Napster: the Day the Music Was Set Free

Very good indeed by gunnarbeutner · 2013-02-24 07:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Clearly proofreading very wasn't very good.

Re:Very good indeed by theodp · 2013-02-24 08:18 · Score: 2

Oops...that'll teach me to try to cite the Book of Genesis off the top of my head. Make that "And, behold, it was very good." :-)

See Also by trancemission · 2013-02-24 07:45 · Score: 2

Audiogalaxy

Now acquired by Dropbox :(

Re:See Also by partyguerrilla · 2013-02-24 08:08 · Score: 1

I tolerated it, but you could mostly find horribly encoded 128kbps songs. At least there was no chance of some asshole disconnecting your downloads at 99%
Re:See Also by thetoadwarrior · 2013-02-24 10:23 · Score: 2

I felt Audiogalaxy was better than napster for finding rare things and complete songs. It was a shame to lose it.

Screw you, Metallica! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 07:47 · Score: 5, Funny

nc

Re:Screw you, Metallica! by mister_playboy · 2013-02-24 08:32 · Score: 3, Insightful

Between St. Anger and the Napster battle, those were very bad times for Metallica. Their reputation has never recovered since.

--
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by Dexter+Herbivore · 2013-02-24 08:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

You know what saddens me the most? NONE of the music executives/Metallica goons looked at Napster and went, "Holy shit! This is the way of the future, let's investigate this distribution option and adapt it to our own purposes".
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by gmuslera · 2013-02-24 09:00 · Score: 2

Even today they should be put in a torture chamber to force to recognize that the music boom of today was in good part thanks to that kind of file sharing.
On second tought, given how RIAA and similars had abused the system since them, that they recognize it is optional, but the torture chamber is a good idea anyway.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by SuricouRaven · 2013-02-24 09:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

They didn't have need to, really. The power of Napster's p2p model was to eliminate hosting costs - the amount of data Napster shifted would have cost a fortune by conventional means. But if you're running a business, that's not an issue. iTunes doesn't use p2p. The only thing that the industry should have learned from Napster was that customers really want convenience and speed.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by nametaken · 2013-02-24 10:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

The only thing that the industry should have learned from Napster was that customers really want convenience and speed.
Right, and perhaps just as important, that people didn't want a $16 CD of shitty filler to get the one song they heard on the radio. But the industry didn't learn those things. Instead they were dragged, kicked and screaming, into the iTunes model. Meanwhile file-sharing never died... it got better, and legitimate music purchasing has had to get better to compete with it. Everything has gotten easier, cheaper, more organized, with better quality and consistency. In every way, people won.
Now it's TV's turn. That industry refuses to look five years in the future, so they'll be forced, just as it was with music. People don't want all the garbage that comes with the one thing they like, and they won't tolerate the obscene bill and mandatory advertising.
Today you can spend $35 on a computer, add a free software plugin, and immediately call up any television show you want in HD, no commercials, on demand, for free. It's only going to get better and that industry is going to have to compete or die.
Buggy whip manufacturers have to evolve and it's seldom voluntary.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by thetoadwarrior · 2013-02-24 10:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

I think Load was when Metallica went over the edge and I'm sure they do sell out but they're way too pop and shit since that. They didn't handle their black album success well. The napster thing was lame I guess but i don't blame them. I just don't listen to their music because it's poor now.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by Kenshin · 2013-02-24 11:14 · Score: 2

Well, they did say "Holy shit! This is the way of the future, let's investigate this distribution option...", but they ended it with "... and try to hold it back as long as we can."

--
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by drinkypoo · 2013-02-24 11:23 · Score: 4, Informative

There's different classes of Metallica fan, who are characterized by which album was the last album they listened to. For me it's the Black Album. To many people that album is shit that doesn't even exist. YMMV.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by thetoadwarrior · 2013-02-24 11:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

The black album was definitely a turn in the wrong direction. I think it was tolerable (even if I haven't really listened to it in decades) but that may be me being kind because it's a freaking gold compared to Load.

But I do think it would have been better if they called it quits after Justice.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by nametaken · 2013-02-24 12:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

That version of the analogy doesn't really work either since a stolen widget is a stolen widget, where content piracy doesn't directly deprive anyone of anything material, or correlate predictably with lost sales.
But anyway, my point wasn't that content piracy is the new model. It's that piracy will force them to evolve. There will be money involved, just as there is with music now. Piracy is just a big ass lever that can help move industries.
If I had to guess, it would be that we'll head towards the Netflix model. Not specifically their core content now (older stuff), but what they're trying to do with programming like House of Cards. The Hulu model is a dead-end, in my opinion. It's some tiny fraction of TV content, with many of the downsides we hate in the traditional system, only made worse.
On the details I can only guess, though. On the fact that the existing model is totally untenable in the face of what's coming, I'm dead certain.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by m0nit0rman · 2013-02-24 12:42 · Score: 2

I read an interview with a TV exec where he stated that viewers "Who use DVRs, Hulu, iTunes, etc and are NOT sitting in front of their TV sets when the show airs will see their favourite programs all get cancelled". People pay more for freely available content today than any other time in history. If the broadcast industry refuses to adapt, it is destined to fail.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 12:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

We're a household of downloaders. We do it primarily for reasons of convenience these days, so that we can watch what we want to watch when we are in the mood to watch it, and not when some TV station scheduler thinks we might want to watch it.
To support the producers of the shows we like, we tend to buy them on DVD once they become available locally, or import them if the local (Australian) TV content licencers have their heads up their arse about buying the shows we watch.
We see this as a win-win. We watch the shows when we want without adverts, and the content producers get money to indicate what shows we enjoy to encourage them to make more of that kind of content. Unfortunately the delay in the second part of the chain is sometimes too long for that specific show to benefit (DVD's are often not released in Australia until a year or more after the shows have aired in the US or UK), but it's better than nothing. We're not a ratings box household, so they get more feedback on our viewing habits than if we watched it during it's scheduled broadcast time.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by Jason+Levine · 2013-02-24 16:07 · Score: 1

Exactly. In an alternate universe, the music industry didn't sue Napster into submission (resulting in Gnutella and the P2P wave). Instead, the music industry bought Napster and turned it into the first major online music store. You were still allowed to share songs freely (under a certain bitrate - the equivalent of taping off the radio for free) but were also given the option to purchase reasonably priced DRM-free MP3s as well.*
* Hey, I said it was an alternate universe. This is one strange alternate universe. The movie industry there also is known for their fair and accurate accounting practices.

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by Jason+Levine · 2013-02-24 16:11 · Score: 2

Hulu never stood a chance. It's run by the same people who want to protect their non-Internet-TV businesses so they weren't going to let it do anything innovative. Meaning, nothing that could jeopardize the classic-TV-business in any way. Anything that wouldn't interfere with their current TV business in any manner that any executive could envision? Hulu was free to do that.
In other words, Hulu's legs and arms were chained to a wall and then the executives wondered why Netflix was outrunning them.

--
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by sjames · 2013-02-24 20:15 · Score: 1

More like people were carefully copying the commercial buggy whips.
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by tehcyder · 2013-02-24 23:35 · Score: 1

Metallica only ever had a reputation amongst people who wear band t-shirts unironically.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by tehcyder · 2013-02-24 23:36 · Score: 2

they're way too pop and shit since that
Please tell me you're under thirteen.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by tehcyder · 2013-02-24 23:37 · Score: 1, Troll

Even today they should be put in a torture chamber to force to recognize that the music boom of today was in good part thanks to that kind of file sharing.
What music boom?

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by tehcyder · 2013-02-24 23:41 · Score: 1

people didn't want a $16 CD of shitty filler to get the one song they heard on the radio.
If you're listening to artists who make CDs full of shitty filler, your musical opinions aren't really worth a great deal.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by fatphil · 2013-02-25 04:13 · Score: 1

Singles have never had it so good: http://pampelmoose.com/mimg/download_singles.jpg
(At the expense of albums, admittedly, but that will hopefully teach record labels to not attempt to fob of the punters with fluff.)

--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 22:31 · Score: 1

Oh right, I was thinking more in terms of quality than quantity.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by fatphil · 2013-02-26 00:00 · Score: 1

Ah, you hark back to the glory days of 60s bubblegum pop, eh?

I'm really not so sure that pop is much worse today than before. It's easier to forget most of the the crap, and that distorts our recollection of the past. (However, I'm not well equipped to speak from detailed knowledge, I've not followed "pop" for over 2 decades.)

--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Re:Screw you, Metallica! by veganboyjosh · 2013-02-26 05:13 · Score: 1

Maybe not to YOU. But to whoever sold them that $16 CD full of shitty filler...very much so.

IF..... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 07:48 · Score: 1

At the height of napster the RIAA had worked with them to setup a deal to make 5 cents from every download...

They would now have made TRILLIONS of dollars using zero of their own resources.

Instead they've worked hard to piss of every one of their customers in countless ways. Many of whom will never ever pay them again... And it's cost them billions so far and trillions into the future...

Lets all give them a big round of HA HA! WHAT A BUNCH OF MORONS! They deserve it.

Re:IF..... by gmack · 2013-02-24 08:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Strangely enough I cut back on album purchases when Napster died since I had no way to find new stuff I like and nothing I like was ever on the radio. Thankfully YouTube finally replaced Napster for my sampling needs but there were a few years in between the two where I bought absolutely nothing music wise.
I'd say the RIAA out right blew their own leg off.
Re:IF..... by Fulminata · 2013-02-24 12:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

The one time I don't have mod points...

This was similar to my experience. I bought about an album a month before Napster, while Napster was around I bought at least an album a week, and after it went away I dropped back to about two albums a year. I'm now back to buying the equivalent of about an album every other month through iTunes.

So, a decade later and I'm still spending a lot less money with them than I was when Napster was around. Multiply that by everyone else who acted in similar ways, and it's not so hard to determine the real reason for their declining income.
Re:IF..... by gig · 2013-02-24 13:07 · Score: 1

You weren't going to buy anyway. Nobody lost anything because you didn't participate.
If you want to listen to a guy play guitar but not put money in the guitar case, that is your right. Doesn't make you a better person than someone who listens and drops some money in, though. Especially not if you are in the United States, which lacks even a public health care system. So what you are saying is that music should be free and artists should go without health care.
If you want to go to a pot luck dinner and not bring anything, you can do that too. Also doesn't make you a better person than somebody show showed up with a casserole.
Re:IF..... by mr100percent · 2013-02-24 16:19 · Score: 1

As I understand it, the recording industry has never been more profitable. Yes, they screwed themselves over for the long run, but they don't notice it
Re:IF..... by flayzernax · 2013-02-24 19:33 · Score: 1

You can't legislate better people. And no one said people had to make money producing art. If you incidentally do, that is a bonus. But capitalism doesn't work that way. Thats why the capitalists had to create the idea of something tangible in intellectual property. This may have had a slight net benefit, until about 1910. Either way it was always unenforceable except in civilized and metropolitan areas.
Oh wait it still is. And the intellectual elite don't have to expend any extra effort to circumvent the system.
Were back to shitting on and brainwashing the morons who buy into it all, on both sides.
Re:IF..... by Cederic · 2013-02-24 23:16 · Score: 1

You're talking shit.
While I was using Napster I was buying a least two albums a month. Prior to using Napster I was buying at most two albums a year.
Since Napster got shut down, I haven't bought any new music. Fuck the music industry, it didn't want my money or it wouldn't have destroyed the vehicle that generated such great sales.

So what you are saying is that music should be free and artists should go without health care.
No, only artists that let their representatives sue their customers. Fuck 'em.
Re:IF..... by gmack · 2013-02-24 23:39 · Score: 1

I get it. You are one of those idiots who likes to feel smug about themselves by assuming things about other people. But you know what? I'm not going to let you get away with it this time. Look at this hall closet cds I took off my desk. The best part is that this is just most of the stuff I've bought since moving to Spain. The bulk of my collection is in boxes back in Canada because the Spanish government wouldn't let me import it.
I pay for things. I prefer to support artists I like and to back up my point: The music industry had it's largest profits ever while Napster was popular.
Re:IF..... by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 00:04 · Score: 1

While I was using Napster I was buying a least two albums a month. Prior to using Napster I was buying at most two albums a year.
Prior to Napster, we used to listen to/tape stuff off the radio, borrow other people's records, buy secondhand records cheap...
I'm not saying it was better (obviously it was a lot less convenient), just pointing out that those of us who bought more than two albums a year managed perfectly well without Napster.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:IF..... by fafaforza · 2013-02-25 02:56 · Score: 1

And did you have to walk uphill both ways to and from your friend's house to borrow said tapes/records?

Napster on dial-up by Hall · 2013-02-24 07:51 · Score: 2

I remember using Napster on dial-up (don't think broadband was available or at least not affordable or common). It basically took the same amount of time to download a song as it was long, i.e. 4 minutes to download a 4-minute song.

Re:Napster on dial-up by ickleberry · 2013-02-24 07:58 · Score: 1

It took 20-25 minutes for me and so often they would fail. It was a real blessing when they brought in the resume functionality. My computer was hardly able to play a MP3, had to stop everything else and fire up Ye Olde Resource Intensive MP3 Player Application. 133MHz Pentium 1 and a 56k modem with a 25 pin RS-232 cable
Re:Napster on dial-up by spune · 2013-02-24 08:05 · Score: 1

On a machine with the same specs, I was able to play multiple videos simultaneously without delay or any other problem, running BeOS. Of course I had to download everything in windows, though...
Re:Napster on dial-up by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:05 · Score: 1

I remember using Napster on dial-up (don't think broadband was available or at least not affordable or common).
I'm in Canada and I could proudly say I've had 1.5mbit/s download speed back then over DSL. Cost $42/mo.
Today, I'm ashamed to say I pay $50+/mo and still have 1.5mbit/s DSL.
Awesome how technology moves forward when there is no competition.
Re:Napster on dial-up by Tarlus · 2013-02-24 08:13 · Score: 4, Funny

Yeah, I had a sizeable collection of half-songs there for a while...

--
/* No Comment */
Re:Napster on dial-up by SternisheFan · 2013-02-24 08:17 · Score: 1

Back then I was talking about it with a guy who knew computing well. He looks at me gravely and says, "That's a bad site.". That's all he said about it. About a month later I terminated someone trying to upload a rare Beatles song I had, at 33kps he was killing my bandwidth / download, whch I explained to him. He got even by remotely altering my Win98 settings that made the screen resolution unusable. I spent weeks trying to figure out and undo what he did. I finally had to run the restore disks, wiping the 8gb hard drive and lost all those songs. :-( Taught me a lesson about Napster, and not to use it again.
Re:Napster on dial-up by uberdilligaff · 2013-02-24 08:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

I wonder whether it taught you a lesson about backups...

--
Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain. --Friederich Schiller
Re:Napster on dial-up by jones_supa · 2013-02-24 08:27 · Score: 1

Yeah, I could imagine that the Napster client was quite swiss cheese what it comes to security.
Re:Napster on dial-up by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:42 · Score: 1

It's more likely it wasn't Naspter that hosed his system, but an unpatched system which has numerous ways you can root a win9x box.
Re:Napster on dial-up by SternisheFan · 2013-02-24 09:09 · Score: 2

I wonder whether it taught you a lesson about backups...
I had an iomega drive with a few 100mb disks, had already given it to a friend's wife for her business (she still has it). That's about the best there was then. I think it was 900 songs I lost then, no way to easily backup 2gigs then. You lose in life sometimes, but there's a happy ending. Now I have over 10,000 mp3s (mostly ripped from my local library's CD collection), backed up to a couple of 64gb flashdrives and 32gb micro sdcards. I've learned the 3 B's of computing by now. Backup, backup, backup! :-)
Re:Napster on dial-up by SuricouRaven · 2013-02-24 09:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

Back in the day, you could just fire up a portscanner looking for netbios shares and gain trivial access to C drive on many computers. I used to do that quite often - then find the desktop folder and leave a text file there explaining the security flaw and urging the user to fix it.
Re:Napster on dial-up by SternisheFan · 2013-02-24 09:18 · Score: 1

Yeah, I could imagine that the Napster client was quite swiss cheese what it comes to security.
Yep, turns out Napster was full of exploitable holes, only 'real' computer nerds knew those tricks then. That guy could've done worse, if he'd wanted to, formatted the drive or something. I got my computer "spanked" instead. A post above reminds me that is was a kind of half-assed music collection I had, lots of half songs from being knocked offline. I swear, kids today don't know how rough we had it back in the nineties!
Re:Napster on dial-up by Gr8Apes · 2013-02-24 10:09 · Score: 1

In 96 I was regularly backing up 60GB of data nightly. There were lots of options, and if you had the money to buy 1 9GB disk, you could buy 2....

--
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Re:Napster on dial-up by antdude · 2013-02-24 11:53 · Score: 1

Heh. I still have some of those downloaded MP3s from 1997! Before Napster, I remember using FTP search, hosting server, etc. on my dial-up modems (14.4k too!)!

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Re:Napster on dial-up by SternisheFan · 2013-02-24 13:01 · Score: 1

Yeah, that happened 15 years ago, mp3s had only been out a short time then. Napster was like the old wild west, dangerous, ilegal, threats of jail if caught... Good times.
Re:Napster on dial-up by gig · 2013-02-24 13:11 · Score: 1

Proper backup of Windows 98 is not possible. There is always a wipe-and-install.
Re:Napster on dial-up by gig · 2013-02-24 13:12 · Score: 2

Did your message say “stop using Windows?” That would be the only way to fix their security flaw.
Re:Napster on dial-up by dryeo · 2013-02-24 13:18 · Score: 1

I found that a 100MHz 486 was all that was required to play a MP3 smoothly, you must have used a crappy MP3 player and/or operating system.
I do remember it taking days to encode a MP3 on a 33MHz 386 with no math co-processor.

--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Re:Napster on dial-up by camperdave · 2013-02-24 17:59 · Score: 1

Today, I'm ashamed to say I pay $50+/mo and still have 1.5mbit/s DSL.
You should be. Teksavvy can give you 6Mbit/s for only $30/month. For $53/month you can get 25Mbps download speeds.

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:Napster on dial-up by Legion303 · 2013-02-24 18:29 · Score: 1

I used to "NET SHARE" their printers. Good times.
Re:Napster on dial-up by Cederic · 2013-02-24 23:22 · Score: 1

he killed (terminated) the upload
Actually his words were "I terminated someone". It appears that it wasn't the upload he killed.
A tad harsh perhaps, but people shouldn't saturate your upstream.
Re:Napster on dial-up by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 00:37 · Score: 1

In 96 I was regularly backing up 60GB of data nightly
Really? I'm pretty sure my PC back then had a 2Gb hard drive and I backed up important data on to 100Mb zip disks.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Napster on dial-up by dudacgf · 2013-02-25 05:06 · Score: 1

IIRC, in 1996 my PC had a 130MB hard drive and I used a HD compression software to make space for more. of course, no backups back then.
Re:Napster on dial-up by cthulhu11 · 2013-02-25 05:50 · Score: 1

That experience wasn't limited to dialup. I found that at least half of what was on Napster were truncated files. Botched spelling was common, and metadata if at all present was usually also botched. Much easier to just buy / rip a used CD.
Re:Napster on dial-up by Gr8Apes · 2013-02-25 12:33 · Score: 1

I was running on 9GB SCSI drives... apparently you were not. In 91 or 92 I was running on 1GB SCSI drives, and yes, I had 2, at a 10% off of $1K price each. They were pricey, but worth every $ at work, in 94 I was working with 400MB files, uncompressed. I had 2 500MB drives in 95 @ home, also SCSI, along with an assortment of IDE for mass store. Not all of us were playing Zork, Myst, or playing with GIFs and AOL.
The real point is don't think what you were doing was cutting edge, unless you were in the $100K+ per machine. I still remember RAID rack architecture design where we first built walls of 1GB and 4GB drives to gain larger stores, and then switched to 9GB drives, and had to properly design the system for performance in degraded states along with maintaining relatively high performance during nightly backups. We had 400GB tape capability on the first setup, and a little over a TB on the second per tape library, and we rotated those out weekly, and tested our backups quarterly, because you can never be too sure, especially in those days with flaky hardware that absolutely would fail.

--
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Re:Napster on dial-up by SternisheFan · 2013-02-25 14:29 · Score: 1

cd burners were also readily available at the time.
Yes, though they had them, the average home computer owner did'nt have them as standard like they are today in computers. Too expensive then. And forget dvd r/w disk drives with 5gb disks. (I'm talking'late 90's) And no small backup hd drives either. I hate to sound like a GOMLawn neckbeard here, but you kids with your low cost external 3tb harddrives just don't know how good you got it today! :-)

riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by Dan667 · 2013-02-24 07:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

That is really the bigger story. Even now, instead of making money hand over fist printing digital money the riaa would rather create artificial barriers and ridiculous price points for online distribution. If Apple had not dragged them kicking and screaming into the mp3 drm-less world they would have probably broken their cartel by now.

Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2013-02-24 08:03 · Score: 1

Yeah, I wish the MPAA would figure it out too. There are obviously lots of advantages to having media in digital form, and iTunes (and others) have shown people will pay for content as long as its drop-dead convenient - even without DRM.
I rip every DVD and Blu-Ray disk I buy, and I strip the DRM off any digital movie I buy, so I can have access to my media wherever I want... but the average consumer can't/won't go to the trouble to set up their own streaming setup. And much as I like Netflix, they're not a one-stop shop yet. The MPAA is missing a huge opportunity for a new profit-making business here.

--
#DeleteChrome
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by alen · 2013-02-24 08:30 · Score: 1

I have an Apple TV and stream Netflix, ITunes and MLB on it
Like most people I have to plans to buy a nas for a 10tb movie library to stream. There are other things to do other than watch movies all the time. And I would buy the DVD before buying a nas just to hold compressed blu ray rips
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by Dan667 · 2013-02-24 09:03 · Score: 1

I would not feel too bad for the artists. With hollywood accounting the artists are only getting pennies (if that) for their hard work.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by Lanboy · 2013-02-24 09:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is my main conspiracy theory. The years that napster ran unchecked, glorious, glorious years, were the years that the RIAA recorded their greatest profits, level of profit that they have not equaled since. I think that unfettered access to music of all genres makes people better music consumers. I personally became excited about music as I had not been since my youth ( I am an old ) . I bought more cds, I went to more concerts. I have tapered off again because it is just harder to get things done, so I don't bother. The numbers say I am not alone.
I feel the real reason the music companies are terrified of electronic music distribution is twofold.
One, maintaining limited participation in music distribution to protect the status quo, it democratizes the process creating methods of distribution that a smart player could get involved and push the old fogeys out.
Two, electronic music distribution makes the tracking of music sales trivial, and the accurate assignment of funds to the correct copyright holders, and audit by same go from a difficult and arcane process to a simple exercise in database management. This is the last fucking thing the labels want. Since the beginning of the recording industry, the most powerful and profitable labels have gotten there by screwing the musicians. Hiding overseas profits, disguising sales and production runs, overstating promotional costs, accounting errors ( never in the favor of the artist, I assure you ) anything, actualy, to hide the actual profits from the musicians, and send it to the record companies' coke habits.
Try to watch a music documentary from the past 50 years. Find one where the label wasn't fucking the artist over. The labels don't want this to change, this is why they have to be dragged into digital music by their shorthairs, they need time to set up the structures to screw the artists out of their due. If you are ever wondering why packaged and cookie cutter artists seem to thrive, it is because they are more easily bilked out of the profits.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 09:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

The years that napster ran unchecked, glorious, glorious years, were the years that the RIAA recorded their greatest profits, level of profit that they have not equaled since.

Largely coincidental, IMO. The economy was booming, and the mainstream media still dominated the cultural narrative. Much of those profits were teenyboppers buying Britney Spears CDs and baby boomers trying to re-live their youth with some oldass rock bands. Napster widened the perspective of a lot of people, but in the big picture, it was small potatoes.
If the Internet sharing effect were real, you would expect that live concerts and memorabilia would be a booming business now. Instead music biz revenues have continually gone down because Internet-based media makes it difficult to push culture onto the mainstream audience.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by RobbieThe1st · 2013-02-24 10:08 · Score: 1

Hell, a h.264 720p 4GB rip looks far better than DVD quality(and "good enough" in most cases), especially when the full 1080P source video wasn't made with the best cameras...
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by AmiMoJo · 2013-02-24 11:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

They wouldn't be making any money. That's the point. They are no longer needed because artists can get their music directly to the fans, no physical reproduction or distribution necessary. They are also terrified of Amazon and Apple who could easily become the next big music labels and crush them.
In the UK we have one high street chain music retailer left, and half its stores just closed as it went into administration. Soon the only places selling physical music will be supermarkets, who are big enough to screw the BPI and all the music labels who are part of it.
We are seeing the desperate thrashing about of a wounded animal as it gets ripped apart.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by nabsltd · 2013-02-24 12:28 · Score: 1

I rip every DVD and Blu-Ray disk I buy, and I strip the DRM off any digital movie I buy, so I can have access to my media wherever I want... but the average consumer can't/won't go to the trouble to set up their own streaming setup. And much as I like Netflix, they're not a one-stop shop yet. The MPAA is missing a huge opportunity for a new profit-making business here.
Buying and riping doesn't do any good. You're just agreeing to all the bullshit the MPAA does.
When the price is right, I have no problem buying a Blu-Ray and re-encoding it to add to my media library. Even if there was no copy protection at all, I'd do exactly the same thing. I don't want the MPAA to provide a "media library" for me, because it'd be unlikely that I would own anything that way. I'd much rather own something that once I buy it, nothing can be done to make so that I can't play it. If I could stream a wide variety of movies in Blu-Ray quality video and audio for less than $10/month (no pay-per-view), and movies never became unavailable, I might use that to supplement my library, but Netflix/Amazon/iTunes show that I likely won't see that for quite a while.
And, I'm not sure what "riping" is, as everything I buy is ready to play and doesn't need to sit around for a while until it becomes more usable. Here's a hint...if you want to complain, try to not to sound like a 10-year-old when you're doing it.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by camperdave · 2013-02-24 18:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

A nerd who sets up a NAS for someone expects to only get paid once. A musician who writes and records a song expects to get paid and paid and paid and paid and paid once again. In fact, they expect to get paid each time someone listens to the same job the musician performed decades ago. Further, they expect to get paid again even if a person has listened before and already paid them. Oh, and not on some diminishing scale. They expect the same pay as the first time around (or even more, inflation, you know). The arrogance is outstanding. Work once and get paid forever. What a con!

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by sjames · 2013-02-24 20:58 · Score: 1

And, of course, the biggest reason, without the need for expensive factories to make the media and the complex distribution networks to move physical media to the brick and mortar stores, they could get cut out entirely if they keep offering the crappy deals to the artists that they do now. They could be entirely replaced by a guy with a good ear and a high end workstation and an independent promoter.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 00:49 · Score: 1

I would not feel too bad for the artists. With hollywood accounting the artists are only getting pennies (if that) for their hard work.
That's right, no one working in the movie industry earns a penny for their work, they just do it for free. Big movie stars don't really have mansions, planes and so on, John Travolta actually lives in a cardboard box just off Sunset Boulevard.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 01:00 · Score: 1

A nerd who sets up a NAS for someone expects to only get paid once. A musician who writes and records a song expects to get paid and paid and paid and paid and paid once again. In fact, they expect to get paid each time someone listens to the same job the musician performed decades ago. Further, they expect to get paid again even if a person has listened before and already paid them. Oh, and not on some diminishing scale. They expect the same pay as the first time around (or even more, inflation, you know). The arrogance is outstanding. Work once and get paid forever. What a con!
A musician can ask to be paid over and over again, because people want to listen to or play his fucking work. If you don't want to play or do a version of someone's song, you don't have to pay them.
If you want to get rid of the whole system of anyone working for money, fine, show me the way. In the meantime, why shouldn't artists be paid in proportion to their popularity the same way people selling widgets are?

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 01:21 · Score: 2

Ever buy a film you never saw, then considered it trash? Went to see a movie and was offended as the western turned out to be a Gay movie. (Brokeback) I felt like I paid to see a Goatse movie....
Oh come on, are you seriously saying that you'd heard nothing about Brokeback Mountain before you saw it? No one ever mentioned that it had gay cowboys in it?
You make it sound like someone put a hardcore gay porn film into a Disney box.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-25 04:09 · Score: 1

Much of those profits were teenyboppers buying Britney Spears CDs and baby boomers trying to re-live their youth with some oldass rock bands.
Those teenyboppers are going to get their (boy band of the moment) anyway. The geezers aren't reliving their youth with some oldass dock bands, they already have that music. It's the young people buying it new.
Napster widened the perspective of a lot of people, but in the big picture, it was small potatoes.
When I was in my twenties in the seventies, nobody was listening to the music my dad listened to in his twenties. But today, four decades later, go into a bar with cover bands and a twenty-something audience, and what is the band playing? Lynard Skynard, Zepplin, Stones. Either our music was head and shoulders above everything before and since, or you're wrong about Napster.
There was a band in the early sixties named "The Byrds" led by a fellow named Roger McGuinn. By the seventies, the labels decided he was "too old" and by the eighties he was barely eking out a living playing in bars -- until Napster brought his music to a new generation and revitalized his career. McGuinn says so himself.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by camperdave · 2013-02-25 05:40 · Score: 1

I'm fine with the system of working for money. If a musician plays over and over again, they should expect to be paid over and over again. However, if they play once and record it, they are expecting to get paid on a per-use basis, not on a per-effort basis. A roofer doesn't get paid each time it rains. He doesn't get paid on a per-use basis. Why should a musician?

--
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by sjames · 2013-02-25 05:44 · Score: 1

The cost of recording COULD be a fraction of what it was, but the RIAA members insist on doing it the old expensive way since the costs are 'recoupable'. The cost of distribution is a fraction of what it was, servers don't cost much and there is no more breakage (of course, most of that is borne by iTunes and co). Marketing still costs. The label never paid for studying music. The instruments, when provided are recoupable.
Albums that go double platinum routinely don't gain any payment for the artists. Any artist that got rich did so on concerts and merch, not recordings. The recordings act more like marketing for them.
BTW, industry profits are starting to rebound now in spite of an international recession, the huge black eye it gave itself and the demographic it traditionally gets most of it's money from having many more options than before.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by jbenwell · 2013-02-25 06:51 · Score: 1

If you were in your 20s in the 70s, it's not out of line to think your Dad was in his 20s in the 50s. People sure were listening to 50s music in the 70s.
Happy Days started its run in 1974, and I remember listening to Buddy Holly etc in the 70s.
Re:riaa's failure to adapt to the marketplace by frank_adrian314159 · 2013-02-25 07:14 · Score: 1

A record company that underpays the musician who writes and records a song expects to get paid and paid and paid and paid and paid once again.
FTFY.

--
That is all.

Re:Sound familiar? by trancemission · 2013-02-24 08:05 · Score: 1

Yeah I know I'll have to buy the White album again

Why?

Napster & Audiogalaxy by timmyf2371 · 2013-02-24 08:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

I used to use Napster and subsequently Audiogalaxy back over 28.8k dial-up and it took around 20 minutes to download an MP3 (always at 128Kbps bitrate). These days, I can get a 1080p Blu-Ray rip in that same 20 minutes. It was always a joy seeing a new track had been completed.

The thing I loved about Napster was that there was loads of cover songs and live performances on there and it was so easy to use.

Then when it all came tumbling down thanks to Metallica et al, seeing all the replacements pop up all over the place. Kazaa, Limewire etc all full of viruses and dodgy bitrate files.

These days, it's not worth the hassle to go pirate music anymore so I just pay for Spotify Premium. It is probably closest in functionality to Napster and has a great selection of mainstream and random tracks.

--

Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic

Yes it does by future+assassin · 2013-02-24 08:14 · Score: 1

Except for me its started running MS Personal Page server in 97 on dial up and WarFTP before Napster because popular.

As for buying my entertainment well I sure as hell do but i buy it at pawnshops. Yah I paid retail for 100's of DVD/Cd's I bought and got ripped off on price but then I said fuck it and for the last 6 years I've been hitting pawn shops and getting my dvd's for $2-4 and buy 5 get on free. I have around 700 dvd's/600 cd's

Fuck the artist and movies studios. Its about ME saving money.

--
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*

Re:Yes it does by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 01:38 · Score: 1

Fuck the artist and movies studios. Its about ME saving money.
Obviously that's the most important thing in discussing any topic. "How can I be as cheap a fuck as possible?"

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:Sound familiar? by wylf · 2013-02-24 08:15 · Score: 1

Why?

Men In Black reference?

Or maybe just "real life"; the White Album has been re-released a few times, and the "true fans" (or whatever) can be relied upon to go and buy the latest and greatest... (sound familiar?)

Re:Sound familiar? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nope .. not at all .. I have paid for every bit of music that I own, starting with LPs & singles, cassette tapes, CDs and even downloads. (Yeah I know I'll have to buy the White album again)

And I prefer music organized in an album .. with a theme .. and good liner notes .. and artwork!

Now get off MY lawn

People like you are more annoying than thieves because you love to march around, pound your chest and for no reason at all constantly have to announce to everyone how you dont steal. Youre as bad as people who do bad things and then find jesus because all they do is march around and shove stuff down the throats of anyone within earshot when in reality no one ever asked or even cares.

Because really now, what exactly was the point of coming and proving how righteous you are to a bunch of strangers? Is your ego so huge and your self esteem so low that you feel the need to just blindly push your self righteous bullshit on us?

Re:Sound familiar? by wylf · 2013-02-24 08:16 · Score: 1

ugh, forgot to provide link: http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/now-i-have-to-buy-white-album-again.html

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 08:19 · Score: 1

Why?

Men In Black reference?

It was purely a MIB reference. Although I am interested in the latest anniversary release of Lawrence of Arabia.

On the the other hand .. Han shot first!

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

Re:Sound familiar? by El_Muerte_TDS · 2013-02-24 08:20 · Score: 1

Own? Guess again.
You paid for a medium and format specific license.

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 08:21 · Score: 1

(Yeah I know I'll have to buy the White album again)

Why -- if you have the vinyl, you probably have a truer copy than anything digital
you can get today. I really don't believe that re-releases are remastered. It doesn't
make sense for the industry to do that and then release it on sub-par media (yes iTunes
@128k is sub-par.)

Whoosh .. you need to keep up with your pop culture references

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 08:24 · Score: 1

Own? Guess again.
You paid for a medium and format specific license.

And I can take that medium and format specific license and along with the medium itself legally sell it.

Are you also going say that I don't own the books I bought either?

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

LDS Bible translation? by Latent+Heat · 2013-02-24 08:24 · Score: 1

Maybe you were quoting Latter-Day Saints Church founder Joseph Smith's translation instead of the King James version?

Re:LDS Bible translation? by stuporglue · 2013-02-24 09:50 · Score: 1

The official Bible translation for Latter-Day Saints is the KJV.
Small Joseph Smith Translations (JST) are put in the footnotes for reference, and larger translations are kept separately.
LDS Scriptures online (Genesis 1:31): http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/1?lang=eng#31
None of the footnotes there are JST footnotes.
Joseph Smith Translation: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/jst?lang=eng
No JST for Genesis 1.

--
https://www.facebook.com/digitizeicm -- Show your support for the digitization of the Iron County Miner newspaper archiv
Re:LDS Bible translation? by arth1 · 2013-02-25 00:35 · Score: 1

Maybe you were quoting Latter-Day Saints Church founder Joseph Smith's translation instead of the King James version?
No, then it would be "And it came to pass that it was very good. Wherefore, very good it was."
(Pretty much everything that Joseph Smith translated from the original Klingon^Wgold plates has this strange affection for the phrases "And it happened" and "Wherefore". No matter who the alleged author was, or the original language.)

National Medal of Technology for Fanning, Parker? by theodp · 2013-02-24 08:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

Want to screw with the USPTO? Nominate Fanning and Parker for a National Medal of Technology and Innovation, "the highest honor awarded by the president of the United States to America's leading innovators." Funny thing is, they probably deserve it!

And before that ... by houghi · 2013-02-24 08:29 · Score: 1

And before that we had the video cassette. For videos we had VHS.
Also : music is NOT set free. The last time music was free was before copyright.

--
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.

Re:And before that ... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:56 · Score: 1

Laws don't define reality. Music is free. We live in a post copyright age.
The fact that many people haven't realized this yet doesn't detract from it's truth.

Re:Sound familiar? by UltraZelda64 · 2013-02-24 08:32 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure in that case, you at least own the physical equipment used to perform, record and produce that music... and that stuff doesn't exactly come free. So in a way... actually, you did kind of pay for it. Just not directly.

Download resuming by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:38 · Score: 1

The thing I remember most about Napster was it didn't have download resuming. I almost can't believe there was a time when EVERYTHING didn't let you pause and resume downloads but I think even at that time you still needed GetRight or Gozilla to resume browser downloads.

Waiting 20 minutes for a song you really like on dial-up and seeing the other user cancel it at 99%, sound familiar?

Re:Not exactly the first by guttentag · 2013-02-24 08:44 · Score: 4, Funny

Dude, everyone knows Fanning stole Napster from Seth Green while he was napping...

Re:Sound familiar? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

On top of all that, he also is direcly funding the RIAA and MPAA finances so they can bribe more politicians and harm the free internet, yeah people like him are clearly guilty of funding terrorism.

Early napster=trove of unreleased material by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 08:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

What I liked best about the early Napster is that collectors shared a trove of unreleased and rare material. Demos, live cuts, b-sides, non-album tracks - almost anything I could think of, I'd type it in and download it. I got digital versions of stuff that would have taken me man-years to digitize from the originals I had (LPs, cassettes, etc), and stuff that would have cost bazillions to buy from dealers. Remember, back then in the late 90s, the current practice of adding rare tracks like b-sides to CD releases of LP records (which were usually about 40 minutes long, giving plenty of room for extra tracks on the CD) was just beginning, so a lot of this material was very, very rare. As Napster got more popular, all this stuff faded away quickly to be replaced by stuff you could buy in stores on CD. I've always thought that was one of the greatest tragedies of file sharing.

Re:Early napster=trove of unreleased material by gig · 2013-02-24 11:56 · Score: 1

If that was all you could find on Napster, it would have had a legitimate reason to exist and might still be around today.

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 08:55 · Score: 1

Subtle difference. You own books. You own CDs. You don't own the music.

Yeah like when I say I own my car that I really mean that I own the rights to the designs by Honda.

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

First Chance by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 09:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Napster was the first and last chance that the music industry was GIVEN to embrace digital distribution, they instead chose to embrace the legal system. The result was that Napster (Not a P2P service but a centralized & controllable service) was shut down.

Who'd have thought that the largest market demand possible would cause someone to develop a product?

Then came P2P, which they are suing the operators of Search engines / Indexers.

The came distributed P2P so they are suing the users.

Next comes anonymous & encrypted P2P

Re:Not exactly the first by Runaway1956 · 2013-02-24 09:01 · Score: 2

Sneakernet worked best for me . . .

--
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br

Ah the beginning ten years later by holophrastic · 2013-02-24 09:09 · Score: 1

Figures they'd think napster was the beginning. there were many ways to download music long before napster. napster was simply the first to get caught with legal troubles.

Re:Not exactly the first by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 09:36 · Score: 1

And offline, we had sneakernet.

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by mark-t · 2013-02-24 09:36 · Score: 2

Did I use napster? Hell yeah I did. But I'm at least not enough of a hypocrite or turn a blind eye to the fact that using it for its intended purpose was wrong.

But still enough of a hypocrite to actively participate in something yourself that you apparently *DID* know was wrong? Hmmm. Okay... good to know.

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 09:41 · Score: 1

Obvious troll is obvious.

The RIAA was hell bent on stamping their boots on the downed throats of men everywhere with campaigns like 'Home taping is killing music'

We also had them ruining future formats like DAT tape and DVD Audio thanks to obscene amounts of DRM the general public are indifferent. Who's to blame? the RIAA.

Now what? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-02-24 09:41 · Score: 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t0fZeySNck

4.2s to find it and get it started.

No, I won't git offa yer Napster lawn.

--
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.

Re:Ok.. by theodp · 2013-02-24 10:02 · Score: 2

Easy world-wide distribution of digital media was the intended link; perhaps not so clear upon re-reading. ::-)

seriously by ArchieBunker · 2013-02-24 10:22 · Score: 2

I used to get them from DCC bots on IRC back in the early days. It was so well managed there was even a search script that worked across all the bots.

--
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard

They were the beginning of something else by Voyager529 · 2013-02-24 10:26 · Score: 1

Yes, there were indeed ways to download music long before Napster. There were ways to "copyright infringe" music before computers. Let me break it down for you...

Before Napster, there were FTP sites you could browse. Today, you can google $SOME_ARTIST, $SOME_SONG, and "Parent Directory" and usually find what you want...but that was far from the norm in the days of AltaVista. Usenet browsing is similarly possible if you're able and willing to dig.

Before using the internet, we used our 4x CD burners to copy CDs onto blanks. Before that, we used dual-deck cassette recorders, and before that...reel-to-reel, I guess. The point is that being able to retain and listen to permanent copies of songs users hadn't paid for indeed did not start with Napster.

What set Napster apart from the others was the fact that it was widespread, easy for novices, didn't suffer generational losses, or for the individual who wanted the song to know the person who had it. The fact that it was very easy for others to use it meant that they could share their collections, and it didn't take too long for the total breadth of music available on Napster to widely eclipse any existing distribution mechanism in existence at that time.

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 10:40 · Score: 1

Is your ego so huge and your self esteem so low that you feel the need to just blindly push your self righteous bullshit on us?

Nah it was because the article was subtitled from the get-off-my-lawn dept..

Oh and btw you seem to be a little humor impaired today. I bet you even took that "Yeah I know I'll have to buy the White album again" comment seriously.

Sheesh .. kids today. Now get off my lawn.

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

Re:Sound familiar? by OzPeter · 2013-02-24 10:47 · Score: 2

On top of all that, he also is direcly funding the RIAA and MPAA finances so they can bribe more politicians and harm the free internet, yeah people like him are clearly guilty of funding terrorism.

You are making a big assumption that I buy/bought my my music in the US. You do know that there are other places in the world don't you?

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?

Re:Sound familiar? by Kreigaffe · 2013-02-24 10:51 · Score: 2

Remastered is just code for "we fucked the dynamic range to make it louder"

--
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about. :|

It WAS a revolution by KublaCant · 2013-02-24 10:53 · Score: 1

In the place I worked then ( a startup, later acquired by BMC of Austin, Texas and then vanished into nothingness ), music at the workplace was unheard of. So we put money together for a pair of speakers and a sound card, hooked those up to an old PC - and there we went. Each had his say for an entire day: classics, French chansons, hard rock, mainstream - Napster had it all. Those were the days !

Re:It WAS a revolution by fafaforza · 2013-02-25 03:04 · Score: 1

I remember rockin' my Walkmans long before mp3s started being posted online. So not like there weren't options for personal listening.

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by PuckSR · 2013-02-24 11:31 · Score: 2

Sony didn't try to ban the VCR. Sony invented the VCR.

They turned into "the bad guys" when they became a movie/music company later. At the time, it was Sony vs. the TV networks.

Hilariously, they were the same company that tried to prevent the rise in the CD-R by refusing to allow any of their DVD/CD players to play burned media until well after it was a common practice. This seriously impacted their audio equipment sales and policies like this probably resulted in the company being so financially screwed today. So, Sony has been on both sides. They succeeded by being on the side of piracy(by fighting the networks copyright) and failed by trying to fight it later(as part of the RIAA/MPAA).

Re:Sound familiar? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2013-02-24 11:48 · Score: 1

If you bought music from musicians that are signed to a MAFIAA record label it doesn't matter what country you bought the music in. The chance that the MAFIAA isn't getting a cut of the regional licensing deal is practically zero.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.

Re:Sound familiar? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2013-02-24 11:52 · Score: 1

You can haul as many strangers around in your Honda as you want and charge them as much money as you can convince them to pay for the privilege. You can't legally charge anyone to listen to your CD and you certainly can't play it for a crowd of strangers even if they don't pay you a dime.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.

Napster was not “very good” by gig · 2013-02-24 11:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Napster totally sucked unless all you wanted to do was generate a high file count in your MP3 collection. You might as well just record the radio in that case. The rips were awful quality, the labels were often wrong, and the version of the song you got was often not the one you wanted.

The one exception might be that you could find rare live versions or alternate versions of a track in some cases that were previously harder to find. If that had been Napster's focus — sharing music that wasn't available on CD — then it would have had a reason to exist.

I think iTunes is better in every way. Yes, you have to pay, but it is a small amount and you get exactly what you wanted, you never have to pay again as you download for life to whatever devices you want, and in many cases today, almost all of what you pay goes directly to the artist. If you don't like a song enough to pay for it on iTunes, then listen to it on the radio or as part of a monthly subscription service of some kind. If you like a song enough to pay for it on iTunes, you'll have it forever.

Re:Napster was not “very good” by fafaforza · 2013-02-25 03:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Are you comparing a simple app written by a high school kid where people are the ones ripping the music, to one from the largest US corporation set up with cooperation of record labels?

Re:Sound familiar? by gig · 2013-02-24 11:58 · Score: 1

No way — the most annoying person is the one like you whose guilt causes them to lambaste the innocent.

Sorry the guy reminded you that there are artists in your music collection who are going without health care because you decided they should work for you for free.

Re:Sound familiar? by gig · 2013-02-24 11:59 · Score: 1

Do you have any idea how little money the RIAA has? No, you don't.

Re:Sound familiar? by gig · 2013-02-24 12:15 · Score: 4, Informative

iTunes is 256 kbit/s AAC — when you factor in that iTunes doesn't skip, doesn't get scratched, today's iTunes music is higher-quality than CD. People make the mistake of assuming laboratory conditions. Instead, go into someone's home and take a CD off the shelf and it will be covered in scratches, the CD player will be making up bits to fill in the gaps, and it will likely skip at least once per hour.

And you may not know this, but it is Apple that generates the ISO MPEG-4 AAC audio file from their own master archive, which includes many songs and albums in lossless 24-bit 96kHz or even 192kHz audio — the actual audio from the studio masters. The actual mix that the producer made. Going forward, Apple will at some point release iPods, iPhones, and iPads that have 24-bit audio support (Macs have all supported 24-bit audio for many years now) and they will start releasing music in the actual studio master format, so you hear exactly what the producer made. There are frequencies in 96/192kHz audio that you hear with your internal organs, not your ears.

Vinyl is not a truer copy, unless you're listening to something that was recorded onto vinyl, which stopped in the 1950's. Since then, music has been recorded onto analog tape, digital tape, digital hard disks, and digital solid-state hard disks. For more than 10 years now, the typical studio master has a much, much larger soundscape than even CD can reproduce. Putting that soundscape on vinyl gives you an even smaller picture of it. And most vinyl recordings have too long of a running time, which reduces the audio quality considerably. And vinyl always has scratches, clicks and pops, that are not part of the original recording. It's not really the vinyl that people are nostalgic for, it's the old amps, which were made not to be accurate, but to be musical. We see some of this coming back with Beats headphones, which were not made to be accurate, but rather to be musical.

Re:Sound familiar? by gig · 2013-02-24 12:28 · Score: 4, Informative

> Remastered is just code for "we fucked the dynamic range to make it louder"

That is not true of the “Mastered for iTunes” masters and remasters. The primary instruction from Apple in the Mastered for iTunes documentation is not to crush the dynamic range, because that can be done by Apple when they generate the AAC (or other future format) consumer audio file, or by the listener on the playback device via SoundCheck — but the dynamic range cannot be put back by Apple or the listener if it is fucked in the original master. A full dynamic range is the single most important reason to do a Mastered for iTunes remaster.

Apple's master library supports up to 32-bit 192kHz audio, which has a much larger soundscape than CD, and they look at it as an important cultural resource because in 10 or 20 years, iTunes may be the only one who has some of those masters, because of the temporary nature of many music artists, their record companies, most music retailers, and so on. So Apple basically pleads with audio producers to give them a timeless master: the highest-quality recording you have, with the full dynamic range of the recording intact. One that they can use today to generate AAC, but also use in a few years to generate a 24-bit 96kHz version for the consumer.

Essentially, Apple is asking music producers NOT to master their stuff. They're saying “give us what you were listening to in the studio and we'll give as much of that to the consumer as we can today, and even more tomorrow.” The post-processing of the mix gets done by Apple, same as with YouTube you can upload a 4K and they will make every kind of tiny, low-bandwidth version.

On CD, if you crush the dynamic range, you should louder than the next CD. But with an iPod with SoundCheck turned on, everything is the same loudness, and a crushed dynamic range comes through simply as a crushed dynamic range. So we are moving out of the loudness-above-all era of music. It will take some time because it is expensive to remaster and nobody in music has any money, but at least there is a way forward articulated by Apple via Mastered for iTunes.

Re:Sound familiar? by gig · 2013-02-24 12:35 · Score: 1

In iTunes, what you are buying is essentially a lifetime proof-of-purchase. The tracks in iTunes that you have not bought show a price next to them, and the tracks that you have bought show a download button. You can also see all your purchases as a list and download any of them again. They download in the highest quality available today, even if you bought them at a lower quality.

It makes no sense today to buy a song unless you get that kind of proof-of-purchase. Just possessing a copy of the track is not nearly as valuable because you are responsible for storing it, backing it up, not losing it in a house fire, and for upgrading it to a higher-fidelity version in the future, which will likely cost you money. You may also be responsible in some cases for proving that you actually paid for that track. Apple takes care of all of this for you when you buy from iTunes. That is what makes iTunes music worth collecting, if there are songs that you like so much that you want to have them available for life. If you don't like a song that much, enjoy it in another more-temporary context like radio or subscription.

Re:Sound familiar? by nabsltd · 2013-02-24 12:39 · Score: 1

You can't legally charge anyone to listen to your CD

Maybe you can't charge people to listen to it, but you can legally charge people to rent the CD from you. Once those people rent it, they can choose to listen to it if they want. The "license" printed on most media these days that implies you cannot rent it is not legally binding.

and you certainly can't play it for a crowd of strangers even if they don't pay you a dime.

I wish you'd tell that to all the idiots who drive by my house with their stereo cranked to "any occupants of this car will be deaf by next year". Also, if I grab random people off the street and ask them if the want to come to my house to listen to the latest insert artist name here CD, it's perfectly legal. Even though once I get enough people, they are a crowd, and they are strangers, it's not a public performance.

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by gig · 2013-02-24 12:41 · Score: 1

Wow. Frank Zappa is a “right-wing zealot” because he expected a listener to chip in along with the other listeners to cover the cost of the writing and production and performance of the music? That is amazing!

If you go to a pot luck dinner empty-handed and somebody calls you on it, I guess they are also a “right-wing zealot?”

If you get a drink at a bar and the bartender expects a tip — fucking “right-wing zealot!”

It's good to know there are people like you out there, working tirelessly every day of their lives for free. You are working for free, right? If not, you're a “right-wing zealot.”

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by gig · 2013-02-24 12:54 · Score: 2

I know you meant well, but your post is fact-free.

Nobody tried to ban the player piano — the issue was that the player piano makers did not want to pay artists for the scrolls. They expected to make money off the music without kicking anything back to the people who made it. Many songwriters had the equivalent of a platinum album on piano roll and were fucking homeless.

Sony did not try to ban the VCR. They tried to stop the manufacture of VHS VCR's because they were too much of a copy of Sony's Betamax VCR's. Has nothing to do with content except that having 2 kinds of videocassette (or 2 kinds of anything, such as next-generation DVD) is really, really bad for consumer sales and fucks up the whole market for everybody. That is why content creators are RABID supporters of ISO MPEG media standards. Every time there are 2 formats, consumer content sales crash and it hurts everybody.

Re:Not exactly the first by Macgrrl · 2013-02-24 12:59 · Score: 1

Mix tapes. Recorded from the radio.

--
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by gig · 2013-02-24 12:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

DAT and MP3/MP4 are the best examples of Sony fucking it up.

In order to “protect content” they ruined DAT by disallowing digital-to-digital copies, which were necessary since DAT tape is fragile, and therefore a DAT recording would break and be gone forever because it was unprotected by backups. Considering that most DAT users were musicians and audio producers, they destroyed a lot of content, not protected it.

And they pushed their crazy “protected” ATRAC format and Mini-Disc instead of MP3/MP4. Brutal mistake when consumers were already buying “unprotected” CD audio.

No need to worry about Sony since they are going out of business any moment now.

Re:Sound familiar? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2013-02-24 13:31 · Score: 1

Maybe you can't charge people to listen to it, but you can legally charge people to rent the CD from you.

Not in the USA.

See 17 U.S.C. Â109(b)(1)(A)

Also, if I grab random people off the street and ask them if the want to come to my house to listen to the latest insert artist name here CD, it's perfectly legal. Even though once I get enough people, they are a crowd, and they are strangers, it's not a public performance.

The operative term here is "my house." Do it basically anywhere besides that and it is a public performance.

--
When information is power, privacy is freedom.

Re:Memories by Macgrrl · 2013-02-24 13:36 · Score: 1

My husband's best man started signing this during our vows at our wedding. 12 years on and I haven't forgotten (or possibly forgiven).

--
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World

Napster was the future by devent · 2013-02-24 13:54 · Score: 2

Napster was the future, 12 years ego.

If we had sane copyright durations (aka 28 years with possibility for an extension) then the music industry should have been forced to adopt the new technology and make music available more convenient, faster and cheaper. No, copyright is not to ensure a business practices through technological innovations and no, not to ensure profits.

If anything copyright durations should been shortened with each new technology, because the time-to-market gets faster and the costs are lower.

How many jobs does this insane copyright durations costs? How many new distribution technologies are killed because of lobbying of one stakeholder? How many innovations are not invented because of the not available public domain and not available fair use?

--
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute

Re:Napster was the future by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 02:34 · Score: 1

How many innovations are not invented because of the not available public domain and not available fair use?
Yeah, what technological breakthroughs for the benefit of mankind have been missed because people couldn't download free music?
I would guess: none.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:Sound familiar? by gmhowell · 2013-02-24 14:12 · Score: 1

Don't know how it will play on home video, but I saw the latest Lawrence last fall in the theatre. Looked pretty damned good to me. They had some before any cleanup, after the cleanup ~20 years ago, and current cleanup comparisons. Was pretty impressive.

--
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon

Re:Sound familiar? by cpt+kangarooski · 2013-02-24 15:32 · Score: 1

No, that's not true. No one can own a work of music itself (if it were possible, we wouldn't need copyrights to simulate it). But a copy of a work -- i.e. a tangible object in which a instance of the work is fixed -- is easily ownable. And that's usually how it is done. When you buy a wax cylinder, or 8 track, or minidisc or whatever, there's no license. You just own it. And you can do whatever you want with it, so long as it's not illegal. Copyright doesn't give the copyright holder a right to prohibit others from private performances of musical works or sound recordings. Thus, listening to them is not only legal, it is something that the copyright holder cannot license you to do, because he has no pertinent rights to license to begin with.

This idea that licensing is normal is the fault of the software industry, which traditionally has been unusual in doing this (even though it is not necessary for most users) and it is alarming that the practice is spreading.

--
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

IF we would all put our money where our mouth is.. by lordofthechia · 2013-02-24 16:56 · Score: 1

Not the GP, but my CD collection went up from a handful to 220ish CD's during the Napster era.

Through napster I discovered music and artists I didn't even knew existed. I would then go to the local Circuit City and would buy their CDs (sometimes their whole discography) since I had got a taste and I liked it. I wanted more and I wanted it all at the highest quality.

When Napster was shut down I refused to send a penny to the RIAA and its labels. A Nine Inch Nails album - Ghosts (which Trent released as an independent an sold directly through his website) was the first CD I bought after all those years.

After that I bought a few CDs (less than 10 though) thanks to the guidance from RIAARadar (a website that has sadly gone silent).

I bought a lifetime membership to Magnatune. I have gotten my money's worth in album downloads from that site.

I pitched in a donation to Musopen (many CDs worth) during their Kickstarter a few years ago to help them record and release free open music. The recording was done, the donors were given the first downloads and it has been great.

So I have been willing to put money in the proverbial guitar case, but to this day I still refuse to hand money to the RIAA. When given the opportunity I will gleefully hand my entertainment dollars to their competition instead.

I now own about 230 physical CDs and I will likely own no more than that for the foreseeable future.

I'll continue to pump my (now more numerous) entertainment dollars to other non-RIAA recipients at every opportunity. Not (just) out of spite for what they've done to the music scene and to stifle the growth of consumer friendly distribution channels, but to cast my votes, my dollars to a better alternatives.

--
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.

commercials by the_Bionic_lemming · 2013-02-24 16:58 · Score: 1

Napster was radio without commercials.

I got to listen to a bunch of bands then went and bought thier music. I was buying about a disc a week.

Then they went after napster. Metallica was the poster child, even though they actually embraced "record and share our stuff" .

So I quit buying compact disks.I wasn't the only one.

fast forward to the dying industry today. //waves to the net police

If you would of embraced the idea that people hearing music and actually would d/l songs inexpensively way back then, you'd be in a much better marketing position today.

I don't d/l your music, but I do find other artists that aren't with you - patchouli.net for one. I also hit pawn shops and resale places - 50 cents or less a disc.

Your loss for being an idiot.

--
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by SuricouRaven · 2013-02-24 19:21 · Score: 1

I had it backwards. I recalled Sony was involved, but put them on the wrong side.

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by SuricouRaven · 2013-02-24 19:22 · Score: 1

I was slightly wrong about the betamax case: I remembered Sony was involved, but mistakenly placed them on the wrong side.

That would be more convincing if... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-24 22:38 · Score: 1

That would be more convincing if it weren't for the fact that profits tanked very quickly after Napster was taken out.

Re:Sound familiar? by Cederic · 2013-02-24 23:28 · Score: 1

You misunderstand the nature of music. Nobody owns it.

Some people like to think that they do, but they're merely enforcing an artificial monopoly, but the music lives anyway.

I have music in my head. You can't hear it, but you can watch as I dance to it if you like.

Re:Sound familiar? by Cederic · 2013-02-24 23:30 · Score: 1

Do you have any idea how much money the organisations represented by the RIAA generate through exploitation of artists and customers?

Hiding behind an industry organisation merely gives us a single label to describe the whole bunch of them.

Re:Napster put music in a cage. by serviscope_minor · 2013-02-25 00:31 · Score: 1

And they pushed their crazy âoeprotectedâ ATRAC format and Mini-Disc instead of MP3/MP4.

Sony have done a lot of crazy stupid evil crap, but this isn't one of them. MiniDisc predated MP3, and they certainly didn't have the decoding hardware to deal with MP3.

Of course things changed, and then Sony pushed ATRAC3 later with special copy protection and encoding programs that only ran on Win98 SE or something.

--
SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:Sound familiar? by tehcyder · 2013-02-25 01:24 · Score: 1

Which fuckwads modded this as a troll? Remember, there is no "-1 for disagreeing with teenage slashdot groupthink" mod.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Was I the only one by fafaforza · 2013-02-25 02:58 · Score: 1

that was more reliant on Usenet at that time? I only used Napster for stuff that was hard to find that some bloke in the UK might have, like a Crass album. For me, I suppose, Napster was the preamble to nzb indexing.

Napster: Not As Ground Breaking as You Think by cHiphead · 2013-02-25 04:11 · Score: 1

The music was set free by the mp3 file size combined with dcc fserves on IRC, Napster just jumped on that bandwagon and leeched off the existing system.

Some of us were around before Napster showed up and pretended to be doing something new. You could've implemented Napster as a set of polished mIRC scripts, which is what it essentially was (and wasn't nearly as capable as existing options).

The one thing Napster did was make it quicker for 'anybody' to get music without having to learn anything about the underlying tech or infrastructure. The music had already been set free by the time they showed up, and the number of people in that sharing scene was growing exponentially regardless of Napster. They did such a good job of believing their own bullshit, they managed to get others to believe it, and hit a critical mass and finding music simply became most convenient by using their app. That's why they are remembered. Marketing, PR, and wasting a LOT of investment money, all for the sake of being lazy about downloading music for free.

Gnutella and to a limited extend WASTE did a better job of furthering the spread of music once Napster began to fizzle, as they weren't subject to a single point of control that could be dismantled. These days, even I use Spotify, but it sometimes feels like a step back, as does all this 'cloud' stuff. Storage is so insanely cheap that we don't actually 'need' cloud storage, but like Napster, it all plays to the laziest common denominator.

--

This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Re:Napster: Not As Ground Breaking as You Think by koan · 2013-02-25 04:23 · Score: 1

It wasn't really "free" until even a moron could do it, hence Napster.

--
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

The good ole days by koan · 2013-02-25 04:21 · Score: 1

I've been a pirate of sorts since the 70's when I would go to the local record shop and buy all their blank cassette tapes, the guy would say "Why do you buy so many cassettes?" and I would say "Because my friends buy so many records"

The single greatest thing I got from Napster was my musical taste changing, it was like being set free, I could grab an album (or even better just the song I wanted) and if it sucked delete it, and if it was good it could change my entire outlook sometimes.

--
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."

That's all we did in HS by WillgasM · 2013-02-25 05:17 · Score: 2

Back when everyone had 56k, our school had a full T1. Every computer in the lab had napster installed. We would stay late every day downloading and burning. We actually started a computer club just to make it seem legit (we also LAN partied starcraft with a single cd). Our IT guy at the time was kinda my mentor. While the other kids were downloading music, he was teaching my how to download movies from FTP servers on irc trackers. You might have to wait in queue for the FTP server, but once it was your turn, you'd DL an entire movie in minutes. Those were the good 'ol days.

Decline of the industry started before Napster by Shirley+Marquez · 2013-02-25 05:39 · Score: 1

One thing that many analysts miss is that the music industry was already in a decline during the 90s. Sales of new music were dropping but the effect was masked by all the sales of CDs to people who were replacing their vinyl. By 2000 most of the replacement that was going to happen had already happened, and that was one reason that sales numbers began to drop. It's true that hardly anything runs up the kinds of mass sales numbers that top releases once did. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_best-selling_albums and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_best-selling_singles ) But that says more about the fragmentation of the music market (there is no longer ANYTHING that everybody or nearly everybody listens to) than about decline of the overall business. Nowadays the sales are spread across more titles than was once the case; just look at how little intersection there is between the various Billboard charts.

Re:Sound familiar? by nightfury · 2013-02-25 05:49 · Score: 1

Nope .. not at all .. I have paid for every bit of music that I own,

You don't own any music. You never have. Read the fine print.

The joy of surfing other people's collections by adobelis · 2013-02-25 06:37 · Score: 1

The best thing about Napster was getting almost any music you could think of in a moment, for free.

The second best thing, a close second, was surfing other peoples' collections. For a few months in 2001, almost every week, I discovered new bands and unknown albums and singles of bands I knew already. I would browse the collections of people who were sharing stuff I liked, and sometimes just download everything -- everything I didn't already have. Since I was on a T1, that could take just a few seconds in some cases. I would have a week of new music to discover, from the collections of people around the country and possibly the world, in an instant.

I wish there had been some way to pay for Napster rather than having it shut down. Both iTunes and the new-style (free, illegal, Torrent-based) file-sharing services pale in comparison, both in user experience and in sense of community (or lack thereof) -- Napster had community, even though I never once made any contact with another user I didn't know, except by downloading and sharing music with them. I'll always be a Napster kid.

A deeper legal analysis of Napster by cundare · 2013-02-25 07:15 · Score: 1

When I was in law school, I wrote an ambitious paper that interpreted the Napster decision (and others, including the Sony v. Universal "Betamax" case) in light of a multidisciplinary legal model that reconciled principles of group psychology, cognitive dissonance, evolutionary economics, management science, and Thomas Kuhn's theories about scientific paradigm shifts. The brunt of the argument, as it applied to Napster, was that, by the time that Napster had established its new paradigm, it was already too late for either the record industry or the federal government to save a business model based on controlling the distribution of physical media. While the Sony v. Universal decision "saved" the movie industry by stopping the industry from banning user-controlled video-recorders, I argued that the Napster court erred in giving the record industry legal control over the electronic distribution of copyrighted music. The only possible result -- which, in hindsight, is what actually occurred -- was a set of unexpected consequences detrimental to the goals of the established media businesses. Had the courts forced the music industry to work with Fanning to productize a useful, user-friendly distribution model back in the late 90s (because, let's face it, Napster really did suck from a usability standpoint), we might today all be happy with a ubiquitous iTunes-like resource controlled by the RIAA & MPAA. Not unlike what happened when the Sony decision forced the studios to embrace videotape as a profit center, rather than as a competitor.

The paper is written in an engaging, journalistic style (I was a mainstream tech writer before becoming a lawyer), but may still be a challenging read. Nonetheless, I recommend it to any Slashdotter interested in a deeper perspective on how intellectual-property controversies work.

Freely downloadable from the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology at: http://jolt.richmond.edu/v16i1/article1.pdf

Slashdot Mirror

Napster: the Day the Music Was Set Free

162 of 243 comments (clear)