Blog Torrent: Downhill Battle Interview

scubacuda writes "In this GrepLaw interview, Downhill Battle's Nicholas Reville describes the success (and takedown) of SP2Torrent.com, alternative ways to buy music, what indie musicians think about filesharing, and real ways to counter threats to creativity and an open culture. Those excited about the possibilities of Bittorrent will especially appreciate Downhill Battle's Blog Torrent, an easy-to-install program that will dramatically simplify the creation, posting, and seeding of new torrents."

Comments

huh?

[StevenHenderson]

alternative ways to buy music

buy? ...music? wtf?

Re:huh?

[TrebLib]

I don't understand where people get the attitudes they have on buying music and/or software. It has a price on it because you are supposed to buy it. If you don't pay for it then you are stealing it. Just because it is on the internet and you can download it does not mean it should be free. It also does not mean that you should get to decide if "it is right for you to download it because you don't agree with the law". An example. If you don't agree that you should have to pay for you groceries when you go to the grocery store because you feel that you must eat to survive. Does that mean you should be able to just fill up your cart and walk out the door free of charge ? Or how about when you get gas ... Is the attitude, "the gas companies are billion airs .. they don't need any more money. why should I have to pay for this gas" ok ? Of course not. These idea's are obsurd. They are obsurd because they are illigal, and if cought you would be charged with a criminal offence. The only difference with the "not paying for music or movies or software or whatever" online is that for the most part, people get away with it. And because they get away with it they immediatly feel that it is now their right to, in essance" do what every they want to online .. no matter if it is technically breaking the law or not. Sorry to rant ...

FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[DigiShaman]

So just how long will it be before BIG GOVERNMENT forces the Internet to be FCC regulated (for US citizens)? With deep pockets of the RIAA and greedy polititions, it's only a matter of time. Follow the money trail boys and girls.

Re:FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[nurb432]

It's already beginning.. Now that digital informaion is covered via the DMCA, its only one more step to regulate content 'for our protection'...

Re:FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[muonman]

about your sig: it is ironic that you allude to the second amendment, when the first amendment is not only much more important, but is the one under attack here.

The second amendment in reality serves no useful purpose, and has always been a red herring. Without the first amendment to protect it, it can never allow opposition to get past the 'Freemen' stage. Once the second amendment is really needed, it is already too late.

To further illustrage my point, whom are you prepared to shoot to get the DMCA repealed.

I respectfully suggest you forget about the second and concentrate your indignation and effots to protect and enforce the first.

Re:FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[poot_rootbeer]

Wow, that's the highest tinfoil-hot conspiracy keyword density I've ever seen in a Slashdot post! All that's missing is blaming the Five Jew Bankers and you'd have a Kook Yahtzee.

Re:FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[nurb432]

With out the 2nd, you cant protect the first..

And with out the 4th you cant protect your 2nd...etc etc...

Just because my sig is about #2, doesnt mean the other 9 are not as important to me.. They are... And they are all under attack..

Re:FCC regulating the Internet soon???

[DigiShaman]

...I'm working on it, you shmuck!

Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Bob has 2Gig of mp3s. Jane has 5Gig of mp3s. If they share via 1Gb/s (local) ethernet, they will quickly both have 8Gigs each.

In a few years that Gigabytes will become Terabytes. When one person can have a copy of nearly all music in existence, they will never spend a dime on it. It's too late. Content producers are fucked. Only niche markets will survive.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[bobjohnson]

Bob has 2Gig of mp3s. Jane has 5Gig of mp3s. If they share via 1Gb/s (local) ethernet, they will quickly both have 8Gigs each.

Uhh, is that new math? I keep checking and rechecking, but 2+5 = 7 every time, are you sure about that one, winston?

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[proj_2501]

2+5=8?

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[stromthurman]

I suspect so, for sufficiently large values of 2.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[AKAImBatman]

It must be from... uhh... wasted space from partly allocated disk blocks. Yeah, that's the ticket! One gigabyte of wasted space! Err... did I mention I'm using the FAT file system? With... err... 64K block sizes. Yeah, that's it! 64K! It's so I can... umm... have compatibility with Linux. Yeah, yeah. Because NTFS writes... ehh... are unsupported by Fedora Core 3. Yeah, that's it! ;-)

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[xsupergr0verx]

Your model is flawed (besides the obvious math error). It doesn't take into account overlap between libraries.
Example: I have 30gb of music. One of my good friends has 40gb music. When we link up, does that give us 70gb music each? Of course not. About 50% of the albums we have are the same, and it ends up we only pull about 3gb maximum from each other, simply because it's all that interests you that you don't already have.

Lost revenue isn't an album you download. It's an album you download instead of purchasing. Thanks to the internet, we can listen to music we would never think about purchasing. I wouldn't be heartbroken if I lost half my mp3s in a drive failure. The only music I like enough to buy, I already have bought, and will just rip again.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[kfg]

No, not really. There's bound to be a considerable amount of duplication between their two collections. Let's call it 6Gigs each.

However, in RIAA math that will be 16Gigs of stolen music (taking your latter figure), which is really the equivilent of 832Gigs of stolen music resulting damages of more dollars than there are fundamental particles in the universe.

But the RIAA will settle for whatever they've got in their piggy banks and a public service announcement that they were evil hackers, which is just plain wrong.

KFG

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[TheRealMindChild]

This is where things need to progress in a different fasion. Rather then making money explicitly by allowing you to listen to music, they will need to/should offer services that make me WANT to purchase a CD or whatever, rather then downloading it.

I think Bon Jovi and his people had the idea with their last album that came out, you could use the unique code that came with it to get a discount on the current tour and merchandise... and something completely exclusive, but I cant remember what that was.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

He probably counts bytes like hard drive manufacturers count them.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Laxitive]

Of course.

It's part of the RIAA modifications to math. I think there's a bill working it's way through congress right now. Essentially, all mathematical functions f(a1, ..., aN) will now be defined as: rho(f(a1, ..., aN)). rho is a function that will be decided upon, on a case by case basis, by the newmath oversight committee (to be established by an act of congress), for the benefit of artists and content producers.

I think your parent poster had access to drafts of the bill.

-Laxitive

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Naffer]

Some people underestimage bittorrent's power to distribute files willy nilly all over your physical HD.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[C0rinthian]

In a few years that Gigabytes will become Terabytes. When one person can have a copy of nearly all music in existence, they will never spend a dime on it. It's too late. Content producers are fucked. Only niche markets will survive.

I'm not worried about the content producers. What about the content CREATORS? Your statement only applies if there is no new content coming into the system. If people don't keep paying for the same content, there's more money to go toward NEW content. More money available, means more people making new content. More people making new content = good!

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, aside from my obvious math error (I wasn't thinking about the numbers), I haven't seen anyone refute this.

Yes, every song recorded might take up way more than 8 terabytes. I'm sure it is, it was for an example.

Yes, there will be overlap. That doesn't matter, though.

My point is this: It WILL be possible to hold all music in the world on a token. You WILL be able to share the contents of that token. Everyone WILL get a copy from their buddy. Additions to the token will be propagated.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[roju]

You clearly didn't see the most recent RIAA article. You mean that it's the equivalent of 40 petabytes.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

I meant creators. Production is creation.

If there's more content coming in, it will add to the mass. It won't be highly profitable, though. The content production BUSINESS is fucked.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[kfg]

Ah! That's DoJ math which is something different.

In DoJ math giving a single mp3 to your sister is the equivalent of destroying America, which is the equivalent of destroying world civilization.

Notice that there is a distinct paucity of numbers in the DoJ math system. They discovered that we use the Arabic system of numerals and that algebra is an Arabic word. They have replaced traditional math within the department with "Freedom Math."

Freedom math is whatever the hell they feel like defining it as at any given moment (so long as that definition is in concordance with The Bible). Thus my opening paragraph constitutes a formal proof in Freedom Math.

KFG

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[proj_2501]

i like the g-unit idea better. buying the album gets you a chance in a raffle for 4 huge g-unit medallions worth 40k each. at least then the label has a fixed cost associated with the contest.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[OverlordQ]

Where'd the extra gig come from?

2+5 != 8

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[shut_up_man]

I think you're right - ultimately the days of packaging and selling bits are over, no matter how much the companies sue, threaten or wrap their bits up in DRM. It's like the War on Drugs, or the War on Terror... the only way to win is to kill all your citizens.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[man_ls]

There is one exceptionally weakly typed programming language that lets you redefine arbitrary symbols...effectively, you *can* make the number 2 into the number 3 (or 2.1, 2.5, 2.6, etc)

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[MrNemesis]

You forgot about compression!

Lets say it's 6GB of so-so MP3. This has a compression ratio of about 10:1, so we're at 60GB of music already. Add to that that they're both using 2GHz processors, which can decompress this music much faster (ohh, about 20 times faster) than a 100MHz processor, and you'll soon see that they actually have over 1.2TB of music! Oh... wait...! It's in *stereo* - make that 2.4TB. And what's this...? Both of them have another computer networked up *and* a portable MP3 player, all of which are capable of playing the same music at the same time! So we're up to a whopping 7.2TB!

You gotta love RIAA's fuzzy maths. That petabyte number from yesterday was ridiculous.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Overlap doesn't affect the outcome, it just takes longe to get there.

If you had a copy of the complete discography of all your favorite bands, would you buy the cd? Why not just send them a check?

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like putting ordinary water in bottles and selling it an a 10,000% markup?

Thats the stupiest idea ever.

Re:Forget p2p and torrents

[antiMStroll]

"Content producers are fucked.

Content producers might be, artists never will.

Music and movies aside...

[tcopeland]

...BitTorrent is a boon for open source projects with large files. PostgreSQL, for example, publishes torrents of their releases and the the "PG Live" ISOs. On a much smaller scale, we've put up a torrent for the Ruby windows installer on RubyForge - it's only 11 MB, but even a small file like that is worth torrenting.

PLUG: Here's the beginnings of a Ruby BT library. Just parses the metainfo file for now, but it's a start...

Re:Music and movies aside...

[DarkMantle]

Yes bittorrent and other P2P file sharing programs have LOTS of LEGITAMENT uses. Linux Distrobutions, other FOSS software with large files. It's a good way for people to help these technologies by providing bandwidth for them.

Also as I stated in response to this Article music downloads have been benificial to the artists, and only hurting the record labels.

Where Bit Torrent and others hurt us in the distribution of proprietary software that requires money for R&D funding. If the funding for R&D disappears then there will be no more new technologies in our future.

Let's not get defensive

[Catamaran]

Downhill battle wants to prove that P2P has "legitimate" uses, but they should not fall into the trap of trying to defend the all of these new technologies. Quite the contrary, the RIAA and the MPAA should be constantly on the defensive. They should prove to us that they can move with the times and are not just obsolete obstructionists.

Re:Let's not get defensive

[garcia]

It does have legitimate uses it's the fucking retards that insist on supporting the RIAA and their bullshit that keep them in business and in the news.

Fucking dump the RIAA and their music. Do not support iTMS, do not support music store sales of garbage CDs, and certainly do not support any radio station that plays their bullshit for money.

Support FREEDOM of music. FurthurNET and various other sources. You might be surprised who you see on that list...

Re:Let's not get defensive

[Anonymous Coward]

They should prove to us that they can move with the times and are not just obsolete obstructionists.

But that would be proving a falsehood, no? ;-)

Re:Let's not get defensive

[slungsolow]

You can preach that all you want to the slashdot crowd and it won't make a difference.

The bread and butter of the music industry are acts like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. There is no way you can convince a 13 year old girl to stay away from a record store. You can't force her to download the music. 13 year old girls are social whores, and if they don't have the latest album (the actual album, not a 25 cent blank cd), they'll whine and bitch. As long as they aren't spending their own money, they'll continue to purchase the legit label bullshit pop music.

As long as that money comes pouring in, the RIAA will continue to "fight the good fight" (as they see it).

If you want to legitimatize p2p and bittorrent you need to find another argument. You need to take different action. Work toward the greater good and support things like the red hat torrents. Stay away from sites like suprnova. Let microsoft see how the distributed bandwidth will help them spread their patchs and SP's out to the general public faster and more efficiently.

Re:Let's not get defensive

[garcia]

If you want to legitimatize p2p and bittorrent you need to find another argument.

I don't have to legitimatize P2P and BitTorrent. The circuit court already did that.

People here preach about the horrific wonders of Firefox. I might as well preach about the terrific wonders of freedom of music.

Re:MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL

[StevenHenderson]

Is this AC trying to be me? Is this a new trick? Please dont mod me offtopic - just never seen anyone try to pull this and wanted to keep my ident up there

People

[antifoidulus]

it's just musing for fucking crying out loud!!!
I love how people like this pretend to be big crusaders for the rights of the little man, but it's just fucking music. Take a step back, look at it, and realize, it is just fucking music!
Peoeple survived long before music was available for the masses at all, and something tells me you cna survive without music. If you don't like the tactics of the RIAA, don't buy their music, don't download their music. Somehting tells me it won't kill you or really affect your life in any drastic way.
There are much bigger issues out there, we don't need anyone pretending to be a hero by flaunting copyright law more than we need to find a way to cure world hunger, or solve the impending water and oil crises....
This will get mmodded as flamebait, but I don't care, I really think people need to take a step back and realize, "Hey, it's only fucking music, why are we getting this worked up over it?"

Re:People

[Catamaran]

it is just fucking music!

No it's not. It's music, movies, books, art, science, ... . It's our entire culture that large corporations want to own and commodify.

Hey, it's only fucking music, why are we getting this worked up over it?

I don't know, why are you getting all worked up?

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

No it's not. It's music, movies, books, art, science, ... . It's our entire culture that large corporations want to own and commodify.
Um, guess what, the people that sold the corporations that copyright willingly did so. So appearently the people who actually create this culture don't care about it. If you don't like it, then instead of copying works of others, create something yourself. Guess what, the RIAA cannot stop you, as much as it would like to, from releasing your own music for all to share. So go ahead, you complain that corporations are owning our culture, take it back, create something yourself.

Re:People

[Theatetus]

Peoeple survived long before music was available for the masses at all, and something tells me you cna survive without music.

Actually, primates sang long before we spoke, and "music for the masses" was precisely what music was for most of human history.

In fact, the idea that music has monetary value is a very recent aberration from the normal way humans have treated music for millenia.

You know how Mozart got famous in Vienna? He visted the Vatican, heard Allegri's Miserere Mei once (it's about 20 minutes long), and wrote out from memory all of the music to it when he got back so the Vienna choir could sing it. He also changed a few things he didn't like about it.

That's how music used to be: people sang, people played, people listened. When they heard something they liked, they took it; when they heard something they thought they could improve, they improved it. This whole notion that an artist, or worse yet, a publisher, "owns" music is a novelty and, hopefully, won't last too long.

Under the modern copyright system, Mozart could not have written half of his symphonies and almost none of his chamber music or operas. Ditto Haydn, and much more so Beethoven. And Bach... well, Bach pretty much wouldn't have a portfolio left except maybe a few keyboard pieces. Composers "pirated" each other rampantly, and the result was some of the greatest art mankind ever saw.

Hmmm... how many great composers have we had since music publishers started inventing this idea that they "own" music? Can anybody think of one? John Tesh? Andrew Lloyd Webber? That's the tone-deaf crap we're left with when we all buy in to the lie that it's "just music" and that copying other musicians is "theft".

Why should a musician, much less a publisher, have a "right" to make money selling a license to hear their music? I say, kill all copy restrictions on music. Let those who are in it for the quick buck get forced out when it's not profitable anymore and leave making music to those of us who do it because we love it. People will keep making great music: they did for thousands of years before they started charging money for it. They'll keep doing it.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

.. guess what, the people that sold the corporations that copyright willingly did so. So appearently the people who actually create this culture don't care about it. If you don't like it, then instead of copying works of others, create something yourself.

Except that none of them had any right to do so. There is no such thing as "creating" anything from scratch, all of the jerks who believe in copyrights build upon the works of others. Scientists needs thousads of workers in the field who went before them to get to the point where they can formulate their theory. Musicians rip everything off from the ones who came before and thrive on small variations on those themes. Ditto for movies. Etc etc. I dont know when people will get it through their thick skulls that in order to "create" something, one draws upon of millennia of progress of human race and efforts of countless generations who went before. Those who claim they "own" their ideas are just selfish jerks, akin to bandits who go out and take over some land and then claim it to be "owned" by them. It wasnt theirs in the first place, they just happened to wander onto it and then proceeded to shoot anyone who came near.

Re:People

[MP3Chuck]

It's just fucking software/movies/games/$digital_stuff!!!

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a nice excuse for you being a moron unable to create. While it is true that everyone builds upon what came before them, they do exactly that, build. You create something new. Just because you can't do something, doesn't mean you should brng the rest of us down with you. I am going to come take all your possesions tonight, because after all, you didn't earn them. Or is it different when you are the thief versus when someone else steals off of you? Something tells me that you would quickly change your tune if someone started taking credit for something you made, or claimed rights to your property. All of a sudden it would become yours, and not "everyones to share" like it is when you are the one stealing.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

You are absolutely right. Copyright is an abomination created by filthy thieves. I mean it. All they do is thieve from the society by making small variations to the common body of knowledge and then demand perpetual payments.

From another perspective, this is a wider issue then just music. It really is about treating information, data, as "property" and thus applying capitalist principles in places where they do not belong. It leads to "commoditization" of DNA seqences, mathematical forumlaes etc etc. It just total nonsense and it has to stop before irreversible harm is done to society.

Re:People

[Theatetus]

Guess what, the RIAA cannot stop you, as much as it would like to, from releasing your own music for all to share.

Eh? Why do you think they want to shut down p2p networks? They're not stupid; they know downloads help their sales.

They shut them down precisely to keep musicians from releasing our own music for all to share. That is what really scares them: not "piracy" but the fact that people like me are able to get exposure for our music without going through their tollbooth.

We don't need music middle-men anymore. We don't need A&R execs telling us what's good enough for us to hear anymore. We don't need million-dollar studios to produce studio-quality audio anymore. The music industry is an industry that no longer has a purpose. Let the artists create and try to sell their stuff and get famous. I don't need someone between me and the musician anymore.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Something tells me that you would quickly change your tune if someone started taking credit for something you made, or claimed rights to your property.

Unlike you, dumbass AC, I contribute to many GPLed projects and do not give a fuck if people use my work. Actually more useful it is for them the better, I feel like I achieved something. Not everyone who creates things has selfish, thieving attitude. So much for your pet theory, idiot.

Re:People

[real_smiff]

I don't know, why are you getting all worked up?

because he doesn't like music. it's a lack of empathy. Personally, i love the stuff, and couldn't do without it.

Re:People

[black mariah]

You're an idiot, and quite obviously not a musician. Your frame of reference is only classical music... you're a stuck-up cunt... you wouldn't happen to be an audiophile, would you?

How about this... you quit your job and hit the road with a band. No, sorry, you don't get to go out with Britney Spears or anyone else that doesn't actually play an instrument. You have to go out with REAL, WORKING musicians. You have to sit in a van for 8-16 hours a day, load in and out, setup and breakdown, eat what they eat, sleep where they sleep. You have to hope to holy fuck that the cockmunch at the venue actually pays you the $150 that you are supposed to get because if you don't you have $15 in your pocket to feed five people and a van on the way to your next gig, 500 miles away. Where the FUCK does a cock like you get off telling ME what I can and can't do with what I make? Fuck you and every cuntrag that thinks like you. This is my LIFE, this is my PASSION, this is my JOB. FUCK. YOU. and your goddamned bullshit warped fucking world view. You want to know what REAL musicians do? Go the fuck outside. Go to a club. Talk to some of the bands that are playing. Would YOU drive a thousand miles to play for five people on a Thursday night?

What retards like yourself don't understand is that for MOST bands, CD sales are important. Not so they can buy new Mercedes and do blow off a hookers ass, but so they can fucking EAT while they're on the road.

Again, to reiterate my point, FUCK YOU.

Re:People

[Theatetus]

Gee... a little ticked that people aren't buying your CD's? I don't know what to tell you; I only cleared $2k on cd sales in the past year but made a lot on gigs.

Relax. It's not our music. We make it; we don't own it. Realizing that helps a lot.

Re:People

[Usquebaugh]

Here's a novel idea if people are not buying your music/attending your gigs then take it as a subtle hint and stop making music?

OTOH, if the passion to make music exists despite the lack of money, then stop whinging about the money.

Re:People

[kfg]

And Bach... well, Bach pretty much wouldn't have a portfolio left except maybe a few keyboard pieces.

That is because Bach wouldn't have bothered writing music much at all. He would have patented the equal tempered scale and retired on the royalties.

Those unhappy with that arrangement could just shut up and enjoy their Gregorian chants, or see him in court.

Thank you very much for the post. Very nice. But I would counter you with Scott Joplin. Thank God he died before Mickey Mouse was "born." I need my Solace.

KFG

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

Care to back any of your ideological drivel, with oh I dunno, facts or figures or anything of the like?
Here is my little bit of facts: Copyrights have existed for about 300 years now, in that period more people have come out of poverty and the industrial output of the world has increased almost immeasurably. Copyright was even built into the constitution of the United States. Your myopic views somehow state that you know more than inventors. Why should I spend millions of dollars in researching something if you can come along the next day and take my research, make a competing product, and be able to sell it for less because you didn't have to do any research?
Why should a musician have to scrape by on part time jobs while writing the music they love so you can just copy it as you please and say that they don't deserve any royalties for it, because after all you know so much more than the creators of copyrights about what is good for them.
No system is perfect, and every system will have it's abuses, but you have failed to make even a rudimentary argument about why your system is better. Just a bunch of ideological dribble and nonsense conclusions.

Re:People

[Moonlapse]

Well, if you happened to have a good number of people DLing your music, and happen to like it, there's a good chance you won't be playing to 5 people anymore and have more people to buy your merch at the shows.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

How about this... you quit your job and hit the road with a band

Bzzt, wrongo. Who made you quit your job and join the band? Why is it a belief of any retard out there that art is money making proprosition? Ever considred that a band is just a bunch of people who got together for the purpose of making a "killing" on something that is a scam in the first place? Mozart created art. Your idiot band creates derrivative noise at best. And yet it is you and your half-wit pals who dream millions, 50 foot yachts and private islands as soon as you manage to partner with some media monopoly to promote you and get teens to buy your crap. The whole attidude you represent is the best argument for abolishment of copyright.

If you were to create art, and were an actual artist as opposed to wanna be con-man, you would not care for monetary rewards and use your music as a form of expression and would be content to reach as many people as possible (and would actually like idea of P2P). So much for your argument. Get a real job and stop trying to rip us all off while fucking the entire human race so that you can make an undeserved buck.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, nice try but you didn't actually argue with my point. I said what if someone else takes credit for your work, not if someone else uses it. The GPL forbids others from taking credit for your work. So effectively, you just argued for me, and by embracing the GPL you are embracing copyrights! Nobody ever said that you had to get paid for your copyright. Thanks, and I bet your code is riddled with bugs!
Please try reading next time, I know it's a little hard for your tiny, myopic mind to get around, but hey, I have faith in you!

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

What if the music people are downloading are a copy of an early studio session. Nobody is great right off the bat, and if that is the music that starts circulating around, then it can do irreversible damage to your band. For a lot of people(not the RIAA) copyright is as much about control over their own creations than it is about money.
Now, if you are an established group and someone uncovers the crap you made in your parent's garage, then it won't kill you, in fact probably the only people listening to it would be fans.

Re:People

[black mariah]

I don't give a fuck about the money. Truth is, I have never made a dime of income off my music (I'm a guitar tech, that's how I make money). Anything that comes in as a result of shows or merch sales goes right back into the band. Tell me... exactly what attitude is it that I represent? You seem to know more about me than I do, so why don't you tell me? The thing is, if I could do like the guys in Jucifer and simply sell my house, buy an RV, and live in that while I travel around the country and make music I'd be fucking set for life. THAT is what I want. To be self-sufficient as a musician. Please, explain to me how this is in some way contradictory with your retard statements?

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Copyrights have existed for about 300 years now, in that period more people have come out of poverty and the industrial output of the world has increased almost immeasurably

Sigh... Totally irellevant. This is a great example of people not being able to distinguish cause from effect. It is not copyright that drives progress...it is free exchange of information. Progress accelerated because unlike in previous times, vast amounts of information became easilly available through libaries and scientific yournals and near everyone could access it. When before your super-wealthy lord who happened to have science as a hobby could afford importing some obscure manuscript, now every poor jerk can go to public and free library and learn. And then to contribute. Freely accessible libraries at shools were the accellerant. So much so that these days, the excessive attempts to copyright every piece of shit out there, lead to a choking effect in science and are a cause for scientists to attempt to estabilish, alternative and free scientific yournals. If Enstein had to pay for every journal he read, he would have been stil a patent clerk when he died.

I find it crazy when people use the opportunistic effect of progress as an example of the cause of progress.

Re:People

[radish]

If no one is coming to your gigs, it's because they don't want to hear your music. Take the hint.

Re:People

[Moonlapse]

Yea that is possible, but what are the chances of someone going to the trouble to post early recording session material of an unknown band in the first place( unless the material happens to be uncommonly good, which might boost interest in the band before they get released)

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

To be self-sufficient as a musician.

Herein lies your problem. I am sorry but you have been sold an unlikely if not impossible dream. I would like to make a living being a sex god, surrounded by wanting vixens, but chances of that are.. well ...lets say "remote". The fact is that art (music in this case) is a form of expression and while some artists might get lucky and make some money, most wont. You could try to start a shop and see if there is enough hobbyists out there to make it worthwile but counting on it as your primary source of income might be unwise. I feel for you because a lot of young people were misled by the so called "music industry" into attempting a "career" in music while it is just a giant con game run for the benefit of media monopolies. In other words you are standing in a Vagas casino complaining to me that I am wrong when I insist that mathematical odds are not with you.

Re:People

[black mariah]

I love it when smarmy cocks like you make comments regarding the amount of people at shows. It's called 'paying dues', dumbass. In one area you might draw 500 people to a show, but 100 miles away you bring in 5 people because nobody's fucking heard of you. In December, we hit the road for a couple of weeks on a west coast tour. We'll draw nothing. Nobody has heard of us out there. Here, we can pull 100+ without breaking a sweat. Regional support. Look it up.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: How do you make a million bucks by working in a band with a shithead like black mariah?

A: Start with two million.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Um, nice try but you didn't actually argue with my point. I said what if someone else takes credit for your work, not if someone else uses it. The GPL forbids others from taking credit for your work. So effectively, you just argued for me, and by embracing the GPL you are embracing copyrights!

No. I contribute under an alias and the only thing I care for is that someone does not mess things up and claim it was me. If they take credit, well, that just relfects badly on them not me, and I dont really care. I use GPL only because GPL is a defense against copyright loving jerks. That is, someone could take my work and then try to sell it back to me. If copyright were to be abolished, all licences, icluding GPL would be superfluous. Then noone could be trying to sell any piece of software to anyone else and the problem would go away permanently.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

Um, guess what, you just did it, didn't you? If I made a correlation implies causation argument, you also just made a correlation implies causation argument, so I fail to see your point.
And also, most people could not read at the time of the industrial revolution, so again I fail to see your point.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand that you want to make money from the CD sales, but I generally don't buy something that I don't know anything about. A compromise would be to allow low quality mp3 or ogg files to be distributed free, so people get to hear it. If they like it they will probably buy the CD and even go to the shows.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

stupid not using preview button, the first sentence should have bueen, guess what, you just made a correlation implies causation argument as well, didn't you?

Re:People

[Avumede]

That Mozart example is not the greatest one to prove your point. The whole point of the Vatican visit was because the Vatican kept that music secret. Hence the need for someone to steal it by listening and transcribing.

I agree with your point, by the way. Just because the Vatican kept some of it's music under tight control doesn't mean that practice was widespread.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

And also, most people could not read at the time of the industrial revolution, so again I fail to see your point.

Err.. those were not the one in the driving seat of the revolution. Besides even an illiterate mehcanically inclined person can come up with some improvements on a machine he operates. So mere contact with science is also an accelerant. Imagine what would happen if he could not learn from the workings of a machine, reverse "engineer" it so to speak... oh wait.

Re:People

[C0rinthian]

A couple of things here.

You're giving the impression that much of western music was created "for the masses". Honestly, from the renaissance period forward most composers and musicians did work for pay. Bach would not have produced the body of work he did if he was not under the employ of the Catholic Church. The only major composer I can think of who produced a body of work without it being a source of income is an American, Charles Ives. (He was an insurance salesman, and none of his music was published until very late in his life.)

The real problem with what is happening with copyright law is that power is shifting away from the populace toward those controlling the content. Copyrighted works were INTENDED to pass to the public domain after a set time period so that the general public could fully benefit from those works. Unfortunately, the modern entertainment industry pressured the government to allow unlimited extensions of copyright. This allows a company to control it's works indefinitely.

IIRC, this started when Disney was about to lose "Steamboat Willie" to the public domain. Whats ironic is that by trying to protect it's intellectual property, they shot themselves in the foot. A vast majority of Disneys animated movies were adaptions of literary works that had entered public domain. By pushing legislation to keep IP out of public domain indefinately, there is no longer anything moving into the public domain that they can use for a project without compensating the copyright holders. They're running out of public domain material to adapt. (hence the new trend for excessive sequels they are now producing)

Copyight law was originally intended to protect the PUBLIC from content holders, not the other way around. Government has lost sight of that original intent.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

You are VERY confused about what copyright is. The GPL is a copyright, just not one that people sell their works. The GPL copyrights your work, but allows anyone to distribute and modify it, as long as they give credit to the original author, and it forces anyone who distributes a modification to open the source.
A copyright just says that others cannot take your work and give it to others without your permission. That is what the GPL is. The only difference from the copyrights you seem to be crusading against and the ones you embrace is that you don't think that people should be allowed to charge money for their copyright if they so choose. That is what copyrights are all about, control of your own creations. You seem to offer little evidence that scientists don't really create, you just say that they build upon what came before, which is true, but just as the people who came before them should be allowed to have copyrighted their works if they so choose, a group of scientists who discover a cure for HIV should be allowed to copyright it. How they use that copyright should be up to them, it is their work, not yours. I hope they would share their work with the rest of the world that is beneficial, but they don't have to. Copyright is about being in control of what you create.
If you were really against copyrights then you wouldn't go GPL, you would just release the source as is, with no license.

Re:People

[black mariah]

Low quality? Fuck that. Hell, I'll go FLAC if someone wants it. I'm all for using the internet to promote. I think right now we have something like 10 songs available at various places. But, and this is the entire crux of my argument, it should be OUR choice to do that. I urge you, and everyone around here shooting their mouths off, to go and check out the sites of some WORKING, TOURING, bands. Most, if not all, have songs available. That's where the overwhelming majority of my MP3's come from.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

Wow, you managed to contradict yourself TWICE in the same thread, I am pretty damn impressed. First you tried to counter my argument by saying that correlation does not imply casuation argument then proceeded to use another correlation does not imply causation argument. Then when I pointed out a flaw in your logic, you bust out a statement that manages to contradict your first statement. From the grandparent:
When before your super-wealthy lord who happened to have science as a hobby could afford importing some obscure manuscript, now every poor jerk can go to public and free library and learn
Now you are claiming that the industrial revolution was in fact driven by the elites and not the "poor jerks" as you referred to them.
Err.. those were not the one in the driving seat of the revolution. Besides even an illiterate mehcanically inclined person can come up with some improvements on a machine he operates. So mere contact with science is also an accelerant. Imagine what would happen if he could not learn from the workings of a machine, reverse "engineer" it so to speak... oh wait.
It is quite obvious you have never worked in a steel mill. I have, let me tell you, there is no way even a very smart person on the line could learn to reverse engineer a machine from working on it in the mill.
So far you have made a very persuasive arguments FOR copyrights, they protect people like you from fucking around with things they have no grasp of.
In other posts, it became quite clear that you don't realize what a copyright is. You seem to think that because someone can charge for a copyright, they must. You didn't even know that the GPL is a copyright. Yet you argue against them. Seriously, go learn a few things then come back when you are ready.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget DNA, computer code, and most importantly of all, One click shopping. Really though, I just don't care, technological advances aren't going anywhere, and no matter how much the dinosaurs in washington try to govern what they don't understand, eventually everyone will see (whether they like it or not) that this nice little world we all know and love is about to be history. We can't stop it, can't go back, and are going to have to learn to deal with it. Technology is a blessing and a curse, it can save the world or destroy it. I have no doubt that there are going to be some pretty big fuck-ups along they way but we'll learn from them, and learn how to fix them. Personally I think it can only end up in controlled anarchy (ant colony style). Once we have a space elevator, or another cheap way to space and can live outside of earth, the whole idea of gov't just becomes ridiculous and obsolete. The same to war to, it CAN'T last forever, think how retardedly pointless war is to any space faring species, there's plenty room and resourses for everyone. Of course though, just about ANYTHING is possible, we'll all probobally become obsolete too. In the end though, I think it'll all be pretty freakin sweet, with lots of kick-ass free music!

Re:People

[black mariah]

Self-sufficiency is quite easily attainable, actually. You simply never stop touring. Yeah, it would be fucking sweet if I never had to set foot outside of my mansion except to go on a 5-city world tour to rake in another few million, but you know and I know that just isn't going to happen. I don't care. The only thing I want is to be able to do nothing but play music. It doesn't matter to me if I'm living in a downtown NY loft or in the back of a van in Lansing.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I You are VERY confused about what copyright is. The GPL is a copyright... etc etc.. if you were really against copyrights then you wouldn't go GPL, you would just release the source as is, with no license.

I am afraid it is you who misundersttood. GPL (athough it is technically a license - item related to copyrights) is a way to fight the system from within. It has to be that way because as long as copyrights exsist, releasing anything without a "license" is an invitation for people who do use copyrights to abuse you. I wish to contribute to society rather then to a bottom line of some greedy jerk with a software company whose business is controlling access to information and charging for it.

a group of scientists who discover a cure for HIV should be allowed to copyright it.

No. The cure itself is a piece of data that existed long before those scientists were born and it will exist long before they are gone. It is akin to saying that someone should be the owner of the Sun because he screamed "I saw it first!". The scientists should be rewarded and admired but owners of fundamental knowledge they are not.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

will exist long before they are gone

Err.. that was supposed to read: "will exist long after they are gone"

Re:People

[Theatetus]

The only thing I want is to be able to do nothing but play music.

OK, to pull this back on topic, can you really say with a straight face that people copying MP3's of music you've recorded is somehow keeping you from getting enough money to keep playing music?

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

first you tried to counter my argument by saying that correlation does not imply casuation argument then proceeded to use another correlation does not imply causation argument

I didnt just use a correlation. I used a cause-effect link. It should be obvious that enabling wide spread education and flow of information would increase number of people able to create while restricting the same flow would reduce the pool of creators. It is called logic. Merely putting together two things that happened at the same time, does not estabilish cause-effect link as you would seem to think. Over 90% of serial killers drink milk. 100% drink water. According to you this should be evidence that milk and water lead to serial killing.

Now you are claiming that the industrial revolution was in fact driven by the elites and not the "poor jerks" as you referred to them.

Your understanding of history is wanting. Although there was very high level of illiteracy in societies during the industrial revolution, one of the key societal changes at the time was that education became far more widely available even to those at the bottom of the society. If it were only the rich who had access to it. we would be still living the Dickensonian nightmare.

It is quite obvious you have never worked in a steel mill.

I see, so shoveling coal in a mill is the only way someone could come to understand inner workings of machinery. Thousands of locomotive engineers, steam machine operators, repairmen, craftsmen, tradesmen etc etc all around that time all shoveled coal with no access to the workings of the machinery and none of them improved anything. It was the copyright holders who labored in their ivory towers. Right.

Seriously, go learn a few things then come back when you are ready.

In the light of your lack of logical reasoning and jumping to conclusions from opposing evidence I find this recommendation rather amusing.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Self-sufficiency is quite easily attainable, actually. You simply never stop touring.

Sure, if you can do it and it pays, do it. None of us advocates of abolishment of copyrights have anything against it. I have no problem with you getting paid by concert goers for your effort. What I have a problem with is you trying to own information. As in putting legal restrictions on vibrations of air and strings of numbers because they happen to be a representation of your "music". If people like what they see and hear, you will have a lot of concert goers and you will get paid well. But that does not give you the right to mess up half of the computer users on the planet with ideas like DMCA. If you compose something and perform it, my hat off to you. If someone records it at the concert and goes to put it on the net, too bad, you should try to use it as promotion of the actual money making event rather then try to own the reproduction. That is all I ask. If you go down the path of "I own these air vibrations" it leads to madness and eventual crippling of science and estabilishment of new forms of societal abuse by giant megacorps.

Re:People

[MushMouth]

This guy is RIGHT ON!!!!

Whoever moderated these comments flamebait are facist pigs!

you want to know the economics of touring read these articles by a band that I think was/would be quite popular amoung the /. crowd. Then use your brain and do a little math and think of your favorite obscure band (think TMBG in 1988, remember these guys went years playing to venue where 20 people showed up)

Re:People

[AK Marc]

You are VERY confused about what copyright is. The GPL is a copyright, just not one that people sell their works. The GPL copyrights your work, but allows anyone to distribute and modify it, as long as they give credit to the original author, and it forces anyone who distributes a modification to open the source.

Well, that's not inconsistent with his statements. He said that he uses it to prevent problems with copyright monkeys. He is using their system against them.

If you were really against copyrights then you wouldn't go GPL, you would just release the source as is, with no license.

That would support the people that support copyrights. If he didn't copyright his work, then someone else could steal it, claim it, and copyright it. Then he'd have to follow someone else's copyright just to use his own code. He chose to be against copyrights by using them to protect his code, then freely releasing it. This prevents unscrupulous people from taking advantage of it, and gains him the same thing as if he didn't copyright it.

You seem to offer little evidence that scientists don't really create, you just say that they build upon what came before, which is true, but just as the people who came before them should be allowed to have copyrighted their works if they so choose, a group of scientists who discover a cure for HIV should be allowed to copyright it.

Copyright what? You can't copyright something short (like a formula), but you can trademark it. You can't copyright a process, but you can patent it. There is very little related to science that can be copyrighted. At best, one could copyright the explanation of something, but that wouldn't prevent people from quoting the important parts. Or you could copyright a study or survey that showed something novel. I'm curious what form you think the cure for HIV would come in and how there would be any means to copyright it. None of the current drugs are copyrighted, but they are protected with patents.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

I didnt just use a correlation. I used a cause-effect link. It should be obvious that enabling wide spread education and flow of information would increase number of people able to create while restricting the same flow would reduce the pool of creators. It is called logic. Merely putting together two things that happened at the same time, does not estabilish cause-effect link as you would seem to think. Over 90% of serial killers drink milk. 100% drink water. According to you this should be evidence that milk and water lead to serial killing.
I said previously that the copyright system provides a way for people to protect their ideas from others and to benefit from those ideas. That is my logical conclusion, but I guess since it doesn't fit into your little world view, you will just make up reasons that I'm wrong, without offering any reasons, just twisting words that I didn't say into what you want me to say. Like I said before, go do a little research and come back to me with more than ideological drivel. You have shown time and time again that you don't even realize what copyrights are. You think you know, but you don't, and you refuse to open your mind.
And your so called "logic" just shows how ignorant you are of economics. Real economists don't use "logic" like you claim to be using. Your logic is nothing but ideology with a few selective facts that correlate with your ideology. Real economists are scientists, they observe and predict. Only economics is the least exact science there is. It's very hard to measure precisely the output of a country. It's almost impossible create controlled macroeconomic experiments, there are too many variables, none of which you have control over. Some use ideology as a guide, but you seem to be so caught up in your ideology, you don't even know what you are arguing against. You claiming your "logic" trumps years and years of economic research is just plain stupid. But then again, you seem to think that you know what people should be able to do with their ideas than the people that create them, so maybe I'm just dumb. Remember, Aristotle used logic to show that there are only 4 elements, discrediting Democratus who was the real pioneer of the atomic theory.
I see, so shoveling coal in a mill is the only way someone could come to understand inner workings of machinery. Thousands of locomotive engineers, steam machine operators, repairmen, craftsmen, tradesmen etc etc all around that time all shoveled coal with no access to the workings of the machinery and none of them improved anything. It was the copyright holders who labored in their ivory towers. Right.
Um, guess what, I had a job as a programmer at a steel mill. I worked with a bunch of people who could tell you almost everything about running a coal mill. But guess what? They didn't learn by being a machine operator like you claim that people learned by, they went to college, and combined their education with practical experience to be the experts they are today. They don't work for free, and the systems they design shouldn't be given away for free because some guy who knows nothing about the business says they should. The guys out on the floor could service an engine no matter what problem it had, but they couldn't design one if their life depended on it. Your reverse engineering comment was purely the Ivory Tower thinking you so derrided. Plus, your shoveling coal comment made me chuckle, because it shows how out of touch you really are with the reality you claim to know so much about. First of all, nobody "shoves" coal in a steel mill anymore, the coke(baked coal) is measured and loaded into rail cars which are dumped into the coke oven. Next time you want to lecture me on something, please actually know more than I do, it just makes you look like a fool.
Guess what, a lot of those people who got educated during the progressive era(which wasn't till the early 20th century, when children were taken out of factories, well after the start of the industrial revolution) wen

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

That would support the people that support copyrights. If he didn't copyright his work, then someone else could steal it, claim it, and copyright it. Then he'd have to follow someone else's copyright just to use his own code. He chose to be against copyrights by using them to protect his code, then freely releasing it. This prevents unscrupulous people from taking advantage of it, and gains him the same thing as if he didn't copyright it.
That is the EXACT point of copyrights. You people seem to be very confused about copyrights and payments. I can copyright a piece of art but put it on my website for all to see, no fees attatched. The reason I copyright it is so that nobody else can claim it is theirs. Same goes with the GPL. You copyright it so nobody else can. You created the code, so you can control how you want it distributed. In this case the GPL, which allows you and other people more freedom. Copyright does not imply charging money!!!!! It just says that the holder of the copyright is the ultimate authority in who can disseminate the works.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I said previously that the copyright system provides a way for people to protect their ideas from others and to benefit from those ideas.

And this a very mechanism for slowing down progress. If one has to cough up money to see your "idea", he cannot base his new idea on your old one unless he has enough dough, can he? If everybody does it, noone can afford to learn beyond a few small affordable cases. Unrestricted flow of information is conductive to more people being able to learn and thus contribute. Your entire assertion seems to be that in order to create, people have to be able to make a killing at it. While indeed it is can be a motivation to many, many more people get ideas on how to improve things spontaneusly by being good at it. While the patents (since that is what is used to protect ideas, not copyrights) were difficult to obtain and relatively rare for almost all of that 300 years, their effect was minimal. Now when they became a flood of trivia generated by greedy monopolies wishing to stake their claim on the knowledge of human race, they are becoming an abomination. Copyrights, which applied for most of that time to art works and books, had a different impact but the one we are discussing (on progress) was minimal since it was defused by existence of libraries (which in effect defeat copyright because people can read for free). You probably do not realize how much work and effort and campaigning and fighting greed went into establishment of public libraries, precisely at the time of the industrial revolution, with all the copyright holders screaming bloody murder and opposing it any way they could.

plus, your shoveling coal comment made me chuckle..

It was just an ironic expression, the fact that you took it literally makes me wonder.

There are free scientific journals then as there are now.

Far and few in between and totally obscure. All the leading journals are so expensive that they constitute vast majority of many university department's expenditures. Hence the revolt going on now amongst scientists. Besides, unlike now, these journals were in libraries at the time Einstein was dabbling in his physics. Today no public library can afford them.

However, since you contributed work via the GPL, it's clear that you do like the benefits of copyright when it comes to protecting your work

as I explained several times already, I use GPL because it is the only thing available to defeat others who wish to use copyrights against me as in taking work and then copyrighting it in their proprietary, binary-only product.

Others may not be so benevolent as you, but that is their right as creator

The only thing they are entitled to is either create or not create. If they wish to abuse the common knowledge of the civilization and claim parts of it as "theirs" I'd rather see them take their "contributions" and shove it.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

That is the EXACT point of copyrights... It just says that the holder of the copyright is the ultimate authority in who can disseminate the works.

That authority is unnecessary if copyrights do not exist. If taking credit was all that was at stake, a different law would exist, dealing with attributions (not that it would be wise , people would claim 2 pixels in your picture were not attributed etc). Copyright is specifically designed to prevent others from selling your work and at the same time allowing you to sell it. Its only motivation is financial. It can be used in other ways as GPL is doing but thats a fringe application. If copyright did not exist, I would be equally safe from people stealing my stuff, because they would not be able to charge for it as in anyone could freely copy the stuff they made and thus the whole incentive of stealing would be gone. So copyright does not benefit me in any way, and on the other hand is a base of an entire system of restrictions, persecution and abuse perpetrated by large corporations on all of us.

Re:People

[neoptik]

I take it you've never heard of Stravinsky, Bartok, Part, Adams, Glass, Golijov, Kirchner, need I go on? Sure, you won't hear it on "top 40 classical hits" radio stations, but its real "classical" music, and its wonderful. Go to your library and borrow some CDs/scores.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

Here here!
I completly agree with you.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

The only thing they are entitled to is either create or not create. If they wish to abuse the common knowledge of the civilization and claim parts of it as "theirs" I'd rather see them take their "contributions" and shove it.
Fine, never drive a car, because that car has patents. Never use modern medicine. Never watch another television program. Never read another copyrighted work. You talk big, but something tells me you aren't willing to "tell them to shove it" when it benefits you. What do you do for a living? Does your organization benefit from patents/copyrights? If it does, you better quit as a sign of protest. Open up your own laboratory and do copyright free research. I'm sure you will have no trouble finding investors.
Till then, you are all talk.

Re:People

[sparkz]

Thinking of reading this subthread?
Think again.
Typical slashdot "teenagers claiming to understand law"... however, if you're someone looking to bring the F/OSS community into disrepute, feel free to cite this thread - it's sitting there, begging for you to take it.

Re:People

[sparkz]

Eh? You are a musician? Or you listen to musicians?
You claim to be a musician - do you share your music (like www.moeker.com, for example?) - do you make any money out of it? Who puts bread on your table?

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Fine, never drive a car, because that car has patents

This is akin to asking someone living in Soviet Union to quit eating, wearing shoes or geting his medicine because they are all Soviet made.

The fact that Western societies are increasingly encumbered in patents and copyrights, is not of my doing, and I am already doing the best I can be reasonably expected to: I contribute to freely available software and I do attempt to warn about the ever increasing peril of the impending "Rights Based Economy". We are not yet at the junction where violent resistance is called for, but I fear after few hundred more millions die due to being unable to buy drugs invented 40 years ago because someone has managed to patent them and then extend the patent perpetually, or someone demands royalties for food they grow (DNA patents), we might see it come to that.

Till then, you are all talk.

I am glad that you are here setting these standards of what constitutes resistance to ownership of information. Without you we would be all lost and didnt know how to proceed. Why did we not think about going barefoot on a hunger strike before? My, what would we do without you?

Re:People

[TLSPRWR]

We don't need music middle-men anymore. We don't need A&R execs telling us what's good enough for us to hear anymore. We don't need million-dollar studios to produce studio-quality audio anymore. The music industry is an industry that no longer has a purpose. Let the artists create and try to sell their stuff and get famous.

I'm all for artists' free expression, not being censored and the like, but eliminating record labels is not the way to go. Having just helped a friend produce a CD, it is a very expensive endeavor. For 1,000 copies of a 9 track CD, it has cost him roughly over $4,000 (including studio time, printing, etc.). You may argue that if he sells each CD for $4, then he'll make his money back, but whenever you make something you aren't garunteed to sell all of the product you produce. That, and he'd like to make some money so he can produce another bigger CD production. Once the CDs get back from printing, he plans on charging $10 until he makes his money back, and probably a small price drop after that.

The point I'm making is: Most of the time making and producing music to be distributed to people is hard expensive work. Record labels offer a way for you to get your money out to people who may invest in it. 'Studio Quality Audio' may be 'easy' to record but it still requires a LOT of expensive equipement. Even to mix it together well requires a professional. It's not as quick and easy as you may think, it takes a lot of time, effort and money to put out a CD. Oh, and small artists trying to live off the earnings from live shows? Hah.. You're lucky if you get $100 (split between band members) until you become some star.

Re:People

[antifoidulus]

You never did answer my questions, all you did is attack a straw man.
You never did answer my question about where you work, something tells me you are invovlved in creating intellectual property for a living or work for a company that does so.
But fine, you are right, copyrights and patents are evil, and all scientific research should be free.
One last question, who exactly is going to pay for all this research? Last time I checked, scientists can't just sit in their room and do chemistry experiments. They need equipment, expensive equipment. They need food. Most scientists I know aren't willing to work for free.
Your comment about contributing to free software, well good for you. I support the free software movement, but I also feel that companies should be allowed to sell their ideas as well. Appearently I am an evil SOB for thinking that if a company makes an investment on a product, they should be entitled to a return.
If you really cared about thousands of people dying, why aren't you in Africa, volunteering at health clinics or schools(since you obviously know so much about science)? Or could it be you are just creating an elaborate ruse for why you should be allowed to download music/movies without rewarding the artist who created them.

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

...however, if you're someone looking to bring the F/OSS community into disrepute

Define "disrepute". Is it when some of us profess not to believe in the current "copyright/patent" feeding frenzy? Is it when we claim that greed is not our motive? Perheaps it is when we let our language slip a bit and become offensive (I am guilty of that, this fight can get tiresome). Or is it because what we say does not conform to your pre-determined view? Which is it?

Re:People

[IgnoramusMaximus]

but fine, you are right, copyrights and patents are evil, and all scientific research should be free. One last question, who exactly is going to pay for all this research? Last time I checked, scientists can't just sit in their room and do chemistry experiments. They need equipment, expensive equipment. They need food. Most scientists I know aren't willing to work for free.

If you want to talk constructive, sure. What should be going on is that all fundamental science should be domain of academia, not private industry. Private industry could finance some of it through foundations but with explicit understanding that the results are property of human race. By doing so, you get your scientists rewarded, you remove pressure to funnell efforts into "viagras" and ignore rare deseases, etc. Same can be applied for art, where foundation can sponsor true art on a patronage system. These can be private etc and public can contribute directy by paying for performances. None of these need patents and copyrights. The motivational force of patents is at this point outweighted by their vast negative repercussions, most patents long-outlive the usefulness of the invention and are used as a mechamism to destroy opponents. Most consumers would benefit from stronger competition between companies in the marketplace not in the courtroom. So patents go. In this scenario, artists (good ones) get paid, scientists (good ones) get paid, inventors get paid (if they can bring their improvement to market and compete with it) and society at large benefits from free access to information and thus education and experimentation being sped up dramatically.

On the downside, companies would need to capitalize on new inventions fast, because competitors would be breathing at their necks copying the invention as soon as they can and driving the price down. There would be still a window of opportunity from product inroduction to copies appearing but it would be short. No longer a brand name, or who did it first, but actual product quality would count. Some companies would cease to invent and focus on copying, but some shrewder ones would find a way to slow down the copycats with good marketing etc. Too bad all those consumers would benefit again.

If you really cared about thousands of people dying, why aren't you in Africa, volunteering at health clinics

Valid point, perheaps because I am just human and there are people better then me who do these things. That does not mean that I should do absolutely nothing.

Or could it be you are just creating an elaborate ruse for why you should be allowed to download music/movies without rewarding the artist who created them

Believe or not I dont listen to music much, neither do I watch TV. Too busy with software. On top of that this is far beyond music. What gets me going are news of things like Monsanto suing a farmer because their "proprietary" canola spread on his field and winning.

Re:People

[antiMStroll]

There was a time this was refered to as A Society, but Society became passe about the time Carter got the boot. Now it's all about 'me', and none typify this better than entertainment content distributors.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

dude.. wtf are you -talking- about?

Yes an artist draws on the progress of others, and even the ideas of others, but just because you never took law 101 doesn't mean you should explain what copyright is or isn't. As for people "believeing" in copyright... well not believeing in something that is in existance is to your own peril. Perhaps you don't "believe" in income tax either? Have fun in Jail...

Anyway... In order to have a valid copyright, your work must either build on public domain (which is ok!) or be actual new work. If I go and write a new book tommorrow completely from scratch, it will probably be in english, a language shaped by those who came before me, and even if it is entirely expressing my own ideas, views, and thoughts, at least some of them were shaped by people I have had contact with and the society I live in. That doesn't mean I didn't create the book or that it belongs to anyone else.

Even if I took a public domain book, edited it minorly, and added a new chapter to the end.. if you didn't think it was worth the price, you could go look at the original book instead. Once again... copyright protects implementation, not idea. It is -allowed- to copy ideas, just not copy text/music/code/etc. verbatim.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good composers do not imitate; they steal." - Igor Stravinsky (he wrote the Firebird Suite, and the Rite of Spring)

Re:People

[Theatetus]

Don't you mean the Firefox Suite?

Re:People

[FrozedSolid]

Also, most people listen to music exclusively from what's popular on MTV or radio. I'm sure Viacom (owns MTV) is in bed with the RIAA, along with Clearchannel (owns all major radio stations).

I don't think most people are using p2p to discover new emerging artists. Most of them are using it to download the latest pop single. The design of p2p applications clearly show this -- you have to type in the name of the song your looking for. If anything, p2p LIMITS artist exposure.

Of course, this isn't necessarily true, some may argue that they use p2p to sample artists that they've heard about or whatever. But still, I don't think the RIAA has to be worried about getting cut out of the picture anytime soon.

Re:People

[Anonymous Coward]

100 miles away you bring in 5 people because nobody's fucking heard of you

Maybe they'd have heard of you if, I dunno, you encouraged your fans to share your music with people.

But you won't, of course. It's too much fun telling people about the dues you're paying.

BitTorrent is nice.

[London Bus]

It's an established technology. That's good. What I'm looking for now is a push-based P2P system; one which allows you to subscribe for content and will then automatically download new content as it's propagated through the network. We've had stories on Slashdot before about sites' popular RSS feeds saturating bandwidth - well, this would be a perfect solution. Are there any plans to retrofit push functionality into BitTorrent to help alleviate the stress of releasing new content? BitTorrent doesn't gel with RSS at the moment because there's no way to automate serving and/or obtaining RSS files. It all has to be done manually, which is no better than just refreshing a web page.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[ikewillis]

The solution is, in my opinion, to first move away from BitTorrent for content distribution. There are significantly more flexible, powerful, and elegant protocols ready to take its place such as PDTP which could be used for distribution of the actual RSS feed.

The next step would be some sort of UDP beaconing system, where clients periodically "ping" a beacon saying they want updates pushed to them, and the server will periodically "beacon" with the latest available content of a given type until a TTL expires, provided they don't receive a "ping" from the client before that.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, most of the big torrent sites already publish via RSS. Combined with a specialized reader or script (available on http://tvt.milfclan.com/ or http://torrents.co.uk/) or mythtv http://mythtv.org/ It is pretty much fully automatic. Granted, most of these solutions require using regular expressions, so it's not entirely foolproof.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Jesus fucking Christ. Stealing music isn't good enough for you any more, now you want people to deliver stolen music to you?

Holy fuck.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[iso]

I'm not sure why you need to do this manually anymore. Most torrent sites already publish RSS information and good BitTorrent clients have RSS reading either built into them, or can do it through a plugin.

I personally use the client Azureus (which works on Linux as well as others), with the RSSFeed plugin. It works very well.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I want people to deliver the newest debian ISO to me the day its released.

Now shut the fuck up and go back to sucking out the RIAA's asshole.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[svallarian]

Yeah, we've already got that. It's called NNTP.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[david.given]

That's good. What I'm looking for now is a push-based P2P system; one which allows you to subscribe for content and will then automatically download new content as it's propagated through the network.

You want to do this in a decentralised manner? Tricky. You end up having to subscribe to a hub, so that when the hub gets notified of a change, it notifies you. In turn, the hub subscribes to another hub, etc, until you reach the original source of the file. Whenever the file changes, the notifications would trickle down from hub to hub until all subscribers were notified.

You know, that sounds very familiar --- yes, that's it! It's called DNS. A distributed database that's incredibly standard, incredibly reliable, and incredibly scalable.

The way you'd do this with DNS is as follows: the source of the file would publish a TXT entry with a special name. The TXT entry would describe the data. Subscribers would still have to poll this at intervals, but they'd be polling their local DNS server.

In effect, you're now using the network-of-hubs model, except you've managed to con your ISP into being your local hub. And your ISPs provider becomes the next level, etc. The source's DNS server would end up having to serve a tiny fraction of the number of requests that an RSS feed would need. And DNS is really good at that sort of thing.

DNS is fun. You can do all kinds of things with it --- remember that guy who'd managed to do live audio streaming? It's proven technology, and everybody already has it! Okay, you wouldn't want to distribute huge amounts of data with it, but this kind of change notification is what it was designed to do.

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[antdude]

Quit cussing. :-P

Re:BitTorrent is nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought you might enjoy knowning that I think your comment is very funny and don't understand how someone could mod you troll. You'd also might like to know I just meta-moded them unfair.

Example Bitorrent/RSS Feed

[sleeeper]

I wanted to mess around with Bittorrent and RSS, so I added a feed (or whatever the officail lingo is) for my Air America Radio Ogg Vorbis Archive.

It has saved me a lot of bandwidth, because now people are leaving their bittorrent clients open longer (due to the automated downloads leading them to passively leave their downloader open).

Here is a link: http://bigelow-springs.net/airamerica/

Re:Example Bitorrent/RSS Feed

[Anonymous Coward]

It has saved me a lot of bandwidth

You realize that by posting it to slashdot you've just negated any bandwidth savings!

Re:Example Bitorrent/RSS Feed

[sleeeper]

I'm actually hoping to get a few more RSS/Bittorrent subscribers, because a few more (in the long term) would actaully save me even more bandwidth.

As it is, I serve up hundreds of bittorrents a day. Unfortunately, because most of the downloads are not concurent, my bittorrent seeds (hence my bandwidth) are doing most of the work. I need more people that not only download the bittorrents, but then actually leave their downloadres open. Here is a better link:
bigelow-springs.net/airamerica/

Re:Example Bitorrent/RSS Feed

[bigjnsa500]

How can you get away with the Live stream? Are you paying Air America to do this?

Re:Example Bitorrent/RSS Feed

[bigjnsa500]

Another example of the Liberal Nation of /.

Buy music, no thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

its called downloading LEGAL music:

http://bt.etree.org

Excellent legit application of p2p to distribute legal music.

I have been filling up dvds left and right once i found out i like a lot of those bands.

I wont buy music from any RIAA member, except bands that allow legal trading of their music. that is kind of a toss up. do i support the band that "gets it", and support the industry heads that dont.

well i dont even download RIAA members music anymore. but i am not buying it either, guess i must be a pirate, hurting their sales.

so they can assume all they want that i am a pirate because i am not buying their trash, my conscience is clean.

Re:MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL

[AKAImBatman]

It looks like someone's conducting experiments to see how gullible the mods are. Previous first posts and first post replies from today have had ACs posting things like "redundant" or "offtopic". Surprisingly, it seems that only about 50% of the mods are that gullible. It somewhat amusing to watch a post go through a moderation tug-of-war.

That being said, this AC is a jerk and deserves to have his posts modded into oblivion before other mods see them.

Re:MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a cool experiment. I'm not that AC though.

my suggestion -from a musician

[peculiarmethod]

umm.. okay, here's my two pence.

We should start a govt run program, much like Social Security, only one that isn't a joke. It would work like this:

You're a musician- you get paid by the Artist Living Payment Option. A nationwide program that uses taxes and donations in order to merely pay for distribution, and pay royalties to the artists. Payments from ALPO would be contingent upon number of releases, how current last release, and popularity (based on distribution systems numbers). An algorithm would use these variables to give a somehwat fair distribution of monies alloted/gathered. Distribution? Anywhere wifi can be set up. Which is everywhere, now. Keyosks are set up to have a digital display of songs list.. you pick and choose like a juke box.. create your login name and password.. and log your computer, or wifi IPOD, or whatever to the system and download the songs for free. You want a CD or dont have a computer type thingy? Pay 5 bucks for the hard copy.

Kinda like shareware.. only I think the govt funding the arts a bit more would benefit the creativity of its future citizens (think children).

anyway..

it will never happen. All we'll get as musicians is alpo. Not ALPO.

pm

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice! The government is the perfect place to turn to solve all our problems!

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Agent Green]

Alpo already comes in can and bag form, is loaded with nutrients and proteins...and if it's good enough for your dog, it's almost certainly good enough for you. :)

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[pete-classic]

Wait! We could do that with all industries. Now all we need is a catchy name! Hmm, something that displays our belief in communal property . . .

But in all seriousness, you are a brilliant troll. I liked your 12cm CD bit too. I'm adding you as a friend.

-Peter

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[GoofyBoy]

Why does this have to be government run?

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Kenja]

Or we could have a system where people who want to listen to music could pay for it! We could call these people "consumers" and they could buy music in a format called "Compact Discs" at places called "stores". That way only the people who like a given piece of music end up paying for it and we dont end up with a broken socialist system like Europe.

The day my taxes go to Yanni is the day I start setting towns on fire.

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[boskone]

what i fi have no interest to pay for this? I don't need their music and don't want my government holding a gun to my wallet and forcing me to pay so that some artist can produce stuff. If YOU want to pay an artist for something that you appreciate, then knock yourself out, but how do you asume it's fair to TAX me to pay for your idea? jeez this whole idea drives me nuts.

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Salgak1]

Except the "CD"s sold at "stores" are produced and distributed by the evil cartel "RIAA" which claims the vast majority of the proceeds for itself, and occaisionally pays the artist a pittance. . .when it bothers to go looking for them. .

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[po_boy]

We should start a govt run program...

Yeah, they have something like that in Cuba already. It's no surprise to me that people are literally jumping off that island into homemade rafts in attempt to float across shark-infested waters to Florida.

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Mike Hawk]

An artist type pushing for communism. Who'd 'a thunk it?

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the NEA? Chopped liver?

Re:my suggestion -from a musician

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Comrads,

We have enough music! What we need is more cheap labor. All music production has been suspended until further notice. Get to work! (Except for my brother-in-law and his family.)

Sincerly,
Your Loving and Paternal Music/Labor Czar
---------------

Seriously though: PBS. NPR. Local public channels.

Do you live under a rock? :) You just want free stuff. So do I. Please, give me your stuff. Thanks.

People shouldnt buy music

[slashcop]

I think music is not a product but an artform. People should pay to go to concerts, people should pay for CDs, but music should never be something which is treated as intellectual property because its an art. Artists don't even make money from copyrights on music so whats the point of defending it?

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[ViolentGreen]

I believe it was Gene Simmons who said, "You're an artist? Paint my house."

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[prell]

I'll take the ostensibly most fragile example: public domain classical music.

The original artists get no royalty from this music. Indeed, they're dead. So anyone can take this music and perform it, and sell it. Take an orchestra playing a complex symphony, for example. If you want the music to sound like the composer intended, you need excellent musicians, and a master conductor. The conductor is very important not the least because in many pieces of music, there are written notes left by the composer as to how things should sound, and most of the time these notes are single words (e.g. "soft").

Alright, so we have this whole crew assembled. Where will they play? Well, it depends on how you want it to sound, and how many friends you'll bring with you. We'll pick the bandshell.

Okay, now everything is prepared. Let's take a quick look at the bill, and the specific bill, while we wait:

Bill:
Music & royalties ... FREE
Bandshell rental ... FREE (compliments of the City! How nice)
Conductor's fee ... $2500
Musicians ... $15000

Specific bill (not included in bill):
Education for conductor ... $160,000
Education for musicians ... [x] * $160,000
All the stuff that people need to live (even musicians ) ... $who knows
Interest on education loans ... $who knows

Conductors usually don't perform every day. Neither do musicians, so their fees are adjusted for that. Musicians also have very expensive instruments that they need to make the music sound as best it can (for you, but they also *want* these instruments because they love music. Funny how that works). They also need to pay for the upkeep of these instruments. And they need really nice clothes for some reason.

Everything I've said here applies to the presentation of all music, and I didn't even go into recording or distribution.

It's not as though some evil person is making music cost money. If good vibes paid for studios, record pressing, server fees (for music distributed online) and advertising (including concerts), that would be great, but it doesnt. Every band needs to do all of that if they want to do music for a living. Who pays for that living?

The major record labels' stance is that they are there to do business, and they just happen to make music in the pursuit of earning money. Don't let that get you down, and even more importantly, don't let it affect your ability to be skeptical and inquisitive. If you don't keep an independent train of critical thought, you can get taken advantage of. Take Real for example. Real has attempted to rally the efforts of those in the tech crowd who are uninformed, to try to make themselves money they did not earn.

If you don't want to pay for music, don't listen to music.

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill:
Music & royalties ... FREE
Bandshell rental ... FREE (compliments of the City! How nice)
Conductor's fee ... $2500
Musicians ... $15000

Specific bill (not included in bill):
Education for conductor ... $160,000
Education for musicians ... [x] * $160,000
All the stuff that people need to live (even musicians ) ... $who knows
Interest on education loans ... $who knows

If you don't want to pay for music, don't listen to music.

I consider your conclusion unreasonable and unsupportable.

Let's look at another bill, and a more reasonable conclusion. This bill is for a hobbyist, releasing music they wrote themselves, probably recorded using a PC, maybe even synthesised from scratch.

Bill:
Music & royalties ... FREE
Bandshell rental ... NOT REQUIRED
Conductor's fee ... NO CONDUCTOR
Musicians ... AMATEUR
Instruments ... PAID FOR BY DAY JOB

Specific bill (not included in bill):
Education for conductor ... N/A
Education for musicians ... PAID FOR BY DAY JOB
All the stuff that people need to live (even musicians ) ... PAID FOR BY DAY JOB
Interest on education loans ... PAID FOR BY DAY JOB

Hey, look at that - that music isn't costing anything!

Now, I don't for a moment suggest that we should dump all the expensive kinds of music - those which rely on professional musicians, expensive instruments, huge concert halls/stadiums, and so on. Our culture would be diminished without them, and if we want to keep those then obviously some people will have to pay for them somehow.

But you cannot claim, as the RIAA keep trying to do, that all music costs money to make -- because it doesn't. Even if professional music disappeared tomorrow, we would still have amateur music.

The only reasonable conclusion? If you don't want to pay for music, don't listen to music that you're expected to pay for. But if you can find free music that you like - free as in being paid for by someone else, whether a philanthropist putting on public concerts or an amateur funding his hobby with another job - then listen to that, instead. With a clear conscience.

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[glitch!]

Bill:
Music & royalties ... FREE
Bandshell rental ... FREE (compliments of the City! How nice)
Conductor's fee ... $2500
Musicians ... $15000


I have seriously wondered about this. Are these costs reasonable or typical? I am 100% serious here.

If I ever get a really big payout from some stock (heh!), one of my fantasy wish items would be to use some portion of it (say, $50k to $100k) to pay an orchestra to perform as many Beethoven symphonies as I could afford and OWN 100% of every possible copyright to those performances. In other words, it would be "work for hire", with no bullshit royalties or residuals of any kind. Then I would put them into the public domain for everyone to enjoy, copy, or whatever at no cost...

Yeah, I know that is not the same as spending the money for cancer research, but I think it would be a cool way to spend the money.

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[prell]

I wasn't trying to suggest that hobbyist mucisians factored into my argument. I suppose my concluding remark was misleading (I picked it for effect), but the inclusion of specific fees should have been enough to segregate the two arguments.

Another reason amateur music should be factored out of discussions like this is because hobby music is just that: a hobby. I don't think I have one song by a hobby band, and I certainly don't think I paid for one. If I found a hobby band that was good and also didn't care about getting money for their music, of course I'd get copies of their music somehow. Besides the fact that all distribution costs money, though, all artists who feel passionate about their art would love to be able to live off of it. Not necessarily make money from it, but devote their life to it. And what could be more satisfying than knowing you earned your livlihood through your work? I hinted at this point before, but it wasn't elaborated for the most part.

So, going through your collection of music, can you recommend me a band that pays for all its music expenses as you describe?

My intention isn't to silence anybody. My intention is to debunk the rationalizations some people have for stealing music, especially the excuse that the money is going "out there somewhere" to be burned in the Nordic fireplace of any given CEO. Just do your research, find what you like, and pay whatever price is there.

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[prell]

Oh I guess I should have said that I have no idea how much it costs to hire musicians or a conductor :-) I just took those numbers as examples. I thought about using a fake currency, but I decided against it since the real problem is the ratios. You could easily find out how much it costs to rent a proper indoor venue, though: call around to theaters and orchestra halls. I imagine with some sweet talking they'd spill their guts about the performers as well.

I think many people have tried to do the "ultimate performance" of Beethoven! If you could pull that off, I'm pretty sure you'd be a Nobel Prize winner! All I ask is that you start with Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn. :-)

It's important to come to terms with money. Money is just a way for people to acknowledge that somebody else did something they wanted done. If you grow an apple, and I would like one, I'd show my appreciation through money. Money can be abused, taken for granted and misattributed, but the good thing about that is that money simply amplifies the weaknesses of those who abuse it.

So, money itself isn't evil. If someone makes damn good music for me, you can bet I'll give them some money, because it's worth it and I recognize the effort. It's a show of respect! So, just act according to what you feel is right, and don't stand for immorality that you can control.

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[Anonymous Coward]

Did those classical composers 'pay' for all the traditional and folk melodies they lifted?

Re:People shouldnt buy music

[Anonymous Coward]

The original artists get no royalty from this music. Indeed, they're dead. So anyone can take this music and perform it, and sell it.

no, this is misleading. being dead does not revoke the copyrights of modern artists. the music you are referring to is able to be performed, recorded, and sold because the artists' copyright has expired (or more likely there was no such thing during their time).

Re:MOD PARENT +5 INSIGHTFUL

[scowling]

Not a new trick. Happens to me every so often.

minor hypocrisy

[theMerovingian]

It doesn't help the cause that their google ads are 4 or 5 variations on the theme of:

Download Unlimited MP3s,
Music, CDs Movies, Games,
Software and More!

Geez...

Re:minor hypocrisy

[chatooya]

Hey, this is Nick from Downhill Battle. Yeah, I agree that those ads are pretty bad, and we actually blocked a couple that were even more egregious. We're just trying to make a little bit of money back to pay for hosting and whatnot. Hopefully, we can get our fundraising together better and not do ads on any of our stuff.

Re:minor hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

google don't seem to care what kind of illegal content is being sold / offered in the ads they provide, all they care about is money.

several other projects are having similar problems with google displaying ads selling illegal material just because their pages contain some words that trigger them, often against the nature of the projects ('free' projects end up with adverts selling their projects!).

complaining to google with the 'feedback' option gets you nowhere.

maybe slashdot need to run a story on "google's bad ads"

Re:alternative ways to buy music

[John_Sauter]

Watch out, the PartyCat link is bogus.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

WTF ? 5 + 2 = 8 ?!?

[LordPixie]

And I thought geeks sodomizing the SI prefixes was bad. Now they've hijacked basic arithmetic !


--LordPixie

Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Have Blue]

...for this. Look at the caption on the second and the last pictures. If you're going to throw moral/ethical stones at the RIAA, get out of the glass house.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[chatooya]

Hey this is Nick from Downhill Battle again. First, I think those are pretty clearly meant to be humourous captions, so I think it's a little silly to even get into it, but let me respond. I don't see how the second to last caption is even an issue-- it's a joke about filesharing and we strongly believe that the value of being able to listen to any music in the world should be defended and a licensing system can make it work for musicians. As for the last caption, the real reason that we returned the camera was because it was crappy. We needed a camera, we got it, started using it, and it wasn't worth keeping. I don't see how this is an ethical issue-- Walmart just puts it back on the shelf and that return policy is there in the first place because it makes them money.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Kenja]

Its not throwning moral/ethical stones in glass houses. You just dont understand what these people are trying to say. They're against teh RIAA etc trying to stop them doing what ever the fuck the want without consequences. You see the world OWES them free movies, music, software etc.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the second to last he's objecting to, it's the second and last, where they deliberately buy a camera for the purpose of using it and returning it as a zero-cost loner. And they apparently had the intent to do so from the beginning.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[chatooya]

Come on, this is ridiculous. If you disagree with what we're saying, then that's fine, but don't imply positions that we've never taken.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Qzukk]

You see the world OWES them free movies, music, software etc.

The distribution companies OWES us reasonable access to reasonable amounts of copyrighted materal at reasonable rates. I found iTunes to be quite reasonable, and millions of paid-for and downloaded songs back up my position.

If a company chooses to ignore demand, in our capitalist country what right do they have to throw laws around to prevent their inevitable demise?

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Richard_at_work]

So why dont you also add to the sticker "Obtaining all your music legally exempts you from lawsuits"? Personally, I think that stickering someone elses property is akin to vandalism, and Im not impressed by that page at all. What you seem to be doing is shouting 'The system must change' without actually proposing a system THAT WOULD WORK. Theres nothing at all stopping you from creating such an alternative system, and nothing at all stopping you from signing up bands to your system, its not a 'RIAA or Our system' situation, and its called competition. Until someone does that, Im afraid that noone will seriously listen.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Kenja]

"The distribution companies OWES us reasonable access to reasonable amounts of copyrighted materal at reasonable rates."

Um, no they dont. They offer a product or service at a price they decide on. You can either pay it or not. Thats it.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no they dont. They offer a product or service at a price they decide on. You can either pay it or not. Thats it.

Sure. Its a free world, they can do whatever they want. Just don't expect people to go "aww, poor anticapitalist company, dying from its own stupidity in a capitalist society" and take pity on you.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Have Blue]

"Renting" retail goods in that manner, all other considerations aside, is a scummy thing to do. It's just another aspect of the something-for-nothing-because-I-can mentality that you should be openly and strongly against, because it's what's leading to the demonization of P2P and getting sites like downhillbattle lumped in with pirates.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[chatooya]

Yeah, that might not have been the best thing to put up there, strategically speaking.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[ViolentGreen]

Come on, this is ridiculous. If you disagree with what we're saying, then that's fine, but don't imply positions that we've never taken.

That statement could adequetly go in almost any thread on slashdot.

I wish you the best with your efforts but don't expect too many reasonable discussions here.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[sharkey]

Look at the caption on the second and the last pictures.

Second Picure: "Walmart, West Boylston, MA"
Last Picture: "Contact Downhill Battle" (Doesn't really look like a caption, but it's the closest thing that picture has.)

What's the big deal?

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's never a good thing to reveal you're an asshole. Strategically speaking.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sometimes.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[nettdata]

I agree. Based on their destruction of property, and they're "borrowing" cameras from Walmart, they've become no better than a bunch of idiots on a crime spree.

It would be one thing if they marched in front of the store with signs, or put bumber stickers on their car, or put flyers on cars in the parking lot, or handed out pamphlets, but to actively go in and physically deface property that is not theirs, regardless of their "moral high ground", is wrong.

Welcome to the MTV "Bam" generation.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's never a good thing to reveal you're an asshole. Strategically speaking.

But the RIAA and MPAA use that strategy all the time, and it seems to be doing good things for their overall strategy of world domination.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Renting" retail goods in that manner, all other considerations aside, is a scummy thing to do.

Yeah, it's a scummy thing to do. But done against a giant evil corporation like Wal-Mart, it's practically saintly.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[HolyCoitus]

Oh, the systems like mp3.com and what Napster was doing promoting indy artists to be downloaded through p2p? Or, maybe iTunes with the indy music you can get or p2p with the same? The issue is, the RIAA will fight back unless the system is closed off like iTunes which causes people to have to pay for the music initially. If you can't sample something you've never heard of, you're less likely to buy it.

There have been business models, but the problem is that in order to get any exposure, you have to take channels that people are already listening on. Radio, TV, or major sites. Things were made major that were promoting music, but they did things that the RIAA was able to take them to court for with music, which made them lose out.

Anyhow, I think I made my point. In order to make the system work, you have to do things that will draw in people initially. It's not as easy as you would think, and the required initial capital with the media lock down that the RIAA has created is insane. Stopping the legislation that is coming down the tubes and finding a way to make people aware is needed. The stickers aren't the best way, but they're at least an approach to doing so.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[reverius]

The parent means these captions:

2: "This picture reveals two things:

a) being in Walmart at 9:30am the day after Thanksgiving does not make us happy.
b) our digital camera is crappy and we needed a better one. Walmart is perfect for this because they have a 0% restocking fee and a 90-day return policy (89 days more than we needed). We got an HP435, which was a mistake-- it comes with a tiny amount of storage and the pictures suck. Still, it was slightly better than what we had. Onward!"

last: "Back to Walmart to return the lousy camera. Thanks for the loaner, guys!"

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[sparkz]

No, it isn't.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Dan Farina]

But uh, the camera was terrible!

I certainly wouldn't have kept it.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Greg W.]

So why dont you also add to the sticker "Obtaining all your music legally exempts you from lawsuits"?

Because it doesn't! My god, where have you been the last year? RIAA's suing the people who share music on FastTrack (KaZaa), not the people who download it!

And Ashcroft's seizing the computers of people who run DirectConnect hubs. I don't use DC myself, but my understanding is that a DC hub is like an OpenFT search node -- it just collects lists of shares from clients/users and then acts as a search point. That's like seizing Google's servers because they might possibly link to "illegal" files.

Re:Downhill Battle lost all credibility with me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish you the best with your efforts but don't expect too many reasonable discussions here

That statement could adequetly go in almost any thread on slashdot.

Keep music live

[leathered]

I appreciate the humour in what you said but I truly believe we should all pay for our music, but instead of getting it on a piece of plastic, it should be delivered the way music was intended, i.e live.

Live performances are the only way to ensure that the artist gets both the money and recognition they deserve. Sadly the art of the live performance, barring a few notable exceptions, is one that's been foreign for mosts of todays 'artists'.

All I can say is that if you like a particular band or singer then get out there and go see them play. Only then will you get the get the true feel for what talent they have.

Re:Keep music live

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't have said it better. Much of the crap on the radio today is the product of studios that play with and polish songs until they fit the formula for a #1 single. The artists can't put on a concert worth a damn. The whole system is in dire need of change.

Re:Keep music live

[tibor9000]

The system HAS changed, you're asking for it to be REVERSED.

The countless hours of work that go into a song today, are not a bad thing.

Artists spend countless hours on a painting, just because they don't do it on a stage doesn't mean it's less beautiful.

Playing in front of people is not art - it's performance. If you want performers, fine, ask for them - but don't stifle ARTISTS just because you can't tell the difference.

I play with and polish my music until it fits my artistic vision, has nothing to do with YOU or who thinks it'll be a number-one single.

Re:Keep music live

[StevenHenderson]

This, I agree with. I dload on a try-before-buy basis, and if I like a band, I surely go to their show. I think concerts are underpriced, and CDs are overpriced. A CD should be a $5 ad by an artist that screams "pay $20 to see me live."

Re:Keep music live

[YrWrstNtmr]

I enjoy the London Philharmonic. Traveling to see them play live would be a bit expensive.
I enjoy REM (or any number of other bands). I have no desire to go to a concert (anymore).
I enjoy Mike Oldfields' stuff. Quite a lot of it does not transfer well into a live performance.
I'd consider going to a Rolling Stones performance, if the tickets weren't sold out in the first 30 minutes, making it impossible except for the people who camp out in line for 3 days prior.

Not all types of music and artists lend themselves to live performances. Similarly, not all music lovers desire to go through the hassle of a concert.

Re:Keep music live

[chris_mahan]

Besides, I love Beatles music. When's the concert again?

Strawberry fields forever.

Re:Keep music live

[scmason]

That is YOU polishing YOUR music. Not a group of unrelated execs and and techs tweaking everything to make it sound as though you had talent to go with your pretty face. (It is pretty right? if not you will never get that number one single you a re dreaming of). This "musical vision" you speak of is probably why you dont have a number 1.

Playing in front of people is not art

And, I think that they call that "PERFORMANCE ART".

well...

Re:Keep music live

[aardvarkjoe]

it should be delivered the way music was intended, i.e live.

What an elitist attitude. "The way music was intended?" I think that the thousands of artists who never perform their music live would disagree with your assessment that music is "intended" (whatever that means) to be live. If you put together a song with a synthesizer at home, is it not music?

Those who want to attend concerts should compensate the artist for performing the music for them. Those who would like a CD, or an MP3, or other recorded music should likewise compensate the artist. If somebody decides that their own music is "intended" to be live, that's up to them, but as a blanket statement, that's ridiculous.

Re:Keep music live

[Eravau]

Yeah...there's nothing quite so cool as live music.

What'd you say? It costs 2 - 7 times as much as a CD...and I only get to hear it once?

I think I'll stick with the overpriced plastic...thanks.

Re:Keep music live

[hesiod]

> instead of getting it on a piece of plastic, it should be delivered the way music was intended, i.e live.

Not all music was intended to be live. I make some music (sucks still, so no link), but I could not play it live -- that's just the nature of the stuff I do. I'm not a musician, unless you can call a PC a musical instrument, but I am still making music that is intended to be heard prerecorded.

Think Electronica. Usually not the best live stuff (although there are numerous exceptions).

Re:Keep music live

[glorf]

Some people don't like live.

There are bands whose music I like, but would prefer to listen to it without annoying crowd noise, the smell of pot, crowded conditions, tickets that cost several times what the CD would cost etc.

Studio music is often done using several takes. So if someone in the band is having an off day, or an instrument is slightly out of tune, or they didn't feel they really captured the essence of the song they can do it again and again until they feel it is perfect. Personally I prefer hearing the perfect version of the song.

Then there is the on demand aspect. As I am driving along feeling happy and nostalgic listening Glad All Over by the Dave Clark Five and some jerk cuts me off, I like the fact that I can hit a button and immdiately be listening to Head Like a Hole by NIN. Getting just those two bands to ride along in my car with me to perform on demand would be tough let alone whoever else might be in my changer.

Concerts do me no good. They satisfy almost nothing of what I am looking to get out of music.

Re:alternative ways to buy music

[stromthurman]

Bastard still got me, thank god there were few people in the office. Thanks for the heads up, wish I would've caught it sooner ;)

konspire2b

[RAMMS EIN]

Sounds like you might enjoy konspire2b

Re:WTF ? 5 + 2 = 8 ?!?

[RetroGeek]

Its all in the rounding.

2.4 + 5.4 = 7.8 rounded to 8

Parent goes to Goatse.cx/"I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORN"

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuvai, you're a complete asshat

MGM After CANADIAN COGECO people?! BITTORRENT

[Michael_Angel]

Cogeco A smaller Canadian Highspeed cable company is passing on letters for Kazaa use and get this Bittorrent, Direct connect, Donkey(emule). Once thought to be impossible now being threatened. I Have recieved one and numourus otheres I know have also got emails.(email posted DSLreports) I thought canada was protected from being taken advantage of from big companies like MGM They should have no authority to do anything here in Canada. yet Cogeco is passing these letters on and threatening possible actions.
Can they do this in canada? I thought like kazaa they had to download the entire file from you before they could sumit a request are they randomly targeting users cause last time I checked I would have to leave my bittorrent on and running for a long while before I gave someone 100%.
Cogeco maybe falling into a legal trap by reponding to such letters by possibly helping grow the fear of a lawsuit. They fear actions(weather or not the companies have a right or not in canda) and put the stress on the user. Has any thing happened beyond the letter? Rogers users and sympatico users don't seem to be effected. is this a way to go after the little guy first or is the big wigs like rogers and sympatico just ignoring the requests does anyone out there know? Anyone else recieve a threat letter?

Re:WTF ? 5 + 2 = 8 ?!?

[real_smiff]

you forgot the 1GB of ethernet.

See the big picture

[nurb432]

Yes, this fight is 'just about music', but its only one early fight in the real battle for freedom of information...

Dont loose sight of the goals.. And if we lose this fight, the next one becomes even harder.

Yes and no

[Anonymous Coward]

There are bigger issues than copyright law out there perhaps, and I'd agree with you if you were saying "it's just copyright law."

But no. You're saying it's "just music." And if it's "just music" to you, so be it. That's your choice. But you should realize that many many people take music very very seriously. Whether they're musicians themselves or just dedicated fans, music is a big deal to a lot of folks.

Does it make sense that people are so obsessed with music? Maybe not. Maybe it's just a sort of guttural and instinctive thing for people. But whether it's sensible or not, it is true.

Of course, what the RIAA manufactures is another issue entirely, and if you're referring exclusively to their tripe labeled as "music", then maybe you're right.

Amusing typo

[Anonymous Coward]

I presume by the "it's just musing" at the beginning, you mean "it's just music." But your ironic typo gets at the etymology of the term "music", as well as reveals a flaw in your argument. To dismiss "musing" is to dismiss thought and self-reflection, creative spirit and meditation. If you want to live a life free of those things so be it, but I'd say that it's "musing" that makes us human.

That's exactly what I first thought of.

[London Bus]

The fact that it's really only workable via a web interface with a daemon in the background may not be the best way of doing things. Still, I have tried it out and it seems to be the closest thing to what I thought of.

Executable wrappers?

[gojomo]

BitTorrent is good, DownhillBattle's idea of making BT easier for a larger audience is good, but their proposed technique has problems. The "Blog Torrent" site says....

"One good way to do this [avoid excluding a large portion of users] is to attach torrent files to an executable client."

Directing unsophisticated users to download custom EXEs from any random site offering big media they want would be a dangerous step backwards, encouraging a very unsafe practice that's likely to get their machines infected with various kinds of malware, sooner or later.

I'd suggest instead improving the installers of well-respected BT clients, and encouraging users to get them from well-known sites.

It loses a little in terms of instant gratification, butbut is instant gratification worth it if it also risks instant victimization?

Re:Executable wrappers?

[CAlworth1]

Agreed! Being a mac user, I generally don't need to watch out for malicous downloads, but I fix windows machines all the time, and getting non-knowlegdable people running everything they download is what we are trying to STOP, not encourage.

Perhaps a better method would be to get some kind of general standard out there, either in an application or in a browser plug-in, and push that as the way to run this.

I can't think of any way that security could be otherwise easily guaranteed with a system like this... Any thoughts? I've been through much of the site, but short of joining the mailing list, I am not sure how to find out how they plan to do this.

Re: Live music isn't for everyone

[Alwin Henseler]

There is no substitute for live music, but it isn't the only way for musicians to get rewarded:

• For the biggest popstars, the number of fans outnumber the number of people that can visit a concert
• Concerts don't cover all situations where one likes to listen to music
• Some artists make fantastic music, but a lousy live act (and vice versa)
• Some people don't WANT to visit a concert, but really appreciate the music anyway

I sometimes download different copies of a song, and compare those to find out what remix or encoding quality I like best. A pay-per-download model doesn't fit that at all.

Almost never I would buy a full CD with that song, regardless of having free evaluation available. On the other hand, I don't mind buying a full album, as long as I like that album as a whole.

IMHO a pay-by-donation model a la PayPal button on artist-supported site would suit both today's music artists and listeners quite well. The biggest problem here is the non-existence of a universal, easy to use, possibly anonymous, internet micro-payment system.

Amusing Title

[StalinsNotDead]

The word amusing also shares a root with music and muse.

Was this coincidence or intentional?

Reasons to use Bittorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be off topic so feel free to respond anonymously and don't burn karma. My question is this, why should I use bittorrent over other p2p apps? This is not to be a flame but a serious question (positive responses please). I have always been leery about having to poke a hole in my firewall in order to use the torrent. However, if the benifits were large enough I would consider it. So could someone who is familiar with bittorrent and other p2p apps, like emule and kaza, explain the advantages? Thanks.

Re:Reasons to use Bittorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to know too.... shame /.ers know how to complain about stuff, but no-one ever seems to want to help a genuine enquiry round here.. fuckin smartarses.

On the internet...

[Anonymous Coward]

...no one knows you're a dog.

Re: Live music isn't for everyone

[leathered]

I appreciate your points. I'm not totally against recorded music but I do think it's become too dominant over live performances. Artists do deserve royalties from their recordings but as it stands music is way overpriced and it's through playing live that they should really earn their crust.

In the last couple of decades the record producer has become more and more responsible for the way recorded music sounds. They can make crap music and mediocre singers sound good. Thus nowadays recorded music should be in no way a measure of their true talent, that can now only be done by seeing them perform live.

Re:konspire2b - does it carry any content now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried k2b some month ago; I liked the fact that it is not written in Java (though the the box is upgraded now) and achieved ~acceptable~ downstream (for an ~anonymous~ p2p architecture). Problem no 1 is the small userbase: either I didn't find the active channels or there really was nothing beyond a few mp3s.
Thus the questions: Are enough people willing to give it a try?

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Anonymous Coward]

stodgy old fart. probably thinks Rock 'n Roll causes juvenile delinquency.

Intentional

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for noticing.

Re:WTF ? 5 + 2 = 8 ?!?

[Strontium-90]

You mean that's wrong? Now I bet you're gonna tell me that 6 * 9 != 42.

finding bittorrents

[bobblebob]

The Difficulty it's downloading a bittorrent it's finding the ones you want

Re:alternative ways to buy music

[John_Sauter]

I had moderated the post "informative" without checking the link. I replied both to warn people and also to cancel the moderation.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

Re:WTF ? 5 + 2 = 8 ?!?

[dgatwood]

Only in base 13.

zxc

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when people call it stealing. It's copying. Stealing is when you take an object and then it's not there.

I believe the software, music and move industry are trying to create a trend of though in people that copying 1 and 0's is just like walking into a shop and taking a cd and puting into you jacket. Thats not the case!.

cvb

[Anonymous Coward]

Either way.

Too much music. too much movies, too much games.
Too much of something degrades the product. Meaning that consumers will turn away from movies, music, ganes etc. Controling the the output of data is best way to max out profits no control causes a rush and people just get sick of it all together.

In reality listening to music is just trend.
Watching movies is trend
Playing video games is trend.

Cooperations have controled this trend until now.
Now the trend is under attack and could be destroy making the company's very poor.

It's like drug dealers, who charge high prices, but once it's easy to get, people get sick of it all together.

IT's kinda like controled slavery.

The Governments are rooted on the money structure.
They all worship money, cooperations on money structure, they are controlers of social money structure. But now it's out of control. Mabe the people could be freeded from this money worshiping system.

or you can just use software

[slashcop]

Compose and play your music via the software or electronic hardware like most musicians.

Who the hell listens to music like that anyway besides Bill Gates?

Most people

[slashcop]

Most people who do download music arent going to be able to download the kind of music you mentioned nor would they want to.

Second, when I said no one should own music I mean the actual compositions, someone has to still "play" the composition! So people will still go to concerts to hear LIVE art vs stale captured art.

If you could listen to your favorite musicians create new innovative variations to their songs on the fly vs listen to the same boring compositions then you'd go to concerts wouldn't you?

The reason people don't pay for music is because most of the musicians suck and lack the talent to put on a totally new show every night. If every concert is a new show and its never exactly the same then you can have people going to your concerts 3-4 maybe 5 times.

Talent is what matters, ability to play as well as compose and a musician should have both. With both then a musician would make more money with P2P than without it because P2P advertises the concerts.

Please come up with an arguement against this.