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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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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 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.
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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
I really want a Humvee, but I probably couldn't even afford the tires for one. Does that mean it's ok if I just rip one off at the lot?
This is comparing apples to oranges. When you steal a Humvee, someone will be missing that Humvee. When you share a copyrighted song, no one is missing the song. The record label MAY be missing revenue based on that song, provided that you were going to buy it in the first place. I'm not saying that trading copyrighted MP3s is right (the RIAA certainly doesn't think so), but if you are going to make a "you steal from me" comparison, you need to be using the correct context.
Oh, and to the original starter of this thread, there is a license for the "GPLing of music": the Open Audio License.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
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
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.