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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."
alternative ways to buy music
...music? wtf?
buy?
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.
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
...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...
The Army reading list
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.
Test 1 2 3 4
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
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.
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/
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?
Test 1 2 3 4
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.
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
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
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?
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.
Monstar L
Not a new trick. Happens to me every so often.
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
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...
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
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.
All's true that is mistrusted
And I thought geeks sodomizing the SI prefixes was bad. Now they've hijacked basic arithmetic !
--LordPixie
...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.
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.
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.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
It's just fucking software/movies/games/$digital_stuff!!!
Who doesn't like free music?
Sounds like you might enjoy konspire2b
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Its all in the rounding.
2.4 + 5.4 = 7.8 rounded to 8
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
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.
All's true that is mistrusted
you forgot the 1GB of ethernet.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
because he doesn't like music. it's a lack of empathy. Personally, i love the stuff, and couldn't do without it.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
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.
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.
All's true that is mistrusted
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.
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
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.
Monstar L
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.
- I got my free iPod and a free Nintendo DS....why not
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.
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?
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.
Monstar L
- 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.
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?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
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)
- I got my free iPod and a free Nintendo DS....why not
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.
The word amusing also shares a root with music and muse.
Was this coincidence or intentional?
Thanks to the internet, we can now all die alone together! -SomeWoman
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.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
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.
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.
Monstar L
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?
Monstar L
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.
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.
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.
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.
Monstar L
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.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
Monstar L
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.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
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.
Err.. that was supposed to read: "will exist long after they are gone"
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?
All's true that is mistrusted
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.
You mean that's wrong? Now I bet you're gonna tell me that 6 * 9 != 42.
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.
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
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.
Learn to love Alaska
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
Monstar L
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.
Monstar L
The Difficulty it's downloading a bittorrent it's finding the ones you want
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.
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.
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.
I dont have a
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
Monstar L
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.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
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?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
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?
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.
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.
Monstar L
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?
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.
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.
Don't you mean the Firefox Suite?
All's true that is mistrusted
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.
When all freedom is outlawed only the outlaws have freedom