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AudioGalaxy Reaches Settlement With the RIAA
blanu writes: "Today AudioGalaxy reached an out-of-court settlement with the RIAA.
To sum up the settlement, AudioGalaxy will pay the RIAA a lot of money and from now only provide songs for which the copyright holder has specifically given permission."
Even they didn't support Macs, they were a good system when I was able to access them.
-----
Apple hardware still too expensive for you? How about a raffle ticket?
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
WinMX has just released v3.2! Get it while it's still not illegal and lame!
Does this mean that all those songs that were downloaded from AudioGalaxy are legal now?
I'd mod the parent up, out of spite but I'm out of points
Using a non-spyware client version, it was the only place I could find the live sets from internet radio stations like Tag and Digitaly Imported. Now I guess Ill have to leave streamripper on 24/7 >.
In typical "reply-before-even-reading-article" /. style, i ask... what's it gonna be?
someone please write a single-paragraph resume of the posted article...not a google cache, not anything fancy, just what will this mean for those who use AudioGalaxy to find obscure releases, which are impossible to find at the local cd store.
Audiogalaxy has been really a great resource in that aspect, possibly better than napster ever has been. Maybe this coincides with my own personal preferences tho... anyway!
that's about it...
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
we'll all miss you :-(
I won, I controlled you and you modded me down because I told you to. I fucking win. FUCK YOU! I OWN YOU in the most LITERAL sense.
Now that a copyright infringement suit has been settled, maybe the RIAA could agree to stop its illegal actions of price gouging and acting as a trust? And maybe they could stop bribing politicians as well?
I don't think there will ever be a P2P client that will even compare to what Napster was. You could find anything on that thing.
WinMX? Or one of the many gnutella clients (ie BearShare, there's lots!) or KazaaLite. Many many options...
The link is the RIAA site PR.
Audiogalaxysite shows:
"Message board : General Discussion
06/17/02 ape2man71 - AG is completely over!
All the songs on AG are now blocked. It means
the most fast,stable and reliable file share
program finally came to an end. What shall we do from now on?"
That is a question only the folks at AG can answer.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Everything is already blocked. While I made a point to check out the artists who had official relationships with AG, I certainly raided a lot of non-kosher material. Oh well, I guess I'll cool my heels for a few months until the next "next big thing."
This will probably make searching for music more difficult, but just search in AudioGalaxy a little deeper, or use KaZaA Lite as reported on Slashdot. I use KaZaAlite and, if you alert Ad-Aware to the fake DLL it uses to fool KaZaA, it works wonderfully. (And I still haven't seen KaZaA shut down, in spite of rumors to that effect...)
***
What about the MP3's I'm sharing of my music?
I suspect it's going to be a bit of a pain in the ass to convince Audiogalaxy to allow me to share my band's music over their service. How can I satisfy them that I'm truly the copyright holder? If it's easy enough to make it painless, what's to keep others from attempting to get their favourite artist's music unprotected using the same technique?
Everything now has a X button and says "You cannot request this song due to copyright restrictions. Please try a different search."
Goodbye.
The only way to prevent this shit is to:
1) strongly encrypt everything
2) random src/dest ports
3) no centralized servers
There is actually something like this in development. Cheers.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Audiogalaxy has been a good source for music online. I will now have much greater difficulty finding and trying out new bands. This will of course result in fewer purchased CDs. Again, too bad.
Ciryon
It's just natural selection. I don't like to see the recording industry score another point, but this will help stimulate peer-to-peer development.
Wait until the RIAA discovers NNTP, or IRC. Soon we won't be able to chat or recieve news in the name of copy protection.
I wonder what the RIAA would do if they found out that you could copy a CD and use a car to transport it.
DOWN WITH CARS!!!
m0rph
Before, the artists could get their stuff pulled from listings (opt-out), but now they explicitly allow it (opt-in).
So... they settled to do just what it seems they were doing before the lawsuit. Only now, they are less the settlement money.
Isn't is "wonderful" how the world works?
Wow. Is it just me, or has every single song on audiogalaxy just been yanked? Other than featured artists, everything seems to be "permission denied".
I *know* that there's indie stuff being shared that *was* okay to be posted (all of the SXSW demos, for example) but are now "permission denied" even though the artist in question has made the MP3s freely available.
Soooo, at a whim, the RIAA can chmod -r all songs offered through audiogalaxy, even those that they have no control over?
And thus, this sad chapter of history has ended. No longer can rufians download music on the internet, making the delivery channels of CD, tape, and vinyl the only channels, ensuring that the copyright holders recieve their fair compensation. The brief period of anarchy is at last over, likely forever.
Or, possibly, just possibly, decentralized services with no way to be shut down are still around, and will always be around, and the RIAA is trying to close the cell doors after the inmates have already taken over the prison.
Well, good luck to them. As they kill those services that have any sort of control mechanism in place, all that will remain is those services that they can't control, which are precisely those services which can't be used to make money for the publishing industry. What may have taken a decade of evolution from central-controlled P2P to fully-distributed P2P is being encouraged to take place in a couple of years. The dinosaurs aren't just being replaced by mammals, they're encouraging them to do it as quickly as possible.
Replying to myself:
I just checked AudioGalaxy and it WOULD indeed apear that, as of right now, not a single song is downloadable. Since that is the case, I'd suggest switching to KaZaAlite (www.kazaalite.com) or some such.
Or just wait for the next file-sharer. Napster's dead. Maybe AudioGalaxy is now too. That doesn't mean another software system won't pop up shortly. (And I repeat my recomendation of Kazaalite!! It's adware and spyware FREE!!!)
Great, AudioGalaxy is legal now. So what? If you consider their peering model, wherein clients act like sub-servers in an availability matrix you'll find that their network capacity and bandwidth redudancy weren't all that great to begin with. Now, with reduced storage load and increased end-user demand it will only get worse. Good bye, AudioGalaxy.
Audiogalaxy, as proficient user, was lightyears ahead of Napster and way way beyond Kazaa & the crowd. When you had it working for you, it would provide the most amazing music sent TO you by groups of people with similar interests, guaranteed to be good. Their biggest liability was that they didnt have the money to compete with the RIAA. They're not in violation of anything besides listing whats on your hard drive; but legally, it would take millions to prove a simple point. All they ever sold was AG t-shirts. God bless them for trying; music will be as free as language (look at us reading without paying $$ for it) some day. No executive deserves 500k/yr for making children behave like Britney Spears. Fuck 'em for being soulless, immoral and soon to be dead.
Better than Napster, very much oriented to the music fan. I found out more interesting obscure and old stuff there. Where else could I find stuff by "Sex With Lurch" and Red Prysock in the same session?
Tried Limewire recently in anticipation of this. Not the same.
I'd like to see this:
Today AudioGalaxy reached an out-of-court settlement with representatives of a class-action spyware suit. To sum up the settlement, AudioGalaxy will pay the spyware victims a lot of money and from now only provide programs for which the user has specifically given permission for the program to install"
Didn't they only provide songs that the copyright holder gave them permission for? From what I've heard and seen, Audiogalaxy removed songs that were copyright violations quite quickly, and had filtering software that blocked them from coming back.
Basically the settlement should read: AudioGalaxy settles with RIAA, buys protection, and avoids cement boots, and Guido.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
In compliance with the RIAA's wishes, Audiogalaxy.com has made its service almost totally useless, paid out most of its funding in fines, and ensured that the great percentage of its users have fled to another, as-yet-unknown, music sharing system.
Film at eleven.
When Napster was bombarded by suits and started to slowly die, many of the users moved to Morpheus (known as MusicCity at the time and running their own OpenNap network, IIRC). So who did the RIAA attack? Kazaa/Morpheus, of course.
AudioGalaxy is yet another of those sued by the industry, and yet another source of music is destroyed. What will this mean for users of the service?
They'll move to another service, such as BearShare, iMesh, or WinMX. Very few of them will bother finding true alternative sources, such as IRC channels or FTP servers. And what does RIAA do best? Look for popular services and nuke them.
This is in no way a flame towards those who decide to move to other services - however, it just seems to be becoming a trend for the RIAA to hurt larger services first.
RIAA
They certainly think they are, because they seem to be "representing" bands that are unsigned
So are they going to stump up the cash to these indie bands? ho ho ho.
Can some of these indie band file a class action lawsuit against the RIAA for anti-trust ?
Just a thought... IANAL
If the RIAA was indeed ripped off, so were the artists. So will the artists receive any money from this?
In case you haven't been paying attention
THESE MOFOS ARE GOING TO TRY AND DO THIS TO THE ENTIRE INTERNET
Filtering of all content, on the backbone, to remove anything without DRM flags indicating it's OK to transmit is both technically feasible and completely coherent with increasing government demands to be back in control of the internet.
Welcome to the future of the internet: we call it television, and we'll tell you what you can see!
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
If I ruled the RIAA, I'd go after Morphius and Kazaa next. Not because of the music problem, but because of all the crap, buth known an unbeknownst to the users of their software.
Please, shut them down!
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Once again, another "son of Napster" goes down due to an insanely high public profile. Makes you wonder if the RIAA will ever realize where the REAL damage is being done. IMHO, the RIAA won't be able to pinpoint the problem and will ultimately fall as more and more artists realize what power they actually have thanks to MP3/OGG/etc.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the net, millions upon millions of files are being swapped every day, right under the RIAA's nose. Looks like the "All-Knowing, All-Seeing, Hand-Of-God-Laying-The-Smackdown" is a little blind, deaf and dumb yet. And to think they're being undercut by three little letters...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I got this when trying to look at the press release on RIAA's web site:
>HTTP Error 403
>
>403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
Sums up their whole approach really.
I had quite a giggle when I could name all the CD's based on the parts of them that showed around the post-it. I hope it was done not only to avoid entanglements, but also in humor. Kinda like a scrambled pr0n, you can get the whole picture from a little piece of it. I just have to worry about having broken Tom's encryption scheme by figuring it out.
Maybe if you listened to the scrambled music these CDs play you can appreciate the entire sound. Well, no, that's just stupid. So it's not like scrambled pr0n cause I don't enjoy it - more like a girl's phone number that you wrote on your hand and accidentally rubbed off the last 2 numbers.
A bit wandering, but hopefully stimulating in some non-nauseating way.
...up the ass.
I give you permission to share our songs.
Love,
Metallica
Great Linux Site
Now, the last service that was usable, fast and didn't want to know your mothers maiden name (and probably the rights to it too) is being screwed offline. I have been using this service since it started and the linux client works wonders and it is fast and doesn't want you to share your whole hard drive (read: morpheus).. Oh, this makes my heart sink... grr.. now I'm mad...
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
"The message is clear - there is no place on the Internet for services that exploit creators' work without fair compensation." --Edward Murphy, NMPA
.001% of the dollars on an executive's quarterly report. That's the value of music, kids.
Of course. The recording industry would much rather let the record labels, executives, managers and lawyers do the exploiting of musicians, as always.
"This is a victory for everyone who cares about protecting the value of music," said Hilary Rosen, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA.
And by value, she means dollars, not musical or technical merit. But she doesn't mean the dollars spent in "payola" fashion to radio directors who decide which songs are put into rotation in key markets (and you thought your phone calls and emails picked which songs got played)... nor does she mean the dollars spent on flawed copy-protection schemes. She means
I'm left to wonder; where's the AG press release?
My wife was trying to download a Strokes song using Kazaa Lite and it was slow going (as usual), so I bet her I could DL it on Audiogalaxy in less than 2 minutes. So I search for it and find it quick enough, with a message saying that I'm not allowed to search for this file due to copyright infringement!
I thought it was my third party Mac client (Sputnix) being blocked, so I hopped over to my PC and tried it there, only to find the same results. OK, my 2 minutes were almost up... A quick look at the message boards finds the press statement from earlier today. DAMN - I'm not pissed that they pulled Audiogalaxy, 'cause there's a million of these services popping up every time one goes down (I found a great network - DirectConnect - from looking at the AG Message board), but what pissed me off is that I lost my bet to my non-technical WIFE. Those M'er F'ers!!!!
Needless to say I installed the program DirectConnect (http://www.neo-modus.com) and had the song Dl'ed in less than 15 minutes from the start of my bet, but that was 13 minutes too late!
Sound waves should be free!
What is AG going to do now that all the gold members paid. My coworker paid $15 for the gold membership 3months ago, and he still has 3months left. I smell a large refund of many users coming on. AG is skrewd.
you're the worst slashdot editor.. along with hypocrite michael
I believe that now is the right time to unleash a file-sharing IIS worm! What are they going to do? Drag Microsoft and thousands of NT server owners to court for providing software for file sharing?
Is this the beginning of a new business model for the RIAA? The steps:
1. Someone starts a p2p service.
2. Users of said service trade copyrighted material.
3. RIAA sues said service to prevent copyright infringement along the service's (virtual) pipes.
4. Service pays RIAA, files bankruptcy slightly later.
5. Goto step 1
Hmm, is it just me or is this a *really* big waste of venture capital and angel investing? You are paying the RIAA for the ability to trade priviledged material. The thing is, your copy is still illegal and someone is picking up your tab.
-Sean
no fret, audiogalaxy is still worth using... The copywright laws dont work for groups. All you have to do is join a bunch of groups and just take the songs from the people there. Theres no song blocking in the groups. I would suggest to use this to our advantage.
...cause the same thing worked *so* well for Napster!
AudioGalaxy is dead.
I strongly believe this is an unacceptable settlement. An acceptable settlement is one where a business arrangement is reached whereby both parties benefit from the agreement. For example, a deal whereby some small fee is paid to the RIAA for each copy of a song downloaded or sold, in exchange for RIAA marketing muscle supporting the scheme. This would most likely bring more benefits to both parties than the current scheme, which will screw over AudioGalaxy and give no extra profit to the RIAA.
Conclusion? The boring, gray-haired old men in charge of the RIAA have absolutely no imagination whatsoever. Only a lot of greed. And greed is their downfall. Case in point: If music (and indeed, other "content" such as movies) was sold for much cheaper, I believe the RIAA would increase volumes tremendously and make more profit than under the current scheme, where laws are passed left and right to protect the alleged right of the RIAA to eternal profit. Suppose an album you wanted cost $8.00 to $10.00 (USD), rather than the outrageous $18.00 that many albums cost nowadays. I believe that most people would find it so much more convenient to buy an album than to download 300 copies of a song in search of a good quality rip. Further, I think that music should be sold online, for extremely low prices. An album that sells for $8.00 in the store might go for $2.00 if downloaded, as the buyer doesn't get a nice shiny CD, case, booklet, and all kinds of other stuff. The copy available at the store would include all sorts of cool stuff (including coupons to direct customers to other music they might like), giving people a good reason to actually buy the music.
Finally, I think everyone should fight for their fair use rights. If you buy a CD, you should be allowed to make as many copies as you want for your own use. For example, I never take my original CDs into my car, as they could get jacked or lost or melted in the heat or something. It would be even more convenient if my stereo played MP3 CDs, so I could put all my albums on a few discs and not have to endanger myself and others while driving to change CDs around.
But like I said, those idiot gray-haired old geezers in control of the RIAA have no style or imagination. They're a bunch of boring old men with no goal in life other than to make themselves appear elevated by crushing others.
How am I supposed to look busy at work now?
Please forgive my ingorance. What do you recommend for downloading stuff. Most people Kazza, but I understand that has "spyware." (I'm not sure what that does.) Any feedback would be appreciated.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
God damn those dickshitting chancre-eating mongo fuckers!
Last night I heard a great new artist on a shoutcast station (another non-approved media outlet that they're trying to shut down) and today when I go to sample a couple more tracks, I find everything is locked up.
Audiogalaxy was truly the best. It had just about every non-mainstream artist I'd ever heard of and then some. I've been buying CDs for the past two years exclusively based on stuff I've been able to sample from them.
Compared to Audiogalaxy, Gnutella, Limewire and Kazaa users have nothing but crap. You might as well try and shop for interesting music at Walmart.
Mainstream media can go BUTTFUCK ITSELF IN THE MOUTH. I'm still going to try and find stuff that gooses my juices but it's going to be harder to find and I won't therefore be buying as much. Not that the RIAA gives a bearded hag's ass--they only notice when someone buys the ten godzillionth unit of some spastic fucking living dead Franken-pop they sewed together out of Elvis Presley's anal warts and scraps from the dumpster out back Michael Jackson's plastic surgery disaster clinic.
Fuck. I reiterate, FUCKKK.
G
There are a number of p2p systems out there that are gaining in popularity fast, however, I'll leave you to do your own research. 'Tis better to keep such things relatively unknown for as long as possible. In the filesharing world, popularity = death, it seems.
Well, another mainstream MP3 search util is about to suck. Between this and the RIAA trying to get a share of every used CD sale, I'm wondering why the US government hasn't stepped in and smacked their peepee. They'll stomp all over Microsoft for having a monopolistic control of computers, doesn't this fall under the same, or similar, category?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
if they're non mainstream and therefore non RIAA, would they not have the ability to give AG permission to distribute? "Opt in" is a phrase that comes to mind.
sulli
RTFJ.
AG doesnt block groups with all that bullshit. Join the group R*AA can burn in hell and there wont be any copywright bullshit laws.
we can all be happy and everyone will get the songs they want.
Audiogalaxy is not dead. Problem Solved.
R*AA can burn in hell
I know it's a novel concept around these parts...
- 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?"
looks like i got my jewel bootleg from woodstock just in time. ;)
Producer: NEXT!!
Ralph Wiggum: Chicken necks
Ik really hope that gnutella will get better so that everyone will use it, since it is probably impossible to stop since it works without central server. I really loved audiogalaxy, expecially for obscure music, exotic remixes and lesser known classical music. Hate to see it die. But that's the napster way I guess..
way to work that dorky unix shit in there, Erwin!
The RIAA is making matters worse. If they truely think that the internet is responsible for them losing money, the worst thing they did was sue companies involved out of business.
If the RIAA had figured out a way of turning Napster/Audio Galaxy into a business, then the majority of music downloaders would be there using the service legitimately.
What has happened instead, is they shut down the popular way of getting music. The result is that the people hooked on this service are going to go underground and acquire music through alternative means. If they can't get music from Kazaa, then they'll head to IRC or other de-centralized sources.
They basically blew up the central location for music swapping, forcing everybody into smaller cells. Now, if the RIAA does ever provide a service, few people will head towards it.
Oops. Songs will still get traded, but now the RIAA has little to no hope of ever getting money for it. I'd feel sorry for them if they didn't call me a thief because I own a CDR-drive.
"Derp de derp."
Evry other Gnutella client i've tried has been crap, the searhes turn up nothing, and you can never down-load. that was until I found lime wire, I think it runs on the gnutella network, but it dosn't perform like it does,
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
...AudioGalaxy will pay the RIAA a lot of money...
Great. As we all know, the RIAA could always use more of that.
When I used Audiogalaxy it was specifically to get live recordings, mostly of artists with a pro-trading stance (Bruce Hornsby, lots of indie artists, etc). Since the settlement is opt-in not opt-out for the copyright holders, am I going to lose that access unless the 'copyright holders' (meaning the record companies 'acting on behalf of their artists, yes?) specifically say it's ok?
That's a pain.
Triv
MOD it UP!
Doesn't Kazzaa still rely on a centralized server which can be shut down? That's the basical weakness of these systems.
If distributed systems like BearShare and LimeWire could provide the same experience that centralized-server based systems could provide, the RIAA would be toast. But that has yet to happen.
In my university, we have a computer room with sun workstations. Well, today we compiled 'fags' (an audiogalaxy client) and it worked fine.
It's ironic how the same day that we can finally work with audiogalaxy, we just can't download the songs that we want.
I think that it's our curse (LOL).
Well that is all.
----------------------------
Quamer, The Lonely Lion.
----------------------------
On the contrary, in my opinion, AudioGalaxy was the absolute best such service for the mac because AG didn't support it. AG was shit for windows becuase of the cruddy client, but for the mac it was great because you just used one of the non-supported third-party clients, all of which were excellent.
:) Could a community-run version of such a website somehow tie into a decentralized community-run version of the AudioGalaxy idea? How would the client and the website communicate? A browser plugin, maybe? It would have to be something sufficiently disconnected to stave off the Out of Court Settlement Smackdown.. perhaps each webpage on the website could have an ID number / checksum, and you'd just cut&paste that ID number into your OpenGalaxy Client? Perhaps the "download this song" thingy could be inserted via some kind of variation on thirdvoice, and the people who run the website could just insist, honestly officer, we can't help it if the mp3 pirate people choose to use our database as a base for checksumming and such. We just run a message board. We aren't connected to those people. These aren't the bots you're looking for.
:) )
This brings up my question, though: third party clients. Is there any reason the extant 3rdparty clients out there could not just be set to, instead of talking to the now-crippled audiogalaxy server, talk to some independent audiogalaxy workalike? How difficult would it be to create an open-source implementation of an AudioGalaxy server, given we already have many open-source third-party implementations of clients? OpenNAP meets OpenAG? Cut loose, the way GiFT has cut loose from kazaa.
I am just curious.
In the meantime, may i assume it would maybe be possible to take the idea behind audiogalaxy (everyone publicly queues stuff they'd like to download someday, and transactions are negotiated automatically as bandwidth becomes available on all sides) and someday recreate it as a wholly-decentralized gnutella-style network? Or do you need that central authority doing the negotiations for you to keep everything from falling apart? I would have to think about the idea some more. You could maybe do it. If you tried, how would the web page frontend thing be handled? Would we just have to throw that idea out?
I always thought that was the most disappointing thing about AG-- their "featured artists" were pretty good compared to (say) napster's, but i always thought it would be really neat if AG fufilled its potential as a site with a message board for every song in existence. This would be a godsend for those of us who like to collect really obscure music, especially bootlegs and such-- it would be convenient if, upon running across a track labelled (say) "Nine Inch Nails - eraser (Utter Desolation Remix -- Unreleased)" i could type that into a website, and even if i couldn't download the mp3 from there i could see some discussion and find out "this is fake" or "this is from X bootlegs & rarities compilation" or "this is a b-side from the japanese single of Y, only they renamed it". Allmusic.com meets everything2.com, or something
Ah well, idle wondering. In the meanwhile, i guess now i gotta go hit AudioGalaxy's site to find out how to inform them i give them permission to redistribute the music i own the rights to.. (Not that anyone *wants* to listen to my music.. just that it's the principle of the thing
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Thanks for all the music, AG. Time to move on to the next service.
Two cock in my pussy! It feel so good!
Another service settles, now has a crappy selection, people stop using it, flock to Gnutella.
What a shame.
http://www.kazaalite.nl/
DL's for Kazaa and AG with spyware DLs removed...
::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
This has been my shopping habit until now:
1. AMG Music Guide for finding out bands that I might like.
2. AudioGalaxy to see if I actually do like them.
3. HMV online to buy it.
4. Repeat, lather, rinse.
Now that these blood-suckers have taken out no.2 I have no way of actually test driving music before I buy it. Using this method I've bought over 100 CDs in the last 6 months alone. And they dare accuse me of being a pirate.
Until they offer a similar service, for free, I guess I'll just have to stop buying music.
I hope that other people will now also vote with their dollars.
My spoon is too big.
10 up?
One of the things that stuck with me is that Fred... something.. from MTV networks said this about Napster a few years ago "It doesn't matter if they kill Napster, 10 more networks will pop up and take all of it's users". He was right after napster, how many new "services" are going to pop up now? All of AG's user base is moving on. It's time to capitalize.
This is going to be a good move for somebody.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
The RIAA is a bunch of fucking morons. They're wasting their time. Audiogalaxy had central servers, so it was only a matter of time. They won't be able to shut down distributed networks, especially international ones.
We're in the era of free distribution. It may not be legal, but everyone wants it (which still doesn't make it right), but it's going to happen anyway. It can't be stopped.
Way to give the RIAA's site lots of hits, folks. Ah well.
The coolest voice ever.
There were a whole lot of us... reaching for stuff that was extremely hard to get a hold of in public even that popped up on AG effortlessly. Some of this same stuff had been forgotten by the music industry eons ago... sentenced to a scrap yard somewhere from some storeroom shelf or cut out bin... I learned a great deal about the history of music especially Jazz, extremely underground 80's hip hop, Egyptian traditional music, lounge, noise, you name it... alot of it I found impossible to track down at local record stores... when I liked something I went out and bought it... but this was akin to the listening stations at your favorite big budget slaughterhouse... like Virgin Megastore, Tower, or Borders even...most of which... when you scanned a cd in their "listening preview system... no one cared enough to add it... if it was even in the store to begin with... When I could track down these rare bits... I was more than likely buying an out of print record... because the people who initially mass produced it... deemed it unfit to produce more of... and then I was forced to pay some collector 10 TIMES what it originally cost... sometimes 20 TIMES... Sometimes the collector HADN'T EVEN LISTENED to the work in question... I hate to paint it out as this extremely epic thing... but Audiogalaxy changed my life... educated me on what good music really is... by allowing me to listen to WHAT I WANT... The radio sure as hell isn't a good teacher... I discovered stuff that had been buried because it wasn't valid currency... because it couldn't buy someone suffering from extreme penis envy a jaguar that month... Stuff like Edwin Birdsong, Guitar Wolf, Abdel Halim Hafez, Krown Rulers, Lakim Shabazz, etc, etc, etc... the bent list goes on... its an education that while it lasted had a deep effect on me... yeah there will be other services... where you can download the latest MTV jingle... but thats not what I'm into... but I don't like to be spoon fed... I liked using it as a Library... checking out works that had serious amounts of dust on them... and learning about the world of good music... not good currency. the RIAA isn't interested in good music in the slightest... they want money... If I farted into a microphone, recorded it and put it on the internet, they'd probably want a cut of that too... and to that... they get the gas face. thanks for the memories AG :)
entro
AG is effectively dead even at this moment (EVERY song has the infamous "X" logo next to it instead of the satellite dish.
Not quite. The musicians who already have agreements with AG still have songs up for download. The most famous example I can find is Jimmy Eat World. All of their music is downloadable.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*"Another One Bites the Dust" is playing softly in the background*
Wherever you go, there you are!
In resonse to this, I'd like to see the RIAA's lobby get "Slashdotted" with sign-toting protesters, specifically geek protesters. Wouldn't that be so much fun!
Looters and Vandals and Riots, oh my!
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
another one bites the dust..
Do you know a user how is, or just has lost access to this? Start looking.
:-)
Image how much of a difference we can make if each geek that wants to stick it to the RIAA helps 2 people get hooked up to real P2P networks, that aren't controlled by companies like that.
I use LimeWire myself, although I think it attaches adware to IE. While your at it, switch them to mozilla so they don't see that crap. They will love you.
Help a friend, and stick it to the RIAA an Microsoft at the same time.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I've used Direct Connect and its great if you have a high speed connection. The best servers won't let you in if you don't share a lot of files though :(
No adware and GPL to boot.
Dolt. Audiogalaxy has no spyware you don't give it permision to install. It comes with the "gator" crap, but you just click "don't install this" or run ad-aware afterwards and it's gone.
The day the music died... I for one will miss Audiogalaxy. It was the most hassle-free method of mp3 sharing there was. I transmitted 18 gigs and recieved 8 before the demise. Deffinitely well liked by me. Sigh.
But what about us PC Users? GNUTella is of course a good place still, but most of it's clients are either packed with spyware, or just un-user-friendly. There's Direct-Connect (www.neo-modus.com), but due to some of the restrictions a lot of the hubs are placing, not everyone can participate on it in general (some of the hubs require such minmums as 50gb's minimum share [meaning they have to have 50gb+ of files shared or they're not getting in the hub.], others descriminate you based on your connection [some hubs will only allow 10mbit's+ only. tough luck for us Cable and DSL customers.]). And don't go to DC thinking it's another Music fueled p2p, it is more-so a porn and other file type's kind of place to hang out, you will find mp3's and other formats of music, but 1st you need to figure out the GUI as well. So, officially, unless you don't mind sitting down for a couple of hours or days figuring out how to work a piece of software, I don't suggest moving to Neo-Modus's offering.
So what else is there? I've seen WinMX, but the new version has a new type of way to connect, which I have yet to determine if it's my ISP and their unrightful port blockings again, or if a piece of my network isn't setup right.
======
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. - Euripides
"This is a victory for everyone who cares about protecting the value of music," said Hilary Rosen, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA. "This should serve as a wake-up call to the other networks that facilitate unauthorized copying. The responsibility for implementing systems that allow for the authorized use of copyrighted works rests squarely on the shoulders of the peer-to-peer network."
judas tap-dancing priest! where are the gunmen in the bushes, already?!! someone snipe this bitch!
http://www.riaa.org/Contact.cfm
Instead of -- or perhaps in addition to, depending on how pissed off they are -- perhaps someone should start an open letter to the RIAA. Have enough community knowledge of and input on it, and it could easily get tens of thousands of (virtual) signatures. Then, maybe, just maybe they would start to give a shit.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
If you are the copyright holder, which you are unless you have signed your rights away to a RIAA member
WRONG. If your recording is a cover of a published musical work, or even if it borrows a (surprisingly small) number of notes from a published work (see Handel v. Silver), you are not the copyright holder, and distributing a recording of such a musical work infringes the copyright of the songwriter. You need to license the "mechanical rights" to the song from the music publisher, and AFAIK, that's both a pain in the ass and expensive unless you are affiliated with a major label.
Will I retire or break 10K?
so this appears to be either "artist opts in"
Yes. Just like Vivendi's MP3.com.
or 'Somebody else is claiming copyright on my stuff'
That's very possible. See my other comment about cover bands.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The RIAA cares only about the copyrights on its member labels' recordings. If you cover a song, you create a new recording.
NMPA/Harry Fox, on the other hand, cares about the copyrights on underlying musical works. (Musical works, commonly called "songs," are distinct from recordings of such works.) If you cover a song, you are creating a "derivative work" of the original song, and it's a pain in the neck (see my other comment) to license it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
giFT.sourceforge.net
decentralized, no ads, 1.8TB of music movies and pr0n *Right Now*, as I write this..
giFT.sourceforge.net
decentralized, no ads, 1.8TB of music, movies and pr0n *Right Now*, as I write this..
lotsa foreign stuff too, as diverse as the linux users that use it!
Don't worry about it. Here's my personal history with MP3s:
First discovered them in 1997, when I heard someone in my high school computer club playing "Walk Like an Egyptian" on a computer at school. I thought he was playing a CD, but instead, he told me about "MP3s." Three months later, I was looking for the same stuff online with my own computer. They were everywhere.
Music Industry's Response: "What are you talking about?"
Had a small collection of my favorite music (couldn't build up a whole library, thanks to my whoppin' 850MB hard drive) by 1998. Many of the sites appeared and disappeared quite fast, so I started searching for search engines. I soon stumbled upon (and stuck with) Audiogalaxy in 1999.
Music Industry's Response: "You mean people are getting our music for free? Where? Napster? Shut it down!"
I enjoyed Audiogalaxy, because there was no security threat of using P2P software (aka Napster / Gnutella), plus there were a lot of nice leech sites posted all over on their FTP search list. Sure, it wasn't as quick and as easy as Napster, but Audiogalaxy was flying under the radar, while Napster wasn't. There have been other websites, but none as direct. That is, until the industry finally found them.
Music Industry's Response: Hey, there are places out there besides Napster that hand out MP3s. Let's get everyone while we still can!
My point: It took the music industry four years to realize that there CDs were being transformed into MP3s. It took them four years to find Audiogalaxy and shut them down.
Whatever you find, I'd say it has a staying power of 4 years, unless they're quite public about it like Napster.
OMFG! That's the funniest damned thing I've heard all day. As long as they are still selling millions of the latest Eminim (sp?), N'Sync, or whatever the latest popular cd is, the RIAA will not give a flying fuck what it's customers think. It may not be right, but that's just how it is. It's no different than saying "Maybe if we all got together and asked Microsoft to release all their source code they'd be really nice and do it!" Welcome to the real world amigo, no one cares because they don't have to.
Keep Austin Weird!
When I used Audiogalaxy it was specifically to get live recordings, mostly of artists with a pro-trading stance
If you want to restore access to works by recording artists who 1. write their own songs (click here to see why) and 2. authorize public trading of live recordings and/or studio recordings, then by all means, contact the artists and ask them to put their songs on New Napster and AG. If you can't find them, put up a web site listing the names of the artists you can't track down, and then ask Slashdot if anybody else knows how to contact them.
Will I retire or break 10K?
1.8TB of music movies and pr0n *Right Now*, as I write this..giFT.sourceforge.net
decentralized, no ads,
please feel free to copy all or part of this in any correspondence you might send to the riaa.
Current Issues
Trust me on this: your latest attempts to "thwart online piracy" are alienating a VERY LARGE portion of your fan base. In the end, this will end up costing you far more than online "piracy" ever could.
Let me be very clear about this:
You cannot go around treating your customers like criminals and then expect them to keep patronizing you. It doesn't work that way.
What am I referring to? First, closing down Napster (hear me out on this, please). Then, all but purchasing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with your campaign contributions. The list goes on, but what did it for me -- and probably literally thousands of others -- was the closing of Audiogalaxy. Audiogalaxy was a good source for rare, *non-copyrighted* music, and you have now taken away my ability to find any of that type of music. You have also taken away the ability of many small, non-affiliated bands to easily distribute and advertise their music. You have bullied the little guy; I sure hope that makes you feel happy.
I will acknowledge that online copyright infringement of musical works is a major problem. Yes, it does occur. But you, the RIAA, are making a fatal mistake by treating your entire fan base like criminals. Even though I am not a business major*, I know that one of the most basic principles of business is that your customers will treat you the same way you treat them. If you treat them well, they will treat you well. If you treat them as criminals, well, don't expect them to like you either.
Wake up before it is too late, RIAA. Stop alienating your customers. Work with them instead of against them. I sincerely believe that with your current ways, you will eventually collapse because you will have made too many enemies (having the general public as an enemy isn't the smartest of ideas). At this point, I would strongly suggest that you start an open dialogue with the tech community. Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) would be an ideal place for this, or perhaps you could come up with another method. But this business of each side making moves against the other has got to stop.
* I do have a college education and consider myself to be very technically knowledgeable. Trust me when I say that you are alienating thousands, if not *millions* of people, and that this is the worst mistake you could possibly make. I do not condone online copyright infringement, but you are shooting yourself in the foot here.
Glossary:
Network effect: The usefulness of a network is proportunate to the square of the number of users.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Another person confusing "legal" with "right".
Seriously. I interviewd with them on a lark back in late '99 at the Austin office. It seems everyone there was one or more of: Arrogant, Under the Age of Legal Drinking, Smelly (I mean really, take a fucking shower at the gym already), Technically Incompetent, or just Fucking Retarded in general. Good fucking riddence, AssholeGalaxy!
The RIAA does not want you to listen to music, that can be the only conclusion from all this nonsense. So stop listening to music. I stopped years ago, no big loss.
What a suprise, that somebody whose username includes the word Fuckslut is concerned about bottom lines. OH LA LA, BAY-BEEEEE!!!!
> ... from now only provide songs for which the copyright holder has specifically given permission.
Have they really agreed to not broadcast any songs that are out of copyright? If so, the RIAA has really won something significant.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Man, and I thought the stuff I sold on the playground was a little shady.
- 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?"
So why does cleanclients.tk offer a spyware-free version?
Clean AudioGalaxy
Seems like this has been going on for quite some time now.
*cough* Napster *cough*
I was just over there now... everything comes up nothing but "X" 's now. No matter how bad you mispell the title or the artist.... nothing. nada. zilch. Oh, well.... off to KaZaa and Gnutella. It's a shame really. AudioGalaxy was actually a service that I liked. So, place your bets now: How long until AudioGalaxy ends up on fuckedcompany.com ? I say 6 months.
Ever hear of. . .USENET? I can get most every mp3 I want from the newsgroups! Bwahahahahaha! Suck me, RIAA!!
OK, I'm not saying that the whack-a-mole approach to artists' rights makes sense, but ... isn't this the way an ethical file sharing service *ought* to work? I've always felt that, while it would be in the artists' interests to share their music, it really is a violation of their rights to download their stuff when they don't want me to. In a perfect world, artists would release work under a license that allowed sharing, and then it would be added to the sharing services. Work under a license that didn't allow sharing, however misguided, would also be respected.
;-)
Of course, in a perfect world the labels would let the artists make that decision on their own, and that obviously isn't going to happen any time soon.
I realize that setting up a system like this would be technologically and politically dificult -- but I'll be interested to see what happens to AudioGalaxy. If they really become a source of licensed, artist-approved music, that will be a Good Thing, sez I.
At the same time, I have to admit I'm pissed off. AudioGalaxy was where I 'pirated' all my music
the RIAA won't be able to sue the whole goddamn planet and maintain a lucrative business model. don't be apathetic! go out there! start your own filesharing service! direct action is really the only way. writing letters and posting insightful remarks will not change anything. i urge the folks at audiogalaxy to release all source-code (server and generic client) and one by one individuals can run the software on their servers. liability is channeled by starting mini-corporations (negligible fees and depending on state, lots of tax benefits) so the RIAA could at most take away your server (no criminal charges, only civil). start a cascade effect! take 'em down!
Used to live in the UK, and AG was the best way for me to find that fix of E-Mixes from R1. Doubly unfortunate that AG decided to pull its services today.
Of course, to people who don't care about their media, the following will not apply, but...
Just think of how much farther down the hole like-minded people will go without proper sources of music. Guess the only solution is to leave North America again.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
So where's the linux version [of KaZaA]?
Does KaZaA or WinMX work in Wine or ReWind? I looked for "Kazaa" in the Wine application database, and I found that kazaalite runs quite well if you use MS DLLs. So does WinMX.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Penis envy is (in most psychological circles) a condition where women wish they had one for various reasons, but do not necc wish they were men. I think he is trying to say that it went down due to Hillary Rosen (a woman who has been most vocal for the RIAA) not getting enough money (ie: a Jaguar, you know, those cars that always leave you standing at the light). Since it's /., you have to sorta turn your IQ down for some posters. Thankfully, a lifelong use of drugs makes this easy ;)> .
As far as try-before-you-buy goes, how come no one ever complains that we don't get to preview entire movies before we decide to shell out for the tickets?
A movie is one coherent audiovisual work that tells a single story. Reviews dissecting every part of a movie are available in almost every imaginable news medium. On the other hand, a typical album is a recording comprising twelve musical works, unrelated except for having been recorded (and possibly written) by a single team of performers called a "band". (Themed albums are the exception to this rule, but they are also the exception in the pop marketplace.) It's hard to judge whether or not critics like a whole album because 1. the music reviews don't get as much publicity as the movie reviews, and 2. music listeners have much more diverse tastes than movie viewers.
It's about time media companies realized that if they want customers' money, they must work with their customers, not against them. To let listeners preview a whole album, I'd suggest that the label publicly release an MP3 file containing a representative 20 second snippet of each song for free promotional redistribution.
In addition, if the RIAA labels put up a site where I could download high-quality singles (MP3 encoded with LAME 3.92, preset r3mix) for $1.00 each, and the site showed exactly how much of my buck went to the songwriters and performers, I would sign up in a heartbeat. The most popular legit major-label MP3 site (eMusic, $15 per month for unmetered downloads) offers only 128 kbps MP3, and 128 kbps MP3 sounds like crap on my speakers because it throws away so much information.
Will I retire or break 10K?
This hints at no, but this seems to suggest it's packaged.
Anyone with evidence?
Gmanske.
God this is horrible news. Since I started using audiogalaxy (via a non-spyware OS X client), I have discovered tons of odd and rare recordings I would have never found otherwise. Also in the last six months since I started using AG, I've bought more music than I have in the last six years. In my case at least the RIAA has put a bandaid on it's finger but has chopped off it's arm.
I don't know of any other place on the web that offered the ability to intuitively browse and play rare music. This is a sad sad day.
Right now there is quite a discussion going on. I posted this in response to the topic at http://www.audiogalaxy.com/pages/thread.php?&t=211 83323
/THEMSELVES/, not with the support of the RIAA (at first). The RIAA is like the IRS, it sucks in cash, keeps a portion for itself and gives the rest to its members and in turn the members give the remaining pennies to the artists. If the RIAA would wake up and start to give more money to the artists instead of gobbling it up themselves, then artists themselves would be after peer-to-peer, and /that/ would be respectable.
/really/ screw one over, not to mention its spyware-laden installer and codebase. Morpheus is too caught up in its wrapper technology to realize what's going on. Gnutella: beware, it's going to have lots of users because of its true decentralization. I have been an AudioGalaxy user since its first public release. I remember when I would have to hop on Napster every now and then because I couldn't find something that hadn't hit AudioGalaxy yet.
/really/ wanted to stop filesharing, they would need to *sue every single person who owns a computer that has been on the Internet*. Good luck, and perhaps if you were to donate another $100,000 to the RIAA, they may be able to hire enough lawyers to sue a classroom full of college students. At least it's a start...
====
Do you people not understand? The RIAA is a collective of almost all (if not all) of the major record labels. A lot of the money spent on CDs goes to the RIAA, not the artists. The artists are lucky if the see more than 30% of their actual sales. The rest goes to the Labels and the RIAA. There are very few truely greedy artists. Metallica comes to mind, but I have since come to respect them because they attempted to go at Napster
So who do I think is to blame for Audiogalaxy's probable demise? Not Geoff et al. I met Geoff last summer, and he was a good guy. Albeit a little too early on the surrender, he and the Audiogalaxy staff were smart to settle out of court so they could have some money left over. If they wouldn't have done this, by the time the court ordered them to do what they have done now, they would have no money left. Pro bono lawyers are like DeLorean Automobiles. Those who know about them wish they had one, but they are so hard to find that one may never even see one in his entire life.
So what's in store for Audiogalaxy from my point of view? First, massive amounts of users will leave, probabaly migrating to Kazaa, which has provisions in its ToS that can
Absolute-Logic: I can see from where you're coming. However the RIAA does not realize that they are attacking an invisible monster. If they would stop spending money on attempting to regain money, they would have a lot of money to be firing at legislation rather than lawsuits that may yield a few thousand dollars. Peer-to-peer technology cannot die as long as it is legal to have a computer, have Internet access, and have the ability to write and compile programs. If the RIAA
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
So, what about creating a master database in the same vein but on a volunteer basis, that holds every song that its users had to share. You wouldn't even have to store who has such and such a song, just store the filename (i.e. the fact that this files exists) and maybe other relevent information like ID3 info, bitrate, etc. As long as it is purely informational and doesn't actually do anything at all I don't see how such a system could be liable - it's really only the sum of everybody's playlists, and certainly lots of people post their playlists on the web right now.
Of course the beauty of such a thing is that you could use it to find out if something exists, and if it was implemented in a web-services type fashion, intrepid developers of sharing software like gnutella could use such a site to build in functionality along the lines of "find the song information first and then periodically send out a query to locate an actual instance of that song".
Ah, but how do you expect volunteers to pay for the massive bandwidth such a site would get hit with, let alone disk space for such a huge database? The answer is: don't have a single site- give the code out (GPL'd of course) and let people set up their own versions, tailored of course to their preferences - I personally would have no problem hosting the entire catalog of every MP3 (and Ogg) that contains pre-1960's bluegrass recordings...
The header indicates that a substantial sum was paid. How much was that? I have my doubts that it really was substantial. In this kind of dispute, 100k is chump change, although quite a real sum to me personally.
Anyone know?
drink my cum
does anyone know anything about eDonkey it has a linux client, but has anyone had any success in finding files and getting them to transfer quickly?
ahh, the egg in the basket..
it seems to me like somebody could set up a similiar functioning program in one of the Axis Of Evil countries that don't recognize US copyrights. Film88.com went down because they were hosting the files in the Netherlands, but as far as I could tell, Audiogalaxy didn't host anything (Except for the audiogalaxy "Hosted" bands) therefore the only real uh, "pirate" of the internet was me sending out my bands songs to people who wanted them and downloading cheesey 1980 one hit wonder singles.
There are several CDs I own that have several of the tracks scratched resulting them being nearly unintelligeble. I've been planning for a while to go to audiogalaxy to download the damaged tracks and burn a new working CD, guess that's out now :(
I stole this Sig
The next logical step is to kill kaaza...but then what? Gnutella? How does the RIAA expect to kill it? ISP-side measures here we come.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this is that I was paying for Audiogalaxy's gold membership. The RIAA could have asked Audiogalaxy to charge $6 instead of $3 a month and ask for half to cover royalties and such.
The idoicy in all of this astonishes me.
R.I.P
Rest In Peace
2002
But who cares ? 1 dead, 10 born! MOUHAHA, RRAA and the music industry, you seen nothing yet! The worst is yet to come for you, hahaha
I will contact my favourite bands and ask them to allow audiogalaxy carry all of their songs
It is also time to check the overall sales reports from the big media companies, I wonder what will happen if this really affects the bottom line $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
fags is an excellent program. Perhaps it could spawn a new, ag-like network?
If people can't get music from audiogalaxy, they will probably rather try to get an illegal copy of the whole album - in even better quality than the mp3 files on AG.
If then they can't copy the CD, they will hardly buy it just because they can't copy it.
Doesn't look like the RIAA is solving any problems!?
Now if you search for "riaa" on ag all the flame/spoof/etc songs about the riaa are unavailable due to "copywrite restrictions". Blocking real copywrite restrictions are sort of ok but blocking free speach...
As an indie musician, I will be sharing my music through Audiogalaxy and will encourage other musicians to do the same,
though
once the public's faith in it has been shaken, noone will even touch the app again!
I doubt that, after today, AG will get even 5% of their regular number of hits..
Again, the same as Napster.
On another note, does anyone know if songs can still be sent to groups? Thanks for any insight.
Last but not least, cheers to the maker of Sputnix. A great little app that always had good updates and stability going for it, you did a wicked job. Thanks again.
Paul
my music (free full mp3s)
How long before somebody will set up a similar service someplace outside the claws of the RIAA.... like outside the US? Wouldn't it just be a matter of moving their servers to an off-shore location? Like in Sealand?
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
Hey... /. er who used Audiogalaxy to share some music with my family in Florida and New York.
/. ers please help me here?
I am a frequent
This is by no means any form of illegal and infact is a constitutionaly protected act under the clause, "where a family can be seen as one unit under the law in matters referring to the joint use of prefectly owned property."
I am thinking of persuing a constitutional infringement suit against RIAA as well as an antitrust suit against them for using "brute tactics to eliminate the competition" (right out of the Microsoft Antitrust.)
I DO NOT NEED ANY FUNDS AND THAT IS NOT WHY I AM POSTING!!
I need to know where I can bone up on laws that would help my case as well as find a good set of lawyers. Could any of you fellow
-- A man who truly loathes organizations like the RIAA who are pushing for a comercially-run America, not our former grand republic/democracy.
Erutangis ym si siht.
I'd only started using Audio Galaxy a week ago, via OpenAG. I was amazed at the depth, speed and reliability. I found pretty much everything I looked for. It was like the heyday of Napster.
It was good while it lasted. Thanks, Audio Galaxy people - you made one of the truly worthwhile things on the internet.
Right folks, we need an alternative that works on our platforms of choice. Go to gift.sf.net now, download and compile it and start hacking!
Since I used to run the audiogalaxy satellite on my Linux box and control it via the website - it worked rather well.
As I can't do that any more, can anyone suggest an alternative? Note that it needs to be runnable from a Linux terminal - so no graphical display (unless you control it via the website) and I absolutely positivily cannot install anything on my work PC.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Wait a minute, wasn't the RIAA not too long ago trying to get a ruling allowing them to not have to bother getting permission from the copyright holder songwriters on the songs they want to broadcast online? Now they want others to run around getting that individual permission.
Serious point this and a pity I'm so late into the conversation but what about this for an idea..
Do you think the RIAA etc would toletate AG like services if the server only allowed MP3s etc *below* a certain quality to be shared. In my view this would have to be 128 kbps to be acceptable.
Restricting quality in this way allows the recording artists to have another great marketing tool at their disposal whilst still providing the incentive for the end consumer to go out and purchase the original media.
Why doesn't someone NOT in the USA set up an AG like service? Then the RIAA, DMCA and all the corrupt politicians can't so much as touch it... Different country - different legislation.
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
i bought 8 CDs last week. five of them based on MP3s i downloaded. there's no way i'll ever hear any of those bands on the radio, since Clear Channel only plays 6 songs. and i won't hear them on college radio, since all *they* play is nu-metal and rap-metal. so, after reading good things about a bunch of bands, i went to AG, grabbed a couple of songs each and ordered CDs (from Parasol) of the bands that I liked.
so, the RIAA has just hurt Parasol, a fine independent label/CD store. this shouldn't surprise anyone, because Parasol doesn't carry many RIAA label acts, mostly just carry indies. of course it's in the RIAA's best interest to wipe out this kind of competition.
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
Dev elpizw tipota, dev phoboumai tipota eimai lephteros http://euclidian.org
so what will be the next killer file-sharer?
:
I would not recommend kazaa, gnutella, morpheus.
they do not scale to millions of users. for example, on gnutella you manage to download 10% of what you're trying to.
the new generation of p2p filesharing systems will be based on distributed hashtables.
I recommend The Circle
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pfh/circle/
give it a try... and you'll never quit.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One thing I'd like to see is a way to search (what's left of) their available songs for *Gasp* What's Actually Available!!!
;)
There seems to be *Absolutely Nothing* left to download.
Needless to say, I know of Nobody willing to pay for a Gold Membership to an Empty Directory.
Gonzo from My system, it is.
Maybe in a few months, I'll pop by and see if it's actually got anything of interest to me. Until then, I'll be seeking out an "alternative" P2P.
Not Kazaa, though. I'd ask for suggestions, but that just opens the dorr for the Next source to be attacked
Learn from the RIAA, future business leaders of America. Capitalism is dead. You no longer have to have a superior product prove its worthiness in the marketplace, simply sue your competitors and pay Congress to legislate in your favor.
Ah, the beauty of a market-driven economy in action. A prehistoric monopoly like the RIAA, with no insight into the current market and no regard whatsoever for its customers or its clients, gets to determine how things will be done, and everyone rolls over and allows them. Hopefully they're just trying to store up as many nuts as they can for the long long long winter ahead. The RIAA's clock is ticking, and eventually all the the idiotic lawsuits in the world won't stop it. There's an old saying that I just made up: "The dinosaurs couldn't sue the asteroid away."
The RIAA has juristiction over any company Owned and/or Incorporated in the US. Simply Hosting it elsewhere is not enough. The Company would have to actually MOVE out of the US.
;)
Not a lot of P2P nerds would want to leave their comfy basements for the hassle of another country, someone elses' basement, learning the locaiton of the nearest edible fodd dispensation establishment, getting use to the new currency... Not to mention those pesky New Local Laws that govern everything
Oh, did I mention getting a VISA? Getting Into the country in question? Finding a Job? No?
Oh well. Must just be my imagination.
Why is it in all these discussions of file-sharing, we only hear of Morpheus, Kazaa, AudioGalaxy, and the late Napster? In the popular media we never hear of WinMX. It's been there for me since Napster shut down, I've never had problems, my son and I can get the files I want(quite different tastes, he's 15 and I'm 46), and quite a lot of people download songs from me. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and enjoy?
Ever heard of Hadiqa Kiani? No? Dare you to try to get her stuff on CD -- since it's only available on cassette, and it's damn hard to even find in North America...except online.
Mind, she's only Pakistan's most popular female recording artist, and her first album sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and she's only the second female artist ever to get a promotional contract with Pepsi (the first was Gloria Estefan), but that's not important.
The point is, there IS stuff you just...can't...get any other way, and that's the stuff that most of us (here) get online. Frankly, I would actually rather have a real CD, because I like the liner notes and the album art and all that stuff.
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Copyright protection and compensation of the copyright holder is justified. (wait for the big but...) BUT! As a recording and performing musician I find that RIAA is not really working for the artists but the media companies. They are using their vast resources to make sure that no new companies emerge to challenge them in the market place. There is no doubt collusion exists between the media giants in respect to music. They are attacking any alternative to the media distribution already inplace until they can contol it. Using the copyright laws is just a "legal" manuver to to crush sites like AudioGalaxy....look back to a couple years ago to what happened to mp3.com.
The end result is big media wins, independant artists lose....again.....the listening public get less choice and less quality.
Back in the 90's when "alternative" hit into mainstream (I used to call it hardcore back in the mid 80's) the media companies saw that is was really profitable but risky. The music media scene was diverse and growing. New independants poping up and making money. They saw that though there was a large amount diversity in the music scene the problem they saw was the pie was getting sliced up too thinly. So what they did was regroup and start marketing canned pop to pre-teens. They abandoned the x-gens, lost generation (myself) and boomers to preteens. they marketed to a very impressionable, vulnerab le market. One that the tobacco industry marketed to for years before people caught wind of it. Those little kids are cash cows for the fat white pigs. Look at the guy who created N'Synch and tell me he's not the typical example of a crooked, sleazy producer.
The big media folks can afford to search, choose and train cookie cutter pop stars for years. they found a willing market in the 9-13 year olds whose parent fork over hundreds of dollars per year to them to buy this crappy music.
it all comes down to the change in America after the 2000 elections. The Bush administration has worked hard to alter policies and reward corporations to do what ever it takes consolidate wealth. You may scoff. But when you start to look at it big media's unethical behavior it just relefct on a growing trend across all industries. Mergers, CEO's pay, accounting practices, tax cuts for the rich, etc, etc...
It is up to us as music fans to take back the music industry by boycotting ALL MAINSTREAM MEDIA DISCS. Only buy local music from local artists that really need the support. Music that is self produced or from a locally owned record company.
Listen local, buy local.....go see a live band tonight, start a band. Anything but continue to encourage the media giants.
YOu won't buy any Microsoft products, why not add Sony to your list....??
Peace.
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~pfh/circle/
A new file sharing program will surface. The music industry is now in full whack-a-mole mode.
But there are way too many moles. Fresh water keeps bubbling up at new locations in the desert from time to time. And a new oasis is created.
Then keepers of the status quo who sell water, try to pave it with concrete. But then...somewhere in the desert, a new font of fresh water begins to bubble up.
UNSTOPPABLE? IS RIAA so ignorant to think that stopping one or two file-sharing programs will stop the illegal distribution of music? Millions of sites exist on the net, and at least 50 working P-to-P programms (and the nr. is growing). They should start seeing the net as a business-model and embrace the concept. Distribution over the net, lowers prices and increases the customer-base! Rather than spending money and time on closing down illegal sites, they should provide us with a good alternative to them! They are the source of music (ignoring self-made musicians for the moment) and should act as such, instead of using indirect distributors who raise prices. The next logical step is for musicians themselves to forego agents, and start distribution themselves (e.g. David Bowie).
People will say this isn't technically feasible. It's certainly complicated. Who generates the DRM flag? Windows XP 2006? Maybe. Who stops them from hacking the system to forge it? No one, necessarily...
;), the cable trust already has, and the baby bells are about to get, 100% freedom from competition, guaranteed by the FCC. In some cases the media companies already own the cable themselves. But in any case it's pretty easy to get all the relevant parties in a room and work out a deal.
But you're right in principle, and I'll tell you why.
Since deregulation is now just a codeword for laissez faire
P2P software is kind of a drain on bandwidth. And how hard will it be to get the broadband ISP monopolists to raise their rates, to start charging per K? They were planning on doing it anyway, once they eliminated the competition!
This, my friends, is much better than censorship. It's cen$or$hip. Cheap internet data delivery hurting your real-world data delivery (i.e. RIAA) business? Don't compete! Just make the internet expensive!
The baby bells and cable companies will even whine that without the price hikes, they'd go out of business, and they'll talk about northpoint, or qwest. Pay attention, because that's going to be some high-art corporate cheese. Those are the TA-1996 "client-competitors" the baby bells just murdered with their own bare hands.
Here's a hint. When a big stinking monopoly tells you they need to raise their rates, they're lying, unless they're willing to open their books.
Watch the FCC. Oh yes, and if you have ISP service through a DLEC, get ready to switch.
We're on the road to Tycho.
Check out your local library. Right now I am listening to a Kenny G CD I checked out (probably not your idea of good music, but I like instrumentals for studying.) Last night I listened to a copy of Roger McGuinn's (Byrds lead) Folk Den collection I checked out. These are freely available songs, and he does a new one each month. Check it out at
http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/folkden/
Also, later on today I will listen to talented violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter on her Recital 2000 CD, once again checked out from the library. Remember, you pay for your local libraries, so use them. All that classical stuff you've been looking for? It's all there (except for some reason my Library doesn't have Dvorak's New World Symphony -- GRRR!) Since my taxes have paid for it, I have no problems making a back-up copy so I can use it when someone else has it checked out.
Indie artist websites are another option. I was looking around for a guy my brother had recommended yesterday. A search on Google turned up some testimony he gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I will share some interesting quotes from it:
See the full article at http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/1092000_pb.ht
One final note. Sunday night I attended a concert by the "Tucson Pops Orchestra." Be sure to support the real musicians out there, such as your local orchestra. Quite frankly, live performances are just so much better than listening to CD's. I don't care what the specs are, it will just never be the same.
So you don't like the RIAA? Then try thinking about an alternative. There are a lot of smart people here, we can make a new system that works better than the old one. It's surely worth a try!
Well it was a good couple of years, 80GB later off AG (is that a lot?). Just as I got my 300th MP3 CD as well.
They (RIAA) decide they wanna play hardball, well I'm pretty sure that biting the hand that feeds you is not a very good business pratice.
--insert every other argument told before--
I don't like paying for stuff, I don't pay for music, I don't pay for movies, I don't pay for TV. No matter what happens I will not buy music, I will not pay for TV and I will not pay for movies. This will not change until the current hierarchy basically does a 180 and the poeple who make the music/TV/movies are in control of their own destiny.
I WILL NOT BE DICTATED TO ON WHAT I SHOULD WATCH OR LISTEN, AND I WILL GET THE MEDIA IN WHICHEVER WAY I SEE FIT.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
From the same people that made KaZaA Lite.
[insert witty comment here]
I think that we need to look at this decision more closely. This radically alters the nature of IP in America.
The point here is not that they shut down audiogalaxy, it's that the precedent set is quite simple...If you do not have specific permission to touch this IP, you cannot. This hereby executes the concept of public domain anything. It can't be public domain if I have to specifically allow each bit of IP I own to be shared, I now have to actively promote it's trade. Items which have no copyright owner, or none that can be found, are simply dead. What happens when the copyrights expire?
This isn't about controlling copyrighted works. This is about killing off buzz engines that aren't under the knee of RIAA. RIAA's CD sales are down, but the indy scene is more alive and vibrant than ever. Every indy listener I know lives on AG (this town has country stations, public radio, and, surprise! Clear Channel Communications.)
RIAA would like to drown out the entire world of independant music. Laws like this serve only to restrict any scene without a corporate mother to clear each track as it goes up. Combined with artificial cost increases in the Internet Radio business, and what you have is simply corporate domination through elimination of any inexspensive way for artists and fans to have a real international scene, idea machine, and society.
WTF is this...I have to opt-out to have privacy and peace, but opt-in to b e heard. Who's your daddy?
Debian - It's an open source community, why are you still in your closet hacking on that slack-box, kid? Come out and
As an indie musician, I will be sharing my music through Audiogalaxy and will encourage other musicians to do the same,
though
once the public's faith in it has been shaken, noone will even touch the app again!
I doubt that, after today, AG will get even 5% of their regular number of hits..
Again, the same as Napster.
On another note, does anyone know if your own shared songs can still be sent to groups? Thanks for any insight.
Last but not least, cheers to the maker of Sputnix. A great little app that always had good updates and stability going for it, you did a wicked job. Thanks again.
We can win.
my music (free full mp3s)
Will someone with more 1337 programing skills then I please make an open audio glaxey server? There is already an open clinet, and IIRC the user interface is already open, could someone please just start up a non-centeralized server that dosn't block songs?
That would be sooo damn cool.
I can't tell if you're joking, but for the moderators: on Audiogalaxy there is in fact a very active group, CD'S THROUGH THE MAIL. In case they take their group description down, here it is for reference:
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
All i can do is send a big FUCK YOU out to mainstream media, and the RIAA.
/. readers were getting music from AG, and that is why there is so much hostility in this thread. I think that THIS should be the last straw.. I think that we all need to make an INTENTIONAL decision to NOT buy CDs.. ever again.
Most of us know that mainstream media sucks. Most of us hate almost everything on the radio, because there is no variety. For those of us who have tasted the music from foreign artists can attest, the pop-crap stations with their pathetic-repeat-every-45-minute playlists can just burn in hell.
But then again there are [people] out there that actually like this CRAP because it's been spoon-fed to them since their conception. It's all about control. Media conglomerates want you to eat what THEY want to feed you. It's absolute lunacy.
Most of the stuff I listen to comes from artists who have ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the RIAA, groups that never 'sold out' to this satanic cult. Where's the justice for these groups? These groups who come over from Europe every year, and find that their followers are growing faster than they could ever had imagined? These groups who were discovered on the likes of Audiogalaxy by all these new fans. These groups who actually DON'T CARE that people share their music?
I buy a lot of CDs, or at least I used to. Back when I was brainwashed and thought that paying for the CD helped out the artists. I know better now. I'm upset that I helped pump dollar after dollar into some fat-ass RIAA exec's wallet.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that MOST of
Trade music, copy mp3s to CD and distribute them in public places. Do whatever it takes to spread the word about non-mainstream artists, and don't buy CD's for the crap-40 bands that are playing on the radio. Not only will this put the RIAA in serious financial harm, it will also promote the artists that you like to listen to.
If you want to support the artists, go out of your way to attend concerts... offer them cash in person.. buy them a drink or two.. offer to take them out after the show. These things aren't that crazy, I've done all of these things. Ask them if they have any merchandise to sell, and if not make suggestions. These are sources of income that sidestep the Nazi-istic ways of the RIAA.
Sorry for the rant. It's just funny that so many of you bitch about the RIAA, when in fact you are perpetuating it's existance.
Maybe we should offer counter-intelligence to the Al-qaeda forces, and tell them that the RIAA's headquarters is the new whitehouse. Maybe we will all get lucky.
-fc
. echo -e \\04 >
>>>Simply put: continue to fuck with us, and we will continue to crush your obsolete business model's nuts.
I concur!
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Ok, here's the scoop:
You can't produce a copy for "general use" without a certificate issued by a CA like VeriSign. This required an arbitrarily large amount of cash, and strong identification when you obtain the cert.
The filtering would be done by the backbone providers. First time you see a new file, check it's certificate. Store the ID of the cert and a simple, fast (i.e. could-be-done-in-hardware) checksum. Now, when you see files on the wire, look up the checksum vs. your tables, and make sure it's OK.
Ugly? Sure.
But doable?
Certainly.
Unfortunately, the implications for civil liberties and freedom of speech are **extreme**.
I don't think that this is inevitable, by the way, but I do think that unless we're very capable and fast, there is no doubt we are going to end up with a solution like this or even worse.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I didn't sleep a wink last night, I was so upset about the death of my beloved AG. With time, though, the emotions have given way to more rational thought. The potential significance of this agreement for the concepts of public domain and the intellectual commons are indeed chilling, as was eleoquently described by zylinder4: All ideas are off limit until you ascertain whether it is owned or not. Goodbye public domain.
And there's an interesting side effect of this that the RIAA undoubtedly didn't consider. I do freelance writing for regional newspapers, doing mostly short show previews. I try to stay aware of what's coming down the pike so I can track down promo materials. Inevitably, however, there are shows on the weekly list that I didn't know about and would like to write about but I have about 48 hours to track down materials. Audiogalaxy was my lifeline to finding a few songs by an act so that I could write about them...SO THAT I COULD GIVE THE BAND (AND THEREFORE THEIR RECORD LABEL) FREE PUBLICITY!! Now, I will likely blow off a lot of previews that I would have done in the days of AG.
Finally, I did want to point out, for all fans of Audiogalaxy out there that there is still a slight pulse at our beloved pages of blue. If you go to the page of any of the "hosted artists" and click on the little black mp3 logo, it will still download the song from their server. And it's http, so it's way faster than with the satellite. I know that pales in comparison to reading about a band and popping over to AG to download a few songs, but at least there's still some new acts to check out. (epitonic.com is a similar resource).
And remember, friends don't let friends buy new CD's (not by major labels anyway).
good night.
Just a thought...For 1 CD an artist gets maybe $1 to 3 bucks? It's just a wild guess, but those are generally the figures I've heard they get. Now add the costs for the CD/case/cover-booklet, promotional costs, distribution etc. I just wonder how that sums up to a total of the $20 bucks we get to pay for CDs here in NL.
It's still the same old song, one big muppet show... over and over again and I'm not breaking the news here when I say that the RIAA fights not for the cause of the artist/music, but for the record companies wallet. As long that that doesn't change, nothing will change. Artists will get screwed over and over and so will we each time we buy a CD.
Don't get me wrong - I do buy CDs... but only after I've listened to them online and know that I like to hear what's on them. The purchase I then make is only out of respect towards the artist... nothing less, nothing more.
Napster, Kazzaa/Morpheus, Mx, Audiogalaxy... how long will it take before RIAA gets the message that they should spend their money NOT on lawsuits, but on research on how to provide in a more quick, more flexible and cheaper distribution of music.
Anyway - time to wake up for me as well.
the-lamb
ps. read this article quite good.
stepan