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RIAA 'Elektra V. Barker' Case Is Settled
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Elektra v. Barker, one of the leading cases repudiating the RIAA's 'making available' theory, has been settled. Unlike in most cases, the actual settlement agreement (PDF) is on file with the Court, and a matter of public record. Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses — including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement — will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues. Ms. Barker, a young social worker who lives in the Bronx, once told p2pnet 'I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.'"
RIP Kokanee Ranger.
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I guess her lawyer's barker was worse than her biter?
Barker: We had milk crates filled with albums....
Elektra: So what have you done for us lately?
Hans Dannik
I haven't seen the commercial yet, you insensitive, and off-topic, clod.
Any chance we'll get some of the reasoning behind the settlement? I understand that taking these thugs to court is a heavy burden, but after fighting it so long, why give up now?
But I understand the reasons she settled.
The funny thing is that the milk crates were almost certainly stolen and illegal for them to have as well.
I bet she stole the milk crates too.
"We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."
That's so sad but so true. I guess the truth is I don't listen to mainstream music anymore. It's kinda something I don't want anything to do with and the greedy record companies are the reason. The RIAA have turned what should be a cultural commodity and property of the people into a liability. Fuck the RIAA and everybody associated with them.
I bet the whole court thing isn't easy at all, all the stress over something that's gotten so ridiculous. I hope she finds some relief in the settlement, but it would have been really nice to have another person fighting back.
She could'a been'a contenda'!
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Not a lot of money, but much better than wasting more time in court.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So...did she steal the milk crates, as well?
=Smidge=
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
That about sums it up. After a lengthy court battle the RIAA settled for what I'd guess is a few hours of lawyers fees. Essentially the RIAA figured they couldn't win and decided to pack it up in fear the arguments against them would be ruled valid.
AccountKiller
This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.
indeed, these rascals are alienating untold numbers of youth from music. just for a few dollars more, they are not only killing an industry, but an ART. no exaggeration - dont just think about the actual number sued - think about how many people, friends, relatives, colleagues and alike, got adversely affected by what their acquaintance went through. and they are doing it for what ? to sustain an outdated business model.
its a crime against humanity, civilization. whereas today's courts are too 'old' to understand the matter in its core, future generations of judges and lawmakers wont be as such. woe to the people of young generations who join riaa in their shitty crusade by working for them or the media cartels - for they will still be alive when future generations take the matter into hand, whereas the bosses who used them to their own selfish ends will be long dead.
Read radical news here
"We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult."
No one is saying that computer files themselves are illegal. Nor is anyone suddenly claiming that ALL music in electronic form stored on your computer is illegal. We all had albums, 8-tracks, and cassette tapes when we were young too. You were sued for the thought and claim that what you had was stolen property. BIG difference.
RIAA Celebrates 50 Years Of Gold
Records
(copy-paste from: http://www.riaa.com/)
What happened (Good, Bad, and Ugly) ?
This is Slashdot, where:
1.) Ripping off artists to make sure they don't get paid is okay.
2.) Artists are victims of evil, oppressive record labels even though they willingly signed their contracts.
3.) Any groups attempting to stop piracy by going after individual infringers--exactly what Slashdotters were saying they should do back during the Napster lawsuit--is evil harassment of innocent people.
4.) Piracy is okay because it's free advertising and other people will eventually pay those artists through t-shirts or something.
In conclusion, pirates do absolutely everything possible to scapegoat the RIAA because it makes them feel less guilty for ripping artists off and not paying them for their work. Slashdot plays along by posting non-stop anti-RIAA articles intended for people to get together and mindlessly blather about how great piracy is and how evil the RIAA is for daring to protect artist rights.
Modbomb incoming.
"Sufferin' succotash."
how did this work? Did the plaintiffs offer a settlement, did Ms. Barker ask for one, and in either case what was the reasoning behind the decision to settle?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This isn't a settlement, this looks like she paid $750 x 8 for the songs.
It looks like she created a lot of noise and fury over nothing, and probably set back whatever anti-RIAA cause is out there back. This will do nothing but encourage the RIAA to continue with their tactics.
RIAA represents only a fraction of recorded music. Depending on where you live, you might even have an opportunity several times per week, to hear it live -- and buy a CD directly from the band.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I read the pdf of the settlement, and it says that the defendant(baker) has to pay the plantiff(riaa) $6050 in 55 monthly installments.. and that is it!!!
Am I missing something here?
Elektra sued Barker?
I guess the Price was indeed Right.
Get back into court, we now have clear evidence of a history of blatant defiance of property ownership and flaunting her stolen goods!
I'd have to read the injunction, but I'm guessing that it means that Barker doesn't actually have to pay any of this unless she screws up somehow.
because I didn't know Carmen Electra recorded any music, let alone sued Bob Barker for copyright infringement.
[/sarcasm]
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Those old women won't be able to properly
adjudicate a dispute on the Morse Code
in less than another 40 years.
jr
Where "ripping off artists to make sure they don't get paid is okay" as long as you've got them to sign some kind of contract, however convoluted, because of course all musicians are expert contract lawyers AND are negotiating on a level playing field.
Get this through your head: there are very few good guys.
Napster were bad guys (and the fact that there's still a "Napster" in any form gives me a bad taste in my mouth).
The labels are the bad guys.
People sourcing ripped torrents are the bad guys.
The RIAA are the bad guys.
People illegally posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet are the bad guys.
The judges who let the RIAA get away with it are the bad guys.
Psystar are bad guys.
Pointing out that one set of bad guys are bad guys doesn't mean that another set of bad guys are good guys.
For NYCL; Okay - so I am bit slow on legalese - so forgive the grade-school level question. She took up the settlement (can't blame her - the soap opera has to be stressful) however, all the arguments and defenses are laid out that any other person targeted by the RIAA could use these as the blueprint for their defense, and have a judge rule on them? (correct?) Could then someone include her settlement in a further class action of some form, and get it overturned ? If so, this would be more of a 'baton relay' than a capitulation as some suggest.
This is just a settlement between two parties. No judicial logic has been applied. The defendant will pay the plaintiff a little over $6000. That sounds pretty cheap to me so I'm guessing that the plaintiff thought the defense would win at least some of the arguments and didn't want to see a precedent set. There's the rub. If the case had gone to the end, there would have been a court ruling. Then we would have had some reasons to work with and a precedent that could have been used for future cases.
Man, I can't wait for the CIAA (Cow Industry Association of America) to come after her as well.
I mean, if a 99cent song is worth $150k in damages, think how much an actual milk crate is worth!
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
For NYCL; Okay - so I am bit slow on legalese - so forgive the grade-school level question. She took up the settlement (can't blame her - the soap opera has to be stressful) however, all the arguments and defenses are laid out that any other person targeted by the RIAA could use these as the blueprint for their defense, and have a judge rule on them? (correct?)
Correct.
Hopefully they will.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
And thats paid over the course of almost 55 months. NYCL was one of the defendant's main lawyers (see settlement), so he must know more than what's coming out. Six grand over 4.5 years hardly seems like a "victory".
In fact, evil (suing a woman with multiple sclerosis who didn't use a computer) harassment (suing a woman on disability benefits who didn't use file-sharing software) of innocent people is what's going on. And that is without noting that their damages are about $0.20/song (at retail prices, $0.99/song) but they are asking for the statutory $150K per, that they aren't actually proving their cases (have you looked at what they pretend is "evidence"?), that they are abusing the Federal Process (illegal joinder, failure to cite adverse opinions, citing opinions that have been reconsidered).
"Now Ms. Barker's attack on the constitutionality of the RIAA's damages theory, as well as her other defenses -- including unclean hands based on MediaSentry's illegal behavior, the RIAA's inability to sue for statutory damages, and innocent infringement -- will not be adjudicated, and it will fall on the shoulders of other defendants to carry the day on those issues."
Perhaps it will be the case that, now that the arguments are spelled out, the RIAA will give up because their position it is so patently a loser?
I'm thinking of the explanation as to why the GPL has never been "tested" in court - it is so straightforward and so strong that any lawyer who actually passed the bar won't take the case, because it's a sure loss.
Then again, this is the RIAA...
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Courtney Love
June 14, 2000
Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
Of course, they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records, getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit.
Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... they can pay the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house. Like I said: Sharecropping. Our media says, "Boo hoo, poor pop stars, they had a
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Man, she's just asking for it now. Next thing you know she'll say she has her mail in USPS mail trays right by her front door.
I like music
how ingenious! about half of your "bad guys" are not actually bad guys, but when you lump them all together, maybe nobody will notice.
How were those milk crates obtained?
I think it is amusing how far they'll go to pilfer little sums of money from their customers, all the while ruining their own reputation so much as to insure their downfall.
People illegally posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet are the bad guys
im sorry, but that's just not so black and white unless you're a "law = morality" zealot.
Case and point: rifftrax.
This service is cheap, and is one of the few ways hollywood dreck is palatable.. and hilarious. There's just one problem.. the sync work, assuming you can do it yourself, tends to deflate the punchlines, and because of the DMCA and derivative work case law, the good Mr. Nelson cannot market pre-made dvd's. It is to the community's advantage to buy the trax off the site, but share the job of syncing.
It's far from perfect, but with the law lagging so far behind or simply not making allowances for something like this, it's simply one of the best ways to gain full enjoyment from a purchased product.
I like to compare this aspect of the file-sharing phenomenon to the concept of the "tab" from older, more familiar times. Have a little more trust in the public than "i can subpoena your accounts and have them frozen if you don't pay me back"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
And here I thought Carmen Elektra and Bob Barker had settled some kind of sexual harassment case outside of court.
My question is, I've read the settlement, and it seems pretty "boilerplate", but What does NYCL, (If he can talk about it) think of a) the terms of the settlement, and b) the fact that it was settled at all?
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
Come, come. I dislike the "young social worker" too, but thug she ain't. Just a small thief, unlucky enough to get caught.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
4.) Troll Slashdot and make yourself feel good while actually providing nothing new to the discussion.
5.) Get accused of either being an RIAA astroturfing shill for the media restriction industry (or simply an ignorant fool) by an Anonymous Coward!
Psystar are bad guys.
How is Psystar the bad guys? If anything, Psystar are awesomely great guys, standing against the idiocy of EULAs and Apple's strong-arming.
Psystar are very unusual in that they have had the cojones to stand up to Apple in what seems an almost suicidal move.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Ah, so the REAL win here is that the next incident won't have to reinvent the case from scratch, but instead can build directly on all the records from this case.
Should save both time and money for the next victim who fights the RIAA, and hopefully make it that much easier to progress to the next step after this one.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Why precisely is Psystar a bad guy?
"We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."
/RIAA
RIAA
Why is that consumer talking about "music" when this is a question of "content"?
Actually, the people sourcing ripped torrents are saints. As are the people posting copyrighted binaries to Usenet. These people deserve lifetime supplies nachos and cold beer of their choice.
Ah, so the REAL win here is that the next incident won't have to reinvent the case from scratch, but instead can build directly on all the records from this case. Should save both time and money for the next victim who fights the RIAA, and hopefully make it that much easier to progress to the next step after this one.
That was the purpose I had in starting my blog. And it has worked. The lawyers representing defendants learn from each other, and stand on the shoulders of those going before us.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
And so that's why she took the money, instead of settling her right to do what she wanted with her music.
And for those saying the case was dragging on too long for her to pay her lawyers, just realize that the RIAA settles only for less than it would pay in fines and fees, and only when it's going to lose. So if she and her lawyer had hung on through a trial, they'd have gotten more money. Which is all that the lawyers care about, and their businesses are designed for them to wait - and they have to do it if their client wants to go through with it. So Barker is the one who sold out her principles for a little temporary safety and an early paycheck.
--
make install -not war
*** "I love music. I grew up in a house where music was played all the time. We had milk crates filled with albums.... So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult. It's a slap in the face. This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music."" ***
Well, if you downloaded music without having legal rights to it, you deserve to pay.
Psystar are the good guys.
Pssh, what, you think you can slip that past us just by putting it at the end of the list? /third to last/ in the list to do that.
You've got to put it
Copying a work is preserving a work.
Even an imperfect copy is better than none at all.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This experience has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted to swear off music.
That's what I've done. I almost exclusively listen to NPR nowadays and I would encourage everyone else to do the same. Although for me it was a combination of the RIAA and the fact that I don't like any of the new music from the decade of the '00's. But the fact that the music industry goes around attacking their customer base would be sufficient to make me just avoid music altogether.
The most interesting aspect of re-reading Love's rant from the year 2000 is how open she was to putting a torch to the whole, stinkin' mess, and trying something genuinely, radically new.
She was way ahead of the curve -- too far ahead.
Eight years on, the labels are still in control, and the lack of quality and innovation is worse than ever, with no end in sight. From a business standpoint, one has to admit that the labels have done a terrible job dealing with the internet. I can't think of any other business that has failed so spectacularly. EVERBODY has learned how to make money using the internet. There are WHOLE SECTORS of the economy that have been invented, grown up, and are making real money based on the internet.
But from the music distributors, we get lawsuits and six radio stations all playing the same classic rock playlist.
It's just sad and pathetic, really. It's clear they have no earthly idea how to make a buck.
When I read this rant before, I was saying to myself, "yeah, right -- in your dreams". Now, I'm not so sure. I think I may be ready now.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
But it turns out that she's paying the RIAA, instead of the RIAA paying her. So she lost.
The RIAA couldn't have been on the back foot, reeling from the judge's ruling in Part 1. If it had been so, they'd be paying her a settlement to avoid Part 2.
I think you need to define what "bad" means, because otherwise you make no sense at all.
How the fuck was Napster the bad guys? As far as I can remember it was some dink in a university who made some software to help him and his friends share music. Fuck. Get a goddamn perspective.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
$45K/year is about what the average household income is in the U.S. Now substitute venture capitalist for recording company in the article. What does the average guy who started a software company get? About the same deal as this mythical band got. The band didn't have to take the contract. Neither does the software engineer. Both can try to make it on their own by growing their customer base organically. But if you decide to take the man's money in order to shortcut the process, why do you think that you are entitled to the riches? It was the VC or recording company that took the risk that you were going to be a flop. It isn't your money that is being risked, it is theirs.
FreeSpeech.org
How is Psystar the bad guys?
Because the result of Psystar's actions will be bad for their customers and Apple's customers alike, and benefit nobody, and if you can't see why then I'm not going to explain it again.
PS: that should be "How are Psystar the bad guys?" or "How is Psystar a bad guy?".
Napster's business model was morally equivalent to that of a fence. Their income was based entirely on promoting illegal activities.
There's a difference between those examples, and that's who's profiting.
Amusing as "the laws of toon robotics"* may be, they are intended as a joke. I don't think that appending "unless it is funny" to ones actions changes them from being wrong to being right.
Now, on the other hand, it is possible that you've found a gray area. Certainly they exist. And there are also undoubtedly areas where the labels do wonderful work for their artists, and the RIAA's actions are entirely reasonable and justified. In fact I suspect that the balance of such exceptions on the side of the music industry, but I wouldn't quibble about them in the RIAA's favor any more than I would quibble about them in *ster's favor. There's a reason that exceptions are *called* exceptions, after all.
* The laws of toon robotics:
First Law. A robot must not embarrass a human or through inaction allow a human to be embarrassed, unless it is funny.
Second Law. A robot must provide any straight lines or other schtick requested by a human, except when this violates the first law, unless it is funny.
Third Law. A robot must maintain its patter and promote its own schtick, except when this violates the first or second laws, unless it is funny.
You're supposed to notice. But you're supposed to *think* about it. Glad to see the slashjerk effect is still alive.
I'm asking to have someone cite a source. Not to come up with numbers that they can't even confirm.
Maybe you should pop over onto some musician's forum and ask? Contract signings are individual and confidential, and that's how the labels want them since it's not in their interest for their near-fraud to be public. Few bands are going to risk pinning the details up on their websites so that people can laugh at how they were duped into near-unpaid servitude by the offer of a shiny advance that, it turns out, is far less than the contrived industry costs which they have agreed to reinburse out of future earnings.
A few high profile musicians have detailed, with numbers, exactly how music business finances work, the classic Salon article by Courtney Love being the best known --- someone posted it in this thread too. But since you're clearly trying to suggest that no problem exists, no doubt you'll disparage her for one reason or another and discount her figures.
Well let's put the shoe on the other foot: unless you can point to figures indicating the opposite, then the few sets of figures that have been presented publicly (and not refuted by anyone) hold, and NYCL's 2nd-hand knowledge of the sad state of affairs holds too. Your turn --- show us the opposite, if you can.
next time i'll use peer guardian!
"So to be sued for having music files on my computer is an insult."
While the enemy (content producers) tend to lie and cheat, we should still strive to take the high road.
While I'm sure the record industry would rather that we not have music files on our computer unless they were purchased in digital form, that's not what she was sued over.
"Putting music files on your computer" and "Putting music files on your computer and then running file-sharing software" is a difference which may be indistinguishable to some, but it makes all the difference as far as the law is concerned.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Fight the good fight?
I'm sorry, but what did she do? Was she building the case? documenting the tatics? researching the topics? No, her attorneys were doing all that. All she had to do was show up in court (if required) and pay, and it's not like she was in court every day.
She obviouslly was running out of money and she knew she wasn't going to win. That is why she backed down.
Dear NYCL,
Can $3 get them a logo branded pen from your office? : )
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
and if you can't see why then I'm not going to explain it again.
Again? You never explained jack in the fist place.
Just because you got some mods-on-crack to mod your original post up, doesn't make it valuable or truthful, and does NOT fool the majority of its readers.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
So who paid for this woman to be prosecuted? Well, if you bought any music by any of the bands at http://www.atlanticrecords.com/artists just before or during this trial, then YOU might have helped to fund this prosecution.
Artists that financially support this action include: Bjork, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin, Missy Elliot, Rob Thomas and Bloc Party.
Were YOU funding any of this terrorism ?
Can you PLEASE write the same two paragraphs in every music/RIAA/etc related thread? Because it seems a lot of people don't know this.
Oh, RIAA/MPAA astroturfers know this; they're just pretending they don't know it.
Whenever you see a lot of repetition and redundancy you can be reasonably sure some marketing parasite is involved. Like all mass market advertising they're trying to drown out legitimate view points with content-free noise.
---
Marketing talk is not just cheap, it has negative value. Free speech can be compromised just as much by too much noise as too little signal.
There is no difference (to a typical windows user) in making files available for oneself and making files available so that everyone can see them.
It seemed to me that making them available for yourself is covered under fair use. Because there is no distinction you cannot prove the original intention. just my 2c
She is the one who ends up paying. You a slashdot editor or something? Good job on the Duke Nukem Forever story earlier.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dude,
No matter how stupid someone's defense of RIAA is, there's a reason there is no -1 Disagree.
Actually, their business model was based entirely on creating a unique and brilliant piece of software and selling it for millions. Omg, teh horror. I know.
The fact that you jump to the erroneous and foolish conclusion that they set out to be super duper masterminds of crime shows us where you fall in this discussion.
We have a word for folks like you: Shill.
I absolutely agree that the US courts, RIAA, or really ANY organization out there can "end 50,000 years of the creation of music".
But that's not the point, really. The recording industry, in all of their greed and short-sightedness, really is damaging people's ability to enjoy music the way the artists intend it to be heard.
Have you seen the disgrace that is "digital mastering" in the big studios these days? Look at the waveforms of samples taken from recently released rock music CDs, if you don't believe me. They're so involved in a pissing match to release the "apparently loudest" tracks, they're compressing and normalizing the content to death. If they can find 1db of headroom they haven't saturated, they'll find it someplace in the pre-production stages. Most of the stuff out there has a waveform that looks like a rectangular block, not waves!
I like music from bands like the Foo Fighters and Breaking Benjamin, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but my ears get fatigued after only a couple tracks off any of their recent albums. It's because the studios have ruined the original recordings, boosting all the quiet portions of the songs and flattening the peaks to make it all an equally "hot" mix. Total ripoff!
It's very possible to claim the record industry really *is* playing a huge role in alienating a generation from enjoying music as it's meant to be heard. It's not only an issue of cost, or not making the content legally available in the formats people prefer or demand ... but they're physically destroying the QUALITY of the recordings too!
Actually, their business model was based entirely on creating a unique and brilliant piece of software and selling it for millions.
Just because software is brilliant and unique doesn't mean it will sell for millions.
Business models aren't based on making a better mousetrap, they're based on finding use cases that are so compelling that people buy them.
The primary use case for Napster was "unauthorised sharing of copyrighted files". The role that Napster themselves played was acting as the go-between. That was why people paid money for the program, not because it was an efficient file transfer tool, but because it gave them plausible deniability while they shared ripped tracks... and Napster thought it gave THEM plausible deniability too because their servers were just getting traders together, not hosting any files.
Everyone: Make sure that if your stuff is stolen, that you file a police report, so that you can prove you once owned these discs.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
When I first used Napster it was free? Are we talking about the same software here?
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
That's a good idea. I ought to start doing something like that, using "NewYorkCountryLawyer" merchandise as a fundraiser.
That's a good idea. I ought to start doing something like that, using "NewYorkCountryLawyer" merchandise as a fundraiser.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Issues like this and those that have been brought on by the RIAA are a large worry for me. To top it all off, our elected officials are being lobbied by the RIAA/MPAA. There needs to be a new vision taken in combatting this online bullying by prospective authorities on the consumer-base. I was reading an article at theReformed ( http://thereformed.org/2008/08/27/riaa-lobbies-at-dnc/ ) by Jon Longoria which really laid out a plausible options for strategy in beating them at their own game, but really - how do we start this?
She'd better watch out, or the milk company will be after her for stealing their crates.
go to hell you stupid fascist!