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RIAA Sues Audiogalaxy
Frizzled writes "The RIAA has struck again, this time filing suit against Audiogalaxy's "Satellite" file sharing program. (Nevermind that Satellite is loaded with spy-ware ... good riddance)." News.com has a story. The RIAA's press release links to their complaint.
I think that they would rather have the cash.
Its more that they don't understand either the technology (which is probably unstoppable), or their own customers.
In particular, the major music labels don't seem to understand that:
1) Some people will pay money anyway for CD's if they like them enough.
2) Alot more people would buy the music if they sold them directly over the internet.
I personally believe that their sales would rocket up even at the same profit margins if they just dropped the cost of producing and distributing the CD's from the price of an internet download. This might only be a few dollars cheaper than what you pay to a major music store for the CD.
So what I think is happening here is the equivalent of what happened to encyclopedia salesmen with encarta. They were so locked in to a large existing sales network with high production costs that they could not bring themselves to cannibalise their own networks to maintain sales. This nearly destroyed the companies (such as britannica) before they finally did a U turn. People were happy to buy an inferior (M$ Encarta - not that it was bad, just less information) product because it was so much cheaper, and almost as good.
The analogy here of technology hitting an established high premium sales network is pretty tight. And I believe that the outcome will be the same. Eventually the networks will recognise this, and sell music tracks online for alot less than they currently do. They will prosper under this arrangement, although much of their distribution network will have to die in the process.
For the record, I can see the same thing ultimately happening with video, and a similar process of technological change is occuring with cameras and film. Our home computers will take on all of these tasks. We will still shop, but for production tools (printers, cameras) and 'raw' materials (blank CD's, DVD's high quality paper). Companies that get on this bandwagon will do well (ask Kodak), and those that pretend it isn't happening will go towards the wall (ask britannica!).My 2c worthMichael
Back to AudioGalaxy's FTP Search. It doesn't even need Satellite. However, it might be RIAA's next target, right after other FTP search sites.
It's odd they'd go after AudioGalaxy, considering other filesharing apps don't work to promote artists in the way it does. AG will (or try to) block you from downloading songs where someone has complained, suggest other artists and genres that may appeal and have a message board for discussing each musician. Seems better than just getting mp3's off napster.
I don't see how the RIAA can claim, with a straight face, that the copyrighted-song blocking was 'not as good as a first year CS student'. They've done the best you can realistically do with keyword blocking, without blocking others in the crossfire. For example:
The Cars, Drive = blocked.
According to the RIAA, if the band "Drive" releases a song called "Cars", it should be denied. Given the combinations of keywords, you'd be blocking pretty much everything that isn't obscure and unique, like "the Crucifucks", "Tumor Circus", "Cockmonger" or "Republican Buttocks".
They also have some light content-based filtering. I haven't researched this, but I think it goes by the ID3 tag. It seems to be used mostly to combat misspellings. Obviously, the RIAA's example was the worst-case scenario.
They've really done a fair amount of filtering, and enough in the other areas to show they aren't just a napster clone (which wouldn't be a bad thing by my standards). It seems they just want any type of music far away from computers, because it's easier to control than to just come up with cooler ideas and incentive for people to buy. I suppose it's also easier than releasing something better than the pussified swill I hear booming by from people's car radios.
--
PS: both AG for linux, and the other linux version called xsatellite are spyware free. The official AG linux binary is still supported.
Did anyone happen to catch 20/20 last night (Friday)? They had a piece about how radio stations take payola through indy promoters, blah blah blah. The interesting part was seeing Hillary Rosens fat head up there crying about how it costs the record labels so much and that there should be new laws to make it illegal, I'm just bawling my eyes out for them. I wonder how much of a discount consumers would see if such legistlation was put into place.
To be fair most the focus of the segment was mostly about how it prevents smaller labels/artists from getting radio play regardless of how good their music may be, which is a bad thing.
Personally I think its great that the RIAA is taking a stance against this. Lets see, first the RIAA pisses of geeks, then consumers, now they piss off the radio stations, if we get lucky they'll shoot themselves in the foot and piss off the artists and labels too.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
They came for Napster, and I did not speak up, because I did not use Napster.
They came for Audiogalaxy, and I did not speak up, because it had spyware.
They came for Limewire, and I did not speak up, because I did not like the Java client.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.