Slashdot Mirror
Record Labels Sue Napster's VC
zemkai writes "From the "wtf?!?" department... Universal Music Group and EMI are suing Hummer Winblad Ventures for contributing to copyright infringement due to that firm's investment in Napster... I'd like to put something witty here, but I'm just speechless."
Lemme verify my logic here...
1. Napster lets you share music while viewing banner ads. Napster gets sued for everything it has.
2. Napster VCs made money from banner ads. VCs get sued for everything they have.
3. I viewed banner ads that made money for VCs.
Holy crap, we're all next...
Napster was a tool for violating copyrights. They invested in it hoping to reap a reward from its users criminal activities.
It's like investing in a local street gang. You can be sued by their victims.
Quit with the mock shock every time something completely expected and sensible happens.
This just proves what we already knew: These music companies only care about money. The fact they are suing the people who bought napsters assets just because they bought them just proves that. It also shows that these companies have no interest in innovation - they just want to keep on churning out the same crap on the same format forever, and they will sue anyone who tries to change the status quo.
What did those Napster guys think the users were swapping? 10 MB recipe files?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Napster is a tool that CAN violate copyrights. The program doesn't inherently do any of this though.
Unless of course you consider your car a tool for running people over, since that's but one of many options available to you...
Napster... I'd like to put something witty here, but I'm just speechless
Go Kazaa. More files, more filetypes, and more spyware. its a trifecta!
So a CEO isn't liable for things that their company does, but investors can be held liable for actions of the users of their "investee's" products?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
...they'll be suing the individual investors of tobacco companies for wrongful death due to an individuals cancer.
Asininity at its finest. But hey, the more they keep digging, the deeper they get.
The **AA are at war. They are going to use every trick, every tool in the box to sew fear and uncertainty in all those who would act against their survival. The idea of course, is to put the fear of god into anybody who might finance a startup venture that would break their business model.
My rights don't need management.
in the trial? It's obvious Napster was used by millions to transfer copyrighted music, but Bertelsmann invested to make a legal music sharing service and the VC guys just provided a funding means to develop internet file swapping software and may not have known the use of Napster's final product.
So, what does Universal have to prove? Isn't there some protection in place for VCs?
--- Need web hosting?
It only makes sense from their point of view. They have enough weight to throw around lawsuits, even if they have no chance of winning. What it does, though, is scare off funding for other file sharing projects. So basically, they are losing a battle to win the war.
Cthulhu Saves.
The VCs invested their cash knowing that the major draw to the product was illegal copying. Be glad this is just a civil suit; "conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor" is a felony offense.
From the article:
In May 2000, Hummer Winblad invested about $13 million in Napster and took control of its business and legal liabilities, with Barry assuming an interim CEO role.
IANAL, but it sure as hell sounds like whatever Napster was legally responsible for will apply to Hummer Winblad (what a silly, cool name). They were hardly silent partners.
Worldwide sales of music CDs, records and cassettes fell for the third year in a row, hit largely by rising Internet piracy in the United States
:)
It must be piracy... couldn't be that people are pissed off @ the record labels or that they just don't like the music that's being put out... naaaah.
Place sig here.
They're just following the money. The US legal system allows this, compare the suit against Clear Channel by those who lost relatives in the club where White Lion were playing.
Modern capitalism is based very strongly on the concept of limited liability which means precisely that investors are not responsible for liabilities incurred by the companies they invest in. The companies are, and the investors can lose their investment, but they are not criminally liable for the company's actions (unless they participate directly in those actions) and they are liable only for the amount of their investment.
It's like investing in a local street gang.
No, it's like investing in Exxon before the Exxon Valdez or in Union Carbide before Bhopal. You can lose your investment. To suggest that it go any further undermines every principle upon which our economy is founded.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
baadoozlewoogleboogle
Sounds like grasping for straws to me, basically the dying gasps of an industry that knows it's fucked. Napster was just the messenger, and these idiots are going to try to squash everyone who helped the messenger. That's like suing the people who ran the colo where Napster hosted their servers - after all, they entered into a business deal that let Napster perpetrate their infringement! Ridiculous. Ain't gonna go nowhere.
Of course, my favorite part is:
Hummer Winblad knowingly facilitated infringement of plaintiff's copyrights for its direct financial benefit.
For some reason, I don't really think they made much money from this investment.
At Napster's peak, the RIAA's sales were at their peak. There's no hard data that any amount of money was lost as a result of Napster.
So, in order to make the case work, they'll claim that they'd have made some imaginary number of money more (96 billion dollars?) because millions of people downloaded MP3s, therefore didn't buy albums as a result of it. So even though that money didn't materialize, they'll magically make money on it by claiming damages as a result of Napster.
That's pretty messed up. I worked for a company that made a product and sold a whopping $5,000 worth of it. (Gross, not net even.) A larger company came along and claimed we infringed on a patent. We didn't, but how do you convince a jury that? They used lawyer math to claim this company did one million dollars in damages. Uh right. Their revenue was consistent with both their predictions and on previous experience, and the company I worked for only made 5k.
Like I said, free money. I wish I had a suggestion as to how this whole system could be fixed to prevent this type of fraud.
"Derp de derp."
there's got to be some point where responsibility stops.
1. People used the product Napster made to infringe on copyrights, they're being sued
2. Napster made a product that was used by other people to infringe on copyrights, they were sued
3. now a firm that invested in a company that made a product that was used by some people to infringe on copyrights are beign sued. what's next, sue all the individual investors because the firm invested in the company?
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
After all, they lost their entire investment in Napster.
If you extend the logic of this argument, then the State of California should go after the investors in Enron. After all, aren't these investors guilty of supporting a company that profited from massive energy price fixing that hurt consumers everywhere?
If this lawsuit succeeds, it will have a chilling effect on any company that is challenging the status quo.
In an effort to fight rampant piracy, the RIAA announced that law enforcement officials will be arresting customers exiting music stores carrying product of any kind. "We've got to stem the flow of piracy at it's source" says Robbie Flack, the RIAA's cheif advisor to the Bush Administration. "These people are taking our intellectual property and playing it loud enough for other people to hear or showing it to their friends. Clearly this violates 'public performance' laws."
When asked whether this would discourage music sales, Flack responded that "those sheeple should just stay home and listen to appropriately licensed broadcasts of their favorite artists." RIAA officials stated that this is merely the first step in a long plan that they term the "War on Privac.... er Piracy" [ed note: this is how all RIAA staff pronounce it]. The next step according to the plan is to arrest executives from the very labels that the RIAA represents. "[the executives] are putting all of this copywritten material out there and giving consumers a sense that they own it. This is just wrong.", said Flack. The plan will culminate with the RIAA arresting themselves once Congress passes IMGOD-327, a controvercial new bill that would make RIAA staff federal law enforcement officers. The bill is expected become law in 2004 with very little resistance.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
...don't they understand?
The defining characteristic of a corporation, in America, is that its investors cannot be held liable for more than the amount of their investment.
In other words, suing the VCs for the actions of the company they invested in is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED. What's next? Someone finds a syringe in a Coke bottle, and lawyers sue every little old lady who owns shares in a mutual fund that invests in Coca-Cola stock?
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
The RIAA sued Napster. The court ruled in the RIAA's favour, and awarded damages.
Now, my understanding is that the damages should offset 100% of the losses made by the RIAA, so that the books are balanced, and the side on the right side of the law doesn't make a loss.
If this has already happened, why are they now suing another party? Did they make a further loss because these people invested in the company? Aren't they claiming twice for the same injury?
Let's arrest former Enron employees for contributing to corporate fraud. After all, by allowing Enron to utilize their retirement funds they enabled, and profited from, Enron's criminal activity.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Oh well, after the RIAA wins, the Artists can sue the RIAA investors for supporting their crooked business practices!! Oops!
1. Wait for someone to have a good idea
2. Sue there assess off
3. Profit!
----------------------------
Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
My Business Law teacher used to tell us, "You sue everyone for everything all the time". They are trying to scare anyone who is or is thinking of becoming associated with Napster type applications. It's a common tactic to stop what you can't compete against.
As for the $150,000 per violation, lawyers routinely ask for the sky knowing that it will be amended. I was on a jury recently for a DWI lawsuit and the plaintiff's lawyer was asking for several hundred thousand. During deliberation, everyone discussed how it was unreasonable and would be much less. If this goes before a jury I expect them to be awarded very little, if anything.
..is this really the best way to do things?
Perhaps if investors could have been held liable we would not have seen Exxon Valdez or Bhopal.
Yes, this would slow the economy down quite a bit. Then again, I've never been one to agree with "economy uber-alles" anyway.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
I don't think many people realize, but RIAA et al have a new business model.
They don't care about selling you music anymore, at least, not as much as before.. oh, they still complain, but that's part of the plan.
They make more billions on blank media tariffs, lawsuits, etcetera, than they will ever see if they actually have to sell a product online, in a manner that suits the users. They will in fact keep trying to make these ventures fail, JUST so that they can complain that piracy is rampant, which verifies (in the eyes of the courts) that their only course of action is to sue!
Make no mistake, they have not missed the boat by never adopting a reasonable online pay model that allows consumers to pay only for their favorite tracks. These will continue to be ridiculously priced simply to drive this new "business model".
If you ask me, it should be ILLEGAL to base a business on suing people and otherwise abusing the legal system for your own gain.
... and the legal scholars I talked to found plenty for Hummer Winblad to worry about. Of course, this was before Bertelsmann became involved.
My article, from Upside.com:
Hummer Winblad could answer for Napster's sins
Legal experts say there is a good chance the flush venture capital firm Hummer Winblad stands to lose more than its $13 million investment in Napster Inc. if the music-swapping firm is fined for music piracy.
then the Economist did a story:
Hummer's Napster bummer: Napster's backers under attack
Here's the distinction they're going to try to make, though: they're going to say that these VC dudes funded a project designed to violate the law, and specifically exploting the RIAA's IP, for the intent of making a profit. Think of it like this: a venture capital firm funds a murder-for-hire firm that kills people and then is shut down by the government. Are the VC guys responsible in any way for the crimes of the company they funded, when it was clear the function of the company was to murder people for money?
If you buy that, they can be held liable pretty easily for funding a criminal operation. There are a number of distinctions between this and limited liability: for one, shareholders of Exxon are investing in an oil business, and didn't make the decision to stick Alaska with the cleanup bill, for instance.
One of the major principles of corporate law, for the past hundred years, is that only the company itself (and in certain circumstances the company's directors) are liable for legal action. The shareholders are exempt, and their loss is limited to the amount of their original investment (i.e. the company files for bankruptcy and the value of their shares drops to zero.
The attempt to sue a major investor of Napster is equivalent to attempting to sue every mutual fund, investment bank, or major shareholder who owns Philip Morris for "Supporting a product that causes death and disease".
If we want to make corporate responsibility a real thing in the post-Enron days, this sort of thing is going to have to happen. Lots of people want laws to enable us to go after people who lie to shareholders or pollute the environment, but the sword cuts both ways. If you want to make it more difficult for someone (either a real person or another corporation) to hide behind a corporation after engaging in illegal activity, you're going to have to accept that these laws will be used by people we don't like (RIAA) to go after people we do like (Napster) breaking laws we don't like.
How is this such a wrong thing anyway? Hummer Winblad knew that Napster operated by exploiting copyrights they did not own, but they gave them money anyway. Giving money to a terrorist group that will commit crimes is illegal; why shouldn't it be illegal to give money to a company that will commit crimes also? Ignore whether the law is just; as it stands right now, Napster was illegal.
You have a choice: tax and spend Democrats, or borrow and spend Republicans. Choose wisely.
"By the time of its close, Napster had contributed to billions of separate acts of copyright infringement, according to Monday's complaint. The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards."
So at a minimum, this is two-billion times $150 thousand, or $300 trillion! And you thought asking $97 billion from college students was bad...
I don't know if I should report you to the Grammar Nazi or the Spelling Nazi. I'll just forward this to both, and let them argue about jurisdiction.
From the Article:
:)
By the time of its close, Napster had contributed to billions of separate acts of copyright infringement, according to Monday's complaint. The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards.
Let me check my math here:
~1 billion (1,000,000,000) acts
x $150,000 per act fine
==========
~$150 TRILLION dollars ($150,000,000,000,000)
Two Things:
1) Does this amount of money even exist?
2) Did anyone else here Dr. Evil's voice when they read that last figure?
"Record companies and music publishers have much to be concerned about, according to recent research. Worldwide sales of music CDs, records and cassettes fell for the third year in a row, hit largely by rising Internet piracy in the United States, according to figures for 2002 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Last year saw the steepest fall yet, with a 7 percent drop in global music sales and a 10 percent fall in units sold in the United States."
Piracy? Piracy? This is total bullshit.
I'm no Pirate and I stopped giving you Record Company Morons(TM) any of my money because I became aware that you're all a bunch of clueless, lawyer happy a-holes!
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
Y'see, doing this is likely to seriously piss off some very important people. Even if EMI & Universal manage to get through this without being hamstringed, it just brings them closer to the boundary they need to cross before that happens.
They're really taking this shit way too far. They seem to think that they're invulnerable (so far, they have good reason to believe that). The nice part about this is that big-time investors are close buddies with Washington. They're gonna be scared, not because they invested in Napster, but because of the precedent that this sets.
Tobacco and oil investors should be very afraid, and we all know what oil investors are capable of. Hopefully, this will result in Hillary Rosen looking like the Goatse guy.
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
Ray Kroc, owner of the McDonald's franchise until his death in 1984, once asked some students that had attended his business seminar, what is my business? They responded, Hamburgers, of course! No, he told them, his business was real estate, and that is where the majority of McDonald's income comes from. McDonald's is the largest single owner of real estate in the entire world, even more than the Catholic church.
And now the music labels seem to be running off of a similar philosophy. I can just imagine how a seminar with Hilary Rosen would go:
H: What is my business?
Audience: Music, of course!
H: Wrong! My business is in lawsuits. The RIAA and the major music labels make most of their money from suing other people. We have complete control over more greedy, crooked lawyers than any other institution in the world -- including Microsoft!
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
The last dying breath of a stupid behemouth.
Its going to flail around a bit and may cause some collateral damage.
From the article:
Legal efforts by the recording industry and music publishers essentially crushed Napster two years ago. But now the music industry is seeking punitive damages from Napster backers, in a move that could portend further suits targeting assets of companies that back independent file-swapping services.
Uhhhmmmm... BMG invested money into Napster also. Even offered to buy them out and etc. Ahh so you will go after someone else, but not your own RIAA members???
WTF! @ssholes.
Sue the CDROM manufacturers that enabled music reading/playing for computers. Seriously. They could argue that the CDROM manufacturers should have only created them to read data CDs.
Maybe sound card manufacturers for having good quality line-in/mic jacks - they should have limited them to 22khz or something suitable for voice.
It probably won't go as far as suing the retailers for selling CDs to "pirates", however.
Why do I have the distinct feeling that, in the not-so-distant future, most companies will receive their funding from anonymous people in brown paper bags left on the street corner...the funds in small denominations, unmarked, and non-sequential serial numbers.
Trust me...the day I win Powerball several organizations are going to receive anonymous donations.
Now that's a good ROI...
...that I can sue that 16 year old that is cooking my burgers at McDonald's. They are contributing to my being an exceptionally FAT ASSED BASTARD which is having a trickledown effect on my health, my social standing, and ultimately my effectiveness at being a human being.
Screw this, LET them set this precedent. That way I can sue Chips Ahoy too, and doritos, and lays.....
It's really true, lawyers ARE the scum of the earth.
Look at what record companies are producing now: $17 or $18 CDs of bands that wouldn't have been allowed out of the garage in the 80s. Who is the best guitarist in alternative music? Who knows? Who cares? Alternative music doesn't require technical virtuosity to play. It's all about small acts. The record companies like this because it doesn't lock them in to paying prima donnas like Eddie Van Halen or David Lee Roth the big bucks, but it also means that alternative bands are far more interchangeable and can't demand as much of a premium over other bands.
Eventually, a record company will realize that it would be better off releasing a higher quality product at a lower price, its sales will go through the roof, and everyone else will follow. Until then, we will just have to listen to them whine about file sharing. File sharing is not the problem, price and quality are.
The people who really have something to lose are radio stations. They are a free music delivery mechanism, but why listen to a radio station that only plays music you like some of the time when you can download MP3s and listen to your favorites.
Perhaps the future weakness of the radio station is what really bothers the record companies. Radio stations are their promotion mechanism. Without them, they might have to actually produce a quality product to get people to buy it (instead of just playing it to the point that people feel vaguely uncomfortable when the radio is off because they are so accustomed to the sound of the song).
What I don't understand is why the RIAA is responding so violently to these file-sharing programs. There are 5 million people using KaZaA (or more). I'd be willing to be that 99%, if not 100% have at least one song downloaded, many have hundreds. However, to the best of my knowledge, the Recording Industry isn't suffering with regards to money. Am I wrong here? If I am right, then can someone explain just why this is such a big deal to them?
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
I'm still a bit confused with the pervasive attitude that there is nothing wrong with services like Napster and that trading music is okay. I'm in the entertainment industry myself and things are getting rougher by the day. Where does it say that all intellectual property should be free? Artist have a right to get paid for their work. Taking that work without compensation is stealing. Saying it is because the record companies over charge for CDs is rationalizing the act. If the government doesn't go after Napsterlike orginizations should they go after the individuals doing the trading? Would it be better to let Napster off and give everyone else two years probation? It may feel like you are getting away with something by swapping music but in the long run you aren't. Without the influx of money the record industry will have to downsize. It will be ten times harder for new bands to make it and the selection of music will be a fraction of what it is now. The record companies won't loose in the long run. They already got rich. You'll loose. And no I've never downloaded music.
Could it be possible that the RIAA is actually feeling the effect of these financial losses due to 'piracy'? I'm sure they're not exactly broke but with they way they've begun suing people..
As part of the due-diligence, the major investors have publicly stated that they went to their lawyers, and the lawyers advised them to steer clear, because Napster was knowingly letting/encouraging people swap copyrighted material(this knowing/encouraging bit is important.)
They went ahead anyway, because they were greedy- the same reason people threw traditional rules-of-business out the window for countless dot-coms that(surprise) turned into dot-bombs.
Surprise surprise, people come knocking when they hear you funded a company which YOU KNEW(AND HAD BEEN ADVISED BY A LAWYER TO THE SAME EFFECT), WAS ENGAGING IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY. It's called aiding and abetting, and in this case, the investors knew full well what was going on; it's not like someone was cooking the books and the investors honestly didn't know. EVERYONE at Napster knew they were doing something illegal.
If you want to be all "RIAA/MPAA sucks!", fine- but don't mix up centuries-old legitimate law. If you fund a business you know is a front for a drug operation, are you gonna be "speechless" when the DEA comes and arrests you? Actually, being speechless in such a case might be an excellent idea, particularly given your understanding of legal matters ;-)
Please help metamoderate.
You are wrong. The recording industry is sinking fast, and the rats have jumped ship.
The weasels, on the other hand, are trying to force everybody else to bail them out.
I don't think it's online file trading killing them nearly as much as the boycotts against them becoming more and more effective. The RIAA might find things going better for them if they back off, not worse.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
Ye gods, that's a lot of money. Consider that the United States is in debt by something around 3-4 trillion dollars. This is fifty times as much. With this amount of money, the RIAA could theoretically start buying up countries, one after another. However, I think it an understatement to say that no company can pay this. This is just another example of how the RIAA is trying to screw everyone else, and induce fear whenever their name is spoken. As far as I can tell, it's working.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
First, Owners and investors of corporations (Napster was incorporated) are not liable for that companies actions. The company is. This is basic Business Finance.
Second, "The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards." They are trying to sue an organization that did not actually copy and distribute illegal material. In fact, they simply acted as a gateway (like a search engine or a LAN file sharing utility like Windows Network Neighborhood). The record companies can only sue those who were directly involved in the copying of their works.
If this lawsuit is plausible, then murder victim families should be able to sue credit card companies for loaning money to a criminal to buy a gun, which was used illegally. This is obviously unconstitutional.
to make laws that can not possibly be enforced, which effectively dilute the credibilty and perceived authority of the all laws of a nation.
Laws of man should observe the laws of physics.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
In the artical at news.com it read that the record label was suing for 150,000 per infringment and that Napster was guilty of "billions" of acts?!
By the time of its close, Napster had contributed to billions of separate acts of copyright infringement, according to Monday's complaint. The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards.
Assuming 1 billion violations * 150k$ = 150e12 bucks? Am I doing the math right here? Is this a Guiness World Record here or what...
and I thought that woman suing McDonalds was funny...
Right, wrong, irrelevent. What is, is.
I stopped buying their CDs when they started hiding fake CDs among the real ones.
I realize that boycotting them is going to make them yell even louder about "piracy". But look at it honestly, would they stop yelling if their profits went up? I don't think so. They'd just have more money for lawyers. Their ever-louder whining is the price we'll have to pay for the joy of watching them wither away and die in the remnants of their failed business model.
"Worldwide sales of music CDs, records and cassettes fell for the third year in a row, hit largely by rising Internet piracy in the United States, according to figures for 2002 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry" (emphasis added).
The sales figures I have seen only indicate that sales are less than in the past. The causal connection made by this and other articles indicating that this reduction is a result of piracy is not entirely established. Record companies have blamed the Internet for their poor performance so many times that it has been accepted by many in the media as established fact.
There are many other possibilities to explain the sales reduction. Reduced interest in current, big name artists, increased interest in a splintered set of independent artists, the failure of the industry to adapt to new market formats (much as occurred when cassette tapes became popular), and the alienation of large parts of their customer base all come to mind as possible alternative explanations.
Many "old steel" industries are becoming frustrated that customers are not more like cattle. Tastes tend to change suddenly in ways that large companies have a hard time dealing with and it is easier to blame outside forces that to fix a difficult problem.
Perhaps their numbers won't be off for a fourth year if the recording industry drops its defensive stance and instead recognizes that the market has changed and that they need to adapt. At some point shareholders have to begin asking what else the industry is doing to increase revenue besides suing everyone.
http://saveie6.com/
By the time of its close, Napster had contributed to billions of separate acts of copyright infringement, according to Monday's complaint. The record labels are seeking punitive damages of no less than $150,000 per violation of copyright, among other awards. This means that the entire world GNP for 10 years will be given to the 6 major record labels.
You are 1000% wrong here. Lloyds is not a corporate entity, it is a collection of syndicates. None of these syndicates operates as a limited liability company. That's why the names are on the hook up to their last dimes: there is no shred of limited liability in their organization.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The RIAA will glady accept the installment of Jack Valenti as absolute dictator in lieu of cash. Just imagine: Shity music being forced you by an oppressive govt. which then charges you for listening.
if they arrested people in cars playing it loud under the 'public performanc' aspect I'd be all for it. Many times now I've been ambling through a migraine, trying to make it through the day, to have some idiot drive by, booming noise as loud as he can, with the windows down, making life unbearable.
I used to work for Owens-Corning. OC acquired a company that made fiberglas insulation; decades ago they also made asbestos insulation. Guess who got stuck with the bill a few years ago when the lawyers came calling. OC still generates a profit but every cent of it goes towards paying the asbestos laysuits. OC stock is now worthless.
more proof that one mod's "troll" is another's "insightful."
i also thought it was interesting.
and he should get a bonus +2 and +5 modifiers for quoting the relevent text and using italics. i'd do it, but i lack the power. everyone should mod like i do.
yay to herrd0kt0r.
herrd0kt0r for prez.
is it physically possible to create a system to distribute information to a large group of people while keeping absolute control over said information?
"Are you saying 'any law that can be broken is no longer a law at all.'"
No, I am saying unenforcable laws do nothing more than weaken legitimate laws and subsidize influential corporations with obsolete business models.
Law should be the collective expression of those bound by it. When this stops being true, order is threatened by the chaos of revolution.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Yup, sales of RECORDS! and CASSETTES! fall. It MUST be piracy - never mind that the entire market has changed.
When was the last time anyone (apart from Moms) bought music on a tape?
If you want to be all "RIAA/MPAA sucks!", fine- but don't mix up centuries-old legitimate law. If you fund a business you know is a front for a drug operation, are you gonna be "speechless" when the DEA comes and arrests you? Actually, being speechless in such a case might be an excellent idea, particularly given your understanding of legal matters ;-)
You're assuming Napster was doing something illegal, which they weren't. No violation of the law was made further than any other system that indexes files and provides their locations.
Why bother.
Because that facilitates sharing.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Um, wasn't Valenti the MPAA guy? You know, for movies and stuff? NOT music, like the RIAA?
Let me first acknowledge that the person you're replying to is probably a little more extreme than a lot of people. BUT...
Even though I disagree with the way he expresses his opinion (telling you to get a job was rather childish) he is correct. The conglomerates themselves have invalidated the entire concept of copyright by acting outside the boundaries (and spirit) of the original intent of copyright. To ensure innovators innovated, and to insure that useful ideas weren't kept out of the public's hands forever... One of many measures essentially enacted to prevent the formation of an ultra-wealthy aristocracy.
They didn't intend to allow conglomerates to keep culturally enriching materials out of the public domain forever, yet that is essentially where we're at, and essentially the point of view you're arguing.
I can't wait for somebody to become a big star by financing his own recordings, promoting himself with unencumbered p2p delivered mp3 (or oggs or whatever) of songs, perhaps embedding his web-site name in one of the ID3 fields so people who really liked it could logon and buy cds, t-shirts, and tickets to see him in concert.
It will eventually happen, and if your music is good enough, it could be you. The critical difference is that somebody who becomes huge this way gets to keep all the profits, keep ownership (for a time) of the rights to his songs, and not be a slave to some idiot in a suit's concerns about your record and whether there are any "singles" on it. Every artist who sides with the RIAA and their ilk only lengthen their time of servitude under an oppressive regime.
Hello Apples, meet Oranges. A house is physical property. It can be taken away. A song can't be taken away unless I take all your tapes and erase your memory of it. The law plainly intends for copyrights to eventually expire, why can't you (and the RIAA) accept that rather than trying to sue everybody into submission?
Using your logic, how is playing the radio loud any different than Napster? I'm allowing many people to "enjoy" "your" music but only paying for one copy. For that matter, why is Napster different than a radio station? Sure, radio stations pay for the right to broadcast music, but the per song breakdown is pretty small. The reason the labels had this arrangement in the first place was PROMOTIONS.
Why won't the labels license Napster-like services to provide unlimited downloads? It would be the same as radio--better really because the user would hear exactly as much of what they are interested in as they want--lose interest fast? Decide the artist sucks? Erase file.
Every "starving musician" I've ever met who is vehemently anti-Napster invariably has some pie-in-the-sky dream of living the life of a rock star--fame, fortune, big money, and chicks everwhere. All of them desperately want to believe that those three things are achieved on merit, but they aren't. They're based on promotional budget, production budget, and access to good drugs.
Who did what now?
Mod upppp, mod grandparent down
I can't believe our forefathers didn't see the evils of the patent, trademark, and copyright laws they laid down. I'm a consumer myself and things are getting rougher by the day while they should be getting much easier now that we can in effect replicate a thousand printing presses for nothing. Who says information can be owned? We have a right to trade and duplicate information. Using the law to create a monopoly on a piece of information is unethical. Saying it's because you're revenue is dropping is a rationalizing act. If the people don't go after RIAA like organizations should go after the individuals doing the lawmaking? Would it be better off to forgive Congress and let them know they won't be back in office if their condiuct doesn't change? It may not seem to you like you're getting away with something enforcing licensing on your data but in the long run you won't be able to enforce it. Without spending money on this data the people will be able to do other things with their money. The people are poor. You'll lose. And I've never enforced licencing on data.
You don't know poor until you've been an artist. I'm stunned that every single response effectively says an artist should expect to be paid for his work. I've got an idea. An artist's work is free to everyone but an artist can take anything he wants as compensation for providing his work to the public. I write a novel or song so I get to go into a store and grab a TV or two. Sound fair? How exactly do you expect artists to eat if they can't charge for their work. The argument that copyright laws are wrong is childish. You just want to be able to steal from artist and feel good about it. If you really want to feel good hold up a liquor store.
Umm, you're saying the whole problem is the music companies aren't hiring enough musicians like Eddie Van Halen or David Lee Roth???
How's the mullet project going, dude?
wouldn't the cdrom manufacturers say "we licensed the cdrom format from sony/philips - so what - go sue yourself"?
maybe the stupid frigging music companies should have thought about making an exclusive deal with philips back in the early 80's limiting the use of the cd to music alone. probably could have but were too shortsighted / cheap.
certain bg-fan-bios (eg 'the microsoft way' by randall e. stoss) like to point out repeatedly, that cdrom technology didn't really have any commercial/consumer potential until the early 1990's when a certain mr bill gates started having multimedia visions and his company microsoft began selling a product called encarta.
in fact, this is more or less cited as evidence that microsoft did in fact innovate something(!).
so now, who should the RIAA be suing???
--TRR
I don't know which Napster you were using, but mine didn't have ads.
"It's Dot Com!"
Don't worry, you don't have to understand the concepts of corporate law and how it's supposed to shield you from personal liablility for actions of your company and thereby encourage business. All you have to know is what anyone who ever did anything practical for any company knows. It's the law of excutive incompetence which can be expressed this way:
You supervisor has forgoten many tricks of your trade in order to deal effectively with their own supervior. This applies, with diminishing competence, all the way up to the CEO who knows nothing except how to deal with shareholders who know nothing at all.
There you have it. Chances are Winblad had no idea of what Napster did further than:
1. It's something to do with music and kids love it.
2. ???
3. Profit.
He was also the largest share holder so the law applies to him twice!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Motion pictures, amusement and recreation account for $114.8 billion of the nation's GDP. Rest assured, most of that "amusement and recreation" is from amusement parks and the like. The nation's GDP is over $10 trillion. In other words, copyrights and patents make up less than 1.1% of the U.S. economy.
After all, we don't have manufacturing anymore
Manufacturing accounts for $1.4 trillion of the GDP (about 14%). Our other big industries are construction, finance, insurance, real estate, transportation, utilities, health care, legal, miscellaneous business services, and government.
we've become a knowledge & entertainment center.
That's what your television set wants you to believe, but the facts don't support it.
The ruling found her only 20% responsible, for which she should be grateful.
If you'd read more than just that page you'd see that 99 percent of all articles on the web are one of only two articles, that both take her side one hundred percent and appear to be syndicated articles or perhaps press releases.
McDonald's serves 2.5 million cups of coffee a day, and in 10 years 700 people get burned bad enough to complain. That's why McDonalds called it "statistically insignficant."
Third degree burns do seem excessive, but expert testimony also declared that the elderly are far more easily burned than others. From her testimony, she didn't seem to think that "hot" meant hot enough to burn. If she brewed it at home it would be, why not at mcdonald's? Everyone seems to know that coffee is too hot to drink when you first get it, but she got burned trying to immediately pry off the lid and start adding cream to it, presumably to drink it. She should have waited.
Oh yeah, more testimony. McDonald's has been serving coffee this hot since 1978, ample time to figure out that the crap's really hot.
I'm not saying that McDonald's wasn't negligent, but that a) the court did find her partially responsible, probably less so than she actually was--and b) your bullshit link doesn't have all the facts either. suprise surprise, a lawyer defends a 2.6 million verdict.
"However," she adds, "we'll consider dropping the suit if Mr. Barge agrees to a lifetime membership in Columbia House or the BMG Group's record club."
IIRC, the record companies don't pay royalties to the artists on the sales through these companies. That way they get to screw the consumer AND the artist at the same time.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Here's an ugly scenario - the RIAA wins a court settlement that prohibits the manufacture of non-DRM CD-RW drives. New "post ban" models will have a DRM crippler installed, and won't let you burn anything to CD unless you connect to RIAA HQ and get permission. The courts will need to grandfather "pre ban" drives because retrofitting will be impossible. If your CD-RW drive needs to be repaired, you'll need to take it to a certified repair shop. Don't even think about transporting it across state lines all by yourself. You'll need a special permit for that. Oh, and you'll need to register your "pre ban" CD-RW with ATF.
Sure. That's what insurance or Medicare is for.
It's a travesty that McDonalds had to pay even one penny to this stupid old cow and her filthy leech lawyers. I don't care if they served the fucking coffee at a full rolling boil.
Or do you just prefer to libel innocent people who get hurt by corporations?
Libel huh? Who would think of that first, but a fucking lawyer parasite?
God Almighty do I hate lawyers. We need to smash the legal system. Limits on punitive damages, punitives paid to the state general fund instead of the scum sucking lawyers, loser-pays rules, no more contingency fees. Just for a start. Drive them out of business by the hundreds of thousands.
9 out of every 10 lawyers are useless fucking wastes of oxygen dragging down this country's economy. I want to see them unemployed, selling apples on the street corner, and hear the lamentations of their homeless wives and children.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
remember that Napster was a service... they were keeping those dynamic indexes... the transfer was peer to peer, but that was just a portion of the whole service which was not peer to peer, but specifically a central directory/index.
At least, that was my impression of their system.
-pyrrho
If they win, then the generic case if illegal music file sharing service has company X for funding then they can be sued will be viable.
The laws are "general" i.e. I doubt the laws that have (supposedly) been broken here mention the words "music sharing" at all.
The real danger is that everything that those laws apply to will be just as illegal.
Is anyone doubting that Microsoft (just an example) is breaking some competition laws (somewhere on the planet) ?
Well, if you buy Microsoft Stock, you are helping them to commit a crime ..
Are you ready to go to prison for that ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
You really don't know much about music, do you? 'Alternative' music is just a name that marketing analysts came up with to describe the indie-music revolution of the '90s.
The major labels are the ones promoting the major acts that top the billboard charts, and these acts are rarely rock acts. It's usually rap, r&b, hip hop, and teeny bopper pop. The music that tends to be popular also tends to be very simple-minded and clone-like....much like the consumers who buy the shit. The major labels are just reacting to the market.
Here's the breakdown, who's at fault and why...
Shitty music-Let's be honest here, it's the moron consumers who pony up the cash for mass-marketed, bullshit music, that bear the responsibility for the sad state of affairs in major CD releases. If people weren't buying it, they wouldn't sell it.
Lower sales-Record labels have only themselves to blame, when they charge $19.99 for a new CD, for lower sales.
Music piracy-Anyone who downloads copyrighted music without permission. I do it. I'm a theif. It's too hard to resist, free music! Napster, Kaazaa, Gnutella, whatever...they facillitate music piracy, period, and that's illegal.
now, go buy yourself some music by bands you've never heard of, and download the latest stuff from major label bands. It only makes sense.
~j
"Having access to an artist work is a privilege" This is the same bullshit coming out of the mouth of almost every new musician out there. Well here is the bottom line. You are NOTHING without your fans. If people don't listen to you, you're going to be playing bad bass riffs in your mothers basement till you're 40 and you'll never make a dime. If I decide that your music is worth listening to, YOU should feel privilaged that I didn't just keep walking past your gig, or just put your CD down or whatever. Yesterday I downloaded a copy of "Have You Forgotten" by Darryl Worley and a couple other songs. Heard it on the radio and I thought I liked it. I listened to it for a couple of days, enjoyed it's message, thought the quality of the music and lyrics was good, and after work today, I bought his whole CD. That my friend is capitalism. You make an excellent product, and I will purchase it, thereby investing in you to make more of the same. On the other hand, I heard some samples of the new Godsmack at the friendly local Walmart. The samples weren't long enough so I came home, and downloaded a couple songs off the new CD. I honestly couldnt tell a difference from the music they have already done, IMHO it was pure drivel. I didn't go purchase the CD and the MP3's are no longer taking up my valuable hard drive space. And as far as the laws go, it was once against the law for blacks and whites to go to the same schools, ride on the same parts of a bus, or even drink from the same fountain. Laws only exist as long as the people follow them. The people have the power, and if you want to make a law that instantaneously makes us all criminals, fine. Now 999 out of 1000 people are in jail and nobody is paying taxes and GASP, nobody is buying music. People should stand up and fight for what they know is right, but at the same time, should realize that rights come with responsibilities. Support your local band (if they are worth a crap). If you don't like it, feel free not to buy it, but don't download whole alblum's of something you say you don't like. I don't think it should be a crime, it's just bad class. People who are talented musicians don't have a right to be paid, but if you want them to keep producing the quality music you enjoy then you need to give them an incentive. Power to the People. Burn the Corps to the ground.
If a tool has a *ANY* legal use, then its the users responsibly and THEY should be held libel.
*ANY* product can be used for an illegal activity, even a brick.. Where does it stop?
This is as bad as suing gun makers because a criminal stole a gun and used it in a crime.. ( not to mention that the theft of the gun was a crime also )..
Or suing a bar because a person got drunk then drove home, hitting a person.. Oh toss in the car maker too.. it was their product that did the killing right? It wasn't the irresponsible user..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Download and share all the music in the world!!!
Then let me introduce myself to you. I have (on many occasions) bought CDs I would have never dreamed of considering after downloading tracks and really liking them. This got me interested in (short list): The Orb, Ween, and Wilco among many many others.
Do I buy everything I download? No. But, if I don't like it enough to buy it the files usually end up getting erased. If your position is that I should have to pay for all music I'm "exposed" to thats just, well, fucked. There are also situations where you CAN'T buy on CD stuff you can download... Live cuts, for example, are often included on obscure imports that not everybody has access to.
Nobody ever said "No artist should get paid", you're the only one repeating that mantra and trying to put it in our mouths. What we want is a FAIR way to buy music--fair that is, for the consumer AND the artist. The current system is only fair to the congomerates and screws both artist and consumer. The consumer overpays for EVERYTHING, the artist gets pennies per album sold, and the conglomerate invents non-existent "expenses" to justify keeping the rest of the money themselves.
Consumers deserve the right to purchase digital files of the music they desire. They deserve the right to preview the music BEFORE they commit money to a purchase, and they deserve the right to NOT buy the stuff they don't like. If I like one song on the new John Mayer album (for example) but hate the remaining songs, my options are 1) Buy the whole thing for one song, or 2) download the song from p2p. The label has not created a mechanism to satisfy my needs as a consumer, so I have made my own. Call this "rationalizing" if you want... In a manner of speaking, I suppose you're right that I am "rationalizing" something that may technically be unethical. BUT, by the same token, your endorsement of "Pay $15-$20 to enjoy one song" is also a rationalization of your chosen industry's backwards, equally unethical business model.
Ever hear the expression "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones?" Applies pretty well here.
Who did what now?
This comment reminds me of the South Park episode "Sexual Harassment Panda," which was just on recently. There was the landmark case of everyone vs everyone until they decided to tell the lawyer behind it all to fuck off. Sadly, real society hasn't quite made that choice yet.
Love,
Jay and Silent Bob
Look at what record companies are producing now: $17 or $18 CDs of bands that wouldn't have been allowed out of the garage in the 80s.
The scary thing is, CD prices have not dropped one iota from the same time period of when the RIAA was found guilty of price gouging (1995-2000).
And at least garage-bands in the 80s had some talent, instead of relying on voice-synth and upped remix technologies.
I can't believe our forefathers didn't see the evils of the patent, trademark, and copyright laws they laid down.
Trademarks (at least federally) are actually comparatively recent.
As for patents and copyrights, they did. But they also saw that they could be used for great benefit. And mostly they saw that states were fucking up the job, which is why it's a federal matter, like having a post office or an army.
Jefferson wrote quite a bit about this both at the time (corresponding with Madison, as J. was in France), and also later on, after having been Secretary of State, and therefore our nation's first patent examiner, and after being President.
Like many things, it's not inherently good or bad -- it comes down to how you use it. Right now, I agree. The power to establish copyrights and patents is being used to further great, harmful, and lasting mischief. But it need not be, which is why I support reform, and not abolishing the entire deal.
Read some of the Jefferson letters (easily findable online). They're pretty interesting.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Eventually, a record company will realize that it would be better off releasing a higher quality product at a lower price, its sales will go through the roof, and everyone else will follow.
Actually, that's already happening, and you can read all about it here. It's just the Big Five that haven't figured it out yet.
-David, who hasn't bought a Big Five CD in a long time.
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
Take a look on Usenet for posts about Napster written by Marc Sabatella. He's a jazz pianist, has no dreams of becoming an MTV god, and is one of the most articulate opponents of Napster, et al. that I've ever met.
FYI...