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EFF To Defend Music Swapping Service MusicCity
MattW writes "Yahoo is carrying the CNET story that EFF has come to the defense of MusicCity, which produces peer-to-peer software, but does not run central servers as Napster did. EFF has a whitepaper on the Sony Betamax case, and it discusses the implications of various court decisions during the Napster case and their effect on it as a precedent. A MusicCity lawyer, who was responsible for the successful defense of the Rio, is quoted, astutely observing: 'This case shows more clearly (than Napster) that what the plaintiffs are most concerned about is control of technology. This is all about whether they can leverage copyrights into control over software development.' And that's truly what the RIAA's interest in Napster was about: not money, but control."
It may take years, but I'm confident that the ability to trade files (no matter the content) will remain free of prosecution.
Blar.
Isn't the crusade to embed handicaps to file sharing of any kind into the OS more than enough evidence that control is the issue?
Make no mistake, control==money.
They do not want control, they want money.
They need control.
That being said, the software is not at fault. The RIAA may argue that it's an enabling the behaviour, but this bad behaviour can, and does occur through other means. There are entire mailing lists devoted to the trading of copyrighted materials via the USPS. This does not mean that the USPS should be outlawed.
Everybody should write your governmental representatives now, preferably with checks enclosed, to make sure that morpheus and the alike are not wrongly persecuted and prosecuted for behaviour that's beyond the author's control.
I thought that MusicCity did change the system so that to log in you had to authenticate with the central servers - i think it was a response to some project on sourceforge. Wouldn't that allow them to be sued?
(OT Question: If there are no central servers how does each client have a unique username/ID?)
I'm rooting for the EFF here, because the music companies have had it too good, charging us over the odds for music. Some competition is good, although i do feel bad that some small bands might not get paid for their efforts in a free-for-all system such as musiccity. Hopeful someone will devise a good economic model for paying for music (apart from the tipjar model which seems flawed).
I'm not sure how much of a difference this is going to make. The EFF is great and all, but, frankly, they don't have much of a presence in Washington. Not compared to the MPAA, RIAA, and friends.
Still, Napster had one legal target; Peer to peer services have many. How are they going to stop these services? Especially open source ones? Seems to me that even if they "ban" or limit a given service, the legal ramifications are unlikely to extend to forks anyway. Change some comments and, violla! A new port!
The fact that there is no clear person responsible for the content of the services except the users themselves makes it difficult, as I said. They can't prosecute eighty thousand or more individuals. It's impossible.
------
http://cooltech.org
If it ain't cool, it ain't coolt
"This case is about the freedom of technologists to innovate and the public's right to communicate," said Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the EFF.
:)
This sounds chillingly like what Bill Gates said a few days ago...
Al.
This is total "legal creep". They win an inch, they try for the mile. These guys are gonna be nipping at the heels of progress until they've virally infected every technology out there. Scary stuff.
as a muscian, the only thing i worry about is not getting credit for my music. if people want to share it, go right ahead. if i happen to make some money as an after effect....right on. im just happy that there is someone with some clout speaking out about the fact that it really is control over technology. this sort of thing has to be nipped in the ass now before more legal precedents (ie dmca) are established.
"Alot of people don't know what they are doing...and most are pretty good at it." -George Carlin
I'm not sure why the "shell" company is the target of the suit. Wouldn't it be more productive to attack FastTrack directly? After all, they're the company selling the real technology. I suppose the American company is easier go after.
From a legal standpoint, if a piece of software is composed of many different components from different vendors, who do you hold accountable if they collectively create an "illegal" whole? Would Netscape or MS be held responsible if someone wrote a FastTrack plugin for their browser?
Is considerably at variance with the EFF's description of themselves. I'd say the EFF is closer to the truth. They represent all of us not just a minority that can be Reasonably And inconsequentially Discriminated against.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
That's the problem with this....RIAA is actually correct. MusicCity, by serving up ads, is profiting from the piracy of content.
What we need is someone to drum up some Morpheus-like software, and to release it as open source sans-ads. Then RIAA cannot argue their "they're making money off our copyrighted works" and will have little hope of winning on those grounds.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
apparently this wasn't newsworthy on /. when MusicCity was originally sued, but now the EFF is involved, and suddenly it is.
... They better start up the 'dozers and get their asses in gear, someone needs to make a crap load of prisons! Overcrowding is a problem now??? HA!
if MusicCity had a different name like FileShareCountry. Their name says that they are in the business of sharing music and thus making illegal file sharing a likely part of their software business. It would be better if they were about the general business of sharing files.
It's worth remembering in all of this that the US constitution grants congress a limited power to enact copyright law. Any such law must be design for the promotion of "science and the useful arts". The constitution does not grant congress any power of any kind to use copyright law to defend the profitability of corporations, or guarantee them that their business models will remain unchanged by technology.
So, ask yourselves, does file sharing -- the exchange of information on a scale far exceeding anything we have seen in human history -- promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
Does de facto control by coporations of the technology which makes this exchange possible promote the progress of science and the useful arts?
Please help, tell me what links that you go to for your news.
'Illegal' files can be got via HTTP or FTP.. You can find lists of them on webpages, most likely created with MS front page and viewed on Internet Explorer.. I think its time we really got tough on piracy and threw the whole Redmond lot in jail!
air and light and time and space
If a band plays and no one hears, is it still music?
This site gives an interesting twist to the Napster/Metallica case...
Gnutella, although it's horribly inefficient, is just what you mentioned: Morpheus-like software that uses no central indexing server that can be shut down. The protocol is freely available and many open source clients exist.
The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP. The problem with Gnutella is that by design, everyone knows your IP.
What we really need, is a distributed storage network such as FreeNet. If I share my songs, the don't come from my computer - various parts of them are propagated to Bill's computer in Texas, Alice's computer in Canada, and Charlie's computer in Norway.. The RIAA is already having nightmares about this technology maturing. If software like this can become as efficient as Morpheus currently is, the RIAA's only hope would be SSSCA-type legislation that bans software such as FreeNet.
and are in no way interested in furthering opensource, p2p networks or any of that. they want to peddle porn and sell ads. thats it.
hasn't this already been hashed over here before?
see perlmonks for more info.
in over three months, Ive been getting bootleg concerts from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.bootlegs, on the same note, I havent purchased a CD from a retail store in over a year, instead I look for used ones at pawnshops.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
But even making a tape for your friend is not considered "fair use". Fair use is only copying for archival or backup purposes. You can distribute copies to others, under any circumstance.
Let's see, first it was ftp server hiden in machines at work or college, they conviced companies and colleges to shut them down. then came napster, they sued and won. napster is no more.
Now the target is Music City. The may eventually win this too, and they can even win some kind of legal stuff to force ISP to filter Gnutella trafic...
But there's more thing in the oven. Cult Of Dead Cow, the same group tha gave us BackOrifice, is developing what they call "project X" that will be ablle to do peer-to-peer file sharing despite censorwares installed in the midle...
And if RIAA wins over "project X" too ??? smart hackers (in the good sense) will come with aven another tool to share files.
RIAA is just trying to atract free publicity to the copyright issue, because technically speaking, it's a lost war for them, and I think they know this.
What ? Me, worry ?
Why hasn't Morpheus been used to distribute new Linux distributions. The last time that Mandrake and Red Hat were release, I looked on Morpheus and could not find the current release... I had to fight along with everyone else to get to a ftp server that would let me download.
Once I downloaded the ISOs, I put it in my files directory for Morpheus, but didn't notice anyone downloading it...
It could speed up the downloads (and require less bandwidth from their servers) if Redhat/Mandrake would put the files out on Morpheus to get shared.
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
and then Kazaa, Morpheus and MusicCity instantly become irrelevant. FastTrack is a small company in it for the money. The record companies could make them happy probably for less money then they would spend in legal fees suing the other companies.
FastTrack will probably announce its new, "rights-protecting" software at about the same time that the record company-sponsored download sites become available, so its large customer base will be in the lurch and vulnerable to being picked up by the record companies.
EFF should save its resources for defending file-sharing based on Open Source software.
I don't think it's that. Really I don't. I mean if there was any attempt at creating a version of these services that generates money for the artists I think that would win hands down.
... slashdot for music.
I would pay as much as $0.20 for each song as an unecrypted 128bbps MP3. I would probably buy 1-5 songs a day at work. It would be nice to get new music all the time.
Now, why on earth would I want to pay? In other words how would the pay-thing be superior?
- Loads of records and bandwidth. Records. Lots of records. All the records. I mean: type in keyword and get the song.
- Added value. Album covers, lyrics, interviews, peoples opinions, chats
- Google music. Easy searching and finding. Search with song name, artist name, artist shoe size, part of lyrics, music style, beat speed, whatever..
With these requirements the service would kill the free alternative (for me at least). And please realise that it doesn't kill cd/dvd as the quality is only MP3@128kbps and for records I really like (== the ones I buy now) I will probably buy the disk too.
The Finnish counterpart of RIAA created something like this. Only 1) it has less songs then a normal record store, 2) the songs cost about $2 a piece which adds up to normal CD cost and finally 3) they use encrypted format which does not permit listening in multiple devices (car, jogging, home, work). So I don't use it. I think they created it to pass DMCA here with less objections ("Look: They don't pay! They like to Steal! We need DMCA!").
OTOH, I may be a rather strange case, because I even bought Windows ME so my girlfriend could write her masters in an environment she feels comfortable in even though I usually use Linux, also I have no unlicenced music (I have used napster to sample a few records - I bought the ones i liked and quickly deleted the rest).
My point being: there is no "legal" alternative to file sharing of copyrighted files. The RIAA has had ample time to come up with something, but they have not done anything even though there is clear demand for a pay service. Therefore the ones that do not handle all files the same should be allowed.
--
Pirkka Jokela
PS. Should have written this at the top level instead of replying off topic.
It is true that photocopiers are often used to illegally duplicate copyrighted material, but I have yet to hear of any court or government agency outlawing their use. Is this situation really that different?
Please help, tell me what links that you go to for your news.
Hypertext links. Does that answer your question?
Err, "Morpheus" is not available for Linux. I don't know many (well, perhaps there are a few) Windows using Linux enthusiasts. Why use something for which free software support does not exist?
There is morpheus compatible software, called giFT. It worked up until MusicCity deliberatly changed the protocol and broke the free libraries that worked with it.
see here for more along with a plotted history of how they reverse engineered it, and how their work was broken.
1. Release file-swapping software
2. ???
3. Profit!!
maybe they'll let the rapists and armed robbers out to make room for the copyright infringers and pot smokers.
oh, wait... they already do that...
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
[off-topic, but in the interest of improving anti-RIAA examples across the globe]
Not sure about the 'never saw a penny' bit, but Dee Snider is doing fairly well, considering... got his own syndicated radio show...
http://www.deesnider.com/
-beme
1971
Is it fair use if you lend your friend the CD? Is it fair use if people come to your house and listen to the recording?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
You refuse the government to censor the download of MP3 yet you want them to censor Windows.
You hit it right on the head... That's what this whole DOJ vs. MS case was about... Linux users trying to ban commercial technology and censor Windows.
Don't you know that Open Source adovocates want to BAN commercial software so programmers can't feed thier families. Lord, Think of the hungry crying babies! All because Open Source advocates want to BAN AND CENSOR commercial technology (IE, Windows and anything NOT Linux)
Nobody's trying to censor Windows or even ban it. We're just trying to level the playing field by not allowing them to do things like force PC manufacturers to ship Windows with every desktop without modification.
We think competition did great things for the PC hardware industry, because the playing field was a lot more level than most other industries.
Did you think we're just a bunch of liberal hardliners willing to jeopardize the economy for some ideological standards?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
I guarantee you that the RIAA and MPAA would like to have noncommercial defined as "you receive nothing of value."
Unfortunately, though Chapter 10 defines many of its terms, it doesn't define "noncommercial." If anyone knows of somewhere else withing the Copyright Act or any other portion of the USC, let me know.
IANAL, but I can read.
what in the world does one case (MusicCity) have to do with the other (Microsoft)? or are you just a troll and i've bitten hook, line, and sinker? one case deals with copyright infringement, the other deals with abuse of monopoly status. i am not sure how you can compare the two. it's not like anyone is saying 'MusicCity is a monopoly and is tying in a media player with its file sharing program, but that is okay, the government should ignore it because we like music sharing'.
-sam
burn the computers. go back to the abacus.
-some bugfixes (ya, right)
-RIAA banner ads
-every time you download a song you will have to send $50 to the RIAA, if you reject just click on the button that says "I'm an evil pirate who supports the EFF and their IP-infringing practices"
-Morpheus logo changed to RIAA icon
-99% chance that MP3 header file will be corrupted when you download from someone
-Linux client released. to install, download linuxclient.tar.gz, su to root, and chmod +000 * in /
-all MP3/ogg codecs found on your system will be replaced by the RIAA-optimized version that will play your MP3s at an astonishing 24kbps
-random banning of subnets, because the RIAA loves you.
-we ownzored napster now we ownzor joo.
It is no less than what we have come to expect from the minority. You expect that you have the right to transfer software and mp3 files. Yet we have reached an empass where the law is intervened. So where does it end and where does it begin?
One wonders...
However this case turns out there are some things that will need to be done. Well-funded Copyright Owners will be going after ISPs to block certain ports or types of traffic. In order to fight this it will be necessary to devise P2P systems that :
Break exchanges into small pieces and encrypt them so that the nature of the exchanges is not easily known
Use anonymity methods to thwart tracking
Provide methods of advertising and negotiating an exchange that protects the identity of the potential participants and protects them from sting operations.
Add dynamic port allocation and tunnels through well known-ports to the repertoire.
Organize trading groups into cells
IOW : it's war, time to get smart.
I have noticed that some people say it is wrong, legally and morally, what about songs you purchased in the form of tapes? I could digitalize them, but it is much easier to just hold the tape in my hand and search for mp3s of it on gnutella or some such, then download the mp3s than transfering it by hand (and sterio, cable and computer). I own a licence to listen to it, what would the problem be with me downloading a different format that I could create off the originals.
Timelapse recording is legal in my book. Swapping movies over the net wouldn't be happening THAT much if the crap they shove at us would be worth seeing in a theatre... I go see movies about every week or 2, so I am a customer, and that gives me the right to complain as well, there will always be pirates, you will never get rid of them, but Movie swapping over the net wouldn't be happening that much if the DVDs would be set at a reasonable price and the movies themselves WORTH SEEING ON A BIGGER SCREEN. I won't repeat What I said in a previous similar post again but for god's sake, put up some better content to protect in the first place!
RIAA, I won't even talk about them, I don't wanna reduce de lifespan of my $9.75 keyboard for that subject :).
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
You want things to be your way, but they're not. You little fucking pussy.
Expect the unexpected.
Did you think we're just a bunch of liberal hardliners willing to jeopardize the economy for some ideological standards?
The nail has been hit.
giFT.
Admittedly, it is a bit broken now. Fasttrack changed the protocol, but they're working on reverse-engineering it again.
Have a nice day, drive through please.
I think their name has a lot to do with the fact that they're based in Nashville(Music City),TN
So is MusicCity Records, which puts copy-protection on new releases such as a certain Charley Pride CD.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Let me get this straight. The RIAA claims that a software developer is responsible for how their program is used, regardless of the fact that they have no control over how it is used.
Well, it's pretty clear then. Microsoft Windows XP Professional, and previous versions of Win 9x, Win NT and WFW 3.11, provide P2P networking abilities and are used in a prolific manner to copy songs, movies, software and other copyrighted material. The Microsoft Windows Operating Systems are laid bare as an enabler to pirate artist's work. The RIAA (and/or MPAA) should be going after them too, otherwise they are using discriminatory practices to select litigation targets to suppress technologies and their companies which they deem offensive. In which case their whole argument should be null and void, since they are granted no special discriminatory rights under the law.
Watch out Microsoft, you could be next on the RIAA/MPAA list of undesirable enablers.
Will the RIAA go after Apple, Microsoft, the Linux distro companies, et al once they realize that file sharing is built into all the current operating systems?
What about international standards? Will FTP be a target? How about web servers?
The point is, the RIAA shouldn't be promoting this as trying to stop piracy, they should be advertising this as bringing C2 security to every computer!
Greg
look, even if music file sharing is technically
within the letter of the law, it is clearly
against the spirit of the law.
You should be able ( whether the RIAA likes it or
not) to make a copy of a tune you already purchased for a compilation CD.
File sharing is wrong, and it's only greed masquerading as principle that lets anyone pretend
otherwisw.
For god's sake work out a Digital Rights managment
scheme that is not controlled by RIAA and MS and
allows legitimate fair use.
There is a lot more at stake here, than getting
free music.
Please both grow and dummy up.
no, you're wrong. The constitution grants congress the absolute power to enact copyright law so that Disney (tm) always holds the rights to mickey mouse.
I could very easily argue that the tape I make for my friend is for nonprofit educational purposes (namely, to introduce my friend to a musical group or style of music that they were formerly unfamiliar with). This arguement becomes even easier if it's a mix tape.
I could also argue that it is a personal backup which I have loaned to my friend.
Anyway, here is an excellent resource if you're interested in the specifics.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
People just want the music, not to take credit for it. Digitally watermarking is the perfect application for this type of thing. Even if it is possible to mangle or remove the watermark with a lot of effort, there would be no point.
it is important to donate as much as you can to the EFF! they are the most important legal force of this century!!!
www.eff.org
Yes, we must help a bunch of rich corrupt white guys (Music City) and make them even more rich. Thank god for the EFF.
These bands allow free distrubution of their live music. ( http://btat.wagnerone.com/ for more )
Acoustic Junction Boulder
Acoustic Syndicate Boone
Adams
Agents of Good Roots Richmond
Alejandro Escovedo Austin
Aliquippa New York
All Mighty Senators Baltimore
Allman Brothers Band Macon
allowed
Allows audience recording
Although soundboard recording is not officially sanctioned anymore (at least that is the word on the street)
American Horse Dallas
Amos Moses Baton Rouge
Anal C*nt ?
Ancient Harmony Atlanta
Anders Osborne New Orleans
Angie Aparo Atlanta
Apricot Jam Portland
Apt.. Q-258 (Jeff Sipe) Atlanta
Aquarium Rescue Unit Athens
Leftover Salmon Boulder
Little Feat Los Angeles
Meat Puppets Austin
Medeski
Merle Saunders & The Rainforest Band San Francisco
Metallica San Francisco
moe. Albany
Motley Crue ? a
Nada Surf NYC a Matt
North Mississippi All Stars Memphis
Ominous Seapods Albany
Oteil & The Peacemakers Birmingham
Oysterhead Various
Pavement ? a
Pearl Jam Seattle
Percy Hill Durham
Phish Burlington
Radiohead ?
Ratdog San Rafael
Robert Hunter San Rafael
Rubberneck Portland
Rusted Root Pittsburgh a
Rustic Overtones Portland?
Sammy Hagar ? a?
Schleigho Wendell
Seth Yacovone Blues Band Burlington
Seven Mary Three Orlando
Shoe New York
Sister Hazel Gainsville
Slipknot! Boston
Smashing Pumpkins Chicago
Smokin' Grass Burlington
Sonic Youth NYC a
Soul Coughing NYC a They are very pro-taping
Soulhat Austin
Soundgarden Seattle
Spin Doctors NYC
Strangefolk Burlington
String Cheese Incident Telluride
Tenacious D ?
The Big Wu Minneapolis
The Blueground Undergrass Atlanta
The Greyboy Allstars San Diego
The Hatters Atlanta
The Miracle Orchestra Boston
The Recipe Morgantown
The Samples Boulder
The Slip Boston
Three Ring Binder Pittsburgh
Tim Reynolds/TR3 Santa Fe
Tiny Lights NJ a BA if soundman is in the right
Toadstool Seattle
Tortoise Chicago
Tragically Hip Kingston
Little Feat
Urban Blight NYC a
Victor (Lamont) Wooten Nashville
Ween New Hope
Widespread Panic Athens
Worrell
Yonder Mountain String Band Nederland
Yves Jean Band Pittsburgh
Zen Tricksters Los Angeles
(b) Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, 222 U.S. 55, does not support respondents' novel theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement.
Would the MPAA and RIAA have you believe that? I think not.
It just goes to show you - work hard in the clothes industry and eventually you'll get somewhere.
In a sense MusicCity has just written a "browser" to contain the FastTrack "plugin". So why are they the ones that are accountable?
The essential difference between the Mozilla browser and the IE "browser" on the one hand and MusicCity's Morpheus "browser" on the other is that Mozilla and IE are primarily designed and marketed for legitimate purposes such as reading and posting to OSDN Slashdot, OSDN Freshmeat, and ex-OSDN Kuro5hin, and for viewing content with legitimate plugins such as Macromedia's SWF player, whereas MusicCity's browser cannot work with anything other than the FastTrack plugin.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Naw. No need for such penalties.
Just confiscate the infringer's hardware.
A minimal number of bulldozers will be needed to bury the drilled-through hard drives, motherboards, processors, etc. that are confiscated, disabled, and sent to the impound landfill.
Jeez, my HDSL is much faster...what gives bro?
Remember that RIAA threatened Felten over the potential publication of his proof that all of the watermarking schemes proposed for SDMI could be scrubbed out of a file and not degrade quality any more than the watermark did. Watermarking has NOT been proven to really work- it's a nice idea, but so far, the practice thereof has not panned out like people thought it would.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Remember, we're talking about Copyright, not the right to make original recordings.
Last I heard, it does have a central server; although not in the same sense that Napster did.
m l
Check here:http://gift.sourceforge.net/press_9_29_01.ht
Card carrying member of UCLA? or did you mean ACLU?
And as an interesting (and, yes, off-topic) aside: one summer when I was around 12 or 13, my parents sublet the apartment next to his on 7th avenue in Manhattan. This was long before the "We're Not Gonna Take It" song -- more like when they were still paying dues in clubs and wearing their high heels and thick lipstick.
Anyway, two observations about Dee Snider: (1) he was one of the nicest, coolest people a 13 year old could possibly hope to meet and (2) he had the biggest damn stereo system I'd ever seen in my 13 years.
I mentioned that the apartment my parents sublet was next to his? Well, my bed was on the other side of the wall where his stereo was. That stereo put out enough base to shake my titties and whip the snot from my nose even when I was fast asleep -- which was seldom, since the stereo was almost always on, shaking and whipping me into sleep-deprived obvlion.
But Dee's all around coolness more than made up for the noise (which, in the grand scheme of things was no big deal).
Anyway, I thought I'd point this out.
Dee Snider rocks!
Before I get started, here's two of my favorite quotes from the article:
At a speech in Washington, D.C., she told software developers that it was only the specific illegal use of the software that the group is trying to stop, asking them to help develop applications that respected artists' rights to be paid.
Thanks for asking, but when was the last time the music industry spoke out against software piracy?! I just thought their cries for help were funny. Also:
The question is...whether they'll respect what artists create just like we in the recording business respect what the business sponsors and software developers in this audience create.
Great idea! I think what the RIAA needs is a good 'ol fashioned audit. Let's track down the license for every Pro Tools plugin and MIDI utility, make sure every copy of Word is official. I bet they've got Morpheus on their boxes!
Now, here's why the whole thing is an issue. Back in the day (pre 20th century), musicians made their money on performance. When people showed up to watch, they got paid. In order for this to work, there had to be lots of moderately-paid musicians, and only a few starving, or well-paid ones. If you were good actually performing, you became successful. Enter the age of 78s and radio. All of the sudden, musicians could make money without even showing up! Once a master recording was made, it could be duplicated with little effort (relative to cloning the musician and his band), and played over and over, for fans around the globe. In effect, record companies were granted a license to mint currency! This wasn't a big deal at first, since live performances, and the music audience in general, were small. Now with the mega-tour, and packaged crap being pumped into our ears by sleazy record execs, it is time to make a change. If you can't make money by touring, you need to hang it all up. It's time to bring the performance back into music. It's obvious that IP law won't stop 10 million people from listening to your music for free. As an artist, you now have the opportunity to dump the whole distribution channel and still make a decent living actually playing music for a live audience! Think of how much more integrity the business would have. No more gold records, only an artist and his axe (or tuba, or whatever). When that artist dies, we all have the right to enjoy his art forever, without interference. Think about that right there.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
"All three companies are profiting from the trades of copyrighted works, or "building a business on the back of piracy" as the trade group executives are fond of saying."
I think the statement could just as easily be made that music labels and music executives are building a business on the backs of artists.
"she (Hillary Rosen) told software developers that it was only the specific illegal use of the software that the group is trying to stop, asking them to help develop applications that respected artists' rights to be paid."
And here I think that most developers of these networks have said again and again that they would like to see artists receive the lions share of the money generated through their work instead of the current situation. Indeed it would probably be more accurate if Hillary had asked for applications that respected artists and labels rights to be paid since that is probably what she meant.
The problem is when you publish copyrighted material for which you don't own the copyrights and which some of the people consuming it would pay.
This is why many people are arguing that it would be much more productive for the recording industry to find a way to take advantage of the market that potentially exists to purchase individual songs online, for all of those people who might be willing to pay a reasonable amount for one good song from a CD that they wouldn't pay for in its entirety. There are arguably a lot of people out there who feel that they aren't stealing because they wouldn't buy the product in the form in which it's currently offered (e.g. only on a CD with 9 crappy songs, priced at US $15). They'd then be expanding the market themselves, instead of spending all of their time trying to keep others from reducing the market (which may be an inherent impossibility due to the combination of technology and human nature anyway).
Part of the complication of the current situation is that the recording industry seems to be uninterested in creating such a market until it has succeeded in creating a regulatory and/or technological environment where they are free (because of the lack of alternatives like free downloads) from any competetive price pressure for the new market.
RIAA might be able to buy out Fasttrack, but Morpheus etc. still possess a licence to use Fasttrack software. RIAA can't take away that licence.
What's more, if they buy Fasttrack and shut it down, someone else will instantly duplicate the functionality.
EFF.org does accept donations online, and they send you a nifty bumper sticker when you join up! Everyone who reads YRO on Slashdot should be a member.
Actually, it could very well be considered fair use, or at least that's the way the law seems to read. Fair use matters are extremely tricky to work out and courts constantly differ on how to deal with them. Here's a good excerpt from Terry Carroll's copyright FAQ:
3.7) Can I legally make a cassette copy of a musical CD for my own use, so I can play it in my car?
This issue has been argued back and forth for many years, with consumers groups arguing that this was a fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), and the recording industry arguing that it was not. The issue was finally settled by Congress when the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (P.L. 102-563, 106 Stat. 4237, codified at 17 U.S.C. 1001 - 1010) was passed in October 1992. This Act added ten sections to Title 17, one of which provided an alternative to the fair use analysis for musical recordings.
The new section states:
No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. 17 U.S.C. 1008.
As the legislative history to this statute noted, "In short, the reported legislation would clearly establish that consumers cannot be sued for making analog or digital audio copies for private noncommercial use." H.R. Rep. 102-780(I).
Does this mean you can make copies for your family and friends, as long as it's not "commercial?"
A strict reading of the words in the statute
would seem to say that you may. This is not as outrageous as it sounds. Part of the impetus behind the AHRA was the perception that blank tapes were being used mostly to copy commercial musical sound recordings. As a result, the AHRA provided that a royalty payment (referred to as a "DAT tax" by its detractors) be paid for each sale of digital audio tape to compensate authors of musical works and sound recordings for the profits lost due to these copies. See 17 U.S.C. 1003, 1004. Arguably, the AHRA anticipates and allows exactly this type of copying, and a literal reading of section 1008 would tend to support this position. But the AHRA is still sufficiently new this hasn't been tested in court yet.
Note, also, that this section applies only to musical recordings; it clearly does not include spoken word recordings. Of course, it is still
possible that such a use of a spoken word recording might still be considered a section 107 fair use (see sections 2.8 and 2.9), even though
section 1008 does not apply to provide a clear exemption.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Never heard of any of them. Wake me up when real bands like Metalica and Zeig Zeig Sputnick allow people to freely copy their music.
Sam the Record Man -A chain of Canadian music stores just filed for bankruptcy after operating for the past 65 years(see story here).
'But the key factors that toppled the retailer that was once Canada's top music merchant were fierce competition from rival chains, such as HMV Canada Inc. and Wal-Mart Canada Inc., and the growing popularity of music downloads from the Internet, they added.' One person in the story was quoted...'And Sams was hurt by people who, like him, downloaded music from the Internet. "My friends don't bring CDs to parties any more -- they bring their computers,' Mr. Broadhead, 31, said.'
Free music is great but it is hurting music sales which has an effect on not just the artists and music companies but lots of small store owners.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Uh.. what?
n ux /index.html
l e. metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/
/.)
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3
http://www.suse.com/us/support/download/suse_li
http://www.redhat.com/apps/download/http://jung
And so on... (remove spaces inserted by
Dude, it's not illegal to swap Linux ISO's. It would, however, be illegal to make and distribute photocopies (beyond fair use) of the published manuals which took a long time to write and aren't licensed under the GNU's documentation license.
Notice, the OT in the subject line. Hence, no need to mod this post down for being off-topic.
A solution to the problem with music today
CNet has identified a bunch of "others" that the EFF represents. Why not say that EFF represents COMPUTER USERS? They are the group identified when some new M$ transmitted disease is reported. The EFF is devoted to protecting everyone's rights to free speech, they just happen to specialize in digital speech. The author did not feel like he was part of that group.
Sure, I'd like to think I'm a hacker. I bought a house that had an extra bedroom to devote to my hobbies. Ah, so many pleasant hours spent there, but it is trivial and in vain if I can not share it. The negative terms associated with that word keeps me from using it. See also this and that dictionary for more unflattering meanings.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
...And you get modded down for telling the truth.
Umm..I believe Metallica was on that list (although don't even get my started about their Art Cred) And real bands are on there (ie Soul Coughing, Radiohead, Meat Puppets). But this isn't permission to freely distribute all their music..this is permission to distribute live music...
"I was not put on this earth to listen to meat! Frylock..were you?" -Master Shake
Five... Isn't that sort of old to be wearing a diaper?
Or, hey, put your name in the ID3 tag. Doesn't mess with the music and it automatically comes up when you play it. Sure it's easier to remove, but how many people would want to remove it?
wow. that's a lot in about 2 weeks.
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=199
rebol announces it wants to directly compete
against microsoft's
with their own "x-internet" vision and platform.
http://rebol.com/news1a31.html
then rebol announces it is teaming up with streamcast networks
(formerly known as musiccity as the announcement says)
to use rebol for the new morpheus 2.0.
it's weird that i could not find either the new streamcast site
or anything about this announcement on musiccity's current site.
and now eff.org announces it will defend musiccity
against the music industry.
interesting chain of events i'd say
/// evilloop.com
The RIAA's approach to Gnutella thus far has been actively discovering copyright offenders and sending DMCA complaints to their ISP
I was a bit worried about this so I did some research. The only case of someone actually losing access was covered in an article on Salon. News.com reported about pressure on ISPs, but mentioned only one subscriber being cut off.
I checked the dslreports message boards expecting to find howls of protests by those cut off from their monopoly broadband providers. Silence....
I think the RIAA and MPAA are doing a great job at scaring people away from file sharing without actually paying many bounty hunters because the idea of a secret copyright police force is so juicy.
Similarly, there seems to be hysteria about people being denied boarding on aircraft for being dissidents. The Bangor, Maine Green Party member turns out to have been pretty uncooperative. Yes, the guard was an overbearing oaf, but she admits to provoking him in an interview . The Green's press release doesn't mention any of this.
The guy detained in Germany for having "unconventional" views and the guy denied flying for having a copy of Hayduke Lives look like the result of hysterical untrained guards, not a plot to deny everyone's civil rights. More hysteria won't help.
The guy who was harassed for taking pictures of National Guardsmen at a security checkpoint probably should have asked first (it's supposedly not illegal, but photography at customs is so he should have thought a bit), but he was another victim of a freakazoid with a chip on his shoulder.
I don't think we should have to turn into loyal plastic robots, but I'm not going to wear my Circumvention Device t-shirt through airport security. No need to get the wheels of teeny minds spinning.
There's certainly an epidemic of ineptitude (that's not new since Sept. 11), but I don't believe there's an epidemic of harrassment. Likewise of ISPs and their customers.
Morpheus is described as a true peer-to-peer application with no servers. If this is true, suing music city won't serve any purpose, because even if the company goes bankrupt the software will still thrive.
If RIAA figures out that we can record songs from the radio and trade them, will they stop airing new music? This is really going too far.
They will lobby for regulations which will cripple the internet, what else did you expect?
Read it carefully:
Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries.
Congress has the power to enact copyright law only for the purpose of promoting intellectual progress, not for the purpose of protecting profitability. Companies are free to try to profit through copyright, but congress should not and cannot protect that profitability by extending copyright law. That is my point.
You write: Sharing of copyrighted sound files without the express permission of the copyright holder, even without the DMCA, is certainly illegal...Trying to hide from this fact and claim that Congress doesn't have the power to make that type of infringing illegal is only going to get you ignored by the public, the legislators, and the courts.
You're reading my argument a bit recklessly. I agree that Napster was a party to infringement. And I certainly agree that congress has the power to make some forms of copying illegal. But what we are seeing in these file sharing cases are complaints like: "This software will put us out of business" and "our copyright interests supercede the interest of the advancement of technology".
These arguments are exactly what the constitution does not provide for. The constitution's responses are: "Tough shit!" and "No it doesn't."
The DMCA, whatever it is, is not copyright law under the scope of the constitution.
Should we hold Ford or General Motors liable when their vehicles are used in a holdup? Or run over someone? They contributed to the process.
Should we hold Nikon or Canon liable when someone uses one of their cameras to copy a copyrighted work? Lets get Kodak and Fuji while we are at it...
Meanwhile, court after court has thrown out case after case against gun maufacturers filed by various cites all over the country, claiming the manufacturers were liable when people misuse guns for illegal purposes such as murder and robbery.
At some point there is a limit to who you can blame or sue for contributory infringment/liability. Perhaps the RIAA should sue the labels, for ingnoring the MP3 craze until it reached giagantic proportions when they could have worked to monetize the process (by easily accessable licenses)much earlier, thus serving artists, songwriters and yes even the labels,not to mention the consumer, but chose not to by trying to maintain their lock on the control. Better yet, perhaps the artists should sue the labels for malpractice in the performance of their fiduciary duties.
I personally salute the EFF for stepping up.
Nobody's trying to censor Windows or even ban it. We're just trying to level the playing field by not allowing them to do things like force PC manufacturers to ship Windows with every desktop without modification.
no force was involved. microsoft laid out the terms of their agreement, and most pc manufacturers agreed to it. they made the decision that installing windows on all their machines was better than installing it on none. microsoft has the right to control the manner in which their product is distributed.
it may be crappy on MS's part, but it certainly isn't illegal.
you all can argue the ethics behind music swapping, but have you ever been signed to a major label? my guess is probably 99.9% of you havent. nor have i, but i know a band on Sire...check out this link http://scribble.nu/x/?u=guster&e=100 from the band's website regarding their stance on music sharing. you'll get a kick out of it. before you get on your soapbox, listen to someone who deals with it as part of their career and not from inside a cubical.
Nothing like a taste of yer own medicine ;-) Perhaps with enough audits going on, they won't notice this small fleet of rebel X-Wings...
NO TOUCH MONKEY!
"And that's truly what the RIAA's interest in Napster was about: not money, but control."
Their interest isn't control; it's money. Control is just what's required to get there (or at least the fastest way).
-DrkShadow
They need to control their brands. Britney Spears is a face, a person, and a phrase that almost millions of media-fed-heads on earth recognize. Napster and other communications channels break the tight hold music companies have on controlling image and thus value of their brands. I support any encrypted, distributed network for the general purpose of disseminating information; like a shovel, it can be used to plant or to kill and that is the user's concern and not that of the service. Besides, with the new anti-terrorism legislation, Napster and other services as anonymous will be a thing of the past.
Futurist Traditionalism
I fully support the RIAA's right to not have music stolen and distributed for free. Downloading music you haven't paid for is just plain wrong.
I also support the right of services like Morpheus to exist. Internet users should have the absolute right to distribute their files via the Internet, and whether they do it via FTP, HTTP or FastTrack technology is irrelevant. They're all one and the same.
What I don't support is users distributing copyrighted works. You shouldn't do that! Bad copyright infringer!! That said, shouldn't it be the fault of the copyright infringer, not the developer of the technology that allows file sharing? Else, FTP, HTTP, etc. would all be illegal, and we know how stupid an argument that is. While we're at it, why not ban TCP/IP too, because that's how all the data gets passed around. And ISPs and Internet backbones should also be nuked because they are the ones responsible for enabling users to pass around TCP packets.
It seems plain and obvious to me, but unfortunately legal issues rarely end up being simple. I could actually see the RIAA winning a case against Music City. The stupidity of our legal system cannot be underestimated.
It's for that reason that I think the RIAA should go to hell. They would gladly snuff out anything they consider detrimental to business, regardless of how legitimate it is; and they would do so using any underhanded legal method available to them (and even possibly illegal methods, if some of the RIAA memos floating around can be believed). I sympathized with their stance against Napster, mainly because Napster could only work with MP3 files and was plainly designed for stealing music for free. Services like Music City work with any file type, and are so general-purpose that they cannot be faulted. Until the RIAA comes up with a way for file sharing services to determine the copyright ownership of a music file, generic file sharing services should be allowed to list any file they want. Until such capability is made available to them by copyright owners, they should be bound by all the same rules as bind any other file transfer protocol.
In other words, if a user lists illegal files via a web site, FTP site or Morpheus node, it's that user's responsibility and nobody else's. Music City has no way to tell what's legal and what isn't. And frankly, neither does the RIAA, since the technology does not exist to verify music with reasonable accuracy and in a timely fashion. You can't use filenames alone, for obvious reasons.
My internal conflict rages on. Even though I feel the RIAA has a right to not be ripped off, their methods of protecting themselves are beyond evil. We've heard all about their exploits over the years, but the one that really pushed me over the edge is their plan to copy-protect all CDs produced after Q1 2002. That's right, they are planning on releasing only CDs that, in theory, can't be ripped. That effectively stops my ability as an actual paying customer to make personal copies of music I've paid for. The most evil part is that not only are they doing this in a vain attempt to keep people from distributing music illegally, they're also trying to force consumers to buy their music a *second* time if they want a digital copy. And, of course, if you do buy that second copy, it will be protected via some DRM mechanism that makes actually listening to it on your own computer or digital playback device a chore.
It's because of this that I've actually started using Morpheus. I'm sorry to say, but I've caved in. I never used Napster for ethical reasons, but even people of principle sometimes have their limits. I just can't stomach supporting a cause which is so evil, even if the evil springs from a legitimate grievance. Spank me, I'm a copyright infringer.
Which doesn't change the fact that you can choose not to sign that contract if you don't like its terms.
Five record labels control the promotion of music, and they all have the same one-sided contract terms. Therefore, an artist can choose one of these:
- Major label Foo, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Bar, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Baz, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Blah, with a lopsided contract.
- Major label Yadda, with a lopsided contract.
- Any of various independent labels with a contract that provides a fairer share of royalties but no chance of airplay because the major labels control the companies that tell mainstream radio stations what to play and no record sales because
- consumers don't know the artist even exists, and
- the major labels control the companies that tell mainstream music stores what to carry.
- No label, no contract, and no career.
Is that much of a choice?if the majority of artists make the mistake of signing contracts that they don't understand.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It is not wrong to share music with your friends if the copyrights on that music is owned by a faceless corporation bent on controlling music and crushing competiton. Don't let the rhetoric get to you. Just becuase it's not right to put an inventor out of business by stealing his ideas doesn't mean that the same morality applies when the "artist" has been bought out of the loop.
I believe the RIAA's position is that they will never fully eliminate copyright infringement, so they should recoup the 'losses' through a royalty on blank CDs. At the same time, you're still not allowed to copy that CD. That's still piracy. I agree with you. You can't have it both ways. This kind of thinking happens elsewhere - Globalscape CuteFTP used to be a good program, until they made it ad-ware AND cripple-ware. If it's showing ads it shouldn't bug me about registering, and it shouldn't expire. If I pay a surcharge on a blank CD, I better be able to put any damn music on it that I choose.
The other problem is that the figures have never shown that 'music piracy' impacts industry profits. This is the fallacy of groups like the RIAA and BSA - you'll hear ridiculous figures, in the billions of dollars, of money that they 'lost' to 'piracy'. Back to reality, there's no way that college student is going out and buying the 800 albums that contain each of the MP3 singles in their Morpheus share. There's no way that company in Hong Kong is buying thousands of copies of Windows.
> If the artist sold a five million copies or so,
> they'd almost be able to recoup their costs© Wow©
> This is a great idea, and must be implemented
> immediately!
Ok© What costs? There is no physical medium and the website would probably be on black with pure advertising©
The artists would of course still need studios and marketing, etc© But they would get $2 if I downloaded their entire album© How much does an artist need to recoup the cost of making the music ¥as opposed to printing the CD:s? If 100,000 people downloaded the songs the artist would grab $200,000 - that is a lot of money, and for someone really popular they might get a lot more ¥like 1000 times more in US and EU combined©
If I really liked them I would buy the CD ¥as I do hear a difference of quality, pretty much like I now do© And they could still market DVD:s and have concerts and sell t-shirts ¥at the same website even©
So, yes, I do think that $0©2 for a song is enough for a normal quality MP3© And $0©2 isn't a hard limit - they could try to get more ¥$0©4 maybe?, what I wanted to point out is that a song on a CD is worth more then a song as an MP3 ¥because I can create the MP3 from the CD and the computer may crash and the CD is higher quality©
--
Pirkka Jokela
once an record co/artist allows for their song(s) to be played through mass-media outlets, they should automatically FOREFIT their right to bitch about intellectual property.
why is it illegal to obtain an mp3 copy of your favorite song, but if you record said favorite song from the radio, you're in the clear? don't give me that line about digital quality vs. analogue quality. content is content is content.
let me extend this to movies.
if i record from hbo, then watch it later, it isn't stealing. but if i copy my friends genuine copy of the same movie, i am stealing?
what the fuck ever.
Have you ever seen somebody xeroxing a newspaper?
Again. Did anybody out there have seen even only once in his/her life somebody copying a newspaper?
If not, why?
Answer: Because newspapers prices are kept low to spread massively the media.
If music/movies producers followed that practice, everybody could buy a $2 CD. And, believe me, nobody would ever think of pirating it.
Unfortunately, producers want to keep the prices high, much higher than the effective costs, and piracy is a natural consequence of a wrong choice.
And if you don't like the details of the contract, don't sign it; you may have to choose a different career
I invest four years of my time and $100,000 in an education, and now do you say that you want me to throw it all away and work at Burger King because before I decided to go to school, nobody told me that the standard practice contracts in the field had such lopsided terms?
If I don't like the types of offers I get for postdoctoral positions in my field, and I sign a contract and take a job anyway, I can't very well complain that the postdoctoral market is "unfair" and that by not signing I will have "no career".
Yes, but if you wisely decide not to sign a contract, you have no job and no way of paying off your $200,000+ loan. Students fresh out of college may have to default on their student loans and screw up their credit for life because a job at McDonald's doesn't pay enough.
Will I retire or break 10K?