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Napster files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Joey Patterson writes "CNN Money reports that Napster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy." Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy
has been stopped they can all sleep much better.
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...is that Hilary Rosen probably thinks she's won.
One down, 300 million to go. Maybe next they'll go after this pesky den of pirates I've use-er ,heard of called IRC, or this really shady place called Usenet
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Napster is gone, legally they're caught, but lets face it, P2P is quickly becoming a killer app, and Napster made that possible. Brian.
If I understand this correctly.. Napster is gone... which leaves now... wait.. no it doesn't get rid of sharing software.. instead we now have access to tons of FREE (napster was to be pay) sharing software for MUCH more then napster ever dreamed of when they came out..
Want paintshop? Ok.. let me fire up KaZaa!
Want videos? Ok.. let me fire up KaZaa!
Want sheep? er.. that's not my department but you can probably find that on KaZaa too.
It's sad that it came to this, but honestly, I was wondering what was taking so long.
Once the RIAA shut down the filesharing service, Napster, Inc. had no means of turning a profit that I could see.
I guess they were living on credit, just trying to hold it together until Bertelsmann could buy them.
Well Napster used to depend of piracy to get the users out there... When they decided to go "straight" most users had to go somewhere else to get the same stuff they used napster to get earlier. Then they would have to market them self as a whole new product instead og thinking that their users also would stop downloading piracay mp3's.
If it's wet, Drink it!
"RIAA Sues Audiogalaxy"
The music/movie industry seems to be going after napster and co one after the other, with the money and clout they weld who can and will stand upto them? We can look forward to corporate networks serving you movies/music for monthly charges continuing their shrink wrap monopolies.
Napster got lame and you can't really blame Shawn Fanning. But I personally will NEVER EVER >>>BUY commercial music or software, unless it's Doom III. btw, did that opennap server ever get setup on sealand?
First VA Lunix is Dying Post
Napster's gone, VA Lunix can't be far behind, since it's worth less per share than A CHALUPA FROM TACO BELL
E-Business model:
Step #1: Give away free shit
Step #2: ???
Step #3: Make money!!!!
Not every good hacker is a good business person.
Not every great idea can be best exploited by its progenitor.
Napster was, at worst, a means for the long-standing fact of exploitation of artists by record labels to become common knowledge. Even teeny-boppers are familiar with the concepts of mechanical royalties, publishing contracts, and "recoupment".
Napster is dead; long live Napster.
You're sooo funny. Of course napster isn't why piracy exists. But until recently Napster's sole purpose was to feed piracy. blah blah about fair use. Just admit it, everyone used Napster to pirate the latest and greatest from Eminem, and our favorite homeboys of LimpBizkit.
I'd have a lot more sympathy when you guys whine and moan if you'd just go ahead and say it "They suck because they're shutting down my favorite piracy outlet." Noone really believes that you're just downloading backups, or whatever other lame excuse you've got. You're stealing, you know it, I know it, now be a man about it... or something like that.
scott
(jumps up on soapbox)
Folks, I am sorry, but Npaster was truly only a place where people stole copyrighted material. The arguements that it helped/hurt the industry do not matter. The arguements that they weren't hurting anyone do not matter.
Right now sharing music in the way that we want to share software is illegal. There is no musical GPL. Even if there were, the artists who's music we want would not be released under it. Napster could have been a great place for budding artists to get some coverage. Instead it was used to get the Staind tracks onto CD without ever making it to Sam Goody.
One of the things that would help this community tremendously is to respect the laws and try to get done what needs to be done within the framework of them. Crying out as a group because some poor little business that was struggling along broke a law and that aided in their demise is worthless.
Don't tell me nobody didn't see this coming - the innovator is rarely the successful party in any technology leap, usually it's the follow-ups that jump on the bandwagon and streamline/fine tune a process that make the big bucks.
Napster paved the way for P2P, but really, who thought they'd get rich doing it? Well, besides Shawn Fanning, anyway.
-72
-Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
FTP has now been banned under the DMCA since it can be used to distribute copyrighted material.
Later,
Phil
The only asset which might be worth something is the brand name, but if Bertelsmann wants to pay $8M for it, that's fine - to them it is a drop in the ocean. What is not so nice is that the money will probably go to lawyers (worse than *AA IMO).
I'm confused at what point exactly we can stop caring about what's left of Napster. They obviously were never going to make any money months ago. A buy out was pretty obvious at that point even at that point and this bankrupcty pretty much seals it. Do we keep talking about it for nostalgia's sake? We have so many new and better P2P clients that are ripe for discussion.
Napster is dead, live long everything else!
Caffeine Good
Hi,
Napster has been dead for such a long time, that not only the business model stinks.
CU,
Martin
If you recall, K-Mart has also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect them from their creditors while they attemp to reorganize into a profitable company.
Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy does not mean that the company is gone or is no longer operating. In the case of Napster, the great levels of piracy ended long before today.
end of line
but I've considered it to be out of commission for about 1.5 years now. Is it right or wrong, well, I think that's been debated enough already. Since they shut down, and then scour disappeared quite a while ago, I've been a bit hard-pressed to find *good* alternatives. I don't want to mess with the spyware and slow downloads of Kazaa/Morpheus. I've tried using direct connect, but I don't have the 30GB (or more) of shares required to get into many of their download groups. The last time I tried lopster was before their 3/27 release, and I wasn't extremely impressed. But often times I end up resorting to getting mp3s from other people's computers on network neighborhood. Yeah, it's a bit primitive, but it's often the easiest way when you're in college. Now that I'm getting ready to graduate, I'm starting to wonder what my next best alternative is, any suggestions?
Well, maybe something about the record insdustry in general..
But at least we now know that you cannot first offer a service free of charge on the internet, loose millons of dollars, and then try to get it all back by offering a lesser service at a cost.
Napster was a dot-com bomb, even if they had a genuine new concept.
Personally this is my two cents. I really could care less to see napster go. I buy my music, because i like collecting CD's and records. The only reasoned I cared at all about napster is because when it came out. I found it was an awesome way to find new music i hadn't heard... preview it in good quality, listen for a while make sure I wouldn't get bored, then I BOUGHT THE DAMN CD! Alas, I know I am one of the few people who used napster that actually ended up buying more CD's because of it. Thats because radio in this day and age, at least where i lived, which is philadelphia, sucked and still does, and is one sided. BUT that is a whole other rant for a whole other topic.
Anyway so Napster is gone.. I'll just have to go back to free previews on www.cdnow.com to figure out if I like new music that i want to buy.
Who makes you Sig?
This is the second time I have seen this in the last 5 minutes, and it is also the second time I have seen it as modded up as funny???
Xaotik Designs
why companies like Napster didn't move to someplace like Sealand where nobody could really touch them and they wouldn't have to go under. Maybe some day company will get the idea to move out there, at least their server(s)anyways.
-Tolerate my intolerance
No doubt I'll read a lot of comments here that also appeared during the last two (or three?) napster stories..How much more topics is this whole Napsterstuff gonna take?
I doubt anyone's got anything interesting to say now, when this topic has been milked as much as it is. Why not post something about Napster when something actually *interesting* happens to it?
I'm so glad everyone is paying for everything again and that piracy is dead.
Shareholders cry PROFIT unto the night and let slip the dogs of war.
Lost sales = people who were actually going to BUY your product before getting a ripped/cracked version.
Sales through piracy = people who never would have heard of you otherwise getting a ripped/cracked version of some app/album and deciding they want "the real thing"/support/cover art/liner notes/docs.
They will never again have the opportunity that they let slip through their fingers because they killed Napster. Napster had the widest selection where anyone could find anything, and it worked well. They threw away the opportunity of a lifetime because they got greedy.
Instead of working out a system where they could have gotten paid something somehow, they grasped for millions, throwing away billions
It is a typical case of the big fish in the small pond fearing the ocean
There will probably never be the same chance to create a market and integrate it all into one service again.
There was a pretty good interview with John Lanning on CnetRadio that is worth listening, goes into the history, and where he sees things going from here.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Chapter 11 means protection from creditors while reorganizing, which has been the plan. They're not shut down, they've not gone away, they're just shifting debt around and restructuring (i.e. laying off any worker bees left, negotiating terms on debt payment, etc.)
This is hardly a surprise, nor the end of Napster. The only effect against "music piracy" is that Napster, under BMG's thumb, will simply be a store front for their products. In a way, similar to what the Mega-swill Brewers did 10-15 years ago, buying up all those threatening little micro-brews and screwing up their distribution to preserve market for the highly profitable [yecch] that they sell (i.e. you don't become billionaires without putting rice in your mash instead of expensive barley.)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So where am I going to get all my Celine Dion MP3's? I've been waiting for Napster to come back so I can get the new CD!
Kidding of course.
I was going to come up with an analogy about a guy walking into a party with an airhorn, screaming his ass off so that nobody else could talk, but then I realized that would never happen because people generally behave themselves when not hiding behind the internet.
:)
I put my money on a social (rather than physical) defect. Some people can't manage to string together enough synapses to post something intelligent, yet they are still compelled to post. Some people need attention.
I know this is offtopic, as is the parent, but sometimes I just gotta rant
--
pants ahoy
Regardless of the actions of the music industry, Napster was never going to be profitable enough to survive. It wouldn't have made it as a subscription service, and bandwidth isn't free as we all known. Centralization is dead as a P2P concept, as there's no way to support the hardware & bandwidth costs.
Making your way to the top in the musical
;)
business traditionally required shitloads
of work and playing small gigs in small
ugly bars to earn your living. Then maybe
after ten-twenty years of doing those jobs
you are able to record an album. And only
maybe. Being an old band does not guarantee
succes (obviously).
But nowadays you see designer bands nomatter
where you look. I am sure some of them have
a little bit of talent, but I am also sure
that lots of them are just ordinary boys/girls
with nothing more than looks and a huge crowd
of rich folks behind them designing their
career.
I am having trouble feeling sorry for these
designer bands that they only sell 1 million
albums and not 1.5 million albums because
people illegally copy their music (and it might
not even be the case that piracy lowers sales).
But I _do_ feel sorry for all the hard working
artists trying to make a name for themselves
and failing, due to piracy (if in fact piracy
has a negative effect on the music business).
People with talent.
However, my opinion matters fer shit, cos'
the law is the law and until it's changed, you
better fucking live by it.
I would very much like to support Napster in
the process of defining a new service that
protects the companies and the performer as well
as providing a reasonable service to the crowd.
Some sort of pay-per-listen would be fantastic.
I wouldn't mind subscribing to some service where
I could hear the music I wanted and automatically
get billed for it. 1 cent for a Metallica song,
10 cents for a RHCP song and so on.
So good luck Napster, I hope you learn to follow
the path of the righteous man. heh heh
BBC News Online covers the same story here and reminds us that Napster's assets are now owned by media giant Bertlesmenn.
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
company to companies.
sometimes fingers don't listen to the brain
-Tolerate my intolerance
Honestly, this sin't a victory for anyone except the lawyers involved. Napster was mearly a ripple in the sea of piracy which has swept the internet as a result of highly availible and cheap bandwidth. On top of that, there are now so many random Napster-like P2P applications availible, ALONG with many other forums in which piracy occurs (IRC, ICQ, Usenet, and the list rambles on down the road almost endlessly...)
The RIAA should stop wasting it's time and money by suing individuals and companies like it has been. It's pointless, wasteful, and gives them an image in the public eye that I'm sure doesn't help them curry favor with the masses. No matter how many news specials Tom Brokaw brings us, it's all still the same BS, kids have cable modems but no money and as long as the United States' doesn't decide to start filtering the net, piracy will march on.
Linux is dead.
LU
that we can't get the newest Eminem CD before its release?
awww nutz.
Hailey Mathers:
My dad is craaaay-zee!
is why after the trial they didn't just cut their losses and go home. Not to be defeatist, but Napster was dead as soon as they finally lost the judgement. Even though trying to stay open was a decent gesture of "screw you, RIAA, you didn't kill us", but it reminded me of the desperate flailing of a dying man covered in napalm.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I am as disenheartened by this news as any fellow slashbot. Napster was a shining star above the wasteland that is modern software, a nuculus of elegence and power. I guess open source just doesn't work.
R.I.P. Napster. It was a great ride.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Cnn money filed for bankruptcy after the bandwidth of a slashdotting was paid. Google cache here
I bought the Vinyl, often 2 or 3 times because the sound would get awful. I bought the Tapes, often again when the tape would snap. I bought the CD, then bought it again when someone stole my collection. I even taped it over the radio. But now I've got a copy of the song on my hard drive - twice. And you tell me I'm a thief. I think there's something seriously wrong with your head. Fortunately for me you're harmless, not to mention clueless.
Sure, Napster has gone bankrupt because the efforts of a typically greedy industry, but don't side with their "moral" argument and accuse me or Napster of stealing MP3s. I never stole anything. I copied someone else's zeroes and ones, and zeroes and ones are not music until you interpret them. In fact, I could interpret them in any way I want to. Go ahead and argue that I was in fact always and exclusively interpreting them as musicm but the fact remains: they will never, ever be the music exactly, they will always be a digital approximation, however convincing it is. I will not agree with the stealing argument until the RIAA defines clearly what the music is and what is stealing them. By their argument, am I stealing the song if I sing it? That's an approximation too. You'd have to plug the analog hole in my head and stop me from thinking of the song after listening to it. How close to the song does the approximation have to be until it is considered to be the song? And what defines the song? Is the song zeroes and ones? No, it's a pattern of sound waves reaching my head, but the pattern is never the same as it was in the studio on a digital approximation. What if these zeroes and ones can be interpreted to be the music in mp3 format, but if I change the extension to .doc and open it in word, it's really an informative paper? If you allow people to copyright digital approximations of a song, you effectively allow people to own numbers, which are a natural phenomenon. Look at the case of the people who wanted to translate their DNA sequences into MP3 format for the same degree of copyright protection. You might as well copyright air if you are going to say, "This, and anything I decide is arbitrarily similar to this in a specific interpretation is mine!"
The fact is, stealing is a fuzzy line when you speak in terms of zeroes and ones, and what music is. I believe that due to this argument, the music industry has no choice but to adapt to use file sharing to its benefit, and the RIAA is working against consumer and its own interests in this case.
Hilary Rosen, shut your analog hole.
~Ben
you are comparing music theft with Jesus' acts, the boston tea party, and the freedon of slaves?
Thanks for making my point. You really did just fall off the turnip truck.
located at news.com. It's quick and to the point.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Whatever you think about Napster, the editor's comment on this story is lame.
Putting a murderer in jail doesn't put a stop to all murders. Does that mean it's a waste of time?
We're blowing this argument, and when we lose, everyone's going to blame the record companies, but it's going to be our own fault.
Defending stealing is wrong, and as much as everyone likes free stuff, it's just not possible that the "stealing is ok" argument is going to fly in the courts and in congress over the long run.
The other lame argument that people make is that "the record companies would be better off if they allowed sharing." Maybe. Probably not. But the point is that it's their property, and they get to decide what to do with it.
There are two issues on the table. The one that everyone talks about is piracy. There's no way to win this in the law, although technology will probably make it possible to steal music and share it over the net for the foreseeable future.
The other one, and the one that is winnable, is about whether or not there will be open electronic distribution systems. Right now entertainment companies control distribution, and that's how they make their money.
Movie studios make money by controlling access to the multiplexes -- indpendent films have to make "distribution" deals if they want to be seen. And if you want your CD in the Virgin Megastore, you've got to cut a deal with a big label. That's the toll booth.
The entertainment companies are using the piracy issue to cover up their other agenda, which is to avoid open distribution at all costs.
And their biggest allies aren't corrupt senators, they're whiny assholes with a sense of entitlement, sitting on their asses, believing that the world owes them free eminem records.
The arguments for stealing marginalizes the people who make it. It marginalizes the public's interest. It's suicidal politically and morally bankrupt.
Take my karma. I don't care.
It is with great sadness that I bring you this news: Napster is dead.
:(
It was at 03:02 PM on the afternoon of June 3rd 2002 that, after many failed attempts to resuscitate the dying peer-to-peer music sharing app, Napster finally passed away. While Napster has been in it's death throes for many months now and it's death has been foreseen for many years, this is still a very sad moment, a great loss for mp3 dabblers and music lovers the world over. Though Napster has passed away, it will surely be fondly remembered for years to come by audiophiles, and the public alike. Even if you didn't enjoy using Napster, there's no denying it's contributions to popular music culture. Truly a Northeastern University icon. It will be missed
I remember sending sombody $20 for a bunch of disks that I never recieved. Bastard. THAT'S when piracy hurts.
It's much easier for me to buy the CD I like and rip it to my computer. Hopefully, I will still be able to do this in the future.
That being said, I haven't bought a CD priced over $12 (cdn) in over 3 years. Why should I pay almost $20 for a CD when according to most reports the performer (note I did not use the word artist) is only receiving about a dollar? I'm buying the CD because I like the performer's music not because I think Sony Music rocks.
As it's been said a thousand times. If you begrudge the price of CDs:
Don't Buy Them
UNIX/Linux Consulting
"God of puppets"
Only one song on the CD will be worth listening to.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You expect something different from somebody called "Budgreen?"
I'll let the misspelling go, because this is Slashdot. However, you buy "litteraly tons of DVDs". A DVD weighs about 15g. Let's be generous, and assume you were including the packaging in your wight calculations, which would put it up around 150g per DVD. A ton of DVDs would therefore be ~6600 disks and packaging. You have tons, i.e. at least two, so we conclude that you have at least 13,000 DVDs.
Where do you keep them all?
--
E_NOSIG
Excellent choice ;)
TJ or YJ?
I traded my 98 1/2 TJ last year for a fully loaded Liberty Limited, that thing f-ing rocks.
The original poster was just a jackass - if he/she has even one MP3 on their drive they are a hypocrite.
I'm a 2000 man.
But the point is that it's their property, and they get to decide what to do with it.
Except once they sell it to me, it becomes my property. That's what selling means.
Of course, we have copyright laws to make sure I don't sell multiple copies of the work, but within those laws, it's my property, and I get to decide what to do with it.
--
E_NOSIG
So what are they going to list as their assets? All of those stolen MP3?
Technically, they're property of Napster since they got busted for posession of illegal materials (due to the fact that they were copyrighted.) Does that mean that they can sell them to pay back their creditors? And wouldn't that be the biggest blow to the RIAA (introducing all of those stolen MP3s to the market?) Although they were stored on other ppl's computers, they probably have some of them that were uploaded.
And even if they only sell the software and the servers, couldn't some overseas company buy it all up and then start Napster all over again, this time out of the RIAA's grubby little hands?
Wondering I am......
Right on....It's a 1998 TJ (Black). Last year I toughed it up with some 32 inch tires. (wanted 33, but needed a lift package for that)
"Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better."
Remember what happened when Carnegie endowed thousands of libraries across the United States? Well, people could then get their books free! And the obvious thing happened: The book publishing industry never sold another book, except to libraries.
Not!
Then there was that second socially destructive technological advance, TV. Once people could get their entertainment at home, and without paying extra, the movie industry almost completely disappeared, except for sales to TV broadcasters.
Not!
Well, the movie industry was already dead, of course, but another technological advance, the VCR, killed it again. When people found that they could record perfectly good movies on video tape, they stopped paying for movies! It was completely logical and understandable that this would happen.
Not!
The fact is, no one completely understands the issues surrounding intellectual property. We can't write a good law if we don't understand. Someone must sit down and do the thinking, and the thinking hasn't been finished.
The music industry is so abusive that I tend to stay away from music. I find that, when I have access to free music (tapes and CDs from the library), I become interested in a particular type of music and buy more, not less. Maybe there are a lot of people like me, because, during the height of Napster, the U.S. music industry had its best year.
<sarcasm>
Somebody please delete this post. According to Rosen people like the one above don't exist. Note that
" I buy my music, because i like collecting CD's and records"
We all know that NOBODY that uses Napster buys music because it is a den of thieves and lowlifes... I know this because the RIAA told me so
Also..
" I found it was an awesome way to find new music i hadn't heard... "
This is another fallacy. The only music that you find on Napster is copyrighted, pirated, ripped illegal music. Music that you hear on the radio, media pressed, mainstreamed music. You don't find any other kind of music on Napster but illegal music. I know this because the RIAA told me so.
so either this guy above doesn't exist... or the RIAA has been lying to me. And I trust the RIAA
</sarcasm>
[begin sarcasm]
Thank goodness! Now all piracy of copyrighted music will stop and starving artists like Celine Dion and Metallica can sleep comfortably. The RIAA has forced both Napster and KaZaa to (effectively) cease operations as both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
I tell you what...these Peer-2-Peer sharing networks are absolutely horrible! I mean, once you install the client software, you are branded a criminal no matter what you do because you may be maliciously and illegally copying all your music, violating copyright left and right. What artist in their right mind would want to give away their own music for free?!?! Good for the RIAA for shutting down those bad bad P2P networks. But I don't think the RIAA should stop there. They need to do more to ensure Celine Dion can drink Don Perignon for breakfast every day. They need to shut down all public FTP sites. They need to shut down all public IRC servers. They need to shut down all public web sites. As we all know, these protocols allow peer-2-peer sharing of files. And since those files *may* be copyrighted music, they should all be shut down without delay because their is a *possibility* that someone will send someone else a music file that was not purchased. In addition to public web sites, the RIAA needs to go after anyone who has Microsoft Windows (all versions), *nix/*BSD (any distribution of unix, Linux or a BSD derivative) and Apple Mac OS (any version) since all those operating systems have the technology to allow 2 or more machines to network together (again, there is the *possibility* of one person sending another a file containing copyrighted music.) Additionally, the RIAA needs to shut down all Instant Messaging services, like AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, Bantu and Jabber because they allow people to share files.
Once the RIAA has those services shut down, they need to shut down all email servers because email allows the sharing of files. Once all email stops flowing, the RIAA must stop the Internet itself because there may be an as-yet undiscovered means for sharing files. And since those files *may* be copyrighted music files, the Internet must be shut down!
After the Internet is shut down, the RIAA needs to shut down all radio stations because they're transferring copyrighted music over air waves, which can be recorded to cassette tapes and shared with others illegally! This madness must stop! The RIAA must shut down all electrical appliances because any electrical device with moving parts can generate an RF signal that can act as a carrier signal that can be used to transmit copyrighted music to others illegally. To that end, the RIAA must shut down all power stations to prevent this possibility!
Once the RIAA has succeeded, we can go out and purchase albums legally and without fear of doing something criminal. Even though there would be no way to actually *listen* to the music, we can all rest assure that the copyright won't be violated.
[end sarcasm]
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither!"
You raise some good points. However, I think that the real losers here include not only the Napster fans, but the recording industry, and the artists themselves.
I remember reading an interview with one of the Grateful Dead members about their efforts to set up a free archive of their works. The interview was particularly telling because it tackled the question of piracy of music and its effects on artists from a very non-RIAA perspective.
Basically, the Grateful Dead moved beyond tolerating piracy on the part of their fans (in an effort not to drive fans away) to actually appreciating it as a sort of free marketing. Note that the vast majority of the money that most artists make comes from performances and not from record sales.
The real napster issues are really complex and involve the following topics:
1: Unbalanced copyright law.
2: Exploitation of artists by the record companies.
3: Piracy.
Piracy is wrong because it continues to feed the unvalanced system. Copyright law was originally conceived to create a richer culture, not richer media moguls. An unballanced system causes the same sorts of damage as no copyright protection for literary works. This is why fair use is so important.
Piracy also has to potential to cause the same sort of damage by preventing literary works from being created in the first place.
The real issue is-- Napster was the symptom, not the problem, and the RIAA, etc. are strangling our culture (and themselves in the process) trying to enforce their warped view of copyright rights.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Can we find a new joke to make for any "death of Napster/Gnutella/KaZaa/P2P" news?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Im sick of hearing all these posts with people bitching about how cds are too expensive for them.
If you cant afford it new, why not buy used?
http://www.half.com is a great site for used cds, dvds, games, or whatever you want. You dont have to worry about some lamer throwing in a last second bid like on ebay, and you can easily get the cd you want in execlent shape for under $10.
I've been using AudioGalaxy, but I just read they are going to be sued, and presumably go under soon.
What is the easiest way to get MP3's now that doesn't have a company that can be sued?
I discovered a lot of stuff that I wouldn't have otherwise, and went out and bought the cds. Isn't that what they try to do with radio?
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Click here or here.
What happened to all there investors? Like those Bertlesman folks. Have they all bailed out?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Here's the thing; Napster isn't filing for bankruptcy as a result of government oppression or RIAA meddling or anything of the sort. They were simply a neat idea with no business merit at all. Napster:TOG was neat, and it was free... Maybe under the mistaken theory that they could get people addicted and then start charging $5 a month to the junkies to get access to the network. Not a workable solution, as we've all seen in the past, as free service after free service folded. They'd begin to realize that buying $5000 laptops for all their staff and cool cars for the execs didn't help the bottom line when there was no revenue at all. Ah, the post-IPO spending sprees.... Napster:TNG stood no better chance of making money. They were pinning everything on the BMG deal at the end, and as anyone knows, if your company only has one client, you're that client's bitch. N:TNG was effectively what resulted when the government and industry forced the company into the "charging" stage of a failing dot.com. Don't kid yourself that they'd have done alright if they'd been left to their own devices and moved to a subscription model on their own timing. People get pissy when they have to start paying for something that's always been free... Paying for Slashdot yet?
--- http://foo.ca
Saw a teaser last week and set my VCR: tonight (Monday) on CNBC (or is it M$NBC?) - 8:00 p.m. EST and 11:00 p.m EST - Kudlow & Cramer - "Has the Record Industry Blown It?" (or something like that). Sorry, couldn't find a link on their website and my skin was crawling just for being on an MSN site (especially one called moneycentral).
Are you gay?
Let me get this straight...they don't buy anything...they don't sell anything...they've only got one product that they made from scratch. Who do they owe? What did they buy?
This is not a surprise at all. Napster was OBVIOUSLY going to go under after they got shutdown. Who in their right mind thought that Napster would be able to provide a pay service while there's other services that offer music for free. I gotta say, some investors are really dumb. Why are people so stupid?
forget about unsigned artists, I'm talking about stuff you heard when you were a kid that you simply can't buy anywhere, but nice users out there either have a dubbed tape, or perhaps a rare CD, and have shared this song with others. I know there's been a file songs I know I can't just go buy at cdnow.com. If the record companies don't want to release it, then i guess I'll have to steal it :)
Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better.
Yeah and it's a good thing we caught Timothy McVeigh, cause now there's no more terrorism in America.
doesn't mean that they're gone. it means that they're under financial protection. it was part of the agreement to being bought out by BMG.
If they thought that was a tough nut to crack, wait till they try the other flavor of gnut.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
The shutdown of napster demonstrates that P2P networks have to be decentralized. However, things like Kazaa, morpheus or gnutella will never scale to millions of users, because they get overflooded by user requests. Why dont you try The Circle? It is a free p2p that uses a decentralized hashtable. It HAS the potential to scale to zillions of users, because a search query is answeresd in logarithmic time. see http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~pfh/circle/
If you read the bottom line of these corporate fatcats intentions (RIAA/MPAA), they'll soon have it so you can't whistle "Enter Sandman" in public without being arrested for copyright infringment. Just ask the Boy Scouts who were "asked" (by lawyers - RICH lawyers), not to sing certain copyrighted songs at Jamborees. What the hell kind of power are we giving these people??!!
Napster was the one single place you could find hard to find / impossible to find music. Many titles I downloaded were either out of print or only released to limited markets. It had nothing to do with a willingness to pay a reasonable price. It DID have to do with 1) Finding it in the first place 2) Not wanting to pay scalpers exorbitant amounts of money on Ebay for something that used to be found in the 99 cent bin.
Look, at my age (36, Grrr) what are the chances I'd be interested in the latest Eminem release? I like stuff that you just can't find in the music stores (anymore).
I recently heard it said best that Napster was like the Library of Congress; it was history, it was the future.
Many of the users (myself included) would have paid a reasonable fee for that kind of selection but the RIAA and MPAA want it ALL. So instead of a "one stop shop" for all your music, now you'll have a bunch of sites with only "their" artists charging $1.50 per song. Stupid? Very.
Chuck Hunnefield
Brilliant! It is sure to be releases in an electronic format. The 'illegal' distribution of which on Napster clones will generate so much interest even more hard copies will sell!
It's funny how libraries are rarely attacked, because the industry probably knows that if they did that, there's no way they could get their agenda through. Libraries offer more than books, most offer videos, cds, dvds, magazines, etc. for to people to borrow for free.
I'm glad that libraries are more protected that most places; especially with that required censorship bill being shot down a few days ago. (Although it will probably show up in the Supreme Court).
Without libraries I would have never learned how to code or read 1/2 the books I read. Many of which I now own, because they were such good books I wanted to be able to read them again and share them with other people such as my family or kids someday.
What?
And yes I can. Or are you claiming I can't read a book aloud in front of my son's kindergarten class?
--
E_NOSIG
Why is it that no one takes into account lost, stolen or obsolete media? There's no way in hell that I'm going to pay for stuff that I've paid for twice over. If I buy a Pixies album on cassette, then buy it on CD, CD gets scratched or stolen before it's ripped; do you think I would be foolish enough to fork over $20 more for the damn music again? No way. Oh, well, good thing I still have it on cassette. Damn, I don't have a cassette player anywhere in my house. Guess I'm screwed. At least I have the songs in my head. I'll just find a nice dark closet and sing them onto a dictation device, and then make a CD from that.
"Thoughts are more powerful than any weapon, and I don't even let my people own guns." --Joseph Stalin
Yea, well timelness is everything. Every time a brand new top selling book comes out, go ahead and try to find it at the nearest library. Try to find it not checked out.
When the newest movie comes out, go ahead and try to find it on TV at the same time. Of course! You have to wait about a year while all your friends brag about seeing it in the theaters.
Now take into effect the timelness of getting eminem's new CD before it comes out on shelf. All your friends are braging about having it, so you too go out and get a non-legit copy.
Again, timing is everything.
piracy may be gone, but at least some company isn't making a killing b/c of it.
If you don't backup your own media then you are the idiot.
Don't tell me nobody didn't see this coming
I ain't never gonna not tell you somthin' that won't never happen, noways.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
An idea I came up with a while ago was this: the main problem with the music industry IMO is that there is no competition. Yes, we all know that the Big-5 have a 80-95% lock on the physical distribution market, but they have no competition by virtue of the fact that they have absolute control over the content on which they have copyright, which MOCA would not (will not?) completely solve. MOCA would still rely on a "compulsory lisence fee" which someone would have to set. As an editorial in the Wall Street Journal a while back opposing MOCA said (I'm paraphrasing here), "Why require a compulsory license if the people doing the licensing still have a de-facto monopoly?" The only true solution would be to ammend copyright law to make everything enter the public domain after 10 years or so. But then the effective cost is 0, and no one gets paid, even if the performer or songwriter who wrote it might morally be entitled to something.
But what if there was competition? The Big-5 spend at leasat $100,000 on an album, but if you get together two or three people who can sing decently (or not so, in the case of boy bands), a MIDI person with decent hardware, and $500-1500 of recording equipment (remember that thread about Home-Brew Recording here many many moons ago?), I'd bet you could come up with something that sounded at least as good as the product the Bug-5 put out, if not better.
Then you figure out a way to license use of the music legally, from ASCAP or whoever holds the rights the music itself - not the mechanical rights to the recordings (if these are indeed different). Then we could have a truely competitive market place, with different players (litterally) creating slightly different products, all competing for the same end users. This is how a competitive marketplace is supposed to work - if I remember my Econ 101 correctly.
The only truely big if here is whether you could license the music legally - if you couldn't there would be absolutely no point in trying to do this illegally as the start-up costs are relatively hight.
Just wondering if anyone knows the answer to this, since this discussion has made me curious:
Is it illegal to record a radio broadcast, strip out the songs you want, and encode them as MP3s for personal listening?
So Napster is "dead". Well not dead but under financial protection. And the Hydra that is music sharing networks sprouts a few more heads. As we all know it won't end here. More file sharing networks will sprout up and it just won't end. The music industry will never stop whining.
All the music industry has to do is provide a product that the general populace cannot feasibly gain access too. Much Like Silver City Cinemas does for movies. Star Wars Episode II was already pirated and available on the Internet before it was even released. But still the movie industry was able to make a huge amount from the film.
The reason??? Easy. They were able to provide something the general populace could not provide for themselves: incredible sound, large screens, and comfortable seating. I can simply download movies and watch them on my PC but the theater is still better then the equipment I can cost effectively, have at home.
The music industry has to do the same thing with music. Give the people a reason to buy the cd. Stickers, Patches, Heck even a poster or T-shirt offer or something. Perhaps they can provide a "CD extra" CD like the special features DVD's you find in movies, with deleted scenes and special extras.
The music industry is fighting something they cannot stop. So why don't they evolve into something entirely different. Sell the populace something that they cannot provide themselves.
The movie industry has figured out a way to live even with movie piracy. So why can't the music industry figure it out too.
The Only Person Willing to be Me is ME!
Nothing to see here, people.
Rude Turnip, your analogy makes sense. Thank you for commenting here. Sorry you have to put up with all the Jerks who blast your LOGIC without stating anything productive, or logical that would debunk your argument. Don't mind the morons.
Well, I doubt Napster will recover well from this, but I just wanted to point out to everyone, as it appears there's a misunderstanding, that Chapter 11 does not mean the company is going out of business. Chapter 11 for a business is sort of like Chapter 13 for an individual - they're not getting rid of all of their debt, just making court-approved (and protected) payment arrangements. I work for a huge telecommunications company that filed Chapter 11 last month, and we seem to still be doing business just fine.
So the Chapter 11 isn't going to kill Napster.
What's going to kill them is the fact that they're going to try to charge people to download files they can download for free somewhere else.
I'm inclined to agree with you.
m y-house.
There are several dynamic forces at work here, and whenever you have dynamics, you don't have absolutism.
Negative forces:
Economic free rider problem: Person one pays for a good/service, and person 2..n benifits for free. The problem is that if a firm knows that only 1 person will purchase, then they either have to fully charge, or not produce.
Lack of control:
When you control a comodity, you have a monopoly and can have secondary incomes ($4 drinks at the movies, for example). It's not garunteed profit, but it always helps. Presumably if secondary income is great enough, you can even reduce the price of the main good (i.e. MS Windows, amusement park entrance fees, etc) to maximize revenue. The music industry has numerous secondary revenue's. Most importantly, control over what is a best seller. Radio-brainwashing and store-marketing are key to make a pre-determined best seller. Search-based music downloading removes promotional viability. The general effect of brain-washing is to produce die-hard fans. I suspect that research would show that a hardened fan will spend more dollars than a casual fan (I know many such people). Thus it pays to have a fully polarized population; no matter what particular artist they're obsessed with.
Open Market:
The more competitors, the lower the viable price. If new *good* artists choose not to sign with record companies (because of the generation alternative distributions), then there will be popular media titles outside the revenue streams of existing big media. Since there's a limit to the total capable media-expendatures (namely everybody's income scaled by some reasonable amount), this necessarily reduces the amount of existing media giant purchases.
Positive forces:
Better competition:
With the open-market item, more competition usually leads to more variety and better quality (though quality can go down when companies compete on price alone; but this doesn't seem to be the case in entertainment fields; there are enough consumers that are willing to pay premiums for entertainment).
Cheaper:
More efficient distributions means lower costs. (Don't have to print CDs, artists don't necessarily have to spend marketing dollars)
Less purchasing risk:
A negative effect of media marketing tactics is that you often purchase CDs which have minimal enjoyment (just as much as you knew it had to have, but not an ounce more; i.e. only liking a single song on a CD, sometimes less). A common tactic is bundling uninteresting goods with a single high-ticket item, and raising the price accordingly. MS learned this tactic well. With an search-based system, only the interesting media ever need be acquired. Thus the consumer would be less averse towards a given purchase (even if music is acquired for free, there is the economic cost of wasted bandwidth or time spent listening to bad music). Even if the consumer ultimately didn't like the media, they must have had some interest in acquiring it (word-of-mouth, flashy titles, etc).
Greater economic welfare:
Along with the above reduction in purchasing risk is the increase in the number of consumers that purchase what they want, which counts as increased utility. High economic welfare can be interpreted has having a greater level of total happiness.
Luxury utility:
Rational people maximize their time and minimize their frustration. This means that people are willing to make tradeoffs, such as exchanging money for services or goods that make their mundane work go faster, or go-away (such as hiring an accountant). Obviously, the more wealthy a person is, the more likely they'll spend money on simpler and simpler things (like parking a car). The same applies to the media industry. Some people will pay to not have to deal with burning a CD, or finding music, then downloading it. Beyond a certain point of wealth the time spent doing these things takes away from time working (e.g. physical loss of money) or in relaxing (time spent away from work). Thus there is a definite demand for the service of collecting media and making it readily available (such as a theater, the radio, or venues such as music stores (even online ones)).
Conscious:
Many people will obide by their conscious; feeling a desire to do good and support good things (such as artists that they like). It's the same as droping money into the hat of a street-musician. They too are plagued with the free-rider problem, but find some semblence of an income. In some european countries, you even have to audition to be allowed to perform in the subways (since it had a definite market). When you download trial-ware software, you're encouraged (on the honor system) to pay the author if you like it. A rational person will contribute since they know it'll encourage more such software which focuses on pleasing the consumer. The other aspect of consciousness is that when we go out of our way to circumvent a form of security, we know that's we're idealistically hurting someone else (if I sneak into someone's house, I'm hurting their sence of autonomy, whether they catch me or not). To continue with the act we either justify it (they make too much money anyway), live in shame or blow it off (usually a person that can casually blow things off tends to do so in all aspects of their life; psychologically being hardened). In general, the more good-willed a society is, the less hardened the people will be, and the less likely they'll have reasons to justify their free-rider position, equating to more good-will payments.
Media Quality:
Lets face it, currently MP3 isn't viable on hi-fi. It's possible to make this the case, but it's generally inaccessible to the majority of the population. How many people know how to hook up their computer to their stereo. How many people know how to turn downloaded MP3's into PCM files capable of saving onto a traditional audio-CD (playable on the hi-fi)? If a person doesn't care about the quality of highly compressed audio, and they have sufficiently high quality computer audio equipment, then this isn't an issue. But there are those (myself included) who are frustrated by _any_ popping or lack of quality due to audio-compression (or lack of full surround capability). Bandwidth is still too constrainted to acquire decent quality (DSL/cable only uploads at 15KBps), to say nothing of video quality. While this is only a temporariy issue (assuming we ever get to home gigabit down/upload streams), it still causes people like me to seek out legitimate DTS CDs, DVD-Audio, nearly-original-quality DVDs (meaning that even DVD does compress the video in sometimes noticable ways). Thus while I always try to make mp3 copies of my purchased CD's, I still make use of my originals in a CD-juke-box. Sure it lacks the flexibility of my mp3 jukebox, but this does not mean I don't have additional utility. Further, most people don't purchase RCA output jack-capable sound-cards (usually the Sound Blaster Gold series), so 1/8 connectors definately lose something over my fiber-optic CD-player-to-reciever with 14 gauge monster-wire-to-speakers-which-spread-throughout-
Tangibility:
There is a bizzar human essence (or psychosis if you like) that desires tangibility. People tend to not feel content unless they can regress to their childhood and physically feel some otherwise abstract concept. To hold a CD, to know that even if my computer crashes, I still have my "originals". To "own a house", or "own a CD collection", are irrational, yet undeniable urges. There are many subtle undertoning advantages to such tangibility, but our higher level mind simply attributes the "good" flag to it. Thus, even though we might download a Nine Inch Nails song, we might purchase the CD and the DVD-video just to "have it". I believe that this is probably the single biggest contributor to the napster golden age for the media giants.
Summary:
Negative. The only negative that affects society as a whole is the free-rider problem which ultimately says "don't produce".
Positive. There are natural financial markets in the media industry that counter-act the free-rider problem; namely good-will and quality-persistence (hi-fidelity), with the subtle tangibility aspect looming in the distance.
-Michael
It seems to be a far cry from the old days when the free software/open source movements were about letting the creators of a work choose the license and the distribution methods.
Apparently, some of us have decided that that is a freedom that should be reserved for some of us, and not for everyone.
If the large corporations in the music industry want to limit their distribution method and use antiquated licenses, we should respect their decision. They do not have a monopoly on music. There are alternatives and just as the open source community would prefer people using open source software, other musicians would like to get their music heard.
For once, lets consider treating others the way we want to be treated.
No Zen is good zen
Battle Strategy of the Evil Empire
This story was run on Yahoo! News today under the title "Napster Files Bankruptcy Under Bertelsmann Deal" which is misleading at first because it suggests to the reader that Napster is now dead when they have, in fact, been dead for many months now.
According to the article, at its peak Napster had approximately 60 million users. It is easy to identify the key to their success. They provided a way for the common non-technical computer user to locate and obtain practically any recorded music by practically any artist with little or no effort.
We all know it is true that stopping Napster did not put a halt to the trade of copyright music and media. However, the average non-technical computer user does not go to News Groups or IRC to obtain Mp3's, because most of them do not know how. Those of us that do know how find it just as easy to find what we are looking for now as we did when Napster was still functionally operational.
The Evil Empires use the legal system and their own economic power to crush their enemies and then assimilate them into their collective. Sound familiar? The very laws that are supposed to protect our freedoms and liberties are being leveraged to take those freedoms away from us and replace them with costly capitalist and controlled forms of expression by a few giant monopolies. Is it right to limit people's exposure to artistic forms of expression?
Assisting in the limitations on our exposure to culture and artistic expression are the major recording labels united in picking on children who download music and bringing down services such as Napster. Some of the major recording labels that were united against Napster are: AOL Time Warner / Warner Music, BMG Music, EMI Group, Sony Music, and Universal Music.
I wonder how many AOL users were and still are downloading MP3's? Maybe AOL should be sued and brought to their knees because they are, in fact, facilitating the propagation of copyrighted music. Both Napster and AOL are Internet technologies that may be used for either legitimate or illegitimate purposes. I don't see the distinction, do you?
You're comparing the act of sharing music with a group of Colonial outlaws destroying perfectly good, legally-taxed tea, a conspiracy to deprive Southern plantation owners of their property, and some guy claiming to be the Son of God preaching anti-government views?
Exactly. And God forbid that we should punish those who break the law after the event, rather than just letting them go free after they successfully establish a fait accompli.
It's amazing how many of the same people who cry foul over Microsoft and feel they should be annihilated are outraged at Napster receiving a similar treatment. Hypocrites.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
See subject.
Conscious? (about the music industry). And, tangability?? All your money isn't in paper bills but is just some number that you sometimes look at on paper or ATM screens or on your computer.
I say it's curtains for the music industry (as we know it).
Slashbots. For two reasons:
1) they are such dorks, that they couldn't get one even from her,
2) they don't get them, they give them.
Somewhere, a 6th grade English teacher just cried out in pain, and doesn't know why.
I once shot a man in Reno 'cause they cancelled Firefly.
And the obvious thing happened: The book publishing industry never sold another book, except to libraries.
When was the last time you went to the library, borrwed "War and Peace", photocopied it, bound it and *then* read it? Book copying doesn't happen because its a physical medium with dollar costs associated with duplication. It's the same reason Ford isn't pissed that Avis rents its cars -- what are you gonna do, copy it instead of buying your own?
the movie industry almost completely disappeared, except for sales to TV broadcasters.
Except that going to the movies is a totally different experience -- I don't have a 150ft screen or a room big enough to put it on in my house. Going to a movie is an experience -- out of the house, seeing a "current" film -- TV can't eliminate the experiential aspect of it or duplicate the significant physical differences of the big screen.
When people found that they could record perfectly good movies on video tape, they stopped paying for movies
Most people can't set the clock on their one VCR, let alone hook two up for dubbing. And it still begs the question as to where the source material comes from. Most people are too busy working, raising their kids, doing other stuff to bother with trying to dub movies -- they go to the rental store for $1 and rent something they feel like watching from a huge catalog of movies.
I agree with your prinicpal, but at least draw defendable analogies.
Make the alcohol illigal and get bootlegers rich, make a pack of smokes cost 50 bucks and see the smuggling become a major business model. There is something deeply wrong with the music industry if such a simple idea is damaging it so badly as they say. Untill they change - P2P will never stop.
And I do not believe that we will not have a good artists if they will not be making millions. Real artist is not hard to make sing, real artist is hard to shut up.
If you strike us down, we will become far more powerful than you imagined....
now instead you have many more options these days.
After all they did contribute the most by making the most widespread operating system software that easily allows laypersons to pirate copyrighted works.
Young is largely a matter of attitude.
If I weren't busy being political and trying to deprive the RIAA of my money, I'd likely be back into music more. It isn't that I've out-grown or out-aged music. It's that at the moment, I have elected not to re-engage with its corporate side.
What I really think indie music is missing is a good way to find it, and to find some that I'd like. A *good* radio DJ/station is good, in that you will get some stuff you like, some stuff you might like, and take along with it some stuff you probably won't like. Learning to like something new is well worth hearing a few things you don't like. Right now my main source of this is NPR music reviews.
I'd like to find the same type of thing for indie, to steer my way toward new things with a decent chance of liking it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Honestly the real reason they want to shut down P2P is because they know we can get music other than this overpriced forcefed brittney (slut as whore claiming to be virgin) spears. N suck and backdoor boys crap. I haven't once downloaded an mp3 from their precious off the rack sales I get stuff like J pop, classical, game music, and classic rock that just isn't on the radio or in the stores anymore or never was in the first place. I refuse to buy this shit they're trying to pass off as music. in fact you couldn't pay me to listen to it. In general people with so little individuallity that they actually listen to this shit are probably stupid enough to go pay for it anyway. The airwaves could go blank and the CD stores could empty and I just wouldn't care.
on a recently aired episode of MTV cribs, they profiled the house of music group "O-town". i think they are a boy band of sorts. the part that stuck out at me was during one band members tour of his room he decided to crack open his cd book and show his collection. while flipping through you could clearly see several burned cds. granted o-town isnt a real musical ensemble...they are part of the music industry out to get you evil music pirating heathens
What it means, from the music industry's point of view, is that it needs to gain more political clout in the Netherlands -- and anywhere else where court cases go against it.
The moment it thinks it can be reasonably sure it will face a judge appointed by politicians beholden to it, it will try again with another court case, and another. It will keep trying until it succeeds, or until it crashes and burns in the flames of its own unsound business practices and no longer has the money to buy politicians.
We can hope for temporary victories; we can ultimately hope for the latter; but we won't *ultimately* win this one in the courts or the legislatures.
That's just the problem - you can get anything on KaZaa, from music to kiddie porn to instructions for building a nuclear bomb. Napster was like your favorite music store; KaZaa is kinda like the back alley.
As a parent of young kids, I can tell you it was tough keeping them off of Napster - it was easy, compelling, and mostly safe. The whole school yard buzzed with talk of Napster. Napster was driving kids to tell their folks to get higher speed lines. It was hard to fight Napster on the basis of the copyright issue alone when "everybody was doing it."
But not many parents of an 8 year old will let them play with KaZaa - it's simply over the line. It's not about copyrights, it's about all the other issues: exposure to *way* illegal stuff, exposure to *way* indecent stuff. Yeah, by the time they're in high school maybe I won't care so much, but for my kids that's years away. Who knows what'll happen in 5 years?
"AFAICT neither God nor god created me..."
It makes no difference whether you think God created you or not; He did. Just like it makes no difference whether you believe in gravity or not; whether you believe in it or not, it exists.
"...but it's no business of mine to force my bigotry on anyone else when it's not relevant. The same goes for you."
It's not bigotry, it's respect.
Whether it's Buddah, Allah, God, The Constitution, Intel Corp., or Tom Cruise -- they all get capitalized.
The extended analogy:
The fallacy of the Extended Analogy often occurs when some suggested general rule is being argued over. The fallacy is to assume that mentioning two different situations, in an argument about a general rule, constitutes a claim that those situations are analogous to each other.
Here's real example from an online debate about anti-cryptography legislation:
"I believe it is always wrong to oppose the law by breaking it."
"Such a position is odious: it implies that you would not have supported Martin Luther King."
"Are you saying that cryptography legislation is as important as the struggle for Black liberation? How dare you!"
The extended analogy:
The fallacy of the Extended Analogy often occurs when some suggested general rule is being argued over. The fallacy is to assume that mentioning two different situations, in an argument about a general rule, constitutes a claim that those situations are analogous to each other.
Here's real example from an online debate about anti-cryptography legislation:
"I believe it is always wrong to oppose the law by breaking it."
"Such a position is odious: it implies that you would not have supported Martin Luther King."
"Are you saying that cryptography legislation is as important as the struggle for Black liberation? How dare you!"
well all is said and done for the people that dont understand that chapter 11's can be a blessing to a company. if you dont have enough money to run the company you go chapter 11 and you have a slime chance but you do have a chance to bounch back. microsoft crony's and the like that want it to be all done and over with are sending out the message the Napster is done for. go to http://www.business.gov/busadv/frame.cfm?urltest=h ttp://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/09930861.ht ml&catid=365&urlplace=maincat.cfm
to read more.
Careful what you say around me.. I will assume you mean it.
If I buy a Pixies album on cassette, then buy it on CD, CD gets scratched or stolen before it's ripped; do you think I would be foolish enough to fork over $20 more for the damn music again?
Doesn't matter. It's still copyright infringement for you to download it from napster.
you must get visually nauseous when thinking about any kind of professional sport, then...
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
When (insert technology here) is outlawed, only outlaws will have (insert same technology here).
now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better.
:)
together?
b3d, riaa, napster. in one biggie sized orgy.
this is even better than interacial pr0n!
The music industry was created some hundred years ago by advances in technology. This allowed for first the creation and then the evolution of the current corporations. That said, it is apparent that these corporations have no divine right to existence, if technology evolves either their business model will need to evolve or they will become extinct. I think they realize that but are taking the dinosaur's approach instead of the primates. They are fighting it and not trying to adapt to it. They will probably (hopefully) suffer the same result: extinction. Even so you really can't brgrudge them trying to survive because that's what the battle is really all about, survival.
KaZaa just went under last week, too. Hell, it was even reported (okay, cut-and-pasted) on slashdot. So, you can fire up KaZaa all you want, but you won't get much from it.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I am not making that comparison.
I am incredulous to anyone comparing copyright infringement on Napster to such an event. I never said the Boston Tea Party, anything Jesus did, or the freeing of the slaves was legal at the time. Actually, I did not discuss it at all.
I merely questioned the sanity of someone that wanted to compare copyright infringement to events of that magnitude. Oh, and fancy phrases will not candy-coat the ENORMOUS magnitude of difference there is in claiming to OWN a human, to feed or not, violate sexually or not, let live or not, to STEALING music. Music theft is what I would term petty. It is stupid.
I also never claimed to AGREE with the copyright laws. All I claimed was that they ARE laws, and stated that the correct way around the problem was to get the law changed!!! Breaking the law is NOT going to get it done. Wake up.
Although the parent's author uses what reads like slightly broken english, I dont' think i've ever seen this point more well put.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I'm sorry, I'm sure you're a smart guy and all, but P2P is hardly comparable to terrorism, especially in this case.
This is more like sueing U-Haul until they go out of business because you can carry fertilizer bombs in their trucks.
Same as Slashdot is not responsible for the comments posted because they where NOT POSTED by Slashdot, Napster was not responisble for the illegal MP3s posted on their service because they where NOT POSTED by Napster.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
...to bad rubbish. Napster was an ill-conceived, useless piece of tripe.
I suppose their one saving grace was that they demonstrated very completely how NOT to set up P2P services.
"Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better."
HA, u funny!
Even if it is, which isn't clear, it's a stupid law.
If laws don't reflect the will of the majority, they're stupid laws. People ignore stupid laws.
If companies want fair treatment from consumers, they need to treat them fairly. If they buy a law (like Disney and copyright extensions) that allows them to cheat consumers, they should be suprised to see consumers with no concern about cheating them.
Ignore a law today!
"now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better"
Is that sarcasm I detect, CmdrTaco?
I certainly do not condone piracy, but I think that the RIAA is a little obsessive.
But if I put myself in their shoes, I probably would be, too.
PayPal $$ if you sign up for free offers (eBay, cred cards, e
Fortunately, in some places, the law is actually comprehensible to the average man, and it isn't necessary to pay just to read your own laws. We prefer to keep them in the interests of justice rather than lining the pockets of lawyers serving international corporations, y'see.
While you may have a Home Recording Act that may or may not allow Napster-like behaviour, other places certainly don't. In the UK, for example, you can't arbitrarily copy a music track just because you own a recording of it in some form. (This may or may not be a good decision, but it is the decision. I help run a dance club in my spare time; trust me, I'm no lawyer, but I'm quite familiar with UK law in this respect.) There is pretty much no scope at all for claiming that Napster wasn't abused under UK law, which essentially operates on a "copyright owner must give explicit permission" sort of basis.
Now, if Napster are operating out of the US, this raises the as-yet-unsolved problem of jurisdiction on the Internet. But my point is that in some places it is cut and dried that Napster was facilitating the breaking of the law. Granted I said "our legal systems" without being aware of the possible ambiguity under US law, but elsewhere that ambiguity may be no more plausible than "I don't know if I can shoot someone dead at 5pm on a Thursday night from 13.64m away, because no-one's ever done exactly that before". You can just turn around and point to clear, unambiguous legislation that makes it illegal.
Ah, baloney. Napster was a blatant attempt to capitalise on the Internet bubble and people's intense desires to rip things off. The only people who refuse to acknowledge this are those who've saved a fortune by pirating material they should have paid for, who are seeking some legal basis to justify their own actions because they know damn well that what they did was morally wrong.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Occasionally the book publishing industry does try and nibble away at libraries' privileges. They mostly lose because of the wonderful image libraries tend to have. There have been /. stories in the past on just this point (somebody else can dig them up if they're interested).
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Napster went Chapter 11 (i.e. "reorganization"). Translation: They are not gone yet (as a company). Consider this a lesson in bankruptcy law. (One which many dot-com'ers are learning.)
Warning: the RIAA (money grubbing toe jam eatting)is now going after BIC pen thiefs. They say you must buy a new pen after each use or this would be defeating copy protection.. which is.. See DCMA (Horse shit law) Wait... this is it. if you right a song with a BIC pen does BIC own the song truely. This would be true sence if you did not have the tool to write the song which BIC provides you the means to write it on paper (one other route) that means BIC would own the rights to the lyrics. Not the record company... or the artist. When will this stop when i just stop buying music from artist that support this... well.. that has aready happend. I now look up the cd now and don't buy it if they have copy protection on it.. humm loss of cash to whom... just the record company and artist... humm more money in my pocket. makes me go get more stuff for my house (which increases in value) Not a CD i throw away after 2 or 4 years.. Point: Record companies think they will win (illusion: they need to start drug running they would be good at it. if they don't like how much crap they shove down your mouth they make a law that tells you you need more..(to protect there intrests)nevermind that drugs are bad for you. dont worry child it will be ok just line my pockets full of money and rip off the artists with shitty contracts) I just like how much money you all are saving me not buying any new cd's keep it up i will beable to redo my roof on my house in a few months. (increase my value of my house...hehe money in my pocket..)
Show me the money RIAA
BIC don't own this one baby...
Say there is an ISP. This ISP has a reputation for being friendly to spam. In fact, spammers are queueing up for miles to sign up. Even though there are non spammers too, it's the spammers that get noticed.
So if you're a spam recipient, and getting sick of all this, what do you do? Either the ISP isn't restricting spam in its terms of service, or is choosing to simply ignore its terms of service and turn a blind eye to abuse. It may even be encouraging abuse in the way it promotes itself to prospective customers.
Now this fictional ISP would be almost universally condemned here on Slashdot. But change the subject to Napster and spam to copyright infringement and all of a sudden the viewpoint changes.
Let's face it, Napster was harbouring a load of copyright infringement, and became known even to non geeks as _the_ place to download copyrighted music. It's only fair that they got shafted.
He was just trying to provide examples to support his ending generalization - just because he used those examples does not mean they are on par with music sharing.
What he meant to say is that that tenet applies to everything, whether it be as big as jesus or as small as music file sharing.
And I tend to agree. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong.
Clear enough for ya?
And if you do, you'll be (or soon will be) breaking the law. Thats the point. Not every country allows "copies for fair and reasonable use".
Defending stealing is wrong...
Go tell that to someone else pal, just piss off annoying others with your morals or talk things with their real names: copying, and sharing.
it's their property, and they get to decide what to do with it.
"They" are waving their infuriating "property" in front of our noses, playing it everywhere, spewing retarded ads about it and when somebody decides to "make'em pay" by spreading their "property" for free so that at least they don't get paid for that shit, you come in and yell: "STEALING!". Well, fuck you.
Copying is all about sharing stupid music to infatiles who don't "get it" any other than the way MTV presents it: nude chicks singing badly along with feeble tunes. Copying is a statement saying that Britney Spreads and Backdoor Boys don't deserve anything for what they have done. Well maybe they deserve to get spanked.
Laws aren't there to guide us. You've got to understand this: laws only tell the probable outcome of some special situtations. Laws aren't morals, you must make your own desicions.
Figure that out yourself. I know you can.
check out crime rate statistics in states like NH and Maine, where owning a handgun is easy. They are soooo much lower than in other states where it takes an act of congress to get one.
;)
;)
Fortunately for the New Hampshire crime rates, they don't count what Jeb did with his sister-mother
(just kidding...
When was the last time you went to the library, borrwed "War and Peace", photocopied it, bound it and *then* read it? Book copying doesn't happen because its a physical medium with dollar costs associated with duplication.
:), (and I eventually did find a secondhand paperback about 3 years later) but it was at least 20 years out of print at the time, and I would have had no chance of finding it in a bookshop. Borrowing wasn't an option, for some reason I forget -- I probably needed it for longer than the two weeks I'd be able to have it, and there were other people waiting to borrow it, or something like that.
:/
I photocopied most of a book once at the university library -- maybe 200 pages or so. Obviously I would have bought it if I could, to avoid RSI from operating the damn ohotocopier if nothing else
Total cost of photocopying was probably close to A$9.00, and the book must have cost me about A$2.50 when I did eventually find it.
Obviously, if the information is important enough, (some) people will do it... in fact I think libraries are actually allowed to, at least in this country, for out-of-print books -- I was always seeing a few of these on the shelves, with photocopied 'out of print' letters from the distributors stapled to the front.
deus does not exist but if he does
s/News for nerds, stuff that matters/Flogging dead horses for a better tomorrow/
deus does not exist but if he does
Perhaps because you walked in wobbling across the floor, he could see you holding the car keys and your Porsche in the car park, and then he served you anyway, even when your mates warned him that you were going to drive home?
What the hell kind of mates would let a you drive drunk?
The same sort that drive Porsches I guess.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.