Let's not pretend this is a 1st Amendment issue. Unless I'm mistaken, Slashdot isn't a government entity and is not bound by the Constitution to protect free speech in this forum. The fact that it does is admirable.
That's the whole point of this, isn't it? Choice? You choose to consider your personal or demographic data inconsequential. Others choose to protect it. Your data is currency. The individual should be able to retain ownership rights of personal info and be afforded the opportunity to decide when it will be relinquished or how it will be exploited. You don't care? Fine. I won't call you naive. Deciding I won't part with my data without equitable consideration doesn't make me a "paranoid freak". It makes me pragmatic.
Your comment is based on a flawed, second-hand understanding of how BeamIt works.
"fake CD device, with all the data mp3.com's is looking to verify" - the algorithm makes random checks of a CDs data. Spoofing would require some other technique than simply saving and delivering only the expected data.
"you then have access to those mp3s from anywhere you go (or you can just download the mp3s)." - Once authenticated, you have access to the streaming MP3 file of that particular CD. You are not empowered to download tracks in MP3 format that are suitable for redistribution. Of course, there are ways to save the streamed file, but there are much easier ways to get those files than spoofing the CD checker and saving the streamed MP3. MyMP3 didn't make that any easier than what was already possible -- in fact it was less convenient to use as a piracy tool. The more likely threat, from the view of the RIAA, was simply the sharing of CDs to gain access to streaming MP3s rather than buying the music. Lost sale? So they say, but I don't buy it. The truth is, regardless of profit loss or gain, RIAA wanted to enforce its licensing rights, as the representative of the industry (which includes the artists) and ensure it received its fair share of profits.
"As unfair as it might seem, I'm not so sure that RIAA is necessarily being greedy or overzealous here." - blasphemy for a Slashdotter where "music wants to be free" but I agree with this. Vilifying an industry that's trying to maintain its tried and true (and legal) revenue stream isn't logical. They are in the business of making money...making it for their investors, their executives, their engineers, producers, public relations, promoters, agents, distributors, and...oh yeah...the performers and writers too.
As long as I'm posting, might as well spout: A few decades ago, the "music industry" feared the sale of recorded music thinking it would kill the primary source of revenue -- the live performance. Today that seems laughable. Not that long ago, the industry fought to keep analog recording out of the consumers' bill of rights because of its perceived impact on unit sales. Eventually, and with the help of the Audio Home Recording Act, the RIAA gave up its opposition to analog copying since the method degrades each generation and, uh, they get a royalty for blank media sold to compensate them (now THAT chaps my ass).
The point is I think the cataclysm of change is happening right now, and law suits like this are just Pyrrhic, evidence of the industry trying to maintain the status quo for fear of finding a new business model -- which is an inevitability. In 10 years we'll look back on the quaint physical distribution, point-of-sale model and chuckle at our primitiveness. And there will still be an industry making gobs of money from the consumer's appetite for music. They might be different people from those currently finding a livelihood from music and that's why the fight for the status quo is so engaged.
I may not like MP3c CEO Robertson's hubris (and I'd sue the corporate law team that led them down this fool's path if they were culpable), but I like MP3.Com. BeamIt was a peripheral oddity that didn't fit their core vision. Why they'd risk it all for MyMP3 is a mystery -- well, maybe not. The rap against MP3.Com is it doesn't host the popular music people seem to want. MyMP3 got them into that arena in a derivative way. The RIAA wanted its license. Robertson thought he had a glimmer of legal standing to not have to pay the standard fees, thinking he could get the rights for cheap. The RIAA didn't budge. Now, you can bet the RIAA will twist the knife.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not pretend this is a 1st Amendment issue. Unless I'm mistaken, Slashdot isn't a government entity and is not bound by the Constitution to protect free speech in this forum. The fact that it does is admirable.
Salon article for more on Napster's response and some FTC action re. CD prices.
That's the whole point of this, isn't it? Choice? You choose to consider your personal or demographic data inconsequential. Others choose to protect it. Your data is currency. The individual should be able to retain ownership rights of personal info and be afforded the opportunity to decide when it will be relinquished or how it will be exploited. You don't care? Fine. I won't call you naive. Deciding I won't part with my data without equitable consideration doesn't make me a "paranoid freak". It makes me pragmatic.
"fake CD device, with all the data mp3.com's is looking to verify" - the algorithm makes random checks of a CDs data. Spoofing would require some other technique than simply saving and delivering only the expected data.
"you then have access to those mp3s from anywhere you go (or you can just download the mp3s)." - Once authenticated, you have access to the streaming MP3 file of that particular CD. You are not empowered to download tracks in MP3 format that are suitable for redistribution. Of course, there are ways to save the streamed file, but there are much easier ways to get those files than spoofing the CD checker and saving the streamed MP3. MyMP3 didn't make that any easier than what was already possible -- in fact it was less convenient to use as a piracy tool. The more likely threat, from the view of the RIAA, was simply the sharing of CDs to gain access to streaming MP3s rather than buying the music. Lost sale? So they say, but I don't buy it. The truth is, regardless of profit loss or gain, RIAA wanted to enforce its licensing rights, as the representative of the industry (which includes the artists) and ensure it received its fair share of profits.
"As unfair as it might seem, I'm not so sure that RIAA is necessarily being greedy or overzealous here." - blasphemy for a Slashdotter where "music wants to be free" but I agree with this. Vilifying an industry that's trying to maintain its tried and true (and legal) revenue stream isn't logical. They are in the business of making money...making it for their investors, their executives, their engineers, producers, public relations, promoters, agents, distributors, and...oh yeah...the performers and writers too.
As long as I'm posting, might as well spout:
A few decades ago, the "music industry" feared the sale of recorded music thinking it would kill the primary source of revenue -- the live performance. Today that seems laughable. Not that long ago, the industry fought to keep analog recording out of the consumers' bill of rights because of its perceived impact on unit sales. Eventually, and with the help of the Audio Home Recording Act, the RIAA gave up its opposition to analog copying since the method degrades each generation and, uh, they get a royalty for blank media sold to compensate them (now THAT chaps my ass).
The point is I think the cataclysm of change is happening right now, and law suits like this are just Pyrrhic, evidence of the industry trying to maintain the status quo for fear of finding a new business model -- which is an inevitability. In 10 years we'll look back on the quaint physical distribution, point-of-sale model and chuckle at our primitiveness. And there will still be an industry making gobs of money from the consumer's appetite for music. They might be different people from those currently finding a livelihood from music and that's why the fight for the status quo is so engaged.
I may not like MP3c CEO Robertson's hubris (and I'd sue the corporate law team that led them down this fool's path if they were culpable), but I like MP3.Com. BeamIt was a peripheral oddity that didn't fit their core vision. Why they'd risk it all for MyMP3 is a mystery -- well, maybe not. The rap against MP3.Com is it doesn't host the popular music people seem to want. MyMP3 got them into that arena in a derivative way. The RIAA wanted its license. Robertson thought he had a glimmer of legal standing to not have to pay the standard fees, thinking he could get the rights for cheap. The RIAA didn't budge. Now, you can bet the RIAA will twist the knife.
About halfway down in this ZDNet article is an interesting discussion of CDNow's valuation in the face of its recent repricing. http://www.zd ii.com/industry_list.asp?mode=news&doc_id=ZE503657 &pic=Y. Might be applicable. Might not. Interesting analysis nonetheless.