Slashdot Mirror
Cringely Tries Snapster 2.0
Fungii writes "Following up from this story last week, here is an update on Cringely's site about the snapster idea. He writes about some of the more interesting reader responses to the idea. Raises some interesting questions."
Not anymore.after the US tornado season of 90-91 Llyods took a very big hit.Nowadays its a Limited liability corporation like any other.
Wanted : A Signature.
is the same problem mp3.com had when the riaa successfully sued them for their virtual music locker. the idea, was that mp3.com's software would scan a CD to verify you owned it, and afterwards you could listen to the songs on it anywhere, without actually having to rip or upload the mp3s yourself because mp3.com had a master copy. IIRC the courts decided this wasn't airtight enough even with random "please insert the CD again so we can verify you weren't just borrowing it from the library" checks.
if anyone tries snapster 2 they'll lose in court for the same reason...
most musicians don't either. they make money by performing it infront of other people for tips, a flat fee, or a percentage of the ticket.
Ed
Mutual funds are regulated by the Investment Company Act of 1940. To simplify a bit, a mutual fund can only invest in securities; it cannot actually run an operating company.
First there is the problem that Snapster is not planning on buying any securities. By law, this must be a mutual funds main business. A CD is not a security.
Second, Snapster is really going to be an operating business, which a mutual fund cannot run. A rental company, like Blockbuster, cannot organize itself as a mutual fund. Even without the distribution of physical tapes, a satellite company, like DirectTV, cannot organize itself as a mutual fund. An ISP cannot organize itself as a mutual fund.
Snapster 2.0 is going to need servers, databases, system administrators, etc. This will make it an operating company, not a mutual fund.
A mutual fund run business functions to the extend needed to track shareholders and make investment decisions. Snapster's lending of CDs goes way beyond this.
As previously mentioned, this is very analagous to the cleanflicks case in some ways. Cleanflicks does it in a "cleaner" way, however, in shipping the two physical copies together.
Here there is a remote physical copy and one other remote copy - e.g., a digital copy available on the Snapster system, a digital copy on the home users system, a digital copy on the users Ipod, etc.
From what I know, the "remote control of a physical copy" has not been decided in a court, and that could be the rope for the noose. It would be more interesting to devise a system that comes closer - like Cleanflicks does not send two DVDs, but keeps one in a lockbox. That would provide legitimacy for the "remote control" theory.
It could then be extrapolated to users who are contractually bound to not use their physical copy at home while it is checked out.
As a matter of fact, some libraries do exactly this right now with e-text. When you "check out" an e-book (or whatever you want to call it) you get access to html'ed book available online. Nobody else can check it out while it's checked out to you.
Best Windows Freeware
Look, it's really simple.
Renting CDs in the US is agains the law. Period. Done. Next idea please, let's not kill billions of bits needlesslesly discussing yet another of Mr. Cringley's ideas which is obviously illegal.
Thanks for pointing it out. People don't seem to understand that DVD/video/game rental has nothing to do with trying to rent a copy you buy at bestbuy.
But everyone always tries to make the comparison.
"Rentable" DVDs cost at least 3 times the price of regular DVDs. That's what makes them legal. They hold a specific license that allows the video store to rent them. If one doesn't hold such a license with a cd/dvd they buy then he needs to abide to the general copyright law.
Independent of that, I don't think a single artist would support this. Some artists do make lots of money from CD sales, and even those who don't are not going to be willing to give up their royalties.
Ah, ignorance. Such a wonderful pasttime.
Let's get to some facts:
Rarely do any music artists make money. Remember, the record company makes the artist pay for EVERYTHING but promotion, and sometimes that as well.
Tom Petty rocked the industry in the 80's by declaring bankruptcy and making the whole world realize that the shady, awful deals then made them, basically, indentured servants. Petty realized that no matter how well his new record did (Damn the Torpedoes, as I recall), he could not make enough money to pay back the record company for what he owed.
Most bands make their money from touring. But again that's a vicious cycle because you have to pay for the crew, the pryotechnics, the t-shirt vendors et al.
All of those huge 50's and 60's songs that the oldies stations play without end? Yeah, about 95% of them are broke.
Even in the 70's, the only people who really benefited from that era were the Bee Gee's, because they sold about 20 million records. And even at a few cents per sale you're bound to make money, and that's how they made out.
Abba makes more money now with their theater show (in London, I believe) than they ever did with "Dancing Queen". And almost everyone's heard that song, or have seen the record in their parent's old collections. But who has heard of their theater setup?
The only flaw I can see, and a small one at that, is that he hasn't mentioned artist payment directly. However, that doesn't mean this is a failure and that doesn't mean it's a bust. I'm sure he can work out something like this lately.
Umm... No... there is no such thing. Right of First Sale allows you to rent, lend, or sell what you have purchased. I work for a DVD rental company that does Netflix style rentals as well as weekly rentals and sales. We buy the DVDs wholesale. There is no alternate pricing.