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Easy MP3 Distribution
capncook writes "There is a cool new tool out there called Napster that allows anyone to become a publicly accessible FTP site- tapping in to that huge resource of personal mp3 collections that everyone has, but have not been able to share. It's still in beta, but the bugs are mostly harmless, and it certainly does the job- although no Linux version is yet available. RIAA should be scared out of their minds because users are not logged on permanently, so it's hard to track them down to take legal action.
"
Search engines are still the best way to get mp3s IMO.
I would just like to point out that Napster has been out for quite a LONG time. In fact, it's been out long enough for people to copy the concept (take a look at CuteMX, or whatever it's called). It's basically the same concept, except generalized to support all media and not just mp3.
this program is just to buggy, not to mention ugly. Someone needs to come out with a version more stable, and with a better user interface
Actually, there is a Linux version. You just need to visit napster's channel on efnet, and download it from one of the bots. It's text based, but it still rocks.
Where was the staff at slashdot when napster came out? man this is OLD news. RIAA is already suing Napster right now.
http://www.wired.com/news/b usiness/0,1367,32559,00.html
It is very good in that unless the user you choose to download from logs off the net while you're downloading, you're guaranteed that the search results are accurate.
These results are further grouped by ping speed, line speed, and optionally, sample rates, and so forth.
The choice is obviously limited by who is online at the time, but is generally very good.
The only concern I have, re the comment about the RIAA, is that they could much more easily attempt to shut down Napster itself, rather than the individuals using it. Napster doesn't give out IP addresses etc.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Is this just a ftpd for windows?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
get your story straight, it's been around for a
while, and there is a linux version.
http://www.gis.net/~nite/
It's text-only, and I've not had a chance to
look at it yet, but it is available at http://www.gis.net/~nite/.
According to the mp3.com article here the RIAA is planning to sue the people/company behind Napster.
Even though the files swapped around on Napster could theoretically be 100% legal, the RIAA is suing. This is prety similar to what happened when the Diamond Rio came out. Sadly this time the company they're suing doesn't have deep pockets to fight back with.
The recent tactics of the RIAA are very disturbing, but I'm pretty sure that most people saw it coming. The worst part is that there's no one to stop them either. Yet.
Napster has been around for couple of months now. I think the reason it has lived this long is because no one really knows about it, save for those who spread knowledge of its existance through word of mouth. Thanks for killing it by telling the whole world. I'll bet the RIAA is gonna take down Napster like a whore on friday.
No Linux version? How will us Linux users ever
serve files over ftp, then?
Napster is the ultimate in mp3 sharing. :) There is a nice little search engine on it, so you may find the song your looking for quickly and easily, and it even shows the users connection speed so you can pick that nice T3 to download from instead of the 14.4.
Imagine this:
A huge online community with hundreds of users sharing over 100,000 songs. Each person shares what they have, and each person can download any song from any person, with no ratio! Its like Mp3 communism, but cooler
Too bad the RIAA is going to sue them to oblivion.....:(
Opening your HDD to the globe is one thing (http, ftp) but an unknown protocol on an unknown port? hmm. I didn't see enough explanation (or source) to re-assure me this would be a good idea.
Executive summary: if you have a Win32 box, install it and see how easy it is to get (RIAA/lawyer-owned) MP3s. (If you're into that sort of thing, you'll probably like Napster.) If you don't, look at their site and get a better idea of what it does.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Heh, Napster ain't new...my university's residential hall network already blackholed it. :P
one of the best MP3 search engines is starting thier own "napster" like project. goto http://www.audiogalaxy.com/betatest/
it is a simpler client, and linux client is coming out soon
Ah, the last peanut -- overflowing with the oil and salt of its departed brothers. -Homer
Yep, Slashdot.org, news for the people that are too slow and too dumb to lookit up else where...
/. isnt uptodate or relevant
/. and make a nerdnews.yahoo.com or geeks.yahoo.com that is a /. clone with a similar style. But uptodate.
FAce it,
I wont be supprised if YAHOO doesnt copy
Maybe I'm paranoid - but what if this program is put out by the FBI or the RIAA?
How better to find, charge, and scare the hell out of MP3 traders than to produce a program that gathers all the evidence for 1000 counts of violating the digital copyright act?
Just a thought.
this sounds like a cool idea. Too bad that the l337 $kr1p7 k1dd33$ that will, unfortunatly, eventually log on and try to "haX0r" your computer. That's why I sit here with all incoming ports closed and accost these 3l337 d00d3$. I had one saying he knew C better than anyone... when asked what a pointer was, he said "well, it points to something, you dumb fuck!" ;~(
One of the guys on that particular IRC channel got so pissed of he got on the kid's box found out his address and home phone. The kid recieved ten pizza deliveries that night alone >:)
MUAHAHAHAHAH... *puts pinky to left corner of mouth*
OK now that I've gotten a -5 for going off on a tangent I think I'll stop... I'm already at -3 karma *sniff*
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
If you think you know what the hell is really going on you're probably full of shit.
jdube is who I am.
Isn't this basically the same thing as the Hotline protocol?
Ok, here is the low down:
First: the RIAA has already taken legal action against Napster. They story is here.
Second: Another program by the folks who make CuteFTP called CuteMX is out. It seems however, that GlobalSCAPE the company that makes it, has removed it from their servers. Maybe they are scared of what is happening to Napster.
I am sure I am gonna get in trouble for this, but I have a version of the Win 95/98 CuteMX exe here. I would appreciate it if people would mirror it quickly, so not to saturate the cable modem...thanks
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
About 75% of the people on my floor have this and use it actively to increase their MP3 connection. On ResNet (ethernet to your room) people can easily suck in 50 songs in an evening. You can almost always get the songs you want. It's a complete joke. None of these people are ever going to buy CD's again.
The napster protocal is non-complex, and if napster goes down or even if they don't someone is going to duplicate their idea and make it open source, Napster should take the initiative and do it themselves so they will not be the target of the RIAA, This might impact their plans to make a million bucks off of the program but it just isn't going to happen.
Is there a Mac version for any of these things?
Especially the AudioGalaxy thing pisses me off. The fucking thing is Java and it only works on Windows? Does anyone else see a problem?
evolt.org has a positive review of Napster here, with a walkthrough on how to use it. A couple of people have posted follow ups with some extra info.
;p
As others have posted, Wired is reporting that the RIAA is suing Napster - because apparently alot of Napster traffic is made up of unauthorised music.
Alot of Internet traffic relates to illegal activites, etc, so err, let's sue it!
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why in the earth should we use this? /home/ftp/pub and post it contents to a central server, and then making another "simple script" (TM) to connect to that server and make searchs on it?
Why not enabling a "simple script" (TM) to search your
Why reinvent the wheel? (or the ftpd in this case)
I'm sorry, I don't buy...
Leave your opinion about starting a project like this, but opensourced...I know there are many maniacs around there..
Not the software of cours,e but what it will be used for. Its just plain sad, how blatent people and Slashdot for that matter are about not caring that good music is being ripped off. As a music fan, I find it to be very very dissappointing how prevelent the sharing of mp3's has become. IF there are any other actual music fans out there please keep in mind that you are really going to hurt the industry and your favorite bands; because, while the bands themselves make very little from record sales, it does determine how much airtime they get and if/when they go on tour. Just a little something to think about. Sadly, Fynd
A few things about Napster.
1. Napster has been out for a while, so this is really not news.
2. The beta version was horrible. It was practically unusable.
3. The RIAA is suing Napster.
One major problem with the whole thing, is the huge reliance on the server. Technologies like ICQ, for example, rely minimally on server-based apps, letting Netscape give it away for free... When you use Napster, you can tell the immense server load: it takes almost 5 minutes to load the list of chatrooms, and even longer to find a file. With the law suits, I wonder how Napster is supporting this entire enterprise... I see no advertising in the program, and they give it away from free... hmm...
The linux version is available at:
http://www.gis.net/~nite/
Maybe a little pressure could get the napster guys to OS this.. (-;
Sean
it's a program that allows you to transfer mp3s like you're on a LAN.. those of you in college know what I'm talking aobut..
This won't be cool until I can run my own server. Puleeze when the feds knock down napsters door and snags his logs noone is safe.
We need an open source server and client pair. Or else it's useless.
Isn't this just hotline with a built in mp3 player?
b
Question: Which is worse? People who run mp3 sites that require a people to click on a banner to get the login and password thus them making money off of piracy, or people sharing mp3s without making money off of it? Hmm... maybe the RIAA should sue all ftp-server makers while they are at it...
Sssh! Don't give them any ideas. :)
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Hahaha, yeah right, Yahoo being up-to-date? Like that's ever going to happen. Their news aren't half as up-to-date as CNN's is.
the real at&t mix
Didn't the Diamond Rio lawsuit basically state that the law says record companies lose all copyright ownership once the data on the CD hits a hard drive?
I was under the impression that it did, and if it did, then they're screwed. Even though I have the capability to rip and encode simultaneously, I put the data on the HD first. Gogo is so fast, it doesn't really matter, and this would slide me through the nice little loophole in the law.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
First of all, I may be redundant, but I would like to emphasize the napster has been here for quite some time, there is a Linux port of napster, and the RIAA already has sued napster, as shown in this article.
Now that I have said that, I still have to wonder why napster is getting so much press as the next big mp3 thing. I have used it many times, and occasionally still do, and I find it to be nothing more than a glorified http search. Here are listed some the biggest flaws I found in napster. Note: I don't want to start a flame war, I honestly want to know why napster is such a big deal considering its vast problems.
1. Quality of mp3's - Napster is cool in that it lets you specify bitrate, but to be honest, that doesnt mean much at all. Try searching for a popular band, say Nirvana at "atleast" 128... you'll find 100's, but then try searching at "at least" 192, you'll find like 3 at most. Its search engine is a little bit better, but it doesnt change the fact that most of napster's content is regurgiated ratio ftp stuff, and the rare high quality songs are just renamed mp3 group releases (apc,bkf,rns,ksi,etc...) that are much quicker to get on irc. It's cool for the people that just want to find a quick song regardless of quality, but really no use for anyone who is knowledgeable about mp3.
2. Server Connections - I have frequent problems getting on the server, I find large amounts of lag when trying to join the channels, and I noticed something else odd. Whenever I leech from a "hot list" site of mine that is online, and I reconnect to the server, the hot list site is no longer to be found online. This has prevented me from getting a lot of complete mp3's/albums.
3. Downloads - Maybe it's just me, but downloading seems a lot slower running through napster's servers. Same goes with viewing lists. If it's not the servers fault, it could be the clogged upload on the other box (see point 4), but I'm on dsl and a rarely get >isdn speeds even when downloading from a t3. Also, why isn't there a way to save queues in case a user logs off in middownload... that would save me lots of time, and why it isn't in is beyond me.
4. Upload control - Herein lies the huge problem. Napster is about sharing, and I'm cool with that, but it gives you NO control over outcoming file transfers. Whats wrong with letting someone limit the amount of downloading users on their box? Whats wrong with killing a user in middownload to save bandwidth? It can really add up on high speed, high content boxes which tend to be targeted en masse for downloads. I can see why colleges are cracking down on napster and blocking it... napster refuses to allow upload limits, the resnet box uploads vast amounts of mp3's, and the college network will obviously experience some drop in speed as this adds up. It's the person's own computer and files... they should have the right to control access to it. I usually put my files in a dummy directory to avoid being leeched to a halt while downloading because of napster. Which brings to me another point... that devious close scheme... if you click the "X" icon to exit, napster only minimizes. For someone inexperienced, this leaves their box continuing to upload files without the user's knowledge. Yet another reason colleges such as UIUC would ban napster... I bet students "closed" napster and it u/led and consumed lots of bandwidth without the student being able to tell it was only minimized. Sure I want to encourage sharing, but deception and force is NOT the way to do it. I trust that users would rather share their files if given some control than hide their archives to avoid napster's ridiculous "sharing enforcement" scheme.
I'm not totally dissing on napster, because I have found some cool stuff there. But, it still has a long way to go from the buggy program it is now. Maybe when some bugs are fixed, people will be closer to their little online cyber-music community. But right now, napster seems more like hype and hoopla, and private ftp sites and irc will remain my methods of choice for getting mp3's
The fact that you spent SIX MONTHS looking for one MP3 shows how cost ineffective MP3's are. Supposing you are a computer professional, your time is worth $50-$100 per hour. If it took six months, suppose you spent fifteen minutes per day trying to find the MP3. That means you spent $4,000-$8,000 to just get that one MP3. Now you could have got the CD for $15-$20. So not only did you con yourself out of $3,980-$7,980 but you also conned the hard-working artists and A&R people out of their share also.
I am a serious music lover and buy 5-10 CD's per week. If I were to switch to pirating MP3's instead of buying CD's, it would take me umpteen hours just to locate the music, download it, and burn it into CD's. I can buy 10 CD's in a one hour trip to CD store, for the cost of less than $200. It would cost me literally thousands of dollars to pirate the equivalent amount.
In my opinion, MP3's are only for the most casual music fans. Most of the specialized music is not available. I hope the RIAA takes agressive actions to end MP3 pirating, and I hope pirates are put behind bars. The people who pirate MP3's aren't doing anybody any favors: they waste network bandwidth like nobody else, they cheat artists out of their money, they raise prices for people who honestly buy CD's (not to mention put the whole concept of the music industry under question), and are spitting on the notion of property rights.
Please, for the sake of the future of music, for the sake of common sense, for the sake of humanity, for the sake of not wasting your life away waiting for your next batch of warez to arrive, please stop being a moron and STOP pirating MP3's. Thank you.
You're paying for it, then you can sure as hell listen to it. What these people (RIAA) claim is ludicrous. Remember people: the RIAA is out to FUCK you and when you have the chance to FUCK them back then you'd better well do it. I'd say the chance is now.
Napster is still a bunch of different, un-conected servers, thats why you almost never see your friends online (they're loged into a different server). Napster officials are working to fix this problem, but until then. . . . .
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
RIAA should be scared out of their minds because users are not logged on permanently, so it's hard to track them down to take legal action.
Instead of tracking down the users who are running illegal sites, I think the RIAA would just sue Napster or whoever runs sites like them. Even though they would probably never win, it would sure scare the s**t out of most small companies, and bring them into compliance with the RIAA's wishes.
I'm not american so I don't really now much about US Law, but doesn't the new "Digital Millenium Act" or whatever it's called make it illegal to allow people to make available ways to obtain illegal warez such as MP3's etc...???
that would be entrapment
if you're into this kind of stuff check out oth.net. it let's you register your computer as a server in exchange for access to other's mp3 files. i haven't used it in a while (since i was in college) but it worked fairly reliably.
i'm not sure how different this program is.
LL
"If you are falling, dive." -Joseph Campbell
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has blocked traffic to/from napster.com since they have been a major drain on our resources. Furthermore, the UIUC NROTC is launching a full scale attack on the Napster.
http://davedash.com/
Yes, people who pirate MP3's are clueless. They are conning the machine that produces the very music they listen to out of their profits. They don't understand the difference between owning a CD of music, and owning the rights to the music. As I show in another post in this topic, it is far, far more cost effective to purchase the CD's than it is to pirate them.
If you are a serious music lover: look out, because the MP3 warez boyz are about to destroy the industry. I hope the RIAA puts them all behind bars before they succeed, but that chance is diminishing when technologies such as naspter, which were created explicitly for illegal pirating, are promoted in the mass popular culture like they are today.
The most serious problem with MP3's is the ill-informed "logic" which accompanies it: in some of the pirate communities it is common to hear "facts" such as "it costs fifty cents to make a CD" and the like. Anybody with any knowledge at all of the industry, knows that the cost of producing an album is quite high -- in the millions of dollars (think: production cost, music video, marketing, distribution, etc., etc.). The break even point is 500,000 and all of the artists which do not reach that (> 95%) are paid for by those who do.
There is nothing illegal about the MP3 file format, and there are plenty of freely distributable MP3s.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Napster may go down the tube, but thisissorta their own fault for notmaking it open source. If it was an open source project the RIAA could not kill it since other people would pick it up or they could continue working on it in secret.
I would like to urge the people behind Napster to open source the project before it is too later.. or at least give the source out to trust worthy people with a lisence which GPLs the current Napster source if the company if forces to stop distributing it.
The good news is that now everyone knows about Napster and many many more people are probable using it now, so maybe the RIAA will actually cost themselves big time with this.. and even if they do shut down Napster an open source alternative may take it's place (though the running under Windows is importent for this type of program).
Finally, I believe it is time for those of us who wish topirate to begin developing technologies which aid in piracy. Napster is definitly the right approach since it makes it easy to make data available.
Jeff
BTW> A system that could deliver delayedmessages and make requests from your actual CD collection might be better for those hard to find songs though, i.e. it acts as a CD player too, but it records the songs allongwith your list of mp3s which are then made available. People can request that you rip a song for them and the ripiing process is almost totally automated, i.e. Napster or whatever would ask you to insert the CD for 5min.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Sure, Sony hates it. But the music I listen to is a niche market, and rather than not risk $20 on an import, people listen to a track. If they don't like it, they throw it out or give it to someone who might like it. If they do, one track is enough to get hooked on it, then they buy the CD. I know a bunch of people who are buying more CDs due to this type of thing, not less.
Me, for instance.
And besides...
- it's not CD quality
- I like it, I buy it.
As I keep telling people, there's a good reason to buy the album: if enough people don't, fewer records released, and we all lose.Explain how it costs more to manufacture a CD than a cassette tape. (Hint: it doesn't. The big record companies charge more because they are ripping you off.)
All the RIAA people need to do is start a download from someone, then go netstat -a to see connections (in Windows 95 for example).
Napster v2.0 Final is out, and I think it is one of the easiest ways to get music, but I own all of the CD's the mp3's come from...
... shouldn't throw stones. Clearly the RIAA is in a glass house and are indeed throwing stones.
Too bad people can be so blind. I think if you haven't already read it (or seen it) you should read "Animal Farm" by Orwell. It's a great example of how a very small group will shit on the rest of society. This is basically parallel to what the US is on the road to becoming. Some of the people who post here seem to be rather blind too I might add, chanting things like "it's illegal" and other such rubbish. Time to wake up and quit blindly following the law especially when it's so corrupt and tends to favor those with lots of power and money.
Airplay, actually the whole radio/record company dynamic is based on a system of favors(collusion) now that payola scams get caught too easy.
Record companies tell radio stations to play so-and-so this many times a day and radio stations agree but they want 100 cd's to give away, concert tickets, promotial royalties for concerts etc.
Maybe even a promise for the band to come in for an interview, think they want to be up at 6am for your local annoying inane morning show?? Sure its promotion, but its mandatory for the band and they'll get in contractural troubles if they don't show up.
Phone calls to popular radio stations mean nothing. People are calling over and over again for a song thats on the playlist anyway. So the DJ might say, 'This one goes out to Carol in Woodridge.' Carol could have sat on her fat ass eating bonbons and saved herself the nickel and Ricky Martins would still be spewing from her box.
Who decides what bands will be aired is strictly up to the record companies. They *might* make their decision based on fan approval and quality of music, but from my experience its image + profitability + market saturation + minor ability in music. A million dollar studio and a band of good studio musicians plus a decent producer can even make Ricky Martin a star.
In the end copying music probably doesn't steal shit, most people wouldn't or couldn't buy most downloadable songs in the first place. And the ones who do 'steal' are, if they try REAL hard, taking pennies from multi-millionares and a few billionares. Most established musicians don't even care, its the record companies who stare all day at the profit margin, well except maybe Garth Brooks.
So is it like IRC? IRC has DCC for file
transfer... what makes napster better than
an IRC client?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
This is what scares RIAA more than anything. That MP3 will become a legitimate distribution channel, and that they will lose their oligipoly.
Go to mp3.com, and find the real music that is being produced by real people in your part of the world.
Boycott the sell-out bands who support RIAA and their sub-human lawyer leeches! Stop listening to lame mainstream bullshit produced merely to maximize profits of multi-national corporations!
This thing is slow - I just installed it on my machine and it's been chugging away reading my hard drive for about 10 minutes now.
Does rescan everytime you start it up? Winamp does not takes this long to read 2990 ID3 tags...
Maybe I'll just do an ICECast instead.
BTW, it's also illegal to go 5mph over the speed limit, to not report that extra dollar I earned the other day on my taxes, and at one time to even sit at the front of the bus if I was black. Quit criminalizing me for doing nothing wrong. (other than perhaps not kissing your butt enough)
i think we slashdotted napster (:
It's great how you guys are all "LAW AND ORDER" when it comes to Microsoft but all "DOWN WITH THE LAW" when it comes to something you support.
Lovely.
Your only valid point is the high cost of old music. I do agree that the record companies are making a substantial profit off of old CD's for several reasons: (a) the production cost is lower. Just do some digital re-mastering, and you're set. (b) There is less risk. It doesn't take a genius to predict that a Beatles re-issue is going to sell millions and millions of copies, whereas of all the new bands which come out today, less than 5% sell millions and millions of copies, so they end up losing money on most new acts.
However, much of your post is from a gross simplifcation of the industry. Your claim that production costs can be lowered to 0 is absurd, because it costs millions of dollars to produce albums today (by producing, I mean recording, and mixing, not manufacturing).
Record companies DO produce music, because they invest the required money in the studio. The new acts which come out costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to put through the studio to generate professional sounding recordings and music.
If it wasn't for the record companies, we'd just have a slosh of poorly-recorded, garage-type bands because nobody could afford to professionally produce the music.
Yet, the big record companies charge more for a CD. Why is that? Because they're ripping you off, that's why!
Who gives a rats ass if you own the CDs or not? It's not illegal for you to get these mp3's, it's illegal for someone to distribute the music.
It's not illegal for you to own them.
It's not illegal for you to listen to them.
Oh, in this new model, MTV will fund new music? Oh boy...
MTV's playlist consists of what? Less than a hundred songs at any given point? So basically, only MTV music will be generated? So my choice in music will be what kind of top-40 music I want to listen to?
What if I don't like MTV music? The current music system supports diverse genres of music, such as jazz, classical, and folk quite well. Who will fund these in the future? Currently, these are funded by the record companies, even though they lose money off of them, they are paid for by the top-40 music. So in the new model, who pays for them?
So basically, your goal is to give more and more power to one single entity (the media), take away production rights from everybody except a select few, and make music even more homogenized and watered down than it is today?
The artists dont appreciate being fucked.
The artists own the music.
That is all there is to it.
If an artist says you can freely distribute his / her music, then you can.
If they dont
You cant.
Advanced users are users too!
There is lots of great music, much better than the dreck that comes out of the big RIAA-associcated record companies at http://mp3.com/.
Probably won't convince you, though, because you probably work for one of the music conglomerates (or one of your relatives does).
does anyone know how i can change my napster nick? thanks
your just arguing bullshit morality here. 150 years ago prople considered it morally wrong free slaves because it was stealing from their masters. The only prblem was that having slaves were not a natural right and neither are copyrights today. If people only would have bothered back then to pull their heads out of their asses and see what they what opportunities were missed by embracing slavery, now today we have the same with copyrights. If you would just let go, and use the nature of information to your advantage instead of your distruction - you might have a chance.
You *are* already paying for it through the blank media tax. The big corporations shouldn't have pushed for that tax, if they didn't want to admit that they are charging up front for copying.
It's not really "theft" if you're already paying for it, right? I mean, how can it be?
Get them to repeal that tax, then we'll talk.
I'm talking about the cost of PRODUCTION (recording, mixing), you are talking about MANUFACTURING.
The cost of producing in the digital age is more than in the analog age because digital equipment is more expensive, and it is harder to get desirable results with digital equipment.
This is why the CD transition resulted in a price hike. One reason why casettes are still less expensive today is because only the tried-and-true performers are released on cassette now, so there is less risk.
Here
The consumers don't appreciate being fucked my the RIAA either. And it seems most the artists don't even acknowledge that there being fucked by the RIAA. And the artists can have the music, my copy of it does not deprive them from their original copy in the slightest. If an artist says I can distribute their music, then great. If not - I can anyhow and theres not much you can do about it anymore honestly. (other than join them if U cant beat em)
Anyone here own a VCR ! .mp3's be any different?. .mp3 with it's 128 Kbps 10-1 compression ratio (lossy compression at that) and the RIAA really should have no problem with it ! The result of mp3-izing the original Ripped CD has been reduced to Sonic ShortHand with the leftover letters in the BitBucket. Encoded songs DO NOT RESEMBLE the original waveform at all thanks to the Psychoacoustical algorithm applied !
I do,
And I tape shows that I can't watch now (X-Files, Old Star Trek - South Park) and watch them later,
Even though I can BUY these in the store !
Now, once I RECORD these shows, am I breaking the law ?
Technically yes,(It Is Copyrighted material) but I don't see any groups suing SONY for their latest model that I bought.
Why should
The argument about VCRs was that they don't make an EXACT replica of the original material, so there wasn't a reason to worry. Now here is
To achive the compression ratio needed for small files (1Mb per Min-mp3, 10Mb per Min CD) the encoders we all use keep ONLY the absolutely needed sounds and DISCARDS the rest, so that what remains is a bare-bones version of the song you know with all of the subtle (and not so subtle) nuances removed.
At this point I am rambling, so I'll close
Napster, CuteMX - I have used both of them, I have recorded CD's and Records(Vinyl !) onto Tape (80's-mid 90's) and now onto CD-R. and will continue to do so.
And I am sure that if Napster goes down, someone else will come up with something new to take it's place !
Guaranteed
PS: to the RIAA, your energy could be better spent on how to give ARTISTS who Create the music more than $1 per $16.99 CD !!!!
www.up2ng.com
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
I saw a couple people mention the idea of an Open Soruce project like Napster. Is anyone working on anything like this? I've been thinking about something like this myself, but would rather join an already existing project that starting one of my own. No need to make a million toasters if you only need one. If anyone is involved with a project like this email me at:
slakeNOSPAM@NOSPAMpunkass.com
*Remove the NOSPAM from either side of the @ to get my real email address (gee ya think?)*
Copyrights protect the artist's original work, it stops others from ripping it off and claiming it's theirs, it gives credit where credit is due.
If you do away with copyright law, you do away with a persons right to be credited with the work they have done.
I dont see how anyone from programer, to musician, to author, could see how that would be a good thing.
Advanced users are users too!
It's not. I used to irc with the guy who started napster. I know people who have chilled with him irl as well. He ain't a narc.
wow...now i really want to use your program...thanks for addressing this issue in such a thorough manner...
Alright, Napster seems like an excellent idea. It however has its flaws: :( )
1) Non-Anonymous author can be sued.
2) Closed source - If he is shut down the project will be somewhat suspened
3) Closed source privacy issues.
4) Windows only.
Now their is a very easy way to solve this. We, the open source community, create are own version!
Now who's going to volounteer first? (I would except for my lack of programming experience
Click here to read too much about my personal life
"[...] Napster that allows anyone to become a publicly accessible FTP site [...] although no Linux version is yet available.
Ahm, just about every Linux distibution includes at least the BSD ftpd and the wuftpd. If this napster thing is just another file transfer protocol then it deserves to die anyway as the free ftp protocol already does a fine job on this. And if it's just another Win9x ftp-server, what the hack is the news here? (If there are really some lawyers to sue yet another ftpd, than this story should have better been put under the "humour" section.)
From what the submitter said and what people have said, here are some corrections and opinions:
:P I favor clicking "Search," typing in my request and finding a ton of different people to download from on high speed connections without having to wait for an upload, connect to an FTP or anything over having to hit "Next 100" a ton of times and checking a million servers only to find them down or busy. You can find anything, any time (sometimes rare things you'll have to wait until there's a ton of people on to find) with no annoyance, difficulty or clients besides Napster whatsoever. How could you POSSIBLY prefer Fservers or FTP over this? :)
1) Napster is no longer in beta. Version 2.0 is now out. www.napster.com. Was released a few adys ago.
2) Napster is being sued, I believe, for contributing to the distribution of pirated copyrighted meterial. This may have been posted on Slashdot already - I haven't been around.
3) Search engines are definitely not the way to go, imo. Anyone who says that probably never tried Napster.
4) It's not buggy at all, in my experience. Especially not now that the final 2.0 is out.
5) The interface is easy to use for me. Unless you're in 640x480 or 800x600 . . . Then it could be difficult.
6) It's been out a while.
7) There is a Linux version.
Just learned that it was knocked back to Beta 4.
Regardless, it's still bug-free enough to not cause you any trouble.
:)
You raise an excellent point about the VCR/cassete tape and recording deal.
Now, here is the rebuttal:
You actually state in your post that it is not an exact replica of the show/song. In the case of the television show, it isn't. Nearly all channels include the little icon in the corner of their screen at least once every few minutes (if not all the time). Of course, this doesn't apply to premium channels or pay-per-view.
But the difference with mp3s are that the changes are not that obvious. No reasonable person can claim to be able to tell an audible difference between a high-quality mp3 (one not made with a gay encoder anyway (sorry didn't mean to offend any homosexuals)) and the CD. If you do... you're a liar.
Here's an example:
There is a local band here called Pain (Pain rocks!), whose members are friends of a good friend of mine. I happened to get an autographed copy of their latest CD (it rocks!), and of course, the way I treat CDs, I didn't want to damage it carrying it around in my car. So, I took my handy-dandy cdparanoia and my handy-dandy bladeenc and made the mp3s, transferred them to my Rio, and borrowed my friend's handy-dandy CDR to make a copy of the CD for me. There is NO audible difference between the original and the copy.
All your trying-to-sound-smart-talk about waveforms not resembling mp3s is bullshit. They're the same damn thing.
http://fack.net/~untruth/napster/misc/misc_linuxcl ient.html
:)
It was out for awhile already!
Go crazy!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
the mp3 movement is a revolution. its making people both consumer and corporation alike rethink the entire music industry. trading copyrighted materials is pirating which is illegal. no matter how much people try and delude, er convince themselves otherwise. making mp3 copies of all your cds is perfectly legal. however, the temptation to pirate is great. esp for those college students on the LAN (which has really been the incubator for the mp3 movement).
now for the good stuff. there is and has been a virile mp3 underground that lives on irc. this has been going on since the beginning of mp3s back in early 97. organized groups, private ftps, public bots, new releases, pre-releases (yes virginia, you can find stuff that wont be released for another 2-4 weeks, sometimes several months even). one place you might try hitting up that i havent heard mention of in this thread is mp3.box.sk. the box has a lot of good stuff. but again, i've always believed that people are your best resource. thats why this napster thing has 'exploded' if you will like it has. its enabled winblows users to trade with unimaginable ease.
but when the dust clears and the RIAA has shut down the napster folks, there will still be pirate groups, private ftps, bots, etc. its the kind of stuff that the mainstream doesnt see (uh, wouldnt that be the definition of underground?). and if it makes news and the RIAA decides to go after those folk like the BSA tried against the warez scene (ahahaha.. i just have to laugh at that), then it will only go deeper underground. the mp3 scene is here to stay. just to wet your imagination, there are countless private servers that are all over the 100g size (full albums, 160kbs+). are you hard now?
im not going to defend the actions of those who choose to pirate, but this napster thing is barely the tip of the iceberg. the only thing that makes it unique is that its public. whoop-te-doo. shitty bitrates, unreliability, mislabled songs.. leaves a lot to be desired.
http://www.cutemx.com/products/cutemx.html
Streaming audio over the net is still digital audio though. The bits still come into the computer. The only reason the RIAA doesn't go after those is that the clients for that don't let you save it to files...and/or the quality's just not as good. That's why the RIAA tolerates radio -- people will still buy CD's to get the better quality and be able to play the songs when they choose.
If there were streaming-audio sources that had the same quality as MP3, and someone wrote a program to capture the data to a file (say, in MP3 format...), then the RIAA would probably go after the streaming-audio folks as well.
But I want to see what they do about digital cable...which supposedly has CD quality sound, and it has plenty of music channels. And my digital cable box has an ethernet port, a USB port, an AC-3 port, and a port marked "data" on it...haven't tried hooking up to these yet, but I suspect it may be possible to rip the digital bits. Most certainly with something like the Hauppauge WinTV-D card.
I'm gonna have to go to the lab and try to run this thing on NT to make myself an account, and then copy the data file over or something.
.DLL's, but I got it to run fine up until then.
The linux version doesn't create accounts, right?
I tried running the Windows version under Wine, but it freezes somewhere around connecting to the server ("Checking Version"). I had to grab some
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
[begin rant]
.jpg with 10-1 (90%)compression (almost unrecognizable !)
All your trying-to-sound-smart-talk about waveforms not resembling mp3s is bullshit. They're the same damn thing.
OK, I won't try to sound it, I will explain it !
Here we go !
Take your favorite CD (anyone, it doesn't matter)
Encode it with your favorite proggie
Record it onto CD-R
listen to both through headphones (or speakers in a quiet room)
Hear a difference ? Don't lie
mp3's are great because they are free,
BUT if you really love music (and the way it SOUNDS), they will not replace CDs for sound quality
I made the first post, not to start a pissing contest, but to explain what mp3s are, good sounding, small but an incomplete version of the original.
Uncompressed 24bit Bitmaps (.bmp) look a lot better than a 24bit
[/end of rant]
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
"thousands of guilty pleas or convictions of prirates"
i mean come on.. these guys sound nastier than your average government organisation! *shudder* ..
even shades of judge dredd ("i am the law")
*sigh*
Stop the planet.. i want to get off....
Napster is a cool program but it would have been great if it was a general file sharing program instead of just mp3's. Like have the ability to link to folders like ftps, but with the ability to search and share them the way napster does with mp3's. Is anyone working on this? Or is there something like it already out?
Remember that music is licensed, not sold. CDs cost more because the playback quality is higher. If the owner of the music wants to charge you more for that better experience, that's their right. The cost of distribution media is immaterial.
Without ratio I'm not in, but this will work out if the song you listen to is copied and spread like a chainmail. Then you wouldn't risk being overloaded. Security is a concern, but maybe you will ignore it once it becomes standard - like you accepted Windows. Patrik
Is marketing. They use radio stations and other venues to play their stuff, so the public is exposed to it. They recoup the cost of the marketing by charging much more for the end user licenses than the cost of manufactoring the media it comes on.
But that's their right. If their marketing caused you to want a piece of music, then they deserve to be able to sell you a license to have it. They own it. Getting it via any means where the owners are not componsated is stealing.
I think Napster is a very poorly implemented version of a concept that hasn't seen the light of day fully yet. The idea that I'm about to throw out is a bit cynical, but very profitable, I would assume. :)
:)
All of the old Internet protocols will be reworked, proprietarized and perhaps even improved upon in our lifetime. Some of the old ones will even die out. An attack on the life of Internet Relay Chat has already happened. Harnessing the power of teenage chat, ICQ has become a success story of no obscure sort.
When I saw this, I thought of reinventing other wheels. What protocol could use proprietarizing? (I've actually got six or seven GPL'd works out there, and this is all hypothetical.) My first thought was FTP. Transferring files could be vastly simplified, I thought, if it wasn't done on a per-site basis. I mean, the user doesn't care if he's getting it from site A or site B. (In practice, bandwidth is an issue.) Places like www.shareware.com already do this, by presenting you with many mirrors.
However, a proprietary interface may have better results. Different types of files could have different search specifications.
At the very least, a complete reworking of FTP could get the underbelly of the Internet (porn traders, warez) off of conventional protocols.
Napster comes fairly close to that original vision of mine. It only deals with one sort of file, however. I still see room for an app that reworks all of FTP.
I'd like to work on such an app. I see some free time coming up in my future. Perhaps I'll throw some code at it.
Wouldn't it have been easier just to take the darn CD to your friend's house once, and make an exact copy there?
By the way, I recall that there were lawsuits by TV networks against makers of early VCRs. But that was quite a while ago, so I'm not sure.
You are assuming that there is no voice recognition out there. It would be very easy to sample all songs recorded in, say, the last 10 years. Those samples would be integrated into a voice recognition program. Boom! You got yourself a litlle sniffer to weed out all the falsley named songs. Ok engaging in trades could be considered entrappment, so it might not be used. Then again all those FBI and Police stings to weed out the child-molesters involve the police engaging the bastards. Assuming entrapment is protested, sniffing pacets of data being exchanged between servers might do the trick. It could be set to sniff random packets on the server to keep all those privacy advocates happy. The wonderful (....being sarcastic here) Congress will approve and say hello East Germany and Big Brother. The 'safe' net.
Most MP3 songs I download are live recordings of radio sessions and live performances.
Are they illegal as well?
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity -
IRC will be forbidden sooon !
Trust No One !
Simple, they can "get away with" asking for that amount of money. In other words, they are ripping us of. I intend to stop them getting away with this be distributing music for free until they learn their lesson.
I'm not talking about the record industry being hurt by mp3 "pirating", here. What I want to know is, does it hurt you to have your nose so far up the RIAA's ass?
Napster isn't ftp!
Besides that you're missing the point... Napster users don't really care about the used protocol. Napster is just a frontend and search-engine. It allows the user to join a community and search that community for music.
Since it's an open community everybody is allowed to download without clicking on banners (HTTP sites), ratios (FTP) or be an eLiTe friend (IRC)
To make sure everything is fair and square they won't allow the user to set his/her max. uploads (just per user) so you can't shut off your uploads.
Hope this is clear enough...
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity -
I know the guy. He's in it for the money :)
'narcs' handle 'narcotics'. While some music might induce a trance, that doesn't make it a narcotic.
As (I believe) ESR pointed out, in the digital age, we don't deal with an economy based on scarcity.
If this were 1950 and you wanted a copy of a piece of music, you would have to steal a record. This would deprive the shop owner of the ability to sell the record to someone else. (or if you stole it from a home, the prior owner could no longer listen to it.)
However, in the Digital Age, making a copy of something doesn't destroy the original. The BSA and RIAA want you to believe that they have 'lost' something for every copy of software or mp3, but they haven't. They still have the original: they may have lost a potential sale, but losing a potential sale is a lot different than losing a physical record. It doesn't directly cost them anything.
I'm not going to argue whether or not it's "right" -- I suspect that's probably on a case-by-case basis. All I'm really pointing out is that applying thinking that comes from scarcity economics to a digital economy doesn't quite work. The issue is nowhere near as black and white as some posters in the thread would have you believe.
The cognitive dissonance on this issue is really causing trouble.... as evidenced by the RIAA and its outrageous actions. We need to come up with new rules for this stuff. The old ones don't fit..
If you buy it on CD, you are giving money to the RIAA. They will use this money to try to prevent computer users using their machines to their full effectivness.
Therefore you would be helping to limit other people's freedom. So on moral grounds, you should consider boycotting CDs. The same argument applies to buying DVDs and anything from Microsoft (which I regret to say I did earlier this year; however my next PC will be Microsoft-free).
Instead, if you like music, you should make an unauthorised copy. If you are concerned about the artist not getting rewarded for their work, give them a donation directly. Do not help the freedom-suppressing copymonopolists.
For some reason everyone always assumes that when your talking about mp3's your talking about pirated music. Many artists will give out one or two mp3's off of an album just to create interest. Never make assumptions. They make an ass out of you and me.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Ah yes.. the old "You pay for the video, marketing blah blah blah".. Guess what, I don't watch music videos, I wanna pay for the sound. CDs here are WAY to expensive, fl 44,- (about 24-25 US$). the industry, when CD's came out priced CD's at fl40, while sayin g quite loudly that prices WOULD go down. Guess what.. they didn't. Then came so-called "grey import", CDs bought in other countries legally and sold in normal recordstores. The industry killed it, grey import of CD's is now illegal, even though everyone got paid for this.. the record companies, the artists, everyone. grey import CDs commonly cost fl 25 when they were stuill allowed. now suddenly there is the threat of MP3, and how does the industry react? suddenly the price of CDs CAN go down. down to fl 35. We've been had enough by the music mafia. I say copy all you like, they have made profits to live on for the next 137 years.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I think it's a shame Napster is getting in trouble for what they are doing. It's not like they are distributing the illegal mp3's themselves. Also, the music industry should get their act together and figure out how to make money with the new technolgies damn, it's like they are still in the 80's.
Napster not only has slowed entire campus internet connections, it toasted a few too. Sonoma State University [where I attend] had some major probs after Napster 2.0 was realesed. Our bandwidth usage tripled overnite! This caused our Cisco routers to freak on us. For most of 2 days I was getting ~1K a sec offa sites like /. and ZDNet. It was also totally down for half the next day. Supposedly this also took down one of the colleges in San Fran as well. Definately something to be concerned about.
You can control the amount of downloads and kill any download. There aren't many settings, it's strange you overlooked those.
Btw: Napster's great.
Fuck them and all of their little minions. The same thing will happen as with the deCSS. There's no way that it can be stopped. So the RIAA would charge napster for providing the means to distribute illegal mp3's ??? Well it's time to charge Maxell cause I broke up an mp3 onto 4 disks and gave it to my friend :)
If I'm correct, why is this new server significant?
Sure, it cost us about $2.00 for a 90 minute VHS tape. Sure, we sold that tape to the store for $47-50 dollars. But was anyone making big money? Of course not! There are lots of costs to get people to buy something. All the promotion - going to conventions, shows, etc. - that's big money down the drain. Posters? More money again. Packaging? Shipping? Accounting, salespeople (after all, you've got to convince stores to carry off-titles)
No one got rich, and we all busted our behinds to make it happen.
And this argument over 'artists don't get MUCH money' - coming from people who claim to be so broke they can't afford to buy a CD, you think they would appreciate that while $15,000 or $20,000 isn't a LOT of money, it's nothing to blow off.
And for 'artists support/condone this', why don't we just ask artists to simply state that they music/performance is public domain? If they don't make the statement, then everything else is bogus - you're a criminal, in many cases (when you add it up) stealing hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
You don't know what the hell you are talking about napster servers do not tranfere any songs all the songs are transfered client to client. The napster server just holds a list of all the songs that the clients are currently sharing and when you do a search you are searching this list. Then when you click on a song to download it you are connected to the person who has the song. And all searches are real time.
I'm currently working on an open source 'clone'. I started 2 weeks ago, and haven't got very far yet.
/.), the web server may be shut down (It's operated on a cablemodem, I don't want trouble with my isp). Try again later. As soon as I've got something acceptable, I'll put it on freshmeat.
Soon I'm gonna put up some real info, but the temporary page is at http://www.var.cx/dfsi
If I get to many hits (you never know with
umm... but if you are dumping thousands and thousands of incorrectly named mp3s into the mix, then how does everyone else find the right mp3s?
seems like this would massively screw up the system for everyone, not just the RIAA monitors.
After downloading the linux client, I emailed both the author of it and the guy behind napster, asking to know why this was without source. The author of the linux client said that napster doesn't want the protocol to be open, that they wanted to retain "full control" over the clients. After seeing a few nasty bugs in the linux client, I've decided to take action.
I've begun reversing the napster protocol in my free time, basically trying to draw up a paper about it, so people can code their own clients (improve on the already existing one; make one with a GUI; make a PHP interface to napster; etc.). I am not much of a coder, but I used to reverse dongle protections in my sleep a while back, so I'm confident this should be easy. Plus, after looking at a few straces', I can say that this shouldn't take very long.
I would like to know who would be interested in helping out. Anyone that has some details on the protocol, or anyone that is interested in coding a free, open-source napster client. Please email me at splice(at)videotron(dot)ca.
"I'm not paranoid, they're just after me."
Narc is also used as a generalization of an undercover police officer. Yes, literally a narc would indicate narcotics but the term has become a catch-all for undercover cop. Take the stick out of your ass and quit being so damned critical.
While I do sympathize with you, being somewhat of a musician myself, I think you should also take a look at WHY mp3s are popular. This is simply a case of the market not changing in the direction consumers want, IMHO. The internet is changing our lives faster than anyone ever expected, I think.
;)
:) Right now I can't get mp3s of legit bands without going to the store, buying an overpriced CD, and spending a few hours mp3ing it. Irritating :)
People appreciate the convienence of getting what they want, without having to go to the store, now, and in digital format. Why do you think mp3s are so popular? Most popular music is also aimed at the younger generation- teenagers and early 20s- and we're also the techno-generation. If we were able to download digital music from the RIAA, who knows how many people would download. It doesn't exist, all they've been doing is whining about piracy, trying to fight technology in the courts, and wasting their time developing encrypted music formats which get cracked in 3 days
The other big thing here is exactly what you said: piracy makes more of an impact on the record company than the artist. Good. I've only heard very bad things about record companies. I would SO much prefer paying an artist directly than buying a CD at Media Play. Let's say my favorite artist has their music up on their website and charges my credit card $5.00 to download each CD. Would I pay it? Hell yes
I pirate mp3s, I admit it. However, should an infrastructure exist to download digital music for some change per track, I would support it whole-heartedly.
Go on raise your hands...
Thought so.
-Rich
Treat them with a little of it.
It's painfully obvious to any reasonable adult what napster is for. It's for trading MP3's; the act of trading which is in almost all cases illegal. You're insulting RIAA by claiming that they're cracking down on something legal. Napster knows what's going on. So does RIAA.
Everyone is screaming at how absurd RIAA is in their pursuit of MP3 sites but no one is addressing the fact that for the most part everyone they pursue is doing something illegal. Worse yet people are touting napster as if it's some majopr step for freedom online. Cant you see why RIAA is pissed off? This will come back to bite us. The next format for digital audio is up in the air. It'll be real nice, 96khz or more sampling, 24 or more bit. And it will be so closed it will make DVD look like it's under the GPL. Nice work guys. Thanks.
-Rich
I would like to add that 't just West Coast campus' being hit by napster. I go to Brandeis University in MA, and we too have had issues with napster... in under a week, the bandwidth it was using went from 5% of total bandwidth to 50%.... We have since been forced to limit access to napster.com until we can get our new equipment configured for bandwidth shaping. Laurion
"Is this not a rare fellow, my lord? He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool." -from "As You Like It", Act 5,
Using MP3s doesn't mean you're not buying CDs. I personally still buy CDs reasonably often, and will probably buy even more CDs when I'm out of school and have a real job.
:P
Part of the reason for this is because most people only have the latest hits, so often what I want is not around. I also like to collect many albums from a group I like, and it'd take forever to find the more obscure stuff online.
I also like having physical CDs with the cover art and stuff.
Oh.. and did I mention CDs are better quality?
That's another thing.. I find that I never buy singles (except really obscure ones), and rarely even buy poorly-constructed albums with only a few good songs, but if I like some songs and know the album is good as a whole, I'll definitely buy it.
I'm hoping this will encourage more artists to make good concept albums..
But aside from that, I do feel a moral obligation to buy CDs as well. Be as it may that most of the money goes to the record companies.. but SOME of it goes to the artist, at least. I mean, I'm fully in support of overhauling the current system to something more fair, but before that happens, I'm still going to do the legal thing.
I also like to convince myself that I'm really doing nothing wrong when I get MP3s because I'm buying CDs as quickly as I can afford them anyway.. it's just that MP3s are allowing me to spend my money on the better or more obscure CDS...
But I know I'm just deluding myself because when I get a job and can afford more CDs, I would still probably never get around to buying singles of new good songs and stuff... They'd be too damn expensive for little gain.
And why don't I want to break the law if the law is unjust?
There's a time and a place for civil disobedience. In particular, if it's an organzied protest, then it's civil disobedience. If everone is just doing what they feel like, it's just breaking the law.
Still, the illegal MP3 movement certainly does have a lot of the characteristics of civil disobedience, and it IS having an impact... I guess I just have an overdeveloped sense of legality.
This is a somewhat simple concept. People will pick up where napster left off if the RIAA shuts them down. Think about it, people will clone the idea in no time. Its about time the idea came along though, Im not worried at all.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If I were a music artist I would GPL all my music and make all my money through support. "There was a bug in track 4? Hum? I'll talk to engineering and get a patch out to you as soon as possible." (typical support call cost $10 a minute) Of course, I would then, however, be more likely to release really buggy songs to increase the number of support calls. However, since the songs are GPL'ed anyone could download them, fix the bugs and release less buggy songs. ****** Before you get mad for how stupid this post is, remember MP3 pirating is even more rediculess. Or perhaps artists should give music away for free and make all their profits through concerts and t-shirts. Sorry, it just won't work (not enough people buy t-shirts and go to concerts).
Music can be art, yes. (It's not ALWAYS art..)
But that does not preclude it from being information.
Art is a quality used to describe the information.
Hell, even the human mind is information.. the information being passed around by our neurons.. but that doesn't make the mind any less significant.
A lot of things ARE information.. it's what's being CONVEYED by that information that matters.
You should have said "you're an idiot," rather than "your an idiot." Putting it your way, it's the same as talking about an "an idiot" that is possessed by someone.
PLEASE, people! Don't screw up something so simple as basic grammer while calling someone stupid.
OK, somewhere between all of the rhetoric on both extremes lies the truth.
/.ers: Pay for the indies (always!), and if you copy other music, send the artists themselves five bucks or so. If a popular artist got five hundred $5 bills, they might realise that they could market and sell the album without the use of a greedy, corrupt organisation.
The theoretical purpose of copyright is to protect and reward the owner of the intellectual property, i.e. the music (in this case). The practical results of copyright is leaning more and more towards protecting the companies behind the artists.
Furthermore, the recording industry has stated in no uncertain terms that All Unsanctioned Recording Is Illegal. In Canada, Bill C-32 will impose a substantial tax (Digital media, such as CD-R or DAT: 50 cents per 15 minutes of playing time) on _all_ recordable audio media, to "remunerate creators for private copying of their musical works." In other words, all blank media is used for piracy, and all puchasers of said media are pirates. This includes:
1) People who distribute Linux, etc.
2) People who make compilation tapes/CDs of their own *purchased* music!
3) Companies who backup to CDR or DAT.
And very worst of all...
4) Independent musicians, who don't go through a major recording agency!!!
In other words, this bill taxes musicians and consumers, and passes the money on to the corporations.
On the other hand, being found guilty of piracy, we are at least free to pirate music. Specifically; 'In exchange for the levy, section 80 provides that copying of music works for "private use" will no longer be considered infringement.' Oh joy.
Personally, since I'm apparently a criminal (despite the fact that I have no pirated music), I'm tempted to interpret "private use" as meaning copying for free (or the cost of the media) any music for my friends private use. (however, see below)
Of course, this is in Canada, as I said. I don't know the details as well, but the US does have a similar act in place.
One person asked (quite astutely) why the RIAA should give us any respect if we refuse to respect them. The problem is that they are:
1) Preemptively labelling ALL of us as criminals.
2) Behaving like the proverbial "Jack-booted thugs."
3) Benefiting themselves and the industry, rather than the artists.
More than anything, point #3 make this an organisation not worthy of respect. Consider this snipped from their own website (copied freely under the 'fair use' act)
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Our members are the companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world.
Our mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members' creative and financial vitality around the world.
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See anything about the artists in there?
Quite honestly, the industry itself is promoting piracy. Period. They get what they deserve.
However, the artists _do_ deserve to be paid, and they do need some kind of (financial) incentive to keep recording. If music were 100% free, then professional musicians wouldn't exist (by definition).
So after all of this rambling, I would ask this of you
And don't stop fighting!
Colin
(who has exactly one burned CD, which will be replaced by a purchased copy as soon as I can find it)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Actually, aside from the MP3 angle, the concept seems to be a very interesting, crude start at a "cooperative", distributed archive - the Napster "site" servers (the servers used to find sites) are the equivalent of DNS servesr (except by MP3 names instead of site names).
If you could broaden this idea beyond MP3s, and have "site" servers performing categorization (and perhaps specializing in certain categories of information), you'd have a very decentralized, distributed archive & retrieval system.
Unfortunately it is illiterate twats like this one, who compare slavery to intellectual property, that have become the defining audience of slashdot. Copyrights are immoral? Owning the fruits of your own labor, and being able to set the price of your own goods, immoral?
In a truly free marketplace, trading is done by MUTUAL agreement between buyer and seller. These pirating assholes, depite their 'I'm poor/there are no losers only winners' bullshit are thieves, plain and simple, and they think their poverty creates an obligation on productive people to let them steal unhindered. To hell with all such people. We could do without them.
Go to the hrrc.org homepage and read their chronology. I didn't read it that closely, and once they started spewing hr.-this and hr.-that I sort of tuned out. But I do remember getting the impression that the Supreme Court made a ruling saying that it's legal for you to record shows from TV to watch at a later time. It was early in the whole VCR phenomena so it's possible that laws have changed since then.
Also you do pay a tax on VCRs and blank tapes. Or you have to pay the cost of having something like macrovision incorporated into your VCR.
-sw
Is ftp, not telnet. Telnet is 23
You can't make a format illegal because people use it for illegal purposes. Many, many, many amateur musicians record their own original works, and want to distribute them over the Internet, without begging for anyone's permission. It's their constitutional right to do so in the USA.
This is a simple corallary to "its ok to let 10 guilty men go free to save the life of one innocent man" doctrine that's the bedrock of the US legal system.
*snip!*
Unbeknownst to many, there is a napster linux client. It is not available via napster.com, and has little to know technical support. Until a couple weeks ago I had never used it, so I hadn't bothered to add it to the faq, but alas, here it is. note: the source is not available. if you are not comfortable running precompiled binaries, you will have to live without napster. homepage: http://www.gis.net/~nite
I have no problem spending money, but I know the RIAA is not interested in protecting the artists -- they want to squash MP3 so that THEY won't lose their fat paychecks. I am hoping that these artists will see how popular MP3 is, and start bypassing the record companies. To that end, I bet we start seeing new "record" companies that specialize in MP3 distribution. I feel the same way about e-books. The record companies and publishers are just middle-men. Get them out of the way, and the price goes down while the convenience goes WAY up. -thomas
Hear a difference ? Don't lie.... BUT if you really love music (and the way it SOUNDS), they will not replace CDs for sound quality"
If EXTREMELY small variations make all the difference, there are many people out there that argue that vinyl records in perfect condition sound better than a CD. I don't know why, because I can't hear it. I personally don't care about almost inaudible differences between the original and a copy.
In the U.S., there is a tax on digital audio media. The definition of digital audio media specifically excludes computer media. The result is that CDRs and DDS tapes are significantly cheaper then recordable audio CDs and DAT tapes.
Since home console CD recorders are designed to only work with the more expensive recordable audio CDs, and because home console CD recorders have built-in copy restriction (SCMS), the recording industry has simply pushed most people who are interested in CD recording towards PC based CD recorders, which have no copy restriction systems, cheaper media, cheaper hardware, and web access.
Not exactly what the RIAA had in mind.
I don't know if it is just me or what but aobut 70% of the time when i start up napster and it scans my collection of MP's it seems to freeze. it does this on my friends computer to. Wait to donwload till the program is not a beta. -korntera
Even if a piece of audio is copyrighted by someone else, there do exist situations where copying the audio without permission is allowed under fair use. I won't venture to give any examples, but surely you must admit it is possible.
Libraries have for decades posted notices on their copy machines stating that the users of the copy machines are responsible for checking all copyright aspects of their copying. Book publishers do not try to sue libraries for being an accessory to copyright infringement. The recording industry needs to grow up and do the same.
I just need to clarify things here. You CAN control the amount of downloads a single user performs at once, but you CANNOT control how many users can leech from you at once, and this is what can lead to undesired loss of bandwidth. Also, I know my settings well, and you have no ability to kill a download once it starts transfering. You can kill a download BEFORE it starts, but once the file starts you have to either grin and bear the dl until its complete (and suffer bandwidth loss) or close napster (and lose your own downloads, which you probably wont be likely to resume upon connection... I almost never see the same user on twice, even in the span of minutes).
sure there are illegal mp3's out there ... ... it was made by x band so i go to the record store i want x band latest cd .... record store employee looks at me cluelessly ... so i expliain to him the music and they point me to the club section of the store... ... and finally get the damn lp that has the song.... when was it made 1990 something.. and im sure that this can applied to many MUSIC COLLECTORS the riaa dose not make music accessible to those off us that would purchase it ... if it is not the in the top 100 it is cast aside to be abaondened the riaa dont care they want you be like everyone else so they can just rehash the same old trash over and over again and sell it for sky high prices ... they could care less about the music collector... why do you think they have not aided in trying to keep classical music alive ??? its because classical dose not turn in the dollars as say the next flash in the pan big name glitz band... ... something that the riaa never even cared about... and still dont i gladly pay for music i enjoy... but dont expect me to go out and purchase you 20 dollar cd without letting me listen to it ...and dont expect my bussiness if i cant find the artist and the song i am looking for.. cause if i have two peices of information artist name and song title i should be able to buy that song for my listening enjoyment... now tell me where has riaa filled that need ??
but what am i supposed to do ?? i want to go buy some music i heard in a club
i dig for three hours no xband not even on the myriad of compliation cds so i dig on the web still no xband... what do i have to do find something about xband ??? learn a second language . buy overseas mags find a overseas vinyl store who might have a clue what i am talking about
all the riaa is concerned about is losing the market share to a format that gives REAL MUSIC COLLECTORS a way of finding and archiving there perfered music
music the paint
dancefloor the canvas
Music the Paint dancefloor the canvas your body the brush
Winamp can save a stream to wav. It is a output plugin the comes with is. I think it is called wave writer or something like that.
And you can make money off software by selling SUPPORT! Right, uh huh.
How come you Linux losers always say how easy it all is, but never come up with these original ideas?
Whoops... My wrong...
I blocked both ftp and telnet from my router... So I confused them... Err, anyway... It didn't work on port 21... So I changed the port...
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity -
If you want to see a better program go to www.mp3sharing.com and check out MediaShare.