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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!
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.
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. :)
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/
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.
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?
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."
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.
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!
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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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.
1) You shut down one road, they'll just use another. Blocking isn't apprehending or interdiction.
2) Of the illegal drugs sold around the U.S., much are sent through FedEx, UPS and like services. Should we shut down those companies because they facilitate the transport of illegal drugs? Because they are the "road" on which the drugs travel into cities?
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
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
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."
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.
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.
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.