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Searching for Pro-Napster Experts and Speakers?
JLF asks: "I chair a local leadership seminar (Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership) for high school Sophomores from Eastern Indiana where we try to introduce the students to a variety of viewpoints on several current events or issues. One issue we want to cover at this year's seminar is copyright law, and more specifically, Napster. I've done some research thru Google and found several leads for experts/speakers who are, for lack of a better term, anti-Napster, but I'm having trouble finding sources of pro-Napster sentiment who can make a strong point in favor of the file-trading that goes in through Napster. So I'm wondering if the Slashdot community might be able to suggest some places I could look for good arguments in favor of Napster ('good' as in it goes beyond the basic 'free music rulez!' argument), or even better, someone in the area (the seminar is being held at Ball State U. in Muncie, IN) who might be good to contact about speaking at the seminar. The format we use is very relaxed, each speaker gives a short (2-4 minute) intro about his-or-herself and then we open the floor up to questions from the students for about 45 minutes. Thanks!"
I'm looking for someone to teach my young students that thievery is OK, but I'm having a hard time finding anyone. Can you help?
Thx,
Miss Ing ThePoint
Problem is, there are effective ways to prevent misuse of Napster. The most obvious is to make it an opt-in system, rather than an opt-out: prevent Napster from being able to redistribute any mp3's which have not been submitted by their copyright holders. The search engine can verify this by checksumming the mp3 files, and the Napster company can be responsible for obtaining redistributable copies of mp3's from the people who are allowed to give them out.
I just find it interesting that people yell and scream that copyrighted information should be freely redistributable, but then they also yell and scream that personal information must not be freely distributed, for 'privacy' reasons. They're saying that they should have the right to enjoy (without cost) the music/software/book I created, but I shouldn't be able to collect information about their email addresses, their spending habits, their family income, or how many children they have in the house.
I don't think that works as well as you think it does. Suppose you have an opt-in system. Who gets to opt-in? You assume there's a master list of who can create a copyrighted work. But there's not. Anyone who makes a creative work is a copyright holder.
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How is napster supposed to know who is the copyright holder of any given work to submit it in the first place? They can't possibly have a person deal with every file that's proposed, so this has to be done in an automated way. If I want to allow my work to be distributed over Napster, and I send them a checksum and say "Let MP3 files matching this checksum pass" how are they going to know that I actually hold the copyright for that work?
Further, checksumming doesn't really work anyway because any change to the file, such as a bit-rate conversion, will break the checksum. If I want to allow people to covert my file to a 64kbit stream, or Vorbis, do I have to provide a checksum for every legal variant? Moreover, Napster, Inc's servers can't possibly checksum the files, because the actual files never pass through the central servers. The servers's get information from the client software. So the client would have to checksum the files. How long do you think it would take before people altered the clients to provide fake checksums?
I really think that this problem is a lot harder than you might initially imagine.
For a more thorough discussion of the issue, here's a comment I wrote a while back on this basic problem, on the afore-metnioned GigaLaw mailing list.:
http://gigalaw.com/archives/0103/gigalaw-discus
**
The short answer is that there is no reliable way to identify an MP3 other than
having someone listen to it. This goes double for services like Napster which
never handle the MP3s themselves and have to rely on user-supplied data.
As I've mentioned in previous posts, filtering by name won't work. Other
solutions fare no better. Here's the long answer:
There are mechanisms which make is possible to identify CDs and MP3 files, but
they're all voluntary. CDs contain a serial number and a table of contents,
which lets you look up CD information in a database called CDDB (for CD
DataBase). This is how a lot of modern computer CD players get the song titles
and such. MP3 files allow what are commonly called "ID3 tags". They are just
a chunk of the file which is set aside for text, so that information about the
file can be stored there. This ID3 information is generally filled in by the
person who created the MP3, but it can be changed later by anyone who wants to.
These features are very useful for legitimate users: For example, I encode my
CDs into MP3 format so that I can listen to them on my computer and with a
portable MP3 player. The software I use reads the serial number off the CD,
gets information from the CDDB database, and then sets the ID3 tags
accordingly. That way, each MP3 is tagged with the title, artist, and album.
Unfortunately, these features are useless from a copyright enforcement
standpoint because they are controlled by the user. There's no way to make
someone set the ID3 tags correctly, so you cannot rely on their accuracy.
The concept of a hash code is very much like a fingerprint. Hash codes let you
take a file and produce a number that uniquely identifies the file. This
number can then be used to verify whether that the file hasn't been modified,
or to check other files and see if they're the same. Much like a fingerprint,
there's not an 100% guarantee that two files with the same has code are the
same file, but the odds are billions to one against any given two different
files having the same hash code. Theoretically the RIAA could give Napster a
list of hash values for every illegal MP3, and then Napster could detect it any
time one of those files was sent. Unfortunately, this doesn't work in
practice. The strength of hash codes is also a weakness in this instance: If
you change a file in any way, you totally change its hash code. This is good
for detecting tampering, but bad for identifying MP3s. There are inummerable
changes an infringer could make to an MP3 file which would not alter it in any
meaningful way, but still change the hash code.
There is a company called eTantrum, Inc (www.etantrum.com) which has developed
a technique for identifying music based on its audio characteristics, which
should be independent of the file format or other easily-altered features. If
it works as intended, it could be used to identify songs, which is what the
RIAA would like. It is, however, open to question how well it actually works.
Even if it does work, it could still be easily defeated: Currently, Napster
acts as a search engine and broker, matching people who want a given song with
people who have it. The file is then transferred between the users themselves.
Thus, Napster never sees the MP3s themselves and has to trust the users to
supply accurate information. Needless to say, users wishing to transfer
infringing information would provide incorrect data.
Useful references:
Audio CD format-
http://www.disctronics.co.uk/cdref/cdbasics/cdb
MP3 files and ID3 tagging-
http://webhome.idirect.com/~nuzhathl/mp3-faq.ht
Hash codes-
http://www.thawte.com/support/crypto/hash.html
The (in)feasibility of copy protection and water-marking-
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0011.htm
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9811.htm
http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0102.htm
eTantrum's MusicID -
http://www.etantrum.com/index.php?section=techn
**
This was in response to :
**
Thus spake Doug Isenberg (disenberg@GigaLaw.com):
OK, now that the district court issued its injunction against Napster, we
know that the service will be required to block the transmission of MP3
files where the file names match those provided by the music industry
plaintiffs. I still think this is a far-from-foolproof solution and will
allow many songs to slip through.
I've been told that songs on CDs are encoded with a unique "hash" code and
that the code could be used to identify files. I'm trying to understand
this technology better and admit the preceding sentence may not be
technically accurate! Can anyone comment on this and/or provide resources
for background on the technology?
Doug Isenberg, Esq.
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com (http://www.GigaLaw.com)
There's two ways to be pro-Napster. You can believe that it's appropriate and legal for private citizens to give each other unlimited copies of copyright-protected works. You'll have a hard time finding "respectable" people to defend this position.
Or, you can believe that there are some legitimate uses of file-sharing as well as illegitimate ones, and that there's no effective way to prevent the bad uses without unacceptably interfering with the good ones. Under this logic, Napster, Inc. should not be restricted, but law enforcement and copyright-holders have every right to go after people who are misusing Napster. You can probably find a lot of people to support the latter position. Search the web for recent comments from Lawrence Lessig, for example. Lessig is associated with Harvard Law School, and is the former chair of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society there.
Also look at the archives of the GigaLaw mailing list at gigalaw.com for a lot of discussion of this issue by people more qualified than myself.
Courtney Love also spoke out against the RIAA attack on Napster.
"Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it.
I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts. "
He spent a bit of time trying to illustrate how it's not the artists who are being hurt by Naspter - the artists already got burned by the Record Companies. If you want to get this kind of message across, Prince or one of his entourage may be willing to speak.
I can see the fnords!
> I'd be curious to see how articulate she is speaking off the cuff.
Who knows? What is undeniably true, however, is that she cribbed most of that speech from Steve Albini's "The Problem With Music," originally published in Maximum Rock and Roll in 1994, IIRC.
You're right on the money about Metallica, too. If people actually read what Ulrich said, he makes a lot of intelligent, reasoned points that the pro-Napster crowd just ignores.
Peace,
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Linkage:
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html
And it was published in The Baffler, rather than MRR.
HTH,
(jfb)
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
Courtney Love gave a speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference almost exactly one year ago in which she defended Napster and excoriated the recording industry. It's shockingly articulate. The full transcript is available at Salon.com.
I've found analyst Ric Dube from the firm Webnoize to be an excellent source of info on all things digital music. He's quoted by the press very often, and even has testified before Congress on digital music issues. i'm not sure if he does stuff like this, but he might be a good source of information at least.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Two things.
1) You are using napster to acquire software by unlawful means.
2) By your own admission, you KNOW anyone can come and copy the music you have already downloaded. This is distribution, my friend. You are making the material available to people for download.
The Napster program was designed *To help people trade mp3*, and the Napster company was formed because doing so was thought (Rightly so) to be wildly popular.
I doubt they would ever sue an individual napster user, you are right. But the piont here is that, regardless of how you want to micro-analyze what individual users do, Napster is in business to help people illegally distribute music. Trying to deny that is SILLY.
Tell me this. Are you trying to say that, in the use of napster, no crimes have been comitted, no copyrights have been violated, and nobody has done anything the least bit illegal? If not, who HAS done something illegal?
If you said 'I didn't know napster was sharing stuff' you might ahve a case.
But you KNOW you are sharing them with people, you are specifically using napster to MAKE them available to other napster users. It's silly to argue that you 'aren't doing anything wrong'.
You having the mp3's is not illegal. You spreading them around without the permission of the copyright holder IS.
Napster is being accused of contributory infringement because their business, as I explained, is based on HELPING PEOPLE SHARE mp3, knowing that it will be wildly popular because people will use it to illegally pirate music.
Napster users *are* directly distributing the material. it's just like if they had a store selling pirated CD's of popular tunes, and it was free. People who took the time could come in , browse, and just grab what they want.
Should people be able to 'share files' on the Internet? Certainly. Should the internet be 'filtered'? No. Waste of resources.
Should Napster be allowed? no. Why? Because.
Napster is a company. Napster is in business (initially) to attract a large userbase, to make money off those users using napster, probably by advertising.
Napster, the company, KNEW they would be popular because tom, dick, and harry would use their service to pirate music (something illegal).
Therefore, Napster, the company, has a business based primarily on helping people do something illegal.
Now.. can people do it anyway? Yes. Should all file-sharing software be illegal? But napster is more than software, it's a company and a service, that exists to help people break the law. This cannot be argued; yes people CAN use it for other things, but that's not why Napster, the company, exists.
Let's all remember; if you are making copyrighted music available to others online, you *ARE* breaking the law, regardles of how rediculous we all think it is. I'm not saying don't do it; I'd be a hypocrite if I did... but let's not get carried away.
Should people be able to share data with each other? Sure. Should you be able to make money of helping them to do it? Sure. Should your business be permitted to succeed by helping people do something illegal? No.
Weren't there several witnesses and lawyers for the defense at their trial? Granted, they might be busy with appeals and so forth, but Napster itself might want to send a spokesperson.
First off, since everyone seems ready to discuss my age, I'm 31.
;-)
Second, I've used Napster maybe twice. I'm a Gnutella man, because sometimes you just want video to go with your audio
Third, I'm a buyer of CDs, movies, etc. in what I suspect is average perportion and magnitude.
Gnutella, Napster and the rest just extend the ways that we have to share our music with others. Before these services, I was ripping my music and putting it on my web site. Not because I wanted people to "steal" it, but because I wanted to promote what I thought was good music. I wanted to share with others. I would go to friends and as: have you ever heard The Raven by The Alan Parsons Project? No? Here, let me give you a URL.
I've never offered non-original content up over Gnutella or Napster (except insofar as my gnut client will offer up a "cache"), but that's only because I've been too busy, and/or too lazy.
You're going to have a harder time finding people who will stick up for Napster than people who will stick up for Gnutella or Freenet. It's harder to build a moral case for a venture-capital funded Server-to-Client architecture system that generates a profit by trading corporate music. Freenet, Gnutella, and the like aren't generating a profit for anyone, they're just a grass roots retaliation on the part of the consumer against the documented crimes of price fixing and collusion that the recording labels are committing against the American people.
Peer-to-peer is one thing. Peer to corporation to peer is another.
--
What happens when you outlaw guns
The absolutely best book about the state of copyright law in the US for the layperson is Jessica Litman's excellent Digital Copyright. I strongly encourage anybody who has an opinion about copyright to read this book.
Can your IM do this?
...so I'll say KRS-One. I'd assume that Alanis Morisette's also big into Napster, but KRS-One you'd actually have a decent shot at snagging. He may be on tour supporting his new album, but he's also a bit of a veteran of the college speaking circuit. Very pro-Napster as well. He'd be an interesting one to talk to: along with being a musician, he worked A&R for Warner Bros. records.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
> "it is the nature of music to be free"
> What kind of h0r$e$h!t is that? I love music of all kinds. I listen to as much as I can. I respect the musicians who work hard to create it. And I believe in compensating them for it, not turning around and telling them that I shouldn't pay them because, hey, it's the nature of music to be free.
Music has always been free up until the last century or so. That's what I'm talking about by the nature of music.
I respect musicians as well as all artists, too. I believe in supporting them, and I believe we should all support them: voluntarily, not by force. I simply don't believe they should be able to use force to extract support out of people.
I don't like Napster, either, btw. I think it's a company run by a bunch of spoiled, selfish people who got together to hurt the record industry. I also happen to think the record industry is controlled by spoiled, selfish people.
But how can I have anything against Napster users? What were they doing that they couldn't have done at the library, or by listening to the radio? Or for that matter, by bootlegging tapes? What makes those things not-so-bad and suddenly Napster is evil?
I've spend months at libraries, reading books for free that I never intended to buy. I suppose you're going to tell me I'm a book pirate. Not that it matters that I buy books very frequently now.
not all content running through Napster was copyrighted work. there are a ton of local bands, and even large bands that have broken out, that want to "pimp" a song or two. for these groups, services like napster are the perfect platform for getting their songs out to a wider audience. if you want to get some pro-napster folks ... just find a few struggling local bands and have them talk about how are it is to get their music distributed.
_f
Get Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit.
*If* you could get him to come and speak, you'd have an unforgettable event. (And I say that in a good way -- I'm a big fan of LB and suspect Durst [like Mick Jagger] is a super-savvy businessman.)
I think, though, you'll have to recast your wanting a "pro-Napster" speaker into something like "pro-Fair Use" or "pro-File Sharing" or "pro-P2P". In fact, you'd do your students more good (IMHO) if you look for critics of (but not apologists for) current "intellectual property" law. Folks who might shed some light on "Fair use", "Intellectual Property", and "Public Domain".
Even a constitutional expert versed in "copyright" would be a valuable speaker. (Just make sure they're not on the RIAA's tab.)
It'll be very difficult to find someone who will side unconditionally and uncritically with Napster (a corporation, remember!).
I would estimate that close to 90% of all Open Source advocates are also advocates of private file-sharing (which Napster facilitates).
So, to answer your question, find the biggest name in the GNU world and they will probably gladly present their ideas to you and your fellow members.
But, as I know from being the Chairman of my university's ACM Chapter, you must have everything planned out perfectly for them to visit. They will generally tell you exactly what they expect (transportation, meals, hotel, etc.) however, so that's as good as it gets. <whisper> Eric S. Raymond is very picky, and can be downright rude <whisper>
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Dear AC,
I'm looking for someone to teach my young students that independant and radical thought on issues with strong corporate and governmental ramifications is ok in this country, but I'm having a hard time finding anyone willing to speak up because they just get flamed out of existence. Can you help?
I heard the US government was created based on the radical and independant ideas of some dissenters. Am I wrong? Or did you guys throw all that tea away for fun?
I've also been looking for help on teaching ACs the use of a dictionary. dictionary.com says:
thievery: The act or practice of thieving.
thieve: To take (something) by theft or commit theft.
theft: The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.
larceny: The unlawful taking and removing of another's personal property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner; theft.
Unfortunately, unauthorised duplication does not result in the deprivation of the owner of their personal property. Please use the words "unauthorised copying" or "unauthorised duplication" instead when referring to illicit copying.
Please post answers.
Thx.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I think that about covers the pro-Napster arguments.
I could fill a page about the advantages a micro-payment version of Napster where the money goes to the artists (with a cut - just a cut - to the service).
As it stands Napster is a waste of bandwidth and the sooner it's shut down the better.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Visit my web page - I have 2 articles concentrating on Napster and the debate surrounding file sharing. In a nutshell, here's my opinion:
The ability to find files on other people's computers and to download those files is nobody else's business but the 2 people involved. If a person were downloading music and then selling it the Recording Industry would have a reason to complain, but there is no money exchanged. (Prior to the NET act of 1998, Commercial Gain was a requirement in Copyright Infringement cases. Copyright Infringement, historically, has been a suit brought against other publishers, not agaist the Public.)
If music is broadcast over the radio, it has already been given to the Public. Downloading something one has heard on the radio is no different than using a tape recorder to capture that music when broadcast.
And, if copyright law had some sensible term limits, anything older than 20 years (more than an adequate length of time to compensate the creators) would be in the Public Domain, which would mean all music released before 1981 would, and should, be available for unrestricted downloading. Also, this would enable a service such as Napster to claim 'substantial non-infringing uses,' an argument the court has already wrongly rejected.
Most pro-Napster (non-'let's get something for free' or 'the RIAA makes too much money already') arguments are going to focus more on the unreasonable side of copyright law. It would be very difficult to argue that Napster isn't illegal - I think, under current copyright law, and as Napster is normally used, it is illegal. I just happen to fervently believe that current copyright law is extremely excessive and a complete mockery of what the authors of the Constitution intended. (Read letters to Congress on my page.)
Don't just complain - DO something about it!
... would be Eben Moglen. Of particular interest is a debate he had with Steve Metalitz over whether or not Napster should exist. Pretty interesting stuff...
-- Shamus
Error: Pithy quote not found
Perhaps the reason why there's no easily found Pro-Napster sentiment other than "Napster Rulez!" is that there's no thoughtful argument for why it's "a good thing" to steal people's work without their permission.
Deal?
Murphy's Law of Copiers
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Chuck D of Public Enemy fame spoke positively about Napster at Carnegie Mellon University just last week.
I don't know if he does high school gigs, but you could give it a try.
The EFF has some excellent speakers, and would probably be more than happy to get a guest speaker for a college audience. Whenever you've got a situation like this, eff is usually a good place to start.
If god had intended you to be naked, you would have been born that way.
Well, if you are in Eastern Indiana, the best place to shop for this sort of thing is at Purdue, in West Lafayette.
There are plenty of people there involved in this discussion, and I'm sure there are a few professors in the CS department who would be willing to participate.
Perhaps you could get an all-star team together: Gene Spafford for security aspect =) Doug Comer on P2P...
Honestly, the profs up there have PLENTY of time on their hands (trust me here). All you have to do is ask.
They could likely tell you who might be good to contact. They have a speak out section on their website, touting the Napster Action Network. There's also a list of artists who have spoken out in support of Napster. Or, you might be able to take a look at the forums and find a couple intelligent postings from everyday people who might be in your area...
Here's a history of his Pro-Napster views.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
"Pro-Napster" could mean either
- in support of the idea of free (as in speech) music, supported and executed by the artist community, or
- in support of the massive, widespread illegal trading of copyrighted material that takes place on Napster.
You should be able to find many speakers for the former, few (notable) speakers for the latter.I'm sure that if you contact Napster directly you might be able to get some help. They must have some PR people, at the very least, who could direct you. You might also want to broaden your scope to P2P technologies in general (which Napster technically isn't, but which are facing many of the same Copyright problems as Napster) in which case contacting O'Reilly or the author of That Book might not be a bad idea.
10 Bit Myths about copyright explained
ALA copyright Education Program Contains info about fair use,and Copyright on the internet
www.metallicaisgreedy.com which is packed full of tons of info that is pro-napster, in particular in regards to lawsuits,media,etc
Opinionated experts on Napster?
On Slashdot?
None here. We're all out. Absolutely none. Not at all. We don't have any. Nope. Nosiree. Nada. Zero. Zilch.....
If you aren't looking for someone who is a legal expert as such, it would make a lot of sense to find one of the many artists who have come out in favor of Napster.
Chuck D comes to mind.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.