of Napster.
Why am I the only one to see what would happen if this were the case. You buy a CD and what is the first thing you do? You rip it and share it on Napster. Why would it be different if you downloaded it for 50 cents? You are going to put it with all your other MP3s, in the big folder that is shared by Napster. Then everyone else goes and gets it from Napster and saves 50 cents.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Thats a pretty useless idea. The antivirus approach is totally invalid in this situation. Since the AV style software would have to be implemented in either the client or server software either way it wouldn't work. If the AV software was in the server code every mp3 would have to be sent to the server to have it "scanned" this could take hours on a cable connection and would waste Napsters bandwidth. If the AV software was implemented in the client code it would be relatively easy to write patches that would tamper with the scanning definitions and trick the software to accept anything. The AV model is not made for use in a situation were the user WANTS to do something, only to help a user who doesnt want to
Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind...
If Napster is somehow at fault for facilitating the sharing of copyrighted music, shouldn't Dell also bear some responsibility for manufacturing the computer I use to download? Shouldn't Microsoft bear some responsibility for providing the operating system I use to download? Shouldn't all the people that download the music bear some responsibility? Shouldn't all the people that actually SHARE their music bear some responsibility? We can go forever.
The issue is that even though Napster doesn't store any files on its servers, it is an easy target. Hence the RIAA goes after Napster. Napster doesn't do anything but say, "Hey, you want this file, well he has it". You then go there and download it. Shutting Napster down, in my opinion, is therefore a violation of its rights to free speech. Everyone knows this but somehow, the powerful RIAA has gotten the judicial system to buckle.
The funny thing is that they will be unsuccessful if they think that they can curb the flow of information. What in the entire Universe is easier to share than information? They are also very wrong if they think that somehow they will make more money by doing this.
In a democracy, it really is true that 50,000,000 people can't be wrong. The music industry has two choices: give people what they want, or get screwed. People will do what they want to do. The law is not an abstract entity; it is a formal codification of the will of the people. When the formal code disagrees with the will of the people, guess what has to change.
Civil disobedience also normally entails being willing to turn yourself in and submit to punishment.
And the copyright laws, with extended durations, protect the artists -- the artists are selling their rights to songs through a perfectly legal process. If you weaken the copyright protections, you reduce the value of what the artists have to offer. Which matters, since they don't all have rich family or second jobs...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Oooh, business opportunity. Write a new client, that when it interacts with the Napster servers, scrambles filenames as function of the canonical name (e.g. "Metallica-Trapped_Under_Ice.ogg") and the date, and returns agreed-upon mangled/Napsterized names like "zF^9o87KfG.ogg". As far as the Napster servers (and old-style clients) are concerned, the names are meaningless and change every day. Whenever a song is blocked by name, the block would automatically become outdated/obsolete within a day.
I am very surprised that RIAA would have agreed to them having to supply filenames to block. Sounds very impractical for them.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Sorry, but not being an american, I don't get your 100Mhz reference... is that your national emergency broadcast system frequency, or some military frequency or something? Any explanation is appreciated!
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
well I don't think its a good idea to just assume the RIAA owns every track of music produced in the past 50 years. I think the actual contract that was signed should be consulted, artists have the right to know if they're on the list, because they might not have signed that kind of contract. I seriously doubt the RIAA has only one contract.
Add a filter to the client to upcase the band name and the song name, MD5 both these, and use the "MD5(bandname + key) space MD5(song name + key)" as the filename. Make the key available on a third party server and block access from RIAA/Napster IP addresses. Change the key every few hours. Seems straight-forward.
"If I can see farther it is because I am surrounded by dwarves." -- Murray Gell-Mann
You'd probably have to route the transfers through a Napster proxy as well, just to be sure that whatever content has been signed, verified and indexed beforehand is the same content that's being transferred later. Otherwise, one might be able to create a hacked client that offers up different content depending on the peer (a Napster server/verifier, or another client) is requesting the file.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Near as I can tell, from a consumer's view the new format has only 1 thing going for it: It has a case for the disc, which will presumably mean fewer scratches. Yet somehow the industry expects it to replace CD's the same way (and even faster) than CD's replaced LP's. Fat freaking chance, unless they render CD's obsolete by not releasing any more.
Of course, a cynic would point to the Line In/Line Out jacks on his computer sound card and stereo, and tell them they were wasting their time.
Define "legal music swapping". If I own a CD and want an MP3 copy of the song at work, in the car, etc, then the RIAA and all the labels can go to hell if they think they have any right to stop me from getting it.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
Haven't we noticed this by now? Nothing, nothing, is capable of whipping Americans into "a blood-thirsty frenzy". There is no need for the RIAA to bother creating an alternative to the current system, since our government guarantees their sacred right to profit.
The RIAA, brainless though they may be (clearly are), will be just fine, minus some relatively paltry legal fees. (Which is a shame.)
Not only rot13 it, but install in the clients a LICENSE under UCITA or DMCA or whatever applies that makes it illegal to UN-rot13 the filenames if you are looking for copyrighted songs for prosecution purposes or something similar.
Anyone know if this would hold up under UCITA or DMCA ?
They have pay someone to find the song, the filename, check their records, monitor compliance. They'll need to notify their lawyers, have a manager and a vice president to monitor the whole system. They'll need to keep records and a database of the filenames they've blocked. They'll need to do this for millions of songs and billions of filenames.
At even $1 / filename, is this really economic?
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
But it's (©) copyrighted so don't even think of trying to share with with your budz.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1) You don't care about those laws that make what you're doing illegal.
sound better?
It's more specific, but you can still apply it to whatever activity you decide you'd like to do.
Aren't they already done? Since Napster doesn't store anything on it's servers...
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
- Dave
Ooh, or better (worse) yet, instead of making the napster_name(canon_name,date) function algorithmic, make it random and require a database lookup on another (non-Napster) server. Then you sell people access to (or ads on) the server.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The only way that Napster will be stopped is if they are shut down completely. There were already plenty of misspelled songs and band names BEFORE this ruling.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
I mean, really, how many ppl that downloaded
thought to themselves, wow, I am amazed that
this isn't copyrighted. Now, I am into punk
(not the canned shit, but the stuff you get on
a home burned cd or Maxell Tape cassette) so
most of the stuff that I have purchased goes
directly to the artist.
So I dont use Napster, never have. (dont get me
wrong, I have ripped most of my cd's, and before
i heard about napster) I have even downloaded
some hard to find songs via ftp.
I personally thought that napster would get shut
down long before. If it had been called
Sound Warez Unlimited, how long would it
have lasted? Not seeing great reason for
outrage here. I dont agree with the system,
but when caught doing something illegal, it is
pretty much an accepted thing that the authorities
will not be happy.
"What?"
"I have been shoplifting from this store for years."
"You are giving me a warning?"
"How dare you?"
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
I seem to recall that Napster's original story was that they couldn't; later, they changed their line, and said they could and would -- but perhaps they haven't yet. This injunction puts some legal compulsion behind it -- stop stalling and start blocking within a certain time period, or face definite, legal consequences.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Let's have a router at some IP with a netmask of N that routes traffic for some entity(s) [Say from a network of subscribers to @Home, my provider]. Simply drop all outgoing SYN traffic not destined for IP addresses not registered with the federal government. Don't tell me it can't be done. I do it at home with a 486 running Linux. I just do it backwards. When done backwards, it's called a firewall. Routers don't care where packets originate from (hence end-2-end), they just decide where to send them to get to their destination. There is no reason why they cannot be filtered by an access list.
PerES Encryption
The only reason it renamed the file to metall~5.mp3 was because you had at least four other files which started with metall. There's no way for anybody to tell that metall~5 = metallica-fourhorsemen.
2) What Napster is required to do is block all ifnringing materials from being searched for.
How does this differ from a search engine? Next are they going to go after them? A search engine listing a web site offering illegal mp3s seems to be the same sort of thing as Napster.
How do you maintain that "approved" list when you're not checking the content of the files? My "Parody of Metallica" could just as easily be a pirated copy of a Metallica album as not, regardless of whether I'm part of the "registered" system or not. An "approved" list like that is effectively what's already in place (and being largely ignored). When you create a Napster account you're agreeing to their Terms of Service, which _explicitly_ state that trading pirated mp3s is not allowed. Your "approved" list doesn't do anything to prevent illegal mp3 trading, and is simply another barrier in the path freely and easily exchanging _legal_ mp3s online. Sure, you get their ip address and username, but they _already_ have that information. That's how Metallica was capable of dumping thousands of Napster users in the first place.
Also note that MD5 sums are useless in the mp3 world. Adding a fraction of a second's worth of dead air onto the end of the mp3 changes the MD5 sum. So does changing the ID3 tag information. MD5 sums are very, very easy to get around, and are only useful for verifying that the file you're looking really is, in fact, the file the person sending it claims it should be. The contents of the file are completely unknown.
The real problem here is not Napster's service. The problem here is that the recording industry is going after the people with money, rather than the people actually comitting the crime. I hope this gets appealed to Supreme Court, as it would be a very interesting and very pivotal case for the coming years in regards to Internet freedom.
Legally speaking, no. Remember what happened to my.mp3.com?
Sure, why not? I would truly, truly, truly love to see the RIAA attempt to sue every individual Napster user who has ever posted or downloaded a piece of copyrighted music.
me too, but what would actually happen is this: the riaa might sue a couple people. the rest of the people would see this and back down-being that they are willing to stand on the civil disobedience pedestal until it becomes inconvenient. this is typical of the apathetic populous here in the us.
alternatively the riaa might threaten the isp's who will cut the cords of their users. reguardless of wether or not the riaa has a legal leg to stand on is irelevent. many of the ips would cut the users so that they dont have to go through the legal hassels. not to mention the aol/tw connection. the folks at time warner call over to aol and say: "hey cut the user who had this ip address at this time. he's a violator".
the us legal system can take alot. look at the "war" on drugs. in the last decade the number of people in the us prision system has increased dramatically. many of these folks are in for minor drug charges and come out alot worse than they went in.
in my opinion the us has become a subsidiary of corporations and the population is happy to be told how to live by watching mtv/suvivor/etc. anything that might be worth the time will infringe on their convenience and we cannot have that.
give me convenience or give me death.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
I would guess that they would target large scale offenders. BTW, "discrimination" is pretty hard to prove (especially if there's no discrimination except that against those who have no respect for the law)
"Once all the free online music services for the masses have been eliminated the RIAA can step in to fix the MP3 cravings with an online service that charges a mere $10 - $20 a month. "
:). You get mis-titled songs, you get poor sample rates, you get songs cut off half way through, and you get the limited selection of people who happen to be online when you're online, and happen to like what you like. That's why I'll never pay for Napster. It's a novelty, at best. I have used it to find nostalgic 80s singles, to grab TV theme songs, and to grab 1-hit wonders (instead of taping them off the radio) who sit on my hard drive for about as long as they last on the radio. Would I pay $100 a year for that novelty? Never.
All hatred of the industry aside, I might be willing to pay a subscription fee for unlimited high quality downloads of a huge database.
I would _never_ pay for Napster. It relies on the lowest common denominator; a bunch of kids, more or less
Would I pay 100$ a year for a legal substitute for buying CDs? Perhaps.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
how far back is their list going to go. are they going to examine the older contracts. what if there was one contract that was different from all the others, will those songs be on the list?
Not really. Practically every single significant record label is in the RIAA. There are only 5 majors, but there are several hundred labels in the RIAA. The only ones who aren't are the type of labels where the operation consists of some guy in his garage pressing a couple dozen seven inches of each title.
If Napster can't list music that RIAA owns, it's pointless for them to list music that it doesn't. Indy labels in Napster are like the little CD in the bin next to the 500 copies of something popular. You might grab the little CD because it looks interesting, but you never would've come to the store if the 500 copies of something popular weren't there.
Besides, it's pointless. Copyright is dead. If Napster doesn't survive, something else will. It's like making laws against picking your nose or spitting on the sidewalk. You can scream like howler monkeys every time someone does it and maybe even try to arrest people for it, but you'll never actually make any significant dent in the number of people doing it.
The only solution is to realized that copyright based models for paying artists are dead and think of something better. Here are some links to a couple I've seen:
None of those guarantee money to an artist for every person who gets a copy of a work. My suggestion as to how to deal with this is to get over it. I think many of them will work well enough that decent artists will make a good living. All of them significantly diminish the role of the middleman.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
No that's:
If encryption is banned, only criminals will amkrkrs;akdthkldjja.
50 million people wanted Al Gore to win the election.
You're "A Parody of Metallica" could be on the approved list. Independent artists that want to be on Napster could do so quite easily.
I agree... our bandwidth is definitely too straight. A good sharp bend to the left is what's required, don't you think?
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
That's a really good idea. If people really support napster as a means of legally trading music they should support such a system. Of course that assumes that most people mean it when they say they only use napster for legal music swapping.
I used to use a program that very recently instituted a policy very similar to what you describe. The program is called Peer Genius and was really a more robust version of Napster. It did auto resuming, multiplexing of downloads from diff hosts. It made for some slammin transfer rates, and best of all, searches by checksums (they call it eDNA) so searches are REALLY fast. I'm extolling Peer Genius but I thought of it as 'Napster Done Right'.
At any rate, it was a good source for every media format in existence and now the whitelist is enabled there's nothing to download anymore. I would call it nothing more then a better version of FilePlanet but it depends on the hosts hosting all those files, not servers. My point is that in effect the PG network is now a POS not only because I cant d/l music through them but cuz it's only a source of shareware/freeware which I can get off the web (which I'd rather do) instead of using a custom app that has no guarentee that someone will host the file I want and (more importantly) give me a decent transfer rate.
"Me Ted"
BOSTON SUCKS!
I'll admit, it's an uninformed reply from an uninformed source, but might you not have better luck with BearShare? I think those other things were some kinda girly 80s toy.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
So Napster's effectively gone away. If Mr. Berry's figures are to beleived, this means that the RIAA doesn't have a few ingenious crackers and hackers on their hands trading MP3z on undergound IRC and Usenet channels. They have 30 MILLION FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, PISSED OFF users from all classes and races! Worse, they have a veritable legion of crackers and hackers who want to support these people's dirty MP3 habits in order to make money/points/karma/etc...
Your analysis would be correct if the RIAA had no plans to create an online music distribution system similar to Napster. But we all know that various RIAA members have expressed interests in online music delivery including Sony, BMG and EMI. The reason the RIAA has cleared the scene of Scour.net and Napster is so that people stop getting used to the idea that online music should be free. Once all the free online music services for the masses have been eliminated the RIAA can step in to fix the MP3 cravings with an online service that charges a mere $10 - $20 a month.
As for hackers creating a rival service, as long as the RIAA owns the copyrights on the music that people want to hear the law will be on their side. This means that any hacker(s) who create(s) a popular online music distribution system must be ready to contend with lawsuits and harassments from law enforcement and RIAA lawyers. Since most hackers already know where to get MP3's without the common tools (Gnutella, Napster, Scour, etc) it is unlikely that any hacker will put himself through the RIAA wringer just to enable other people to be able to download free music. Corporate investors will also tread warily with regards to facing the RIAA after what has happened to Scour and Napster.
Quite frankly, the RIAA is about to prove that "He with the most lawyers wins".
give those government fatcats enough time and money, as it is already progressing towards, and soon your fear will become a reality.
I disagree! Any damn mall chain shit record store has 500 copies of Britney Spears or Puff Daddy. I don't tend to rush there for that reason. I WANT a record store that can supply me with "that little CD" - and not for the $25 the mall chain might charge for their _one_ available copy because it's not on the hit racks. Screw the big, sucky music chains, and screw the big, sucky record companies they pander to!
Freedom: "I won't!"
ease of use.
good luck having the average napster user learn about re-routing ports and the like.
although i suppose it's possible for someone to write modified programs and distribute them, or for them to post the directions across the net. still, that will limit users and hence the diversity of music on the p2p networks.
Huge difference. With a blank CD or tape you can make ONE copy to give to someone else. It is arguable that many more blank CD's are sold for legal purposes than for illegal. At work we use them for backups and go through a ton. At home I use them under fair use for copies of CD's that I own to take in the car. Lose one or scratch it all up and no problem, make another. With Napster the sole purpose is to share with other people. Not a single copy as with tapes or CD's but thousands of people. If I stood on a street corner and gave out 10,000 copies of a Metallica CD you would bet that a lawyer would come down on me. That is a MAJOR difference. Sure Napster has a legitimate business in file sharing. Several new companies are on the rise that will take advantage of this in a legal way. Napster from it's inception was about sharing copyrighted music. Now it's paying the price.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
The text of the actual injunction is here (PDF format). Basically, it looks like the RIAA has to provide filenames, and both parties are responsible for using "reasonable measures in identifying variations of the filename(s)."
The injunction also seems to put the burden of identifying copyrighted material mostly on the RIAA, and the burden of removal mostly on Napster. Which makes it sound like Pig Latin schemes etc. may not harm Napster after all.
I ask you, would you accept a position as (for example) a consultant, where your clients paid you arbitrary amounts, anonymously, out of "good will" ?
This has all the makings of a win-lose model, which is why the self centered Napster mob are so enthusiastic in their desire to see other people use that model, while they would never contemplate accepting such a silly compensation scheme in their own professional activity.
3 Napster related articles on /. within 9 hours of each other. There's something fundamentally wrong with the universe today.
Yeah. The RIAA is what's fundamentally wrong with the universe today...
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Very good point you made here.
The scary thing is, using agent and downloading all your mp3's from newsservers is a piece of cake, and MUCH less frustrating than using napster ever was. Of course, you sometimes have to be patient, because you can't get everything all at once, but given a short length of time, everything eventually becomes available.
However, as easy as using usenet is, its way beyond most of the the internet users who were bred on AOL and still think that Internet Explorer IS the internet. The entire concept of usenet probably escapes them and even if they decided to investigate it, they would be initially overwelmed and forget about it, rather to spend hours a day desparately searching on webpages, sifting through numerous porn banners and such.
Thats why napster was such a hit. Just type in the name of the song you want and keep clicking on the name until one of them downloads. It saves the users the trouble of thinking too much.
This is no big loss. Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about it. But there probably WILL be a backlash. The public as a whole has gotten a taste of what the internet CAN offer, and its going to be very hard for them to be pacified. Even the whole Pig Latin thing probably won't take off. Thats more complex than they want to deal with. They're going to want it to be as easy as it was before. And if market forces have their way, they may actually succeed.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Intellectual 'property' is not property unless is has a corresponding physical objectivity.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
THe problem is that not everyone is entitled to download them. Sure, you'd probably have an argument if the files were only shared for those who had the album.
As for the "presumption of guilt" -- well, aren't the vast majority of Napster users guilty here ? I mean, you should be blaming the Napster mob for their disrespect for the law and for their enthusiasm for illegaly downloading material.
Copy the files from one location to another using the DOS "copy" command. (i know... M$ == ewwies, get over it, I have three machines..two of which are running linux _fileserver_webserver)
Using DOS It managed to convert all my MP3 files that were copied into the short DOS type of filename (Metallica-Fourhorsemen.mp3 became METALL~5.mp3). Do you think the RIAA would realy be smart enough to know about this "flaw" in the DOS naming scheme?
Changing the name, or even making insubstantial changes to the content should not evade the filter
Do *you* want to try to implement this?
Regarding the motives of Napster use? Well, that's always a tough call. I do know that all of the people that I helped with Napster were interested in previewing albums before buying. These folks are still in the CD age. They still like their music in CD-Audio format. The wouldn't have a clue how to convert an MP3 back to CD-Audio. (Even though it's easy.) Crap, I'd say it's a fair estimate based off my own observations that most of those 30 million napster users don't even own a CD writer.
I guess I should wrap up my rambling... I never thought about Napster being a martyr, but the commenter is right. Napster will make a wonderful martyr. The RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) is outdated. The time is up. I believe they are fighting this to delay the inevitable. Why delay? Because they are still making money the old way. If it costs $100 million in lawyers to keep them making $1 billion, then they do it. The problem is that such a large percentage of the profits go into the pockets of a very few. And those very few don't want it to stop. Their time is up.
Shawn Pack
For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.
the riaa will supply a list. i seriously doubt they would put songs they dont hold the copyright to on that list. why should they?
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
It really is too bad that the US isn't a democracy, or else that would work! Its a REPUBLIC, which means our founding fathers thought us too stupid to govern ourselves, and thought we should appoint the richest, most "educated" percent of the population to govern all. So next time somebody says "But we're a DEMOCRACY!", remember that we live in a country where the people are little more but peasants to the will of the congressional members.
One questions whether Napster and its creator had any legal strategy to begin with. If memory serves, internal memos subpoenaed for the trial showed that they were aware that it would be used primarily for illegally distributing copyrighted music... and yet, they pretty much chose to do nothing about it, except create a business model to exploit this. Bad move... I really don't have any sympathy for them due to the obtuseness of it all.
.MP3s; chances are that many servers share the exact same versions, and a match would be grounds for examination). Find a violation, boot the server -- quasi-permanently, by requiring a CC number tied to a verifiable address and name. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be relatively hard to claim that this system would be *negligent* -- which, right now, is a trivial claim to make.
For instance, they could have used a public-key encryption system whereby MP3s weren't listed in the search server unless they'd been approved by Napster's systems, where approval was demonstrated by a valid digital signature with Napster's private key. The acceptance screening could have been simple at first -- some filename and header scans, plus perhaps spot checks (i.e. random manual inspection) and MD5 checksum comparison (with known unauthorized
Even simpler, they could have asked for licensing beforehand; they likely would have been denied, but perhaps they could have offered *their* IP to the RIAA, for a price, rather than the other way around.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
but I can't moderate... ;)
BTW, I don't think that everyone is going to go through so much inconvenience. Only the hardened Napster-criminals will do so, the average Napster-luser will not bother. Then they have a convenient way of identifying the hardcore thugs, and they can lock 'em up and throw away the key.
Likewise, if they move off shore, the thing to do is go after the users. If napster appear to be making good faith efforts to make their service legit, it's not really fair to blame them for the actions of their users.
This is possible, but I think you're a bit pessimistic about how things would go. I think that people tend to be a bit more resilient than that. As this problem gains more and more press, and becomes more and more important as a social issue, people will (I think) become just that much more obstinate and willing to "fight the power" (as it were).
alternatively the riaa might threaten the isp's who will cut the cords of their users.
That's also possible, but as Nap* usage grows, ISPs who ditch users at the behest of the RIAA will begin to feel a wee pinch in the pocketbook. I don't know a single ISP that would be willing to simultaneously sneck a million users - hell, for Earthlink, that's 1,000,000 * $21.95 per month, for 12 months per year... oh hell. It's real money.
the us legal system can take alot.
It can, but there really is a limit. And judges, in general, tend to be a fairly intelligent lot (though there are exceptions). I'm certain that if and when these sorts of cases start to become commonplace, people in the legal system and in government will start casting the Hairy Eyeball at what's going on.
Civil disobedience, in the form of p2p, may be the only recourse the average person has left when it comes to affecting the system from the bottom up. And it has worked before, under a lot more volatile and oppressive circumstances than this.
Chris Tembreull
Web Developer, NEC Systems, Inc.
Chris Tembreull
"My karma just ran over your dogma."
And just how do you propose to implement this grand scheme of filtering in just 72 hrs.
Problem 1) Time constraints.
Problem 2) The way Napster works, the file being traded never passes through Napster's server. The filtering would have to be done on the client. This means that Napster would have to lock out all accounts unless you upgrade to the new client software.
Problem 3) Can you imagine the volume of songs that are covered by copyrights by these 4 giants. Imagine the size of the song definitions file. I thought 4.5 megs of antivirus definitions was big.
Problem 4) Encoding a digital signature in each non-copyrighted would mean augmenting the file format of MP3's. This also means new client software. Plus, how does my band record a CD in our home studio(meaning we own the copyrights if we wish to enforce them), and them rip it to MP3 so we can share it on Napster or other sharing services to get quicker exposure. Do we have to now buy a "MP3 non-copyrighted song encoding software?" No thank you, I'll just use the method I have now that cost me nothing more than the cost of my CD burner.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Yeah 220, 221. Whatever it takes! - Mr. Mom
Filenames, artists, albums, tracks that exactly match a RIAA submission would be rejected. I don't know of very many independent artists that name themselves Britney Spears and sing the same album and tracks.
Tracks that are re-shared could be automatically let into the system. So long as the MD5 and watermarks are the same as in the list.
Independent artist registered with an appropriate authenication system could submit MP3s to be freely traded. No need for verification. These could be watermarked for easy electronic verification. These would also be of very high quality, since they are legal MP3s. The legal MP3s could travel where ever they want within the system, and I see very little need to change bit rates, names, etc.. if these are legit tracks.
Independent artists who want tracks on Napster and are not registered (i.e., the garage bands) could submit works to be verified.
Given enough time computer software could be generated to watermark the MP3s that you want to be freely traded, which Napster could check. Copy-righted material could also be watermarked to disallow trading. If a particular watermarking scheme is broken, the RIAA can identify the songs and request that they be removed from the system.
Bootlegs would be a problem. Since they would not be watermarked and difficult to verify - have to verify with the band.
That being said, I still side with those opposed to the RIAA's arguments against file sharing.
If you take out the anti-copyright portions of the GPL, you are left with a requirement that reverse engineering remain trivial because the source code is available,
I would say that as the gpl is only legally enforceable because of copyright law, if you abolish copyright law you are left with public-domain software. well actually I guess all software would be public domain. good luck getting the source though.
are you suggesting some way other than copyright law to enforce the gpl?
Also, copyright does retain its usefulness against large scale distributors. Its still enforceable in that arena.
I would guess that's only because you don't happen to be a large scale distributor. like napster. If you want to press your point, then what exactly qualifies you as a large scale distributor?
buck
Actually it's not YOUR responsibility not to share copyrighted material. It's Napster's responsibility to make it unavailable to the other users. Which mean they won't block what you share, they'll block what users are searching by filtering the different queries in accordance to a database of song titles.
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
*frown*
ITYM downloads?
The RIAA might not be able to go after you, but is this compatible with _Napster's_ licensing terms? It seems like abuse of their system, and could constitute a DOS if organized (lots of bogus listings bollixing up their search engine).
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I for one hope that this does happen.
I know for a fact that Indy music is just as good if not better then "Main Stream" music.
All people have to do is unbrainwash themselves so they can get around the Force feeding of the RIAA, and realize that all music is good !
http://logd.programgeeks.net/referral.php?r=lordv
Actually, as a consultant, I would use a variation on the streetperformer protocol. In fact, most consultants already do. Very rarely does a consultant impose any distribution or copying restrictions on what they produce for their client.
That is NOT a 'panhandling' style protocol. The closest an artist has come so far has been Stephen King with "The Plant", but he didn't follow it precisely. The streetperformer protocol tends not to let you reap as many rewards from popularity as some other ideas, and apparently either Stephen King didn't know about the streetperformer protocol, or he wished popularity to still figure strongly into how much money he got, so he used a variation that was less likely to succeed, but more likely to reap rewards proportionate to popularity.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Which is just fine from the RIAA's POV as long as it's difficult for users to find them.
.MP3s, then Napster isn't very useful anymore. And if there are very few, or they're sufficiently well-known, then it's still trivial for the RIAA to generate a new list of filenames to block.
Remember that if enough name-mangling schemes are used that nobody can find
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Sure, why not? I would truly, truly, truly love to see the RIAA attempt to sue every individual Napster user who has ever posted or downloaded a piece of copyrighted music.
In one respect, that may just be the best thing that could happen to the "Napster community" - the U.S. court system suddenly swamped with several million court cases all originating from the same corporation. I'm wondering just how much the U.S. legal system can take before it says, "Enough."
Just my two centimeters, or something.
Chris Tembreull
Web Developer, NEC Systems, Inc.
Chris Tembreull
"My karma just ran over your dogma."
I, too, am irked when people refer to the US as a democracy or of Democracy being the highest ideal of this country. Neither is true, and frankly, freedom is better for it. The fundamental problem with democracy is its core assumption: that what is good for the majority of people is automatically good for all.
I wanna rant. I wanna call my rant Unforgiven - Metallica - Lars Get a clue.mp3.
I name it so people will find it. No point naming it so people won't find it!
So first I want to get it out to friends and others who will continue to fight on my behalf. Then I do the "initial" release.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
No, the government rules with the consent of the majority of the people. Your not consenting to copyright does not make you any more free to violate it than my not consenting to anti-murder laws makes me free to kill you.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I would've thought they'd block Metallica first, squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.
Wouldn't that infringe on my 1st Ammend rights?
They may take away my downloaded MP3's, but they will never take away my right to write an application to share them!
(hehe)
Blarf.
I've talked to a knowledgeable person who works in the record industry and they tell me that the feeling there is that music sharing has already won. The music industry may be able to shut down Napster, but they've lost the war. There are hundreds of ways to share music files now and more are on their way. There is not just an entire generation of music fans who have begun to think differently about intellectual property laws, there is now Joe and Jane six-pack who want to share Led Zeppelin MP3s.
Those of you who whine about musicians being ripped off by online music sharing are still missing the bigger point. This controversy is about music *distribution*. Napster and others like it are a new, easy-to-use technology which removes the middleman from between artist and fan. Nobody is crying over the record companies and the profits they are missing out on. More and more people are beginning to understand that music distribution is controlled by 5 to 6 companies and perhaps a few more retail outlets (i.e. WalMart). If anybody has been ripping off artists it's been record companies and their monopoly. If a small band lose its contract, it is destined for oblivion because the alternatives are few. We all know who bland FM radio is with its limited playlists that are designed to sell us a select few artists. Never mind the fact that most of the FM dial is owned by 4 or 5 major companies.
What can you do? Keep sharing music. Buy CDs from small labels and distros. Go to a concert and pay to see a band. If you are a programmer, help develop open source P2P software. Set up a server to host MP3s and movies. Turn off that corporate radio station and start your own pirate station. Several years ago there were hundreds of pirate stations on the air in the U.S. It takes less than $1000 to start a station with your friends.
Finally, don't get depressed about this because our side is winning!
of course with the usage of popular open-source operating systems (e.g., linux) there will be a lot of ulcers for the RIAA and the government to complain about.
oh, and just remember: when the government oversteps its bounds - the people will let it know. it's just a matter of time before something as silly as "file-sharing" starts an uproar.
just a thought!
While the court proceedings are going on, I tell you about how the company screwed me over. You say, "the bastards! I'm going to steal from the evil company and keep the pilfered items for myself."
How does this help me?
If you want to attack record companies by violation of copyright--regardless of whether or not they're abusing copyright--I won't stop you. Just don't pretend that you're somehow helping the artists by this action.
If record companies are screwing over musicians, then it's up to musicians to lead the revolt.
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Assuming you can find it in stores. I've given up on finding a CD of After The Fire's debut album, which I still have on vinyl, but it's in bad shape.
tape that sh*t off the radio.
Yes, but does the radio play the songs you want, in the order you want, when you want them to? Nope. The beauty of Napster was picking out the tunes you want and cutting past the chaff.
Indi bands and less capitalist groups have stuff on the web already, some even put up their own sites. They don't need Napster or RIAA.
Best: support your local bands. Don't give in to Karoke or DJ's. I luck out, I now live where there must be 30 bands that play live. Where I once lived there was one or two.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It dosn't matter if they shut down a few OpenNap servers... A new one will just pop up elsewhere. The only way they could really put a cork on it is by shutting down server lists. Still... the RIAA can't win, when something on the internet is shutdown something else like it pops up elsewhere. I think that hosting server lists on irc would be the most resilant way of doing things as it's redundant, and distrubited.
What doesnt make sense to me is this line of the artical:
"the recording industry will have to notify Napster of the title of the song, the name of the artist and the name of the file containing the infringing material."
This means that the RIAA must specify EVERY FILE NAME THAT THEY WANT BLOCKED! Think about it, you do a search on napster, you can find the same song named 100 differnent ways! A song got blocked? No problem, change the file name slightly, and your good to go again!
It would be more effective if it was song titles following some regular expression, or containing the song title/etc in the file name. Based on what the artical says, this means the RIAA has alot of work cut out for it if this injunction is going to do much of anything.
I dont have a
Look, they keep saying it's gonna close but it's not. Even if it does there is always gnutella. Personally I am a little bored with the whole Napster struggle. The day I can't log in, I move on. Until then I say who cares anymore?
First Mate: Whaddya think of this Mexican gold cap'n?
Cap'n Blackbeard: Argh! It's fine gold it tis. When we get back to Spain, remind me to pay 'em fer all this fine gold. Arrrggghhh!
Have one system (Napster) that you can control easily, rather than one which is distributed and you cannot control at all.
If I may give a terrible example, if I want to stop a bicycle from moving easily, should I remove the wheels or the pedals? Well, let's say killing Napster is like removing the pedals. It is still possible to (somewhat comfortably, albiet at a greater inconvenience) ride the bike around by pushing it with your feet.
Even if you remove the wheels (which are a bad metaphor for the Internet as a whole), one could still carry the bike on their back.
That's not to say I think Napster is good. The legality of their business is mired in an endless gray area ("How gray?" "Charcoal." -- Fletch) but the RIAA needs to understand that they are going to lose out (not legally, tho) anyways. When you can't beat em, join em. But the RIAA has gone too far, too long to turn back now (which, IMHO, is why Metallica got on the anti-Napster bandwagon... the RIAA needed a "hip" band, and probably managed to convince poor weak-minded Lars... by the time they were getting hit from their fans' backlash, it was too late to back out).
I object to 'masses ripping you off'. It presupposes a mindset that copyright is 'right' in some ethical sense.
And I guess that I mean it should be dead in the case of people giving copies to random other people or friends, but not in the case of someone selling many copies to large numbers of people.
Whether or not Napster falls into that category is highly questionable. They don't sell copies. They 'sell' a way for people to find other people who are willing to give them a copy, which isn't quite the same thing.
I also think the unenforceability problem is a very big problem. It really can't be enforced unless you want to wage a 'war on pirating' like we already have a 'war on drugs'. Even then, it can't be enforced. You'd practically have to have a police state if you wanted to enforce it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
And how is this rectified by listeners ripping off the artists and record companies alike?
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Remember that if you keep changing your naming schemes, then you cease to matter because nobody anymore can find your files -- they don't know the search keys.
And Napster would be illegal in any country that subscribes to the Berne conventions, I suspect -- well, any that also makes illegal a business designed pretty much soley to facilitate and profit from Berne violations.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Bullshit. Gnutella can run on any port. How are you going to shut it down again? Spreading FUD regardless of your convictions is still spreading of FUD. If you don't know what you are talking about do everyone (and especially yourself) a favor and sit down.
On the other hand if you do have an original thought (not an unshakeable belief, a thought) and wish to share it, by all means please speak up. I am not claiming it is inconceivable that gnutella could be shut down. One way of assisting in that process is to spread FUD so that people don't bother to build up the number of legitimate nodes. Then the attacks against the network by adversaries are just that more effective because the amount of legitimate traffic does not dwarf the crap being injected by the adversaries.
Meanwhile, websites are cropping up everywhere to encode filenames to simple things like Pig Latin, as well as more complicated stuff. No doubt open-source Napster clones will have that built in within a few days.
I'm wondering, why is it necessary to encode song names? Since the vast majority of Slashdot are law abiding citizens who would only use Napster to trade non-copyrighted music this should be an issue.
Is the encryption being used to allow people to keep trading copyrighted material? If so, why not give the artists the pay they deserve the purchase their MP3 or CD?
ok - napster evil - napster shutdown
gnutella - can't shutdown one central host - users who are offering files on gnutella will be sued - maybe high charges to "stop the masses"
freenet - the next problem - but they can't locate the people who share files - forbidding the use of freenet is the best solution
what will be next? just let's switch of the net.
And one day, in an enlightened future, IP legislation will be cast off as the backwards barbarism that it is.
Troll? My ass. Why is it a troll to point out what a moron one of the Slashdot editors repeatedly shows himself to be?
Ranessin
PS. Now *that* was a troll.
I can't wait for that... I bet they'll come out with both a Windows and a MacOS version, and if we're really lucky you'll be able to use it under Netscape as well as IE5.
Or, to put it less sarcastically... a closed, proprietary solution is no solution at all, as far as my (BeOS/Linux using) self is concerned.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
30 MILLION?! Are you serious??
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
no matter WHAT they do, they will lose. Even if the mow everyones lawn and bring democracy to Cuba, they will STILL lose. on the other hand, its not whether you win or lose, but how many you drag down with you.
if you mod me down, Darth, i shall become more powerfull than you can possibly imagine.. f33r |\/|1 |\|3g4+v C4r|\/|4
1. Napster implements a filtering system that blocks the exact names given to them by the RIAA.
2. Ten minutes later, some kid renames all of his Metallica tracks to Meta11ica.
3. The RIAA goes to court saying that Napster is not complying.
4. Napster claims that the people doing this are violating the DMCA by circumventing copyright protection mechanisms and shifts the blame to the people trading the songs.
Would it stand up? I don't know. I would have never imagined that anyone providing a service on the Internet would be held liable for content that they don't produce, store on their servers, or even have pass through their network. But it has happened.
If people continue to circumvent Napster's filters, this will force the court to simply shut them down. Napster already lost in court, their only hope is to remain open long enough to figure out how to make money with their service. If they cannot comply with the courts rulings of filtering copyrighted material the court will just pull the plug on the whole thing.
Aren't they already done? Since Napster doesn't store anything on it's servers...
Nope. You were the 5th post. Nice work, but maybe you should have waited to read the article...
"A federal judge gave the recording industry another victory Tuesday in its bid to control digital music, saying Napster Inc. has just 72 hours to block any copyright songs."
There's a major difference between democracy and republic, even in conversational English.
By arguing that "50 million people can't be wrong", you're basically saying that "mob rules".
Which isn't the way the western world works, or it would turn the "tyranny of a despot" into the "tyranny of the majority". At one point a sizable number of Americans didn't believe in women's rights. If it weren't for a republic, would this have changed?
A republic balances the rules of the people with the rule of the politicians, who (in past) were considered more learned. "It's not that it's the best system, it's that the others are so much worse."
-Stu
Yes. According to that Judge in New York (who just happened to work on the DVD region encoding licenses for the recording industry as a lawyer earlier, but felt that wasn't a conflict of interest), a digital rip of a song from someone else's CD is different than a digital rip of the same song from your CD. Surprise!
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
One would think that this would be legal.
However, the ruling in mp3.com says precisely the opposite: even if the downloader/listener already has legal license to that music, the person who bought the CD that the streaming bits came from is the only person allowed to hear them.
see... oh... this press release from mp3.com
and
wired news article about a congressman trying to create legislation that says "if they already bought it, they can listen to it!"
Now answer me this: how can they tell it's "infringing?" Just because it's copyrighted doesn't mean it's being infringed upon. There's a possibility, yes, but... well, here's a ferinstance:
I bought Blue Man Group's album, Audio, last month. It plays fine on my portable CD player, but put it in the CD-ROM drive, and it misbehaves. I can't even rip it. I have a license to make fair use copies of it, so presumably, if I can find MP3s of this album, aren't I entitled to download them?
Similarly, the Beatles' White Album. I bought that on vinyl, and later on cassette. Am I really required to buy it AGAIN to legally download MP3s that other licenseholders have made?
Forget the technical problems for a sec, and just look at the legal presumption of guilt here.
I'm offended. I really am.
I can see the fnords!
Now that it is clear that Napster has to try to stop the swapping, nobody seems to be interested in trying to do a really good job of it. Letting renaming of a file get around the swapping ban is just too lame.
Shouldn't the filter for copyrighted stuff be like an antivirus? Changing the name, or even making insubstantial changes to the content should not evade the filter.
According to legal precedence, Napster is NOT supposed to be liable for what users share. The courts are supposed to be going against the violators, not the transport medium.
Of course, some judges like creating new laws, since they feel that is in their power.
Sigh.
You quitting proves that the karma kap worked. The most annoying of the whores shut up. --CmdrTaco
1) That's misquoted. Napster doesn't have anything on it's servers.
2) What Napster is required to do is block all ifnringing materials from being searched for.
3) The Record companies must furnish napster with a list of what to block.
So.. what the court ordered was that napster had to bock all infringing materials the record companies told it about. Isn't that what napster said they would do in the first place?
Sounds fair to me anyway.
At the risk of repeating myself, I must say that while the RIAA thinks they have won this round, in the long term they will lose to the march of technology. They can't legislate it out of existence. And frankly, if Napster continues to operate with all the RIAA's list of songs blocked, it is still a terrific tool. Perhaps more so - and here is where the RIAA's egos are getting in the way of them having a clue about what they are doing. The RIAA's list of blocked songs? Guess what: I can buy that crap in stores. I don't need Napster to find my precious Britney songs. If I want super-leet pirated copies I can tape that sh*t off the radio. If the only music I could get on Napster was indie labels, bands that support napster, and unknown artists -- well, that's a lot of great music. I say let the RIAA take their stuff off Napster; we're better off without it. Sure I like a lot of that stuff too but my point is that Napster (or a Napster-like clone that adequately filters copyright violations) is a great means of distribution and of discovering new artists. And guess where the RIAA labels will come looking for hot new bands to sign in a couple years? Having already built followings via Napster, these new artists will be in a lot better position to call the shots of their contracts, and some may even tell the RIAA to f*ck off.
go find a old mega drive game called Zero Wing, then you will understand...
Launch all zig!!!
For great justice!
Shit adds up at the bottom...
i find it humorous that before the lawsuit napster was involved in about 10 million transfers a month, after the lawsuit started getting pretty big, that number jumped to over a billion and is in fact still climbing...
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I can see it now - project xanadu finally hits gold by attaching a copyright notice to every bit.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Napster has been a great source of mp3's, discussions, copyright infringement, fun (for some), and annoyance (for others) for the past few years. When all is said and done, people will miss Napster, whether they liked it or hated it. The ones who liked it will obviously miss getting their favorite songs, while the people who didn't like it will have to find something new to complain about (especially Lars Ulrich.)
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
Yes, but can they do anything about stuff on opennap? I've found that the MusicCity cluster (20 Terrabytes) usualy has more stuff on it then the offical servers (8 Terrabytes), and there's far less idiots on it. (join a chat room on an offical server) Anyways.... I alyas say, if the cat gets let out of the bag over the internet there's no way to put it back in. (Think DeCSS). The RIAA is wasting thier time.
Is 1GHz 1000MHz, or 1024Mhz?
I gave your system a try today, and got nothing from it. Am I doing something wrong, or is in such a fledgling phase that a search across 34 servers will yield no 200k images?
I set up the server after reading this post and went on to get a feel for how much information is currently accessible with Mojo Nation. I wanted to start with something nice and broad, nice and vague, to see what kind of information is available and accessible. So I searched for images across 34 other machines and came up with squat.
I also searched for audio, and got a whole lot of mp3 listings (predictably). But none would download. Not a single one. For every one I was left with an empty file on my machine. I tried about 10. Also, every time I tried to download for some reason, the files didn't have extentions. What the heck is up with that? And none (and I mean not a single file) had the standard "musician - song title" format. It was always just the name of the song. Can you explain why this is happening? I think I followed the instructions just as the are described. After all, I can search. I'd normally just contact you from the Mojo Nation page, but since you posted this to slashdot, I thought I'd ask you here as others might be interested too.
Ok, this really bugs me. You'd think that on Slashdot, such a hotbed of Open Source activism, people would understand the difference between "copyrighted" and "freely distributable."
Linux is copyrighted. That doesn't mean you couldn't trade copies of the Linux kernel on Gnutella or any other filesharing system. There's plenty of music that's copyrighted, but which you can freely trade on Gnutella or other filesharing systems.
See the Phish Audio Recording and Transfer Policy, for one example.
Gumbo
The pdf linked to from that page has spaces in the URL. The piece of crap proxy my employer uses gets confused by either spaces (" ") or ("%20") - it's infuriating sometimes.
Anyway, is there a mirror somewhere that does NOT use space characters in the URL?
Thanks.
I can see the fnords!
The RIAA didn't agree to anything. This is part of the court order. And you can understand why... if Sony says "Remove Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man" and there's a copy that someone has which is inexplicably mislabeled (both in the file name and the ID3 tag) "Weird Al Yankovic - Dancing Queen", it's absurd for Napster to be expected to recognize it without being explicitly told about it.
What I'm curious about is the status of bootleg remixes and bootleg live versions. When Joe Basement Producer makes a megamix of Pink Floyd (on Capitol) and Underworld (on TVT), who needs to contact Napster? Capitol? TVT? Joe Basement Producer?
[TMB]
One of the only things that has kept the general non-evils-of-copyright-aware public out of this mess up until now is the fact that it has been relatively difficult to trade MP3's online.
I mean, if you know more than absolutely nothing about the internet, you can download agent or x-news and point it at the MP3 binaries groups and get a wealth of high-quality audio, that has usually been encoded by people who know what they're doing. The same goes for IRC channels.
What Napster has done is to remove that first little bit of knowledge necessary to start yourself down the good-intentioned road to MP3 hell. It's all point and grunt. Even Journalism Majors can use it. My step-dad can use it, and that's pretty damn scary.
So Napster's effectively gone away. If Mr. Berry's figures are to beleived, this means that the RIAA doesn't have a few ingenious crackers and hackers on their hands trading MP3z on undergound IRC and Usenet channels. They have 30 MILLION FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, PISSED OFF users from all classes and races! Worse, they have a veritable legion of crackers and hackers who want to support these people's dirty MP3 habits in order to make money/points/karma/etc...
What's the old saw? If one man owes you a lot of money and won't pay, then he's in trouble, but if many men owe you money and won't pay, then you're in trouble.
This applies here. It was one thing for RIAA companies to pick on the hackers. Now they have visibly, audible, and a finacially insulted the American Public as a whole. Now all that's left is to whip the addled mob into a blood-thirsty frenzy.
Good bye, Napster. You'll make a wonderful martyr.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
M4yb3 wE Can ju57 u5e scr1p7 kiD33 3Ncr1p7i0N
forth ?love if honk then
Napster is such an obvious slap in the face...
"I'm stealing stuff that doesn't belong to me!"
That I'm really surprised everytime I see a headline about it!There has to be an award some where for its ability to stand up for so long and take such a beating even when they don't have a leg to stand on...
Well...Guess it's time to download ShareBear!
LFS. Have you built your system today?
well, at least _i_ was lol. tho i could just be extremely lame
Okay, so who decides what is copywritten or not?
What if a band that is not signed with a member of the RIAA wants their songs removed from napster? Or what if a band that IS signed with a member of the RIAA WANTS their songs on napster?
As far as not having the artist in the mp3 file name; Mojo Nation has seperate XML metadata describing files and for Audio that includes Title, Artist, Genre, and others. There is no need to put all of this information in the file name with Mojo Nation.
Burris
When you open that (youll need to have Mojo Nation running on your box) you'll get an html page with info about the show and links to the individual tracks. This is freely redistributable music.
Burris
Remember, the courts don't have to decide how napster is going to do this. What the courts have asked for is fair and just.
They've said that if the record companies want napster to block a file because it infringes, then they have to give napster the name of the file, and napster has to block it.
Whether that is PRACTICAL or not isn't the issue. The court merely says that if napster will do this, then they can continue to operate.
Napster is in the business of selling advertising. That's how they try to make money, selling banner ads and such.
They attract viewers by encouraging the unlawful trading of music. Yes, their system can and is used for other things, but napster inc. knows they will have tons of users because people want to pirate music. This is the flaw in their business model; the chief way they attract viewers is by encouring/helping them do something illegal.
A website based on the same principle would be just as bad.
Now the courts have said that Napster can stay in business, as long as they block searches that the record companies tell them to. What's unfair about that?
Which means that Napster is pretty much screwed, as they cannot filter anything else beyond names, and therefore will have to resign to shut down their server completely, or face further penalties for disobeying the injunction.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Kill 'em [all] with carpal tunnel instead of legal action.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
According to the article, the record companies will have to give the artist name, song name, and the name of the file. Then, Napster will have 3 days to block it. This should not present too much of a problem to Napster users, since the record companies will have to provide specific file names. Napster users will just have to keep changing the file names.
Record companies will need to keep searching Napster, and provide them new with lists of file names that they want blocked. There are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them.
forth ?love if honk then
Has anyone been able to connect to their servers in the last few days? I sure haven't. I'm now on Swaptor.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
I think we can all agree that napster is going down in flames. I'm quite sure that if napster would charge, or be forced to block any material on their expansive network, they would see their memberships drop like a brick.
Clones and alternatives are going to take over now (or soon at least) simply because of these hindrances to getting free tunes. Do you honestly expect any more than ~1000 suckers to *pay* to use napster? I think everyone is going to jump ship like soon!
Did someone hijack their DNS, or is there internal vandalism going on?
yeah, right on. Its all just a game. However the filters will make it a little harder and hopefully everyone will leave it at that. The internet is inherently anti-cencorship anyway.
Its not like this is the end of the world. RIAA just went off on these guys by using our corrupt judges and our corrupt laws, but who cares.
Check out this IP rant
Take this personaility test.
Well, so far both a search for Etallicamay and Octorday Edray have come up empty.
Still, how can Napster even survive without the traffic from all the copyrighted material? BMG, hello?
Help me O BMG, you're my only hope...
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
What if you log on with copyrighted material in your personal database, and you send your song list to the server, but you aren't allowing any uploads?
Are you doing anything wrong?
Will you be banned from Napster?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
> What in the entire Universe is easier to share than information?
Somewhat ironically, it's easier to share entropy!
Entropy??? How? I must admit that that is a most interesting response and that you have me, but now I REALLY want to hear how it is easier to share entropy.
Entropy is a measure of disorder in the Universe, and its increase in any process is a law; For any and every process, it assuredly will increase. I understand this. However, I do not understand how you can "share" entropy. I know whatever I do increases it, whatever you do increases it, whatever we do increases it, but I still do not understand how you can even share entropy and do so in such a way that it is easier than information to share.
Just as I was about to post, I had a second thought: By virtue of us all being in the same universe, any disorder in the universe (and hence entropy), no matter the source, will be shared by all. We have all heard the saying, "No man is an island." The problems we create will be shared eventually by all. So I guess I see your point, and if I reason correctly, you are right.
Thanks for the insight.
3 Napster related articles on /. within 9 hours of each other. There's something fundamentally wrong with the universe today.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I sure hope that shutting down napster will help curve our bandwith. I look at this as a good thing.
Support Texas Troops use TXGoogle
shawn fanning would have been much better off if he'd let other users host servers.. and given up the code for napster.. now he's gotta ban all those mp3 files.. means he gets to keep some empty servers.. somethings are juss not viable bussiness options .. people has gotta realize that.. that you can't juss make money out of everything you create.. hurrah for comunity, free software, and public licenses..
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, issuing an injunction she reworked on the order of an appeals court, said the recording industry will have to notify Napster of the title of the song, the name of the artist and the name of the file containing the infringing material.
As such, and if the order is infact worded in a very point way (IE - the RIAA has to specify exact names, not fuzzy search type names,) it will be cat-and mouse as I add bitchx to the front of all of any theoretical copyrighted music I own. It would appear from the last paragraph (the remanding with the overbroad provision) that the current order does very little and is clearly circumventable. I'm not sure that the cat-mouse game that will occour is the best thing - perhaps Napster comes off looking proactive if they block fuzzily and then announce they have gone above and beyond to prevent the illegal use of their service.
IE: bitchx-Eminem-Stan.m3, Still searchable if the RIAA submits an obvious list, but napster might want to block from a PR perspective.
If anyone has a link to the actual order, plese post it!
I'm the best IRC client ever.
72 hours to remove all copyrighted material...
i.e. Napster is dead at that point.
I, for one, believe in software/musical natural
selection, which is one of the precepts of
old school piracy.
If you are unsure if you will like something, you
obtain it first, if you like it, you buy it,
if you don't, then you don't. Piracy
discourages the production of crappy software and
music.
The only problem is 95% of people who pirate
music and software don't abide by this rule.
Napster's going down, however, is a huge blow to
the public image of piracy... and I wonder
how many people will be lulled into a false
sense of security by it's demise, and
how many will go into an anti-piracy fervor?
I think, personally, that with Napster gone,
people won't consider trading (C) MP3s a
problem anymore... leaving the FTP sites and
DCC bots a chance to flourish as they did
before Napster existed... and to tell the
truth, we're better off that way...
~- Llah -~
They might as well pull the plugs right away. RIAA won't be happy until *everything* is locked. Pig latin and other schemes might buy some time, but they'll be blocked too. No cookies for you! Bad RIAA!
Nuff Said
Somebody set up us the language!
All your tense belong to us!
(Oh hell, somebody have to say it. 'Cuz we were all thinking it... for great justice 'n' all that... ;)
said the recording industry will have to notify Napster of the title of the song, the name of the artist and the name of the file containing the infringing material.
After which, Napster will have 72 hours to block access to that file. Or, in other words:
Napster users will change their file names every 72 hours.
Ok, so I could rename all my mp3s so that other people can download them, all 2000 of them. But why would I want to? If I sort things alphabetically, uckF ouY won't be with the F's now will it? Unless of course someone re-writes the cataloging code (ie a Slashdotter) so that it uploads your directory as hashed. Then if someone runs a search for the hashed name, it would work. What about everyone using different naming schemes, from pig-latin to just being encoded by some web translator? If we're not all on the same page, its like we're all speaking different languages.
I think it is is extremely foolish what the RIAA and the music industry is doing. The Napster community is millions strong, it just is not going to disapear no matter what the RIAA wants. By forcing Napster to remove copyrighted material all it is going to do is cause people to come up with more injenious and more clever methods of bypassing the system, prime example the Pig Latin encryption trick. And the harder the RIAA tries to tighten their grip the more people are going to squirm to get around it. It got too big before they did anything about it. Thus, instead of the RIAA just saying 'OK' and allowing the basic Napster technology which is easy for them to keep track of since the servers log all transactions(I believe the main ones do atleast) which the RIAA could use for data anaylsis, instead they foolishly decide to make it even harder on themselves to keep tabs of. Napster is now close if not a household word to alot of people, and alot of people do not see it as being wrong to use. We see a classic example of the old big bad guys versus the shiny new guys, and everyone is rooting for the shiny flashy newcomer. In the end, the music industry is going to lose, maybe not to Napster, but prehaps to another P2P technology that is alot harder to shut down due to a non-centralized network model, or located in a foreign country that does not obey American copyright laws.
Heheh. You could be right. Furthermore, if the court order is to "block any copyright songs" as the article says, Napster is in even better shape, since they don't have to block "copyrighted songs" -- only "copyright songs". I guess that means songs about copyright. You know... as in love songs, war songs, and copyright songs.
I was just able to get on MusicCity.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
But not int he public out cry Sense. If all the songs are legit and not part of the RIAA little monopoly then maybe (big maybe)the 50 million users that are left will start liking Indy music starting a trend. This would, if it cascaded, really bite into the RIAA's Monopoly. Though I doubt this will happen Napster's backers will say you can't be profitable so bye bye money... Bye bye Napster.
Has anyone tried Audiogalaxy its way better than napster and it auto-resume the songs.
Being that the mp3 format is lossy, it is not an exact copy of the original. Does a close approximation count? At what point does it become a "hand drawn facsimile"?
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Something more powerfull than the Slashdot Effect. The 72 hour Napster Deadline Effect. I hope their servers hold up ;-)
The truth shall set you free!
The choice of pig latin is an intresting one, though it would have not been mine. IMO, it would seem more logical to use something like rot 13. At least then, it would be easier to move to another "encryption" method (just increase or decrease the rotation factor -- this could even be done on the fly on a client level should someone figure work out the protocal issues).
one big mess where all possible forms of encryption are banned, except for use by megacorporations.
Criminals, actually.
Remember, if encryption is banned, only criminals will have encryption.
hmm ...
RIAA = ???
works for me, since their tactics have reminded me of a mafia family protecting their profits.
This is walking into the direction of one heck of a bloody mess in the coursts and the legal system.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
realize that there is nothing ON any servers owned by napster? This is still the point that irritates me. That's like the MPAA lawsuit listing John Doe as a defendant. I'd love to see the injunction for this one:
RIAA vs.
RapSuxors
mp3g0d
M3t4licc4_B1t3s
.....
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The whole nation is reeling in ambiguity today, as the Perfected Tenses have disappear entirely from the English language. What was once thought to be restricted to those of lower socioeconomic status has spread viciously throughout America.
A Dr. Hanfkopf was interview today. He say "Television has probably contribute more to this than anything else. The TV people have let these people be hear without ever having correct them. My God, now it has happen to me!!!
Moral: There is no excuse for anything less than mastery of the language by those who use it.
If you love God, burn a church!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
Have a peek at the Detroit Free Press for Doron Levin's article Music industry won a battle, not the war.
davecb@spamcop.net
I can record a song at home, put it on an MP3, and connect to Napster and give anyone access to my song. The copyright on my song STILL belongs to me, unless I specifically say "This song is in the public domain".
If the court actually said Napster must block all songs having copyrights, they're STUPID, because
A) there's not way you can actually TELL from the file if something is in the PD or not
2) there are plenty of people shareing the music they've created via Napster, but who still own their copyrights D) there are plenty of Public Domain files on Napster too... various recordings of Mozart's sonata's for example. -Donald
~Donald / Just RTFM
Burris
I'm in LimeWire (Gnutella) right now with 212TB. And it's actually less than I'm normally used to seeing.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
This precedent is going to blow up in time. Napster deserves what it's getting because it obviously and knowingly facilitated piracy. It trusted the power of the consumer masses' desires to roll over any objections to clear violation of copyright law (silly Napster). But what happens when protected material starts getting traded over networks which, intentionally or not, have plausible deniability about the specific content what they're facilitating transfer of? Is anyone providing any kind of FTP support liable to identify the copyright status of what's being transferred? Such an imperative would make the continued existance of the internet impossible. The unfortunate fact is that this type of conflict will lead inevitably to a the development of copyright identification/anti-copying protocols which will effectively pave the way for the content distribution industry to create a worlkd where pay-to-play is your only option for all media. ANybody have a better solution? (I do- check my most recent comment on a similar subject).
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
SF Circuit Court has ordered the USPS to shut down if it does not stop the enableing of trading Copyrighted material.
RIAA spokes-person commented, "Sure you could send CD-Rs containing music that the Copyright holder allows to be traded... but everyone knows the Postal Service is for stealing music!!!!"
I'm game. Not like I can get any of the music I like in this freakin hicksville town (without using Napster or similar equipment) anyway.
<p>
I mean, the way I see it if the people of America, by some miracle, get some brains, The RIAA is in serious trouble. I foresee a few different scenarios:
<p>
1) RIAA wins case, Napster dies, users get pissed, hackers create several free servers, users boycott RIAA and get the music they like from hacker's servers for Free or a small fee.
<p>
2) RIAA wins case, shows foresite but remain greedy, give cheap alternative to napster and lower CD prices, cut royalties to their artists, Artists get pissed, break away from lable and go independant / sue RIAA for holding out profit.
<P>
3) RIAA wins case, miracurously loose greedy outlook, cut prices on CD's, <b>Widen Distribution channels to include the hapless goth people that by some twist of demonic fate wind up living in the Bible Belt</b>, increase wadges for Artists... everyone becomes happy shining people hoding hands. ((yeah...right, they'd do this.))
<p>
With any luck the first two options will take effect soon, and then we won't have to put up with the BS of the RIAA.
<p>
Unfortunatly, the possibility that seems more likely is that Napster gets crushed, some users go on to use clones, but most Americans fall victim once again to the propaganda of the major Associations and mindlessly buy overpriced, low quality recordings of some blonde bimbo asking to be beaten.
<p>
If there is REALY a God...PLEASE don't let that Last thing Happen!!! I swear..I'll go to curch for a change!!! Just Don't let the RIAA Win!! I WANT My NAPSTER FREE!!!
Now the GAMES BEGIN and we all get to watch and laugh while the RIAA and Judge Patel start to pull their hair out!
The "Morph Naming" has already begun and the RIAA will soon run afoul of a LEGITIMATE copyright holder who WANTS their stuff shared on Napster for marketing reasons.
You see, the FILE NAME HAS NO DIRECT ASSOCIATION with the CONTENTS of the file. This is the MAJOR fundamental error that the computer ignorant Judge Patel made in her injunction. The RIAA will soon DEMAND a title be banned because someone used it as a file name to an RIAA enforced work, but... it will also be the LEGITIMATE TITLE of a work that is freely being shared.
Mark my words RIAA, YOU WILL BE SUED OVER THIS AND SOONER THAN YOU THINK!
To everyone else, the ONLY WAY to end this intellectual property madnes is to REPEAL ALL COPYRIGHT LAW!.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
i see this as a big win for napster. if they only have to block file name produced by the riaa, songs people want will most certainly thrive on napster. M_E_T_A_L_L_I_C_A--B_L_A_C_K--A_L_B_U_M--T_R_A_C_K --01.MP3
What kind of penalties? I'd imagine they'd have to be financial, but I doubt Napster has much $$ lying around. Its been a while since BMG bailed them out, so they must've already blown through much of that cash.
If they really want to go out with a bang, and they're sure they're screwed anyways, why not stay up for as long as they can? Let the courts fine them... if they go bankrupt noone'll have to pay anyways.
.sig this!