I suspect its downward moderation had something to do with two things:
1. It was completely off-topic, you seem to have been confusing the MPAA with the RIAA.
2. It was creating an unproductive bout of flaming.
Of course, I'm not really a moderator (I just play one on TV) so I can only guess.
Re:This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
·
· Score: 2
Perhaps, but this is not a case of people pirating mp3s and the RIAA jumping in to "protect the copyrights of the innocent". This is them attacking a company which has sought to provide a service to people and while doing so took many steps along the way to protect copyrights. Mp3.com does not give access to these mp3s to anyone, you have to own the cd first.
Personally, I use the service to listen to 128kbp streams while at school where there is band-width-o-plenty. I think its probably one of the most nifty services I've run into and best of all, it helps sell cds. The "instant listening" feature on the service allows anyone who buys a cd to start listening to it instantly. If anything, this service is helping the RIAA. Why they can't see that is confounding.
And I never actually said that the RIAA is anti-technology, I merely said that in this case they were fighting it. They certainly have been behind new technologies such as cd's as you mentioned. However the big difference between cds and mp3s is this: The RIAA chose cds as the next generation in music distribution, Consumers chose mp3s as the next generation in music distribution. It would seem that the RIAA's posisition on technology is "Fight anything we did not originate."
Re:RIAA is asking for 68 billion dollars!!!
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
·
· Score: 1
correction, not 45,000 songs, I meant to say 45,000 cd's:)
RIAA is asking for 68 billion dollars!!!
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
·
· Score: 3
If you read the text of the suit at mp3.com, it shows that the RIAA is asking for 150,000 per work. If their are roughly 10 songs per cd, and as the RIAA claims, 45,000 songs, then 10*45000*150000= 67.5 billion dollars. Chew on that for a while.
And last, but not least, if you like zdnet.com, then you can get their story here.
This is sad, but I think we all saw it coming
on
RIAA Sues MP3.com
·
· Score: 2
The RIAA has yet to "get it". They are slowly destroying themselves in a flury of anti-technology litigation. I challenge you to name 1 company/organization that has ever met with success by fighting technology. It just doesn't happen. The sooner that the RIAA realizes that the consumers are the ones with money and are therefore the ones that call the shots, the more likely they will be to salvage some shred of what may be left of the music industry if they keep up at this.
Despite the obvious troll nature of your post, I shall lower myself to issuing a response because I feel that their might be someone who actually wants to know what you are asking
Please enlighten me...just HOW is this MP3 craze really helping artists? I don't want to hear any 'theoretical' answers either, about how musician A 'could' distribute their music with MP3's and avoid the record companies...I'd like to see some REAL EXAMPLES of it and see if the atists are REALLY PROFITING from MP3's. All I've heard so far is lame excuses and pontifications about'freedom' of speech.
I don't even know where to start. First of all, I've never heard any sort of freedom of speech argument for mp3s, but I suppose someone might have made such an argument at some point. Secondly, I can give you numerous examples of mp3's helping artists from my life alone. For starters, mp3.com sells cd's that contain the songs of their artists in both mp3 and normal cd audio format. The artists choose the songs, choose the price and choose the coverart and mp3.com does the rest. For every cd sold, mp3.com gets half and the artist gets half (the average cd sells for about 7 bucks). I personally have bought six of these cd's in the last month or so. I highly recomend you give some of the songs at mp3.com a listen.
Secondly, I have bought countless cd's from artists I never would have heard of had I not sampled their music via mp3 first. In fact, every cd I've bought in recent history is from music that has come to me that way. I buy, on average, about 5 cd's per month (not including those mp3.com ones).
Lastly, I have purchased music at emusic.com (they might be giants cds) and I plan on doing so again in the future.
Could you perhaps explain exactly what campus Security did? I mean, just connecting to a napster server doesn't give them the authority to do anything. In fact, even if they have logs of them downloading every mp3 in existance, that could still be perfectly legal assuming they had the cd. So obviously Campus Security can't prove a crime has taken place which leaves me to wonder what the purpose of their visit would have been? Enforcing a university rule? Was it a posted rule?
You've never seen a legal mp3 there? Let me ask you something, what legal mp3s did you search for? I'll bet none. Their certainly are some there. Not the majority, but many people have a few legal mp3s within their collection.
Reminds me of the silly playstation cd's coating. You can burn it off if you carefull not to melt the cd. If you do that (I'm told, I've never really tried), you can burn copies that don't need modchips to be played.
Of course if they did that then this would be no different than standard dvd movie rental except that you would return it when you couldn't watch it anymore rather then time ran out. . .
For the record, Dvd-Ram is a format which does not allow you to use standard dvd-rw or dvd-r media. The dvd-ram discs are encased in some sort of a floppy-disk-like casing and cost over 50 dollars each. Should you wish to consider dvd-r, then the media is playable in a standard dvd drive and will set you back closer to 25 dollars. These drives can be found being made by pioneer and will cost you closer to 400 dollars.:)
Personally, I hate the idea too. I do, however, wish to take this opportunity to play a quick game of devil's advocate. Think of all of the enviromental affects that gasoline over-usage causes. Smog, the increased liklihood of an oil spill to the increased demand/output of oilwells, and depletion of a non-renewable resource are all the penalties we pay for such things.
If 200 Million people (roughly 2 out of every 3 people in the United States) rent only 2 movies a year, and it takes them 3 miles to drive to the video store and we assume they get 40 mpg (hah!), then that means 30 million (400,000,000/40 * 3) gallons of gas per year would be saved by this invention(return trip gas alone). Not to mention that dvd's are made of plastic and could at least be recycled.
That's not entirely true. Please refer to my response to a previous post nearer to the top of the page. It pertains to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Actually, according to the Digital Millennium copyright act, you may broadcast anything you like but you must follow a few rules:
1. Never play the same song more than once within a 3 hour period.
2. Never play requests within an hour of their requestment (is that a word?).
3. Do not publish a schedule in a advance allowing people to know what your going to play and when.
Thats basically it. There are other rules but they cover finer points.
Re:Regarding a cheating client for my.mp3.com
on
MP3.com's Beam-It
·
· Score: 1
Of course, they can't store the verification numbers for every single cd on some file on your hard drive and use that as a reference, so the verification number MUST be some sort of derivitive the cd's id (Don't know what else to call it, its not a serial number, but its a number thats unique to every cd of that title. I.E. Every copy of "Running with Scissors" has the same number. This is the number that CDDB uses to identify your cd) or the actual id itself. If this is the case, we won't have to create a database, we can use cddb's database. Its big, its there, and the protocol is well known. Just my $.02.
sony does make a card that you can use to store data on mini disc..it was over a 100 dollars when I saw it (approx. Dec. 98). I assume it was a PCI card, but i did not find out many details on how it worked(what connected etc.) Also, Sony made a big deal about its vaio desktops being able to hook up to minidisc players.
You are correct. I did not meant to imply that you can't get new releases on cassete tape, but its not easy to do. I live in Indianapolis which is a pretty decent sized city and no local stores carry cassetes (well, not new releases). However, I'm pretty sure you can probably find them on the internet. In fact, you can still get vinyl, but these formats are no longer easily available.
For starters, vhs and cassete tapes were/are analog and quite frankly the quality on them sucks. But the main reason that the RIAA is so hopping mad is two-fold:
1. With mp3 (and the internet) you can copy someones cd who lives in a different country (try that with a cassete tape).
2. I think a big part of the push to cds and away from cassetes was to STOP people from being able to pirate music with cassetes. They finally got everyone on cd's so they couldn't copy music anymore(try finding a new release on cassete) and all the sudden cd-r's are cheap.
Honestly though, I think we all know that the RIAA is barking up the wrong tree, but they are a special interest group. The RIAA doesn't want any new changes in the medium of music transmission unless they pick the medium. After all, they chose cd's..CONSUMERS chose mp3. They are no longer in control and it pisses them off.
No, this is dell in a nutshell: "Help, Help, I'm dell and I'm stuck in a nutshell. Someone please get me out of this nutshell." Sorry, Couldn't resist that. Seriously though, linux drivers are unavoidable. Within a year it will be considered inexcusable to make a device without support across multiple platforms (much in the same way that PC only USB devices are now criticized). Sure, for the current time you might find yourself waiting on drivers more than you would like to, but this will be a shortlived stage in the linux revolution.
That is load of crap. First of all, slashdot has not encouraged anything. Some of its posters might have done so, but all that slashdot as an entity has done is to post the news that this was possible. By your logic, a story on the news about a murder is encouraging others to go out and commit murder.
Seconldy, this deal does not help the financially challenged(your words, not mine) get a computer. The Financially challenged could just as easily put 400 dollars worth of the purchase on a credit card(and a credit card is required for signng up with MSN)and end up paying less than the near 800 dollars that 3 years of MSN would cost them. They could get internet access for free from one of many companies such as netzero(very reliable from my experience) and not have to worry about any MSN crap.
I'll stay away from commenting on your CmdrTaco bashing(is this part of your christian upbringing?) because I sure don't want god dissaproving of me too.
I work at Best Buy. MSN reimburses Best Buy for every $400. They have to. If they tell us to stop, and we don't stop, then we eat the 400 dollars. But As it stands now, until MS rescinded the offer, they are the ones who have to pay it, not Best Buy.
I work at one of the retail stores mentioned in the article, and it might be worth mentioning that the article says "you don't have to repay the money". Thats all good and well, however in order to sign up you must use a credit card and if you cancel the 400 dollars is automatically billed to your credit card. So if your a californian, what do you do? Call the credit card company and contest the charge? I'd like to know..
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect its downward moderation had something to do with two things:
1. It was completely off-topic, you seem to have been confusing the MPAA with the RIAA.
2. It was creating an unproductive bout of flaming.
Of course, I'm not really a moderator (I just play one on TV) so I can only guess.
Perhaps, but this is not a case of people pirating mp3s and the RIAA jumping in to "protect the copyrights of the innocent". This is them attacking a company which has sought to provide a service to people and while doing so took many steps along the way to protect copyrights. Mp3.com does not give access to these mp3s to anyone, you have to own the cd first.
Personally, I use the service to listen to 128kbp streams while at school where there is band-width-o-plenty. I think its probably one of the most nifty services I've run into and best of all, it helps sell cds. The "instant listening" feature on the service allows anyone who buys a cd to start listening to it instantly. If anything, this service is helping the RIAA. Why they can't see that is confounding.
And I never actually said that the RIAA is anti-technology, I merely said that in this case they were fighting it. They certainly have been behind new technologies such as cd's as you mentioned. However the big difference between cds and mp3s is this: The RIAA chose cds as the next generation in music distribution, Consumers chose mp3s as the next generation in music distribution. It would seem that the RIAA's posisition on technology is "Fight anything we did not originate."
correction, not 45,000 songs, I meant to say 45,000 cd's :)
If you read the text of the suit at mp3.com, it shows that the RIAA is asking for 150,000 per work. If their are roughly 10 songs per cd, and as the RIAA claims, 45,000 songs, then 10*45000*150000= 67.5 billion dollars. Chew on that for a while.
If your interested, I've compiled a quick list of links pertaining to this case below
You can find the mp3.com press release here.which includes the full text of the suit that was filed.
Cnet has coverage here.
And last, but not least, if you like zdnet.com, then you can get their story here .
The RIAA has yet to "get it". They are slowly destroying themselves in a flury of anti-technology litigation. I challenge you to name 1 company/organization that has ever met with success by fighting technology. It just doesn't happen. The sooner that the RIAA realizes that the consumers are the ones with money and are therefore the ones that call the shots, the more likely they will be to salvage some shred of what may be left of the music industry if they keep up at this.
Despite the obvious troll nature of your post, I shall lower myself to issuing a response because I feel that their might be someone who actually wants to know what you are asking
Please enlighten me...just HOW is this MP3 craze really helping artists? I don't want to hear any 'theoretical' answers either, about how musician A 'could' distribute their music with MP3's and avoid the record companies...I'd like to see some REAL EXAMPLES of it and see if the atists are REALLY PROFITING from MP3's. All I've heard so far is lame excuses and pontifications about'freedom' of speech.
I don't even know where to start. First of all, I've never heard any sort of freedom of speech argument for mp3s, but I suppose someone might have made such an argument at some point. Secondly, I can give you numerous examples of mp3's helping artists from my life alone. For starters, mp3.com sells cd's that contain the songs of their artists in both mp3 and normal cd audio format. The artists choose the songs, choose the price and choose the coverart and mp3.com does the rest. For every cd sold, mp3.com gets half and the artist gets half (the average cd sells for about 7 bucks). I personally have bought six of these cd's in the last month or so. I highly recomend you give some of the songs at mp3.com a listen.
Secondly, I have bought countless cd's from artists I never would have heard of had I not sampled their music via mp3 first. In fact, every cd I've bought in recent history is from music that has come to me that way. I buy, on average, about 5 cd's per month (not including those mp3.com ones).
Lastly, I have purchased music at emusic.com (they might be giants cds) and I plan on doing so again in the future.
I hope that helps set the reocord straight.
Could you perhaps explain exactly what campus Security did? I mean, just connecting to a napster server doesn't give them the authority to do anything. In fact, even if they have logs of them downloading every mp3 in existance, that could still be perfectly legal assuming they had the cd. So obviously Campus Security can't prove a crime has taken place which leaves me to wonder what the purpose of their visit would have been? Enforcing a university rule? Was it a posted rule?
You've never seen a legal mp3 there? Let me ask you something, what legal mp3s did you search for? I'll bet none. Their certainly are some there. Not the majority, but many people have a few legal mp3s within their collection.
Reminds me of the silly playstation cd's coating. You can burn it off if you carefull not to melt the cd. If you do that (I'm told, I've never really tried), you can burn copies that don't need modchips to be played.
Of course if they did that then this would be no different than standard dvd movie rental except that you would return it when you couldn't watch it anymore rather then time ran out. . .
For the record, Dvd-Ram is a format which does not allow you to use standard dvd-rw or dvd-r media. The dvd-ram discs are encased in some sort of a floppy-disk-like casing and cost over 50 dollars each. Should you wish to consider dvd-r, then the media is playable in a standard dvd drive and will set you back closer to 25 dollars. These drives can be found being made by pioneer and will cost you closer to 400 dollars. :)
Personally, I hate the idea too. I do, however, wish to take this opportunity to play a quick game of devil's advocate. Think of all of the enviromental affects that gasoline over-usage causes. Smog, the increased liklihood of an oil spill to the increased demand/output of oilwells, and depletion of a non-renewable resource are all the penalties we pay for such things.
If 200 Million people (roughly 2 out of every 3 people in the United States) rent only 2 movies a year, and it takes them 3 miles to drive to the video store and we assume they get 40 mpg (hah!), then that means 30 million (400,000,000/40 * 3) gallons of gas per year would be saved by this invention(return trip gas alone). Not to mention that dvd's are made of plastic and could at least be recycled.
That's not entirely true. Please refer to my response to a previous post nearer to the top of the page. It pertains to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Actually, according to the Digital Millennium copyright act, you may broadcast anything you like but you must follow a few rules:
1. Never play the same song more than once within a 3 hour period.
2. Never play requests within an hour of their requestment (is that a word?).
3. Do not publish a schedule in a advance allowing people to know what your going to play and when.
Thats basically it. There are other rules but they cover finer points.
Of course, they can't store the verification numbers for every single cd on some file on your hard drive and use that as a reference, so the verification number MUST be some sort of derivitive the cd's id (Don't know what else to call it, its not a serial number, but its a number thats unique to every cd of that title. I.E. Every copy of "Running with Scissors" has the same number. This is the number that CDDB uses to identify your cd) or the actual id itself. If this is the case, we won't have to create a database, we can use cddb's database. Its big, its there, and the protocol is well known. Just my $.02.
sony does make a card that you can use to store data on mini disc..it was over a 100 dollars when I saw it (approx. Dec. 98). I assume it was a PCI card, but i did not find out many details on how it worked(what connected etc.) Also, Sony made a big deal about its vaio desktops being able to hook up to minidisc players.
You are correct. I did not meant to imply that you can't get new releases on cassete tape, but its not easy to do. I live in Indianapolis which is a pretty decent sized city and no local stores carry cassetes (well, not new releases). However, I'm pretty sure you can probably find them on the internet. In fact, you can still get vinyl, but these formats are no longer easily available.
For starters, vhs and cassete tapes were/are analog and quite frankly the quality on them sucks. But the main reason that the RIAA is so hopping mad is two-fold:
1. With mp3 (and the internet) you can copy someones cd who lives in a different country (try that with a cassete tape).
2. I think a big part of the push to cds and away from cassetes was to STOP people from being able to pirate music with cassetes. They finally got everyone on cd's so they couldn't copy music anymore(try finding a new release on cassete) and all the sudden cd-r's are cheap.
Honestly though, I think we all know that the RIAA is barking up the wrong tree, but they are a special interest group. The RIAA doesn't want any new changes in the medium of music transmission unless they pick the medium. After all, they chose cd's..CONSUMERS chose mp3. They are no longer in control and it pisses them off.
Good then. As long as we are all on the same page.
No, this is dell in a nutshell: "Help, Help, I'm dell and I'm stuck in a nutshell. Someone please get me out of this nutshell." Sorry, Couldn't resist that. Seriously though, linux drivers are unavoidable. Within a year it will be considered inexcusable to make a device without support across multiple platforms (much in the same way that PC only USB devices are now criticized). Sure, for the current time you might find yourself waiting on drivers more than you would like to, but this will be a shortlived stage in the linux revolution.
Now all I need is to make these things run linux and get a beowulf cluster of them on my arm...
That is load of crap. First of all, slashdot has not encouraged anything. Some of its posters might have done so, but all that slashdot as an entity has done is to post the news that this was possible. By your logic, a story on the news about a murder is encouraging others to go out and commit murder.
Seconldy, this deal does not help the financially challenged(your words, not mine) get a computer. The Financially challenged could just as easily put 400 dollars worth of the purchase on a credit card(and a credit card is required for signng up with MSN)and end up paying less than the near 800 dollars that 3 years of MSN would cost them. They could get internet access for free from one of many companies such as netzero(very reliable from my experience) and not have to worry about any MSN crap.
I'll stay away from commenting on your CmdrTaco bashing(is this part of your christian upbringing?) because I sure don't want god dissaproving of me too.
I work at Best Buy. MSN reimburses Best Buy for every $400. They have to. If they tell us to stop, and we don't stop, then we eat the 400 dollars. But As it stands now, until MS rescinded the offer, they are the ones who have to pay it, not Best Buy.
I work at one of the retail stores mentioned in the article, and it might be worth mentioning that the article says "you don't have to repay the money". Thats all good and well, however in order to sign up you must use a credit card and if you cancel the 400 dollars is automatically billed to your credit card. So if your a californian, what do you do? Call the credit card company and contest the charge? I'd like to know..