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RIAA Supporting Commercial P2P
cgibby98 writes "The AP reports: 'In the last few months, major record labels have signed licensing deals with companies working to field file-swapping services that would block unauthorized files from being traded online.' Most interesting is a service called Peer Impact, which 'can be used to find and purchase tracks from an initial catalog of a half-million songs from all the major labels.... After a user buys a song from Peer Impact, future buyers get it from that member -- or others who have gotten it in the meantime -- instead of from a central server. Users have to pay for each track they download, but sharing songs they've purchased from Peer Impact earns them credits they can spend on the service.'"
wait so they get to use my bandwidth and charge me per song?
SIGN ME UP!
So it's bit torrent but they charge you for it?
"Here, have a nice MP3, it'll costyou X amount of bandwidth and $1"
Yea I see THAT working.. cough..
I like muppets.
Wow--looks like they've found a way to get paid from one customer for using another customer's bandwidth. Oh well...it's good work if you can get it.
Is the RIAA actually going to try and work with technology? I thought the jamming the head in the sand and yelling aproach was working so well..
This isn't actually a bad idea from a service prospective.. you have your users handling the bulk of the traffic loads, users get songs faster with swarming techniques, and the RIAA gets money. I mean.. the artist.. its all about the artist remember.
I don't know that I would use their service, but trying to work with technology and doing something new is lots better than their previous litigation efforts.
(Of course, I'm assuming this is built on Windows DRM.. ah well.. Are they going to be so restrictive as to DRM limit the files to remove all usefullness to the user? No CD burning, coping to devices.. heck.. copying to my iPod? Oh wait, they said that was Apple's fault for not using an *open* format like MS's..)
LOS ANGELES -- Four years after it shuttered the original Napster with a legal assault, the recording industry is taking a different approach to online file-swapping: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Recording companies have begun taking steps to legitimize the peer-to-peer technology that lets computer users share songs, video and other files with one another online.
However the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a file-swapping decision expected as early as Thursday, the technology appears irrepressible.
In the last few months, major record labels have signed licensing deals with companies working to field file-swapping services that would block unauthorized files from being traded online.
"There's only two options here," said Michael Goodman, an analyst at The Yankee Group market research firm. "You either license it -- and you find a way to license it and monetize it -- or you don't license it and it gets traded anyway."
Some 330 million tracks were purchased online last year from online stores such as Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes. But around 5 billion were downloaded from free file-sharing networks, he said.
Meanwhile, recording companies have sued 11,700 computer users for file-swapping. Of those, 2,500 cases have been settled, typically for about $3,000 each.
The Supreme Court is considering whether companies behind unrestricted file-sharing services -- Grokster and Morpheus -- should be liable for copyright infringement. The case's outcome could speed the way for licensed peer-to-peer services.
Even so, it remains to be seen whether those industry-endorsed alternatives can attract people who now tap open file-swapping networks using such programs as eDonkey, BitTorrent and Kazaa.
"When it comes down to it, why is somebody going to pay for something they can get for free?" said Mac Padilla, 21, a student who lives in Los Angeles.
The industry may know the answer at least in part as early as next month, when Peer Impact, one of the licensed file-swapping services, is slated to launch.
Its software can be used to find and purchase tracks from an initial catalog of a half-million songs from all the major labels, said Gregory Kerber, head of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.-based Wurld Media Inc., the firm behind the service.
After a user buys a song from Peer Impact, future buyers get it from that member -- or others who have gotten it in the meantime -- instead of from a central server. Users have to pay for each track they download, but sharing songs they've purchased from Peer Impact earns them credits they can spend on the service.
At launch, at least, Peer Impact will not let users share songs from their own collections.
Another company to sign licensing deals with major and independent record labels is Snocap Inc., which was founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning.
The company's software is designed to track songs being swapped online and notify record labels when someone tries to share a song that hasn't been licensed for free distribution. Snocap also has a deal with file-sharing software maker Mashboxx to block unlicensed tracks from moving through its network.
Mashboxx is set to launch a beta test version next month, said Wayne Rosso, chief executive for the Virginia Beach, Va.-based company. Rosso, who once headed the company behind the Grokster file-swapping software, says Mashboxx users will be able to search for tracks across peer-to-peer networks, upload them and share those that are not restricted by record labels using Snocap's software.
Through Snocap, the labels will be able to assign usage rules for each track, deciding whether users on Mashboxx or other peer-to-peer networks can listen to a track a few times before they must purchase it, what sort of copy restrictions each file will have, or whether it is michael's or cowbowneal's turn for taco's backside, for example.
Rosso cla
I don't actually disagree with the idea (although coming from the RIAA, it certainly feels like Dr. Mengele taking up pediatrics). But I mean, look at the "artists" they propose: Gwen Stefani, Will Smith, 50 cent... I think I'll stay on conventional illegal P2P for now, thank you very much, until they propose music for download.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
So... we pay for the distribution now... the manufacturing has vanished... and still they'll try and DRM it (making less useful than a plain CD) and will probably will charge it at the same or higher rate than CD's.
This isn't a win... it's a lose.
If they drop the prices to reflect that manufacturing and distribution have now been removed... and also to reflect that now we just want the good stuff and not the padded albums... then they might have something.
As long as the prices are low (i'm sure they won't be) and the credits earned for sharing the file are fair, then this sounds like a reasonable compromise.
We get music, legally, and affordably (hopefully). We also have the opportunity to earn credits for using our bandwidth.
They get money, which is all they really want anyway.
Don't Tread on Me
Users have to pay for each track they download, but sharing songs they've purchased from Peer Impact earns them credits they can spend on the service.
And how long will it take until someone figures out a way to manipulate the system to earn the credits without actually sharing? I can see it now--'You have 20,000,000 credits, which is enough to purchase 500,000 songs.'
If the artists aren't going to get any royalties from this, then this is the RIAA committing piracy.
Was there any claim that they wouldn't be receiving the royalties guaranteed them in their contracts? Oh, and most of the time, the artists don't hold the copyrights to their works anyway, they sold them along with their soul in order to get signed to a particular label.
If the RIAA didn't give the artists any royalties due, they would be breaching their contract with the artists, but not committing piracy.
What?
*ahem* RTFA?
It's a file sharing system meant to both supply legal downloads on a p2p basis and encourage sharing. If you have a song, and someone else sees you have a song and they download it, you get some credits toward the service. It's a clever "social networking" kind of way to get music out there to more people than it otherwise might have reached AND it's an embrace of the legitimate power of p2p.
That said, this isn't exactly an ultimate solution and it certainly doesn't do anything to repair the RIAA's image. Baby steps. Baby steps.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
This service's restrictions will keep it from being a major player, and until the RIAA gets it that no one will change until they open up their restrictions, piracy will always be huge, and the one music store that supports the most popular player will remain the most popular option (and only option for many) for purchasing legal music.
This market needs competition! Be creative, RIAA!
I'd rather be cycling.
1. buy all songs currently in top10 from your 100mbit university connection
2. wait untel the rest of the world downloads them from you, where you earn credits
3. you buy more songs, but now with the credits
4. people download more songs from you
5. repeat step 3
6. profit! (or at least, free legal songs).
For RIAA, this can only work if they give very little credits to uploaders.
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
How is it even possible that the RIAA things this is a good idea?! This is quite possibly the stupid thing I've ever heard of. In fact, I think I've heard this buisiness plan before. Does anyone recall the Scour Network? Basically it was a napster-era general use peer to peer service that got taken down and ressurected as a pay service. Basically, users had to pay to use lame content that they hosted themselves for others to download. You're paying a service to use your own connection for them. The idea of being compensated for this with a points system is laughable. People share music on peer to peer services because they love music and they want everyone to enjoy the songs that they have in their collection. People download songs on peer to peer networks because it's free, convenient, and offers a great selection.
What the RIAA has done is taken the bad parts about legitimate music (paying, poor selection, hassle) and merged them with the downsides of Peer to Peer file sharing (slow download speeds, having to upload on an asymmetrical connection). The rewards system seems to be a new concept but overall, they've taken the downsides of two distribution methods and are sure to fail, as others have in the past using this same exact strategy. Sometimes I wonder if they live in their own little magic world where ideas like this sound less retarded, because that's the only logical explanation I can come up with for the creation of this service.
Peer Impact users can earn up to 10% of the price of shared tracks by becoming "NoiseMakers", music activists who pester others in chat rooms, email, message board postings, etc.
You buy the song first, and download it. Someone else buys the song, and downloads it from you. Others buy the song, and download it from you and the second guy, etc. The service gets the cash, but without the cost of the bandwidth.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
My cable ISP has something in their TOS that says I can not use my connection for profit (making money for my bandwidth). According to that, there's no way I can use this P2P legally if I get credits for my bandwidth which can be used to purchase things which normally cost a set amount.
Make your computer faster: rm -rf
Since you get "credits" for letting people download from you, the P2P leech problem simply goes away- *everyone* not on dialup is going to want to be a server. The RIAA/record labels will spend close to 0 on bandwidth- a few seed copies and purchase info is all they need.
Presumeably they'll have some way to make sure only good copies stay on the network, thus removing the whole "I can't get the entire album at a decent bitrate, and Track 3 is all messed up" problem so common in current P2P.
If they get their entire catalog out fast, they could also return to the good old days of having a massive variety of stuff to sample from. This is still the problem with iTunes- obscure stuff just doesn't exist yet for whatever reason. Here you dump off one copy of some wierd goth/emo/trance/metal hybrid from Eastfarkistan and you'll get a few people to host it.
Of course, being the major album labels, they'll probably only seed the latest copies of Jessica Simpson and (insert latest dead rapper) at 64 kbit/second while managing to use 1MB/sec of bandwidth for DRM checks, but we'll see.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
From TFA so it is not off-topic:
The Supreme Court is considering whether companies behind unrestricted file-sharing services -- Grokster and Morpheus -- should be liable for copyright infringement.
Do the labels think that the Supreme Court has any say in the online music world or technology? Sure it can regulate hardware manufacturers, developers and programmers but it can't regulate the use of the software.
Whatever the supreme court decides will already be benign when they reach a decision. New technology will be out or older technology more utilized (such as Usenet or private FTP servers). I say bring it because the only people that are going down are the ones that punch their hardest into thin air.
Reading the FAQ gives plenty of reasons not to use this service:
- No ipod support: No, unfortunately Peer Impact(TM) does not support iPod technology at this time.
- Songs format: Songs purchased in Peer Impact(TM) are provided in Windows Media Application format (WMA) and are protected via Microsoft DRM.
- Firewall: If your PC is protected by a firewall, you can still act as a source of content to other users and earn Peer Cash. However, PCs seen as firewalls can only act as a source to non-firewalled users, never to other firewalled PCs. Therefore, to MAXIMIZE YOUR EARNING POTENTIAL, you should really make an effort to open your firewall.
Great advise there guys!
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I do support the artists directly, at least the good ones (which are usually not on the major labels). I buy music from the artist directly on their site or from Indie Music. If I have to go through a major label, then, IMHO, that is not supporting the artist.
BTW... next time, AC, try posting as yourself. You may appear to have a little more credibility that way.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
It should be cheaper to buy from a peer on the network than from the central server, because the server adds no value in that case. You aren't using their disk storage and you aren't using their bandwidth. All you should have to pay is a royalty of a few pennies, to go to the coypright holder.
What is really needed is a way to take the RIAA out of the loop and have royalties go directly to the copyright holder (which eventually would be the performer or composer for new works).
From the FAQ (bolding mine, of course):
...
Q: Will Peer Impact work from behind a firewall?
A: If your PC is protected by a firewall, you can still act as a source of content to other users and earn Peer Cash. However, PCs seen as firewalls can only act as a source to non-firewalled users, never to other firewalled PCs. Therefore, to MAXIMIZE YOUR EARNING POTENTIAL, you should really make an effort to open your firewall. To determine whether you are seen as a firewalled user or not, go to "Preferences" under the Tools menu. Choose the "Transfers" option; the last item listed says "Behind Firewall". If this says "Yes", you should open your firewall so that you may be used as a source by other firewalled PCs.
MrRogers(2)
1.) Set up service with the downsides of buying music (having to pay, shitty RIAA-only selection)
2.) Match that with the downsides of peer to peer file sharing (having to upload, disorganization, no physical cd)
3.) Slap on some draconian Microsoft DRM for good measure
4.) ???
5.) Chapter 11!
Note: Step 4 may or may not be an earthquake caused by everyone on the planet going "huh?!" at the same time.
Also, I needed a title for the post so I made a random one and now all I can think of is eating babies.
What is really needed is a way to take the RIAA out of the loop and have royalties go directly to the copyright holder (which eventually would be the performer or composer for new works).
Well, which is it, the performer or the composer? What about the producer? The recording engineer? Who's tracking all this data? Who's holding the money? (Please don't tell me it's the lead singer, or the code monkey who set up the torrent...)
There is still a business to the distribution of Art, and although the Internet may have made the process "simpler" to the consumer, the accounting and funds disbursement is still a nightmare. There's a reason, beyond the "Look, Ma, I signed with A&M!" appeal that artists sign away rights to Big Businesses: The Big Businesses handle the big business, and that frees up creators to create, and not balance books, write checks, and lick envelopes all day long.
Do many artists sign away too many rights? Are the labels and publishers too greedy? Inarguably. But artists need some middle-ground choice between being a slave and becoming a CPA (I'm not sure there is any genuine substantive difference between either fate, but you get my drift...)
Interesting idea. Credits for bandwidth. The problem I see, is this. What will they allow you do with a credit?
If you can get new songs with it, I can easily see someone with a big pipe seeding the popular songs to get the ones they really want. If you offer anything other than new songs, no one will seed. 'Access to exclusive videos' or cereal box gimmicks, won't get my bandwidth. And what is to stop someone from creating a garbage file named some popular song, give it the right md5 (or whatever) hash, and seed it?
I am sure they will retreat to the Napster idea of having centralized listing for the songs, so bandwidth & hosting costs will not be zero, they will be less. Napster had hundreds of servers before they went down. I say they will do this because this is the only way to control who gets what. You have to come to the central servers and for a cost (better be less than $.99 if they are getting rid of most bandwidth costs) your program gets a list of IP's hosting the song, and connects to them.
What'd really be smart is to use something akin to bittorrent for this. Let many people seed the song so rather than getting 'the fastest' connection, you (roughly) get the sum of the fastest connections. You wouldn't have 'poisoning' problems Kazaa does. You also could automatically pick up on a file if your connection drops out, or the other guys does (the bane of napster). If you controlled the trackers and just slighly modified bittorent so you never see the torrent file, (so you cannot redistribute access to the song) it'd be much better. Today's technology versus 5 years ago.
This is a good idea. Will it catch on with the public? Depends on how shiny the interface is, and how quickly they offer iPod friendly music. Will it catch on with smart people? DRM? Ahem, no thanks. I've got allofmp3.com.
Imagine a more subtle approach: thanks to their filesharing app, the RIAA can link IP addresses to name/address data. Then mine IP addresses from other p2p networks, and rather than having to go through the tedious process of getting the name/address data out of the ISP, the RIAA can just look it up in their own database.
If the artists aren't going to get any royalties from this
That wouldn't really be different than the current situation. New artists get screwed out of pretty much all royalties anyway. The only musicians making money on royalties are no longer bound by their first recording contract and have much more favorable terms.
Excuse my ignorance, but how can they be sure someone won't just hack the client into a non paying program? Won't they need some system to validate that the user is legitament and has the appropriate credits? If so, they will need a bunch of servers anyway. If not, sign me up for the cracked client.
lol: You see no door there!
Is part of the alure of P2P and huge p2p networks is not just getting free music. It is the ability to get ANY music you want. You are not limited to what they think might be the top 1 million sellable songs.
I Might want to listen to Croatian rock... I might want to listen to some Russian heavy metal... I might want to listen to some South African Youth Choir... My chances of finding that on iTunes is slim..
Until Ligitimate music services can offer a library of hundreds of millions of songs from every genre, from every language, from evey country of the world... They have work to do and ways to improve.
Not to mention that frequently, the music you buy off iTunes is not FLAC quality, something that when I make my own portalbe music for my own portalbe plays I often use
The typical situation is that the artist signs with the label and then the work that they produce is actually considered "work-for-hire" and the copyright is owned by the label at that point, which the contract then dictates what the artist receives, etc.
Another typical situation would be that the artist creates the work outside the label. Then the artist holds the copyright; however, they have the transfer their rights to a label in exchange for publicity, publishing, etc. (Not that they have to, but the label won't have it any other way more than likely.)
Copyright actually consists of many rights, which include, inter alia, the exclusive right to:
- reproduce the work
- prepare derivative works
- distribute the work
- perform the work publicly (applies to only certain classes)
- display the work publicly (applies to only certain classes)
It is possible to assign only some of these rights to other individuals, which may be another way that the music industry gets things done. The sad truth is that because of the oligopoly of radio stations held by a few media giants, it is difficult or almost impossible to get anything done with major record labels, who are only interested in screwing artists out of every dime they have.
What?
I think the appropriate term for what the RIAA does to artists is "rape".
What?
--- What
I want a site run by the recording labels, preferably all of them together. You sign up for an account for a reasonable rate, maybe $20/year or something. This buys you access to the site. The site then contains a database of all their music. I mean all of it, less popular music, stuff out of print, etc. Digital storage is cheap, there's no excuse. The site allows you to browse the libraries by type, artist, related music, etc. It suggests new music to you based off of past buys, or what you are looking at now. You can preview tracks, probably at a decreased quality and only a clip.
Sales would be credit based, you buy song credits, probably $0.50 per song, in increments that are economicly feasable, like $10 or something. Then when you want a song, you tell it to download that. The song is sent from their high speed datacentre(s) to you. I'd have two versions available, a normal compressed quality like 128k OGG or something for a credit, or the full loslessly compressed track for 2 (costs more bandwidth). When feasable I'd offer high resolution orignal masters at 24-bit and high frequency rates as well.
A system like this I would use because of the simplicity and access to what I want. If I could really get the music I like, all of it, and get it at a good quality, I have no problem paying for it.
That would be my ideal service.
I suspect the parent may be right. A 'copyright' is actually a bundle of individually assignable rights. The courts have generally held that the original author owns each right unless they specifically assign that right. The problem this leads to is that the contracts before the mid-90's didn't address the 'transmission over the internet' rights, which means the RIAA doesn't have that particular copyright. However, the author did assign the 'reproduce' and 'distribution' rights. The end result of all this is that the RIAA can't license an online music store b/c they don't have the internet retransmission right and the artist can't license it because they don't have the duplication right.
I would just like to comment on the whole Peer Impact thing, since I have actually used the service for quite some time now. First off, I have found it to be a very good program that is basically the best way for you to buy music online. The song selection is already quite good, and they are adding more content daily. The layout of the program as well as the technical support is also very good:
.99 cents each or you can buy a whole album for usually 9.99.
.99 at itunes with nothing in return then I will do that. If you want to check it out for yourselves go to www.peerimpact.com and test the beta. They are even giving people 5 bucks to try it out.
In terms of actually buying songs, they are the typical
You can use your credit card or debit card to make purchases one at a time, or you can load as much as you want into your account to draw from as you need it. (i.e. I put 20 bucks in there to last me a few weeks or whatever)
Since all of the songs originally come from their server (even though they are eventually distributed by individuals) the quality is always good (128 wma) and you never have to worry about a crappy download or spyware or the wrong song or something. I know that this is one of the main reasons I was fed up with the free P2Ps.
Finally, I would just like to say for all those people who are complaining about having to pay for music. Obviously the RIAA isn't going to give music away, this is simply another, cheaper and easier way to purchase your music. They know that people are still going to get music for free because, lets be serious, no matter how good a service is nothing can compete with free. But, people will pay for quality, and ease of use, and that is what this and other pay services offer. If i can use this and save 50 cents on each of my songs instead of paying