Slashdot Mirror
Universities Mull Official Role In Music Distribution
An anonymous reader writes "News.com.com is reporting that Universities are considering ways to bring legal Internet jukeboxes to dorm rooms, including entering deals with commercial service providers that would see online music charges included alongside tuition fees or picked up by the schools themselves." Reader ajkst1 adds that "meetings were held between college representatives, music industry reps, and online music services such as Apple's iTunes Music Store, Pressplay, and Listen.com. The discussion wasn't about why they should do it, but about how they should do it. Per-user licenses or a general fee to students were discussed to make it look like the music was free. I'm broke, so free is good. Paying more to go to school is bad."
Damn the costs for college keep going up....
Beer, fake id's, drugs, now I have to pay for music? WTF!?
Most college students are poor anyway, nobody'll subscribe to this crap.
Sig & Below
Yuck Fou
This sounds quite a bit like music vs. data CD-R's and the 'tax' to the music industry that we pay.
The real question is, what if I don't have a computer in my dorm room? Do I still have to get stuck paying this?
They're getting the idea now. The market has established exactly what it wants: easy access to media. Not free access, because many people pay for high-bandwidth connections for this purpose.
Examine what your target market is doing, then change the business model to match. It makes perfect sense and they're finally catching on.
It reminds me of George Washington Carver's solution to a problem. The university students were walking on the grass instead of the paved walks, and wearing muddy trails. Carver simply noted where the students walked, and put sidewalks there. Problem solved.
...
news.com.com really is the name of the site!
ps. news.com.com really is the name of the site!
How about we tax our students $25-$30 apiece per term, send you the money, and you don't send us all those C&D letters and subpoenas?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
your university sweatshirt will have a corporate logo on it.
When deep space exploration ramps up, it will be corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Phiilip Morris Galaxy. Planet Starbucks
This is just another example of "all students pirate music, so let's charge them for it".
It's not the university's responsibility to take all the students' money and then provide all kinds of services. The university should charge for and provide essential services (these days that could include internet) and let the students' spend their remaining money as they see fit. Universities should not dictate the entertainment of their students.
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okAs much as I'd like to see legal distribution of music... a situation where my college tutition is going to something I don't want to use. (Maybe I support indies for example) Then by merely going to college I am supporting and giving money to the RIAA whether or not I will use their product.
This program should include an opt-out option, at the very least.
Furthermore... it will be interesting to see if the files they feed the students (which they will have paid for) will be useless due to DRM. There is an increasing number of college students running linux. If they have to pay for something they can't use... they are not going to be happy. And neither will I... and my tax money helps fund the public universities and I would prefer to not have my tax money going to the RIAA, seeing as they may not pay for it all with tutition increases. Even if my tax money doesn't go to the RIAA, a government sanctioned organization should not be forcing it's students to pay (in their tutition) for a monopilies product... although there are plenty of examples of them already doing that...
I touch computers in naughty places
I can't believe these schools are seriously considering making a deal with the music industry. What if I simply don't care about all that commercial crap they throw on the market year in and out? Who's next? Drug dealers? It's bad enough that students get bombarded with credit card offers the day they start college. Nothing like getting into dept and starting off the 'American way of life' - now the music pushers want their cut too? Not to overreact here, but does anyone else feel less and less like a citizen and increasinly just like a f....ing consumer? There is someting terribly wrong with this picture - commercial entities should stay out of academic organizations as much as possible - basta! Just my 2 cents - things are really getting out of hand out there...
Surely they could make it 'free' by including advertising eg. five free plays for an advert. I guess the music biz could also use the students as guinea pigs to find out what they like to listen to. To which the answer is almost certainly 'free stuff' ...
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
Yeah, you would. Most (or I daresay, ALL) colleges have publicly accessible computers, or at least accessible to all students, and if they were paying for the services, they'd be likely to have the client installed on such computers.
One possibility, though, would be for students to waive the fee, either because of financial or moral reasons. Such an individual would need to sign a waiver of some sort, but this is the system that the Univ. of Arizona uses to put a lot of small -- but non-mandatory -- fees on all the students' bills. Students have the choice to not fund things like the Rec Center and Student Body, but virtually all of them do. It works pretty well, keeping the naysayers from making a huge issue of the fees, while still providing almost 100% of the funding that a mandatory fee would.
I thought the reason to go to college was supposedly to learn things. Silly me. Now everyone who goes to college will be paying extra so they can have access to music they probably don't give a damn about.
This reminds me of the Internet tax, by which everyone would have to pay extra money for their Internet connections so a few dolts could get free music legally.
I already get free music legally: I compose it. Necessitating that I pay more for something unrelated so I can have the opportunity to get something I don't want or need is absurd.
Fortunately, I'm not in college anymore. For the sake of everyone who still is, I hope this proposal dies like the Internet tax one did.
ok, i confess i didn't read the article, but a recent mit project seems related: LAMP FAQ (scroll down a bit). offering cds over cable with an internet based request system. still in beta right now.
Of course, if a college offered "free" DRM'd music, and people continued to share unencumbered music, maybe they'd get a clue. I can guarentee free music in open formats would kill P2P at a college.
Litigious bastards
so what happens if you don't like the crap they wanna force-feed everyone?
what if your style is industrial, ambient, techno, folk, noise - whatever... stuff that isn't top-40 is most likely going to be ignored completely; and these students will still be forced to pick up the tab
There's a 'field house' here at the university; a nice recreation facility, but there was a HUGE uproar from students who didn't want to foot the 40$ per semester fee to use it whether they'd actually use it or not - i forsee similar outcries about any service which likely would suck for all but the lowest common denominator - pop music is all you'll see, and it's what we're all force-fed right from the start
www.necroticobsession.com
the students should not be forced into a subscription via tuition. I just finished my first year of college and I did not once download music from a peer to peer network. Assuming that all students do is a blunder. I would be very upset if I was locked into a plan to purchase music "legally" when I'm not breaking the law in the first place.
Thanks for the article. I didn't know that universities were installing those "spy" boxes onto their networks for the RIAA.
Perhaps they should consider setting up some shoutcast/icecast style stations to stream music over the college LAN? Assuming it can be done cheaply and legally, this would be pretty neat. If people like the radio stations enough, they will spend less time messing with MP3's.
It would sure beat a DRM'ed library of music that I have to pay for, that would lack the convience,variety, and quality of what is already on my harddrive.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch."
Maybe this is just my gut reaction, but maybe colleges should be spending their time working on EDUCATION and not SELLING MUSIC. Leave that to the music companies, stores, etc.
Stuff like this is symptomatic of a (youth) obsession with music. Personally, I'm completely sick of hearing about music[companies,sharing,piracy], and I think that both the music companies and media(inc. slashdot) continuously overstate the significance/importance of music. You can rape 'em at the voting booth(if they even show up), you can make it nearly impossible for 'em to travel without the government massively invading their privacy(on the assumption hijackers will use real names, birthdays, etc)...and they won't even lift an eyebrow. Tell 'em they can't "share" their music, and they get absolutely RIPSHIT.
God forbid we should worry about the important things, like who is going to pay for our parent's medical care, our environment, our rights as individual citizens, our massively corrupt politicians, overpopulation, corporate greed...
Please help metamoderate.
As a student that dislikes the common pop music (i.e. Top40, Top200, TopAnything) I don't want to pay for the RIAA POP music agenda. If this program however would introduce indie bands and struggling musicians on the Jukebox I'd be all for it. I think that all the general student population needs is a little exposure to some alternate choices. However I maybe to generous to the tendencies of undergrad students.
Where the Music Matters
What's that? A wireless router? 256-bit encryption? I don't need the universities network to share music files any more? Sweet. By the way, I won't buy any online music until: A: It's cheaper than buying CD's at the store, including used CD's. B: The quality is at least that of CD's (such as 100% lossless FLAC compression) C: Has no DRM technology in it in any way shape or form. D: I can resell songs after I don't want them any more (commission free), just like I can resell used CD's.
Anyone have any idea which colleges/universities are involved with this? The article doesn't mnetion any, and I'd like to know if mine (or any of my friends') schools are involved so that I can get something together to express my opinion on (against) this.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
Gosh, what an ground breaking, original idea. Schools could have like a library...but for multimedia type stuff. It might be called something like maybe a "Multimedia Library."
This is like ground breaking in the original idea department!!!!!
The main challenge in this article is how to make licenses that allow a member library to distribute copies of works among their members.
The libraries could probably go a long way if they simply had a kiosk system that allowed only one copy of a song to play at a given moment.
Such a program would really just be an extension of the libraries that already exist on campuses...so maybe it is not all that unique.
One of the kewl things about libraries is that they often collect tunes from less known sources.
The music services, along with a representative from Universal Music Group, explained that difficulties in licensing would make a Kazaa-style service impossible, however.
And thus, it will fail. College Students tend to have the most diverse of music tastes, and from what I have read about the various music services, most of what is available is the more popular current music. Beatles and Rolling Stones tunes are next to impossible to come by.
We all want the best, not some half assed attempt at pretending this is better. If I can't get my music from their legitimate service, I'm going to get it elseware.
Also, from my understanding of state laws, State owned (and funded) schools would likely have a difficult time getting something like this started, "A mandatory fee for a commercial service not provided by a university" wouldn't look very good on a budget itinerary for a cash strapped (all) state.
The article mentions that initially the universities wanted a "Kazaa-like" system where students could get any file they wanted. This idea was shot down, so that means the music selection will be limited to whatever is included in the agreement. So students will have to pony up money for a service that has limited selection.
The article doesn't talk about DRM controls, but I would assume that the system would prohibit burning CD's and limit copying to portable devices. Excuse me, but isn't this already available to students (iTunes, Rhapsody, etc.) who want to pay for this service?
The music industry will get lots of revenue through these contracts, and the universities will get some legal coverage to avoid being dragged into court. The universities will probably even take on a service charge to whatever the music industry charges.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
Most universities are terrified, repeat, terrified, of being legally liable for anything. They are doubtless motivated in this case not by the desire to provide music to students, but to provide assurance that they are not going to be sued, no matter how unlikely it may be.
Does anybody remember how the RIAA quietly went around and threatened to sue universities that did not block Napster? Right after this happened, mine announced they were blocking Napster because of 'bandwidth' reasons. This is the same kind of situation, the universities are just dying to pay protection money. They will do anything to avoid the high costs and bad publicity that could come with a lawsuit.
I hate te RIAA and I want to boycott them for life, I dont mind paying for music, but what about indie artists? Forget about the RIAA, how can we allow ARTISTS to get paid?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
College students should just use Kazaa and set up their computers like a FREE jukebox!
Yay, piracy!
F#*k the RIAA! $150,000 a song?! Apple will sell you the same song for 99 cents!
People please download Kazaa Lite K++! Its anonymous, free, and has no spyware or popups! Amazing!
But there is the problem of finding the music, and weeding out the bad stuff without actually having to download and play it all.
This problem is solved with iRATE radio's collaborative filtering:
iRATE radio's server has 46,000 tracks registered in its database - so if you use iRATE, you don't need to go hunting for music anymore. All of these are legal downloads from websites like mine. (I compose for the piano.)The way iRATE works is that it downloads a few tracks at random at first. It downloads them directly from the artists' Web sites after finding them in its database. (The author of iRATE is careful to register only legal downloads.) After you listen to and rate the tracks, your ratings are sent back to the server where it uses statistical analysis to correllate your ratings with the ratings given by other users. If you like the same kind of music I do, then iRATE will send you all the same music I like. Conversely, if you hate my music, iRATE won't send you the music I like.
iRATE is a java program, known to work on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The client and server are both Free Software, licensed with the GPL.
Here's some screen shots.
While iRATE works on Mac OS X, it could stand some improvement. Apple provides a package which can give java programs a native Mac OS look and feel. The project is actively seeking Mac OS X java programmers
Request your free CD of my piano music.
This allows the RIAA to get paid, but what about artists?
I dont want to pay the RIAA anymore.
Indie artists like me dont even benefit from this. How does this help me? I dont have a contract with the RIAA, in fact most artists done, this is corperate welfare and its wrong!
The only way to fix the deficit is to tax sunlight.
How can you give the RIAA free money which they didnt even earn? I'm an idie artist, I get absolutely NOTHING, and this RIAA group is supposed to represent me, this is wrong!
The only way to fix the deficit is to tax sunlight.
I don't want the RIAA to see any more revenue from this or any other source. I hope those bloodsuckers go out of business.
Have a nice day.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
Are we going to do this with the healthcare industry next? Why are we providing subsidies to the RIAA? They dont even make the damn music! What the hell is this? Where is our so called conservative president Bush when we need him?
The only way to fix the deficit is to tax sunlight.
Is it fair to do this? What about indie artists who want people to buy their music? Why should the RIAA get to sell music but no one else?
I think this is the RIAA bullying people into paying the tax. Read my journal entry.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Now they want to tax us and rob consumers of every last penny. The RIAA is evil, we must boycott them, take their CDs and throw them into the ocean damnit!!!!!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The University of Oregon (aka University of California at Eugene) is practically owned by Nike. Nike designed the new "O" logo and the UO has to pay Nike to use the logo on clothing. Oh yeah, and the two main libraries (maybe the third) are named after Phil Knight, the guy that started Nike. There is even a statue of him somewhere on campus. Good thing I don't go there:)
Just pay the tax and shut up thief.
Pay your taxes you greedy thieves!!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Legality means nothing to me. I'm not going to switch to a pay service unless it can provide things that Kazaa can't. High quality, full albums, with no DRM. If I can't send copies of songs to my friends over IM, it's worthless in my book.
Also, if it became a 'fee', all hell would break loose. Colleges already charge a crapload for extra stuff lots of people never use, just on the assumption that you "might" use it.
Examples: (per semester at Virginia Tech)
Student activity fee: $113 (most student activities suck)
Athletic fee: $116 (gym crowded, and don't have to attend gym to excercise)
Rec Sports Fee: $71 (the funny thing is most people who actually do rec sports have to buy their own gear as well)
Bus fee: $30 (I use it, but many others don't)
Pay each of those twice a year and that's $660. I don't even want to think about what the "music fee" would be.
It also sounds as though colleges will pay a set fee per student, so they can use the service, thus supposedly freeing up the college of legal liability.
But wait, what happens if the college-affiliated jukebox doesn't carry, say, Rush's CD catalog? As a broke college student who already indirectly paid my $30 extra in tuition to subsidize this program, what am I likely to do? That's right, go onto a Kazaa and pirate those Rush CD's. And then we're right back where we started. And at that point, you can be sure that both my college and I are back on the hook, as far as the record companies are concerned.
More to the point, I think the most pressing concern is how much money from these college jukeboxes would be passed to the artist. The article makes no mention of this. And I'm inclined to think that when I download my DRM-crippled music, at this cut-rate University special fee, the artist is going to get shafted even more than if I had purchased a CD. And to me, the whole point of buying music is to support the artist. If a big chunk of my dollar doesn't support the artist, then piracy seems a moral option. I can always go to the artist's concert later, paying for tickets and t-shirts.
So to sum up, there's plenty of reason to be distrustful of this. It looks like a way for record companies to take $30 or whatever for each college student, and then to continue going after these same students, when they resort to piracy after realizing the college jukebox sucks.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
...will never go for this. Gimme a break.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
That is HOT! I jizzed in my pants. Thanks!
I cannot believe that any campus would want to get involved in enforcing RIAA licensing requirements. It would be a nightmare just attempting to distinquish between music that was to be restricted and that which was free to copy; never mind deciding exactly who on campus was covered and who wasn't.
A paranoid person would think that the RIAA was just attempting to set up one large, rich target rather than suing each and every moneyless student independently.
How about this... universities instead focus on improving their curriculum or improving the general state of student life on campus. How about investing more in improving general quality of living in dorm rooms, open up campus bookstores to the free market instead of monopolizing vendors like Follets. There are many worthwhile things universities SHOULD be doing for students instead of getting into the music business! Students WILL find a way to get their MP3s without the help of the school.
There are a lot major universities in dire straits financially, and of the ones I've observed, their problems are owed to very poor decision making by presidents and boards that don't know how to run universities as a business. If universities want to increase profits, they should reengineer their existing business processes
Don't know if anyone has been paying attention, but in California, but they raised tuition 10% in the first quarter of 03, and now another 30% recently. And had to cut many programs due to the states 700 million dollar education cut because of the 38 billion state budget overrun. Its not just california that has these budget problems, its happening all over the country.
So while I like the idea of them trying provide free music for the students (or seem free), its more of a value added feature when you have to pay 40%+ more in tuition.
It must be a tough to attract kids to colleges with these budget costs, cutting fund for additional programs, and the harsh job market for software/computer related jobs. Anything they can do to make the life a little easier on the students is almost a business decision, a very smart one.
Gotta see the trees through the forest, Free music for colleges is more about avoiding lawsuits, tuition prices and attracting students.
is with a web-based interface. Say they set up a system where you log in with your browser and your student ID. Then a web-based player (that should be able to work in linux, windows, and mac) has a library of music for you to pick from. Let it save playlists and even let students access it from anywhere (unless there are too many restrictions). I can see this as potentially very cool (say you want to have an 80s party, for example, you can set up a playlist with a bunch of 80s songs that you might not have otherwise had), but I agree that it should NOT be forced upon people. I might pay for it, depending on what music is offered, but I know many who wouldn't (and also LOTS that would).
I'm going to try it right now!! I just happen to have a box of ritz on hand
-Cowboy (cocksucker) Neal
Oh great! This will be the social and technical test bed for the roll out of the RIAA's favored version of Digital Rights Management. While Johnny is off at University being taught what passes for critical thinking he can be indoctrinated into the RIAA's future music licensing paradigm. After all, why sell physical copies of licensed work just ONCE when you can continuously charge per student/per month for the same content?
*** This Month Only!: The Metallica add on pack is
only one penny more for the first three months*
*One year contract at standard pricing required.
After providing this "service" to the nation's colleges for a time the RIAA will have trained the next generation of music consumers to accept usurious licensing fees in exchange for digitally managed content without batting an eye.
*** Note: Beginning next month all Britney Spears
content will be disabled pending the release of her new masterwork - - "Ooops, I made Millions again"!
yeesh,
Fibonacci Ceres
Maybe this is just my gut reaction, but maybe colleges should be spending their time working on EDUCATION and not SELLING MUSIC
I don't exactly know when it happened, but the American educational system stopped being primarily about education and instead is about being a social welfare delivery system. It's why schools spend so much (and are still short of books, teachers, and classrooms) and deliver so little.
College campuses are almost idealized socialist countries -- the college is the source of everything, including rules, laws, and its own peculiar forms of repression. Who goes to college for an education? You go to further your ethnicity, sexuality, and other special-interests.
And in the end, the state colleges will go keep going to the legislature and keep asking for increases in spending...
The service will be streaming only, DRM windows media files (or similar) at lowish quality. It's tasters to get you to buy more from the service providers. All you'll get is IP authorised access to a few promotional pages on Itunes or Pressplay. Either you can stream all at low quality, or a selected older releases / parts of albums. They'll have almost no classical / folk / jazz either I bet.
"irate" is how a lot of people start to feel as they witness an increasingly large community being bamboozled by the RIAA.
-ben
myselfmusic
Now this is a good idea.
Many people, especially of the college age, have come to the point that paying for music is an almost unheard of notion. An idea like this would go a long way towards remedying that--basically, those kids (myself included) are likely going to continue downloading music regardless of the legality. I would wholeheartedly support this idea.
The article mentions several problems that keep this from coming to fruition. The first is licensing. A system like this would have no way of supporting each artist--a specific, flat amount would go to the licensing service. It should be a relatively easy task, however, to gather statistics on what songs are downloaded how many times--from that, reward those artists X% of the flat fee. The second problem that they raise is one of cost--tuition costs have risen greatly recently, far outpacing inflation, and many students (or their parents) are not going to want to pay for a system they may or may not use. Fine. Don't. Don't make it a compulsory part of tuition. Sort of like schools send out flyers allowing student to purchase sheets or rugs that they know fit the beds or rooms, let the student decide if he wants to tack that extra money on his tuition bill.
I really think an idea like this could go a long way towards bringing a solution to the filesharing problems.
-Bob
is if they had a small montly fee and allowed unlimited downloads. Paying for each song ends up being just as expensive as buying the CD, plus the stores that offer that now all have some type of DRM. I think that something like emusic.com but with the major record labels would be the best way to go, and it would be the only method I would consider using.
SIGFAULT
I envision that every university could build a giant information repository in the center of their campuses. These massive edifices could act as a storehouse for books, magaizines, music cds and other forms of data. To gain entry the supplicant would need a badge of identification.
I shall call my creations LIBRARIES and students will flock to them.
Seriously folks, Universities have the infrastructure already. Have the library buy the CD. Load the CD on a server and seal the origional in a vault. Stream the cds to the users (athenticated via library card). Set the server to one stream per purchased copy and it is all fair use. How alout them apples RIAA!
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
I don't download or listen to much music (much less buy any). So if the cost of these services was include in tutition I'd be getting a raw deal, paying for something I have no intention of using.
God I hate compulsory licensing.
One thing that's been left out of the debate thus far is the role of University communities in the production of music. And of course they are free to freely distribute on their own internal networks music which they have written and produced.
Universities have music programmes --everything from aspiring rock and roll bands to amateur chorale groups and semi-professional jazz ensembles, to chamber orchestras and full-blown symphony orchestras. Has the RIAA taken so much control over the terms of the debate that the role of University communities in providing cheap or free innovative cultural events is pushed so far over to one side as to be completely missing? Personally, I think the Universities have a duty to their students to discourage the RIAA crap music and provide a superior product themselves -- in the name of education.
As an example, a coffeehouse at Cornell, we had a folk concert series called "Bound for Glory" that usually featured one local or not-so-local artist and an opening act by a student or student group. And it was broadcast free-to-air on the campus radio station. What better way is there for students to learn about music performance, production and distribution than for them to DO IT THEMSELVES? The Talking Heads started out at RISD, and the music scene surrounding the university community in Athens, Georgia is legendary for producing such bands as REM and The Indigo Girls. Carnegie Mellon University would be the ideal place to start producing its own MP3s for distribution on campus, because it has both one of the best Computer Science departments in the country and one of the best music schools in the country. In cities like Boston and New York, you could have consoria, between, say, MIT nad the Boston Conservatory of Music; between Columbia and Julliard. I can see NYU publishing its own film productions on internal broadband, UCLA and USC as well. Certainly, they're already doing things like this, but why not promote it to students as a much better thing to do than downloading some crap 80's music that you can hear on the radio anyway?
Quite frankly, I'm really disappointed with both the musical taste and leadership of college students that are such passive consumers and apparently incapable of producing anything better than what the RIAA would sell them. Pathetic! Is it that they're so technically incompetent that they cannot find music on campus to record and distribute via mp3's-- or is it that their leadership and creative abilities are so underdeveloped that they can't even recognise what a fantastic opportunity it is to be at university, where there are already all of the facilities and pool of highly developed talent available to put on -- and electronically distribute -- creative productions?
I think the Universities should seize the high ground they have such easy access to. In 5 years the RIAA will be begging the Universities for access to the Universities' MP3 archives for wider distribution. You know, those early recordings of the frat party gigs of the student band that went platinum after graduation. That remarkable performance of early church music on the University's collection of medeival instruments. Stephen Speilberg started his career with a student film at USC, and Spike Lee started his career with student films at NYU. Why not have a media server plus a critical forum for viewing and commenting on student films, student music, student plays? The HECK with the *crap* the RIAA is laying claim to. They can KEEP it. Sheesh!
People deliberately go to University in order to be exposed to the good stuff, and to hone their critical thinking via discourse with the best -- i.e. why Mahler trumps Britney Spears and why Melville is better than Mills and Boon. The Universities are doing the students a disservice in protecting the students from RIAA legal moves -- not that they should be offering legal protection when they steal other artists' copyrighted (a
I guess the student representative had a class or something, right? How is it that we, the students, have no say in something that will inevitably effect the cost of tuition, which is already sky high at most places? Not all college students infringe copyrights. Some of us actually respect them, even if we don't like them. All that means is that our music selection is much more limited than the guy in the dorm next to me. Why should we have to pay up the wazoo for his deeds? So what happens next, the RIAA gets to dictate where our tuition money goes?!
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Paying more and having it go to the RIAA, or to some RAP artist who you would never support or listen to is even worse. Making all students pay for this, directly or indirectly, on the assumption that some will illegally copy music, is crazy.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
What on earth makes anyone think they deserve our money? The great music they promote? The way they gently nurture budding artists? How about how they promote honesty in our government? Bah!
Pay them nothing. Let them starve the way they let their artists starve. How on earth did we ever get to a place where a company can claim to own our culture, and even worse, have a lot of average joes believe that's the way it has always been?
Folks, we the people own our culture collectively. Yes, artists create, but without people watching/listening/enjoying the creation, it don't count for diddly squat. It's a conversation, you see, and twisting it into a monologue is just nuts.
So get up from the keyboard and do something about it. I personally am working hard on the Howard Dean presidential campaign, but take whatever approach you like. Just do something.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Freaking moderators on Crack modding me down for preventing other people from seeing disgusting gay porn
What are the chances that independent artists will have access to getting into these jukeboxes, even if they're willing to donate content?
Needless to say, I'm hoping this project fails utterly, I'm working with an indie artist.
Of course, given the timeframe and the rate of change with respect to RIAA attacks on end users, the jukeboxes may be dead before arrival... the RIAA boycott should have hit the labels long before this can become a reality... and a nominal 5% of sales loss directly attributable to the boycott means that the multinationals that own them will already have run for the exits.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Why should States/Feds collect taxes ofr RIAA? .......... ......
--sounds of silence of US congresss--
I for one do not want my f**king taxes goign to the f**king RIAA!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I like the Apple Music Store. In the past week I've purchased twenty songs.
I've also been checking through the approximately 200 songs I've downloaded from Kazaa/AudioGalaxy/Napster.
It turns out that LESS THAN TWENTY of them are available through the Apple store. They're just too old (Billy Murray), too weird (Beau Hunks), not of interest to enough people (Bernard Cribbins).
In virtually every case where I choose an artist I liked from the Fifties, I'll find that Apple Music Store has the "16 Most Requested Songs" album from whatever company puts those out. And they're good. But that's all. The sharing services always have far more.
Sharing lets people with unusual interests give access to their collections. It also, probably, contributes to the longevity of this music by making multiple electronic copies available, rather than confining it to a shrinking number of copies in the hands of collectors.
Interesting. If this works for universities, it could also work for broadband subscribers as an ISP-level service.
This sounds like one of the best ideas I've heard to take market dynamics out of music distribution.
Let me put it another way: Do any of you remember banalty tax from History of Western Civ 1?
Simply put, these are royalties due to an entity in exchange for a service, even if you don't use it. How do you "vote with your dollars" when you can't choose what your dollars go towards, or if your dollars can go at all?
On the flip side, this is a great deal for the music industry: They get a garunteed revenue stream for doing nothing. Hell, they can completely quit producing new or interesting works and continue getting paid for 95 years, with that back-library of theirs.
This also sets a great example for the economics students. Who needs all those complicated supply/demand and market dynamics theories? All you have to do to get rich is convince someone you deserve a tax revenue. This can be a private institution (Universities, in this case) or the Federal government (place a media tax on something and funnel the money back to you). Why work for hard-core capitalism when you can have the much simpler capitalistic socialism?
Cue the banalty song.
I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.
...will the music be playable under any O/S, or will this just be a way to trap students into make Bill Gates richer ?
I'll post the URL of your comment on the irate-devel mailing list.
I'd just like to ask that you check iRATE's website from time to time and give version 0.3 a try once it's released. We have several developers now, most of them devoting significant time to the project, so I expect it won't be too long until 0.3 is available.
One reason I have been proselytizing for iRATE is that I hoped to attract new developers. That turns out to have worked - when I asked on the list, a couple of programmers responded that they decided to help out with iRATE because of my posts.
Also, I wanted to increase the number of users to increase the sample size for the collaborative filtering analysis. The nature of statistical fluctuations is that they become less significant when you have more data samples, with the error being inversely proportional to the square root of the sample size.
When I first downloaded iRATE, there were only 46 users, most of them being metalheads. In a couple of weeks of speaking from the soapbox, iRATE's user base has grown to over 500. I expect the range of musical tastes is much broader now.
Finally, having more users helps get more feedback on quality problems. The majority of bugs most applications have each individually occur only rarely, so to discover most of the bugs at all you need to have more users. For example, you're the first of the 500 users to report that the player doesn't work, but by reporting the bug as you did you have helped to ensure that future iRATE users don't have the problem.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
First, this opens up the door of digital music distribution and licensing wider than it has ever been opened up before. It drags the record companies and the RIAA into the 21st century. That alone is a positive step.
Even if this includes DRM, this is a positive step. Remember how copy protection was part of many early PC software programs. It was dropped as the industry matured and they determined that customers would both pay more, and buy from different vendors, to avoid it. Even Lotus 1-2-3 once lost a big government contract to SuperCalc because they wouldn't drop the copy protection at the time. The market works in the long run. Competition over time will favor companies who let the consumer do what they want with their music, but it has to start somewhere. Here is the best starting point currently under serious consideration.
If the colleges and universities are even halfway smart they will determine a licensing model that reasonably accounts for the expected number of users. If half the students will use this new service, then the university should be charged half as much as they would be charged if every student used it. This can be adjusted by semester, and like other activity fees, yes some will pay towards what they don't use. However those students will [likely] use fee-supported activities paid for by other non-using students as well. This fee should also be adjusted down in price for the students based on how much the university will save by not having to be concerned about lawsuits anymore or tracing users anymore. Remember these days more students are probably interested in downloaded music than most other fee-supported activities, so this is actually a more reasonable charge than most other charges made for student activities.
It makes college kids into legal consumers again -- which they aren't now -- and expands their interest in music. It lets some of the most interested music fans experience more music than they can otherwise afford without the current, and highly over the top IMHO, legal consequences. Removing casual disregard for a law that many consider unreasonable given the eternal copyrights now being granted is a good thing for society as a whole, since casual disregard for one law too easily translates to disregard for laws in general which is bad for us all.
If it can be licensed to colleges and universities, there will be a demand that it be licensed to the public at large on reasonably non-discriminatory terms. This gets a legal model out into the world, which we don't have now. It may not be the best model in its first iteration, but is the necessary starting point. This is a good thing.
Lastly, the money shouldn't go to the RIAA. It should -- for now -- go to the record companies whose content is being licensed including all the independent labels! Later it might be improved to account for and distribute directly to each individual copyright holder. Computers make many such things doable.
For all of the above reasons I think exploring this idea of licensing music to universities is a good thing and should be encouraged, rather than condemned.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
all music should be free in Canada -- after all, we pay money to the RIAA in our taxes already (a levy, technically). But the idea of politicians with balls is mostly a pipe dream, so it just aint the case. Sigh...
I'd like to see something for ISPs where subscribers could subscribe to a music service if they wished, but the requests for downloads would be handled locally instead of over the Internet.
The savings in bandwidth costs for ISPs not located in areas where bandwidth is relatively cheap could easily pay for a machine with plenty of disk space to install the software and files on.
Around here, it's about $1,000 a month for a T-1 line. It wouldn't take that many users to use the service to free up one or more T-1 lines.
So let's see if I got this straight,
I have never purchased a music cd, all my music consisting of albums and cassettes. Yet if I decide to go back to college, I'm going to be paying shakedown money straight out of my tuition, with nothing to say about it?
Sort of like the student fees you are forced to pay for the communist public interest research groups, along with their wacko activism you are forced to support.
So do the students and colleges get protection from p2p lawsuits, or do the media/entertainment syndicate get to shake us down again when they need to make the next quarter's revenue projections?
As long as the universities process those thousands of DMCA takedown notices promptly, they aren't liable. So this is a solved problem.
You insensitive clod!
You should be fired just for reading this slashdot garbage while you're supposed to be working! Dumbass!
Repeal the DMCA!
This is the worst idea yet...I'd rather the RIAA was busting down doors looking for the crap that most people download, than have to give most of the RIAA 'artists', who are horrible musicians anyhow, any morney.
I know that the RIAA has distroyed its image to a degree that anything about it is taken with a grain of salt. But I'm a dead poor college student and I like this idea.
The universities will offer this as a perk to attract new students, so I doubt if they will charge more than normal subscription. The RIAA is desperately hoping to get students "hooked" on their subscription service so they will sure offer a great deal.
All students pay for computing services, whether they use it or not. Cest la vie.
I am a happy subscriber of Rhapsody, it has a humongous selection for me to explore. For example, today I found Benny Goodman's work. I perform shows, so it really helps that I get fresh music all the time. but I would like more songs. If I can get Rhapsody+pressplay+whatever for $10 a month in my dorm, I'll be very happy.
My university, (uiuc.edu) charges more than $7 per meal in the dorm for thier terrible food. It's horrible that dormed undergrads are required to buy the terrible meal plan. So $10 for a huge music service is a good deal. Consider the disk space and catalogue trouble you will save.
The RIAA will be pressured to offer most songs, because if the Beatles are not for download, the old sneakernet isn't much slower in a dorm.
There will still be a need for music I can't get from Rhapsody, such as Christopher Parkening's classical guitar, or Paris Lounge CD set. But I'm much less tempted to trainspot for more music on the 'net. In terms of education, I think it's great that young people get to be exposed to something other than rap/pop/R&B/Rock&Roll. It broadens thier musical knowledge, and I bet many people will find something they actually like, not because every radio station is playing it.
I do help desk, for a bank. Do you really think we get a lot of calls on saturdays? I actually fell asleep on my desk and drooled all over it.
We already know most of these universities are in the business of quasi-professional sports, merchandizing, and occassionally educating people.
The RIAA members don't give a rat's ass about artists. Well, they do, but only in the sense of "this is raw material for us to make money".
The RIAA trots out "artists" when its making a public appeal, and they need them to get sounds onto the master tape. But other than that, the RIAA members via musicians (aka artists) as big pains in the asses.
"You are right colleges are like socialism, whats wrong with socialism?"
Inefficient allocation of resources.
Oh, and also, college should be a time when you figure out how to be like an adult. Primarily, this means that you are responsible for what you need, and don't ask others to take care of you.
Expecting others to take care of you is the mark of a child, and as you know, children produce little; they consume until they're an adult and can contribute.
I downloaded the .exe, ran it, and it worked.
I understand computer stuff can be really difficult for people who are scare of computers, but really, its 2003. Time to learn how to use a mouse.
All of the existing digital music services believe the college market is valuable.
So that's why the RIAA is going after college students for online music piracy? Makes sense to sue kids in a valuable market.
Your tuition helps pay for libraries, photocopying, and bandwidth. Distributing information is a legitimate function of a university. Music is information. What possible argument is there that this particular sort of information should not be redistributed by the university using university funds?
If you reply that only music majors should pay for music, while all others should fend for themselves, you should consider the whole purpose of a university, which is to promote connections across disciplines. You don't want to be turned away at the mmusic library, do you?
If you reply that no one at a university should pay for music, you are free-riding on the university's facilities, basically redirecting tax-paid research and education moneys for non-essential functions. (I don't use the word "entertainment" because I don't care to distinguish between "entertainment" and "serious use" of information. My whole point is that the university cannot and should not make this distinction.)
If you reply that only music majors should pay for music, while all others should get it free, you are so logically inconsistent that your opinion shouldn't count for much in the discussion of what universities should do.
I think that about covers it.
Despite the excesses of the music industry, information doesn't want to be free. It just wants to be really, really cheap. Universities have always been critical nodes in redistributing information. That is exactly the business they have always been in, and they should stay in it.
mt
BEWARE!! I can see it now...a huge market of exploitable college kids blowing what little money they have on beer and music...err yea right....we steal beer when we can and download music as if its going out of style.(wait a minute)
Now if the bursar wants to pick up the tab, I say go for it. Our tuition is high enough..how about alittle ROI?
It's not what you know; It's what you can find out.
The thing is that, we're willing to pay for it to a point. At RCNJ, we pay a $100 per-semester internet access fee, which breaks down to about $25 per month. Heap an entertainment fee on top of that, and then fees for any online subscription service we want, and that really really starts to add up.
It's worse for friends with cable modems. It's a kick in the face for them when RIAA complains about people getting their music for "free" when they have to pay $30-$40 per month for internet access. Even at highly inflated prices, that should entitle them to at least 2 albums a month.
Maybe I'd be willing to sign on for an online pay-subscription service, if I weren't already paying for the access. To me, it seems like a double-charge, and that's just not right. A 100% markup (after all costs are totaled) is enough to keep any buisness going happily. There is no way that running the internet service at this school costs $100 per semester*5500 students/2 ($275,000 per semester).
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Maybe this is just my gut reaction, but maybe colleges should be spending their time working on EDUCATION and not SELLING MUSIC. Leave that to the music companies, stores, etc
The problem is it is already too late for that. Colleges as we speak are already having to deal with the effects of peer to peer file sharing. I work in tech services for a small college, and we have been getting cease and desist letters from the RIAA and MPAA for over a year to have us prevent students from sharing stuff. We haven't gotten any subpeonas that I know of yet, but a lot of schools are. Plus there is the huge amount of bandwidth that it consumes - don't block or restrict it, students and profs complain that they can't do research/check email/ect because of the usage. Restrict it and students are unhappy, plus their are unintended consequences (like online game play is slowed down).
colleges want to cut down huge bandwidth - and possibly large legal costs - and think this might help.I have blog like everyone else
I believe those who work hard in life deserve to be rewarded whereas those who sit around lazily deserve to be treated like the parasites they are. Some people are worth more in a given situation than others because everyone has different talents. The problem with "equality" is that for everyone to truly be equal, everyone would have to have exactly the same qualities.
Rewarded how? Money isnt a reward for everyone, not everyone can gain happiness from money.
The problem with "equality" is that for everyone to truly be equal, everyone would have to have exactly the same qualities.
Why reward Greed? You see I believe everyone is priceless, people dont have a specific "worth", everyone is worthy of survival. Sure if you work hard maybe its ok for you to make more money, but Capitalism doesnt work like that, alot of people who work the hardest have the least money, and people who sit on their ass have the most money.
I may do the most important job, but because I'm not greedy, I wont be rich, you think a teacher or fireman is important? What about construction workers and police? These are some of our most important jobs and they pay the least amount of money, so why do people do it? Because not everyone is motivated by money.
The problem with Capitalism is, its designed for the greedy and not everyone is greedy.
I also believe that everyone should be given an equal opportunity. That is to say, everyone should have a chance to work hard and get ahead. That way, the industrious are rewarded and the lazy fall behind.
The rich usually are the laziest though, why should a person be allowed to work less hard because they have money? If you truely believe what you say you also believe we should get rid of inheritance because most people who are rich were born rich, very few people actually start at the bottom and make it to the top.
I hate how people act like the poor should be propped up by the not-so-poor (because we all know the rich sure as hell won't do it!). If you want to give your money to those less fortunate than yourself, feel free, and congratulations to you. I, on the other hand, would rather provide a comfortable existance for my family than to provide that for some stranger.
Because greed is destroying the world, look the world is never going to be fair, capitalism isnt fair and socialism isnt fair, if you object to socialism because it isnt fair, you should object to capitalism for the same reason.
So are you going to support giving reparations to people whos ancestors were slaves? or how about instead you get rid of inheritance so people like George Bush and Bill Gates have to work and earn their wealth?
In my opinion money is only useful for survival, people should have strict salaries, meaning all doctors make the same, all lawyers make the same, all CEOs make the same, etc, and I also think that inheritance should be abolished, the death tax should be re-implemented to make sure people cannot inherit wealth, perhaps in this world Capitalism would start to be fair.
Right now its not fair, women and minorities make 50-75% of what white males make even when they have the same education and job title, why is this?
Why is it that white males make up 90% of all CEOs? Why do CEOs get paid such an insane amount of money when they do the least amount of work? Why do those who do the hardest most difficult work get paid the least amount of money? The construction worker should be making millions of dollars, but instead some guy in a suit in tie who sits on his ass giving orders and having meetings is making millions, is this fair?
Your Capitalist world is racist, sexist, and completely unfair, those who work the hardest always make the least amount of money under Capitalism and this is why I prefer Socialism.
We have the technology for Socialism now, everyone in America could have a home, food, healthcare, legal, you know, the absolute basics, and th
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"shouldnt their jobs worth be equal to the worth they are to society? Which means a teacher, doctor, policeman, etc should be making more than the CEO right?"
No, society (through the free market) should pay them for the value of the work.
"I support raising the taxes through the roof on guys like Bill Gates"
I don't. No-one should be taxes through the roof: that is excessive government punishment.
"Neither does Bill Gates, instead he will hoarde his Billions in cash and not give it to anyone but who he wants to give it to"
He earned this money, so it is his business not yours what he chooses to do with it.
"No human deserves or needs billions of dollars, no single person is responsible enough to handle billions of dollars. "
That is kind of a bizarre demand. However, regardless, I would thank you to apply this to yourself and not force it on others.
"...than one guy who might be greedy as hell and decide not to give it to anyone."
You are the greedy person, for wanting to steal other's property. Butt out of other's wallets.
"why should ANYONE be a billionare?"
Because they choose to be. If you don't like it, don't become one yourself.
"If we went with some of the ideas of socialism our quality of life and salaries would go through the roof,"
Only if we are rulers and government officials. Socialism enriches and empowers them at the expense of the people. If you look at the countries that are most socialist, you will see that impoverishment is practially enforced by law.
" we could get the money by raising taxes on guys like Bill Gates and on corperations who like to outsource all the time."
Outsourcing should not be punished at all. All the companies are doing is employing better workers.
"Look someone has to do these jobs, everyone should have a living wage, EVERYONE."
Wages should be determined by the actual value of the work, and NOT by imaginary amounts made up by bureacrats. This is why arbitrary "living wage" and "minimum wage" laws are destructive and always result in people being fired.
" if we spent the same amount of money on the peacecorps as we do on the military, do you really think anyone would starve? "
Yes, they certainly would starve the same. Nothing can stop a government that wants to starve people intentionally, like socialsit Ethiopia during the 1980s.
"Just give them shelter, food, water and healthcare and maybe they would have something to lose and wouldnt be so quick to sell drugs, take drugs, and go to prison."
That is pretty outrageous. First, you are basically insulting poor people as being horrible criminals. Second, you are ignoring the fact that the rich and middle class are also involved in these crimes.
"Here you go, poor person. Free food, because we know that because you are poor you are so morally bankrupt that you would push heroin to kids if we did not give you free food".
"alot more than the group of white males who seem to control the corperate world. Doesnt it seem strange that one select group seems to be CEO of every corperation or company?"
Now you are being blatantly racist and sexist (as well as ignoring facts).
As an independent musician, I've been wondering lately if it makes sense to require "public access" space for such proposed internet music/jukebox services. A significant public medium is offered to a large audience much like cable tv, which is required by law to offer public access.
It'd be cool to rent a spot on the jukebox network for $20/month or something, without having a crappy middle man like a record label!