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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."
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"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.
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?
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-- 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
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.
How can they assure 100% compliance? Someone, somewhere, will post a file that gets by the blocking software somehow....
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
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.
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"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.
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.
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
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.
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+&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).
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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?
Judge Patel is a woman.
[TMB]
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).
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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.
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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 ;-) ).
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!
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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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
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.
Why not ? Because most artists believe that Napster is costing them sales and infringing on their rights. Why would they opt in, when most are probably celebrating Napster's imminent demise ?
This means that DNA evidence can no longer be allowed to stand up in court. It's only 99.999998% effective, you know.
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
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http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
I'm also gradually accquiring the Yes back catalogue, but also wanting more-or-less complete King Crimson, Genesis (up until Steve Hackett left, anyways), some obscure British stuff like Strawbs (np: "Autumn [The Winter Long]") and IQ... and of course, the mighty Hawkwind!! :)
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"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
*giggle* yeah,... that's me ;)
I'm into a lot of other stuff too, though - "indie" (well, Spiritualised, Verve, Blur, et al), classical, barouque, bebop, flamenco, techno, hell I even have some happy hardcore. Variety eq spice of life, init.
Personally I think "Clutching at Straws" even better than Misplaced Chikldhood, but then I'm a pisshead ;)
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"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
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
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*
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.