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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?
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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
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
...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
Sounds like you might enjoy konspire2b
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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'.
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:
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.