Slashdot Mirror
NYT Promotes File Sharing
aisaac writes "An article in today's NYT comments intelligently on filesharing. Key points: downloading music is not illegal, peer-to-peer enables this useful and legal activity, and a list of good places to find good music online (including the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress. The Induce Act is briefly mentioned without analysis, but the article does not mention that some of the Act's sponsors and cosponsors have expressed a willingness to consider ammendments to restrict the application of the Act. (This according to a letter I received from Senator Sarbanes.) Let's keep the pressure on!" A Congress call-in day is being organized.
Within Epitonic's huge roster is at least a song or two from some major-label acts, among them the New York band Secret Machines, the Texas band Sparta and the English bands Radiohead and Spiritualized. But independent bands like Bright Eyes or Godspeed You Black Emperor are every bit as good.
Whenever I see the word "intelligent" included in the summary of an article linked from Slashdot I cringe. This time I was absolutely shocked to see that the article was not only intelligent but insightful and informative. I hadn't been directed to Epitonic before but I am sure I will poke around there some more. I have become a big fan of "alternative" bands that have been making it to the radio scene as of late (Secret Machines, Velvet Revolver, and Modest Mouse to name a few). Modest Mouse allows the taping and distribution of their live performances and it's apparent that the Secret Machines don't have much of a problem with getting their sound out there. Nothing gets me more interested in purchasing tickets to see a show than when the bands distribute their music for free.
The article mentions my all time favorite, FurthurNET, as a viable alternative to other P2P networks which harbor many files that probably shouldn't be there. FurthurNET is great when you are looking for something more "headsy" like DSO, Phish, or the Dead. You might have better luck looking for other stuff on torrent sites out there (like the now seemingly defunct sharingthegroove.org).
Support the bands that support the free distribution of their music. It's already working!
If they believe in freedom, they just stop their damn dependency on registration to view their articles!
...ever sane person knows P2P and file sharing is evil!
Big Dig-ing until the money is gone...
I don't believe it. Especially if it promotes music swapping on P2P. RIAA personel are on the way to the NYT offices now armed with Cease and Desist orders and an order of retraction.
...but downloading copyrighted materials you don't have permission for that belong to someone else is. Let's not forget that a lot of the anti-copyright sentiment around here magically disappears whenever we have a GPL violation article.
It's nice to finally see a journalist who is at least moderately informed on this issue. More coverage like this will be needed though to bring greater understanding to the majority public. The Hatch'esque philosophy of absolute IP supremacy over legitimate use of technology will do great harm to innovation if it's adopted by the masses. The xxAA orgs would like nothing better than this, but ultimately the consumer would lose.
They figure if they appease the slashdot crowd they can get us to register to view the articles.
read it and weep you RIAA bitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The RIAA also has been quite effective in making it sound like the Internet and P2P will end music. The reality is it may put an end to the current music industry where profits are reaped at the artists' expense but those who are musically talented will continue to create new music. The most likely end result is an entirely new music distribution mechanism, one that pays the artists fairly. More and more bands are starting to offer Mp3s online, both for free and for small payments. The more people who know about this and start taking advantage of it, the quicker the current crooked practices of the music industry will fail. It might even lead to more good music being out there. :)
Quit your damn "they are taking away my rights" whinging. Why should you expect to be able to read the NYT for free when society has accepted for centuries that newspapers cost money. Online, you don't need to pay in cash, only in information about yourself.
It's their content, their website, and it's their rules. If you don't like it, don't read it.
To everybody who thinks they're sly and creative by signing up with false information, that's about as impressive as shoplifting a candy bar from a supermarket.
arrrrrrgh, Im being induced...as we speak...NOOOO ... not ... infringe!
must
Wheres my Induce Act so I can sue these bastards for printing such an inducing article?
Hate to see the registration NYT would propose for it, though. :)
DOWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal.
But that at least seems to be based on what is involved in the lawsuits and not purely on the law or so this next quote seems to say:
But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take.
I understand that the lawsuits have focused on people who have uploaded music and the conventional wisdom is that if you only download you won't get sued.
So, I am still confused and the article only confused me further
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
This has to do with the philosophy of requiring registrations, not the fact that yes, you can use someone else's account to log in.
If authorized downloads were all that was file-shared, file-sharing would be a non-issue.
The issue revolves around unauthorized sharing, and this article isn't about that.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The debate over filesharing networks a close analogy to the gun-control debate. In other words, here they are saying that the means (e.g., guns or file-sharing) are not at fault, it's the motivation (e.g., for violent crime or stealing music). The opposite side of the debate is, of course, if we remove the means, then we disable the criminal.
I bring this up only to point out how Congress reacts to these types of questions. That is, the means can be held accountable (i.e., gun registration, bans on some firearms). We could see uncontrolled filesharing networks banned based only on how the RIAA is framing the debate.
How is it stealing? Stealing only occurs when you deprive someone of some type of physical resource.
Yeah it does promote it as they do recommend FurthurNET.org (which is a Java P2P application).
"Computers don't steal music, people do."
Which is probably closer to the truth.
They'll take my computer from my cold dead... uh... lap
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
Sometimes I play my music real loud so everyone near me can hear. Those bastards need to put on earmuffs and stop stealing my music!
No Fears: Laptop D.J.'s Have a Feast
.com/music/mp3s.html), Vagrant (www.vagrant .com/vagrant/audio/audio.jsp), Barsuk (www.barsuk .com), Saddle Creek (www.saddle-creek.com) or Tigerbeat6 (www.tigerbeat6.com/html/catalogue.htm).
.wnyc.org) and eclectic stations like WFMU in Jersey City (www.wfmu.org) and KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif. (www.kcrw.org), all of which have troves of live performances. MTV (at www.mtv.com) presents an entire album each week as an audio stream.
By JON PARELES
OWNLOADING music from the Internet is not illegal. Plenty of music available online is not just free but also easily available, legal and ? most important ? worth hearing.
That fact may come as a surprise after highly publicized lawsuits by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing major labels, against fans using peer-to-peer programs like Grokster and EDonkey to collect music on the Web. But the fine print of those lawsuits makes clear that fans are being sued not for downloading but for unauthorized distribution: leaving music in a shared folder for other peer-to-peer users to take. As copyright holders, the labels have the exclusive legal right to distribute the music recorded for them, even if technology now makes that right nearly impossible to enforce.
Recording companies have tried and failed to shut down decentralized file-sharing networks the way they closed the original Napster. (That name is now being used for a paid-download service.)
Courts have ruled that the services can continue because they are also used to exchange material that does not infringe on recording-company copyrights. At the same time, a bill before Congress, the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004, seeks to restrict the way file-sharing programs are constructed.
While the recording business litigates and lobbies over music being given away online, countless musicians are taking advantage of the Internet to get their music heard. They are betting that if they give away a song or two, they will build audiences, promote live shows and sell more recordings.
As with the rest of the free content on the Internet, there's no guaranteed quality control. Lucas Gonze, whose webjay.org lets music fans post playlists that connect to free music and video, describes free Internet music as "a flea market the size of Valhalla."
The first place to look for free music online is at musicians' own sites. Many performers, from Bob Dylan (www.bobdylan.com) to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (www.yeahyeahyeahs.com), post hard-to-find songs for listening: some as free downloads, some as streaming audio (which can be recorded with a free program like StepVoice at www.stepvoice.com). A next place to look is the labels, particularly independent rock and electronic labels like Matador (www.matadorrecords
Many public radio stations also maintain music archives for streaming or downloading. Among them are the classical-music station WNYC (www
Following is a selection of sites offering free music online. Most of them are best used with a either a broadband connection or nearly infinite patience. While major-label recordings are largely (but not entirely) off limits, there's more than enough available music to satisfy every listener.
Epitonic
The first and best place to look for any band with an independent recording is www.epitonic.com, a superbly organized site that is likely to have music from nearly everyone heard on college radio. It includes not only downloadable songs but also biographical information and links for hundreds of acts, grouped under genres and subgenres. And it has an invaluable "Similar Artists" feature that can direct fans of one band to dozens of potential new favorites. Within Epitonic's huge roster is at least a song or two from some major-label acts, among them the New York band Secret Machines, the Texas band Sparta and the English bands Radiohead and Spiritualized. But independent bands
You're joking, right? The RIAA couldn't be more pissed about people downloading indie music, not bacause it violates their rights or their ill-gotten revenue stream, but because both downloading and indie music are the greatest long-term threat to their business model they've ever faced.
And I'll give them this: they should be terrified. They've milked a monopoly for decades and have forgotten how to compete, and now that they have competition they have no idea how to respond to it in an effective way.
Hint to the RIAA: suing your customers and bribing Congress to pass legislation aimed at peotecting your monopoly status is not an effective response...it tends to piss people off and then they tend not to buy your products.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
You can back up a lot of stuff to your iPods, then sneaker net it over to your buddys house.
:D
That alwasy seems to be the best method, and even thought the latency is bad, the bandwidth is unlimited
Yes, that will be the end result of all this, as they really wont succeed in getting the concept of P2P outright banned, since it has too many legal uses.
But if they can monitor and control all media content on the wire ( or at least they believe they will ) then it will just push the 'criminals' top other means..
We all know banning something that has a criminal use does not reduce crime.. it only shifts crimes to other areas and methods. and restricts law abiding citizens from the 'something'...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Actually, this article doesn't promote filesharing at all, but rather legal sources of authorized downloads and/or streams."
So, those aren't...um...files? And people aren't, well, sharing them? Could you possibly explain what is different between sharing files and filesharing?
Downloading music may not be illegal but downloading the music you want to hear certainly is. What I mean is that downloading copyrighted materials is illegal.
Depends on where in the world you are. In the Netherlands its perfectly legal as long as its for private use and you don't distribute it publicly. Of course the record industy is lobbying heavily to have this situation "rectified"
Well by my count, FurthurNET is 1 of 20 sources in the article, so I'm not sure that really jusifies Slashdot's headline: "NYT Promotes File Sharing"
Furthermore, FurthurNET is only for sharing authorized work, isn't it?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
If you download music, which essentialy costs nothing, instead of paying for it, thats how.
I don't understand how you cannot see this as stealing. If you share copyrighted material (music, movie,etc..), you are providing a avenue that allows others to access something that they would otherwise have to pay for. If one million people download a song for free from a P2P service, instead of buying it, that is potentially one million fewer sales for that song.
What the fuck does it matter if it's for sharing authorized work or not? They are openly advertising for FuthurNET which is a P2P (file-sharing application).
BUt what I wanna know is, what's the best p2p to use, and where can you get the best stuf to download? And not just the lame legal crap, either. The NYT article should go into where to get the best warez and whatnots.
Uh, if a rightsholder says that it's ok share her work, then it's ok to share her work. What's so complicated about that?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I still fail to see how FurtherNET isn't a filesharing network.
They'll take my computer from my cold dead... uh... lap
Dead, perhaps. But not cold.
Epitonic is a great place to listen to some tracks from independent bands and even has links to promote buying CDs from the bands -- after all, if everyone's griping about the artist not getting the funds, then when you do find music you like, you should support the artist. RIAA Radar is a good way to check whether the label is a member of the RIAA or not; if not, go buy a CD! If so, just check the used record stores and the RIAA doesn't get your money. Buying the independent music is a better move overall, though. And a recent comment on my weblog pointed out some other places to get music. (Gmail invites available there for additional suggestions, too.)
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
That is a very stupid comparison, when someone plays their music load enough for others to hear, that is just annoying, not stealing.
Delibertly downloading a song, and being exposed to someone's music with their stereo volume set to max can hardly be considered a comparison.
I agree, I have had just about had enough with the mods on /. I like the topics but the mods gotta go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
....
Perhaps it is time to go elsewhere...
Go ahead punk make my day, mod me down
)
There. Now I feel better.
The fact that people buy their crap doesn't make their gains "ill-gotten". And independent music won't be a "threat" to the RIAA as long as idiots sell their souls to the RIAA for promises of riches and fame.
"suing your customers ...it tends to piss people off and then they tend not to buy your products."
But of course, the people who are copying and redistributing music they haven't paid for aren't the RIAA's customers. That would be like suggesting that someone is a customer of GM after stealing a Buick.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
We wish it were that simple.
For one thing, problems can occur where a compulsory license is required. For example, suppose you create and perform a song that I want to play on my radio station. Even if you give me full rights to play that song, I am still required to pay the compulsory license fee for using your work in that manner. Copyright law does not give you (as the copyright holder) the authority to authorize me to withold the payment of that license fee. This means I can't start an Internet radio station even if I only use content released under the Creative Commons licenses. Crazy, huh?
For another, law can create an environment where it is physically impossible to execute legitimately owned rights. Using the example above, if you wanted to distribute your work on DAT tape, and wanted to allow anyone to make multiple-generation copies, you could certainly authorize that as the copyright holder, but people in some countries (the U.S) would find it impossible to purchase DAT recorders which would allow them to exercise that right without breaking the law. In other countries (Canada, I believe) the purchaser of a blank tape would still pay an extra tax (a fee above and beyond the cost of the tape itself) to compensate every artist (except you) whose rights (it is presumed) are being infringed, even when no such infringment occurs.
Certainly others can come up with additional examples.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
So far only a few people have signed up for the Congress Call In Day. Come on Slashdotters, shouldn't you all be protecting your right to own a computer? Where is the Slashdot effect on this one?
Actually you can hear a song for free in many other places (i.e. radio, TV). But how about this scenario:
No one downloads the song via P2P.
Radio plays it once. 10,000 people hear it.
Ten people buy it.
Instead of:
Million people download it via P2P.
Thousand people like it, so the they buy it.
Not to mention that it cost $100,000 to get it played on the radio in the first place.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
The original poster got the point of the thing exactly wrong. This isn't about unauthorized music, it's about sticking to music which is both free and authorized.
Filesharing networks are full of hit songs which are unauthorized. Out on the public/stable web there's a huge amount of unknown stuff which is authorized. The trick with Webjay and other sources mentioned in the article is finding the few great songs in the whole sea of crud. If you can do that, you can have good music which the rights holder doesn't mind you having, though you usually have to give up on name brand musicians.
There's also some kind of Gnu-ish angle that I've never been able to articulate well... It's something like -- if you *choose* to listen to music that isn't from insane powermad label types, you get (more) liberty, and if you choose to listen to non-free music, you give up liberty. That's not quite right because almost none of this music is under a free or open license, though.
FWIW I'm the author of Webjay.org and was quoted in the story.
Well, from the FurtherNET site:
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The difference is that the copyright owner took the steps to have it broadcast on the radio. Done with their permission.
If I buy a copyrighted CD and post it on a P2P site without the copyright owner's permission, thats when it becomes stealing.
That was an interesting scenario, but it lacks "real world" muster.
If you were to start a non-commercial radio station that played only Creative Commons work, who exactly is going to sue you, and on what grounds? Certainly not any of the PROs.
Through a strained reading of webcasting rules you may conclude that a Creative-Commons-only station would still have to pay fees, but that just isn't so.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I suppose the Moderation of "Troll" is accurate, but I'll give you a simple answer anyway: Buying music does not "support the artists" if the purchase is done through a corrupted industry where the artist will see only a tiny fraction (if anything) of the money.
Of course, artists receiving very little or none of the purchase price of a commercially-distributed CD is not an excuse for infringing copyright -- but it is a very good reason to listen to and support truly independent artists (by helping them build their audience and by purchasing CDs directly from the artist which guarantees they get all of the profits).
{sigh...} It's times like this I wish the OMR had been more of a success (meaning, that I had more time and energy to make it so). Then again, 70,000+ downloads of independent artists' music isn't too shabby either.
No Laughing Allowed!
Wow, you're really dumb. I just want you to know that you're wrong.
Maybe that you can understand.
Like magnatune.com in particular. I've bought a few things off that that I really liked (one was a gift actually, and the recipiant really likes it).
It's very cool you can pay what you think the album is worth, from $5 to more and as an added bonus get full quality wavs of the music when you buy the album (as opposed to just the mp3s you can download and try for free).
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
If you legally buy 7 buicks and steal 35 more in a year, that makes you a customer of GM. As well as very popular with both your GM dealer and the local police.
An awful lot of people are heavily into music, but are completely detached from the free music and more importantly the Indie scene.
Two Canadian websites you need to look at:
- http://www.newmusiccanada.com/
- http://www.cbcradio3.com/
Look at broken social scene, or the Unicorns, neat stuff like that. Have fun.
-chase
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When the RIAA goes after:
1) The Childern and Grandchildern of the leglislative branch staff/lawmakers.
2) The staff/lawmakers.
3) The soldiers in Iraq featured in various interviews talking about the many MP3's on the 'common' server.
Then I'll have some respect for them and the lawmakers who create such laws.
I think it's perfectly reasonable and acceptable that big business is going after some of the file sharing networks on nothing more than "guilt by association".
Sure, there are legal downloads on nearly all of the services, but the vast majority on, say, Kazaa is illegal. If police knew a road was being by 95 drug trafficers and 5 ordinary citizens, they'd be in the right to close the road -- regardless if those 5 raised a stink about it or not.
Quite frankly, I don't think there's a single popular P2P service ("popular" defined as, say, 1,000,000 or more users) that has a great majority of legal files over illegal. Closing down the services is just like closing down that road.
ANts P2P realizes a third generation P2P net. It protects your privacy while you are connected and makes you not trackable, hiding your identity (ip) and crypting everything you are sending/receiving from others. Supports torrent downloads & auto-resume. Features * Open Source Java implementation (GNU-GPL license). * Multiple sources download. * Torrent download from partial files. * Automatic resume and sources research over the net. * Search by hash, string and structured query. * Embedded support for etherogeneus data types (not only arrays of bytes...). * Completely Object-Oriented routing protocol. * Point to Point secured comunication: DH(512)-AES(128) * EndPoint to EndPoint secured comunication: DH(512)-AES(128) * Automatic serverless peer dicovery procedure. * IRC based peer discovery system. * IRC embeded chat system. * Full text search of indexed documents (pdf, html, txt, doc etc) -> QUERY REFERENCE. * Distributed/Decentralized Search engine * HTTP tunneling. Sourceforge Page http://sourceforge.net/projects/antsp2p/ Programers Homepage http://www.myjavaserver.com/~gwren/home.jsp?page=c ustom&xmlName=ants
Debbie Stabinaw (spelling) is one of the senate cosponsors of the Induce act and is one of my senators, you think she would be on the list somewhere....
As Nietsche famously said, "If you stare too long into the Abyss, 1d4 Tanar'ri of random type will attack you."
Parent is informative. Under UK law the definition of theft is "Dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it" and US law is basically the same. In the case of file sharing the property owner is not permanently deprived of their property therefore it's not theft.
I'm not an apologist for file sharers but copyright infringement is not theft, it's copyright infringement. That's why it's called copyright infringement and not theft.
As a side note, if the RIAA did manage to get copyright infringement redefined as theft then "I didn't know" would become a valid defence as the dishonesty requirement would not be met.
a Bittorrent site. I't the best by far.
Exactly... Downloading music is more like asking your neighbour to turn up their music so you can hear it too.
This is your answer.
It's not a black and white issue about feeding the artists, or the artists want to make a living, or anything like that. The simple fact is that with a major label deal, a band still doesn't make any more money than they did before, and in many cases they wind up hugely in debt.
Very very few bands make any real money with the majors. If you actually care about the musicians, then supporting the RIAA members is supporting a system that preys upon the musicians as much as it preys upon the fans.
Simple fact is, if you *really* want to support the musicians, you're better off supporting musicians who aren't RIAA-affiliated, because those guys actually have a chance of getting the money you paid for their record.
Oh wait, you can't buy their records. Thanks to the major labels' predatory practices. I forgot about that. I guess you'll have to fileshare instead and find another way to give the band your money.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Well, from the FurtherNET site: No Illegal/Copyrighted media So, if I understand what you are saying that in order to share files you must share illegal and/or copyrighted material?
Some people have a way with words, others not have way.
If by PRO's you mean the professional broadcasters; big media, Clear Channel, etc, I would say it's exactly these you'll need to worry about.
It's been pretty well established that the rules for Internet Radio were formed at the behest of the existing Big Media players as an attempt to raise the entry barrier for start-up Internet radio broadcasters. I would expect a lawsuit like this would be considered just one more arrow in the sheath to be employed for market protection purposes.
They would sue, not for copyright infringment or to recover royalties, but rather to enforce payment into the fund. If they win, they gain a strategy to use to shut-down Internet Radio startups. If they lose, though, that means they can add a clause to their contracts stipulating that nobody gets airplay unless they waive their "statutory" rights, and we get Payola all over again. Translation: they can't lose. The lawsuit grounds would be a straight forward equal-protection argument.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
It's times like this I wish the OMR had been more of a success (meaning, that I had more time and energy to make it so). Then again, 70,000+ downloads of independent artists' music isn't too shabby either.
What's the real holdup? You could start from scratch with the same code, just add a few things that require the musician to confirm the listing. Also, add some stuff that require the person submitting the listing to claim liability, so if you do get into any trouble you can push it off on the user that submitted the music. (Naturally a lawyer is the person who tell you if that'll work or not)
I'd be willing to help. I mean, if you had 70k downloads then you had some users, that's an audience.
Like what I said? You might like my music
Not everyone downloading music is doing it instead of buying it. I download music to see if I like it. If I like it enough to buy it then I do if not then I don't.
I've been using Webjay almost since it went beta. What I find super-cool about WJ: the new music. I should say "new" music, because a lot of it's been out there awhile, it's only new to me. There's a guy who collects world music, another collects human beat-boxers, kids rock, adult videos, comedy of Bill Hicks. Electronica. Pr0nk.
It's also become a bit of a bootleggers' haven. There's plenty of weird stuff for all to hear.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
PROs refers to the performance rights organizations (the guys that collect and redistribute compulsory money).
Nobody is going to sue anybody for sharing authorized work, it's just a silly notion.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
SilentChris, I speak as a P2P (well, free, not commercial) developer. So I have some bias in that I don't like the big companies going after me. Someday, if I manage to find work doing what I like to do as a hobby, I'd like this to stay open.
As for the "drug trafficker's road", I can't agree with you. A road has only so much benefit for non-traffickers, but significant benefit for traffickers.
You point out that there are a great deal of illegal files on P2P networks. This is true, but consider why.
P2P filesharing does not inherently have any illegal characteristics. It is simply a transfer medium, much the same as the Internet is a transfer medium.
P2P filesharing systems almost always have two interesting characteristics:
(a) They provide resources for distributing a popular piece of data to grow almost without bound.
(b) They distribute costs of distribution of data across all consumers of that data.
Both of these characteristics are very valuable. The first tends to mean that the network does "more of what we want". It gives us the data we want without limitations based on how much bandwidth someone can get to distribute data. It means that I can create a rendered movie (a la Red versus Blue), post it to Slashdot, and *still* obtain the bandwidth necessary to distribute it -- I probably would not otherwise be able to do so. This is a case in which P2P filesharing has significantly allowed greater distribution of desired data.
The second means that there is a significant problem handled. We have no micropayment mechanism in place, so people are unwilling to pay for a file they download that might incur costs of half a cent in bandwidth. However, when millions of people download a file, they incur significant bandwidth costs. P2P filesharing provides an economic solution to this problem -- it has all consumers of the data automatically contribute to the cost of the data distribution. This is not a trivial problem to otherwise solve, and again provides significant benefits. It allows *anyone* to publish any amount of content, no matter how limited their means.
Now, you talk about illegality. Yes, this is true. However, consider why there are so many illegal files being traded. For a long time, it was kind of a pain to massively reproduce and distribute works. This let us create a mechanism for funding content production based on tying resource allocation to the content creator to the publication/distribution mechanism. We had big publishers spring up, take money for content creators, handle the difficult and expensive distribution, and then provide resources for the content creators to continue to create content. This worked very well for the era of books.
The problem is that P2P filesharing, very simply, makes it cheap and affordable for *anyone* to distribute data. There is a tremendous *demand* for copyrighted goods being distributed freely. P2P filesharing's solving of an economic problem and inherent efficiency make it much easier to supply any kind of content. Since supply is up and the demand for illegal content is so high (and not addressed by our existing distribution mechanisms -- on purpose), illegal content is currently the majority of the content on P2P filesharing networks. This isn't because of any inherent property of P2P filesharing -- it's just because that's what people want.
Now, you could ban it. You could say "This mechanism is so efficient and good that it allows people to do things that they couldn't do before. Our current system to fund content creation can't handle this. We're going to ban it." It does solve some social problems, but there are serious problems with banning such systems:
(a) We live in a global Internet. If some guy in Madagascar can create a P2P filesharing system, everyone can obtain it.
(b) Anonymous systems have nowhere near reached their full potential. As pressure against P2P filesharing users goes up, systems simply provide greater securi
May we never see th
VINCENT
Yeah, it's legal, but is ain't a
hundred percent legal. I mean you
can't walk into a restaurant, roll
a joint, and start puffin' away.
You're only supposed to smoke in
your home or certain designated
places.
JULES
Those are hash bars?
VINCENT
Yeah, it breaks down like this:
it's legal to buy it, it's legal to
own it and, if you're the
proprietor of a hash bar, it's
legal to sell it. It's legal to
carry it, which doesn't really
matter 'cause -- get a load of this
-- if the cops stop you, it's
illegal for this to search you.
Searching you is a right that the
cops in Amsterdam don't have.
JULES
That did it, man -- I'm fuckin'
goin', that's all there is to it.
Could you possibly explain what is different between sharing files and filesharing?
Simple. For the past years since Napster, filesharing has been used in a sense that refers to sharing copyrighted files without having the copyright holder's permission. When people talked about filesharing, they talked about Napster, Kazaa et al., simply because nobody gives (or gave) a damn about legal filesharing, the RIAA doesn't because it doesn't really concern them yet and the consumers don't because the music doesn't really concern them yet. So now when you refer to filesharing, people tend to think filesharing of copyrighted materials.
No doubt this is just one meaning of the word and can change according to how important legal filesharing alternatives become.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
True. But they do pay dearly for the priviledge. And only a small number of songs actually make it to radio play. See this Salon article
Instead they could get one million listeners for free, using P2P channels.
It does not make sense....
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Wow, you are so completely wrong that I'm amazed you can feed yourself. Well, maybe you don't...
> For the past years since Napster, filesharing has been used in a sense that refers to sharing copyrighted files without having the copyright holder's permission.
It has been used BY YOU to mean that. Just because you push a word into narrow terms, not everyone does. When I say filesharing, it has nothing to do with copyright, legal, or illegal. It means SHARING FILES, regardless of content. I use KaZaA to download legal, free software when the distribution site is down, slow, etc.
> When people talked about filesharing, they talked about Napster, Kazaa et al.,
Because those are the programs that do the sharing. What the hell else do you expect them to be called?
> nobody gives (or gave) a damn about legal filesharing,
Again, just because YOU view the world so narrowly, don't assume everyone else does as well.
> No doubt this is just one meaning of the word
Which goes contrary to your previous statement that "filesharing" means only "distributing copyrighted material illegally."
Agreed. But if you and I are competitors and I'm making a statutory payment you aren't, I'm either going to find a way to make you pay or find a way to not pay it myself.
In the context of compulsory licensing, the copyright owner loses rights other copyright owners would have. One is the right to demand an arbitrary royalty or withold authorization to use. The slashdot crowd likes that part because it means anyone can use the work once they pay the statutory fee.
But the dark side of compulsory licensing is that the copyright owner loses right to forgo an arbitrary royalty and grant authorization to use. I suspect the slashdot crowd would not like that part, if it understood the implications, because it means noone can use the work unless they pay the statutory fee.
Nobody is going to sue anybody for using a copyrighted work in an authorized way, but if there's a seperate compulsory license, it's not the copyright owner's right to authorize.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Music that you've paid for, that is. Everything else is fucking ILLEGAL.
That's just one of many dark sides of compulsory licensing! ;)
"Nobody is going to sue anybody for using a copyrighted work in an authorized way, but if there's a seperate compulsory license, it's not the copyright owner's right to authorize."
Again, I agree that it is an interesting point, but it's just not going to happen that a CC-only station is going to get sued for not paying the PROs.
Are you similarly of the opinion that such a radio station must also pay to play public domain work?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
What's the real holdup?
Well, basically, the problem all along still exists -- I don't have the time and energy to make it good. The code in it was pretty bad and needed a lot of work, then there was the liability issue, and other issues. I figured the best way to unload the burden of the OMR while still promoting the original interest was to make the data freely available (i.e., by posting an XML export on my site and in a relevant Usenet (binaries) newsgroup), so that someone else could take the data and use it with a better code base, better organization of personnel, etc.
No Laughing Allowed!
No doubt this is just one meaning of the word and can change according to how important legal filesharing alternatives become.
You'd be amazed how important the legal filesharing alternatives have become. For instance, over at bt.etree.org you can see several shows that have had thousands of downloads.
Some people have a way with words, others not have way.
Wow, you are so completely wrong that I'm amazed you can feed yourself. Well, maybe you don't...
You're off to a great start into an argumentative comment there. I really don't understand why you feel you need to be so rude.
It has been used BY YOU to mean that.
No. Neither I, nor you, nor any single other person really has any saying on what a word means. They typically have more than one meaning, which I explicitly said.
Nevertheless, often there is one predominant interpretation people have when hearing a word, and I argued, and still firmly believe, that when people hear filesharing, they typically associate the sharing of copyrighted materials, because that's the kind of filesharing that made the news recently and generally brought up the P2P hype.
Now, what I or you personally associate with the word is, frankly, irrelevant, but for what it's worth, I actually would agree with you. And I guess mostly everyone on Slashdot would agree that the term filesharing also applies to sharing free material - that does not change the fact that most people in general, and probably most people on Slashdot first think of copyrighted materials when they hear the word out of context.
Which is why it's really a good idea to qualify the term when you use it to describe the sharing of free material, simply to prevent misunderstandings from happening.
Note that generally, dictionaries serve as a tool to determine the various meanings of words. If a word has more than one common meaning, so does the dictionary entry for the word, sorted according to the regularity of the meanings usage. A good example, sometimes brought up (by me and others) here on Slashdot is democracy - according to some (fairly formal) meanings of the word, the USA are not a democracy, but according to the popular meaning, it is, which correctly reflects the majority notion which of course you'd get if you asked people on the street.
Of course, this is difficult and sometimes controversial for well-established words, and extremely hard for words such as file sharing, which haven't even made it yet into most dictionaries. Also, connotations like the one in questions probably wouldn't make it into a dictionary anyway (which would be an argument for your case - I still think the connotation is there, without a doubt).
Again, just because YOU view the world so narrowly, don't assume everyone else does as well.
I wasn't even talking about me in the previous post, when I said nobody and anybody and such, it typically was just shorthand for "nearly nobody", which I leave out because in such regards I just take that for granted. Of course there are people who care about sharing free files, that's really extremely obvious since that's what this Slashdot story is about. And I certainly care about it, just like assumedly most people on Slashdot do to some degree. But the majority of Internet users, I think, does not, just like the majority in general.
Which goes contrary to your previous statement that "filesharing" means only "distributing copyrighted material illegally."
Exactly, except I never made such a statement. I think that's the predominant meaning. There is no word with strictly only one meaning.
And yes, I am a linguist.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Well, strictly I wouldn't be amazed by it because I'm well aware of it. But I still think it's amazing, yeah (as in great - different meanings of words again, I love this stuff).
However, I think the vast majority of P2P traffic is made up by copyrighted material, and not by free material. Of course, I can't back it up by numbers and I'm not sure if any research has been done on the subject.
As fas as anecdotal evidence goes, while bt.etree.org sports some nice numbers, they seem fairly miniscule compared to the numbers the sites for copyrighted materials sport. I just checked, as I'm writing this, 3.2 million people are using the SuprNova trackers which are used mainly (though not exclusively I hasten to add) for illegal traffic. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any statistics on etree.
Nevertheless, there's no doubt that the legal usage of P2P filesharing is increasing at a good speed. Amazingly this has only really happened with BitTorrent. It's not like there was no filesharing before BT, but it's only with BT that legal usage has really taken off. I guess this has to do with the fact that the original BT is a really lightweight application well suited for single downloads, and that, unlike with ED2k and others, there is a clearly defined direct communication partner, ie. the tracker and not a vague network.
With legal sources, the tracker is often (but not always, as in the etree community) hosted by the same person who initially started distributing the file. Torrents for game demos and patches come to mind. This is never ever done with illegal filesharing because the seperation of the tracker and the seeds (who, arguably, are the only ones commiting a copyright violation) helps keeping the tracker legal and the admin of the tracker online.
Oh well, this was a bit long. Only the first paragraph was truly a reply, the rest is added thoughts I got while writing.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
According to TFA, The Internet Archive has had over a million users download Grateful Dead concerts alone. And while the Dead are their most popular download, they have over 14,000 concerts by over 600 other bands. They also mention Furthurnet in TFA, and while they don't specify the number of users, it's also heavily GD oriented, and has a much wider selection of bands (the Archive lacks Phish, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, and They Might Be Giants, just to mention a couple of the more obvious options), so chances are high that there's even more people there.
So there you go, two popular services (by your definition) with 100% legal files. I suspect that bt.etree.org is up there too (and it's also 100% legal).
So much for your premise. Now, as for your argument, that was soundly rejected by the courts in the Betamax case. The percentage of legal use is NOT a factor. What is a factor is there be "substantial" legal use. If there were only 100 people total driving on your road, the 5 non-dealers might not have much of an argument, but if there were 10,000 people driving on your road, 500 non-dealers might well be considered substantial.
And finally, with all those rich drug dealers driving down that road, it's going to be a pretty promising spot to offer services - restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, record stores, etc. Which will make the road more appealing to the general public. And pretty soon, you're down to 80% drug dealers. Then 65%. Then 40%. Then what? That's pretty much what ended up happening with the video recorder. At the time of the lawsuit, the majority of uses probably were infriging. Now, however, while it's still a popular tool for copyright infringement, the majority of uses are probably playing tapes from the local rental store, which is a huge revenue stream for the very people who claimed it was going to bankrupt them.
Please. Filesharing today has come to mean the illicit sharing of copyrighted works, usually music. It's semantic shift. It would be just as disingenuous to ask, "Could you possibly explain what is different between being joyful and being gay?" The fact that they ONCE meant the same thing says little about what they mean today.
This is stupid. File sharing means file sharing. If you want to talk about "illegal file sharing" or "sharing copyrighted files," fine, but file sharing is about sharing files.
The original poster said "obtaining", not "distributing" you dumb piece of crap.
Well, filesharing means, in spirit, that you share your stuff. Excluding personal or private data of course.
But the spirit is that you share your resources.
On the other hand, P2P means, between "peers" or equals. No one superior to others, and it usualy implies, unregulated
Regulated media need a regulator, so, it isn't about peers anymore. Also, it means you can't share all the resources you have bought (wich technicaly you owned, but aren't allowed to give away). Irregularly allocated resources kill the peer in P2P
Another thing that needs to be said again is that all copyrighted material in these P2P networks were paid for at some time, and then uploaded, at the expense of the sharer (talking about freeriders), to their peers.
But... the future refused to change.
While the lawsuits have to date focused on uploaders (unauthorized distributors), every U.S. court that's looked at P2P systems has held downloading to also be an infringement of an exclusive right (reproduction). See, for example:
"We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders' exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs' distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights." A&M Records v. Napster, Inc., 239 F.3d 1004, 1014 (9th Cir., 2001).
"Just as in Napster, many of those who use Defendants' software do so to download copyrighted media files, including those owned by Plaintiffs, and thereby infringe Plaintiffs' rights of reproduction and distribution." MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 259 F. Supp. 2d 1029, 1035 (C.D. Cal. 2003).
Did anyone ever stop to think about the different evidence problems in suing for downloading vs. suing for uploading? If you're uploading, I can come along and download from you, record the TCP/IP packets, and have enough to start the lawsuit process. But to go after you for downloading, I'd have to make the material available for you to download from me, which raises a bunch of hairy issues...
This is novel ground being tread. These are (AFAIK) the first end user P2P suits to hit the courts. I imagine the attorneys are being as pragmatic as possible, going for the cleanest targets and the low-hanging fruit first. Once a few of these have gone to trial (and assuming success), emboldened, I think you'll see downloading cases sooner than later.
geek. lawyer.
What country are you talking about? If what you were saying about this compulsory license fee was true, things like Linux wouldn't be possible.
I think that's the predominant meaning.
Perhaps it is a sampling issue? The RIAA & pals shout really loudly with hundred million dollar megaphones, however that should not allow them to swamp the sample space. As I see it, the predominant common user meaning of "filesharing" is any system allowing common people to easily and widely share files. I think it would require a modifier to characterize/constrain the nature of the files in any direction.
Sharing legal files is unquestionably considered filesharing by pretty much everyone. I defy you to find anyone on a filesharing network who claim someone else is not "filesharing" if all they host is Grateful Dead, R.E.M, Phish, Woody Guthrie, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Mozart, and Shakespeare. All perfectly legal.
For all of the RIAA's implying infringement when they attack "filesharing", the big threat and primary motivation to the RIAA is legal files either freely shared or otherwise bypass the RIAA. The RIAA has had a hugely profitable position as the monopoly gatekeeper between musicians and the public. It used to cost millions to be able to publish music. The recent explosion of independant labels, of independant artists directly marketing their music, and especially the huge number of musicians happy to have their music distributed entirely free, all of this threatens the very existance of the RIAA.
The RIAA's worst nightmare is for an authorized free and legal song from P2P to ever hit top-10 on the radio. The first song to do so will inevitably blaze a trail for more songs to do so. The RIAA's gatekeeper and toll-booth position will be irreveribly shattered.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
You wrote:
That would be like suggesting that someone is a customer of GM after stealing a Buick.
Actually, no. The problem with this is that you are confusing copyright infringement and theft. I know that lots of people want you to believe that the two are the same, but they aren't, not legally speaking. From a passionate emotional perspective they may feel the same, but lawyers make the distinction for a very good reason: copyright infringement does not deprive the original owner of the infringed goods, whereas theft means that the original owner no longer has access to what was stolen.
So in your Buick example, GM actually loses because if you steal a Buick from them, that's one less Buick they can sell, and they are forced to simply absorb the losses.
But with the RIAA, they don't actually lose the work, per se, when their copyright is infringed. Understand that I am not saying that this makes copyright infringement ok -- the entire point of copyright is to secure the copyright holder's distribution rights, and so when I infringe copyright, I am acting like the distributor when I have no right to take that role.
So, why do people say that the RIAA is suing its customers? Because there are two kinds of people that download illegal music, roughly speaking. There are the hardcore pirates, the freeloaders. These folks aren't going to spend a dime on anything. They will never buy anything from the RIAA; if file sharing were illegal, the RIAA probably still wouldn't get money from these cheapos. But folks like this are few and far between.
The other folks are potential customers. They aren't opposed to buying music, but they want to buy good music, music that they like. There are a lot of people like this. Back in the Napster days, I bought more music than I ever had before or since, and I was a poor student at the time. MP3s just aren't superbly good quality and you don't get the liner notes or anything else; it's nice to own your own copy.
Now, I don't buy anything from the RIAA anymore. I've drifted from the occasional infringer of copyright who is a potential customer, to one that won't buy anything from the RIAA on principle anymore. Of course it's moot because I don't live in the States anymore, but the point is that the RIAA is suing people like me -- people that may have downloaded some tunes (this in itself does not effect the RIAA's bottom line) but still was into buying CDs by the artists I really liked.
If I download 500 songs and buy 7 CDs, they lose nothing from the 500 songs I downloaded, but make money from the 7 CDs (this is why copright infringement is not theft). I used to buy tunes I heard on the radio; then I started buying stuff I found on-line, because I didn't like what was on the radio anymore; now I don't buy anything, for political reasons.
Do you see what I'm saying? A better analogy, really, would be book publishers suing people that go to the library. People that go to the library read books and enjoy them; these are the people most likely to someday buy a book, and in the meantime, them going to the library doesn't cost the publisher anything -- "lost sales" is an unquantifiable thing, because there's no way to guarantee that they would choose to buy the books they check out at the library.
What you're proposing is a complete, revolutionary shift in what music people choose to listen to and purchase.
I don't deny it would be effective, but I think it's a bit utopian to really expect that much change to happen on a nation-wide scale, in a short enough period of time to affect the RIAA in their current state.
I guess what I'm basically asking is, how do you propose to convince the vast majority of people to simply start ignoring some of the best music ever produced and refuse to purchase any of it any more - simply because the RIAA controls rights to it?
Even if you could talk everyone into not buying a single new music CD from any artist that wasn't "independent" - you'd still end up with the RIAA sitting on a vast collection of music that influenced nearly all of the new artists. (Heck, it's arguable that the RIAA effective "owns" rock & roll music. Should we tell people not to ever download or buy any more music from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Who, Led Zeppelin, etc.?)
No... I think the truth is, the RIAA is *scared* that people ARE downloading very acceptably good and usable music and bypassing them completely. They see the "writing on the wall" that music distribution methods are changing, but it's a cheaper and easier solution for them to try to "plug the leaks" with stronger copyright legislation than to address the core issue. (People think they're not getting enough value for their dollar when they purchase new music.)
Ironically, if the RIAA really succeeds in some of their recent goals (such as making copy-protected music CDs that really work, preventing people from ripping songs on them to MP3 files, etc.) - they're sealing their own fate. People who would otherwise buy their music on principle will stop doing so if they feel they're getting something less than they were getting before. (A somewhat dysfunctional CD, rather than a fully functional one.)
...but it's just not going to happen that a CC-only station is going to get sued for not paying the PROs.
An optimistic one you are. The link you provided shows just how low these people are. Creative commons is not a threat right now to the standard business model. If that were to happen, they would come down on them so hard, it would make what they attempted to do to the girl scouts look like a...well, a pretty minor issue. Like I've said before, these kind of people exist to protect their business model, no matter to what it is applied, music, meat, whatever. If the artists can pick up a few crumbs off the floor, everybody's "happy".
What?
I wouldn't say that "it tends to piss people off AND then they tend not to buy your products." It's usually just the first. There are very few people out there who will actually stop buying something on principle. Most of them will stop buying it if they cease to like it. Consumers are very greedy--they're only getting "pissed" because they can't get something for free that they used to (not that they have been getting it free for long).
Mufasa http://www.firetiger.net/
When discussing in the context of the performance of audio recordings, my opinion would be that the public performance of a public domain work would require neither a license nor a payment. But then what constitutes an "audio recording in the public domain"? A work can reach public domain when it's copyright limitation is surpassed or when all rights holders explicitly pass it to the public domain.
For the vast majority of audio recordings, the copyright timeout is far away in the future, if ever. (But it's an interesting thought, listening to pre-1920 wax cylinder audio performances in 192Kbps fidelity...) And there is a reasonable debate as to how the copyright owner of an audio recording could effect the transfer of the work to the public domain in a legal sense. Assuming the copyright holder would not be benefiting financially after doing so, and presuming the owner owned all rights (a necessary precursor), he could either hire a lawyer (at his own expense) to draw-up the necessary paperwork (whatever that turns out to be) or simply choose not to enforce his rights (which costs him nothing) and leave the status ambiguous.
But we should remember that CC-licensed works are not public domain, and also that my opinion counts for rather little here.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
I am very well aware of the differences, but thank you for your concern.
"But folks like this [the freeloaders] are few and far between."
Look at a few computers in the dorms of your local university, and you'll find that these folks aren't as uncommon as you've convinced yourself.
The other folks are potential customers. They aren't opposed to buying music, but they want to buy good music, music that they like.
What, then, of all the other music that they download? Is that the stuff they don't like? That must be the case, because you are arguing that this group pays for music it likes.
"the RIAA is suing people like me -- people that may have downloaded some tunes"
Wrong. They are suing people who are distributing (sharing) music on P2P networks. As of yet, downloading it is not illegal.
"A better analogy, really, would be book publishers suing people that go to the library."
Wrong again; every book in a library has, at one time or another, been paid for.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I was referring to copyright law as it applies to audio recordings in the United States; there is a compulsory license fee payment required for the public performance of audio recordings, such as via a radio station. This has nothing to do with Linux, which is not an audio recording, and copyrighted, but made available under the terms of the GPL.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
Besides, one of the rationalizations that often comes up is the quality of RIAA offerings. Apart from the contrdictory nature of such an argument (it's so bad I'll steal it...) if one truly believes that, then one has options other than unlawful distribution...
Utopian, sure a bit. A sacrifice, maybe, but what am I asking you to sacrifice? All I ask you to give up is convenience. RIAA is simply the most convenient way to get music, wether via lawful or unlawful distribution vectors. Really, that is the only service RIAA is offering.
Given the strong feelings that many profess to have about RIAA and it's members, is giving up the convenience that onerous a request?
People talk incessantly about their freedoms which RIAA seeks to violate. So what? Many of us have ancestors who gave up their lives for the freedoms which we debate here. Are we really doing their sacrifice a service when we violate those rights? Are we doing their sacrifice a service when we are too lazy to take simple steps to protect our rights?
If folk are too lazy to put some effort into protecting their rights, and find a better way than resorting to violating others rights, then perhaps we need to analyze just how important our freedoms are to us. When we resort to amoral and unethical means, what does that really say about our motivations? or our goals?
Bottom line, these are important issues, and laziness is *NOT* and acceptable reason for not doing what needs to be done. And, when I talk aobut laziness, I'm including both doing nothing, and participating in the unlawful distribution of RIAA controlled material...
As for RIAA knowing, and the strategy they have espoused. Well, first, they can try all the legislation they want. They are unlikely to be able to prevent you from continuing to get your music from non RIAA sources. Some of this legislation is bad, and just wrong though. But whose purpose do you serve when you are too lazy to react, or too lazy to react correctly?
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals