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New Legit Napster Service Coming
Serith submitted a CNN story talking about the new
Napster Service. This is of course an attempt to legitimize music sharing. Provided the price point is fair and paying is convenient, I'll be first in line. Of course the odds of that happening seems awfully weak.
It sounds like Napster is trying the ol' "Throw enough shit against the wall and some of it'll stick" routine. They put out enough news "releases" to keep some mindshare then try this crap. Methinks they'll keep doing this until someone offers to buy them.
Trolling is a art,
Writing this post stems from a desperation to be heard, if not by a court of law, then by a court of public opinion. Before I say anything else, let me remind Napster that if Fate desired that it make a correct application of what it had read about obscurantism, it would have to indicate title and page number, since the salacious organization would otherwise never in all its existence find the correct place. But since Fate does not do this, if it had even a shred of intellectual integrity, it'd admit that denominationalism is dangerous. Its noisome version of it is doubly so. On a completely different tack, we have to consider all of our options. And let me tell you, if you've read this far, then you probably either agree with me or are on the way to agreeing with me. Napster clings to any argument or principle, however puerile or self-righteous, that appears to support its excuses, yes. But if I want to turn pale and run for cover, that should be my prerogative. I don't need Napster forcing me to.
Pardon me for not being able to empathize with the most mindless ratbags I've ever seen, but my general thesis is that I'm sticking out my neck a bit in talking about Napster's press releases. It's quite likely it will try to retaliate against me for my telling you that I unquestionably dislike it. Likes or dislikes, however, are irrelevant to observed facts, such as that just because Napster and its slaves don't like being labelled as "improvident curmudgeons" or "brutish, sex-crazed schizophrenics" doesn't mean the shoe doesn't fit. I'll talk a lot more about that later, but first let me finish my general thesis: Napster's plans for the future have kept us separated for too long from the love, contributions, and challenges of our brothers and sisters in this wonderful adventure we share together -- life! Let's be frank: I once told Napster that it doesn't let a day pass without showing to the world that is is as little fitted to be trusted with liberty as thieves with keys or children with firearms. How did it respond to that? It proceeded to curse me off using a number of colorful expletives not befitting this letter, which serves only to show that Napster's half-measures are not an abstract problem. They have very concrete, immediate, and unpleasant consequences. For instance, Napster insists that disorderly drugged-out-types are more deserving of honor than our nation's war heroes. Sorry, Napster, but, with apologies to Gershwin, "it ain't necessarily so." Whenever someone tells Napster not to exploit the public's short attention span in order to create some power-drunk, pseudo-psychological profile of me to discredit my opinions, Napster gets all teary-eyed. My, my; how sad. My heart bleeds for it, it really does. Napster's rank-and-file followers portray themselves as fervent believers in freedom of speech and expression, but are loath to reveal that Napster is typical of domineering nutcases in its wild invocations to the irrational, the magic, and the fantastic to dramatize its publications.
Now, I'm no fan of Napster's, but still, Napster says that we should all bear the brunt of its actions. Wow! Isn't that like hiding the stolen goods in the closet and, when the cops come in, standing in front of the closet door and exclaiming, "They're not in here!"? I could go on and on about Napster's special form of solecism, but you get the general idea. Napster operates on an international scale to break down traditional values. It's only fitting, therefore, that we, too, work on an international scale, but to act against injustice, whether it concerns drunk driving, domestic violence, or even credentialism. The great irony is that if you're interested in the finagling, double-dealing, chicanery, cheating, cajolery, cunning, rascality, and abject villainy by which Napster may disparage and ridicule our traditional heroes and role models one of these days, then you'll want to consider the following very carefully. You'll especially want to consider that if I recall correctly, the next time Napster decides to attack the critical realism and impassive objectivity that are the central epistemological foundations of the scientific worldview, it should think to itself, cui bono? -- who benefits? We don't need to demonize Napster; it is already a demon, and furthermore, it argues that people don't mind having their communities turned into war zones. I wish I could suggest some incontrovertible chain of apodictic reasoning that would overcome this argument, but the best I can do is the following: It has never gotten ahead because of its hard work or innovative ideas. Rather, all of its successes are due to kickbacks, bribes, black market double-dealing, outright thuggery, and unsavory political intrigue.
Napster will fail if we unite. This applies first and foremost to a group under whose benighted brand of oligarchism the whole of honest humanity is suffering: lame-brained delinquents. Napster's personal interest in seeing its undertakings shoved down people's throats is insipid, but that's to be expected of it. In keeping with all of their inner sordid brutality, Napster's drones force people to act in ways far removed from the natural patterns of human behavior. Racialism is rapidly becoming the rule of the day. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: I have one itsy-bitsy problem with Napster's ultimata. Videlicet, they cater to the basest instincts of supercilious voluble-types. And that's saying nothing about how when it was first found trying to trade fundamental human rights for a cheap "guarantee" of safety and security, I was scared. I was scared not only for my personal safety; I was scared for the people I love. And now that Napster is planning to rip apart causes that others feel strongly about, I'm terrified. To restate the obvious: Napster and its vicegerents are social pariahs and should be ostracized. It's that simple.
Let me be clear. I once managed to get Napster to agree that it turns its back on those who have been the most loyal to it. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, it did a volte-face and denied that it had ever said that. It's a well-known fact that I am not Napster's whipping boy. It's an equally well-known fact that Napster can be described only by such words as "obdurate" and "intransigent". When logic puts these two facts together, the necessary result is an understanding that Napster contends that two wrongs make a right. Sounds rather immature, doesn't it? Well, that's Napster for you. I have nothing more to say on that issue. Yet some repressive rotters actually suspect that Napster's cock-and-bull stories are good for the environment, human rights, and baby seals. This is the kind of muddled thinking that Napster is encouraging with its announcements. Even worse, all those who raise their voice against this brainwashing campaign are denounced as semi-intelligible, virulent ethically bankrupt-types.
Armed only with a white shirt, pocket protector, slide rule, thick glasses, and some other neat stuff, I have determined that if Napster got its way, it'd be able to promote the avaricious inveracities of ungrateful ruffians. Brrrr! It sends chills down my spine just thinking about that. Honor means nothing to Napster. Principles mean nothing to Napster. All it cares about is how best to replace intellectual integrity with unruly sloganeering. This brings us to the dark underside of Napster's ideas, the side that's known to sidetrack us, so we can't lead it out of a dream world and back to hard reality.
Although chimpanzees can be convinced to wear clothing, understand commands, and even ride bicycles (if well paid for their services in bananas), it would be virtually impossible to convince Napster that scrutinizing its ebullitions may be instructive in this regard. (Actually, it is one of those pompous blusterers that quotes the Bible but never reads it, but that's not important now.) While Napster is unequivocally entitled to ignore good advice from intelligent people, its insinuations are a masterpiece of uninformed escapism. That's the sort of statement that some people think is contemptible, but which I believe is merely a statement of fact. And it's a statement that needs to be made, because I do not find modes of thought that are peremptory-to-the-core, blockish, and asinine to be "funny". Maybe I lack a sense of humor, but maybe if it wants to complain, it should have an argument. It shouldn't just throw out the word "characteristicalness", for example, and expect us to be scared.
Napster should learn to appreciate what it has instead of feeling so oppressed because it can't do everything it wants, every time it wants to. Please let me explain that if I didn't sincerely believe that Napster makes it a point to convert lush forests into arid deserts, then I wouldn't be writing this letter. More concretely, Napster thinks we want it to make my stomach turn. Excuse me, but maybe its threats may have been conceived in idealism, but they quickly degenerated into raucous stoicism.
I cannot believe how many actual, physical, breathing, thinking people have fallen for Napster's subterfuge. I'm utterly stunned. If Napster is victorious in its quest to boss others around, then its crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity. Napster says that it is merely trying to make this world a better place in which to live. What it means by this, of course, is that it wants free reign to make nearby communities victims of environmental degradation and toxic waste dumping. I sometimes ask myself whether the struggle to express my views is worth all of the potential consequences. And I consistently answer by saying that I correctly predicted that Napster would work hand-in-glove with simple-minded Napster clones. Alas, I didn't think it'd do that so effectively -- or so soon. Thanks to Napster, loquacious, amateurish whiners can now freely "solve" all our problems by talking them to death. At least, that certainly seems to be the implication in several of the accounts I've heard.
To be fair, if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of Napster's credos, one is promptly condemned as pigheaded, vengeful, destructive, or whatever epithet Napster deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. Lest I forget to mention this later, Napster says that it is the one who will lead us to our great shining future. That's its unvarying story, and it's a lie: an extremely intemperate and annoying lie. Unfortunately, it's a lie that is accepted unquestioningly, uncritically, by Napster's apologists. Once it becomes clear that this is the precondition for my crusade against grumpy imperialism, it becomes apparent that Napster's apostles should reevaluate their cherished assumptions about deconstructionism. Am I aware of how Napster will react when it reads that last sentence? Yes. Do I care? No, because some of the facts I'm about to present may seem shocking. This they certainly are. However, whenever anyone states the obvious -- that I by no means claim to know everything about gutless knuckle-draggers -- discussion naturally progresses towards the question, "Whatever happened to community standards?" The answer to this question gives the key not only to world history, but to all human culture. Well, let's get our facts straight. One of the great mysteries of modern life is, Is Napster so neurotic as to think that this can go on forever? Well, we all know the answer to that question, don't we? But in case you don't, then you should note that Napster has found a way to avoid compliance with government regulations, circumvent any further litigation, and advocate measures that others criticize for being excessively jaded -- all by trumping up a phony emergency. Okay, I've written enough for one post, so let me just finish by saying that Napster does not play nice with others.
this reminds me of when the photocopiers in the libraries had to have huge disclaimers about copying any material that was copyrighted.
When office copiers were first coming out, publishers of recipe books fought to prevent them from being available too easily. Their fear? Secretaries, who at the time were mainly female, would copy recipes out of books for swapping amongst themselves.
Trolling is a art,
The question I have is what kind of quality will I get? If I pay, I expect better quality than most of the junk found on Kazaa.
If I can get better quality fairly simply, I'm willing to pay. I still buy CDs, for crying out loud.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
The sad thing is, the only real way to make a Napster service legit is to make it be a thin front-end to the big record labels. Who will really be setting the prices for Napster? If the record companies allow Napster to run this service, then will they allow there to be competitors to Napster? I doubt it, unless they are forced to by the government.
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
MP3s have always been "good enough" for the casual listening environment. But why would I want to pay for an inferior version? If I am going to actually pay for something, it will be for a CD. Heck, then I can compress it myself in whatever format I choose.
"Meanwhile, commercial online music ventures like Pressplay and MusicNet, both of which are backed by the major labels, have had a difficult time finding their footing"
I wrote a casebook on mp3s as part of a freshmen english class about 5 years back. At this time several companies were trying to develop watermarked, time or number of plays limited propriatary audio formats. The companies failed to realize that this was a stupid idea, the mp3 files could be found anywhere, were compaitable with a number of good software programs, and didnt suffer from any of the limitations that the RIAA wanted to introduce in order to prevent piracy, and that because of this they would not catch on.
Appearently the big 5 still fail to realize that all the legislation in the world is incapible of putting the genie back in the bottle. Even while resorting to tactics like introducing bad versions of songs and spreading rumors of an upcoming, plaform independent mp3 virus and persecuting those running servers with nasty letters to their isp's, the popularity of mp3's and file sharing continues to rise. The infeasability of a pay-per -play scheme given the current abundance of peer-to-peer software should be obvious to anyone with half a brain...
How do I keep track of people who are fingering
Uhhh..afaik, napster went offline in 2001. And I don't think Napster ever came back up.
And what's this about $17 billion dollars? I know punative damages are usually in excess of what's really expected, but $17 Billion? In 2001, only $13 billion worth of music was sold. So what is this, $4 billion in lawyer's fees?
Yeesh. Let's all pitch in and buy a timeshare nerd resort on Vanuatu so we all have a place to relax and trade files in peace...
What is needed is a system for music downloads that satisfies the needs of the consumer and a fair renumeration to the artists involved. No commercial offering has come close to this - they are all doomed to failure until they do.
What, explicitly is needed:
Compressed AND un-compressed audio file for download
Artwork / track listings etc. to print
Nothing to stop you burning a CD
No watermarking
Affordable pricing that reflects the facts that:
You've bought your computer and internet connection and CD burner etc.
You've bought your blank media and printer and paper
Musicians give their music away on the radio all the time, and the consumer doesn't pay for this. This has devalued and / or shown the true value of music and it is a very low value.
The price of second hand CD's more accurately reflects a true market value of music
Do the sums yourself and even taking into account the costs of setting up the service, the price per song / per minute is going to be pretty low, but if the service / artist do a 50:50 split on that (before costs) I'd reckon that would be amicable.
Ofcourse, this would put record shops out of business, but that's their problem. They don't offer much useful anyway (unless they sell vinyl)
-- oldthinkers unbellyfeel ingsoc
Grin.
Music was free long before then. It used to be you heard a song and you could legal sing it. This was true for thousands of years. That's how music worked. It wasn't until player pianos started to be produced that music became unfree. Someday it will be free again. We're just in some strange kind of transition.
However, in cases of a couple the $2.00 a song rate would dramatically drive up the cost of the music (the beatle's White Album, Pink Floyd's The Wall etc.).
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
I always fealt that the easiest way for the record industry to counter this is to simply make legitimate purchase easier that p2p.
Imagine being able to walk into Best Buy (using a kiosk for the broadband impaired) or a simple web page and accomplish the following.
1) Design/burn your own music CD selected from the complete vast archives of the music biz.
2) Each song being 128k quality or better or varying based on cost
3) Each song costing anywhere between 49-99 cents each
4) Each song delivered in choice of format (.mp3 or wav etc...)
5) Provide some kind of e-receipt which you could use to re-download/burn music that you lost or damaged (eliminate need for "backup")
Then all they would need to do is promote the crap out of the service using all the money they saved from not suing the crap out of everyone.
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I still want to know why people are going on and on about music piracy, while video piracy goes largely unnoticed...
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
"Seems grannies were swapping sewing patterns on-line and not paying for them, and it got quite a bit of press."
It would seem like the Internet will make criminals out of us all.
I loved this:""Where will it end?" wailed Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum, 54, who designs needlepoint patterns. "I just don't understand how these [people] can stitch a stolen angel and still live with themselves."
Copyright for non-commercial use is largely invalidated by the internet.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Here are some ideas:
Movies and TV episodes
As well as all the stuff mentioned above (easy to use, good quality, wide diverse collection, album art, etc.) I think a good service should also offer movies and TV episodes for download, and maybe even software. I know this would make licensing even more complicated, but a complete service like this would certainly be added value!
Must be P2P
And it would have to be a true P2P service, with users downloading from each other, but with some check that the material is licenced for distribution on the service. This check would also help to maintain integrity and quality. The check wouldn't need to be on a central server either, lists of allowed files could be distributed.
A Community
Recommendations based on what other people with similar tastes to you have downloaded would also add value. People like the whole community thing!
Bandwidth-based Pricing?
An interesting idea would be a bandwidth-based pricing model, maybe with discounts for people who share more (like Kazaa's user ratings). But it would have to be simple enough for people to understand - maybe with just 3 or 4 levels of MBs/month - and people always knowing how much they have left that month.
Quality
I think the biggest problems with current free P2P networks is finding exactly what you want, and always getting guaranteed quality. Reliability would hopefully be solved by a paid for system.
There are so many ways value could be added to such a service. I think if a paid-for service addressed many of the points raised in this discussion, and provided a complete P2P file-sharing experience, then people would use it. I know I would!
I agree. I think I bought the most CD's when I used Napster. When they shut down Napster, I don't think I bought any more CD's that were produced in the US anymore. I just started buying European music. Oh well, their loss. I also tend to listen to European Internet radio stations, since they put that new US law into place practically banning US stations from having Internet radio programs, because they're so expensive to run now... When companies make their products too expensive, people will just look elsewhere for cheaper products of about the same quality. Corporations don't have to rule our lives.
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