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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."
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.
Does that help, though?
As far as I know nobody goes to the CD store and says 'Ooh, a new EMI album! Must have!' The valuable brands are the various McPunk skater kiddies or bubblegum plastic-pop groups, rather than the name of the record label itself. Being a recognised brand could help when signing new artists, but I doubt it helps sales of CDs directly.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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
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
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.
I think most Metallica fans became "former" the day the Load album was released. They haven't made a good album since the black album and even that was tame compared to their older stuff.
Agreed... The black album was still pretty good but just wasn't the same as the older stuff. Personally I liked "...and justice for all" the best, even more so than their albums when Cliff Burton was their bassist.
But I think most Metallica fans became "former" the day Lars decided to become the spokesperson against Napster. I mean come on dude... Go watch some of the old Metallica documentries where Lars himself was advocating how great it was in the old days when Metallica fans were ILLEGALLY swapping Metallica tapes amongst themselves. My, how we've changed our tune. (No pun intended.) It was OK then because no one knew who Metallica was and they were spreading the music, thus creating a larger fan base. But now that they are established and each band member has 60 million dollars each, it's not so great any more? What a hypocrit!
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.
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"and they say that I'm a dreamer / but I'm not the only one"
yes, we have no bananas
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?
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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!
Please. Metallica did it for the publicity. They didn't give a real fuck about the file sharing, they just wanted more of the spotlight.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
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.
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.
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
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.
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?
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.
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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 $75 retail on his stuff over the years.
Are you saying that you've paid for everything of Zappa's that you now have?
Why shouldn't the RIAA be able to protect its property? I'd argue that it's not internet posing the problem - it's the entitlement mentality of those who use the internet to trade the RIAA's property with impunity (for now). After all is said and done, it results in a type of welfare - in the form of music - to those who feel that they're entitled to get something for nothing.
The problem is that its not the riaa's property. Its not even their members property, Its the artists' property that they have obtinaed through strong armed tactics. Once the artists figure that out, it will all be much better for everyone.
To be honest I've never used a p2p network for stealing IP. But I would use a network with millions of songs avadiable for download @ a nominal (1-2$ 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.
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.
Why does the media keep beating this dead horse for.. what has it been? three years ?
Because Napster is like a martyr. You can destroy Napster easily, but you can't destroy the idea it represents. Once the idea is out in the open, someone will always find ways to implement it.
Many members of the media probably think the demise of Napster is symbolic for demise of its format for distributing music, but you just can't destroy that high of a demand by pulling the plug on a server.