Slashdot Mirror
99% Blockage Isn't Good Enough, Says Napster Judge
Masem writes: "Articles at CNET and CNN say that Judge Patel has ordered Napster to remain offline until they can offer 100% blockage of copyrighted songs by the plaintiff record companies. Napster officials said that they can guarentee 99% complience, but Patel says this is not good enough. Napster is arguing that this order violated the appeals court's ruling, and are appealling it."
It seems to me that people in this country have a reluctance to face facts and numbers. We deal with statistics and decisions about worth each day, and it's just unrealistic to draw absolute prohibitions on things like this. There will *always* be someone out in the 9-sigma tail who can defeat your algorithms. But in so many debates, you encounter people who won't compromise over "even a single case" at the expense of everyone else. Let's face it -- these kinds of calculations are made every day by car, health, life insurance companies, large corporations, the government, and I'm sure they don't hold themselves to a 99.9% standard of success... And we don't see lawyers mounting nearly as costly a fight as the lousy record companies have over this. Get your priorities straight...
Fine!!! Deal with it. Napster and its networks are shutdown by the courts, but that certainly doesn't mean that new and better clients with peer-to-peer functionality are not available. Bear Share and AudioCity are OK, but do not nearly have as much of the wealth of files to search as Napster did. There is one though with around 200 TB of information!!! Go to http://www.kazaa.com. The technology is such that neither search requests nor actual downloads pass through any central server. The network is multi-layered, so that more powerful computers get to be search hubs. I CAN'T STOP DOWNLOADING!!!!! Work productivity is coming back down!!!
And I'll bet there's a lot of eclectic or classic jazz music that you would have never heard before if it weren't for Napster. That's how it was for me. Now I have to go back to listening only to the bands I know so I don't waste $15 on a CD that I'm not allowed to preview in mp3 format.
Here's the idea. Democracy is this wonderful thing whereby the people can be represented by a government, and where we can create rules for, say, commerce, etc, that everyone agrees to abide by. The constitution thingie - well, that makes the democracy legit, and tells us how far our government is allowed to operate.
And lo, one of the things this "constitution" allows our government, the government elected by us, answerable to us, and with a duty to represent us, to regulate is copyright. It allows, specifically, for the government, our government to secure for artists monopolies in the redistribution of their works.
Our government, which represents us, has said this to the artists: "If you, the artists, spend time and effort and money producing art - music, books, even movies and TV shows, we, the people we represent, will not go around copying your stuff for a limited time - each of us will pay you when we want to possess a copy of our very own of the work you have done for us."
Now, one can argue if one likes that the terms of the contract are currently unfair, that the time periods are extraordinarily long, that corporations that produce "art" shouldn't be treated the same way as artists, that most artists have signed up with distribution agents - such as the RIAA - that make fools of them. But what we can't deny is that we made that promise, through our elected representatives, and we have to follow it through. We have no RIGHT to download anything from anywhere where we do not have the express permission of the artist unless, and this is unlikely, it has gone into the public domain.
Was it a troll? It was an unsubstantiated comment which is clearly wrong, both in a technical "no, it's not a right" and a morally abhorent "We have the right to rip people off!" way.
If you don't like the system, you must work to change it. You must get involved in the politics, lobby your politicians, your elected representative, and get the terms of the contract changed. But you can't just stand alone and say "I don't like it, so I'm going to treat it as my right to break that contract that my representatives agreed with the artists."
There is a case for civil disobedience. When a person cannot live a reasonable life any longer, has no control whatsoever over the powers that decide his or her future, then those laws must be challenged. Breaking easily complied with laws, which were justly proposed and agreed to, is wrong. And haplo21112 is either a troll or a kook for saying otherwise.
--
"No one can gurantee the actions of another." - Spock
Do the artists believe this or do the /record companies/ believe this? Personally I'd guess that the artists don't fully understand the technology or the potential of the technology. If you went and asked the artists, after explaining the main points about how try-before-you-buy works, how people buy cds based on napster downloads (yes, I have), and how this is a way to get their music out to billions of people, I think they might say different things.
Chances are they are informed by their lables that napster is evil, is stealing money from them (I'm sure that the label glosses over the bit where they get the lions share of the artists income) and then of course they come out with "I want my stuff off napster!"
This is expected from the boy bands, britney spears and the like who aren't really artists (IMHO) and who are just there to make money, but the real artists out there, who actually care about their music might sing a different tune (pardon the pun) when they see the potential for distribution.
A while back there was a story on pirating in china and how there they *want* their music to be pirated, as it leads to more sales, more fans, and more concert goers (where they make the bulk of their money.
Your point about the insane forfeiture laws in the US for drug crimes is well taken but I think landlords are exempt. If drugs were found in a rented room of your house, the house could be seized (arrested actually) but an apartment building couldn't. Could you imagine the feds seizing an entire apartment building in the projects? Where do you draw the line between apartment building and house? I don't know, but such lines are drawn in many areas of the law.
I'm more worried about the RIAA getting more money to buy bad laws than my favorite bands get for actually being creative.
Besides, the House of Blues is much more fun.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Ok, fine then.
Lets shut you off from your ISP, University or whatever other common carrier(s) you might be connected with and through.
If you allow them to demand the last %1 here, the rest of the net might as well be turned off.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You simply have no clue. Real courts generally don't operate under this draconian fantasy you have. Napster is not the perpetrator. Their customers are. The real question should be what is REASONABLE. It is not generally required that someone like Napster operate the equivalent of flanders.net.
Besides, copyright law is far less simple than you realize. It's probably even less simple than the judge realizes that. Such things are not unprecedented in IP law (judges clueless of law as well as technology).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
How 'bout: just because blocking child pornography is hard or impossible to do, we should allow printing presses to continue to be sold?
Or: just because distinguishing between legitimate protected religious action and cult behavior is difficult to do, we should allow people to sacrifice goats?
Or: just because you're 99.9995% sure that this hunting rifle will be used on deer we should allow you to have it?
Or: just because hate-speech is impossible to distinguish from political expression, we should allow it?
Or: just because the PRIMARY USE of this hammer is to build houses, not kill people, we should allow you to own one?
Do you really believe that it's okay for government to restrict anything that MIGHT be used in an illegal way?
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
The appeal is under way and the appeals court told Patel that she couldn't quite ask for what she was asking for- and this new twist may well be in violation of the higher court's order in that regard.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The phrase SHOULD be...
checking them at the door...
It is ironic that a spelling/grammar flame would mis-spell "grammar".
In my case, it's a typo.
In your case, well...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Put the money in the artist's pockets- that is what I want to do. That, and pay a fair share for the production thereof. If I buy from local bands, etc. at their shows that's what transpires. If I buy from a record store, most of my money goes to people that had little to do with the music I'm buying. I don't like that.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Because the music industry charges usurious amounts and the food, etc. industries usually don't. Because of this, I choose to not deal with them. Largely speaking, I do the same where possible with the print industries as well.
As to your second paragraph, ever read Courtney Love's rant? It's closer to the truth than you think and it pretty much invalidates your claims- because the record labels were the gatekeepers, if you didn't play by their rules and sign, you pretty much didn't get to play in the game at all.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The system has sufficient non-infringing uses, they guarantee 99% compliance (which is worlds better than everything else out there...) and Patel's still not satisfied.
Should we say that Patel's biased at this point and remand the situation to another Judge- she sure isn't acting with neutrality or anything like that.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The Supreme Court ordered that /. posters stop posting until they verify all their facts instead of checking the at the door.
Patel is a SHE.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That is the most insane law I have ever heard of in my life, second only to having your hand chopped off in Saudi Arabia for stealing.
I can't get over how insane that is.
thenerd.
The camels are coming. I'm in love.
NEVER EVER pretend that copyrights and patents are about freedom.. they are socialist in nature.
No, they are explicitly capitalist in nature. They are limited-scope monopolies on reproduction. Without the ability (according to the theory) for an artist to assign publishing rights to one and only one publishers, and to enjoin other publishers from also reproducing their work, the artist cannot be guaranteed compensation for that work. The entire point of copyrightz was, in fact, to empower artists in a manner which is a near antithesis of socialism:
The majority of socialists advocated a philosophy they saw as a way to increase freedom: if everyone owns X, no one has a right to restrict X. This is partially what most defenses of Napster boil down to; the insistence on a "right to share" isn't too far away from what early 20th century anarchists and libertarian socialists argued. (It is qualitatively different from Marxism, which instead advocated a duty to share.)
As a postscript: no, I can't think of any attempt to fully socialize an economy that didn't end in disaster, either. How this applies to copyrighted file sharing is left as an exercise for the reader.
That's why he said, "in the absense of all other evidence."
So, since the usage has dropped 90%, we can assume that it's no longer being used for infringing purposes.
This is correct. The RIAA members have a cartel. They have exclusive distribution and promotion deals. It's not a monopoly because there are many companies. Unfortunately, almost ALL of them are either members of the RIAA or are subsidiaries of companies that are RIAA members.
This is incorrect. Even though Bizet doesn't have a copyright on this work, the recording label that recorded it DOES have a copyright.
Everything else you said was correct, however.
You forgot to mention the case where some losing crook wearing kevlar decides he wants my head. I want something that will kill that asshole DEAD. IMMEDIATELY.
No, I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about the guy before you.
I don't know. I'm sure that they're being used though. Criminals have AK-47s and flame throwers, why not kevlar? Of course, those criminals are more likely to be in the mafia or Black Panthers but still...
Thank you, Shylock...
How can they assure 100% compliance? Someone, somewhere, will post a file that gets by the blocking software somehow....
napster needs to tell this guy: we'll provide 100%, if your sperm can perform the same way ...
--- d'oh
Wasn't it last week that Napster was officially considered dead and, its "beyond-the-grave" loquacity notwithstanding, unworthy of further notice? Have the nice editor forgot?
The 2-5 Napster users remaining, if consulted, would probably answer that they continue using Napster because "it the greatest music trading service out there and hey, we work here".
The rest of us have already migrated to greener networks.
That's what I thought at first myself.
But, the involvement of human beings in the process does not remove the potential for error. In practise, all that it does is buy you better process justifiability before a judge or similar technologically illiterate decision-maker, at the expense of a lot more time per song, a lot more money per song, and (probably) a worse false negative rate. Anything on the scale of Napster has to be automated. Even if Napster weren't that big, it wouldn't be perfect.
Finding God in a Dog
Checking that a music file (X) matches another music file (known copyrighted material Y) is a matter of doing a checksum, or otherwise scanning features of X and checking them against features of Y. If the files are exactly the same then you can do a CRC on each file, and if the checksums match, you have a 1-in-four-billion chance that the two files are *not* the same.
But the two files being exactly the same is one hell of an assumption. An intrepid music pirate could feed Y through some kind of distortion to produce Y', which would look different to a CRC. That means you have to look for features in the sound itself. Even with the algorithm produced by the genius 20-year-old, I am very doubtful that you'd have 0% false negative rate. There's always going to be something crawling through. That's the nature of pattern recognition.
I think the judge has made this court order impossible to comply with, barring one option: Napster closes down. That strikes me as more than adequate grounds for appeal.
Finding God in a Dog
It might be with floating point errors. ;)
Why not translate that same philosophy to literature, software, car insurance, groceries, etc, etc, etc. In no industry does most the money go to the people who actually do the grunt work, why are you so righteous about the music industry.
I know it's been stated in the 50 million napster discussions on slashdot prior to this one, but no one forced any musicians into signing with a record company. They knew what they were doing, accepted the tradeoffs (more potential fans & sales versus more money per sale), just leave it at that...
Yep, same thing with armor piercing bullets (you know, some deer have thicker hides than other, you gotta be sure).... switch blades (sometimes you just need to carry a compact knife, but you don't want to go through the effort of actually opening a jack knife).... etc...
It's like if a company introduced a consumer priced (less than $100) DVD recorder (no playing capabilities) and proclaimed :
"Buy this and you'll never have to purchase a DVD again!*
* Just rent and record them!
yes, it could be used legitimately for backing up your current DVD's, but it wouldn't last on the market that long with taglines like that...
There are plenty of alternatives to RIAA affiliated labels... Subpop, Alternative Tentacles, Touch'n'Go Records, Homestead. Invisible Reocrds, WaxTrax/TVT for starters... They all have nation wide distribution deals, etc, and some, more than others, have excellent reputations for how they treat artists...
Courtney Love's rant meant basically squat. She rehashed a lot of what's already been said in part and in full by many other artists of yesteryear, but in the end it seemed to be simply a self promotional piece, nothing more, nothing less. ("Hey, I hate my label, they treat me like shit, i like napster, so you should like me")
yes, good point... In all of last year, in the US, how many crimes were perpetrated by kevlar wearing crooks?
Apparently they're planning to take a fingerprint of the audio itself, rather than just going off of song titles. It's really some pretty neat technology if you read up on it - www.loudeye.com.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Interesting ... now that I think about it, I haven't purchased any CD's since napster stopped being useful either. Not because I was specifically protesting anything, but because I have all the CD's that I want right now, and without napster I have no way of finding new music that I might be interested in. Hmmm...
"When 99% Blockage Isn't Enough."
Sounds like a new ad campaign for Kaopectate.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
All circumstances you have mentioned in your post are 100% non-compilance with a law. They are not 99% compliant in any way. However, napster just has to have substantial non-infringing uses beyond it's infringing use to be in 100% compilance with the law. So if they manage to block 99% of the infringing use and the majority of the remaining use is non infringing, then they are compilant with the law. 100% compilant, not 99% compilant. The percentage of infringing use that they block does not magically translate into a percentage of compliance with the law as you suggest. This ruling seems to make new law, instead of enforcing the laws on the books.
Ahhh not emo! You should get yourself some real music
Just kidding, to each his own. But seriously you should check those bands out if you are into punk/hardcore.
I work for GM and recently saw prototype of an in dash car stereo with an MP3 player that will undoubtedly become standard equipment in future vehicles.
The guy who was supposed to demo the thing went on vacation, so nobody could tell me anything about the MP3 player other than it will pick off MP3s from CDs and that there would be other methods for getting MP3s onto the player's 40GB hard disk. (Several people thought that one of the methods was via wireless Internet access, but no one could confirm that for sure)
My journal has hot
?!? For christ's sake, most cars still dont even come with a CD player
Most inexpensive cars, true. However, all of the SUV's that the Big Three sell above the very basic models come with an in-dash CD player as standard equipment.
You have to look at the primary market segment. Right now that's SUV's....
My journal has hot
With Napster/Gnutella/whatever P2P software, music makers get less money back. So you're *stealing* them.
This is quite possibly the most inane argument I have ever had the misfortune to see.
First off, you have the tendency to used loaded terms like "stealing" and "piracy" to imply that copying bits is somehow fundamentally immoral and evil. Hello? Have you been living in a cave for the past 20 years? The debate is about the difference between information (an unlimited resource with zero marginal cost) and material goods (a limited resource).
Then you have the gall to assert that by depriving somebody of income "potential" is also "stealing".
Let me get this straight (by making a stupid, flawed analogy that you can understand). If I DON'T buy a burger from burger king, I am stealing because they get less money?
Or that by inventing the automobile, I have "stolen" from blacksmiths because they get "less money back" from selling horseshoes?
The music industry is a slow, stupid dinosaur that hasn't figured out it is doomed to extinction BECAUSE people like you have their heads in the sand and can't figure out that this particular form corporate welfare (in the form of copyrights/patents) simply doesn't work anymore.
It is NOT about protecting the artist and the artists rights, or even filling the needs of the consumers. It is about filling the needs of the RIAA to rape you in every possible way they see fit.
That it costs money to produce music is not in question. What IS in question is the method by which we recompensate the artist. Giving them %0.001 of gross album sales is NOT a sign of a functioning system. An "alternative" rock radio station that plays the same 6 songs 24/7 is not the sign of a functioning system. 6 different (but identical) boy bands is not a sign of a functioning system. 6 different (but identical) blond teen singers with fake boobs is not a sign of a functioning system.
"You've stolen the copyright owners freedom. The freedom to decide how and when the music is distributed"
The freedom to restrict SOMEBODY else's freedom is NOT freedom. NEVER EVER pretend that copyrights and patents are about freedom.. they are socialist in nature. They are considered (by those who support them) a necessary evil, just as my freedom to swing my fist ends at your face.
I am tired of hearing these lame arguments about how if somebody is allowed to restrict MY rights, it is somehow ok, since it is giving THEM the freedom to do so. Don't I have rights too?
Don't fool yourself into thinking that what you want is truly FREEDOM(tm) and trumpet it as such. You want control over your creations. That is understandable. But that is not a "freedom."
;P
What is your bank account number? I want to exercise my FREEDOM to go withdraw all of your money.
The fact that you wrote that proves you actually understand what I am trying to say.
In the end, the PURPOSE of the GPL is to ensure the freedom of the user of the code, irrespective of the codes "owner".
In fact, the GPL doesn't even properly RECOGNIZE the "owner" or "copyright holder" at all. The only reason it does it only to prevent others from yoinking the code and re-releasing it under a MORE restrictive license - e.g. one that doesn't allow others to resdribute it however they see fit.
Again, to reiterate, the purpose of the GPL is NOT to protect the "rights" of the author and copyright holder, but to protect the "rights" of others to use and modify the code, in perpetuity. Not just one user or programmer, not just one corporation, but EVERY person, in perpitutity.
Just because YOU wrote some clever code does not make you special. We value your code above all else, because that is what is important, not your petty little ego.
I highly recommend the JVC digifine2.1 KD-SH99. My friend recently upgraded from his pioneer, and you can tell the difference. If you're thinking about adding amps to your system, the JVC has cleaner output (The Aiwa's CD signal-to-noise ratio 85 dB, compared to the JVC's CD signal-to-noise ratio 102 dB. Keep in mind that higher is better), and has 4 volt preouts (AIWA has 2.2 volt preouts). Also, the JVC has 3 sets of preouts (Front/Rear/Subwoofer). The AIWA only has front/rear. Also, the JVC has a motorized faceplate that can be removed, and you can adjust the angle of the CD player. The AIWA averages about $299, and a local Hi-Fi shop sells the JVC for $350. The extra $50 goes a long way. Also, I might be biased, because the only Aiwa components I ever bought (turntable and a mini system) both broke within a week of each other. The motor is hosed on the turntable (I used it like once a week), and the mini-system had to be replaced because the built in amp in it stopped working suddenly. Hope this advice helps...
You've stolen the copyright owners freedom. The freedom to decide how and when the music is distributed.
what do you think the GPL is about you twit? It restricts your freedom as a user in order to guarantee the freedom of the author.
You HAVE TO REDISTRUBUTE YOUR CODE, even if you don't want to. Thus, it restricts YOUR RIGHTS in favour of the original AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT HOLDER.
If you don't want yor GPL code used in microsofts closed source project then you shouldnt have released the source on the internet.
If John Carmack didn't want everyone to have free access of his games then he shouldn't have sold them.
How can you be pro-GPL if you're anti-copyright?
He Who Write The Code Determines The License.
If you dont like it, DONT FREAKEN BUY THEIR PRODUCT (music/software/movies)
How can you be so passionate about your own stupidity?
It's been fairly obvious from the beginning that the record labels don't give a rats ass about Napster. In fact, I'm sure they'll be far happier once they're gone, which is what they wanted in the first place.
IMHO, they've only dragged it out this long to keep their public image up--so they aren't perceived as Ogres.
("bah! I ought to club them and eat their bones")
First off, you make sense, 100%. Your point is well taken, and I agree with it.
But your supporting case is a very weak one. Unfortunately, in the United States, not only could that apartment owner be sued criminally, but he could forfeit the building WITHOUT a hearing of any sort.
His ability (or lack thereof) to know about the activity doesn't matter. If illegal drugs are found on property, that property is forfeit. No trial, no appeals. Bend over and kiss your apartment, house, car goodbye.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Because in the eyes of AOL/TW/RIAA/MPAA/Microsoft/etc you are a consumer of media, not a producer. You therefore have no right nor need to even be able to publish content - even if it's just an icon of a reconizable character. Unless you have a multi-billion dollar contract with them, you're nobody. Oh, and fair use doesn't count for anything any more.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
perhaps record companies could make more $$$ if they would invest their dollars for recording sessions etc, in music acts with talent, that will last the test of time.
:))
Talent != saleability. (not necessarily, anyway -- you're working from the assumption that the majority of the music-buying public has taste (and I certainly don't share yours for Metallica and Rush
If the record companies could do *anything* to make more money than they already are, you can bet they'd be doing it. Lust for money is like that (driven by needing to look good on the stock market, etc.)
deus does not exist but if he does
That's really funny, since there's someone outside my appartment playing the trumpet right now and it sounds like they're playing it with their butt.
Enjoy your job, make lots of money, work within the law. Choose any two.
Umm, that is what two companies decide should be popular music. Not a lot of choice. (Clear Channel own 1200 radio stations, second is Infinity/Viacom which owns the rest and VH1/MTV)
These are much more effective than Napster in exposing one to new music one might like.
Not a chance. Can you use this with only the name of some random band and listen to it within 10 minutes? Napster is the best type of tech we have for finding diverse music. That's why they wanted to kill it. After spending so much comandeering all distrubtution channels, it's annoying to have people looking for stuff themselves.
--
+&x
The concept only worked with regard to trading illegal files, not legitimate ones.
Legitimate files can easily find a good space on a website, or several, why bother with peer to peer sharing? Last time I checked, there were multiple places to post unsigned artists' music on the internet...
Places that won't cut your download off in the middle because the person you were downloading from designed to go offline. Places that won't charge you money for the convenience of downloading freely-available music all while turning your computer into a fileserver for a large corporation's benefit....Why bother with the uncertaintly of file availablility if you're not trying to hide your actions?
There's just no reason.
Stick a fork in them, because they sure are done.
A VCR doesn't natively provide a good way of preventing piracy either... but VCRs are legal. Just because something can be used for infringing purposes does not mean that it can be outlawed. In this case, I definately think that there are significant non-infringing uses (for those that continue to use it, whoever they are).
-------------------------------------------------
I am a proud DOE employee and have been [suffered] through the rigormoraul of saftey classes and policy. While the Lab here is very concerned with safety, I was surprised at how reasonable and pragmatic they treated the issue. That is, they conceeded that 100% safe is not attainable, but, let's do our best by learning safe practices.
So, even the gub-ment, in all its presumed beauracracy, can admit that a 100% guarantee is unattainable.
I can't believe anyone out there with a slight understanding of what these com-pu-tor things are could think that a 100% guarantee of non-copywritten songs is possible.
Why not change the from a banned-song system to an authorized-song system? Much like authors submit their work to MP3.com, Napster could allow authors to register their song along with an MD5 checksum. Not only would the checksum prevent copyrighted songs from masquerading as approved songs, but incomplete and corrupted downloads would be blocked from trading. A simple moderation/reporting/blocking system could be assembled to block songs posted as original work which were actually copyrighted-- enough reports, or a report from a "trusted" user, and the song would be removed from the authorized list.
?!? For christ's sake, most cars still dont even come with a CD player as a standard feature, and look how long those have been around. Car companies are around the most fucking cheapassed you can find.. skimp on every little thing they can. It'll be 2030 before something like this is widespread in the auto industry.
siri
As far as I remember it, the copyright laws require the copyright holders to inform the ISP of the names (fingerprints) of the offending files. This ruling seem to be putting the onus on Napster to figure out what files are being traded....
I think that I can understand blocking 100% of files explicitly noted, but predicting all permutations is asking for the eye of the needle. If the RIAA were asked to provide this information, without impinging too much on non-copyright material, they'd just throw up their hands and walk away.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
You're playing with words. Producing music costs a lot of time and money. With Napster/Gnutella/whatever P2P software, music makers get less money back. So you're *stealing* them.
Fortunately, vinyl presses are very expensive. So DJ's are still buying a lot of records.
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
{{.sig}}
Oficially, Napster is not supposed to be a system to share copyrighted songs. It's supposed to be a way for musicians to share their music. Free music.
And that idea is really great. It'd have been wonderful for music makers if the rules had been respected.
But it hasn't been the case. Napster is a tool for piracy. Only copyrighted materials here. And not only music from majors full of $$$, there's also a lot of songs from little labels as well. Without their agreement. That's bad.
People are crying because Napster is dying. But they don't even realize that they really *stole* commercial songs. This is shameful piracy. Blaming the judge or blaming Napster that only filters 99% is stupid. Blame yourself. Blame stupid users that violated the rules and turned something legal into a 100% illegal stuff.
Internet is nice to share opinions, to ask help, to work on free software and to share *free* stuff. Using it as a convenient way to share warez/commercial movies/commercial songs is a shame. People doing that should better shup up than yell "oh shit, someone wants to stop us from stealing commercial stuff. Fuck him, we will have to install another software to do the same thing, it will take 5 minutes of our precious time".
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
{{.sig}}
in that case, i think a global condom and birth control pill recall is in order.
Impossible. Recalled products have to be mailed back and no parcel delivery service can guarantee 100% delivery.
They already tried taxing the sale of used CD's.
They claim that cd's last much longer then cassette and thus could be resold quite easily and with no loss of quality. Because you can now get the same music, cheaper, and without them making a buck, it must be stopped.
This happened a while ago, I remember garth brookes making comment on how he was losing out because of used cd resellers.
Anyhow, I guess it didn't get to far... unless there is a tax on used cd's and I wasnt aware!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by Neutral Milk Hotel. Released in 1998, on Merge Records (not RIAA, and not evil) It's one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, and wonderful albums i've ever heard. influences range rock to pop to folk, beautiful poetic (an adjective i reserve basically for this album and the better dylan stuff) and catchy well written songs. A "concept" album not about fame or rock-starrdom. Lyrics about growing up, loving, dying, and Anne Frank. There should be a government program purchasing it for every man woman and child in the world. Download "Holland 1945, Oh Comely, and Two Headed Boy" for a preview (but this is really an album you must have, not merely a collection of good songs)
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Theres a difference between 100% not commiting a crime, and 100% preventing all users of a largely legitimate service from commiting a crime.
Lets take Sony VCRs (which have no copy protection what so ever) can they claim that thier product is used for 100% legitimate reasons (how about gun manufacturers, ISPs?) of course not. but because their product's PRIMARY INTENDED use is legitimate, the percentage of illegal use is not blamed on the company itself. Napster is only a special case because the RIAA threw a whole lot of money at the legal system and appealed until they got an incompetant judge.
Sure, a lot of Napster users use the service for illegal purposes, but what about me? I used it SOLELY for acquiring MP3 copies of things I allready owned on CD and vinyl, and for downloading things from bands/record labels that allowed it (check out the acts on Athens' Kindercore label) a perfectly legitimate use.
Napster provides a service. They are no more at fault than sony is if I copy a movie, than a tobacco paper company is if i use the paper to roll a joint, than a publisher is if I use the information they publish to commit an illegal act. The Napster ruling is entirely inconsistant with American jurisprudence, and is very very scary.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
in that case, i think a global condom and birth control pill recall is in order.
unless of course the judge allows napster to use the rhythm method.
Go read some bible: nubible.com
I think by now this is a pretty moot point, few people if anyone is still using their service, with multiple OpenNap networks (go OggVorbis!) holding their own, along with all the other P2P clients out there. It's a shame MusicCity moved away from OpenNap onto their own client, their server farm was awesome (though I'd love to see a Morpheus client for Linux, they have some really neat stuff going on there).
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
Hmmmm... I like Limp Bizkit & Linkin Park. Does that mean I am a 12 year old girl? Cool! :)
--
Later...
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
Judge Patel is a woman.
[TMB]
Mazda actually has a car called the (strangely enough) Mazda MP3 that comes with an in dash MP3 player.
I'd post a direct link, but www.mazdausa.com doesn't seem to like Mozilla right now...
...but Napster *was* doing something illegal, according to the court. Hence, it seems appropriate that they pay a penalty and be required to operate under a strict consent decree, say, rather than simply letting them pretend it never happened. That's *if* they shouldn't be shut down for their previous violations.
And the "innocent until proven guilty" bit is only for criminal trials, not general conduct. Can you buy a car without registration and other paperwork? Does E-bay let you trade narcotics? Do bartenders have to wait until the police come and you're arrested before they card you? Sometimes you're expected to be able to show that you're not being a bozo and doing something you shouldn't be; and given Napster's history, this seems apropos.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I stopped buying new CDs when Napster went away
The whole napster thing was one small part of the already huge music industry. When you compare the number of people that used napster to the number of mindless drones watching MTV, and buying whatever Carson Daily tells them to, you'll realize that the industry is not going to be noticably hurt. (And even if they are hurt by napster users not buying anything anymore, they would claim otherwise, so they could get support for the "napster hurt our business, and sales increased now that it is dead" argument).
---
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
On the act locally front, I stopped buying new CDs when Napster went away, and I strongly urge everyone else to do the same.
--Mike--
---
highway patrol funding cut until they gaurantee 100% of traffic doesn't speed
Sony shut down until 100% of VCR owners do not illegally copy tapes
No law has 100% compliance, I don't see why napster, a private company, should be the first to make it happen. Jesus Christ.
---
How long before the record companies will offer up something similar as a pay service?
Never, you say?
That's too bad, because that's what the consumers really want. But I guess the consumer is not the record companies concern. (I leave it to a reply to talk about the poor quality of music these days ;-) ).
The purpose of Napster, until a few months ago, was to traffic in copyrighted materials. If this wasn't the case, the usage wouldn't have dropped something like 90% since they started filtering the illegal files.
It's not a case that someone may use Napster to committed a crime; millions of people were using Napster to circumvent copyright every day. If it was a murder case, Napster would be an accessory.
Jeez, I don't think I've ever seen a company promise 100% ANYTHING. Even Conxion, which hosts everything Microsoft, doens't garuntee 100% uptime. I wonder if the judges would be happy with 99.9%? Hell, do governments even require absolute 100% for things like saftey? Anyone who works in the US government care to comment?
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
I read the article and wondered if this isn't the court deciding that the people are guilty and will be guilty until they can prove otherwise. Shouldn't the court have to prove that they are guilty rather then require Napster to prove they are innocent?
A judge today ordered auto manufacturers to halt production until fuel efficiency can be increased to 100%.
OK, aside from the sarcasm, how does the judge expect this to be possible, let alone feasable? Statistically, it is a near-zero chance that Napster could block every single possible variance of an MP3. There's encryption, renaming, file-splitting, adding a few seconds of silence to the end, etc., so the checksums, filename checks, fingerprints, or whatever else they're using will not work. If this order stands, Napster will cease to function indefinitely.
Subpop, at least, is owned by one of the RIAA Corps, Sony, I think. That's the only reason you ever heard "Smells like Teen Spirit." Most "Indie" labels are "recruiting" apparatus owned and subsidized by the big record companies, and focus on very narrow demographics. If there is a new one that finds something new and potentially successful, they buy them, or steal their bands and sue them into submission.
exactly. where do you draw the line with controlling how your customers will utilize the service? I remember an America not to long ago where the murderer was guilty instead of the gun manufacturer. Where did those days go?
believing the big bang requires a certain amount of supernatural faith
First of all, Judge Patel is a woman. (Not a male, as you indicated.)
He should really have appointed a special master to help him deal with the technical issues (which are clearly over his head).
Furthermore, a technical specialist has been appointed.
Please read the articles. Just as we become furious with judges who seem out of touch with technology, it is also infuriating to hear condemnations of others by those who are clearly out of touch with the articles being discussed.
However, I do also hope that this will be overturned. It seems clear that Napster is making a "reasonable" effort to bar music piracy.
Lee Harvey Oswald: What if I aim for his foot?
Bill Clinton: What if I just put my hand on her knee?
O.J. Simpson: What if I just scratch her up a bit?
Clyde Barrow: We're Bonnie and Clyde, and you're gonna give us one penny on the dollar or we'll shoot!
(Let's face it -- 99% compliance with the law is still non-compliance)
Got Rhinos?
99% usually seems to be good enough for anything else the government mandates. Hell, 65% is usually good enough.
-- Ryan!
Nothing is 100% secure. Nobody can reasonably offer that type of protection.
If this is the type of standard expected there would be no products or services offered anywhere. Even the FDA has set food allowences on the amount of rodent-hair/bug-parts in canned food. If it was 0 we'd be a mighty hungry nation.
I'm impressed that Napster is still trying. Their service now blows, and almost all of their users have jumped ship. Even more are gonna jump ship when they start to charge money.
Then again, who's gonna pay money for a service that doesn't do anything.
Those who don't know me, probably shouldn't trust me. Those that do know me, DEFINITELY shouldn't trust me.
Or that the RIAA can suck 99% of my... ;)
http://siokaos.org/
... as it is now all you can find on Napster is like "Don Ho's Greatest Hits" and "Boxcare Willy, Live at the Hollywood Bowl". So who'd care?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
..."Raymond Luxury Yacht"...
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Analagously, you would probably prosecute a landlord who owned an apartment building in which pot was being grown on the roof, because that's something he should know about and stop. However, you would not prosecute a landlord because one of his tenants was growing pot in a closet, and never smoked it in the building, because he would have no reasonable way of knowing about, or stopping that. Likewise, as long as Napster makes a good effort to stop copyright violation, they should be guilt free. The RIAA should then have to sue the users if they are still unsatisfied.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
the odds were not, in the absense of all other evidence, 1:50,000 against Larry murdering Curly, the odds were actually 100:1 that he didn't do it.
That's not true. In your hypothetical situation, there are (approximately) 100 matches in the city, but only one whom the police suspected enough check his DNA. The match wasn't how they found Larry, it was how they validated their suspicions. It would be closer to true had they run a DNA match against the entire population of the city, but that's not what you described. (And we don't have a system in place to do that sort of thing, so there aren't any real cases like that now.) There's no magic formula for finding the odds someone committed a crime, but your 100:1 is insane.
That's why he said, "in the absense [sic] of all other evidence."
No, that wasn't what he said:
He said: No evidence exists except a suspicion on the part of the police and a hair on the knife used to kill Curly.
As I said, the match wasn't how they found Larry. Whether or not is was significant enough to stand up in court, they had some reason to check Larry's DNA. I believe in our justice system they must have some reason before they can do that.
The suspicion could have to do with anything - he, Moe, and Curly were seen together regularly, and Moe was out of town on the day of the murder. This isn't evidence of murderous intent, it's just a connection that police might follow up.
And you think that connection makes him no more likely to have done this than the other hundred or so people around the city? Many of those would likely have never even seen Curly.
I'm not saying that your hypothetical situation is unbelievable, that they couldn't make a mistake like this. All I'm saying is that your 100:1 odds make no more sense than their 1:50,000.
I've used Napster maybe three times. I buy on average two-threee cds per month and have for probably for the last two years. Probably less than 10% of the albums are modern/recent material. There's lots of great stuff out there that I haven't heard yet. Hell, getting the entire Yes back catalogue is gonna take some time. There's lots of great older bands to get on CD (Jethro Tull, Marillion, etc) that I still have yet to run out of CDs to buy. And this is all without the help of Napster.
Another thing that I do is hit Amazon.com and check some of the user-made lists of cds for the musical genre I like. For example, I listen to progressive rock, so I check all the music lists in that category, and find some really cool cd's that I've never heard of. See, music isn't shit if you know what to look for.
some artists do in fact give music away for free.
Most of those artists post their work on a public web site such as MP3.com that has a much bigger pipe to the public Internet than somebody's 128 kbps capped cable or DSL upstream connection. (Most bands on RIAA labels place marketing over substance and deliver inferior product.) I can see NO real reason for Napster to exist.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm sorry, but Judge Patel doesn't have any more of a clue that what the RIAA says.
Anybody who knows about publicly accessible systems knows that these things are possible. Heck, people have been trading ISOs on Hotline for ages, in addition to mp3 files. There are plenty of search engines and plenty of websites available out there as well. I used to d/l mp3 files BEFORE napster.
The only way to prevent digital information from flowing and have absolute security is to remove networks. That's it. And given the number of artists who's popularity has grown with the number of fan sites and traded music, that doesn't make much sense to the RIAA if they REALLy think about it.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Most of the record groups in the US have no sway on me or the music I listen to. A lot of the music I buy now is either classic jazz (like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgeralnd) or classical. Sometimes I buy some dance music from Europe.
As for modern bands that I like? Well, I've bought The Corrs and David Gray after seeing them in concert. But that's it for quite some time.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Already naptser alternatives are running almost as well as napster was at it's peak. What the hell are the record executives going to do, start chasing around every program that allows you to share . As far as i'm concerned i hope the recored industry looses lots of money chasing after these people. I just feel bad for the folks like napster that have to deal with it.
99% compliance for parole conditions is still non-compliance, 99% payment of taxes paid still leaves unpaid taxes. Napster shouldn't have to remove every copyrighted file from its network, but if it's been found responsible for every file, then it should be responsible for removing every file from its network. Everyone's problem is with giving Napster responsibility, not ensuring 100% compliance with the law.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
At one point Napster will figure out that the record industry was happy about the verdict because it ineviatably means the death of napster.
It may cost them millions of dollars to figure this out, but eventually they will. The other file sharing programs are really taking off. Go to Zero Paid and check out all file share programs. Napster has become unnecessary - and their service depends on them being necessary.
No, I made that up. Copyright is clearly a much more important issue than public safety or a persons right not to get hot lead blasted into them.
In other news...
Gunmakers open to voluntary arms tracing plan
But the United States announced this week that it would oppose any commitment made at the conference to negotiations that would lead to a legally binding commitment, including on marking and tracing.......
.....The George W. Bush administration is a strong supporter of private gun ownership.....
Washington Challenges UN Attack on Small Arms Trade
The United States on Monday warned a U.N. meeting on small arms trafficking it was prepared to do battle to defend the rights of arms makers and legal gun owners -- even when the guns they want to own were specifically designed for war......
Get the Hell off my planet, you slimy mobster Bush!
When I saw the subject, I initially saw "99% Blockage Isn't Good Enough...says Judge" and thought - "I knew judges were anal, this just proves it."
What, me worry?
Give up the points, moderators.
Just to pick nits: the term "armor piercing" is kind of misleading. Big, heavy bullets, like the kind used in military rifles and hunting rifles, are all "armor piercing" by their nature. They'll slice right through all but the most elaborate personal armor, as that armor is typically designed only to stop handgun rounds.
Far from being specially crafted to pierce personal armor, this kind of ammo is as simple as it gets: lead covered in copper. Nothing fancy... but when it's flying fast it will punch through Kevlar pretty easily. (there are more exotic rounds for hunting, but they're not any more "armor piecing" than the basic stuff.)
You don't want to shoot a big animal with something that doesn't have good penetration, otherwise the ammo will lodge in the outer tissues, and the wound won't be fatal, and you'll have this horribly wounded animal to chase down. You need to penetrate down into the organs to make a clean kill.
Anyway, just had to address that urban legend thing.
One thing that major label artists could do would be to demand that they retain the ability to publish themselves online, with a certain royalty going back to the record company.
Whatever happened to those stores that were supposed to burn custom mix CDs for you?
see you on one of the gnutella hacks where i continue to freely download all the hits...all the time...all free :-P
It's not funny till someone gets hurt.
Napster will never achieve 99.999% removal just as Microsoft will never achieve the 99.999% uptime they advertise.
---
And when they do get 100% compliance the judge will demand 200% compliance.
Napster must go dead and everyone involved must go to jail and lose ever penny they own.
That is the only thing that will fully satisfy the RIAA.
Agreed, any country in which guns and hate speech are legal, but innocent drugs like marijuana and pornography (which hurts no-one) are illegal has a depraved sense of morality which once was found in the unspeakable crimes of Nazi Germany.
Soon the record companies will govern what you listen to, when you listen to it, how you listen to it and where you listen to.
You will have to click an EULA when you get your music online, you will have to pay extra to play it on your music player, you will have to pay to put the music on pause when the phone rings. You are not allowed to listen to the music in company and you are not allowed to discuss it with other people unless your opinions are 100% positive and even then you have to allow the record companies to prescreen them.
Welcome to the United Totalitarian Police State of RIAA!
Hate speech is not an opinion it is a CRIME!
Why has a country like Germany (the main culprit of WW2) learned the lessons of World War II whilst the USA (which shares some complicity for what happened in the Holocaust and also has some hateful events of its own in its name, such as the genocide of indians and the racist wars against Japan, Korea and Vietnam) seemingly hasn't learned a thing and still alows racist groups to operate without impunity?
In Holland, where I live it is impossible for a hater to open his mouth without being in violation of the law. The judge will interpret his sayings and send him to prison or fine him severely
We don't have any fascist groups whith more than a insubstatial followers.
Unfortunately the real world doesn't work that way. I can manufacture (write code) my widget. Now if someone uses that widget to commit a crime, I will not be forced to stop making said widget. Say for example something mundane like a potato peeler. Then some trenchcoat wearing teenager runs out and stabs six people because Marilyn Manson told him to. It is the responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure only legal use of the product. Napster can still be used to trade music that is free.
ACK!! NOT the responsiblity of the manufaturer! Must always use preview, even when not using html!
This whole thing has gotten completely ridiculous. They should fight this, to the death, cause they are gonna die anyway...we have a right to download the music, and there really is no way any service can make 100% stick anyway.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
This is also a strategy that could get RIAA off Napster's back: working under the assumption that all songs are blacklisted until proven otherwise.
Admittedly, this probably sounds easier than it really is...
main(){char I,l,O[]={'-',1-1,0,(1<<5)-1,0+'-',-10-1,-10,11-0,
You can easily bypass any of the filters napster has put in place. On a web page, list the songs and randomly generated or sequentially generated numbers such as M01020. Then compresses the music with a compression program such as winzip, arj, pkarc or one of the other compression formats. Next you take and rename the file to name.mp3. Now once you do that simply login to napster. Their software will not see a matching title, artist, or song signature since it is in compressed form. Thus, there is no method, which anyone can promise to be 100% successful in blocking all copyrighted material.
:P
I am not a music pirate. Nor do I suggest or encourage anyone to use this method. However, what I have used napster in the past for was to recover music I have legally purchased in the past but I have since damaged and/or lost the media for.
--
When I'm good I'm very good, when I'm bad I'm better, But when I'm evil you better run
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
This is a horrible judgment. It's insane.
What's next? Are judges going to shut down university computer systems because obviously, some kids somewhere in the system are using their home directories to store w4r3z?
I realize that the judge is really just trying to do the RIAA favor and really stop Napster's heartbeat, but this silly.
People ship CDrs with pirated software through the USPS-- better shut them down, too!
Crap, I tell you. Crap.
jack's bicycle is music to my ears
How can they expect 100% compliance from Napster when video tape/cd-r and mini disc manufacturers have never had a burden like that placed on them.
Wish the judges in the Microsoft case were that strict...
science is a religion
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.
Teach him to eat and he will fish forever.
I guess this sets a legal precedent for anyone who has a file distribution mechanism to make sure that there are absolute no unlicensed copyrighted material on their sites.
Does this mean that AIM needs to start blocking Buddy Icons that are infringing on someone's copyrights? I guess so much for my Bart Simpson buddy icon. (But how does AOL know that I don't have proper authorization and clearance to use that icon?)
In other words, napster is history. The media is just writing stories about it because they don't have anything better to write about it or don't have any clue what they are saying (See the hilarious CNN stories about Microsoft letting manufactures alter desktop icons. Every time it was repeated on headline news last night, it changed slightly until it was so far from true it was hilarious. Poor anchors.). AudioGalaxy, etc are the stories these days, not napster.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
everything in the computer industry is 99.999%. You can't be 100% sure of anything. Nobody's perfect. Not even the judge.
I could change the titles of my songs to something that was allowed, If they scan the headers, I could modify those. It's just not possible in ANY industry or really ANYTHING AT ALL to be 100% secure, safe, or positive. Napster has done a very good job of blocking stuff, Out of several hundred MP3's on an individuals computer, they allow something like, maybe three. I have some no-name stuff that one of my friends did, and Napster won't even let THAT be transfered.
What hasn't been blocked, has been lost because Napster's members gave up. The Justice department has to understand this.
Even the Justice Department can't be 100% sure of anything. There is always a chance that someone can be wrong, or lie, or make a mistake. Nobody's perfect. Not even the judge.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Since when did it count anyway? All I think of is OJ....
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
How many people would still use Napster now anyway?! You would be so lucky find my MP3 of someone playing a trumpet with their butt, let alone anything decent to listen to. Roland
The RIAA demands 100% blockage.
Napster agrees (knowing it really isn't possible).
Someone from the RIAA successfully posts a copyrighted song.
Napster violates the agreement. Bye-bye Napster.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Was that meant to be sarcasm? Because it didn't work.
-Nano.
This means that DNA evidence can no longer be allowed to stand up in court. It's only 99.999998% effective, you know.
Does this mean that if a software company releases a piece of software that is not 100% reliable that they can be sued? If the RIAA can get a court order to force Napster to create bug free software, I begin to wonder how many other content-filtering software providers can be held liable for bugs in their software.
He should really have appointed a special master to help him deal with the technical issues (which are clearly over his head).
Of course, the other explanation is that he's in someone's pocket. Hmm... Are judges required to give disclosure of their personal finances - investments and all that?
Anyway, I have to bet this will get overturned by any half-bright appeals court.
Just my US$2e-02,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Actually, they should be actively targeting individuals. Whether you believe in the concept of IP or not (this is not the time for the debate), the fact of the matter is that it is the individual who breaks the law, not Napster. If I rip a Dave Matthews CD and post it online, I have published copyrighted material; that is against the law. If I post the file to the web, and add it to AltaVista's index, I have published it an easily-searchable and easily-accessible venue. Is AltaVista responsible for the material? No. I, personally, am responsible. Napster is functionally equivalent to AltaVista. I use(d) the Napster service, but never shared anything I didn't know was public domain, or otherwise unrestricted (I know, I'm a bastard user. Deal with it.); all of my copyrighted songs were explicitly kept off the service (on a separate hard drive, on a separate machine, which didn't have a copy of Napster). I did this as a CYA move; our network admins (University of x) watched for outgoing MP3 transfers. A side result of this is that I did not publish or cause to be downloaded any copyrighted material (I did publish some stuff, such as Bizet's Farandole, but the copyright has long since expired). The fact that I published non-copyrighted material doesn't make me a criminal any more than it makes Napster, Inc. a criminal for indexing it. If I had published my Chicago collection, I, and I alone, would have been responsible for violating the copyright law; Napster would simply have been the vehicle. Actively targeting individuals is absolutely the correct way to combat copyright violation; the reason the RIAA went after Napster is because it was an easy target, not a legally valid one.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Trolling /. requires a lot of time and money! I spent a lot of MY time reading this thread and composing this message and you are legally and morally obligated to compensate me for my time, effort, and expenses! Broadband access and microsoft licences arn't cheap you know!
Oh, you say you never asked for my post, nor did you think it was worth anything after reading it? Well that's unfortunate, but I still have spent all that time and money and I deserve to be compensates, so cough it up.
- RustyTaco
In related news Blockbuster Music and Wal-Mart, among others, was issued a ruling today prohibiting them from selling cd's because shoplifting and employee theft kept them from haveing a 100% blockage of stolen music. BMG music club has also been disbanded due to non-payment of royalties due to lost mail and mail fraud. Note: if you don't understand my post please look up sarcasm in the dictionary... I'll wait.
How do you make sure that every single solitary gun stays with it's registered owner?Do you demand that every registered gun owner produces his\her gun at the police station every week to make sure none are stolen \ sold on?This is a completely bogus argument.
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
Too true.You forgot: Newsgroups, fan sites, the music press, going to gigs.I haven't noticed a flood of radical new music which would never have been discovered without Napster.
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
The company is an American company, the servers are American servers, deal with it. Or start your own company and servers. [Or perhaps you have realised that copyright laws are just as pervasive in your own country?]
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
No, that assumption is just as false as the assertion that the remaining 10% are only around to traffic in the 1% of illegal mp3s still available.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
You are rigging your stats to prove a point.
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
The RIAA is just now putting the screws to Napster, just as Aimster and a dozen other programs are taking off. You can't kill an idea.
*This page intentionally left pointless*
Did Patel violate the higher court's order? We'll just have to wait and see.
Dinivin
Napster's use has dropped, and we have all moved onto Audiogalaxy, or Gnutella, or what have you.
The judge cannot expect 100%; we know this as tecchies. However, since few of the legal profession understand technology, then it is to be expected that he would request it.
This is just the final nail on the coffin.
Screw 3...
He-hey! Like the words of Obi-wan Kenobi - "Strike me down, and I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine"
...
Napster's getting bashed, but strangely enough, there's no corpse
--
Use Gnutella. I use the limewire client. You can music, divx movies, and nearly any popular copywrited program in existence if you look hard enough. Why use napster? Napster should pack its bags and settle its losses and move on to "the next big thing."
----
Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
What about filename changers such as the ever-famous pig-latin convertor? Will Napster have to individually monitor each and every file? We can all see the handwriting on the wall for Napster's future.
[sig]you really dont want the answers, trust me[/sig]
I know its lame to respond to my own post, but I had another thought. If you are distributing free music or software which makes music exchange free and easy and also have a legal budget, does it make sense to divert some small percentage of that budget to help Napster? Of course, this question assumes what I said above is correct.
Napster pretty much sits out there and gets beat up on. Then it gets back up and fights again. That takes some guts. More importantly, as long as Napster is fighting, the RIAA lawyers have work to do. When Napster finally concedes defeat, the lawsuits will start targetting distributers of Gnuetella and other sharing tools. That, or they'll start actively targetting individuals. Go Napster! Keep on getting beat on, the rest of us love ya for it.
The stupidity of this ruling can't be clearer. If it would prevail, the same logic would need applied to telephones, automobiles, knifes and virtually any other product that *may* be used to commit a crime. You gotta wonder what law school this judge graduated from.
When our own Department of Justice can claim 100% reliability for the court systems, then, perhaps they can make demands such as these. At this time, however they fall far short of even the 99% reliability, as claimed by Napster.