Firstly, i'd like to comment on universities banning napster. I work for the computer department at the Universtiy of Connecticut (i am also a student there), and like many of the universities that have banned napster, we have done so because of BANDWIDTH issues. Now, since we've upgraded to T3's, a lot of administrators have been questioning this decision, and there has been talk of allowing limited access; a weekly/monthly napster download limit or something like that. Many university adminstrators are reasonable, but they do have the school's best interests in mind. They have to be convinced by conventional means, and not flames on internet chats. They have to see more than a bunch of angry teens, or "gear-heads." Getting the tech/computer science department or your side is a good first step. Let them present petitions to the board and whatnot.
The second issue i'd like to address is the nature of mp3s. Or rather, the nature of their effect on the recording industry. Sure they're a lot more hi-tech than tapes, and the internet is an "information superhighway" and whatever other buzzword is chic, and as such, it is a powerful medium, blah blah...but tapes didn't destroy the recording industry. Sure..we all know it's illegal, but so is not stopping at every stop sign, even on an empty road at three in the morning. If we get down to it, yes, we have no right to give away someone's music, without their express permission. But I've made tons of mix tapes for friends, or girlfriends, to get them into my kind of music. I've taped friend's albums. Everyone knew this went on, but I think it's the method of distribution..or rather...the EASE of distribution, that's scaring record labels, and now even artists it seems. It's hard to rationlize the "yeah, i know it's illegal, but..." arguement.
If we get right down to it, nothing, and i mean nothing, is going to get the mp3s off of university intranets...people are going to share their music, and there's no stopping them really. I mean, are we going to arrest just about every college kid with a computer? Even the non-tech/cse majors have mp3s shared on their compuers..i mean..i go to UCONN...even the jocks have them shared...it's the mix-tape of the age...so how do we get the medium of exchange recognized? I got into metallica when an older friend of mine made me a tape of master of puppets, and some songs from ride the lightning at the end. And i bought the albums. I'm not going to lie, and say that i do that all the time..i don't..but neither did i buy every album i have a tape of either.
The desire to listen to, and appreciate music is so ingrained in human nature that nothing will stop our desire to listen to it, but i think the best we can hope for is that the industry will view napster as an unaviodable loss (much like tapes), and only prosecute the people that sell the stuff for a profit. Regardless of the outcome of the napster lawsuit, mp3's will still be there...and don't email metallica telling them they're fags or assholes or anything...these guys are big fish in the pond of music artists..they've overcome label conflicts, and have rocked for lots of years...even disregarding their new material (this isn't a musical taste issue), they're a band that's established a comfortable niche; they have to have a good reason to budge from it. We have a chance to present an intelligent arguement. Call it american democracy, or our chance to voice our opinions..whatever you want..i just hope that the online chat consists of more than "you guys suck now", and "why are you guys being stupid"
See..it's all about intent and ethics. Forget the media; they're known for tagging a name to a group or sociological sub-culture in order to get a hot story. So all the script-kiddies and lamers will get a bad rep for what the media wants to call h/crackers. I'll have to agree that hacking into a system to learn how it works, or to just poke around is perfectly acceptalbe. It adheres to an unspoken moral standard, in which the person concerned doesn't do it just to wreck the site. The angry youth, or "cyber vandals" on the other hand....well...turn 'em in..if they think they're good enough to hold their own, let them try:)
Jeez...what's with the preoccupation with putting everything in neat little categories...eveyone still does what the used to, no matter what it's called nowadays. Most of the people rushing to wear the awe-inspiring title of hacker are probably just lamers that know how to nuke people. Who cares what we're called:)
It's not purely monopolization that we have to worry about. It's only natural to assume that some companies will try and merge with, or aquire, all the companies that they can. Granted, I still think Microsoft has it's head up it's..well..you know. But what worries me is...what do you think will happen when AOL gets it's hands on the most popular mp3 player? Is AOL going to buy into the whole anti-mp3 campain, are we going to have to pay for it? The acquisition of winamp and shoutcast by a conglomerate makes me shudder, because there's no end to what they can do to what has, up to now, been one of the joys of computing..free expression of music. Oh well..we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
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Firstly, i'd like to comment on universities banning napster. I work for the computer department at the Universtiy of Connecticut (i am also a student there), and like many of the universities that have banned napster, we have done so because of BANDWIDTH issues. Now, since we've upgraded to T3's, a lot of administrators have been questioning this decision, and there has been talk of allowing limited access; a weekly/monthly napster download limit or something like that. Many university adminstrators are reasonable, but they do have the school's best interests in mind. They have to be convinced by conventional means, and not flames on internet chats. They have to see more than a bunch of angry teens, or "gear-heads." Getting the tech/computer science department or your side is a good first step. Let them present petitions to the board and whatnot.
The second issue i'd like to address is the nature of mp3s. Or rather, the nature of their effect on the recording industry. Sure they're a lot more hi-tech than tapes, and the internet is an "information superhighway" and whatever other buzzword is chic, and as such, it is a powerful medium, blah blah...but tapes didn't destroy the recording industry. Sure..we all know it's illegal, but so is not stopping at every stop sign, even on an empty road at three in the morning. If we get down to it, yes, we have no right to give away someone's music, without their express permission. But I've made tons of mix tapes for friends, or girlfriends, to get them into my kind of music. I've taped friend's albums. Everyone knew this went on, but I think it's the method of distribution..or rather...the EASE of distribution, that's scaring record labels, and now even artists it seems. It's hard to rationlize the "yeah, i know it's illegal, but..." arguement.
If we get right down to it, nothing, and i mean nothing, is going to get the mp3s off of university intranets...people are going to share their music, and there's no stopping them really. I mean, are we going to arrest just about every college kid with a computer? Even the non-tech/cse majors have mp3s shared on their compuers..i mean..i go to UCONN...even the jocks have them shared...it's the mix-tape of the age...so how do we get the medium of exchange recognized? I got into metallica when an older friend of mine made me a tape of master of puppets, and some songs from ride the lightning at the end. And i bought the albums. I'm not going to lie, and say that i do that all the time..i don't..but neither did i buy every album i have a tape of either.
The desire to listen to, and appreciate music is so ingrained in human nature that nothing will stop our desire to listen to it, but i think the best we can hope for is that the industry will view napster as an unaviodable loss (much like tapes), and only prosecute the people that sell the stuff for a profit. Regardless of the outcome of the napster lawsuit, mp3's will still be there...and don't email metallica telling them they're fags or assholes or anything...these guys are big fish in the pond of music artists..they've overcome label conflicts, and have rocked for lots of years...even disregarding their new material (this isn't a musical taste issue), they're a band that's established a comfortable niche; they have to have a good reason to budge from it. We have a chance to present an intelligent arguement. Call it american democracy, or our chance to voice our opinions..whatever you want..i just hope that the online chat consists of more than "you guys suck now", and "why are you guys being stupid"
See..it's all about intent and ethics. Forget the media; they're known for tagging a name to a group or sociological sub-culture in order to get a hot story. So all the script-kiddies and lamers will get a bad rep for what the media wants to call h/crackers. I'll have to agree that hacking into a system to learn how it works, or to just poke around is perfectly acceptalbe. It adheres to an unspoken moral standard, in which the person concerned doesn't do it just to wreck the site. The angry youth, or "cyber vandals" on the other hand....well...turn 'em in..if they think they're good enough to hold their own, let them try :)
Jeez...what's with the preoccupation with putting everything in neat little categories...eveyone still does what the used to, no matter what it's called nowadays. Most of the people rushing to wear the awe-inspiring title of hacker are probably just lamers that know how to nuke people. Who cares what we're called :)
Hey chummer :P
yeah..don't we wish...i'll just hop down to compusa and pick up my new wired reflexes kit...Y2K compatable and all that...
It's not purely monopolization that we have to worry about. It's only natural to assume that some companies will try and merge with, or aquire, all the companies that they can. Granted, I still think Microsoft has it's head up it's..well..you know. But what worries me is...what do you think will happen when AOL gets it's hands on the most popular mp3 player? Is AOL going to buy into the whole anti-mp3 campain, are we going to have to pay for it? The acquisition of winamp and shoutcast by a conglomerate makes me shudder, because there's no end to what they can do to what has, up to now, been one of the joys of computing..free expression of music. Oh well..we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.