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MP3tunes Offers Music Service Without DRM
ThinSkin writes "Former MP3.com chief and Lindows CEO Michael Robertson will reenter the music world next week with MP3tunes, a service that promises music without DRM restrictions. MP3tunes hopes to attract users who are fed up with restrictions on copying music from sites that use digital-rights-management techniques, such as iTunes."
I can't wait to download normal music that normal people actually want from the five major US record labels!
*Cough*
Anyone can do music without DRM.
Can they do music people want?
Spare me the arguments about how "it's not really what people want" because it's force-fed by Clear Channel, the labels, and a corrupt industry, and people just *think* they want it. Believe it or not, some artists on major labels have talent. Some don't. *Gasp!* Some completely unknown, independent artists may have talent, but might never have that talent shaped as well as it could be in the hands of professionals - and by "professionals", I don't mean music industry shills, I mean people who have done this for ages. Perhaps there are some bands out there who have the musical talent, business prowess, and personal presence to pull it off themselves. And maybe you think Open Source and "music/information wants to be free" socialistic type ideas - not using that in the pejorative sense - is the way to go. Fine. But the fact of the matter is that the MAJOR labels will demand DRM, unless one of them rolls (very unlikely), or a new paradigm takes over. Sure, maybe a DRMless music store will be part of that new paradigm. But at least realize that the vast majority of people won't give a shit about the vast majority of music on a DRMless service.
Do any of us like or want DRM? Hell no. But some of us realize that it's an extremely imperfect solution to a partly perceived, partly real problem. And, right or wrong, it's frankly their content to protect and do with as they see fit, as recognized under our system of laws as set forth by our elected officials, regardless of whose pockets you think they're in. If you are the ultimate cynic, and think everything is shot as it is, then you'll likely not understand any of this at all, or the fundamental desire of people to protect and secure their property or things they have invested in, no matter how unbalanced YOU might think it seems. But no one is forcing you to buy or listen to major label music. No one is forcing to you buy an iPod or use iTunes. Perhaps some of you put your money where your mouth is, but most of you are hypocrites. And the worst among you are those who think you can steal things who don't belong to you. And yes, it is stealing. An apt excerpt:
[...] different types of stealing are covered by different laws because they differ in the details. Theft through breaking and entering: burglary. Theft from one's employer: embezzlement. Theft by committing fraud through the mail: the aptly named mail fraud. Theft by the unlawful copying of somebody else's property: copyright infringement.
And the "deprivation" argument is pure shit, so don't even go there.
I wish them luck. I really do. I'd love to have no DRM on all of my video, television, movies, music, and be able to use things I *bought* any way I see fit on any device at any time. No broadcast flag, no forced no-commercial-skip, no DRM.
But I'm also practical.
That, and not a, you know, moron.
But will they offer OGG/Vorbis downloads? Seriously, I bought the most expensive mp3 player around so I could listen to my extensive, legal music collection in Vorbis. I don't want to spend my time writing a shell script to convert my mp3s to Vorbis, so is there any chance of MP3Tunes offerning OGG downloads? BTW, I had a Vorbis listening party the other night, and I invited all my female friends [robots] to listen. They all noticed the difference between my 128kB/s OGG files and my 64kB/s MP3 files. Up with OGG/Vorbis!
I, for one, would use this. I hope we can prove that it's a successful idea to have a service which actually puts the trust back in the customer rather than treating them as potential criminals.
I like many others are happy to pay for music, its just there's no way I can BUY music online that isn't crippled. I'd rather buy a CD and rip it.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Can't this guy name a product without ripping off some other product?
Finally! Nice to see a bigname in online music stepping up and trying to do something without DRM
"I think the labels are interested in one thing: selling," but where did he come up with some a novel concept? Big Music is interested in selling? And here I was thinking they were only interested in being evil.
this plan may attract a lot of people but can it obtain (and most imporantly: hold on to) enough $$$ to keep it running?
remember those car insurance companies that used the sales pitch "we will give you our quote and of 3 other competitors" ? yea, it may get you attention, but ultimately, how likely are you to break even?
not that i'm complaining, i'd love to be able to (somewhat cheaply) buy music and *keep* it.
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
Since just about every song anybody would want that is available on most pay services is also on P2P networks, what's the harm of removing DRM? People pay these sites for convenience. All these songs are available elsewhere, but it's more difficult to find and download all the songs on an album on edonkey or kazaa. So all they are doing is annoying their customers, since even if these songs did make it on a P2P network, it wouldn't make much of a difference.
So services like this that sell songs without DRM shouldn't be a threat to the industry.
Which recording labels are going to sign on with this service? What good is an online music store going to be if a large percentage of the major record labels decline to participate because of the lack of DRM?
If DRM upsets you that much, you can get a wav/mp3 writer plugin for your audio player and roll your own DRMless copy. If this isn't possible with your media player, I'm sure there are special drivers and tools out there (you know, like Windows Sound Recorder).
I swear, people are never satisfied. Apple is doing a great thing, but people will always find something to complain about.
I am not worried about how much the company will charge for the songs. I am worried about how much the RIAA could sue me for
Honestly, I can't see most people caring enough about DRM to leave one service that uses one application to encompass the buying, listening, streaming and loading experience.
Sorry. I just don't see it. iTunes is doing better than ever, and may well have reached critical mass by this point. I've never hearde one person complain about the DRM - except here on Slashdot.
I think he's probably right, but I wonder if the bigwigs at the record labels are willing (or even care) to listen to his argument. It's not as if Apple didn't try:
I think the general consensus is that even though Jobs and his "Ph.D.s" knew DRM is always crackable, Apple still needed to implement some form of DRM in order to convince the record labels to open their catalogs. For the record companies in April of 2003, ever chary of the Internet, DRM was non-negotiable.
My question is: what's changed since then that would cause them to reconsider? After all, iTunes has shown that a service offering DRM tracks can be wildly successful. So why would the record labels want to open their catalogs to a DRM-free solution from some dude who made his name pawning a Linux desktop?
Anyway, this is definitely something to watch. I sincerely wish him luck. I just hope he can get the labels to open their catalogs.
MP3tunes will use a service or tool called "MP3beamer", which Robertson said would reconcile the need to store music in a centralized file store with the ability to play back the music anywhere, on any device. He declined to comment further.
(From TFA, for those who didn't R it)
If this service stores music somewhere you must somehow log into, and does not -upload to you- a DRM-free MP3, this service is NOT free of DRM, just using a different version of it.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
This is not a new concept. It's already alive and well over at emusic.com. The selection is not great, but you get 50 to 80 high-quality MP3's with NO DRM for a flat monthly fee.
MP3tunes will use a service or tool called "MP3beamer", which Robertson said would reconcile the need to store music in a centralized file store with the ability to play back the music anywhere, on any device.
Any ideas what this might be? Google isn't very forthcoming, as I suspect there's little info available as yet. If it's a "required" (aka installed) program, will it:
Just curious.
I would guess that there about 50,000 regular readers of slashdot. Out of those, probably about 1,000 post regulary, 5,000 semi-regulary. I figure anyone who doesn't post isn't motivated enough to get in the fray to even care about DRM. So, of those 6,000 roughly half care about DRM. Of those 3,000 maybe 1,000 won't use anything with DRM. So - boom - 1,000 customers right off the top. Of the remaining 2,000 who care about DRM, let's be generous, and give this new service half of them. Ok. So we can see that worldwide marketshare for this service is roughly 2000. But, according to recent Slashdot surveys, some 80% of slashdot readers are unemployed and thus have no money to buy music (which is why they steal it.) Anyway, this reduces the marketshare to about 400 individuals. So, unless the are charging $1000 per song, this endevour will go under in just a few months (unless the have venture, then I give it a year.)
until someone sues this guy for NOT implementing DRM on his download site.
3... 2... 1...
I think its time the mainstream manufactured music industry faced up to the music: they're selling a commodity! all their songs are practically interchangable - even manure is a more demanding and specialised market. They might as well dump the crap out like this and just charge for bandwidth and high-quality compression.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I wish more music services would follow this example.
Of course, I also wish every music site out there used their pay by the megabyte approach, at ridiculously low rates. I actually end up spending much more on music, because I'm not afraid to waste a dollar getting a few new albums. It's proof that cheap, DRM-free online distribution can work.
I dont know how to say it in russian, but for the price i dont care!
It's not as though emusic.com didn't already do this...
...at 25 cents a track. It's mostly older alternative stuff but I find enough worthwhile tracks a month to make it useful.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
The question is what record companies and artists are going to allow their catalogues or any part thereof to be distributed through this service. If it's too stunted a catalogue then it's going to fail, but I just can't believe RIAA members are going to let non-DRM files be distributed.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And that is a perfectly acceptable position.
And one that is at least logically consistent with your beliefs and ideals.
Former MP3.com chief and Lindows CEO Michael Robertson reentered the music world last week with MP3tunes, a service that promised music without DRM restrictions.
While MP3tunes hoped to attract users who were fed up with restrictions on DRM crippled music, it also attracted dozens of lawyers.
In an unprecedented move, 16 labels sued the company today in court, claiming that the company violated antitrust laws by allowing the distribution of "all music not controled by the label cartel"
When asked to comment, James Hetfield of Metallica cried out, "The labels are the only ones who can fight the onslaught of rampant piracy!" before chanting "Artists must eat!" until he left in his 2005 Dodge Viper.
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It's called magnatune and I've been shopping there for months.
How long until Michael offers us "mp3 lockers" so he doesn't even have to pay his own artists for downloads anymore?
"I swear, people are never satisfied. Apple is doing a great thing, but people will always find something to complain about."
/. and tell us that a G4 is fast enough for you.
Congrats. You've managed to state stupid apple fanboi reason #1 without a hint of irony or sarcasm.
You're serious.
Therefore, you win this week's Apple Fanboi of the Week award.
This entitles you to pick the Powerbook of your choice, pay full price, and then you get to come on
So (one of) your problems with the iTunes Music Store is that it doesn't give very much money to the artists. Your solution to this is to get it illegally without paying them anything? That's your compassion? If you want to screw artists and labels over, then by all means screw them over. Just don't lie about it to yourself.
Why not go out and support indie labels and the bands they have? Bands like The Shins, The Postal Service, Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, Porcupine Tree, and Iron & Wine are all more than deserving of your dollar.
P.S. Downhill Battle encourages piracy. They care nothing about the artists, and seemingly, neither do you.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
MP3tunes hopes to attract users who are fed up with restrictions on copying music from sites that use digital-rights-management techniques, such as iTunes.
Is this the windows portion of iTunes users they are trying to attract? You just know mac users won't drink any other Kool aid?
Btw, I'm a mac user with a sense of humour.
Jonathanjk.com
Music is like coffee beans. You pay a crapload for it, but the grower is still getting screwed.
MP3tunes will use a service or tool called "MP3beamer", which Robertson said would reconcile the need to store music in a centralized file store with the ability to play back the music anywhere, on any device. He declined to comment further.
Is it just me, or does this sound almost exactly like the last thing he tried before he founded Lindows-- remember, my.mp3.com? And if I remember correctly, in the end that one shut down because the courts decided that never mind all that stuff we said in the early 20th century, you don't have first sale rights of all. I have to wonder if this new thingy will in some way meet the same fate.
Well, at least he's a hero in my book for trying.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In an unprecedented move, 16 labels sued the company today in court, claiming that the company violated antitrust laws by allowing the distribution of "all music not controled by the label cartel"
Unfortunately, the events of your satiric story are plausible. Instead of the record labels, it would be the music publishers, claiming that independent recordings are unauthorized covers of commercial songs. A music publisher even sued an artist over "subconscious copying" and won. In fact, with the finite number of possible melodies in the Western musical scale, we're bound to reach a point where nobody outside the music publishing cartel can compose and publish music at all. Then we get into this situation, which will make you think differently about Febreze Scentstories.
MP3tunes is a little less "confusingly similar" than it would be if he called it iTones...
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I go to indie concerts. Not really for the music, but I still go =)
Currently my wife (iPod + 20" iMac) and my daughter (Windows + Yep) are both buying music from iTunes and swapping music lists with each other.
They had one little blip the first time and they figured out how to register it to the other computer in about 20 seconds -- I didn't even get involved!
Considering that most major labels are owned by one of four media companies, all which LOVE drm... I doubt MP3Tunes will take off.
Sure, they might get a real musician or band every once and a while... but I can't see this model becoming successful.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Specifically: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=126473&cid=105 91752
- Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?
Here I am reading an article about my former CEO when I stumble upon this line:
At the show, two of Robertson's engineers at MP3.com will introduce SwitchVox, which will
combine PBX features with VOIP...
Oh crap that's me! Yeah, we have a fancy-pants gui front-end to asterisk. At the risk of further slashdotting ourselves, here's the site: http://www.switchvox.com.
Now to go find some bandwidth.
Ya know what? Everyone loves to bash allofmp3.com bc it's Russian and shady. Well ... so what. You want shady? The US firms are a legal mafia outfit. Think about it. They control all avenues worth controlling (radio, advertising, production, etc.) and if you start to encroach on them they make you an offer you can't refuse. Either they buy you out, sue you into oblivion, or both (think mp3.com).
Aside from that I read on their site that some money actually does go to the artist. Not much, and I have no way of verifying that, but take a wild guess how much of that is *my* problem. There are middlemen taking a cut here and in Russia, the difference is here they take a bigger cut and the listener gets screwed worse, whereas the Russians take a smaller cut and the artist gets screwed worse. Take another wild guess why ppl love the Russian site so much.
So yeah, if I ever meet the guys from Social Distortion (which is very possible since I cruise bars in LA a lot) I'll buy them a beer or 5. But don't you dare expect me to cry for them Argentina. I sitting here with a crappy new haircut in "business casual" looking at an hour+ commute home to an apartment. Let them bear the brunt of the industry's greed.
In my opinion, DRM should create more value to the paying customers. If it soley exists to assure labels of earnings, it won't stop people from going the path of least resistance.
Need a color? Try 100 random colors
That's ridiculous. Its almost impossible for any but the highest selling artists to make money on music sales. Artists are given an advance but out of that they have to pay for recording, printing of the CD, some promotion and various other things. On a $10 album on iTunes, the artist is lucky if they make $1 with most artists making less and that's after they pay back the advance. In the end the label gets about 50% profit for a distribution network. In the electronic economy this makes absolutely no sense when there is almost no cost involved in distribution compared to the physical world and promotion can be done by artists for significantly less than they have to pay the labels. If you illegally download music and feel bad about it there is at least one site that allows you to donate to directly to the artist. If you do that, at least the artist gets paid hopefully more than a pittance and none goes to the huge scam which is the record industry.
I will be pirating my music, I love in canada.
But to help my morality, I will be sending $1 to every musician for each song that I have of theirs.
Screw riaa and the industry.. =)
Now if I could only get a mailing address for my favorite bands.
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
I agree with pretty much everything you've just said.
The only credit I give to this project is the credit that Michael Robertson can cause a big enough stir to give it a chance of being noticed.
You're right about the labels demanding DRM. I think the only true way to escape it is to get the artists to migrate away from the labels.
They can obviously have more freedom without them. The only obstacles are exposure and money. Those are pretty much intertwined. Get those up to par and it will work.
It's gotta start somewhere.
How can it be a flat fee if you get 50 MP3's?
No, son. At one time, emusic gave you unlimited MP3's for $15/month.
Then they were bought out and now they charge big money for songs nobody has heard of.
That was okay before; hell, you could try something and if you liked it, you ended up buying more from that artists.
But when you pay per song, that song better be a freaking #1 hit or it ain't worth anything.
The music industry would beg to differ.
For what's it's worth, most of us Clear Channel programmers would love to have deep, eclectic playlists loaded with interesting songs and artists.
The problem is that not enough people would listen to our stations for us to keep the lights on.
We're not force-feeding anything. Our short playlists are dictated by the market, and we spend million each year researching the musical tastes of our various target audiences.
While people bitch and wail about short playlists, the fact is that when we exercise poor music discipline, our ratings generally decline. Since commercial broadcasting is still predicated on a free radio, advertiser-subsidized model, low rated stations go away pretty quickly. We're a publicly held company, and have to return value to the stockholders (this could mean you).
We know tight playlists aren't for everyone, but they're for *most* people. Amazing as it may seem, radio listeners actually like hearing their favorites on a regular basis. Adults, in particular, punch out more often than not when something new comes on -- no matter how good it is.
Real music enthusiasts with well-developed tastes have a lot of options open to them these days, if they don't mind paying for them. Hell, I own an iPod, too. But free radio is still out there, playing the hits, ready whenever you need a pop fix or breaking news.
Okay, flame away. But that's the deal.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
That, and not a, you know, moron.
No, just a cynic.
And just because you add copyright infringement at the end of a list of other types of thievery does not by fiat make it a form of thievery. That's just rhetorical parallelism. And calling an argument "shit" to short circuit its use also does not, in fact, actually render it shit.
Copyright infringement is exactly what it says: Infringing on somebody's exclusive right to distribute something, namely by distributing it for them. Even under the most conservative reading the only thing you're "robbing" them of is control, and, theoretically, the value of their product. And the latter is a dicey claim at best.
More intelligent debate is to be had on whether producers of information ought to have this exclusive distribution "right" or not--and NOT whether infringing on it is stealing. Because, quite simply, it's not.
So... let me get this straight. If I pay for music, I am being selfish, is that right?
Jonathanjk.com
At least my complaints are designed to be productive and effect change. Your complaint seems designed to tell people to shut up and maintain a forcefed status quo.
DRM does upset me "that much", and my solution is simply to not provide any funding to companies who have anything to do with it. I also talk about it with people who will listen. ("Complain", if you will.)
Your "solution" won't work. First, the potential legal ramifications are no better than for downloading the file illegally in the first place. Second, the file quality won't be as good. Third, and most important, you're trying to correct a symptom, rather than the problem.
To specify the problem: We have a right to use and copy this information for our own use as we see fit and this right has been taken away from us by dubious means. An end run has been made around my rights for no reason and I have a problem with it.
If you don't want to hear that, okay, but do me a favor and stop trying to invalidate my point of view by implying that I only complain because I "always find something to complain about".
I gotta say I agree with you, too.
But even in a DRMless world, there are going to be some "fat cats", as it were. Even if the labels are toppled, in a manner of speaking, there will still be some groups that are the "best" to be associated with - for exposure and money. The people who have the best connections, the biggest website, the hottest PR folks (anything that penetrates the mainstream will have amazing PR). And all over again, it repeats: it won't be an even playing field, and never will be. And once the groups that give the best centralized exposure (which translates into money) - the ones who rise to the top, competitively, which means they'll have some folks with good business sense - get big enough, they might be looking for ways to stop people from stealing their shit too.
I'm not sure property without locks and keys - and penalties for breaking them - can even survive (at above some very basic level, and certainly not as a market leader) in a free market system, and it may in fact be fundamentally incompatible.
At a very basic level, I guess you could say this is "capitalism" vs "socialism" - again, not using either of those terms pejoratively - and the the disparity between those positions is dramatic. Perhaps grassroots efforts can at least shed light on the truth of content protection and DRM: it can ALWAYS be broken by pirates, and it ALWAYS hurts honest customers.
There already is a service that offers DRM-free mp3 music... and it has a pretty extensive catalog... it's emusic. No freakin' Britney Spears on this service. Although you might not find it up to snuff unless you're heavily into indie and obscure music or if you've got a sense of adventure.
The only way a service will compete with Apples dominance of the online music market (mindshare) is via Brand and Marketing.
Its a red herring - if a competing service starts eating significantly into Apples market share on the basis of not using DRM, Apple will simply shrug and do the same.
Until a competing company is cooler or offers a significantly better service than Apple, they will not have any real effect on Apples dominance.
I suppose it works for people who want everything to be free (as in beer.) Personally, I don't mind paying people for their efforts, just as I would be paid for mine.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
allofmp3.com already does this. Encoding in ogg vorbis, flac, aac, wma and of course mp3 to name a few...
300,000+ songs and a cheap price to boot. They also accept paypal.
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
I will pay Apple $2.00 a song to get non-DRM'ed music. Think they will go for it?
okay, i'm going to say this once so it's clear to everyone.
fuck the artists. i don't care about them. making money is their problem, not mine.
i care about *me*. i care about:
1) OWNING music that i purchase. moving it anywhere, copying it without restriction, giving it to my friends if i feel like it. never having it expire, not having to pay a subscription service to keep accessing it.
2) convenience and simplicity. when i feel like acquiring a song, i want to download it, now. i don't want to drive to the music store, i don't want to order from amazon and wait for a week.
3) money. i love my money, and i don't want to give it to anyone. i don't want to buy a cd for one song.
so, here are my options:
a) buy a cd. satisfies 1.
b) filesharing. satisfies 1, 2, 3. however, its fullfillment of 2 is becoming pretty weak.
c) itunes and friends. satisfies 2 and 3 (more or less).
d) a store that sells clear, high quality mp3s. satisfies 1 and 2. surely not as cheap as (b), but (c) seems to sufficiently meet the requirements of most people when it comes to cost. so i will say it's a weak 3.
out of these, and considering the decreasing convenience of filesharing, option d starts to look pretty damn good.
once again: fuck the artists. i just care myself.
Im not really fed up with iTunes. Ive got a lot of high quality music videos i pulled off for free. Some songs that came with a pay pal account. Some that were handed out free each week. Some more I traded for my friends pepsi caps. Ben&Jerry's gave me a few more. I think i also might have bought a song or two at some point. And none of them are DRM'd. Hymn is pretty damn easy to use. Its a lot less trouble than driving to a record store and then having to rip the cd once ive paid for it.
Honestly, it doesnt really bother me to pay $1/track for songs every once in a while, but I haven't got any space on my 40GB iPod (none of which, might I add, came from kazaa, napster, or any other 'illicit' download service), so I'm not in dire need of more music at the moment.
The summary mentioned iTunes. I mentioned it once, the context that no one is forcing you to use it. Where did I mention Apple or Macs?
Oh, what's that? I didn't? Ok, fuck off then.
But you managed to mention it 7 times in your post. Hmm. AND take time out of your day to call a post "Apple fanboyism" that has nothing to do with Apple. Wow, the smart one you are!
Disclaimer: I don't mind paying money for good songs at all. I use JHymn to play songs on other platforms for which iTunes is not available. JHymn works beautifully for this purpose.
Those of us with a more eclectic taste in music enjoy downloading albums from BLEEP. They serve up content in decent bitrate MP3, no DRM. You can pay with PayPal.
I really don't have much ethical issues with downloading bootlegged music, however, $10 is well worth it for instant-gratification. I don't have to search P2P networks, wait in queues, etc. I just find something I like, and grab the whole album at high speed.
Audio Lunch Box Here
MP3 and OGG, NO DRM!!!!!
It has been out for a while you know.
Have a good one.
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
I wish it wasn't Robertson that was at the head of all of this, because I would always like a non-DRM music service to succeed. But Robertson got to where he is (insanely rich) by stepping on everyone else back in the late 90s. For example, he did things like stealing tons of bandwidth from a university FTP search project (which, at the time, was at ftpsearch.ntnu.no) and putting it on his "filez.com" site to sell advertising there, never giving any credit to the people who created the search. He also squatted audiograbber.com (Audiograbber being the name of a now well-known CD ripping program... at the time it was still up and coming) and for a long time refused to sell it to the creator of the software, instead directing it to MP3.com where he was advertising for competing programs. I could go on and on. He's just an ass who exploits people. I ran one of the larger MP3 sites around the time when MP3.com was still new (when it was just a garbage list of software, without any real content of its own), and so I managed to talk to him a few times back then. When I took my site down he was waiting like a vulture to buy it up and forward it to MP3.com, but I wouldn't sell...
I hate to break it to you, but I'm not much of an Apple fan. I own a PC, I'm running Redmond's best, I don't own an iPod, and I don't use iTunes.
My feeling is, though, that they've done a great thing. What exactly? Well, they've taken the music out of the hands of corporations like WalMart (who will censor it, and then they'll sell it to me for $15), and they've made it accessible to the masses. My parents are capable of using iTunes, and that's saying a lot.
People are willing to disregard all of this because they feel entitled to be able to copy it, and share it, and do whatever they want with it -- legal or not. Granted, DRM might stifle a lot of legal activity, but whatever. You get what you pay for.
Perhaps ... but let's hope that, this time around, he gets some better legal advice and stays out of court.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If you are intresting in the slightest, and would like to move to canada I have a friend who would like to meet you. He has his own igloo with indoor plumbing! and his own dog sled team!
"A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.'" - DNA
I'm a sci-fi vegan: I don't want the aliens to think we have as much right to live as the fried chickens we eat.
If everything could be gotten for free, then where's your incentive to do anything?
Do you charge someone when they ask you what time it is? If you open a door for a little old lady, do you demand payment? When you make love to your girlfriend or wife, do you charge for that too? Your perception of the world is clearly filtered through the corporate green lens of "what's in it for me?"
Did Isaac Newton get paid for inventing the Calculus? If not, why the hell did he invent it?
Here are some possible answers to the question of incentive: someone wants to be kind, or better their situation, or better the situation of all, or is simply driven to create, dissect, analyze.
What a sad, sad creature that perceives every human activity and transaction in terms of dollars and cents.
Nice try, but your analogies are all wrong.
I never said EVERYTHING demands "payment". I never said you shouldn't hold the door open for an old lady. I never said people shouldn't create or invent lest they're paid. In fact, I, or you, could do all of those things and ask for nothing in return.
But some things in our society DO demand payment, and, frankly, it is the business of the owners to decide. Some content owners of music, for example, have asked for payment in return. There are legal guidelines which govern this arrangement. If you take something that belongs to them - that they own the rights for - and do not pay for it, because you've made a bunch of tired rationalizations about how it's "ok", that is stealing from them. It is not up to you to decide that they shouldn't be charging for it, or it's "ok" because your narrow minded justification tells you you're not "depriving" them of anything.
Some musicians, as owners of their content, have chosen to give it away for free. Bravo! It is their right to decide. NOT yours.
Good job trying to frame my argument as one of a corporate shill, when in reality it was a fundamental property and rule of law argument, not to mention one of ethics.
Your post touches on many complex topics, but I want to focus on the point you make about incentive. I don't know precisely what motivated Newton but I do know that calculus was not so outrageous that others would not have discovered it and that being first is only a small part of what it takes to make a difference. If Newton's ideas had never been spread to the public, if there hadn't been millions of engineers, scientists and businessmen to expand on his work it would have been quite useless. The vast amount of work that goes into taking an idea and making it real is often overlooked by people looking to fawn over the work of one man. Yes, Newton was brilliant, but if there wasn't a public to desire automobiles or airliners or what-have-you, if there weren't capitalists to risk the money, if there weren't marketing folks pounding the streets to find out what things tickle our fancies, if there weren't factory workers to produce them, then very little of his work probably would have mattered. Graduate students with ideas are a dime a dozen, but it takes a lot of work to take an abstract idea and turn it into something that can bring happiness, longer life and great benefit to billions of people everyday. It seems to me that you have unwittingly fallen into the trap that many socialists accuse capitalists of believing in: the theory that one person is so much more important than everyone else. The amusing part is that the communists said they were for the people and promptly destroyed the things people wanted and attempted to force people to be happy worshipping the genius of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. The simple truth is, most of the people are (rightfully) concerned about the happiness that their work brings to them and are not so happy to be working in awful conditions for the good of everyone else or for the pursuit of some intellectual ideal. Like it or not, but capitalism has had more success at creating the goods that people want than any of the miserable failures of so-called "socialist paradises".
I have come here to chew memory and kick ass... and malloc() is returning a null pointer.
Does anyone remember the slashdot story that stated that programmers tended to be metalheads? If that's true, all these guys have to do is license the Nuclear Blast label (and maybe InsideOut) and they've got the Slashdot/programmer crowd, which is pretty much 90% of the people that care.
I wasn't "framing your argument". I was pointing out the absurdity of one of your statements --- the quoted statement --- the one that implied that without (financial) compensation, there is no incentive to do anything.
Is there any MP3 servers that let you buy cheap, DRM free MP3s, that has both a large selection and lets you pay for them individually instead of a montly fee?
lol: You see no door there!
It seems to me that you have unwittingly fallen into the trap that many socialists accuse capitalists of believing in: the theory that one person is so much more important than everyone else.
No. Where did I state, explicitly or implicitly, that I worship Newton, or think he was the greatest human to draw a breath of air? I used the fact that Newton wasn't paid for his creation to give lie to the quoted assertion made by the GP.
Like it or not, but capitalism has had more success at creating the goods that people want than any of the miserable failures of so-called "socialist paradises".
Another proponent of the theory that money, or what can be purchased with it (goods and services) is the end-all, be-all of human existence. Hedonism is not attractive.
After reading this post I decided to bite the bullet and sign up at allofmp3.com. I did a little research on them and they seemed legit as far as not scamming people's credit card info. I attempted to add money to my account using my Visa Platinum but kept getting the message:
"Authorization failed"
Knowing full well that this shouldn't be happening, I decided to call my credit card company. I got an automated system that explained to me my last five charges and the most current was an attempt to charge my card with $5.00. This charge was denied and my account was not charged. I'll call and speak with someone tomorrow, but it seems that my bank (Wachovia) is blocking charges from cyberplat.com (or possibly any Russian based company). I thought it was interesting, and was actually pleased that my credit card denied the charge even though it was a legitimate one.
I can't speak for the generic "people" you refer to, but I *can* and will speak for myself.
I don't think "copyright infringement" has anything at all to do with "sticking it to the evil, blood-sucking, etc. etc. corporations" and that making it "right" vs. "wrong".
What I *do* think is that quite simply, stealing refers to taking possession of tangible property without permission. Copyright infingement is NOT stealing in any strict sense, because it's about the "unauthorized" duplication of intellectual property (typically intangible).
When you steal, you deprive someone of the item in order to re-locate it physically in your presence. When you infringe a copyright, no such thing happens. Any purchased media the original works were stored on remains in the possession of whoever had it to begin with. You simply made a "clone" of it using other media.
In fact, "copyright infringement" is all about an entirely different crime -- one of breaking a contract. IMHO, this very much enters the territory of being subject to interpretation. If, say, you strike up a business deal with a partner and agree to sign a contract with him/her covering it - what about unreasonable or unjust language hidden deep within it that you didn't notice before you signed? Strictly speaking, you'd just be "out of luck" since you signed it. But we all know it's not really this way in all cases. Laws must be *interpreted*, which is the job of the courts, judges and juries. It could very well be decided that the language wasn't legally binding, so you're "off the hook".
So it is with software too. Criminal prosecution of copyright violations should be reserved for the counterfeiters, who quite clearly are cheating the people who believed they were really paying for the original product, and instead got a knock-off.
Anything else, I'd say, is potentially something to deal with on a civil basis - but probably little else. If you "pirate" an application instead of buying it, you're cloning the bits that make up the program - but you're not getting the rest of the package. (No free updates, support from the vendor, printed manuals, guarantees of replacement of defective media, and so on.) Those are really the things that should make software purchases worthwhile anyway.
At the standard rate it works out to $0.25 per song. Much better than anywhere else that's legal.
I've been a member for over two years. It's great. Once you realize that just because the major studios christen a song #1 doesn't make it good and start looking at some of the GREAT music that independent labels put out you see what a rip off the other places are.
BLEEP.COM was one of the first on the scene. They now have a lot more record labels besides Warp.
I understand the need for ratings, as well as the mentality of radio listeners (precisely why I don't listen to radio). The problem is, they must have heard their favorite songs for the first time somewhere, and generally it's the radio. So, answer me this: When an artist that obviously lacks any talent or musical inspiration, and is quite clearly a manufactured pop star (Ashlee Simpson, Britney Spears, etc.) starts making records, WHY DO YOU PLAY THEM? Once people hear them, they'll want to hear it again, because it was played on the radio...
Major radio (and media at large, MTV is just as responsible) outlets are just as responsible for their artists tastes, as their artists tastes are for their playlists. It's a sickening cycle, but this crap is introduced to the public by the media outlets, not by people buying CD's on a whim and then requesting it on the radio.
I'm such an airhead sometimes. The following line:
Major radio (and media at large, MTV is just as responsible) outlets are just as responsible for their artists tastes, as their artists tastes are for their playlists.
Should read:
Major radio (and media at large, MTV is just as responsible) outlets are just as responsible for their listeners tastes, as their listeners tastes are for their playlists.
Speaking of, why the hell doesn't slashdot let you edit your comments like every other message board!!?!?!
You just described why I broke up with my last girlfriend.
"Either they buy you out, sue you into oblivion, or both (think mp3.com)."
.agrippa.
Being as someone that worked for MP3.com since almost its beginning, I think I'm ok in saying the following:
1. Beam-it was a legal crapshoot, we knew this, and we lost. The day it was announced at a company meeting almost everyone knew we were going to get the shit sued out of us for doing it. There was a small legal gray area in copyright law Michael Robertson tried to exploit.
2. If not for losing hundreds of millions of dollars on lawyers/fines for doing Beam-it, MP3.com would probably still be in business today.
MP3.com's own stupidity lead to its downfall, not the RIAA. In fact, in an alternate universe, its probably still serving up Big Poo Generator while slowly burning through $400 million in IPO money.
It seems to me that you have unwittingly fallen into the trap that many socialists accuse capitalists of believing in: the theory that one person is so much more important than everyone else.
Huh? The central tenet of socialism is that no person is any more important than anyone else. It's capitalism that assigns people value based on the size of their bank accounts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The reason why Apple's setup worked so gosh-dern well is that they had all of their ducks in a row, as has every other label-sanctioned music service. The fact that he's going to launch this thing without even talking to them makes the promise of his service sound a little foolhardy. He had this same problem with MP3.com, remember; he had no way to control the quality of the artists.
Labels, love them or no (I certainly don't), tend to at the very least fliter out the amateurs and guys covering Chic songs with a mandolin and an egg shaker, so that you can actually hear someone with actual (or inflated) talent. The filter usually works as a loss to the customer, because the close-but-no-cigar artists are the ones that get filtered most unfairly. But in this case, the filter's a benefit -- it cuts out the armchair Garageband players.
I could launch a service like this tomorrow. Just give me MS Frontpage, a couple MP3s from that album Bronson Pinchot did back in 1988 at the height of his "Perfect Strangers" fame years, a streaming shoutcast link and a link to Paypal, and I can also I manage to successfully do everything that Michael Richardson is promising in this article. But do i have any connections? Nope.
In my scenario, the business plan fails, and pinchotTunes goes kaput in three weeks, but Bronson Pinchot has a second wind of fame as a result.
You know, if you were coming with your A game, Michael, I'd applaud you, but I keep seeing B- and C+ games out of your various companies.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
I really hate to admit it, but you've got a point.
Still, I stand firm with my belief that the best path is to make it as easy and uninhibiting for the consumer to get music through any means that works best for them, and that more money should go to the artist.
Publishers aren't really needed for the publishing part these days. Many artists are selling MP3s on their own websites. The publishers main purpose is advertising the artist and backing up the production of the product. With falling costs of production, publishers are becoming little more than over-egotistical advertising firms.
Should some Madison Ave firm get 70% of McDonald's profits because they draw in the customers for them?
The main issue here is less "How much should they get", and more "Who is working for who". The artists traditionally work for the publishers, but it is the publisher who should work for the artist.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
I believe it differs morally from stealing in that no one actually looses anything. RIAA argues loss of sale, but most people can see downloads often are not replacing a sale anyway (particularly when you see the deographics of the people they've sued.)
I think that our culture is used to media being free, Radio and Television (well sat/cable but music is more like PPV) cost nothing, CDs & books can be borrowed, etc.
This makes me think of an interesting p2p system. Stream the audio, allow no saving and never have the number of listeners exceed the number of peers available with that song. In essence you'd be loaning the use to 'a friend'. Wonder if this is already out there.
first off, it looks like this is STILL some crappy service a la itunes:
.hopesfall. Hot Water Music Grade ...the list goes on and on, and I don't really like a lot of different music. They give you zip file downloads of whole cds, with included cover art...ogg files on a lot of cds...
"MP3tunes will use a service or tool called 'MP3beamer', which Robertson said would reconcile the need to store music in a centralized file store with the ability to play back the music anywhere, on any device. He declined to comment further."
Store music in a centralized file store? No, thanks. Give me audiolunchbox over an "mp3beamer" any day. I <3 192kbit mp3 downloads where the artists actually get paid.
not to mention that audiolunchbox actually has GOOD artists instead of mainstream drivel...a few I like: Interpol Noise Ratchet The Anniversary
anyway, something to check out. I'm not a shill for ALB, just a fan.
They broke Hymn/JHymn cracked songs in iTunes 4.5, 4.6, 4.7.1, etc.. Okay, so Hymn was always quickly updated to fix the problem, but the point is that they have attempted to stop this sort of thing before.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Now, we all love our iPods, etc. etc. But keep this in mind:
The artists are still being screwed, even if it's behind a lickable interface.
>You're depriving the painter of the possibility
>of his work (or even duplicates of it) having
>been purchased by taking it upon yourself to
>create/obtain duplicates that the creator has
>not been paid for, either for yourself, or
>others.
Depriving someone of income is neither theft nor illegal in itself. Dependin on what action you take to do it, it can be illegal (the act, not the depriving in itself) or it can be legal.
Similary to not pay for something you create (in this case a copy) is not in itself illegal too, nor does it have anything to do with copyright. Payment is a non issue. It is the actual act of copying that can be compyright infringement. However, there are many cases were making a coppy or geting hold of a copy (with or without paying) that is perfectly legal!!
>You're stealing from him, plain and
>simple. "Legally" stealing? Perhaps not.
What are you trying to acomplish by this type of reasoning? If I understand it is is along the lines of: 1) he is deprived of something 2) that is similar to stealing 3) Since some acts of copying is depriving someone of something, any act of copying is too and hence copying is identicval to theft and therefore illegal???
Guess what, the law allready details what type of copying is illegal and what type is not. It is not doing it based on depriving someone income, and it does not use theft to sort it out either, it simply lists when copying (or a few other things like distribution and making it available to the public) is considered illegal and when it is not. On top of that, it has the the termoinology for it too, copyright infringement.
ALso, since there are many, MANY cases were something would be similar to theft and not copyright infringement, it is stupid to try to use analogies of one to prove the other. Actually, to use analogies to prove anything is stupid. Trying to use some reasoning that completely miss the reasoning in copyright law to try to explain whe something is illegal or not also ends up wrong, no matter how you want to twist it by call ing things theft (since your reasoning will lead to a whole bunch of things that is perfectly legal still would be considered "theft" by you).
So why not try to use proper terminology, use the laws for telling what is legal or not and not your own ideas of what should be.
Yours is one of the better defenses of the anti-DRM position against the club-handed assertion that people should just shut up and enjoy iTMS. Well done.
First, I only buy singles. Songs which I cannot get without buying a full album, second I use bleep.com as well. Those 2 alone are enough and would seem to cater for mac users. It isn't because it is Apple. I agree DRM sucks but what can you do about it? What have you done about it anyway other then preach from your computer screen?
Jonathanjk.com
Downloads should be as cheap as possible, simply because distribution is so easy, in order to get any given artist's work exposed to as great an audience as possible. I'm prepared to pay for good-quality, well-tagged downloads, organised the way I want them (which is exactly what AllofMP3 does, bar creating playlists), but I'm not going to pay as much as I would for a CD. If I get a CD, I can rip it to any format I like, play it on any device I like, and I get something _physical_ (a box, a shiny bit of plastic, and some cover art) which I still think is important. (But maybe I'm getting old.)
Stealing is bad
Sharing is good
----------------------
Sharing is not stealing
But at least I have choice now- Download from gnutella 2 and give to friends, pay and download from ITMS, break DRM, give to friends, or pay and download from MP3tunes.com, then give to friends (30 seconds faster).*
:P.
Seriously though, whist I probably shall buy something from the store (if I can get there before the lawyers do), simply so as to protest about DRM. I don't really want to do what I've described above (see below disclaimer), but if anyone did, they could. Breaking iTunes's DRM is not difficult- see previous slashdot stories - and I am legally allowed to break it, under fair use law.
DRM does nothing to stop dedicated music sharers, other than hinder them; in just the same way that when I try and make a back-up copy of a game I've bought, and discover it's "protected", it only takes me about 30 seconds longer.
I'm very glad that this new service will come into existence, but I'd really rather the RIAA realised that DRM does nothing other than to hamper those with knowledge, and make those without re-download a DRM free version, as I know happening once or twice.
Disclaimer: The above post was for humour and/or illustration purposes only. I don't do any of the above. I'm 15. I'm British. Sue me
My UID is prime. Is yours?
"If you're really an "audiophile", then you don't get your music in digital form"
Is that available anymore? LP's are gone, and I don't have a turntable.
How can I get music stored in analog these days?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Now I know you really don't know what you're talking about. This is not a zero sum game, and wealth is most definitely not finite.
How is wealth measured exactly? Are you saying there is an infinite amount of silver and gold? Or an infinite amount of paper? How about oil, coal, cattle, fish, automobiles, wood, paper, plastic, land? Plays, novels, music, art, are wonderful stuff, and as long as people are alive, they will have value --- but only inasmuch as they have a physical presence in the form of a book or a cd, or are performed live.
In the end, there are two types of material -- inorganic (metals) and organic (living stuff). Both of these are in finite supply. You are the one who really doesn't know what you are talking about.
Maybe I don't get out enough, but I don't know anyone who is "fed up" with the DRM on iTunes. To be "fed up" implies that you've used it and dealt with it for long enough that you just can't take it any more. The only people I hear with big gripes about iTunes' DRM are people who never used it in the first place for that reason. They don't count. The people who actually buy music from iTunes are generally satisfied customers, as far as I can tell.
Maybe they meant "fed up with the fact that they can't find legal music to download without DRM".
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
What are you trying to acomplish by this type of reasoning? If I understand it is is along the lines of: 1) he is deprived of something 2) that is similar to stealing 3) Since some acts of copying is depriving someone of something, any act of copying is too and hence copying is identicval to theft and therefore illegal???
You completely and utterly missed my point. Whether it is legal or not is beside the point. (But copyright infringement is "illegal", so yes, it's illegal.) The point is that it's *wrong*. I realize that it's subjective, but I'm trying to describe why I believe taking something that doesn't belong to you, even if you think it's ok because it's a duplicate, or ok because you didn't take it from the owner, but rather someone who was "sharing" it, or ok because you wouldn't have bought it anyway, or ok because you DID end up buying it, or ok because you don't think the owner was "deprived" of anything, or ok because you think copyright is a tool for corporate profits, etc., etc., etc., that it's still morally WRONG, and just because things CAN be easily copied - things that someone invested in some cases LOTS of time and money in - doesn't mean they SHOULD be copied.
Get it?
I'm not imposing my will on you, I'm not trying to draw some convoluted chain of logic to say it's "illegal", I'm saying that whether or not it is legally "theft", by that very word, I think it indeed is THEFT, legally or no, and it most certainly is a violation of copyright, even you don't concede that it's "stealing". What we're all doing here is dancing around the issue that downloaders who have thought about this enough to justify it to themselves:
You don't like the law or think it's unfair, and you've painted this evil picture of the music industry, that may in fact be true. But instead of working to change the law(s) and/or the system, as the case may be (I realize there are some people here outside the US that believe it is perfectly legal, moral, and ethical for them to copy music that originates from US labels without paying for it), you've decided to just ignore it, or paint it as "activism" or "civil disobedience". Sorry, I simply don't buy it. That's all I'm saying. Take it or leave it.
You really are woefully inadequate at trolling.
I didn't say wealth is a zero sum game. You might want to get over yourself for a couple of nanoseconds, and stop putting words in my mouth.
An idea without a physical manifestation has no retail value. Get it? Go point out where I can purchase the idea of Beethoven's 5th. The notion is absurd.
Warp records already embraces no DRM. Their online store www.bleep.com provides MP3s at 192kps with (admittedly small) cover art. A full CD is $10.
Warp is not a huge label, nor is their music to everyones tastes, but it is a good start.
Personally I would like to see the cost be a little lower, considering that there is no physical distribution costs, but it is low enough that I would pay for a CD's worth of music, rather than get it from other sources.
sounds like it still has some drm to it just it has the code on the server?
>>I think the only true way to escape it is to get the artists to migrate away from the labels. Not gonna happen - ever. The labels provide money for new music equipment, money up front for them to make their music, money for sound editors and recorders, money for promotions etc etc. Getting recognized and contracted with a label or agent is the goal of every musician just like it is a high school and college football player to get recognized by a recruiter.
Wow.
1.) Not trolling.
2.) You were the one who said:
How is wealth measured exactly? Are you saying there is an infinite amount of silver and gold? Or an infinite amount of paper? How about oil, coal, cattle, fish, automobiles, wood, paper, plastic, land? Plays, novels, music, art, are wonderful stuff, and as long as people are alive, they will have value --- but only inasmuch as they have a physical presence in the form of a book or a cd, or are performed live.
In the end, there are two types of material -- inorganic (metals) and organic (living stuff). Both of these are in finite supply. You are the one who really doesn't know what you are talking about
in DIRECT response to this quote of mine:
Now I know you really don't know what you're talking about. This is not a zero sum game, and wealth is most definitely not finite.
The implication is that you disagree with the content of that statement.
If your issue wasn't with zero sum, and rather with the "finite" statement, ok, fine. But is it not a little absurd to say, essentially, that because there are limited physical resources to, say, produce compact discs or to support the processes to manufacture them, that therefore, "wealth" associated with this is finite? Sure, it's "finite", at some level - sometimes, in narrow areas, we even bump into resource limitations. But, as I read your response, the only purpose of refuting that statement is to also refute the concept that wealth is not zero sum. Now you appear to be saying that's not what you meant.
An idea without a physical manifestation has no retail value.
I wasn't even talking about that, so I have no idea where that came from. Sure, yes, there needs to be a physical manifestation. So what? That's irrelevant to what I was talking about.
This is twice now that you have talked about something completely unrelated to the subject at hand. I was trying to explain why I believed that taking something that the owner wishes you to pay for without permission, and without paying for it, is inappropriate. You twisted that around to talk about demanding payment for opening the door for old ladies, or Newton demanding payment for calculus. I never said anything of the sort. The fact is that someone COULD choose to demand payment for opening doors. What business is it of yours to stop them? What business is it of yours to steal that service? You didn't physically deprive the owner of anything... What's that? You didn't *agree* to pay the music owners anything, so therefore you don't have to? Ahh, I see.
But since it's clear from reading some of your posts that seem to disagree with most of the concepts of capitalism, corporatism, ownership, property, and everything associated with them and are essentially an out-and-out socialist, we'll likely not agree on any of these topics.
I should correct
during a party or gathering on private property
to read
during a party or gathering in a private residence
as that was the intent of my statement.
Most adults have firmly ossified musical tastes by the time they hit middle age. That's why stations are so generational: age groups gravitate to a corpus of music, and are generally quite happy that way.
Which is why we have so many gold-based radio formats: Classic Rock, several flavors of Oldies, Classic Country, Adult Contemporary variants, and the like. Adults generally listen to what they know. Generally.
There are adults -- and I'm sure some are reading here -- who continue to explore new artists and music. They're the exception, pop music's version of early adopters.
Or is the teen market driving the adult market?
YOUR teen years drive your present musical tastes.
I think you badly underestimate adult live performance attendence. Adults *are* exposed to a lot of music on TV: in commercials, sitcoms, movies, and on channels like VH-1.
I agree that MTV is positioned very young these days. I'm 43 and find very little there which appeals to me. That's due in part to MTV's shift from music videos to lifestyle programming, which is all about my kids, not me. I watch a lot of VH-1.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
solved by more sites like http:\\www.AllofMp3.com The user gets whatever encoding in whatever bitrate all in under 30 seconds of finding the song for pennies per song. If this were common practice there would be no need for p2p music swapping. People could get the music they want so cheap that the idea of sharing just wouldn't seem worth it anymore.
At last, at long last, we boil all the pretense of logic, argument, and reasoning away --- the smoke clears, and the crux of your "debate" is revealed. You personally think it is morally wrong to copy a book, cd, etc. That's it. No capitalism vs. socialism, no theft vs. copying, no law vs. lawlessness --- just you bleating "It's wrong, because it's wrong, because it's wrong wrong wrong!"
We are indeed most fortunate that not everyone views the subject the way you do. For, nothing would EVER be created. There is very little that is completely new. Almost every song, play, movie, piece of art borrows --- excuse me, in your language, STEALS --- from those who came before. When you play that guitar, you are stealing someone elses licks, chords, harmonies, styles. Do you have anything new to sing about? Love? Depression? War? It's all been said before. So, when you rearrange the words, they are not really yours, they are a permutation of someone else's, and so you owe them for STEALING their ideas. We see in practice how this goes: Disney drinks deep from the public domain (Snow White, Cinderella, etc.) But when it comes time for them add their contribution, NO WAY!!!! Mickey Mouse is THEIRS and THEIRS ALONE for all eternity. What hypocrisy!!!
It's actaully kinda murky. I guess it depends on how big the party or gathering was in your private resisdence and whether there was any kind of compensation.
Quoth The Law (section 110)
The parts I bold here show that parties where you play music may not be legal if the invites say "bring beer and chips". It's kind of irrelevant how private the property or residence. You could always play a CD for your family, or while others are in earshot because then you have the intent defense. However, you could have a private party, and recieve compensation for public performance of copyrighted works (again like in a previous post) if it was 'educational' (the code talks about face to face teaching situations, you might like reading it). Also note the religious and cheritable exemption. This allows for copyrighted music (and plays, covered in a different section) to be performed as part of church services whitout being infringement.
Anyhow. I hope this has shown just how ridiculous that copyright law in the U.S. has gotten. Some CD cases will even claim rights to performance and what not, so for a little funny extra cirricular, read all the fine print on some of your more popular CDs and see what gold you can find.
I guess I should note that IANAL and this is not legal advice.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
How do I get the tracks I want without buying an album or DRM then friend?
Jonathanjk.com
That's not necessairly true. Many bands have no ambition past signing to one of the indie mid-majors. I can't imagine too many of the bands on matador or subpop leaving for a major. Those labels are large enough to provide everything the band needs but still fairly small and outside the RIAA.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Idiot mods, I swear.
Ever been in the music industry? Ever been in a full time working band?
There are a LOT of bands out there that say "oh, we're better than $GROUP and they're on a label. it's so unfair" when the reality is, they're not better. They just think they are.
Not all bands are great bands and so label worthy. Sorry. It's just reality.