Slashdot Mirror
Phantom Menace Soundtrack - First MP3 Single -Pulled
MartinD writes "Theforce.net has a link up to the first released
track from "Episode One". Get the single and start listening. " Have I ever mentioned how much I like electronic distribution? Of course, if you read the page, you can find that the RIAA has made them pull it. Yep-time to troll the newsgroups for it.
Would it now be illegal to distribute the MP3? (I'd hate to see Rob advocating illegal activities.)
What BS. That is an illegally obtained single and breaks copyrights. Must you fools rip off everything? You can't have everything free in life. Do not download it and do not redistribute it.
and you have never installed a program without having the proper license, or downloaded and MP3 of your own, or exceeded the speed limit on the highway, blah blah blah blah
Whatever, guy. get a grip. not like he's putting the mp3 on slashdot or even making a link to it...
You can get it at:
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Land/2020/
If it is supposed to be about free speech and not free beer how come so many people posting only want free beer? Why do incidents like this always make it seem that the free software movement is nothing more than a bunch of freeloading hypocrites?
Maybe it was recorded from broadcast?
Isn't it amusing how the RIAA dealt with this problem? It wasn't even Lucasfilm who decided to pull the tracks off the Net -- and personally, I would have had less of an issue with deleting the track if Lucasfilm had said as much.
So the RIAA heavy-hands the issue and tries to force the site to comply. MP3 fans and RIAA haters go nuts as a result. Disgruntled users post to Slashdot.org, which results in me reading about the issue. I search for the file on IRC and find it in under 3 minutes. I set up an fserver on a full T-1.....and start offering the track to an entire legion of people who wouldn't have had a clue about the issue IF THE RIAA HAD JUST STFU'd.
Apparently, the RIAA just doesn't understand the Internet or the subcultures that can develop within. And I have a hard time feeling sorry for them......
Yep, they don't need our help. At least they won't make money off the black market distribution they themselves are creating. Anybody got a server in a country they can't touch?
People should really stop signing contracts with the RIAA given that the RIAA is becoming a liability to the success of any record.
Slashdot may not be posting a link or illegal content, but they are certainly endorsing illegal acts.
The RIAA may not look too kindly on this. Slashdot is implicitly encouraging readers to download the starwars MP3 (clearly illegal, not matter how lightly you personally take the offense) by posting an article and stating:
Yep-time to troll the newsgroups for it.
Further instances of this (there are many past ones) will probably lead to a lawsuit similar to the one against Lycos, etc. Just an opinion though... who knows for sure what they will do. But something will need to be done to combat this illegal music!
I noticed the same hiss and whistles with mpg123-0.59k.
I upgraded to the new version, mpg123-0.59q, and it sounds wonderful.
Or:
a tes.mp3
ftp://ftp.one.net/pub/users/deadlock/DuelOfTheF
until Friday when I take it down.
Fuck RIAA. >:)=
Maybe you haven't figured out yet... but that is illegal in the US.
If they want to, they can go after you and make your life miserable.
Why don't you find better things to do than to steal other people's hard work?
why should the RIAA have to care about the rights of their members? Because that is the purpose of the whole organization! To protect the intellectual property interests of their members. They are doing what they are supposed to do.
Secondly, why should the RIAA care about disrupting freeloading internet subcultures?? Still does not change any facts.. the MP3's are ILLEGAL!
If artists dont' rejoice at the prospect of others stealing their hard work, why should they not be allowed to charge for their products (even if it would be to their detriment, it's still their choice to make)?
The people who _wrote_ it wanted to distribute it, but can't because someone else didn't like that. How lame is that?
and fuck you
There are two ownerships to a song.
The sheet music which is owned by the artist
and the recording which is owned by the record label.
It has 60hz hum in the background which indicates this recording was stolen off of some analogue source (videotape?) and is not original.
Of course, pirates will go to any lengths to get their warez, including stealing studio source tapes.
So this is hardly suprising.
and find yerself a copy of Carmina Burana, upon which this tripe seems to be fashioned.
People won't change, so you better get use to it.
Piracy and MPEG(layer3 sux) are here to stay. You could trie but you will fail, it can't be stopped.
A different example to all this is soft drugs, you can't stopp them and all your efforts in stopping them are futile, the only result is a bloated and corrupted police and a population who just don't care
/legalize
I've read some piracy fanatics here and thougt I gave you my view of it. Since you can make unlimited amounts of copies without losing anything I don't look at piracy as even slightly wrong. Certainly not then it comes to music, most of us bye CDs anyway.
--long live the pirates-- to hell with intellectual property
It's really pretty pathetic that people will go to such lengths to violate intellectual property/copyright laws.
I'd bet good money that *some* of these same people are the first to howl when there's even a slight perceived infringement on the GPL. The interesting thing is that initially releasing anything under one of the various open-source or "free" models is a choice; code, music and such are not open automatically, but only if their authors choose to make them so. Likewise, if an author/owner of a piece of music, code, film, whaever chooses to make those items non-free, that's also a choice, and that should be respected (and vigorously defended) by the same community that so stridently defends the GPL and other similar licenses.
So be adult about all of this, don't download the MP3, don't advocate piracy, and respect the rights of Lucas, Williams and any other artist.
The quality is fine. The people that were complaining were using inferior players (as mentioned by one commentor, mpg123 0.59k sucks, whereas mpg123 0.59q works fine. mpg123 0.59o also doesn't work well, but an old copy of splay I have sounds fine.)
At any rate, since the soundtrack's not available yet anyway, and since it undoubtedly will not be released in singles form, I don't see who this is hurting.
I'll be adding it to MP3 cd #27 soon at any rate.
-A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If the theforce site did not have distribution rights, then you can't complain if they were forced to take the recording down. Do you know if theforce.com has distribution rights? For that matter, do you have distribution rights? If not, then what the hell do you think you're doing?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Posted by ButtGoblin:
f _the_Fates.mp3
http://theforce.net/multimedia/sound/epi/Duel_o
quality kinda sux tho
The page with the mp3 has the whole list -- just don't scroll down.
Who cares if they want it down or not? I want to hear it and since I'm going to buy the CD anyway, there's no reason I can think of that I shouldn't be able to listen to the MP3.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Obviously, based on the reports that people have
given here about the quality of the mp3, it sounds
like it was done poorly and rushed, which implies
to me that the original recorder obtained this
illegally. Then they distributed it.
I know that I do agree that the RIAA needs to
change their vision of music distribution, but
it is not our right to steal the work of artists
underneath them just because we disagree with
their ideals. Piracy of music means, in the
end, *less* money for the artists themselves
(in addition to less money for RIAA), and that's
not how to show support for artists and dissent
for RIAA. Instead, write letters to the artists
and the people that make the music (in this
case, John Williams and George Lucas), and
explain the benefits of the MP3 format for
music distribution.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
At any rate, since the soundtrack's not available yet anyway, and since it undoubtedly will not be released in singles form, I don't see who this is hurting.
So it might be right for this one track? Does
that it mean it's right for other music? For
example, what if "One Week" was leaked on MP3
before BNL's Stunt came out? Would more people
buy the album? Probably not, as that's the
only real good song on that, and thus the
sales of the album would go down, and BNL's
final profits would be hurt.
You can't justify it for one case, and then
say its wrong for every other one. Piracy
is piracy, and two wrongs don't make a right.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Data is data.. Using a "bad" browser won't cause the MP3 to sound any different any more than it would cause downloaded images or applications to look/behave any differently.
You're right in suggesting an alternative player though. Some players are better at removing artifacts and other nastiness than others.
Thank you!
and to the RIAA...
Kiss my ass!
Do not read this
The only John Williams music I ever liked was his Star Wars stuff, and this music is excellent.
But the recording sounds like SHI*T! Not just the hiss, but all these little pops and whistles and garbage. OUCH!
What on earth did they do to this poor little mp3? This sounds like it was really badly ripped or something like that, not the high-quality high-production-values stuff we expect from Lucas/Williams.
Why should there be artifacts in the first place? I've been using mpg123 for years and never had any problems...
PS -- Tannin: better mail the alpha address again. But don't expect any alphas unless you're doing a review for someone (or plan to publish it)...
Any idea what the choir is singing (or what language it's in)? I just got a nice little postcard in the snail mail yesterday for this sound track (nice postcard has the movie poster on the front of it) it says it comes out May 4th. Looks like I'm going to have the soundtrack memorized by the time I see the movie! :)
-jay
As I recall they're singing a couple of lines in Sanskrit. If you go to the Boston Globe's website and search around for articles dating back to the first week of April, you ought to find a very nice article about John Williams and the new music. Ain't It Cool News also had a link to this, earlier in the month.
-- 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.
This song was removed from public access by the RIAA/mafia throwing a tantrum, much more than because any spefic legal transgressions.
When a child throws a tantrum, a responsible parent will *spank* that child.
The RIAA *must* be *spanked* as often as possible!
Also, the obvious response to your plea is that an article *about* free beer will attract a majority of folks *interested* in free beer.
(belch)
'scuse me.
**>>BELCH
For that matter, do you have distribution rights? If not, then what the hell do you think you're doing?
Easy. He's distributing it anyways. Darn kids!
**>>BELCH
So be adult about all of this, don't download the MP3, don't advocate piracy, and respect the rights of Lucas, Williams and any other artist
You'd like that, wouldn't you?
; )
**>>BELCH
Absolutely. I got *so* sick and tired of all the ads and yapping and dreck on the radio.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I was turning the volume _down_ to avoid the irritating stuff about ten times more often than I was turning the volume -up- to enjoy the music more. And since my budget was extremely tight, and I didn't want to blow $12 or more on a CD I'd listen to a few times and realize I only liked maybe one or two tracks on the whole thing, I pretty much just listened to less and less music, until I rarely listened to any. And then MP3s came along, and now I can try out and listen to whatever I want, from among (tens of?) thousands of selections, in the comfort of my own home, without having to announce my musical tastes to the whole world at the checkout line, and without having to put up with the pissy attitude of the flunkies running the cash registers.
For selection, comfort, style, and service, the current situation is darn near unbeatable. I could be grudgingly persuaded to become more flexible on the price, if I had to. *grin*
Then why isn't it George Lucas and/or John Williams demanding that it be taken down?
0 1 - just my two bits
-- RIAA, instructing it's members on MP3s.
RIAA is doing it's usual chasing-genies-after-they've-been-let-out routine. When will they learn?
Look, you can bicker about piracy and the rights of artists all you like, but the fact is, the RIAA still keeps acting way out of line: Repeatedly, legitimate MP3s are pulled because the RIAA applied pressure to the artists who chose to release their own music in that format, instead of via traditional, retailer-friendly, RIAA-approved methods.
Note that, since I don't work at LucasFilm, I have no idea whether the Duel of the Fates MP3 is legitimate or not (although, if it's getting airtime across the country, an equivilently-low-quality recording doing the rounds should be a reasonable thing to release), but this does not affect the repeated bad behaviour of the RIAA.
theforce.net has a quote from the Boston Globe article mentioned in another comment. It goes like this:
Many of you have noted that the Boston Globe article we mentioned previously WAS referring to Duel of the Fates when saying the lyrics were sanskrit. So now we've got Devanshu Mehta with a possible solution. Keep in mind that none of us here have any clue about Sanskrit, so Devanshu could tell us it translates to "Great Jumpin' Horny Toads!" and we'd never know the difference:
Seems an appropriate description of the Dark Side's power. Can anyone confirm this interpretation? Maybe it's a quote from literature?
The original Globe article is available here but requires a fee for access.
You can get yours at my mirror. Limited time only. Get it while it's up.
I agree. All of the CDs i've purchased this year wouldn't have been purchased if i hadn't first heard part (or occasionally all) of them as MP3 first. Now that i've heard Duel of the Fates, i will definitely be buying it the first chance i get. (and then i'll run home and immediately encode it, because i love having all of my music at my fingertips...i hate searching around for a CD.)
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
--Albert Einstein
but where's the mp3? is it me or is the mp3 not there? it's probably way to early considering i was up till 3am finishing up a programming assignment for my algorithms course....
the story first. man, i need some coffee....or meth.
That was sorta pointless.... I saw it last night no less then FIVE times on alt.binaries.starwars, and twice on alt.binaries.sounds.mp3 ....
:)
Yeah, pulling it will SURE be effective. Maybe when the recording industry catches a collective clue about the net, they'll be more effective.
Have you been reading the comments, Anon Coward?? These people are seeking out CDs that they would have otherwise passed over because they heard some MP3s by the artist. Artists should be rejoicing at this wide exposure. I'm going to buy the Episode I CD. MP3s don't become valuable collector's items ;)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
I have posted a mirror on my server to make downloading this song easier for everyone. All that I ask is that you help me pay for the bandwidth by clicking on the little banner. Thanks for downloading, and may the force be with you. http://www.redpoint.nu/duelofthefates/ ---------------- May 19th is gonna kick ass.
So even though I have pre-ordered the CD from CDNOW I shouldn't download this?
i'm using x11amp,
and everything sounds juat about like it should.
i know winamp does artifact reduction,
i guess x11 does the same.
and with a couple tweaks of xmixer and x11's
built in equalizer,
i got rid of almost all the hiss.
ari, i'm assuming you know not to try and d/l through netscape.
my best advice would be to re-d/l or try another player.
-TK
P.S. btw, whatever happened to possibly getting me a FnD alpha password?
-Tannin Kal
browsers do matter,
at least a couple settings in them.
i haven't tried d/ling mp3s in netscape under linux,
but with the default config in 95,
it perceives the file as ascii,
and thus drops the 8th bit,
garbling the file,
but not necessarily destroying it entirely.
of course,
from actually hearing those files,
while you can recognize the original,
actually hearing the melody is tough.
not the issue here,
but the reason i use wget when it really matters.
-Tannin Kal
is the alpha functioning well enough,
you fear it might replace any need to purchase?
too early to make even that determination?
too far from release,
enough might change to make it a significantly different game?
all devel and debug done internally?
worried of contract issues down the road?
sorry for all the questions,
but i'm honestly curious here.
-Tannin Kal
i find this quite silly that people cant wait for the movie to come out to hear the music... watch the movie suck when it comes out, that would be a big joke on all you kids clammering for every piece of star wars info you can get. have patience already, sheesh.
-may the source be with you
If the RIAA is such a pain in the butt, the solution is simple: Do not distribute the MP3s on American sites. Use foreign ones.
:v)
If the RIAA insist of driving the music distribution business away from America, then so be it. Stuff them. This is a global village and you don't have to stop off at their house.
Vik
i noticed the same pops, whistles, and other miscellaneous mp3 artifacts, and was similarly annoyed---when listening to the song with mpg123. but then i popped it into freeamp and there's only a slight hiss, barely noticable. freeamp is a better player anyway, so there you go. :) -- neil
Well, damn me if you want but here's a fast site with the Duel of the Fates MP3 for download:
http://home.san.rr.com/mosespa/
Just go to the soundtracks section and then to Episode 1.
You can get it here to:
The RIAA can bite all our asses.ftp://146.57.193.188/duel.mp3
-- Mthrboard
...the biggest assholes in the U.S. (currently). I'm going to make sure to distribute it to as many MP3 sites as I possibbly can. These idiots just don't get it OR understand what they are up against. All the better to watch them crash and burn ;)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Sure it is...just look at all the links below for mirrors. Like I said, RIAA doesn't know what it's up against. I personnally purchase pleanty of CD's yearly, so do me the favor and get off your fucking high horse of morality. The only reason I download mp3s is to sample the artist so that I don't get stuck with a $15 coaster of deadbeat music like I've done in the past. And in THIS case, I am anxious to hear what amazing sounds John Williams has created for the much awaited SW prequels. I can't wait for the day that RIAA is extinct. I think I'll pull out my vinyl copy of the original Star Wars score and drink a toast to freedom. :P
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
Just got it from here. Very nifty, a little hiss, me thinks. Don't like the voices, but the music is solid.
http://ww2.netnitco.net/users/schoen/starwars/
when Push Comes to Shove
To quote the trailer:
"Nooooooo!!!!!"
Oh well, I was pretty sure about #15 anyway. Of course, I have not been following much of the plot information that has been going around the web, so that particular piece of information may be common knowledge, in which case I just look stupid.
seems to me the whole "its eating into our profits because ppl can download music for free!" is just a smoke screen for the real motiviation, which is control over the music you hear/buy.
Think about it. The recording industry decides what bands will get recording contracts, have albums produced and thus control what the consumer can ultimately hear and/or buy.
MP3 changes all that. Any band with the means to record their own material and encode MP3 can distribure their music without having to kiss the collective ass of some record company.
If the music is good, it will be picked up and distributed on the net. This has to bug the crap out of music industry executives. It threatens to upset the whole order of the existing 'industry'.
Seems to me that protecting the economic interests of the recording artists themselves is not the real issue. I don't know about everyone else, but dl-ing mp3 files has never precluded my from buying a cd, but I have been turned-on to bands that would probably never get big recording contracts and lots of radio airplay.
God I love the net. It is changing the way things are, bit by bit.
Ah, but how many artists really object? I have yet to hear any of the people who actually MAKE the music complain about mp3's. It seems to be only the Record Companies (or agents/professional ogranizations of the record compaines) that are up in arms over the whole thing.
For instance, the whole thing about Public Enemy's company forcing them to pull one of their own songs (in mp3 format) from their website. Come on now. Who are you protecting?
--
Gellor
Actually, if you think about it, you may have just proven the opposite point with you example. I made the mistake of buying Stunt after hearing "One Week" on the radio. How many more people might have done the same, if the only taste they got of the album was "One Week" in an early release MP3?
Piracy is piracy you say, but what consititues piracy? The "stealing" of profits from the rightful owner? I'd say that suffices for a simple definition, and by that messure, there is no piracy here. As was mentioned previously, there is very little chance that the Episode One soundtrack will be released in any singles form, so the worst that happens is some people that would have bought the album based on past experience with Williams music might hear this track and decided they didn't like the new stuff and thus not purchase the album. However, the other side of that is true as well. Many people who wouldn't have spent money on a CD full of music they didn't know will now have the chance to hear it and thus the prospective audience for the CD increases.
Blah..I'm rambling...
--
Gellor
--
Wonko the Sane
Anybody want to put up a mirror with the file on it? I'm too lazy to track down 47 parts of a uuencoded message from a newsgroup I never frequent.
I think I should move to a country where American lawyers can't touch me. Then I could mirror anything that stupid lawyers force down.
"My client doesn't like how you are making fun of them. Take it down immediatly, or we will launch a law suite that is unconstitional, but you can't afford to defend against."
"OK, I will take it down, but Djabji will just post if for me in Equidor, where you can't touch _his_ ass."
Data piracy is not theft. Theft implies that I, in my role as pirate, am taking a tangible thing from you, in your role as intellectual property owner. But the problem is, data doesn't work that way. If I make a copy of your music, you have not lost anything. It's not like I stole your master tapes at gunpoint or something. You're just as well off if I download the MP3s of the album as you are if I just don't buy it; you don't suffer any loss of revenue, since I'm too darn cheap to buy your album anyway. :)
Sorry, I'm just tired of hearing RIAA, SPA, etc. flog this particular dead horse. Intellectual property violation is a category all its own.
Piracy comes in many forms --- illegally copying software from a friend, stealing source-code from other programmers and taking the credit, and making MP3 files of copyrighted music, to name a few common practices. Most of the people I know that advocate any of these forms of piracy are NOT VERY CREATIVE themselves!
What if you had spent days, weeks or months coding, testing and debugging a new application. Shortly after completion, however, you find out that an associate has taken your executable code and posted it throught the Internet. How would you feel?
Attitudes change when you are the one doing all the work, intead of merely benefitting from someone else's creative efforts and years of experience. Data Piracy is Theft. That's the bottom line. An MP3-encoded sound track is NOT like source code that can be used as a teaching tool, modified and then turned into something even more effective. A stolen soundtrack (whether poorly dubbed onto cassette, CD or MP3) is a final product that belongs to someone.
Spend some time producing code that other people actually want, and sooner or later you may run across a "friend" who DECIDES FOR YOU that your right to ownership does not matter. It may open your eyes to the world of Intellectual Property and the U.S. legal system.
There is a difference: Open Source software is NOT "Open Season" software. Did the author give permission? Theft is Theft.
Data piracy IS theft . . . just one form of it!
When a piece of music (or software) is created, in this country it is the intellectual property of its creator. When another person makes use of that property (by playing the music or running the application), it is the legal right of the owner to require some form of credit for such use. Such "credit" commonly takes the form of monetary compensation in the Western world, but that is always the case. However, the creator's legal right to control use of his private property (even intellectual property existing in the form of digital data) remains in effect for quite some time! Unless the creator has given up ownership, he has the right to sue others for violation of his restrictions on use of said property.
When a musical score is created and sent to a company for CD/tape mastering, distribution and selling, the owner of that music wants credit in the form of money and recognition. To obtain an illegal copy of the music (a bootlegged CD, MP3 download, etc.) is a violation of the intellectual property rights of the owner because the strict guidelines set forth in his contract with the record company/distributor/etc. has not been followed.
If a painting was illegally copied, there would be no question as to the painter's rights. A novelist would also demand compensation in a case of plagerism. One of the definitions of "plagerism" is "to use the work of another without giving credit." (Literary plagerism is simply the most common form of it.) Data piracy is plagerism, which is a form of theft.
In the case of Duel of the Fates, it was stolen while apparently in the possession of the distributors. Lucasfilm may be able to sue their distributors for the loss of potential record sales due to inadequate security around their product. That is why the RIAA stepped in.
What if it were YOUR code? As I stated before, you would feel differently if you had created something of value and another person copied it without giving you the "credit" you deserve and demand up front --- name recognition, monetary compensation or anything else you ask for. That's the law in this country!
Why not? RIAA can never enforce their rules. Every college creates a thousand file servers thanks to the wonders of free ethernet. Or built-into-the-tuition ethernet.
Ryan -- 26gigs and a T3
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Here it is:
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Oh, and the RIAA can bite my ass.
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
I listened to the MP3 yesterday afternoon at work... while not quite my style, I enjoyed a taste of what is to come. It's nice to be able to hear different kinds of music so easily over the net. :)
Which is why the RIAA grates on my nerves. They claim MP3's are cutting into record sales. Fine. Less kids are buying CDs becase they can listen to them on their computers.
What about working professionals who buy CDs regularly. I bought 8 cds over the weekend. If it wasn't for MP3's floating around the net letting me hear things I never would pick up in a record store, I doubt I would have purchased that many.
Hell, I may even get that Madonna tribute CD after hearing a couple of the songs... and I *despise* that pop/top40 junk
So the RIAA can kiss my ass.
--
I got it off of scour.net, so if you're searching, you may want to check there.