Slashdot Mirror
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!"
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Here's a history of his Pro-Napster views.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
MP3.COM really gives a better opportunity for new musicians and bands to present themselves, each band has its own page, with downloadable and streamable content, and if some band gets more and more known, their songs rank higher, and thus, sometimes even give them quite a bit of revenue, which with Napster isn't the case. Just look at the facts, Napster makes it very hard (I think even somewhat expensive) to use their network as a career ladder.
"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.