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Bertelsmann Looking At Pulling Plug On Napster
azaroth42 writes "The end of Napster has finally come according to the Guardian as German group Bertelsmann pull the plug on the already 'past its use by date' music service.
And the same story on
CNN."
It's about time the antique was laid to rest.
Besides, there are far more effective ways to share media, both online, and off.
user@host$ diff
Seriously, though, this isn't news. Bertelsmann got its tentacles into Napster when it was the biggest thing on the net. Now it's a set of servers with no users.
Napster is, de facto, a stiff, bereft of life; it is no more. Bertelsmann have enough sense not to throw good money after bad.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I mean, wow. Napster offically dead. Yay.
Who noticed?
Bertelsmann got a lot of free advertising out of this, so it is not like they lost all of thier investment.
I'd do something interesting, but my server can't handle a slashdotting.
I would have to say GHB would be your best bet. If your sister's the town bike you say she is, you could probably score some ghb, some alcohol, and have a little party while your folks are out of town!
Did you also know Elvis is dead? and they've put a man on the moon? And I'm not sure abou this one, but I've also heard cigarettes cause cancer.
But seriously, napster died for me the day Metallica sued 300,000 former fans (including a good friend of mine).
I wouldn't walk out in the streets with one, though.
Why does the media keep beating this dead horse for.. what has it been? three years ?
I'd think they'd run out of foot to beat it with by now... =\
I got tons of Dixie Jazz vinyl by the old black artists, almost all transcribed to MP3 at 256k+. No longer available, hasn't been heard in years. I play it at parties with my NexII, people go ape over it.
Where should I post it for quickest distribution?
Bertelsmann got its tentacles into Napster when it was the biggest thing on the net.
Bertelsmann bought Napster when it was already dead in the water. I know this because I remember thinking, WHY THE F*CK ARE THEY BUYING NAPSTER?
"And like that
...and yes, I know that Napster has been--uh, how do I put this nicely--"out of action" for some time, but it's still sad to see the thing go. Napster wasn't just the first and most important P2P service; as people tend to forget, it was also the one that worked the best. The Fasttrack network has yet to really live up to its promise (it's fine for searches of things that are popular on the network, but anything else tends to be more trouble than it's worth), and Audiogalaxy--in my eyes the most promising of the new networks--is of course no more.
I can't help but view Napster's real death as something of an omen. The original is gone, but at this point, a quality replacement is still hard to find.
alot of ppl got rich out of napster, and alot of other ppl got happy - the only groups that weren't happy was the music industry, doesn't mean they didn't get rich. I think everyone has an artist[s] they found through p2p that went out and bought there cd. Nevertheless a whole new breed of p2p systems are up and running, testing the legal system and giving alot of lawyers work. Basically business models that operate until the lawyers shut them down, then a new system that finds a legal loophole in the old.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
At least while napster was still in action (the good old days) these cartoons were still funny. Nevertheless if you hadn't seen them here the are -
Beer GOOD - Napster BAD!
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
Is that what is happening to digital music
will have a great impact on our lives.
Napster started a revolution.
Bertelsmann bought Napster either to shut it down
or to try to profit from its reputation.
Either way, they were 6 months too late.
But their move was very important.
Old media trying to keep control...
Expect some bloodshed in violent revolutions.
More interestingly: how will music adapt to use the Net?
Simple file sharing/piracy is not viable.
Someone has to create the content people want.
People will pay for choice and quality.
My guess? Look at the porn industry.
See how they have adapted to using the Net.
There are differences...
but we have seen an entirely digital industry spring up in about 5 years.
It may take that long for a digital music industry to emerge.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
BMG, and the rest of RIAA, can sell something that no file-sharing app can get you. Legallity and legitimacy.
There is a price-point where people will pay to have a legal right to the song that's allready illegally on their computer. If BMG can figure out the right price point, they can make a profit selling nothing but legitimacy.
Personally, I'd give them my legal name, home address, and give them permission to track me until the day I die IF I can get a full legal title to the music I buy. I want to be able to get a "replacement media" discount on a new copy of my destroyed CD. I want to be able to download lossless song files to burn me a custom album, and have it be 100% legit.
I won't pay $50 a month to do this. I would pay $5 a year. Somewhere in between those two, I would have to reserve judgement until the offer's been made.
If BMG can provide what I want, I will buy from them.
This is about as newsworthy as "Liz Taylor in hospital". How exactly does one turn an aging roomful of servers with a disgraced name into something profitable? You don't.
On a positive note, at least now we can gauge just how far behind Bertelsmann are with technology using the equation x-y=z where x is the time Napster actually died (end 1999 when Audiogalaxy was flying) and y is today.
Now, we can await Napster II, the shite filesharing vehicle where you pay $$ too much per song and go to the press to cry that people won't pay for filesharing content and all that shite.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Wonder if RIAA still thinks a law allowing legal cracking/DoSing is a Good Idea?
The end of Napster came as quickly as the Mozilla 1.0 release did.
my guess is that when something copy protected replaces mp3 that gnutella could become a viable bussiness model, the company would just sell or rent you an unlocking key. But napster would still be a better idea.
So I'll get shot down in flames for the quote in the subject line ... but I believe there is indeed a quite historical aspect to this story:
/.ers will have read some SF (that *Speculative*, godamit :) tome on the subject of the Valhalla machine (or whatever you want to call it): the end of the age of scarcity, thanks to "universal replicators".
... which Napster would have become, but for the stumbling blocks.
... and Shawn Fanning's legacy may be just that: the word.
Most
The "IP" version of this is the "celestial jukebox"
I can imagine business / law majors a couple of decades down the line pointing out to us, back here in the time well, just where we went wrong & what we *should* have done - how it could have worked.
Music & films nowadays *can* be replicated & distributed for nothing more than the very cheap transmission & storage costs - thing is of course, they *aren't*.
I am very aware of all the linkage - artists & crew having to feed families & suchlike - but nonetheless, humanity almost had it, but somehow couldn't quite manage to organise things in such a way as to enjoy the fruits of the labour of previous generations & share the luxury of entertainment & education all round the globe.
Grand-style napsterisation of anything & everything digitizable *will* come
Hopefully it won't acquire any more negative connotations than it already, illegitimately, has.
----
"and they say that I'm a dreamer / but I'm not the only one"
yes, we have no bananas
remember, if you sell out to a corporate, it equals death
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Didn't that beast go extinct a couple years ago? Have people still been gainfully employed there since then? Napster was never anything but a sinkhole, and I've honestly never believed that bastard Shawn Fanning wrote a lick of code. He may have conceptually come up with the beginnings of a start of the beginning of an idea for something to steal music from friends, but that half-witted fucktard couldn't program his way out of his ass.
A dying napster also helped keep the flames off of the newer services. While the RIAA still got into the act of attacking everyone associated with P2P, it seemed like the rest of the news media was still assigned to cover the 'napster story.' Thus, they covered the whole Bertlesmann fiasco, the so-called re-release of napster (remember all the silly reviews?) and diverted attention away from the other services.
Now that Napster's really dead, stories like the release of the Two Towers or of Episode II hitting the net before it opened are going to be attributed to Kazaa, WinMX or whoever the current popularity leader is. Then the techno-faddish (i.e. your local congressman) will have a concrete target to attack.
I still don't understand where this entitlement to digital media - to what is essentially someone else's property, comes from. I'm open to explanations, though (and please...it would be much appreciated if the the self-aggrandizing rationalization were kept to a minimum).
What else can I use to download MP3's? I'm not really interested in a multiple media job, just straight MP3's.
I did try WinMX but found it sucked, you had to queue for everything and the interface was horrible.
Any suggestions? I'm rapidily finding it more and more difficult to try tracks before I buy albums.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I still don't understand where this entitlement to digital media - to what is essentially someone else's property, comes from. I'm open to explanations, though (and please...it would be much appreciated if the the self-aggrandizing rationalization were kept to a minimum).
Let's say book publishers started shutting down libraries. Then you started complaining. Then someone came up to you and said, "I still don't understand where this entitlement to media - to what is essentially someone else's property, comes from." What would you tell them?
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
As I've said before... what the music companies need to do is give us something AS GOOD AS Napster and Audiogalaxy were.
The problem is not the "pay" part.
The problem is the "as good as" part.
And that means: ALLOW FILE SHARING. There is no way in the world that a consortium of music companies pitching their collective Top 40 is going to cater to my oddball individual interests. (And EVERYONE has oddball individual interests--this is not an elitist thing).
Napster and AudioGalaxy have shown me that there are PLENTY of people out there who share my fondness for, say, Billy Murray cylinder recordings, or Bernard Cribbins singing "'Ole in the Ground," or Johnny Standley's "Grandma's Lye Soap." And are willing to take the time to rip and upload them.
There's no way a for-profit company is going to bother with this sort of thing. Which, while it may or may not be under copyright, is of negligible commercial value.
So, what they should do is LET THE FANS DO WHAT THEY LIKE and charge a REASONABLE fee, like the "blank media" fee on VHS cassettes or home audio music CD-R's, to compensate music companies and artists for their use.
This isn't very different from what ASCAP and BMI have done for years with radio stations, where a flat fee is charged, based on the radio station's audience, which gives them the right to broadcast as much as they like of the licensed material.
Just set up something like Napster or AudioGalaxy, and charge me the appropriate ASCAP fee for an audience of one.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Yes, but this is the beginning of Wankster. Yes, Shawn is getting into the porn industry. You(probably) heard it here first!
mods on crack
Buy some hard liquor and weed. Invite her to help you use it up. have sex with her.
no wonder you're still a virgin.
I find it funny how you so-called champions of intellectual rights always post your self-righteous, condescending crap. Like you're really that important, that I want to spend more than the minute it took for me to write this post to point out why people like you are idiots.
Think about it. Is anyone stealing from you? And don't lie.
"You're getting brutal, Sark. Brutal and needlessly sadistic."
"Thank you, Master Control"
-Sark and the MCP
Okay, sure, I'll take a crack at it. First off, I think we can pretty much dismiss the legal arguments. I think most adults here would agree that less than 5% of all MP3 trading on the P2P networks falls under the protection of Fair Use. So that leaves the moral, ethical and psychological arguments, which in my mind all kinda blur together.
When I first dove into the Napster scene (the same day I got a cable modem and registered this slashdot account) Most of what I downloaded was music I had purchased over the years but no longer physically had, due to the shrinkage of a CD collection over time that we're all too familiar with. My justification was that if the record companies wanted to view their product as IP, then the physical medium was irrelevant, and having "licensed" vast amounts of music over the years, I was still entitled to those albums, both ethically and legally.
Now mind you, I don't steal. Anything. Ever. Not even candy as a little kid. I've handed back excess change to cashiers, coerced friends into returning things they'd shoplifted, etc. Yet as much as I tried, I just couldn't see it as stealing when I started downloadng albums I'd never purchased. Why not? Because, having gone about seven years without purchasing any new music, I knew with certainty that my downloading something wasn't going to result in any lost revenues. And as the shady contractual doings of the record companies became common knowledge, I had to admit that I felt absolutely no moral conflict in grabbing whatever music I felt like, knowing that I was expected to pay ~$15 to the record company and less than $1 to the artist (and about as much to the retailer). So does that make me a hypocrite? I'm sure some would say yes, but I truly don't think so. I don't listen to new music, so everything I download has either succeeded of flopped, and isn't gonna get any of my money whether I listen to it or not. So what exactly is the reason for me not to hear it?
Personally, I'd rather download only music for which I could pay a *reasonable* amount directly to the band, or free-as-in-beer music. But where do I find it? I don't donwload much anymore because I've already got all the music I've ever liked, and am burned out on most of it. My biggest problem is finding new music that fits my taste, but I didn't make use of AudioGalaxy while it was still around. There's got to be hundreds of bands playing music that I like, but unless they sign with the old boy network, individuals like me have almost no chance of fiding them. I'd gladly pay for some means of getting around that paradox.
Okay, so this isn't nearly as coherent, concise or persuasive as I'd hoped, and is undoubtedly redundant, but dammit, it's how I feel. I believe that if Zappa were still around, he'd be fine with my having almost his entire collected works even though I've only spent about $75 retail on his stuff over the years.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
...then he should be free to drink the beer that he stole (ok, ok, not that beer, but you get my point).
He should also be able to vote.
We can't have the responsibilities of adulthood without the privileges now can we?
Now no one will be confused and I don't have to worry about trademark infringement when I say "downloading from napster".
Let's say a Slashdot poster posts a bogus analogy as a strawman. How should one respond?
/not/ P2P networks. Libraries maintain a strictly limited number of copies of works, /each/ purchased legitimately (and, in the case of journals, they often pay a much higher charge than an individual would). Libraries do /not/ create infringing duplicates, nor do they distribute them.
Libraries are
Contrast that with P2P businesses trying to make money of of mass copyright infringement.
So how is your post relevant?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I find it funny how many Slashdotters are so off that instead of refuting arguments, they post ad hominem attacks.
As for theft -- it is not theft in the traditional sense. However, it is certainly a violation of an implicit agreement -- to abide by all the laws and specified restrictions upon entering a transaction as a citizen and a consumer. Much as working in this country generally introduces a coincident requirement to file a tax return (save for those whose total earnings are very low indeed), purchasing a work includes an acceptance of the copyright restrictions as they are unless explicitly waived by the copyright holder.
If you don't accept them, you can either (1) not purchase the work and not procure it in any fashion, or (2) take the civil disobedience route, buy one, publicly infringe on it, and summon and surrender to the authorities to arrest and fine/imprison you, or (3) go write your politicians and do something constructive about it. Otherwise, you're no better than an oathbreaker.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
So if i understood it right Bertelsman bought Napster. So they've basically thrown away all their investments when they pull the plug out of the napster network? Why o why did they buy Napster in the first place? Not a rant, but just a question. Apparently the Bertelsman company (one of the five biggest mediatycoons, isn't it?) has so much money to burn that they can invest in a broad range of "hard-to-predict" new bussinesexperiments (as we shall call them) and then abandon them just as easy. OR they thought they could do something constructive with the Napster network, something that was legal (as opposed to (still) illegal mp3 swapping). Oh btw, as a reply on the AudioGalaxy / Napster subsitute question: I heard good tales about SoulSeeker. It's said to be the best mp3 sharing program out there at the moment now AG is gone.
Back in 1995, long before mp3's, an RIAA executive said in a public speech the internet should be shut down. As you know, the RIAA is currently trying to get US Federal laws created that would allow them to dDOS and hack with near impunity. Given the choice between the survival of the internet and survival of the RIAA, and I believe the two cannot co-exist, I choose the internet, and thus the RIAA must die so the internet can live. Given this, an RIAA-label music CD, new or used, is absolutely the last thing I would ever spend money on.
When there's music from a non-RIAA label that I want, I buy the CD, if websearching doesn't show any association of the band or label with pro-RIAA anti-consumer legislation, ranting, or the like.
I'd love a service that lets you share music without making infringing duplicates. I legitmately own thousands of songs. I've got stacks of CDs in my closet. I haven't touched them in months.
I think it would be terrific to have a system where i can share my music with the world. Even if only one person could listen to each of my songs at a time, there's still a lot of music.
In return, when someone else has an album they're not listening to at the moment, i'd like them to share it with me.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
It's too bad that Metallica destroyed their reputation. Up until 1999, Metallica were known as the 80's metal band that were years ahead of their time. The 80's band that didn't wear makeup and end up washed-out on "Behind the Music". Now Metallica's legacy is that they are the band that killed Napster, the first P2P network. Great idea guys.
My 11 year old sister who wasn't even born when the Black album came out knows who Metallica is and that Lars killed Napster. However that is all she knows about them.
Napster has been dead for awhile. Whatever happens to it now will be a mere formality.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
In other news
Slashdot pulls the plug on all the Napster stories
Wow, I figured Napster disappeared a long time ago since no one uses that thing anymore.
First, grab a copy of mIRC. After installing that, download a copy of AutoGet. AutoGet is a set of scripts that facilitates finding and downloading files from IRC channels. As users advertise their MP3 list triggers, AutoGet downloads them. You can then search or browse all the lists you've collected and add songs from them to a download manager. AutoGet handles requesting and downloading the songs.
If you are patient, you will get just about everything you put in your queue. Trust me.
And don't forget to share what you download! The author of AutoGet also has a serving system called OmenServe that works very well.
I'm not sure if similar systems exist for clients other than mIRC. If anyone knows of any, I'd love to hear about them.
Lend him yours.
Napster is the icon of the internet at its best. Better for Bertlesman to mercifully kill it than revive it as a pointless shell of its former self. This way, we'll remember Napster as the app that delivered the promise of the net and revealed the rotten nature of the entertainment biz. We'll remember Napster as our martyr.
That's all well and good...but what are you (or better, what are people) most likely going to do until one of these systems exist? Won't this entitlement mentality continue? And if it does, where does the right to this entitlement come from?
CD prices have been as high as they have been simply because there was no feasible way to mass-distribute audio and retain its quality until now. The music industry could jack up prices as much as it wanted because hey, CDs were the only way to go. Of course, this all changed when MP3s and the Internet started becoming widespread.
However, imagine if this technology (MP3/OGG, and the Internet) existed before the music industry evolved into the monstrosity it is today. Do you think they would have started offering all of the 'extra incentives' we keep talking about today (like merchandise, concert tickets, etc) on their own?
Before i buy a book, i read some of it in the bookstore. Sometimes that makes me not buy the book.
Before i go see a movie, i'll see what the critics say. Sometimes that makes me not see the movie.
Before i buy a band's music, i'll download some of it and see if i like it. Sometimes i won't like it, so i won't buy the music.
There have been plenty of bands who i discovered by "stealing" music. Because i "stole" their music, i've bought their albums, seen their shows, and introduced my friends to them -- oh, i'm sorry, i mean i let my friends "steal" their music from me.
Had i not "stolen" their music, they'd be poorer and i'd have a smaller music collection.
Therefore, downloading music off the internet makes the world a better place for everyone.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
My justification was that if the record companies wanted to view their product as IP, then the physical medium was irrelevant, and having "licensed" vast amounts of music over the years, I was still entitled to those albums, both ethically and legally.
I would consider this a reasonable argument.
Yet as much as I tried, I just couldn't see it as stealing when I started downloadng albums I'd never purchased. Why not? Because, having gone about seven years without purchasing any new music, I knew with certainty that my downloading something wasn't going to result in any lost revenues.
What leads you to believe this? What about production, distribution, and promotion?
And as the shady contractual doings of the record companies became common knowledge, I had to admit that I felt absolutely no moral conflict in grabbing whatever music I felt like, knowing that I was expected to pay ~$15 to the record company and less than $1 to the artist (and about as much to the retailer).
And this is going to accomplish....?
Personally, I'd rather download only music for which I could pay a *reasonable* amount directly to the band, or free-as-in-beer music.
An equally important question: Why aren't bands making their music available so that they can accommodate this?
Okay, so this isn't nearly as coherent, concise or persuasive as I'd hoped, and is undoubtedly redundant, but dammit, it's how I feel. I believe that if Zappa were still around, he'd be fine with my having almost his entire collected works even though I've only spent about $75 retail on his stuff over the years.
Are you saying that you've paid for everything of Zappa's that you now have?
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stay on for more shocks and thrills, after these messages from our sponsors...
Why shouldn't the RIAA be able to protect its property? I'd argue that it's not internet posing the problem - it's the entitlement mentality of those who use the internet to trade the RIAA's property with impunity (for now). After all is said and done, it results in a type of welfare - in the form of music - to those who feel that they're entitled to get something for nothing.
Those costs are the same whether I buy the album or not. If I'm not gonna buy the album, they don't incur any higher costs.
And this is going to accomplish....?
Nothing at all, unfortunately. Other than saving me almost $20 that can go towards living expenses. Frankly, I feel that's a better use of my money than handing it to a bunch of millionaires for the privelege of hearing a thirty year old Beatles song.
An equally important question: Why aren't bands making their music available so that they can accommodate this?
Good question. I imagine it has something to do with the RIAA and pals asserting total control over every possible means of widespread distribution under the guise of curbing "piracy." That, and the assumption on the part of the bands that if all those other guys became instant millionaires from playing rock and roll, why shouldn't they too? But I couldn't tell ya for sure.
I have managed to convince one musician, a close friend of mine, to relase some of his music that way. He's got studio time scheduled and tells me that once he's got new stuff recorded, he'll attempt to do that.
Are you saying that you've paid for everything of Zappa's that you now have?
Nope. I think I've legitimately purchased only four or five Zappa CDs over the years, and have approximately five times that much of his music in my MP3 collection. But I'm confident that if he were here to comment, he'd be okay with it. In all seriousness, anybody know of anything he's said or written that would indicate otherwise?
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
It is not surprising that Bertelsmann is paring back its internet ventures. What will be really interesting, is what the German high command does with Zomba Music, parent of Jive Records, the largest independent US record label. That sale is supposed to go through toward the end of the year.
Why shouldn't the RIAA be able to protect its property?
Because that is blatant vigleanteism. You just DON'T deputize the offended party and allow them to serve justice.
The enforcers of law must be impartial. (Not that they are now, but...)
The problem is that its not the riaa's property. Its not even their members property, Its the artists' property that they have obtinaed through strong armed tactics. Once the artists figure that out, it will all be much better for everyone.
To be honest I've never used a p2p network for stealing IP. But I would use a network with millions of songs avadiable for download @ a nominal (1-2$ per).
Most CD's today don't even need a real studio to get the shit edit/sampling job they do. They need one editor, a hi-fi sound system in thier computer, and a few hours per song. Total cost ~1k per song. Advertisment is a joke, basically the CD's are adverts for the concerts, and the form of a CD provides nothing to me except a reliable distribution/replay media.
Remove the CD and I'm now paying ~1k for the editing, a few K (10?) for the required MBA's/marketers (they would spend at most 2 weeks on a song, except one MBA who would be like an "agent" in holywood is to actors; pop hits would be diffrent, but this isn't a discussion of pop hits), and the salaries of the artists (2-6k+ per member per song, but dependant on sales [assume people would continue to release ~10 songs per year]). Throw in 20k for inital distribution of a new song(internet and radio) (more for the first song a label released).
Now, songs that you hear constantly on your local "radio" station obviously have more costs, but they are going to make more money. In fact I'd venture to guess if it only cost a dollar or two and a bit of afk time to get them, they would make significantly more money.
I see no need in this total cost of $41,000 to be shelling out 17$ per disk for 5 songs I like. Assuming a fan would buy on average 5 songs per 10, they would only need to maintain a fanbase of 82,000 in order to be breaking even @ $1/song. Sam Goodie could then move into the buisness of distributing "pristine" mixes, that they press themselves. The song producers themselves have no need to be doing that, they are in the buisness of making music. Everyones happy, and I'd probably end up spending more on music than I do now.
While the current form of P2P is absurd to the extreme. I see a definate shift in how music is made over the next decade or two, slowly consumers will realize that there is no need to force the initial distribution through a heavy/large/expensive physical medium, and recording studios will slim down.
I live in a giant bucket.
Don't tell me a large company bought out a smaller competitor, just so they could kill them!
Next you'll be telling me MS has been buying up small companies to save them doing research or that Disney has been buying senators so they don't have to produce a useful product!
As for theft -- it is not theft in the traditional sense.
Not in the sense that I walk away with a physical thing, as I would had I stolen a car. But the legal definition of theft does cover more ambiguous methods of acquiring something without paying for it.
If you don't accept them, you can either (1) not purchase the work and not procure it in any fashion, or (2) take the civil disobedience route, buy one, publicly infringe on it, and summon and surrender to the authorities to arrest and fine/imprison you, or (3) go write your politicians and do something constructive about it. Otherwise, you're no better than an oathbreaker.
Exactly. 100%. This is the way the system was designed to work. And it does. : )
You're suggesting what I've been suggesting all along - that the artists are every bit as much a part of the problem as the RIAA itself. Do you really think these artists are not capable of devising their own contractual relationship with the companies that shoulder the risk on their behalf?
Having taked to quite a few song writers, think most artist are screwed in the head when it comes to reality.
I used to run a site where local artist could put their tunes on line. This sold CDs for some of them. I asked a guy a few weeks ago if he wanted any of his songs on an MP3 site, and he said "mp3s are only for pirates". Funny words coming from a guy who does covers. In fact his band only does covers which maks him a pirate too since live preformances of someone elses work is illegal by copyright laws. Most of the musicians think that covers are allowed and a few have even pointed out why but I've yet to find any bit of law that allows it. I wonder how long before the RIAA starts going after coverbands and then any band doing any live music?
On the mp3 site I used to run, I had three good bands. One does early blues covers (and has paid the copyright fees). They got an international gig out of the mp3 site. The second band is out travling the world and people do click the "buy the cd" link but I don't know how much they sold and the third band plays what I would describe as mediterranean and middle eastern classical. chekc out ozmp3.com if these sound good to you. The site still is up but I haven't found any other bands worth putting up and I don't spend any time on it anymore.
than to fall into the hands of the enemy...
"I'd also expect quality too, which is certainly something that's lacking on the P2P networks."
Exactly, and that is why I'll be buying CDs for a long time yet. I cannot stand the poor quality of the MP3s found on all the P2P networks.
I use music for the Internet souly for previewing, and seeing if it's worth buying. The only time I will 'steal' music is when I can borrow the original from a friend and rip it myself, and even then I generally end up buying them anyway.
Popping crap and poor encoding will not do. Give me lame --r3mix or give me nothing.
Please do not use the +1 bonus on posts like this.
You are supposed to only use the +1 bonus on posts that deserve to be moderated up.
Your post does not deserve to be modded up. It is currently overrated, and hopefully will be modded as such.
Please do not abuse the bonus in the future.
Why do you press return in the middle of sentences?
"Frankly, I feel that's a better use of my money than handing it to a bunch of millionaires for the privelege of hearing a thirty year old Beatles song."
Not a bunch of millionares, just Michael Jackson.
I mean, jeez. Some people take this shit far too seriously.