(1) This is a multi-part question. Many people think that the RIAA's claims of harm to artists are way overblown. Has any research been done on the actual effects that MP3 distribution has on artists? For instance, do you know that the people downloading the music do not own the albums? Do you know whether they actually keep and listen to the MP3s rather than purchasing the cds, or do they delete what they don't like and buy what they do like? Could MP3s actually be helping record sales by exposing people to more music that they would not have purchased because they had never heard it? Has there been any investigation at all of what's really going on before the lawsuits were filed?
(2) Is the availability of MP3s allowing people to be more discriminating in their purchases since they can listen to an album before deciding to buy it? Do you believe that people should or should not be able to do this?
(3) Do you believe that a significant number of your fans will download your music to avoid paying for it?
(4) Do you believe that the current model of distribution is becoming outdated and that a better model should be found that eliminates much of the overhead associated with the cost of a cd today?
(5) Is it desirable or possible, in your opinion, to link artists and their fans more directly so that fans feel like they can support the artists they like without feeling like they've been taken to the cleaners by the record companies?
I can download an entire cds worth of mp3s in less than 10 minutes. This is much more convenient than ripping them myself. Plus they'll already have all the related info added usually (i.e. album title, etc.) so I don't have to do that myself. This way I can leave my cd collection at home and listen to the mp3s at work.
What evidence has the RIAA presented that shows that mp3s are harming artists as they claim? Cuts both ways. They can go after Napster for strictly legal reasons, but if they're going to make claims about harm to the artists, they should at least back them up. The RIAA and MPAA among others have actively been trying to pervert copyright into serving their needs exclusively, rather than serving the nation as a whole as it was intended. Given that, I don't think they can claim that just because copyright laws were broken that the it necessarily follows that the artists are getting the shaft. I think they've already done more than enough harm to the rest of us.
Sounds like smalltime bands. The kind where most of the people who show up are there because the band sent them a flyer or they know the guys from highschool or something. I've had friends in a couple different bands that had gigs at some of the local clubs. Maybe 30-50 people would show up because they knew the guys in the band. Most of them weren't such losers that they wanted in for free. I know that we always paid to get in. I knew how hard those guys worked to get the gigs and how much it cost them. It seemed right to pay.
I don't think that most people are like those people you talk about. Mostly young kids that probably didn't have much cash to buy stuff in the first place. When I was poor and going to highschool, I always looked for the free or cheap angle. It was the only way I could get access to stuff because I didn't have the money. They weren't losing anything from me because I had nothing to give. Now that I'm no longer poor, I try to support the artists and services I like. I don't think that most people are that much different.
Your argument that people will go and buy the album anyway is incorrect in the main, because when they have the choice between buying it in the USA or the UK at $16, or buying it in Asia for $3, they buy it in Asia
Who the hell buys cds from Asia? By the time they get them to the states they'd cost nearly as much as a cd here anyway. Why bother? I don't know a single person who has bought a black-market cd. It may lose the RIAA significant amounts of money over in Asia, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the same magnitude of a problem over here. I'm talking about going out and buying the cd from a store, or ordering it online from the record company or one of its distributors. That's how I've bought the cds I own. I'm not a big mp3 junkie or anything. I probably have less than 500 megs worth on my drive, the vast majority of which are legal, either because I own the cd or because they were distributed for free by the band. Everyone I know does pretty much the same thing I do. We download mp3s, listen to them, and then either toss them because they suck, or keep them because they're cool. Then we go out and buy the cd because it's a good cd. Not to mention the fact that we tell each other about the cool music we find, which causes more sales for the record companies. So, I KNOW that what I'm doing isn't hurting the record industry, unless you count the fact that I'm no longer buying crappy albums because I can listen to them before I buy now. If you count that, then you're as corrupt as the RIAA.
the days of having your collection on shelves lining your walls are almost over.
Not bloody likely. Who is nuts enough to not keep some sort of master copy of their music around on a cd or some other form of portable, and mostly non-corruptable media? If I buy something, I'm going to make sure I get to keep it.
Maybe you should read the rest of my post. I think I covered everything you said in yours. I said that laws will probably have to be broken if the system is to be changed.
I will add that there is no evidence on either side that MP3s help or hurt artists. You'd think they might want to figure that out before they sue.
There's also the point that the artists don't own their works either, the record companies own them in most cases (although the artist may be able to get them back after 35 or 40 years, it depends on how much bargaining power the artist had when he/she was signed). Artists get paid based on album sales. If mp3s help these sales, the artists shouldn't have a problem with them. Like I said, maybe they should figure out what's really going on before they start slinging lawsuits.
I doubt the artists really have the first clue what they're talking about though. They're just being used by the RIAA as mouthpieces to gain public sympathy.
You're right that that isn't their "profit margin." I was just fixing the 93% claim made by the previous post. I'm sure the actual profits made by the record companies aren't anywhere near what the numbers in my post suggested. I am quite certain that they are quite a bit higher than they should be. I remember many years ago that the industry was claiming that CDs would go down in price quite a bit after the first couple years. Did that happen? Nope. What did happen? CDs stayed the same or went up. Cassette tapes went up quite a bit in price as well. They usually cost only 2 or 3 dollars less than the CD now, whereas they used to be about half the price. I'm not sure how they've worked things out, but it doesn't even matter what record company a cd is released by, it will cost exactly the same as a cd released by any other company. I don't think that's a market-driven phenomenon. It seems more like a price-fixing arrangement between the.. what.. 8(?) major corps.
I haven't seen a shred of evidence that mp3 trading actually harms artists. That's an unsubstantiated claim made by the RIAA. I've bought many CDs after I downloaded some mp3s and realized that I actually liked the songs. I doubt that I'm some kind of special case. I don't think artists are being harmed. It's probably even helping them.
Fans of groups WANT to support those groups. They just don't like the fact that they have to get screwed over by the RIAA in order to show their support. The RIAA doesn't care about the artists. They exist for the sole purpose of protecting the record industry's profits. The fans DO care about the artists they like. The RIAA is just getting in the way now. Cut them out and we could buy our music a lot cheaper, thereby supporting the artists, and we could buy a lot more music, thereby supporting even more artists rather than just those on the top 40. Additionally, we could listen to music that we haven't heard before. If we like it, we naturally want to support that artist so that they keep making more music.
While I'm sure that trading mp3s is currently illegal, that doesn't mean it should be, and I'm not sure there's any way to fix the situation right now. Someone is gonna have to come up with a new way of doing things that will be beneficial to both artists and fans. Unfortunately, if the RIAA doesn't get their cut, they'll do everything in their power to stop any change from happening. I'm not sure there is a way to get rid of the RIAA without breaking a few laws. That's probably what will have to happen if artists are to see that there is another way that won't require them to sign their life's work over to a corporation. I hope something can be done to change the current situation to benefit artists and their fans the most, rather than treating them as employees and consumers, respectively.
But anyway, your math is wrong, even with your own bogus numbers. If I sell something for $15 and I spent $1 to create it, that is a 93% profit margin. NOT a 1500% profit margin. I''m left to wonder, do they teach economics in the schools you attended?
What is 100% of $1? That's right, it's $1. Now, if you were to sell that $1 CD for $16, how much profit did you make? Right, $15. Well, when we remember that the CD cost $1 to make, and 100% of that is also $1, and then we multiply that 100% times the $15 dollars profit, we end up with 1500% profit. Now granted, that isn't all profit since there are middlemen who want their cut, and there's advertising costs as well. But it's safe to say they are making a killing. I don't know where you live, but when I go to Best Buy or Wal-Mart or anywhere else, you can buy CDs for $13 on up. Mostly in the $15 - $20 range though. Older CDs actually seem to cost a lot more.
Why bother even mentioning B at all then? It seems to be completely irrelevant. Why not just say that X must be >= A then? That's why I didn't agree with the interpretation. Did they ever define A?
I call your attention to the part you quoted which says "AT LEAST as great as the precautions you take to protect your own confidential information."
What Microsoft's statement says is that the least amount of precautions you must take are those that you take with your own confidential information. You may take more, but it does not seem to require that you do so. Why would they bother including the statement above if they had expressly spelled out the precautions you must take?
How many people have to download the information before it becomes common knowledge in the industry? Is it still a trade secret if everyone knows the secret? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Seems like Microsoft is playing a game and I hope to see them lose.
You're right. There are people on the RIAA's side that firmly believe that they are right. They will also do everything in their power to see to it that their view of what is right is enforced on everyone.(as they've done for years and succeeded for the most part)
Given that, I think my opinion is just as valid as their opinion. I firmly believe I'm right. I must also do everything in my power to make sure that my view is enforced. Otherwise I'm allowing the RIAA to decide what is right and wrong.
You see the dilemma? If we're both convinced we're right, we end up with a fight. That's where we're at right now. The fight has been joined in the courts. Maybe it will be decided there, maybe not. I don't think the courts are where it will ultimately be decided. I think the fans are sick of getting screwed. They want to support the artists they like. They just don't like the current system where they have to get screwed over in order to support them.
If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they wouldn't be making them sign their work over for 35-40 years, or now even forever. If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they would have been devising new methods of distributing music that wouldn't require as much overhead cost so that the fans pay less and the artists get more. But, it all makes sense when you realize that the RIAA doesn't give a rat's ass about the artists as long as they can exploit them and keep raking in the cash.
Could never prove it. They'll just claim that an album is a single work of art. Then you'll have to prove that it isn't. You'd have to get access to internal communications and whatnot in order to show that the album contents are usually decided by business concerns rather than the artist having free reign to create a work independently of business concerns. Even then it might not be enough to convince a court that an album isn't a single work of art regardless of how or why it was created.
Well, I hadn't read the RIAA website before. Some very interesting stuff there. I was reading through the artists' comments and ran into this gem:
"I think the fact that Napster is stealing recorded music is something that we have to stop. It's taking money out of my kid's mouth. That's the way I look at it. It's wrong. It's inherently wrong. It's stealing." -- Art Alexakis, Everclear
This guy feeds his kid money?
Anyway, it's become clear from the comments by the artists, apparently solicited by the RIAA given the dates on most of them, that the artists only seem to know what the RIAA has told them. They're trying to make it into a black and white, cut and dry situation, which it isn't. They apparently didn't tell the artists that despite the rise of MP3s, the record industry profits are still increasing significantly ever year. They also didn't give explain basic business concepts like what you should expect when you overprice your products. Nor have they actually been able to establish that they are actually being harmed by Napster. I've explained what I think is going on in other posts under this story, so I won't rehash it here. Go to my user info page to read my other posts if you wish.
"Face it, the system is broken. If you're not a record exec or one of the top "artists" selling "15 billion singles a second", then you're getting screwed, plain and simple. Guess which ones are doing the screwing.
Why is it that Jon Katz not only refuses to mention artist's rights except for this one line but also refuses to accept the fact that people who misappropriate copyrighted material without rewarding the copyright owners is stealing.
Actually, he mentions artists rights in at least one other, and probably two depending on your interpretation. The funny thing is that you quote both of these lines later in your post. Now, as for your statement here, I don't entirely agree. People "misappropriate copyrighted material" because the current system of distribution doesn't work. This isn't the fault of the people downloading MP3s, it's the fault of the music industry. People are realizing just how much music is out there, and they want access to it. Up 'til now, they knew what the top 40 was and beyond that, they had very little opportunity to hear anything else. CDs cost too damn much to buy on a whim. If you haven't been able to listen to the music first, you can easily end up with a $16.99 coaster (or maybe sell it to a used cd store for $3). What makes things even worse is that most radio stations play the exact same crap. They're all owned by the same people. Now people can listen to all sorts of music that they wouldn't want to buy because they hadn't heard it yet. They can hear more tracks from a band rather than making their purchase decision based on the one song they heard on the radio. I've downloaded a bunch of mp3s, but it hasn't cost the music industry a dime. If I liked the group, I bought the cd. If I didn't like them, I ditched the mp3s. Who got screwed? The main problem is that the RIAA is used to being the one that does the screwing. Now they won't be able to do that. Signing an artist up for a 5 album contract, spreading the good songs out across those 5 albums and filling the rest of the space with crappy filler songs isn't going to work anymore. Sorry if I don't shed a tear for them.
It isn't like if I started printing copies of his books and gave them away he would respond with "Hey, that's OK information want's to be free,anyway"
You're probably right about this. Until it happens we can't really know. Jon, care to enlighten us? What do you think about this claim? It strikes me as being similar to Jeff Bezos' claim that the patent system is screwed up, but that he has to play by the current rules in order to survive. Katz wants to make a living from his writing, so he needs a way to do that, even though copyright is becoming even more perverted than the patent system. Personally, I'd like to see Katz put his money where his mouth is and propose a solution and show that it can work by using that solution for his own work.
Of course not, and that is exactly why they are trying to shut down Napster.
His point here was that shutting down Napster and the others won't help. There's too many options out there and there are more cropping up all the time. He's saying they WON'T go back to the old system, and the RIAA can't make them go back. That's why suing is not the answer.
Why wouldn't it? Currently the rights of artists to decide who distributes their copyrighted material is being abused regularly by Napster users. Secondly, it would also protect the right of artists to be paid for their work.
This is true, but you also ignore the fact that the RIAA is doing the artists they represent a major disservice by overpricing their products. It's been shown time and time again that the more overpriced a product is, the more theft you will see. If the RIAA wasn't so busy gouging its customers, and if the system wasn't so broken, we wouldn't have this situation to begin with. They could fix it, but they won't do that. Why? Greed.
You may say that that still doesn't make it right, and maybe you have a point. That won't improve the situation though. The music industry's own greed is setting itself up for a fall. It's not the artists. They don't have much alternative right now. They sign over the ownership of their music in order to make a living. They could do much better, and so could their fans. We just need to get the RIAA out of the way. If they sold their albums for a reasonable price, more people would buy them, and if the RIAA wasn't sucking up the vast majority of the profits, the artist would get a much bigger cut of the sales, and wouldn't have to sell as many albums to make a good living. On top of that, more artists would be able to make money because people could buy more music. So rather than just those who get the most promotion by the industry making money from their work, many more would be able to profit from their music.
PS: Why does he keep calling MP3.com MP3? How out of it can he possible be?
Katz needs an editor... or a better editor if he already has one.
It's just reaffirming copyright laws in protection of the artist, which is what copyright is all about.
Copyright is not "all about" the protection of the artist. That's what the RIAA would like us to believe, but you shouldn't buy that line. Copyright exists in order to increase the number of artistic and/or literary works that people have free access to (i.e. works existing in the public domain). The goal is to provide an incentive, namely a limited, temporary monopoly, for artists to produce new works. After the monopoly period is up, those works are added to the public domain, and can be freely accessed, distributed, and built upon by anyone. THAT is what copyright is all about. Don't let the music or movie industries convince you otherwise. They've already managed to extend the length of copyright to an unreasonable amount of time, now they're trying to remove the limits on the monopoly they have. This is wrong and should be stopped.
Re:OOG STRESS IMPORTANCE OF PRIVACY!!!
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The Eroded Self
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It may be wearing thin for you, but some people still like it apparently. Maybe they don't read/. as often as you, and therefore haven't seen as many of his posts. Maybe it's something else. Either way, it will eventually wear thin on everyone. Change takes a bit of time, but that may be a good thing. Otherwise we probably have too few people deciding what is worth seeing.
I fully realize the differences in the kinds of crimes I mentioned. I was getting at a point though. The point being that we should care how convicted felons are treated because they are not just "felons", they're people. They may have broken a law, but that alone doesn't make them bad people. There are many bad laws on the books. The fact that you broke one doesn't make you unworthy of life, or even of a decent life. It doesn't mean you can't still be a productive member of society. It certainly doesn't mean you should have your rights taken away from you after you've served your sentence, and certain rights should not be taken from you even during your sentence. (i.e. voting, speech, freedom from cruel or unusual punishment, etc.)
Can you give a link to the secondary patent? What does the secondary patent cover? It can't cover the same thing the first patent covers, right? I'd really like to know more about this. I figured the patent was history already, but I hadn't heard of the secondary patent.
I don't see why Mitnick can't talk about computer technology or security in general, but letting him make money from crimes raises my hackles.
Any data he gained from his exploits was confiscated long ago, along with pretty much everything else he owned. He's not profitting from his crimes, he's profiting from his knowledge of security weaknesses, as well as getting to give his opinions about the actions of the government. Both should certainly be well within his rights.
Once you can show me how a criminal can undo the past and make it so that his actions didn't happen, then maybe I'll start worrying about how a criminal is treated.
So, you believe that any offense by a criminal means that we should no longer care about how they are treated? Death penalty for anyone that steals from you then? Why should we care? They trespassed, stole something, got caught speeding, etc. We should just write them off and get them out of society for good then? Even when they are kids? They were considered children by our government when they committed the crime, yet somehow the committing of that crime makes them adults that can be tried as such? What about their treatment before they're convicted? People are generally considered guilty until proven innocent anymore. God forbid you ever get accused of something.
The difference is that OJ got off by having a good lawyer even though the evidence was pretty heavily against him. In the Davidian case, the evidence was heavily in their favor and it became pretty obvious that the government was way out of line. The facts of the case supported that view.
Why should he be forced to work at such jobs if he can do something more profitable? He served his time in prison. He's still serving his probation with no access to computers. He's not profitting from his crimes. Any fruits of his crimes were confiscated long ago. He's now using his knowledge to earn a living. Just like many of us do every day. Now the government wants to criminalize that as well. I'm sick of seeing people who have not committed a sexual or violent crime being persecuted as if they could snap and start killing people at any moment. Why should he be restricted to a minimum wage job and lifestyle, despite his ability to earn a better living without violating his probation or committing a crime? That is definitely an unusual, if not cruel(which is debateable), punishment.
Slashdot Mirror
(1) This is a multi-part question. Many people think that the RIAA's claims of harm to artists are way overblown. Has any research been done on the actual effects that MP3 distribution has on artists? For instance, do you know that the people downloading the music do not own the albums? Do you know whether they actually keep and listen to the MP3s rather than purchasing the cds, or do they delete what they don't like and buy what they do like? Could MP3s actually be helping record sales by exposing people to more music that they would not have purchased because they had never heard it? Has there been any investigation at all of what's really going on before the lawsuits were filed?
(2) Is the availability of MP3s allowing people to be more discriminating in their purchases since they can listen to an album before deciding to buy it? Do you believe that people should or should not be able to do this?
(3) Do you believe that a significant number of your fans will download your music to avoid paying for it?
(4) Do you believe that the current model of distribution is becoming outdated and that a better model should be found that eliminates much of the overhead associated with the cost of a cd today?
(5) Is it desirable or possible, in your opinion, to link artists and their fans more directly so that fans feel like they can support the artists they like without feeling like they've been taken to the cleaners by the record companies?
I can download an entire cds worth of mp3s in less than 10 minutes. This is much more convenient than ripping them myself. Plus they'll already have all the related info added usually (i.e. album title, etc.) so I don't have to do that myself. This way I can leave my cd collection at home and listen to the mp3s at work.
We're terribly sorry about the gross overuse of Master of Puppets puns in the posts here!
What evidence has the RIAA presented that shows that mp3s are harming artists as they claim? Cuts both ways. They can go after Napster for strictly legal reasons, but if they're going to make claims about harm to the artists, they should at least back them up. The RIAA and MPAA among others have actively been trying to pervert copyright into serving their needs exclusively, rather than serving the nation as a whole as it was intended. Given that, I don't think they can claim that just because copyright laws were broken that the it necessarily follows that the artists are getting the shaft. I think they've already done more than enough harm to the rest of us.
Sounds like smalltime bands. The kind where most of the people who show up are there because the band sent them a flyer or they know the guys from highschool or something. I've had friends in a couple different bands that had gigs at some of the local clubs. Maybe 30-50 people would show up because they knew the guys in the band. Most of them weren't such losers that they wanted in for free. I know that we always paid to get in. I knew how hard those guys worked to get the gigs and how much it cost them. It seemed right to pay.
I don't think that most people are like those people you talk about. Mostly young kids that probably didn't have much cash to buy stuff in the first place. When I was poor and going to highschool, I always looked for the free or cheap angle. It was the only way I could get access to stuff because I didn't have the money. They weren't losing anything from me because I had nothing to give. Now that I'm no longer poor, I try to support the artists and services I like. I don't think that most people are that much different.
Your argument that people will go and buy the album anyway is incorrect in the main, because when they have the choice between buying it in the USA or the UK at $16, or buying it in Asia for $3, they buy it in Asia
Who the hell buys cds from Asia? By the time they get them to the states they'd cost nearly as much as a cd here anyway. Why bother? I don't know a single person who has bought a black-market cd. It may lose the RIAA significant amounts of money over in Asia, but it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the same magnitude of a problem over here. I'm talking about going out and buying the cd from a store, or ordering it online from the record company or one of its distributors. That's how I've bought the cds I own. I'm not a big mp3 junkie or anything. I probably have less than 500 megs worth on my drive, the vast majority of which are legal, either because I own the cd or because they were distributed for free by the band. Everyone I know does pretty much the same thing I do. We download mp3s, listen to them, and then either toss them because they suck, or keep them because they're cool. Then we go out and buy the cd because it's a good cd. Not to mention the fact that we tell each other about the cool music we find, which causes more sales for the record companies. So, I KNOW that what I'm doing isn't hurting the record industry, unless you count the fact that I'm no longer buying crappy albums because I can listen to them before I buy now. If you count that, then you're as corrupt as the RIAA.
the days of having your collection on shelves lining your walls are almost over.
Not bloody likely. Who is nuts enough to not keep some sort of master copy of their music around on a cd or some other form of portable, and mostly non-corruptable media? If I buy something, I'm going to make sure I get to keep it.
Maybe you should read the rest of my post. I think I covered everything you said in yours. I said that laws will probably have to be broken if the system is to be changed.
I will add that there is no evidence on either side that MP3s help or hurt artists. You'd think they might want to figure that out before they sue.
There's also the point that the artists don't own their works either, the record companies own them in most cases (although the artist may be able to get them back after 35 or 40 years, it depends on how much bargaining power the artist had when he/she was signed). Artists get paid based on album sales. If mp3s help these sales, the artists shouldn't have a problem with them. Like I said, maybe they should figure out what's really going on before they start slinging lawsuits.
I doubt the artists really have the first clue what they're talking about though. They're just being used by the RIAA as mouthpieces to gain public sympathy.
You're right that that isn't their "profit margin." I was just fixing the 93% claim made by the previous post. I'm sure the actual profits made by the record companies aren't anywhere near what the numbers in my post suggested. I am quite certain that they are quite a bit higher than they should be. I remember many years ago that the industry was claiming that CDs would go down in price quite a bit after the first couple years. Did that happen? Nope. What did happen? CDs stayed the same or went up. Cassette tapes went up quite a bit in price as well. They usually cost only 2 or 3 dollars less than the CD now, whereas they used to be about half the price. I'm not sure how they've worked things out, but it doesn't even matter what record company a cd is released by, it will cost exactly the same as a cd released by any other company. I don't think that's a market-driven phenomenon. It seems more like a price-fixing arrangement between the.. what.. 8(?) major corps.
I haven't seen a shred of evidence that mp3 trading actually harms artists. That's an unsubstantiated claim made by the RIAA. I've bought many CDs after I downloaded some mp3s and realized that I actually liked the songs. I doubt that I'm some kind of special case. I don't think artists are being harmed. It's probably even helping them.
Fans of groups WANT to support those groups. They just don't like the fact that they have to get screwed over by the RIAA in order to show their support. The RIAA doesn't care about the artists. They exist for the sole purpose of protecting the record industry's profits. The fans DO care about the artists they like. The RIAA is just getting in the way now. Cut them out and we could buy our music a lot cheaper, thereby supporting the artists, and we could buy a lot more music, thereby supporting even more artists rather than just those on the top 40. Additionally, we could listen to music that we haven't heard before. If we like it, we naturally want to support that artist so that they keep making more music.
While I'm sure that trading mp3s is currently illegal, that doesn't mean it should be, and I'm not sure there's any way to fix the situation right now. Someone is gonna have to come up with a new way of doing things that will be beneficial to both artists and fans. Unfortunately, if the RIAA doesn't get their cut, they'll do everything in their power to stop any change from happening. I'm not sure there is a way to get rid of the RIAA without breaking a few laws. That's probably what will have to happen if artists are to see that there is another way that won't require them to sign their life's work over to a corporation. I hope something can be done to change the current situation to benefit artists and their fans the most, rather than treating them as employees and consumers, respectively.
But anyway, your math is wrong, even with your own bogus numbers. If I sell something for $15 and I spent $1 to create it, that is a 93% profit margin. NOT a 1500% profit margin. I''m left to wonder, do they teach economics in the schools you attended?
What is 100% of $1? That's right, it's $1. Now, if you were to sell that $1 CD for $16, how much profit did you make? Right, $15. Well, when we remember that the CD cost $1 to make, and 100% of that is also $1, and then we multiply that 100% times the $15 dollars profit, we end up with 1500% profit. Now granted, that isn't all profit since there are middlemen who want their cut, and there's advertising costs as well. But it's safe to say they are making a killing. I don't know where you live, but when I go to Best Buy or Wal-Mart or anywhere else, you can buy CDs for $13 on up. Mostly in the $15 - $20 range though. Older CDs actually seem to cost a lot more.
Why bother even mentioning B at all then? It seems to be completely irrelevant. Why not just say that X must be >= A then? That's why I didn't agree with the interpretation. Did they ever define A?
I call your attention to the part you quoted which says "AT LEAST as great as the precautions you take to protect your own confidential information."
What Microsoft's statement says is that the least amount of precautions you must take are those that you take with your own confidential information. You may take more, but it does not seem to require that you do so. Why would they bother including the statement above if they had expressly spelled out the precautions you must take?
How many people have to download the information before it becomes common knowledge in the industry? Is it still a trade secret if everyone knows the secret? Doesn't make a lot of sense. Seems like Microsoft is playing a game and I hope to see them lose.
You're right. There are people on the RIAA's side that firmly believe that they are right. They will also do everything in their power to see to it that their view of what is right is enforced on everyone.(as they've done for years and succeeded for the most part)
Given that, I think my opinion is just as valid as their opinion. I firmly believe I'm right. I must also do everything in my power to make sure that my view is enforced. Otherwise I'm allowing the RIAA to decide what is right and wrong.
You see the dilemma? If we're both convinced we're right, we end up with a fight. That's where we're at right now. The fight has been joined in the courts. Maybe it will be decided there, maybe not. I don't think the courts are where it will ultimately be decided. I think the fans are sick of getting screwed. They want to support the artists they like. They just don't like the current system where they have to get screwed over in order to support them.
If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they wouldn't be making them sign their work over for 35-40 years, or now even forever. If the RIAA was so concerned about the artists, they would have been devising new methods of distributing music that wouldn't require as much overhead cost so that the fans pay less and the artists get more. But, it all makes sense when you realize that the RIAA doesn't give a rat's ass about the artists as long as they can exploit them and keep raking in the cash.
Could never prove it. They'll just claim that an album is a single work of art. Then you'll have to prove that it isn't. You'd have to get access to internal communications and whatnot in order to show that the album contents are usually decided by business concerns rather than the artist having free reign to create a work independently of business concerns. Even then it might not be enough to convince a court that an album isn't a single work of art regardless of how or why it was created.
Well, I hadn't read the RIAA website before. Some very interesting stuff there. I was reading through the artists' comments and ran into this gem:
"I think the fact that Napster is stealing recorded music is something that we have to stop. It's taking money out of my kid's mouth. That's the way I look at it. It's wrong. It's inherently wrong. It's stealing." -- Art Alexakis, Everclear
This guy feeds his kid money?
Anyway, it's become clear from the comments by the artists, apparently solicited by the RIAA given the dates on most of them, that the artists only seem to know what the RIAA has told them. They're trying to make it into a black and white, cut and dry situation, which it isn't. They apparently didn't tell the artists that despite the rise of MP3s, the record industry profits are still increasing significantly ever year. They also didn't give explain basic business concepts like what you should expect when you overprice your products. Nor have they actually been able to establish that they are actually being harmed by Napster. I've explained what I think is going on in other posts under this story, so I won't rehash it here. Go to my user info page to read my other posts if you wish.
"Face it, the system is broken. If you're not a record exec or one of the top "artists" selling "15 billion singles a second", then you're getting screwed, plain and simple. Guess which ones are doing the screwing.
Why is it that Jon Katz not only refuses to mention artist's rights except for this one line but also refuses to accept the fact that people who misappropriate copyrighted material without rewarding the copyright owners is stealing.
Actually, he mentions artists rights in at least one other, and probably two depending on your interpretation. The funny thing is that you quote both of these lines later in your post. Now, as for your statement here, I don't entirely agree. People "misappropriate copyrighted material" because the current system of distribution doesn't work. This isn't the fault of the people downloading MP3s, it's the fault of the music industry. People are realizing just how much music is out there, and they want access to it. Up 'til now, they knew what the top 40 was and beyond that, they had very little opportunity to hear anything else. CDs cost too damn much to buy on a whim. If you haven't been able to listen to the music first, you can easily end up with a $16.99 coaster (or maybe sell it to a used cd store for $3). What makes things even worse is that most radio stations play the exact same crap. They're all owned by the same people. Now people can listen to all sorts of music that they wouldn't want to buy because they hadn't heard it yet. They can hear more tracks from a band rather than making their purchase decision based on the one song they heard on the radio. I've downloaded a bunch of mp3s, but it hasn't cost the music industry a dime. If I liked the group, I bought the cd. If I didn't like them, I ditched the mp3s. Who got screwed? The main problem is that the RIAA is used to being the one that does the screwing. Now they won't be able to do that. Signing an artist up for a 5 album contract, spreading the good songs out across those 5 albums and filling the rest of the space with crappy filler songs isn't going to work anymore. Sorry if I don't shed a tear for them.
It isn't like if I started printing copies of his books and gave them away he would respond with "Hey, that's OK information want's to be free,anyway"
You're probably right about this. Until it happens we can't really know. Jon, care to enlighten us? What do you think about this claim? It strikes me as being similar to Jeff Bezos' claim that the patent system is screwed up, but that he has to play by the current rules in order to survive. Katz wants to make a living from his writing, so he needs a way to do that, even though copyright is becoming even more perverted than the patent system. Personally, I'd like to see Katz put his money where his mouth is and propose a solution and show that it can work by using that solution for his own work.
Of course not, and that is exactly why they are trying to shut down Napster.
His point here was that shutting down Napster and the others won't help. There's too many options out there and there are more cropping up all the time. He's saying they WON'T go back to the old system, and the RIAA can't make them go back. That's why suing is not the answer.
Why wouldn't it? Currently the rights of artists to decide who distributes their copyrighted material is being abused regularly by Napster users. Secondly, it would also protect the right of artists to be paid for their work.
This is true, but you also ignore the fact that the RIAA is doing the artists they represent a major disservice by overpricing their products. It's been shown time and time again that the more overpriced a product is, the more theft you will see. If the RIAA wasn't so busy gouging its customers, and if the system wasn't so broken, we wouldn't have this situation to begin with. They could fix it, but they won't do that. Why? Greed.
You may say that that still doesn't make it right, and maybe you have a point. That won't improve the situation though. The music industry's own greed is setting itself up for a fall. It's not the artists. They don't have much alternative right now. They sign over the ownership of their music in order to make a living. They could do much better, and so could their fans. We just need to get the RIAA out of the way. If they sold their albums for a reasonable price, more people would buy them, and if the RIAA wasn't sucking up the vast majority of the profits, the artist would get a much bigger cut of the sales, and wouldn't have to sell as many albums to make a good living. On top of that, more artists would be able to make money because people could buy more music. So rather than just those who get the most promotion by the industry making money from their work, many more would be able to profit from their music.
PS: Why does he keep calling MP3.com MP3? How out of it can he possible be?
Katz needs an editor... or a better editor if he already has one.
It's just reaffirming copyright laws in protection of the artist, which is what copyright is all about.
Copyright is not "all about" the protection of the artist. That's what the RIAA would like us to believe, but you shouldn't buy that line. Copyright exists in order to increase the number of artistic and/or literary works that people have free access to (i.e. works existing in the public domain). The goal is to provide an incentive, namely a limited, temporary monopoly, for artists to produce new works. After the monopoly period is up, those works are added to the public domain, and can be freely accessed, distributed, and built upon by anyone. THAT is what copyright is all about. Don't let the music or movie industries convince you otherwise. They've already managed to extend the length of copyright to an unreasonable amount of time, now they're trying to remove the limits on the monopoly they have. This is wrong and should be stopped.
It may be wearing thin for you, but some people still like it apparently. Maybe they don't read /. as often as you, and therefore haven't seen as many of his posts. Maybe it's something else. Either way, it will eventually wear thin on everyone. Change takes a bit of time, but that may be a good thing. Otherwise we probably have too few people deciding what is worth seeing.
I fully realize the differences in the kinds of crimes I mentioned. I was getting at a point though. The point being that we should care how convicted felons are treated because they are not just "felons", they're people. They may have broken a law, but that alone doesn't make them bad people. There are many bad laws on the books. The fact that you broke one doesn't make you unworthy of life, or even of a decent life. It doesn't mean you can't still be a productive member of society. It certainly doesn't mean you should have your rights taken away from you after you've served your sentence, and certain rights should not be taken from you even during your sentence. (i.e. voting, speech, freedom from cruel or unusual punishment, etc.)
Can you give a link to the secondary patent? What does the secondary patent cover? It can't cover the same thing the first patent covers, right? I'd really like to know more about this. I figured the patent was history already, but I hadn't heard of the secondary patent.
I don't see why Mitnick can't talk about computer technology or security in general, but letting him make money from crimes raises my hackles.
Any data he gained from his exploits was confiscated long ago, along with pretty much everything else he owned. He's not profitting from his crimes, he's profiting from his knowledge of security weaknesses, as well as getting to give his opinions about the actions of the government. Both should certainly be well within his rights.
Once you can show me how a criminal can undo the past and make it so that his actions didn't happen, then maybe I'll start worrying about how a criminal is treated.
So, you believe that any offense by a criminal means that we should no longer care about how they are treated? Death penalty for anyone that steals from you then? Why should we care? They trespassed, stole something, got caught speeding, etc. We should just write them off and get them out of society for good then? Even when they are kids? They were considered children by our government when they committed the crime, yet somehow the committing of that crime makes them adults that can be tried as such? What about their treatment before they're convicted? People are generally considered guilty until proven innocent anymore. God forbid you ever get accused of something.
The difference is that OJ got off by having a good lawyer even though the evidence was pretty heavily against him. In the Davidian case, the evidence was heavily in their favor and it became pretty obvious that the government was way out of line. The facts of the case supported that view.
Why should he be forced to work at such jobs if he can do something more profitable? He served his time in prison. He's still serving his probation with no access to computers. He's not profitting from his crimes. Any fruits of his crimes were confiscated long ago. He's now using his knowledge to earn a living. Just like many of us do every day. Now the government wants to criminalize that as well. I'm sick of seeing people who have not committed a sexual or violent crime being persecuted as if they could snap and start killing people at any moment. Why should he be restricted to a minimum wage job and lifestyle, despite his ability to earn a better living without violating his probation or committing a crime? That is definitely an unusual, if not cruel(which is debateable), punishment.