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 At Last And At Length: Lars Speaks |
Posted by timothy on Friday May 26, @12:00PMfrom the parental-guidance-suggested dept.
On May 4, we asked you to suggest questions for an interview with Metallica. It seemed for a while, though, like the interview that emmett had wrangled would never happen -- despite agreeing to speak with us, calls to his agents found that drummer (and frequent spokesman) Lars Ulrich was either "too busy" or "unavailable" for a long time, and we felt pretty much like the winner in a game of "hold the grenade." Yesterday, though, Lars came through for us: after I explained the nature of a Slashdot interview, and how the questions were gathered and chosen, as well as the fact that he was free to be as candid and discursive as he'd like, I spoke with him for more than an hour. Lars seemed impressed by the forum that Slashdot offered and called it "a nice setup" for an interview. You don't have to agree with his conclusions, or with the actions that the band has taken, but you ignore his words at your peril. So without further ado, here are your questions, and Lars, unfiltered.
1) Whose decision was it?
by fprintf
Was it your decision, your manager, your lawyers or record company that made the call to go after the Napster users?
Lars Ulrich: Obviously, it was our concern, 'our' meaning the four members of the band. The record company had nothing to do with it whatsoever. There has been no [support] from the record companies; they never instigated anything, so we took it upon ourselves, there was never really much in term of support. There's been the occasional pat on the back, the occasional call, but I would say that I'm quite, I'd say, more than surprised, I'm quite stunned at the lack of communication and input from the record company. Obviously, you know, with record companies we never really usually depend much on what they have to offer in terms of creative things, but I am stunned at the low volume of support from the record company, both publically and privately. That leaves the record company out if it.
The managers? I mean, obviously, Peter and Cliff, our two managers -- they're our closest advisors -- we have been, they've been advising us for 18 years now. Our managers are basically the fifth and the sixth members of the band. They're a total partnership. We view both of them as equal. And they're equally involved in this. And they of course helped strategize, and they filter things and so on, so obviously they're very involved. Our lawyers are obviously involved, but in a different way. I mean, they take -- the six of us strategize, the four of us [in the band] and the two managers, and then we tell the lawyers, obviously like with any situation, confer with the lawyers and give them direction, you know, what to do. The thing that surprises me a little bit about all this stuff is that people that know Metallica well -- and obviously, when you're dealing with something at this level, not everybody knows Metallica well -- but people that know Metallica well know how the inner structure of this thing works. And Metallica is a very very inward. very independent and actually I would say quite selfish unit, in the fact that we sit down and make our decision sort of proudly by ourselves, and work very, very closely with Peter and Cliff, our two managers. The record company's not involved in this, like I said, and the lawyers are more, sort of, they get directed and guided, and obviously we listen to their advice once in a while.
I think the question was who's idea was this. You have to understand one thing, that I am very personally -- when it comes to my relationship with the Internet and with my comptuer, the fact is that we don't spend a lot of time together. So you have to understand that I would never know what Napster was, unless somebody told me about it, you know what I mean? That's what you pay your managers for, you understand? (laughter)
I mean, I can just barely ... I know how to get onto AOL, and I will say that I have used AOL a couple of times to check some hockey scores. When we were in South America last May during the Stanley Cup playoffs. But other than that, it doesn't really amount to much. So you have to understand that I guess the question was 'Whose Idea Was it?' Well, obviously the information gets, comes to us ... now it's a different thing, but where did I first learn of Napster, I learned it from my managers two and a half, three months ago, but now it's a different story. I open ten papers, and just get bombarded with it. Like I said before, I actually find it kind of fascinating. It still hasn't changed my -- I mean I don't spend particularly more time on my computer or anything like that, but I think that this is a very very interesting topic, and forgetting about my role in it for a second, I think that it's just a fascinating topic, and I think it's one that's just so deep and on so many levels that I think -- you were asking before as if it's sort of a pain in the ass, and I'm actually quite enjoying it because I'm learning so much about it also.
2) Time well spent
by cwhicks
With other programs such as Gnutella, Freenet, etc. that are anonymous and are not controlled by a centralized company which you could sue, like Naptser, don't you think that you should be spending your time and money developing your own Internet solutions from which you can profit, rather than trying to push back the flow of technology which will only become more and more difficult to combat?
Lars: Well, I mean, obviously that's a valid question. But the bottom line is, whenever somebody -- whenever somebody, whenever we feel that somebody -- I don't want to sound too combative here, but you know, when somebody fucks with what we do, we go after them. You don't sit down and sort of try and sort of justify yourself, well, 'Maybe our time and energy would be better spent thinking about something a year or two from now.' We feel the story is pretty well documented about how this all sort of came about. We really felt that it was time for somebody, an artist, with a potential of a public platform, to get involved with this. What the RIAA has been doing has obviously been strong, but it has been sort of in a closed legal forum, and we really felt the issue here really is not just about Napster itself, it's also about the perception of what this whole thing means, it's about the perception of the Internet, it's about the perception of what my rights are on the Internet, it's about the perception of how people have become so comfortable with the computer as a tool that they feel they have a right to these things.
So Napster is, I would say that a month into this now, that Napster is really just one of the things that -- obviously there is a clear, specific legal battle going on with Napster, but I find that the other battle which I think is equally important, is the battle in the public forum, about a public debate, about a public dialogue, about presenting different points of view, about respecting different points of view, about everybody having a chance to go out there and say what they feel and so on. That is also important.
Now, are we aware of the Gnutellas and all these other things? Of course we are, but you can only take it one step at a time. And I believe, and the people that we talk to about this, we believe, that the minute some of these companies become active, when they basically come to a point that they become fully funcitonal, we believe that there will be technology and a way to go after them in the way they can invent this technology and make it untraceable. We believe that as quickly as they can make it untraceable we believe that you can find a way to fuck with it, and we have already heard about different ways of doing that. So I think it's clear that there is nothing that people can talk about for the future that becomes bulletproof. So it's sort of like -- the thing about this sort of mob mentality, what we call the 'Internet Extremists,' it's all kind of cute -- 'Yeah, we want to fuck with the system,' 'Yeah, we have a right to get everything for free.' But I believe that if you have the energy and the resources to chase 'em -- and that's one thing we have is a lot of energy and a lot of resources -- We believe that there will never be a point where they will be uncatchable, and we believe that obviously there will come a point, that we will, this is the question that was asked, where we will sit down and figure out what's right for us. Right now, you know, we know what is not right for us, which is Napster. And we know why it's not right for us, which is that we do not condone and want to be part of some kind of illegal trading of our masters through sources we have not authorized, it's that simple.
So of course there will be at some point -- we are not stupid, of course we realize the future of getting music from Metlalica to the people who are interested in Metallica's music is through the Internet. But the question is, on whose conditions, and obviously we want it to be on our conditions. We don't want these 3rd party services like Napster taken for granted, taken for granted that we want to be part of their system. That ultimately is what the biggest beef about this whole thing [is], is that Napster could have so easily avoided this whole thing. It's like, OK, 'It's January, my name is Napster, or I'm Sean, or whoever the CEO was at the time, we have this service, we would like to know if you are interested in being part of it.' If we'd said Yes, then there's no issue, if we'd said No, then this whole thing would have never -- it's really what this is about, it's what this whole thing ultimately comes down to, you know. We own and control these masters, we feel that we're the ones that have the right to decide where they get used. It's a little bit, what we have called the Book-of-the-Month scenario, which is this whole thing about, it sort of ends up being the reverse; we're the ones who look like assholes for chasing after what we feel, for getting off the service. It's a little bit like the book-of-the-month analogy, where you get a book sent to your mailbox once a month. And if you don't return it within 7 days, you have to pay for it. Do you know what I mean? Are we assholes for wanting to get off this service that I was never asked if I wanted to be part of in the first place?
3) Art vs Commodity
by HeghmoH
In several articles about your actions against Napster, you were quoted as saying something like (paraphrased): "Napster takes our music and treats it as a commodity, instead of as art."My question is, how is it that trading your music for free over the internet makes it a simple commodity, but selling it for far too much money through record companies and stores makes it somehow "art"?
Lars: Yeah. I mean, OK, 1st of all, let's start by making sure that I am not the one who decides that a Metallica CD should sell for 16 dollars. That's a whole other arguement, one that at some other time I'd be glad to partake in, OK? I'm a consumer just as much [as anyone else] ... just because somebody feels that that CD is too expensive doesn't give them a right to steal it, in the same way that if I go down to the car dealership and want to buy a new Suburban, and I feel that paying $47,000 for a new Suburban is too expensive, that doesn't give me the right to steal it, right? It's sort of like, you know what, fair enough, I can certainly respect and I would certainly somewhat agree with the fact that paying 16 bucks for a CD is probably, you know, pushing too much. But, it's the marketplace that dictates that, not me. And people who live in the United States live in a Western capitalist society, where most of these things become about marketplace and about fair competitionin the marketplace, and that's what ultimately dictates these prices. That does not soldify that my only other option is to steal is it. My other option is to not buy it.
It does happen in certain other instances. If there is a full-on consumer boycott of a product, whether it's toothpaste or Suburbans or CDs, sooner or later the people whose livelihood depends -- not the artists, but the companies who are selling these toothpaste or CDs or whatever, will take note. But the way to combat a $16 CD as being unfair is not to go out and steal it, that just bcomes sort of the anarchy, the mob rules. But the reason that I will say, of all these things that I've been quoted as saying in the last month on this, I would say that the quote that this person refers to is probably not one of my finer moments. What I was trying to say by that was ... there's one thing that people kind of keep forgetting, which is that Napster, they have this sort of innocent smirk in front of their face and they hold up their hand and they go 'We're not really pirates, we're not really doing anything illegal, we're just offering a service,' but what people have to remember, and obviously some of this has developed in the last month, is that Napster is a corporation, OK? They just got $15 million in funding from some of the major venture capitalists out here. They have all along, ultimately getting to the point where they could have a major IPO, which is the one option, or get basically bought out by an AOL type of company. So at some point there will be a major, major profit going on for the people who've invested in Napster. And that money is basically the same as profiting from stolen property.
Understand one thing: this is not about a lot of money right now, because the money that's being lost right now is really pocket change, ok? It's about the priciple of the thing and it's about what could happen if this kind of thing is allowed to exist and run as rampant and out of control for the next 5 years as it has been for the last 6 months. Then it can become a money issue. Right now it's not a money issue. I can guarantee you it's costing us tenfold to fight it in lawyer's fees, in lawyers' compensation, than it is for measly little pennies in royalties being lost, that's not what it's about. And also, we're fortunate enough that we sell so many records though the normal channels. Where it can affect people, where it is about money, is for the band that sells 600 copies of their CD, ok? If they all of a sudden go from selling 600 copies of their CD down to 50 copies, because the other 550 copies get downloaded for free, that's where it starts affecting real people with real money. And so I don't know if I've sort of been jumping around a lot, it's just that there's all these points of view that tie into it. So back to the question again, the 'commodity' really becomes about it being traded around illegally, and rather than the art that it is. OK, that wasn't the finest quote ever, but that was also the first quote, six weeks ago. And we've all come a long way since then, including us.
4) home taping vs. napster
by commodoresloat
Have you read the 1989 OTA Report (http://www.wws.princeton.edu:80/%7Eota/disk1/1989/8910_n.html) on home taping, which concluded that so-called "bootlegging" was no threat to music industry profits, and that it in fact served as free advertising? It turned out that the users making tapes illegally were also both more likely to buy more music themselves and more likely to encourage other fans to do so. While obviously the technology has improved significantly since 1989, aren't we really dealing with the same issues?
Lars: Well, 1st of all, you have to remember that you're talking to somebody who advocates bootlegging, who has alwyas been pro-bootlegging. We have always let fans tape our shows, we've always had a thing for bootlegging live materials, for special appearances, for that type of stuff. Knock yourselves out, bootleg the fuck out of it, we don't give. We believe that there is a major, major difference between the old -- obviously one of the scenarios we hear a lot ... 'How is it different from home taping?' I guess is really the question. You know, home taping 10 or 15 years ago really was about, you had vinyl records, and you had the neighbor down the street with you know, his Iron Maiden records, that you wanted to make a tape of so you can play in your car. There is a difference, I think, let me think of a word here, I'm sorry, all of a sudden your mind goes blank (laughter), comparing that kind of home taping to basically going on the Internet and getting 1st generation, perfect digital copies of master recordings from all the world, is just not a fair comparison. We're talking about a network that includes millions and millions of people, and tens and tens of millions of songs that these millions of people have, they can trade. So the old 'home taping is killing music,' well, OK, so you borrow your neighbor's Iron Maiden record, blah blah blah, you know, some guy down at school. There is a long way from that to what's going on right now with perfect first-generation digital copies of music that's available to millions of poeple all over the world. We -- it's not so much once again, it's not so much -- look, our record sales have gone up in the last three weeks, OK? We obviously follow and monitor this. It's not so much about whether it hurts or whether it benefits.
What it ultimately comes down to, and this is really the simplest way of saying it, is 'Who controls it?' And I want the right to control what is mine. And if I decide to give -- I respect the next guy, who wants to put his music on Napster, but I want him to respect the fact that maybe I don't. It's that simple. It's really the point. This is what the whole point of this country is, you have the right to make your own choices in this country, and we were not given that right. People take for granted that our music should be out there and be traded. What if we don't advocate that? They shouldn't argue with that. Napster has the right to exist. I support Napster's right to exist, OK? But I want them to support my right to not be part of it.
And that's where it got, sort of like, wacky, because we believe that when they sat down -- this is another misconception in the last couple weeks, this whole thing about 'Metallica serves Napster with 300,000 names.' You have to remember, they asked for this, OK? That's a point that not a lot of people include. They asked. They said, "If you can give us the Names (ha ha), of people that are doing this (ha ha ha) and we'll take them off (ha ha ha)," like you can't. It was sort of like a dare. And then we hired somebody to basically -- and they could have gotten, you also have to reremember once again, , they [Napster] could have gotten that information themselves. So it became once again our burden, back to the book-of-the-month or the cd-of-the-month scenario. You know, I have to go out to my mailbox, I have to pick this fucking book up, I have to send it back where it come from so I don't get charged for it.
The burden is on me again, I have to sit there with these guys, the names of people trading our music. And you have to remember, the only thing that Napster really has, because legally they realize that it's very very thin, the only thing they have is sort of a public thing where they can pit Metallica fans against Metallica. That's the only thing, that's sort of their, that's their only strong thing, is trying to make us look like assholes in the eyes of the fans, and they're doing, I think they're doing a pretty good job of that. And it's sort of pathetic, because the fight is really obviously between Metallica and Napster. It's unfortunate that the fans become pawns in this, but understand a couple of things. The 300,000 names that were removed from Napster, ok, we believe, from who we've consulted, that Napster has the technology to block Metallica songs off its service, so it's not just about ... we go to them with a piece of information: 'This guy has traded among other things, Metallica songs.' So they take him off the service instead of just taking the Metallica songs off the service. Do you understand? Then this guy hates us, we become the assholes, and that's what they're trying to build their counter case on. And that's kind of a little bit sad I think, it's kind of pathetic that that's really the only shot they have, and obviously because they realize they don't have any shots legally. I don't think it's a fair comparison with 1989.
5) Is your speech free?
by Frank Sullivan
Are you free to answer any way you please in this interview? Or has your label requested that your responses to our questions be reviewed by their lawyers before being posted back to Slashdot? And if so, did you agree to this?
Lars: I think it should be pretty obvious to most people that I am really on my own here. What I know about it, most it comes from reading and educating myself on it. I feel I know a lot about this. Every day, I get all the press sent to my office, I spend the first 2 hours of the day reading, catching up to date with what's going on. Nobody tells me what to say, I don't have to check with anybody. That's sort of the thing we talked about 20 minutes ago, that is somebody who doesn't know Metallica very well, because somebody who knows Metallica konws that the 19 years we have been on our own, we have fought every battle on our own, we don't take anything from anybody. We take advice from our two managers, but ultimately we override them a lot. We are very, very -- about as independent as I believe it's possible to be in this business. But I should also say that we are, we're also, this is going to sound -- make sure you don't edit this! -- we're also, I know this is going to sound like we're full of ourselves, but I know we're also quite smart. And we treat the business side of what we do with respect, and we deal with it as a business so it doesn't interfere with the creative elements of what we do. We try and keep the creative things and the business things as two very separate entities, because my big fear is always that the creative side of what we do can never be influenced, or dictated, or polluted, by what happens in the business side of it. So we are very good at separating the two issues, and we treat the business with the respect that it deserves, because if you do not respect the business side of it, you can get fucked. This, the music world, is littered with the careers of people who did not pay enough attention to the business side of what they were doing and ended up getting majorly fucked.
6) Ignorance of the net?
by imac.usr
In the live chat, you admitted to not being very knowledgable about the Internet or about the technology behind Napster and MP3s. What kind of research on these subjects did you do prior to filing the lawsuit?
Lars: As I said, we were not very knowlegeable about it when we started. Research, research. I mean, we tried to get information from a bunch of different sources. We will always, when we feel we are ignorant about something, we always try to get enough information, we try not to make any decisions until we feel we have the full picture. So obviously, talking to people who knew about Napster, who knew how to operate it, who were dealing with it. People who know about it. We don't sit down and study a Napster operations manual or something, but sitting down and talking with people who understand it. There, you have to remember that Napster came pretty much out of nowhere. I mean, I think I first heard the word Napster probably in December or January, I remember somebody telling me about this "new thing that we're going to hear a lot about in a couple of months," and that guy was right. A lot of the people who advise me are very Internet savvy.
You have to understand one thing; I don't use the Internet a lot in my daily life, personally, because I choose to pick up the phone rather than send somebody an email. That's OK, that's my right, it's a little more comfortable. It doesn't mean I hate the Internet, it doesn't mean I despise the Internet. You know, I respect it, I understand that it plays a major role in a lot of people's lives. But I do also -- and this is one of the things that fascinates me about this whole thing -- I do also see things about the Internet being something that people I think taking for granted, that they're becoming so comfortable with it that the feel they have a right to any piece of information that comes to them through the Internet. The Internet is changing our perception about a lot of things, it's changing our perception about almost everthing around them in society.
And to me, it's just about treading kind of carefully and trying to sort of point a few things out that if you have downloaded music through your computer for the last little bit of time, understand one thing, that's been a privilege, not a right. That's been a privilege you've had; you don't have a right to download my music until I tell you, until the person who owns that music tells you that you can do it. Until then, it's been a privilege that's basically been the result of incompetence and lack of focus by the record labels, and that I don't think the record labels for the last couple of years have paid attention to this. I think that there's been a major, major wakeup call in the last couple of months. The hardest thing for all the major labels is it's very difficult for them to get together and work something out betwenn them. The hardest thing also about this is it becomes very hard to write laws and to generalize accross the board. Because to me this is about individual choices. So you can't sit there and say 'I think Napster doesn't have a right to exist,' because there are people who want to use a service like Napster, but at the same time you also can't sit there and say 'Everyone has to be part of a service like Napster,' because there are people who choose not to. It gets kind of complicated from a legal aspect, and that's where I think the record companies have really let this get to the point where it's at right now, by not being more on top of it, and I think somebody pointed out I think a very very valid thing the other day, that all the people, that are sitting right now, the Sean Fannings of the world, and the guy in Ireland, and all these Internet guys that are sitting there coming up with all these programs and all this stuff, you know what? The record companies should have hired those guys 5 years ago. That is the biggest single fuck-up that they did, was basically letting those guys get to the other side.
7) Skip the Record Company
by cwhicks
How much money do you get from the sale of each CD, and how much goes to the record company? Would you be interested in a system that allows you to circumvent the record company, sell your music for half the price you do now, and get quadruple the cut that Metallica gets on each sale? The internet has the potential to offer such a system.
Lars: Of course, of course. That's something that we have been anticipating for years. For years! I mean, five years ago we had that conversation. Of course, at some point we will get to a place that's close to that. I look at it this way. I believe that there are four -- oh shit! (Lars takes care of something in the background) -- I believe that there are sort of like four links in the food chain here. You've got the artist, you've got the record company, you've got the retailer, and then you've got the consumer. And everybody within the industry has been talking for years about, that ... different people have different opinions; some people think that the record company is going to go away, and others think the retailer is going to go away, and some people think that both are going to go away. What you have to remember is, it's only bands who are fortunate enough to be at the level that we're at that have the option of maybe circumventing the record companies and the retailer.
Because what really, essentially, is a record company? A record company is really essentially a bank, a bank that funds a bunch of money to make records, and videos and promotion, publicity appearances and so on, and they take that shot that one day the artist is going to be so successful that they're going to first of all get all their money back, second of all make a profit. So I'm not necessarily particularly pro-record company, but I do feel that the record companies, they've taken a big beating, because I think people are just very quick to jump on the record company, sort of the Chuck D's of the world -- "Record companies are greedy, it's about lawyers, it's about accountants."
That to me is a little too black and white, because you have to remember that statistically, for every one band that you hear about, for every one band that a record company helps make successful, they lose their fucking shirt on the nine other ones you never hear about, so it's -- that's a whole other conversation that I could talk about for hours and hours, the whole thing about the record companies. But record companies will never be completely extinct, for one reason and one reason only, that there will always be a need to develop younger artists, and record companies will always be able to play a big part of that, because this whole thing about "I'm a young band, I'm an upstart band, I'm going to put my music on Napster, and then I'm going to become successful?" Fantasy. The only way you you will become successful is by having a publicity and promotion campaign behind you that elevates what you're doing above what your competition is doing.
It's very very simple. One of the -- when we monitored Napster for 48 hours three weekends ago, we came up with the 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music, there was one, one downloading -- one! of an unsigned artist the whole time. You can sit there and talk about how this is great for up and coming artists or for unsigned bands, but a big counterargument that nobody gets is, me and you could form a band together, and we could like, make a demo and then we could put it up on Napster. Who is going to give a fuck? Nobody's going to care, because they don't know anything about what sets my and your band out from the gardener and the guy who cleans my pool's band. The record companies will never be extinct, because there will always be a need down at that level. Now where the record companies can become circumventable is when you're fortunate enough -- key word, fortunate enough, to be at our level, where you don't depend on the record company to front you a bunch of money, because you're fortunate enough to have a big pile of it yourself, and you don't necessarily need a record company to publicize, to promote you, because you're sort of kind already at that level. Yes, of course, the scenario that the gentleman asked in the question is very, very possible, and we've been looking at that for a long time. And when we are done with our record contract, I would say that something in that direction is somehwere between a real possibility and a certainty.
8) Question to Lars and the band
by acb
You mentioned that we need laws banning file-sharing software such as Napster. How far should these laws go? If in 10 years time, computer users labour under draconian restrictions on communications software under what is titled the Lars Ulrich Digital Copy Enforcement Act, to the effect that sharing music files (of any sort) without the digital signature of a major record label or copyright authority becomes grounds for loss of Internet access and/or legal sanctions, how will you feel about the fans and small-time bands whose attempts at networking are crippled by these restrictions?
Lars: Yeah, I would say that I have certainly through the course of this in the last month, absorbed what I've learned, and listened to other people and respected other people's opinons, and I have come to actually change my position from, I believe that if it's not Napster, then a type of service like Napster has the right to exist, on the condition that the only thing being traded through that service is music by people, artists and owners who have given that service permission. So that obviously changes the thrust of what he was saying.
I believe ultimately -- and this is sort of what I was talking about before -- that the hardest thing about this is to try and come up with a system where it becomes an individual's right to choose how he will want to partake in this sort of stuff through the Internet. That's the hardest thing because it becomes very difficult, it's very difficult to generalize, like I said before. It's not fair to sit there and say, 'Napster can't exist,' because there are people who would like to use it. And it's not fair to sit there and say 'It has to exist and you have to be part of it,' for the people who don't want to use it. That's where it gets really tricky. There are people who are far smarter than me on this, people that will ultimately ... I believe that five years from now, there will be systems in place where the artists and the owners of the intellectual property -- and remember, we're not just talking about music.
And that's one of the fascinating thing here, is that we're not just talking about music. Why is this a music issue right now? The reason it's a music issue right now is because, of major intellectual property, music is the one that is shortest in information right now, therefore it's the most easily transferrable where technology's sitting right now. We believe based on the people we hired that we're probably not more than a year away from where you can basically download Mission Impossible 2 the same day that it opens in the theatre, and basically watch it on a great computer with a great sound system and maybe even find a way to hook it up to a big monitor in your house or whatever. And when that happens, when the next Tom Clancy or whatever -- when the minute they become available, the minute you can download a 1200 page book five minuntes after it's released in a bookstore, you will find that other owners of intellectual properties, not just musicians, will come out there and [fight].
There's a lot of us on the inside who are sort of dealing with this right now, who are like 'You know what? it would be great if you could download fucking movies right now," because you know what? Hollywood would come out fucking swinging. The may be now, but it's still early. If you look at a baseball analogy, I'd say with music we're probably, I'd say we're in the maybe 5th or 6th inning as far as where we are, how far it can go, you know what I mean? I think with movies we're possibly still in the 1st or 2nd inning. I think there will be a major awakening in Hollywood in the next 6 months, and it's not just about music. This is about intellectual property, this is about the perception of intellectual property. Who owns intellectual property, how has the computer changed the majority of people's perception of intellectual property in the last 6 months? And how will intellectual property be reachable to the people out there who are on the receiving end of intellectual property ten years from now? You know, those are the major things that really need to be worked on.
But one of the main things that needs to be worked on for the next year, I think, one of the great things I think, is the public debate about it. People sit there and feel that they have the right to this, and then when they start getting mroe information about this, a lot of people have a tendency to start realizing some of the points we're trying to make, they start seeing things from a little bit of a different point of view, and ultimately that's a great accomplishment. I believe that a lot of people that are saying a lot of nasty things about some of the stuff right now are doing it out of sort of like a passionate ignorance. And I find that most of the people I talk to at a number of different levels, whether intellectual or a little more layman's, or media, or fans, or Newsweek ... whatever, that people start getting it, at least to the point that they say "We respect your right to not want to be part of this, if you respect" -- which we clearly do -- "our right to be part of this."
9) Just something to think about...
by GrnHrnt
I'm a huge Metallica fan. Lars is the reason I'm a drummer today. But something in an interview with James from "Behind the music" (I think) when he was talking about how he started to like the Misfits, when Cliff gave him a tape and they played it in the van all summer long, made me curious. Have any of you (Metallica) ever copied a tape, record, 8-track, CD, etc. from a friend? This is an infringement of copyright isn't it? I don't mean to make you seem evil, but is it simply the scale of Napster/mp3's that is of concern?
Lars: Yeah, I mean I think we answered that before. Of course we have, ok? And of course it's a valid point. The bottom line is the size of it. The size of it and the quality of it. When we go in, and check Napster out, we come up with 1.4 million copyright infringements in 48 hours, this is a different thing than trading cassette tapes with your buddy at school. I mean, 48 hours! So it's the quality, the quality and the scale.
Thanks go out to Sue Tropio and Gayle Fein of QPrime for their help in arranging this interview.
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| Oh dear (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @12:25PM EDT (#2) |
| Shit, an all out effort to ignore Metallica and look what happens. Isn't that right dave. |
| Re:Oh dear (Score:2, Funny) by joepeg on Friday May 26, @03:55PM EDT (#708) (User Info) |
| Oh dear is right. I have the worst headache now trying to comprehend Lar's incoherent ramblings. Did he actually answer any of the questions asked? I am not about to re-read that jibberish and risk losing any more brain cells. If at all possible, please stick to requesting written, prepared responses. Especially when you advertently seek out the prose of an bumbling idiot such as Lars. Hey lars: sue me, please. |
| Re:Oh dear (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:33AM EDT (#1084) (User Info) |
| Ya really. Does he understand the semantics of the english language at all? I guess he doesn't speak very well unless its all be rehersed and written out for him while taping a show for vh1. Was he always like this? Or is he senial? Or was he so at a loss to answer these questions he got really confused. It seems to me from the answer to his first question and part of the second, that he really has no clue whatsoever about what the internet is, let alone napster. Please guys, just retire right now. Gracefully.. |
| Re:Oh dear (Score:1) by vi0lit on Thursday June 08, @12:50PM EDT (#1308) (User Info) |
| The word is 'senile' and I certainly hope that others took more time to actually read what he said. I was very upset with Metallica in the beginning. . . "What, I've already bought most of their albums on cassette, I can't copy it off the 'net now? They want MORE of my money?" It's their stuff. It's theft. I can't argue with that. In his place, I would feel the same way. Being a writer, it is imperative that my stories are my property. |
| Re:Oh dear (Score:1) by idontregistertopost on Saturday May 27, @10:50AM EDT (#1176) (User Info) |
| The subject he was trying to explain IMHO was that napster requires no personal links between people to share music, a musician such as this will perform and compose for the benefit of his fans and his own needs to retain fame/status. Many of the people replying to this topic will never have created anything that another person wishes to listen/read let alone copy, perhaps there is an inherent jealousy and as such satisfaction in depriving the owners of such of work from the appreciation show in a willingness to pay for it. Napster is not a brilliant file sharing client, it is good at finding mp3's though. The more serious sharing facilities, such as setting up a private gnutella network or direct connect , allow you in some cases to copy a persons entire music collection with full albums and usually a common bitrate. If you can find someone with similar or equally eclectic tastes and are able to copy their entire collection then a serious threat to the music industry will exist. Perhaps in 5 years time people will "own" collecions based entirelly on copies, nevar having purchased or benefited the orginal owners in any way |
| Re:Oh dear (Score:1) by Clothos Maximus (nirarbel@yifan.net) on Wednesday May 31, @04:17AM EDT (#1284) (User Info) |
| A good guideline is, never assume the other person is an idiot if you're the one who fails to understand them. I did happen to understand what he was talking about as being a direct reply to what he was asked, and on a personal note, thought he was making some excellent points. I still think the whole affair was a bad move on their part, although I'm not so certain they lack justification in what they have done anymore. -- In every war there is war with yourself. In every victory there is damage to yourself. |
| Counter Suit? (Score:1) by skfcleary on Sunday May 28, @01:11AM EDT (#1219) (User Info) |
| Metallica & Dr. Dre claim Napster has cost them sales. Tom Petty, The Offspring, Public Enemy and thousands of signed and unsigned bands think of Napster as promotional tool. If Metallica wins the suit and Napster is shut down, can the bands that have lost their promotional tool sue Metallica for loss of sales or loss of potential sales? It would appear that every major label artist that has a dip in sales in a post-file trading environment could sue Metallica. A counter suit by unsigned bands for preventing them access is inevitable. skfcleary "We fought on the beaches of Normandy so you could buy all your products from four companies." anonymous (but not for long) CEO of a Media Conglomerate |
| Re:Oh dear - God Metallica sucks even more. (Score:1) by vi0lit on Thursday June 08, @01:11PM EDT (#1309) (User Info) |
| Metallica in many of their songs talks about personal freedom and personal strength. Almost a 'survival of the fittest' attitude. And I will refer to songs: "Of Wolf and Man", "Don't Tread on Me", and even some on . . . And Justice for All. Nothing that Lars said was a contradiction to this motto. Taking control and taking care of themselves is what made them who they are. The undertone of this can even be found in Kill 'Em All. They are not pro money, they are pro-Take-Care-Of-Myself, which is a good attitude for anyone that really wants to achieve their dreams. I suppose these attitudes are only 'cool' when they are in the form of rebellion? |
| Re:Lars is an idiot (Score:1) by vi0lit on Thursday June 08, @01:24PM EDT (#1310) (User Info) |
| 1. Lars is not an English expert. He's a drummer. 2. I have unsigned music that I (used to) put on Napster and it is of a genre that is currently pupular without much variety: Swing. Most of the song titles had the word 'swing' in them. I got one upload. Lars is correct in saying that this is not the best way for an unsigned band to 'get out there'. Of course, there's always the exception, but in general, it is not going to get an unsigned band very far. 3. If you want a Ford, you pay what Ford asks you to pay or you dont GET a Ford. (Or you steal it and take a risk.) Owning a car is not a right, it is a privilege. |
| OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1, Insightful) by molda on Friday May 26, @12:29PM EDT (#4) (User Info) http://www.fugly.com |
| Nice interview, but for the last question and answer. I take it by that it's ok to copy tapes from your friends, but not from the internet. However if I have a tape and lend it to a friend who lends it to two friends ad infinitum, there will soon be more than 1.4 million copyright infringements. just not as easy to catch as napster users. -- A kick in the pants is worth 8 to the head. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:4, Interesting) by stab (anil at recoil.org) on Friday May 26, @12:34PM EDT (#14) (User Info) http://www.recoil.org/ |
| That doesn't really work out. The key point with transferring tapes or other analogue mediums is that they suffer from degradation when copied. So you COULD lend it to your friends, but after about five friends have passed it on the quality would have degraded so badly that it isn't worth it. The music industry came close to facing the MP3 problem with the Minidisc format, since that is digital. They staved it off temporarily by slapping the "no minidisc to minidisc" copying rule on, which prevented easy transfer. That, and the fact that the Minidisc media itself it relatively expensive. MP3s are unique in that they can be transferred ridiculously easily, and suffer no loss in quality when going through the transfer to different people. The music industry is quite justified in their fear of this new format I think. -- Anil Madhavapeddy -- Anil Madhavapeddy, www.recoil.org |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:3, Interesting) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @12:36PM EDT (#26) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Minidisc to minidisc can be done, as I understand it, but it costs extra. The media are getting cheap, though - not much more expensive than tapes, and they reuse better. Your point about taping is good. If five of my friends and I share all our vinyl, we're still buying one album per five people. If a million people and I share all our MP3's, we're talking about one album per million, or maybe a little more. Big difference. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by molda on Friday May 26, @12:46PM EDT (#70) (User Info) http://www.fugly.com |
| minidisc to minidisc can be done, cd to cdr can be done, cd to minidisc can be done. There is negligable degredation across these media. How many people do you know with any one of these devices. It won't stop people copying music. If you want to look at the real culprits. I'd go for the record labels. How much does it cost to produce, package and market an album? how much do they charge? and how much does the artist get? -- A kick in the pants is worth 8 to the head. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by tchuladdiass (derekp@wwa.com) on Friday May 26, @01:25PM EDT (#255) (User Info) |
| >If you want to look at the real culprits. I'd go >for the record labels. How much does it cost to >produce, package and market an album? This was addressed in the interview. Basicly, the record company looses a lot of money on artists that don't go anywhere. Therefore, the $17.95 you pay for a CD goes to not only pay off the marketing/promotion for that artist, but also for the money lost on all the other artists the record company signed, which don't make it. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by Comte on Friday May 26, @05:50PM EDT (#851) (User Info) |
| This is the same argument used by pharmaceutical companies: "We have to charge hugely inflated prices for our products because of all the money we lose R&Ding drugs that don't work". If net profit margins weren't so obscenely high this argument might have some validity, but as it is the consumer is upcharged on successful commodities in order to pay for the company's R&D investment, despite the fact that overall the company reaps a net margin that is grossly out of balance with the amount of money spent on "unsuccessful" research. This analogy would certainly seem to apply to the music industry as well. In addition, the argument loses a lot of weight when you consider that, of the hundreds of "young" bands that are signed each year, most are unceremoniously dumped if their first album doesn't sell at least in the high six figures. Quick, easy and big profits seem to be the only motivating issue. The industry doesn't really seem to be interested in "developing" new artists so much as it is in turning them into money sponges, then squeezing them dry with the hopes that a few end up being big enough to endure numerous wringings. Semper Ars |
| R&D Means nothing w/ out Advertizing (Score:1) by DgtlGhost (dgtlghost@usa) on Friday May 26, @06:49PM EDT (#907) (User Info) |
| And lets face it, if CDs were reasonably priced people might find more bands that they like. Me, I've bought a few CDs on the past because I liked a song or two, and I took a chance... 4 out of 5 times, I loose. Then I find a band I've never heard of that my friend has the CD for, I listen and love the whole thing. Why haven't I ever heard of this band? Because the record company hasn't gotten them Air play, because they didn't want to sign the right contract, what ever. Now, I get a cool song Via Emial, or on a reuseable disk, listen to it when I get a chance, and make up my own mind before spending the (cheap) $12.99 US for the CD. Cheap media, moire sales, trust me on this.... -Earthman |
| Re:R&D Means nothing w/ out Advertizing (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:41AM EDT (#1087) (User Info) |
| Advertising...ya whatever. I rarely ever hear of a band anymore b/c of advertising (ie buying slots on mtv or the radio). I very rarely listen to the radio anymore b/c its become such a barren wasteland of utter shit. The only way i hear of bands now are via napster or my friends; don't know where they hear of it, but usually i find out about a band before they are ever played on the radio. |
| Take no chances for a change (Score:1) by cmajor on Monday May 29, @12:34AM EDT (#1242) (User Info) http://www.tophitscds.com |
| I also got tired of getting crappy CDs with just a couple of songs I like. Now I only keep the ones I fully preview and like for sure. The rest I recycle... Cmajor TopHitsCDs |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:37AM EDT (#1086) (User Info) |
| OK, tell me, why would i want to pay for an artist i didn't listen to in the first place that i never cared about? Or more to the point; why should i pay for the label's bad investments? |
| The system is broke. Don't fix it. (Score:1) by Rabid Mongoose Boy on Tuesday May 30, @11:08PM EDT (#1280) (User Info) |
| > the record company looses a lot of money on artists that don't go anywhere. Sure. <digression> From radio stations to retailers, the record companies have forcibly arranged things in order to maintain complete control of the way music is distributed in the US.
The record companies know it. And they have no intention of changing it, because it favors them by a landslide. So the record company loses alot of money on artists that don't get popular enough for the company to screw the artist out of 99.9 percent of the profits. So what? Let the record companies get bent over for once, instead of the consumer. See how they like it on the receiving end without the KY. We shouldn't care if the record companies (not the artists) get fleeced, and here's why. If the record companies lose money on 9 of 10 bands, then they should think about promoting good bands instead of guessing what will be popular. I don't pretend to know how to fix their fucked up system. I don't intend to make any suggestions which will help them. I suggest that we simply ignore them. Think about this.
Radio sucks. Shoutcast is a start. great idea. Nearly great implementation. But this is the internet, people. I shouldn't have to sift through god knows how many channels just to find new music that I'll like. How about a search engine? What if I could tell some program that I like the bands X, Y, and Z; then the program says "these 6 channels which play X, Y, and Z. These other 4 channels contain at least one of X, Y, and Z listed as influences or related music." Of course, everyone's playlists would have to be online. But we're close to that alredy. And what if the admins of the channels not only had their playlists online, but the playlists included links to sites that would sell you that hard-2-find and yet killer track thay you heard on Channel Z? (thanks to those of you who got that reference.) Mp3.com is a start. But they are falling prey to a bunch of crap that makes them less attractive to serious artist who want to be heard. I don't care who the top ten downloaded songs are. Popularity and rankings based on how many CDs you sold through mp3.com don't matter to me. Conclusion: The current promotion/distribution system is hopelessly broken. The net has a chance to relieve it of some of its usefullness. We (the informed, the loudmouthed anarchists, the hackers who helped make the net what it is) need to quit bitching and use the net to solve the problem instead of creating new ones. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:45AM EDT (#1089) (User Info) |
| Intel is hardly a monopoly. They have AMD to worry about, and lately they've been worrying alot. In fact the only monopoly in the computer industry seems to be on DVD and by microsoft. And believe me, i would love to change the way this country does business... |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by Shadox Tsurien on Monday June 12, @02:18AM EDT (#1313) (User Info) |
| Intel has a monopoly on Intel computers (well, the processor anyways.) This is, I believe, what he meant. It's a good analogy; there is only one place to get CDs by any particular band. The problem is industry associations like the RIAA prevent competition between record companies, so prices get out of control. As in the other poster's example, sure, there is only one place to get any particular CD... but all the other bands, produced by the other record companies, cost the same. Price fixing, plain and simple. It's as if Linux, Beos, Windows, MacOS, and BSD all cost exactly the same, because some association decided that's what was fair. How to fix it? Simple. Dissolve the RIAA, and make it illegal to form any horizontal-market association not dealing solely with standards. They only exist to prevent competition and screw the consumer. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by M-G on Friday May 26, @01:14PM EDT (#197) (User Info) |
| Minidiscs use SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) to prevent direct digital copies. There are a number of devices that will strip the SCMS info from the bitstream, plus pro-grade MD players/recorders can be set to ignore the SCMS data. The record labels have been fighting tooth and nail to add things like SCMS to every new technology that comes out. They even managed to get an extra charge attached to blank DAT media to compensate the labels for their predicted losses to pirating. And attempted suits over enabling copyright infringement have a long history. Universal and Disney sued Sony in 1976 because the Betamax allowed people to tape TV broadcasts. Take a look at http://www.hrrc.org/history.html for more details. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by IMZombie on Friday May 26, @01:11PM EDT (#190) (User Info) |
| While I agree that the mp3 format has no loss when copied, mp3's are lossy when compared to the the original work. If the mp3 was a perfect digital copy of the master, that's one thing. Anyone who's "ripped" mp3's off a CD can tell you the CD always sounds better. |
| Definitely (Score:1) by jpowers (powers.jason@jimmy.harvard.edu) on Friday May 26, @02:51PM EDT (#581) (User Info) |
| There's definitely degradation in the sound. By that argument, would it be OK with Lars if people made their mp3s at the lowest sample rate? That low-end mono shit's got to be as bad as cheap cassette. -jpowers You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When... |
| Re:Definitely (Score:1) by schtum on Saturday May 27, @06:53AM EDT (#1154) (User Info) |
| If people could only make their mp3s at the lowest sampling rate, would anybody bother making mp3s at all? I think not. So, yes, this does prove Lars correct. The quality and the scale make all the difference. |
| Re:Definitely (Score:1) by myconid (my S conid@ P toge A the M r.net) on Friday May 26, @04:47PM EDT (#784) (User Info) |
| Umm.. do you not understand what 'lossy compression' is? Take a 100mb jpg. Compress it 99% so you have like a 100k jpg. Do you SERIOUSLY think that you can take that blocky POS 100k jpg and recreate the 100mb jpg perfectly from that 100k copy? You cant. The same holds true for mp3s. Even at 192+ kbps, your losing some data from the original cd.. You cant ever create an exact bit by bit copy of a cd from mp3.. not matter waht the bit rate. SB. (C) 2000 |
| Re:Definitely (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @05:40PM EDT (#839) (User Info) |
| The point here, however, is that there is not much audible difference between the two. I've listened to CD tracks right before listening to the mp3 version which I ripped right off the CD, at 192kbps and have noticed almost nill difference. Of course, the stereo system I have hooked up to my computer is only 1000 dollars, so I might not have the "right" equipment to hear these major differences. |
| Re:Definitely (not) (Score:1) by Warpedcow (you_should_go_to@http.warpedcow.tsx.org) on Friday May 26, @08:41PM EDT (#984) (User Info) http://warpedcow.tsx.org |
| It's not your $1000 stereo, its your computer. If you compare a 256kbps mp3 to a CD on your computer, even on a $10000 stereo there will be nil difference. But compare the mp3 through a $1000 computer to a Cd through $1000 Cd player, both hooked up to a $1000 stereo, and the difference will be astounding. MP3s suck for quality. Period. Be owned: http://warpedcow.tsx.org |
| Re:Definitely (not) (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @09:50PM EDT (#1011) (User Info) |
| Ok, so why would this 1000 dollar cd player make the sound so much better? I'm obviously no audiophile, but either are most people. |
| Re:Definitely (not) (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:48AM EDT (#1092) (User Info) |
| Odd, i think the mp3s sound just like the cd when at 44khz and 128bits. |
| Right (Score:1) by jpowers (powers.jason@jimmy.harvard.edu) on Friday May 26, @07:45PM EDT (#950) (User Info) |
| Both the high and low ends are clipped slightly, just like with vinyl, but I was talking about the sample rate. Your ears sample at about the same rate or slightly higher than standard "analog" media reproduces (tape master, vinyl record), which is like 40% more samples per sec than standard digital media reproduces (CD, DAT). The digital media normally has higher highs and lower lows, though, so it's a trade off at the consumer end. Mp3's have both limitations, I think. They have similar range to analog, but a pretty low sample rate like digital. That rate is variable, so at a low sample setting (same song, smaller file), and if you take non-insulated signal transfer inside the machines (sensitive ears can often pick up mouse clicks on PC speakers) into account, the reproduction can be awful. What I'm suggesting is that Napster or whoever put in place a sniffer that looks at the mp3 and checks the sample rate. If it's higher than the lowest two settings (mono 32, 44?), then it gets blocked. That way you get the coffee-can sound of dubbed tape for free, but you have to go to the local record store and pay $ for the CD quality sound. A business model like this would be useful for the record industry (and they know how much we want to help them), that way they could just throw out the low-res crap on the internet for people to kick around and see what catches on. Then they can double the sample rate on CDs to get the most precise sound your ear can hear (any more would be a waste), and charge whatever people will pay. -jpowers You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When... |
| Re:Right (Score:1) by 0x0000 on Saturday May 27, @05:31AM EDT (#1144) (User Info) |
| Wow. Thanks, guys.I sure am relieved. I thought I was the only person in the world who thought MP3 quality was second rate. I haven't really understood the Naptster ruckus well, since I couldn't imagine how anyone could think of MP3 as a substitute for owning the CD, anyway, but there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. There was one thing about your post that did bother me, tho, and this is OT I know. Sorry... our ears sample at about the same rate or slightly higher than standard "analog" media reproduces (tape master, vinyl record), which is like 40% more samples per sec than standard digital media reproduces (CD, DAT).I'm not trying to be confrontational, here, but: Ears don't sample. They are analog devices. Also, analog media don't use the concept of a sample rate. Sampling is purely a digital thing. Analog reproduction means that the wave form produced by from the vinyl (for instance) is actually the same continuous waveform produced by the instrument/band/voice/whatever. The analog recording process took the sound wave, converted it to an electrical signal (waveshape), then converted the electrical shape and converted it to a groove in a the vinyl. Vinyl is mechanical storage. I.e. the shape of the groove in vinyl contains an imprint of the audio waveform. By contrast, digital recording approximates the audio wave by sampling it at some rate. The mimimum useful sample rate is a function of the maximum frequencycomponent of the signal being being sampled. IIRC, it's something like 2 * Fmax. Say 40kHz for audio. This is an oversimplification, but the idea is that analog deals with signals that are continuous waveshapes, and digital deals with discrete samples of that wave shape. It is the difference between a sine wave (analog), and a square or triangular wave (digital). The ear smooths the digital signal into the perception of a continuous wave (assuming the sample rate is high enough), by virtue of a phenomenon of retention (can't recall the technical term for it, but it's a bit like capacitance of neurons, or something) in much the same way the eye percieves frames of a film to be a continuous moving picture... Points exist on the analog signal that are not saved in the digitized signal, but the threory is that no one will notice. Also, electronics can be used to estimate those points for the digital to analog conversion that occurs before the output to the speakers. Latencies in the speakers will also provide a certain amount of smoothing on the signal; speakers are analog devices. Anyway, I always thought audio was a pretty lame application for digitization. Sound is an analog phenomenon. In fact, I don't think there are any naturally occuring physical digital (discrete signal) phenomena. Music can only be listened to in an "analog" (continuous waveform) fashion, but I suppose that will change too, given time. |
| Re:Right (Score:1) by mfnickster (mfnickster@yahoo) on Sunday May 28, @04:51PM EDT (#1234) (User Info) http://profiles.yahoo.com/mfnickster |
| You're pretty close on the sampling-rate question, but your notions about the ear "smoothing out" a digital audio signal are just not realistic. If the sampling rate is 2x or higher than the highest frequency in the signal, there will be no "aliasing," or loss of signal information. When you run it through a D/A converter, you get back all of the original signal (plus high-end noise from the sample signal, which is then filtered). The signal that comes out of the D/A converter is analog - that's the point of the conversion. Even if they invented a "digital" speaker cone, the action of producing the sound waves makes them analog. Your ear never receives anything other than a continuous analog sound wave. Just nitpicking!
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| L0pht's reply (Score:1) by 0x0000 on Tuesday May 30, @04:51PM EDT (#1278) (User Info) |
| I recieved the following email, apparently in response to my remark that audio is a poor applicion for digitization. Don't know why the author chose not to post; doesn't know how, maybe? I don't know if s/he works for Time-Warner, or is just borrowing their networks. Anyway, I got a chuckle out of it.... Your putrid attempt to devalue the superior mp3 standard shows you as the over-zealous undereducated bullshit spewing anti-social leper that you are. I pity the test tube that bore you asshole. You must have an inferior PC and an inferior PC audio interface (Nothing less than an 800 MHZ processor will suffice dickhead). You can have your inferior tape and vinyl formats, nothing beats high compression (512Kbs) audio. The truth is your just jealous you could never come with and develope a method of mpeg compression audio yourself. You never could and you never would. If you honestly think mp3's are not superior to any other digital format out there (again, its because you have a shitty PC, get a real one leper) why not come up with a better format yourself ? Do the world a favor and shut your fucking pie hole up. The only thing that spews out of it is bullshit. Nobody likes you, so do the world a better favor and stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger, Bastard. PS. Dont cry to your live-in mommy that I'm utilizing opinionated speech protected by the first amendment, you commie wanker. -- I didn't realize my detractors were so ignorant. Sounds to me like it L0pht can't quite grasp the difference between digitization and MP3, and took it reeel purse'nahl. How 'er ya'll'uns dewin over ther, einyway, L0pht? Ya'll likin' th' Kunfederacy purty good siance th' Wahr indid? Ya'll geet that-thur sheeyit about th' FLAG wurked out yit? Fuhk yew, boah. "You are The Son of The Bitch!" |
| Right (Score:1) by jpowers (powers.jason@jimmy.harvard.edu) on Saturday May 27, @12:25PM EDT (#1188) (User Info) |
| Right. Both our ears and "analog" devices (notice the quotes used in my first post) use waves which can only be considered "continuous" when compared to electronically-digitized audio, in reality they are limited to whatever their smallest part is: therefore it is possible to estimate a "sample rate" and "reproduction rate" for the purpose of analysis. In this case, "analog" devices reproduce sound at a rate 80-90% of what the human ear can sample, due to the wave reproduction/reception mechanisms (record player and ear) being made up of molecules, which are not infinitely small, and the transmission of data from needle-speaker/ear drum-brain being made up of electrons, smaller but not infinitely so. CD audio is more like 50%, as it is an arbitrary sample rate set by interoperability standards. By doubling the sample/reproduction rate of Digital CD audio, you get a sound which, at best, is as good as the human ear can possibly discern: no loss at the high or low end of human hearing and a "sample rate" slightly superior to vinyl. -jpowers You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When... |
| Re:Right (Score:1) by 0x0000 on Saturday May 27, @08:52PM EDT (#1210) (User Info) |
| Thanks for the informed responses, both the AC with the quantum states point and jpowers. From what you have said, I believe I understand the refrence the original poster made to the ear sampling at a slightly higer rate than the "analog" audio equipment. At the risk of being moderated down for being OT, I'd like to take this one more step; Isn't it true that the resolution of a wave is not necesarily limited to a step size equal to the size of the particles of the medium? IANAPhysicist, but it seems to me that the facts that a) the particles are oscillating, and b) the volumes occupied by individual oscillating particles may overlap, allow the waveform to be defined with a point resolution something less than the diameter(?) of the particle. The discrete analysis seems to work well for a static waveshape, but seems incomplete when one considers that the wave one perceives as sound is in fact being reshaped dynamicly as it propagates.... I'm operating entirely from memory (~10yrs) and "intuition" here. Is there a good reference work on this stuff that could be absorbed in a weekend? I.e. as easy to read as your post, but with some math? |
| Re:Right (Score:1) by jpowers (powers.jason@jimmy.harvard.edu) on Sunday May 28, @04:10PM EDT (#1233) (User Info) |
| Is there a good reference work on this stuff that could be absorbed in a weekend? I.e. as easy to read as your post, but with some math? I'm not a physicist either, my stepfather was a hard-core stereophile. I think there's an episode of NOVA about it, though. IANAPhysicist, but it seems to me that the facts that a) the particles are oscillating, and b) the volumes occupied by individual oscillating particles may overlap, allow the waveform to be defined with a point resolution something less than the diameter(?) of the particle. This may be possible in a lab setting, and it would sure sound good. If the particles at that scale oscillate at random, though, how would you reproduce sounds that precise with any accuracy? Anything smaller than needle-tip steel molecule to pressed-vinyl molecule is going to be in motion, and therefore could probably not be called a "reproduction" of the original sound. -jpowers You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When... |
| Re:Right (Score:1) by 0x0000 on Tuesday May 30, @03:21PM EDT (#1276) (User Info) |
| Simple oscillators demonstrate that the waveshape is not dependant upon the size of the particles of the medium. Think of a chain of ping-pong balls, or beads, or something, all connected into a rope or chain. Now, grab one end of it, and flip it so that a waveshape propagates up the chain. Note that the sinusoidal shape of the wave described by the movement of the objects is not dependant on the size of the balls or beads. The simplest case of this principle is the arc described by a pendulum. "Sound" is the movement of the medium, (usually air). The movement of the molecules of the medium is described by waves-shapes. The compression and rarefecation of these waves is not dependant on the size of the particles that make up the medium, it is dependant on their position. Likewise, the eardrum is moved by the wave-shaped motion of the air. The change in position of the eardrum's surface is "continuous", and does not depend upon the size of the molecules from which the eardrum is composed. I don't know whether the signal from ear to brain varies by current or potential, but either way, I see no real reason to believe that the level is not continuously variable. Perhaps the brain "digitizes" the electrical signal, but that goes against my understanding of the way the brain works; i.e. that it is an "analog computer". Thanks for getting me to think about this. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by Hogringer on Sunday May 28, @01:19PM EDT (#1232) (User Info) |
| I agree. Lars mentions that it is ok to bootleg tapes and copies of live performances. If I borrowed a vinyl record and made copies of it on tape that is ok. He is concerned with 1st generation digital recordings. If I make a copy using "less than CD quality" then that would be ok? It is not the same right? Less than the perfect digital quality? I feel that if I go to work and work for 1 hour I get paid for that hour. Artists should get paid for their work. But if I buy a CD I now own it. I feel I should be able to do as I please with it. Can I buy a Metallica CD and loan it to a friend and he burns a copy. Is that ok? |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by djweis on Friday May 26, @12:38PM EDT (#32) (User Info) http://www.bookzilla.com/ |
| By the time that tape gets to a dozen people, it's going to sound like hell. The 100th person to get the mp3 will have the same cd quality audio as the first person. |
| That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by IMZombie on Friday May 26, @01:13PM EDT (#195) (User Info) |
| .mp3 IS NOT CD quality audio. |
| Re:That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by aphr0 (imagayman@remove.hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @01:21PM EDT (#237) (User Info) |
| It's so close that for all practical purposes, it is cd quality. |
| Re:That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by molda on Friday May 26, @01:26PM EDT (#260) (User Info) http://www.fugly.com |
| if you consider that mp3 uses a masking technique to remove the notes you cannot hear when another note is played, then by definition, mp3 is not cd quality. Also added to that, if everybodys' hearing is different, then surely every mp3 song that is around sounds different when played. No one knows what the other hears, it is just assumed it is the same. -- A kick in the pants is worth 8 to the head. |
| Re:That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:49AM EDT (#1093) (User Info) |
| If it sounds just like the cd its cd quality. I don't care if it doesn't record the note i don't hear anyway. |
| Re:That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by tps12 (tps12@scientist.com) on Friday May 26, @01:42PM EDT (#333) (User Info) http://www.columbia.edu/~tps12/ |
| Yeah, if you compare it to a CD being played out of my asshole. [tps12] |
| Re:That's where you are mistaken... (Score:1) by e13ven on Saturday May 27, @08:16PM EDT (#1208) (User Info) |
| For all practical purposes? Practically everyone can tell the difference between mp3s and the cd source. If you play your signal through a stereo reciever( doesn't need to cost $1,000) 128 and 196 sound "tinny" compared to the original .wav. 256 sounds close to the original but the four people in this room(excluding myself) identified correctly six different .mp3 files from their original .wavs. Criterion- which sounds better? I am using a nearly twenty year old yamaha natural sound stereo reciever and my computer(nothing special). There is a physical & audible difference between cd wavs and even high quality mp3 copies. I collected analog cassete tapes of bands like Grateful Dead, Phish & MMW and even when these became available via mp3 my analog cassete tapes won out sounding audibly better than the 128mp3 commonly circulated. You can chant that there is practicaly no difference all you want,(you probably don't listen to or enjoy music very much) there is a practical audible diference. I would rather have an exact copy of a digital file than a compressed one. Any day. I am passionate about the music I listen to though. |
| CD vs MP3 (Score:1) by jonfromspace (dogma@spammeanddie.yourmojo.com) on Friday May 26, @02:13PM EDT (#459) (User Info) http://www.itpwebsolutions.com |
| Saying that MP3 quality is as good as CD is like saying a DiVX ripped Movie is as good as the origional DVD. Sure, mp3 quality is pretty good, but it is NOWHERE near CD quality. Just my opinion Lotteries are a tax on people that suck at math |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by VaporX on Friday May 26, @12:39PM EDT (#37) (User Info) |
| Imagine the quality of the recording after that many generations of duplication. That is _entirely_ different from making exact digital copies with the exact same fidelity and quality. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:5, Interesting) by RichDice on Friday May 26, @12:40PM EDT (#38) (User Info) |
| That's a very shallow analysis of the situation, and one that Lars addressed directly and powerfully in his interview. First, the tape copying example you use is not the same threat (or perceived threat) to Lars et al. as is the copying of music in a digital fashion. Tapes aren't worth copying after the 5th generation or so, meaning that you're limited to about 62 friends being able to get a copy of the tape at all, let alone a good copy. And those friends aren't really able to give copies of these tapes to other people, once again because of analog degradation. But secondly, and probably more importantly, the internet is a distribution medium _far_ more powerful and quick than you and your buddies dubbing a few tapes. You aren't limited to the number of buddies you have, you aren't limited to speed of transportation (e.g. when's the next time one of your friends is hopping a flight to X random city on another continent? and does he remember to bring the tape?), etc. Please don't interpret this posting as to say that I don't think that there's an issue worth exploring in great detail with this whole Metallica / Napster legal battle. I just think that your example of buddies copying tapes being "more or less the same" as Napster in terms of being an effective distribution network is very weak. |
| CDRs & who wants all of their music on CDRs/MP3s (Score:1) by J.C.B. on Saturday May 27, @02:15AM EDT (#1102) (User Info) |
| I don't know of anyone who copies tapes anymore. About 25% of the people that I know have CD burners (including myself) and we just use CDRs when we copy music (with no degradation) One of the things that I don't see mentioned alot is the fact that people don't like having all of their music on CDRs or in MP3s. They like to have the actual CD. When some new CD comes out we don't have one guy go to the store and get the CD and a box of CDRs, usually we just each get a legitimate copy. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by The Wookie (TheWookie@endor.gal) on Friday May 26, @12:41PM EDT (#42) (User Info) |
| Tape copies degrade in quality very quickly as you go down successive generations. By the time you get to 1.4 million copies, you might as well have recorded static on the tape.
|
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by plague3106 (ajj3085@rit.edu.no.spam) on Saturday May 27, @01:53AM EDT (#1095) (User Info) |
| Seems to be then there is a problem there. Just b/c one form of 'stealing' isn't as effect as another makes one ok and the other not? Thats pretty shakey moral ground right there....not to meantion the fact that there is no loss in this 'theft.' |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by e13ven on Saturday May 27, @08:33PM EDT (#1209) (User Info) |
| Every analog cassette taper I ever met who was serious about collecting noted the gen of a tape from its original source(usually a dat). There are litteraly tens of thousands of deadheads with quality tape collections. Testimony to the fact that 1.4 million high quallity tapes could be disseminated in short order. A cassette recording of a master source sounds way better than 128 or 196 mp3. I would rate a 256 mp3 in the same category as a master or first gen tape. I haven't ever downloaded a 256mp3(only made em). |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by Sun Tzu (root@127.0.0.1) on Friday May 26, @12:43PM EDT (#49) (User Info) http://starshiptraders.com |
| Exactly. I think he's just pandering with the claim that friend-to-friend copying is ok. He just knows that it's less efficient than the Internet copying model and is, therefore, a thing of the past. Post website reviews and point out interesting pages at Sitereview.org |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:2, Interesting) by MushMouth (smushmoth@yahoo.com) on Friday May 26, @12:52PM EDT (#102) (User Info) |
| Remember there is a tariff paid to the recording industry for every blank tape and recorder sold. See earlier articles about tacking this same tarif on blank CDR's, and the uproar at the suggestion. |
| CDR Tax (was: Re:OK for me, but not for you.) (Score:1) by Col. Forbin on Friday May 26, @03:30PM EDT (#678) (User Info) |
| Remember there is a tariff paid to the recording industry for every blank tape and recorder sold. See earlier articles about tacking this same tarif on blank CDR's, and the uproar at the suggestion. This tax already exists for "Audio" CDRs that you use in those Phillips home burners. That's why they are typically about $1 more per disc. Although I don't doubt that the RIAA would love to have the tax apply to data discs as well. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by whimmel (whimmel@DOT.onefinger.DOT.cx) on Friday May 26, @03:38PM EDT (#687) (User Info) http://www.onefinger.cx/ |
| Remember there is a tariff paid to the recording industry for every blank tape and recorder sold. See earlier articles about tacking this same tarif on blank CDR's, and the uproar at the suggestion. I propose a 0.50/month tariff on internet access to be paid to the RIAA. Have it come out of my AllAdvantage account. -- Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? |
| You missed the point... (Score:2, Insightful) by CodeShark (listener@kcinter.net) on Friday May 26, @01:01PM EDT (#136) (User Info) |
| The whole copying controversy including MP3, Napster, and even the DeCSS/DVD fight comes down to one issue: analog duplication (with the accompanying degradations for every generation of the copy), vs. digital copying which is perfect in every generation. Don't get me wrong by the way-- I'm all for downloading music and movies in a digital format, with one critical condition attached to it: that the artist and/or company representing the artist has put it up or given permission for distribution via the source where I download it. Which IMHO may even include charging me for the download. Anything else isn't fair to the artist/company. ...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always better than the alternative... |
| Re:You missed the point... (Score:1) by leo.p (venalcolony@COOLERTHANSCORCHINGmail.com) on Friday May 26, @07:40PM EDT (#946) (User Info) |
| Isnt fair to the company? What's fair to the company? That they embrace their control over yet another communication channel? There already are copyright laws in the books. I should be able to do with my internet connection as I see fit. The consequences of my actions will be mine to deal with alone. The problem with your position is that you cannot enforce "permission" without violating presumed innocence and imposing draconian restrictions on everyone and their grandmother. This is about who gets to control the new media and the lucrative possibilites it offers. Nothing more, nothing less. You cant broadcast radio signals; now they want to tell you that you cant broadcast ip. And, irony of ironies, the issue of control is precisely where Lars' head is at. |
| Re:You missed the point... (Score:1) by leo.p (venalcolony@COOLERTHANSCORCHINGmail.com) on Saturday May 27, @04:38AM EDT (#1136) (User Info) |
| Following up on my own post. Someone has to :-) There's a reason why pirate radio stations are pirate. If anyone could broadcast, what are the chances that Milli Vanilli (whatever, you dig) are going to get airplay, aka the marketing muscle necessary to buy your taste and ears? None. Well, you cant take none to the bank, can you? Better hire some lobbiests, show up on capitol hill with a few hookers, get some favorable laws written. Hey, the ether is as much mine as yours. It hardly seems fair that you alone should be able to fill it with emr to advance your bottom line. Ether, internet. Same difference. Make no mistake about it, where napster fails, the recording industry steps in and takes complete control. Game over. Your little internet experiment was interesting while it lasted, its unfortunate it had to be coopted by the recording industry. To paraphrase Lars: it is our *privilege* to buy the shit the recording industry has a *right* to sell at a price we dont agree with. Whatever. Maybe the next revolution will end up more favorably. -- Have given up impersonating the guy impersonating Woston and have resumed waiting for the great leap forward. |
| Re:You missed the point... (Score:1) by joepeg on Friday May 26, @10:35PM EDT (#1028) (User Info) |
| You all may wish to peek at this, the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) which states: No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings. as linked from here, The Free Music Philosophy (which is also very informative). Regardless. People, people, you are failing to realize what it is we are discussing. Music. Many /.ers are very logical and rational thinkers. We understand the world mantains seemingly infinite complexities, broken down to the simplest of parts. With this in mind, is it not safe to say music already exists around you. It is an natural thing, a being, in a sense, which we are merely manipulating to appease the emotional aspect of our sense of hearing. Music is not tangible thing. If so far this is too liberal in content for you, you may as well stop reading as it only gets worse from here. As expressed very nicely in The Music Philosophy (linked above), all musicians of today are blatantly stealing from their predecessors. This is not an ethical unpleasantry, rather a wonderful progression of this phenomenon which we arbitarily claim to be 'music'. If we agree that we take from those we favor, (who have in fact taking from those they admired ad infinitum) and implement it into our own 'art' as lars claims his music to be, then why does he not give rolaties to each of those before him who have influenced his style of playing in that lars did not 'invent' any of his drumming patterns, but claims they are his own, with impregnable certainty. Music is a natural therapy, one which requires definition from all of those who enjoy it. It is not a posession. It's not a television for fucks sake. It is very apparent that lars has lost, or never had, any true love for his expression of music. If he did, he would find any means possible to share it with anyone and everyone willing to explore it. Instead, he has put entire focus on the abolition of a very powerful, medium, a medium which has overwhelmingly spread the music, for an obvious, and very disturbing reason, he wishes to shelter. Sure, the media has exploited Metallica, raping the the public with their conformist ideals (trivial) so we all have metallica shoved down our throats already, but this is another issue. Why has music become a matter of money? Why is it so important to lars that their hard work be BOUGHT AND SOLD for outrageous expenses on one medium. This is a horrible thing. We must return to our roots. We must cherish those cultures of today who have no price on music. Those who beat their drums with passion and uncontrollable enthusiasm while dancing wildy around eachother. It is a love of music, not the disgusting thing we have made it out to be. I say fuck metallica. I say fuck the radio, mtv, labels, and the entire industry. I am a musician, a musical scientist. I play to feed my own desires and explore this unexplainable natural high. When others get as much satisfaction as, or possibly more than, myself, then I know I have done a good thing. I continue to explore and benefit those who revel in it. I DON'T do any of this to be a fucking rock star and lose all visibilty of the reason why there is such a thing as a rock star. It is because music is natural. We fiend for it like a drug and go to unreasonble measures to get our next fix. We are human. The industry is the dirty dealer, giving you a mere taste to get you hooked, and laugh as you do these unreasonable things to get more. Napster and the likes are our sources of freedom, in more ways than you realize. Die lars. |
| Re:You missed the point... (Score:1) by IronChef on Saturday May 27, @12:38AM EDT (#1064) (User Info) http://wrongcrowd.com/ |
| Sure, music is wonderful, yadda yadda yadda but it is still, in the end, the product of someone's labor. Like software. And while I think it would be keen if music makers all wanted to give it away for the betterment of all, they still have a right to charge for it. If you don't want to pony up, you find a substitute product. You can't force creative people to give their stuff away. That's just wrong. If you built a house, do I have the right to crash it? Or are you a bad person for not letting bums sleep in your living room? Of course not. ---- 2 wrongs don't make a right. It usually takes 3 or 4. |
| Perfect digital copies, Garth Brooks, & Metallica. (Score:5, Insightful) by SlushDot (root@localhost) on Friday May 26, @01:29PM EDT (#272) (User Info) file:///C:/NUL/NUL |
| So let me get this straight. It's okay to bootleg concert performances. It's okay to copy an album to tape for a buddy. It's all about quality and scale. Sherman, set the wayback machine for the early 1990s. A new trend had started among the big retail music chain stores. Used CDs. Racks and racks of them. This got the ire of the music industry to threaten stores with no more new CDs to sell if they didn't yank the used ones. Drugstore cowboy singer Garth Brooks made himself the pulpit boy for the cause. The claim was that used CD sales is "theft" from the artists because the sound quality on used CDs degrade. A used CD sounds just as good as a new one. Brooks and the RIAA wanted to ban used CD sales or at least to 'tax' them with the kickback going to the RIAA to make up for loss to artists (/me scratches head at logic here). The issue was LAUGHED at by the public at large. Garth Brooks was seen as a raving idiot and the issue faded away. Now it's Napster. Same shit all over again. |
| First Sale Doctrine (Score:2) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Saturday May 27, @02:36AM EDT (#1108) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| The reason used CD sales got laughed at is the first sale doctrine. When you buy a physical embodiment of a copyrighted work, you can do *ANYTHING* with it except copy it. You can even copy it, for personal use, as long as all the copies stay "associated" with that original. You can sell a book that you've bought, even if it's in perfect condition. You can sell a CD, even if the sound doesn't degrade. What you can't do is make copies and sell them, or make copies, and sell the original, or anything like that. This is not the same shit at all. Fussing about used CD's is dumb; every used CD is a CD the record company *already* got paid for. At any given point, only one person owns that CD. Fussing about Napster and MP3's is different; every new person getting a given MP3 is another *copy*, without any revenue for the copyright holder. Not the same at all, and trying to make it look the same is either disingenuous or stupid. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:Perfect digital copies, Garth Brooks, & Metalli (Score:1) by shren on Saturday May 27, @07:59AM EDT (#1164) (User Info) |
Sherman, set the wayback machine for the early 1990s. A new trend had started among the big retail music chain stores. Used CDs. Racks and racks of them. This got the ire of the music industry to threaten stores with no more new CDs to sell if they didn't yank the used ones. Drugstore cowboy singer Garth Brooks made himself the pulpit boy for the cause. The claim was that used CD sales is "theft" from the artists because the sound quality on used CDs degrade. A used CD sounds just as good as a new one. Brooks and the RIAA wanted to ban used CD sales or at least to 'tax' them with the kickback going to the RIAA to make up for loss to artists (/me scratches head at logic here). The issue was LAUGHED at by the public at large. Garth Brooks was seen as a raving idiot and the issue faded away. Now it's Napster. Same shit all over again. I can't believe this got moderated to 5 : Insightful. What does this have to do with anything? It's interesting trivia but the only thing that it has in common with Napster is that Used CD sales and Napster are both things that tick the RIAA off. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by hrieke on Friday May 26, @01:30PM EDT (#277) (User Info) |
| I think that it's the scope of the copying which is being done, not the fact that it is. So, back in the 70s you had maybe 10 high schoolers copying a record to share around, you didn't really see that, even though there were those ten kids at each school. Now Napster comes along and these 10 plus ever other group go online, and suddenly you have 10 million people doing it, all localized. But, yeah, he who lives in a Glass House... |
| More intelligent than i'd expected (Score:2) by drenehtsral (larsfrnd@lightlink./*nospam*/com) on Friday May 26, @01:35PM EDT (#305) (User Info) http://www.hooliganhangout.net |
| I think you're right it is a good interview. I think he brushed off the last question because he had answered it at length before. I think that the non-degrading digital copy is the issue. I have to say that i'm glad to see that Metallica has though about and researched this, and I'm also glad that it is not the record company pushing this. The thing i think he says that is the most insightful is that the biggest SNAFU is the fact that the record companies didn't embrace the idea of electronic distribution, rather than damning it and ignoring it. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by crt (wrightd@gamespy.com) on Friday May 26, @01:47PM EDT (#358) (User Info) http://www.gamespy.com |
| I think the most telling part of the last answer was "So it's the quality, the quality and the scale." So Metallica does not believe in RIGHT and WRONG. There is no black and white. Just shades of gray. I guess Napster is a little darker than they would like. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by jrigg on Friday May 26, @01:52PM EDT (#377) (User Info) |
| people here seem to be skirting around the fact that dubbing on to a tape is not necessarily the most popular form or copying now. with the amount of prefab systems available with cd-rw it's becoming just as easy to copy cd to cd with NO quality loss. with cdr media sold in large quantity (eg. spindle) it's just as afforable as analog tape and takes less time to copy due to the fact that you are not forced to play the music to tape. it's also easy enough to borrow the cd from a friend and rip it yourself with no way to trace it. |
| Re:OK for me, but not for you. (Score:1) by DarkProphet (chadwick_nofx@spaminacan.hotmail.com) on Saturday May 27, @10:38AM EDT (#1175) (User Info) http://hammer.prohosting.com/~xtown/cgi-bin/dpindex.cgi |
| Ya know, I use Napster, but I haven't downloaded any Metallica, because I personally am not that interested in the band... but lets say I did... because I don't own any of the original albums a certain song I downloaded came from, I'd obviously be infringing on copyright, as I understand it. But I DID pay to DOWNLOAD that music!! I __PAY MONEY__ to my ISP in exchange for them sending my computer data from the internet! It seems to me, that the real way for Metallica to nip this in the bud is to disallow ISP's from transmitting/routing/whatever this type of media (digital audio, that is)... THAT is really the only effective solution. However, this brings up MANY touchy implications... The day my ISP starts filtering the content of the data I recieve is the day I find a new ISP without such limitations. And I will be honest... one of my favorite bands released thier new album recently, and I live in a rural area. I was really excited about the new album, and I know that it will not me available in physical media (CD, tape, etc) for quite some time. So I downloaded the whole damned thing via Napster, and burned it all to CD myself. Do I feel bad for doing that? No. Do I feel that I have done anything morally wrong? Absolutely not. Its hardly my fault that record companies and record stores are unable to have albums in stock immediately upon release. If I had to wait 6 months to buy the album, I probably wouldn't. By then I'd have heard 3 or 4 singles on the radio, and probably gotten sick of them all. I sure as hell wouldn't buy the CD then! But, I got the album the day it was released because of Napster, and I am very happy with the album. It will soon be available in stores here, and I will actually go and buy the legit album. Why? I already have the music, right? Well, the actual album comes with extra stuff (its Cd-Enhanced), and even comes with a 4" vinyl with previously unreleased tracks. Being a hardcore fan, I WANT these little extras, and am willing to essentially pay for a CD I already have to get these "free" extras. This is what the record companies should do!! Provide extra stuff WITH the legit albums. Stuff thats essentially unproducable otherwise.. hell, throw in some stickers, I don't care, just give me a little incentive to buy the legit album instead of just downloading the thing! THIS is what record companies have to do if they wanna stay in the game. Piracy (if you really wanna call it that), is something the record companies ARE NOT going to ever get a hold on unless they provide extra incentive to purchase the real deal. Also, I buy T-shirts, and other merchandise because I know it helps support the band (they are a small band and deserve the support)... Sure, I could make my own T-shirts, but thats not really the point. When I wear a shirt sporting the band's logo, and its a offically endorsed product, what I'm telling the world is that I like the band, I don't mind giving them money and free advertising. That says a hell of a lot. I sure wouldn't be saying that if I spraypainted the logo on a T-shirt myself. Don't get me wrong, piracy is not a cool thing, and can certainly hurt bands. I'm in a band myself, and I put my heart on display in my music. It __IS__ art... (maybe moreso because my band is unsigned), and I would be really pissed off if someone were making MONEY by distributing my music, but I would be FLATTERED if my music was freely distributed. As long as I have a sayso in the matter. I should, I have copyright. I totally see where Lars is coming from there. Its a sensitive thing. If I say its okay to distribute my music, do so with my blessing. If people like my music, I wouldn't mind a little support so I can continue to make music. If people choose to not support financially, and they like my music, they will lose in the end, because it will not be economically feasable for me to continue to produce such music. But, then again, I'm in an unsigned band. To tell the truth, my band DOES NOT make very much money selling our album. Basically just enough to cover the costs of recording the album and putting it on CD. I would imagine some people bootleg our music, and thats fine. As long as we are not losing money, I don't care. We make our real money by performing live. You can't really bootleg concert tickets! And I enjoy performing live anyway, so I really get paid twice. The nice thing about this particular setup is that any money made from our music goes directly to us, all 100%. Maybe some of these bands need to get real and get back to thier roots. Almost every successful (non shrinkwrapped, non commodity, non sellout) band started off about the same way, so far as I know. It can be quite lucrative. If not, your music probably isn't as good as you think. If people like you, they will come to your shows. Sure, you're not going to make millions of dollars that way, and you're not going to get on MTV, but who the hell cares!? That shouldn't be what your music is about anyway. If it is, your music IS NOT art, and you have no business getting pissed off because somebody decided it wasn't really worth paying for. Yes, record companies can greatly help spread your music to more people, but for big labels, that's not what its about. Its all about money... if you think different, listen to the radio for a couple hours, and see how many times you hear the same song played. Ditto for MTV. Some small bands have made it big by basically selling out. I won't buy albums from bands that have lowered themselves to do TV appearances on frickin Donnie and Marie... thats just pathetic! I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, but take it from one who knows what its really like to be strapped for cash... this pity party about quantity and quality is complete bullshit. Lars did a good interview, but he's got his head in the clouds, just like every other sellout band these days. I am disappointed. Makes the rest of us musicians look shitty. "If at first you don't succeed, say ta hell with it and blame it on someone else" |
| Re:mp3 quality (Score:1) by Rei (_NOSPAM_spurius@earthling.net) on Friday May 26, @03:58PM EDT (#712) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| I hate this argument... its technically lossy, but most people I've seen saying the quality is bad have good stereos and lousy computer speakers. I've been eager, for a long time, to set up a fair, human-based quality test. Maybee I'll do it this summer. - Rei A woman's place is in the house... the White House. |
| Re:mp3 quality (Score:1) by dboyles (dboyles@etree.organization) on Friday May 26, @06:38PM EDT (#899) (User Info) |
| I hate this argument... its technically lossy, but most people I've seen saying the quality is bad have good stereos and lousy computer speakers. I've been eager, for a long time, to set up a fair, human-based quality test. Maybee I'll do it this summer. I did a test about 8 months ago. I ripped a track from a CD to wav, made a copy of it, and compressed one of them. I did this for three different tracks of different musical material. I burned all 6 tracks, and although the test was not scientific (I knew what was playing at what times), it was extremely easy to discern the difference, even at high bitrates for the MP3s. My computer setup consists of a pair of Altec speakers + sub. It was the mid-level speaker arrangement when I got my Dell in '98. My stereo is an integrated tube amplifier, Marantz CD player, and MSB d/a converter. To put it in perspective, my speaker cables (each are 8' long) retail for $250 (the dealer threw them in with the speakers). |
| Re:mp3 quality (Score:1) by digitalmind (botboy60@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @11:31PM EDT (#1039) (User Info) http://www.nerdnetwork.net |
| I think 99% of the people downloading MP3's wouldn't notice a discernable difference between CD's and Cassete either, for that matter. except for the little "sssssss" between songs, and dolby on most decent stereos would take care of that. If it's a metal tape the only differences would be skipping tracks and 'how would it sound in ten years? From a technical standpoint, the biggest part of the compression in an Mpeg level three compression (long words lars! DON'T THINK 2 HARD!) is filtering out the high and extremely low range frequencies (the ones that will piss off your dog, but are burned on a cd) as well as the ones that are relatively high next to the lower ones that most people cannot hear (example: can you hear someone with a high voice when your subwoofer is really working? didn't think so.) As far as longevity, who gives a shit? I won't go into the issue of whether a bands music gets stale after ten years, but in ten years the music on a metal tape will probably get demagnetized enough to make a difference in sound quality. the plastic in a cd-r or cd-rw will usually start to degrade in ten years to the point that it will warp enough to make it unreadable, assuming room temperature and a temperate enviorment with less than 50% humidity. Now lars, this comment is from a 15 year old who didn't need to research just to know this information. I would expect a better comment from you. Which is why I still don't respect your band or your lawsuit. Kris botboy60@hotmail.com Nerdnetwork.net Greenbuggy. |
| Re:A fun thing to do is ... (Score:1) by digitalmind (botboy60@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @11:12PM EDT (#1036) (User Info) http://www.nerdnetwork.net |
| Not to mention the word "like." Makes him sound like an oldskool valleygirl. Visit nerdnetwork.net and Fight for napster! Kris botboy60@hotmail.com Nerdnetwork.net Greenbuggy. |
| Re:mp3 quality (Score:1) by leo.p (venalcolony@COOLERTHANSCORCHINGmail.com) on Saturday May 27, @03:35AM EDT (#1122) (User Info) |
| Lossy compression is just part of it. The other thing that Lars et al are ignoring is that people are downloading mp3s to listen on demand. Cable and DSL allows that. Lars spoke about 1,000,000+ downloads over the course of a weekend but what he fails to realize is that almost all of those downloads will eventually be wiped from their owners disks in favor of some other jingle or image files or whatever. I mean, its just bits, free electrons, right? At least that appears to be the tacit assumption. No one is getting their panties in a knot over the fact that Celine Dion was played 10,000,000 times on the radio last week. (Too bad, really .) Mp3s are hurting radio more than anything else, as far as I can guess. I dont listen to music stations any longer but I do seem to be buying more cds. Im sorry but any way you cut it, be it from a business or an ethical point of view, mp3s *and* napster justify their own existence. Lars is just going to have to accept this and be grateful that his "loss of control" will translate into something a bit more tangible and bankable. Cry me a river. Oh, and a net gain in my control which is none too shabby either. The interview has demonstrated that Lars is a poster boy for reactionary thinking. Its a legitimate form of thinking, but its legitimacy is not an exclusive property over other points of view in this matter. |
| Either/Or (Score:2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @12:31PM EDT (#7) |
| Either whoever interviewed Lars decided to be "creative" with the resulting answers, or Lars needs some hyperactivity meds. Anyone from /. care to comment? Seriously - I can't follow half of the answers Lars supposedly gave... and I've seen the guy talk in person - one of the more concise/clearly-spoken people I've met. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1, Insightful) by ZikZak (zikyourzak@iappendixo.com) on Friday May 26, @01:05PM EDT (#157) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~zikzak/ |
It is common journalistic practice to edit out the "umm"'s, pauses, and other qualities of speach that make it difficult to read if it is transcribed verbatim. The only reason not to do this is to make your interview subject look dumb. /.'s actions in this transcription are reprehensible, and they should be taken to task for this. It was a slimy, under-handed tactic that I have never seen before in any /. interview. You think they would have done this to Linus or Stallman? And for the record, I don't like Metallica or their actions regarding Napster. I just think the transcription was bullshit. -- Remove your appendix to email me. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by Craig Maloney (craig@ic.net) on Friday May 26, @01:11PM EDT (#187) (User Info) http://ic.net/~craig |
| Actually, I'd find it reprehensible if they DID edit this out... I'm assuming Slashdot just e-mailed him the questions, and he responded in kind. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by fprefect on Friday May 26, @01:25PM EDT (#254) (User Info) |
| It was transcribed from a phone conversation. Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by ZikZak (zikyourzak@iappendixo.com) on Friday May 26, @01:53PM EDT (#386) (User Info) http://www.io.com/~zikzak/ |
I'm assuming Slashdot just e-mailed him the questions, and he responded in kind Many people thought this, and their views of Lars were clouded by it. First, /. should have made a more prominant mention of this being a phone interview. Second, I'm not talking about reworking the interview into crystal clear prose, just editing it for readability. This can be, and frequently is, done w/out losing the qualities of a spoken conversation or deleting key points of the discussion. -- Remove your appendix to email me. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:4, Insightful) by Abjuk (abjuk AT poboxes.com) on Friday May 26, @02:40PM EDT (#545) (User Info) |
| But what are the chances of Linus or Stallman doing a phone interview rather than an e-mail one, particularly for Slashdot? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the first interview Slashdot has done that wasn't e-mail based. Also, the impression I got was that one of the reasons Lars agreed to this interview was that he could say whatever he wanted, unedited, for better or for worse. It's not all that easy to edit someone's answers for grammer without changing what they said into your interpretation of what they said. |
| Remember... (Score:1) by jpowers (powers.jason@jimmy.harvard.edu) on Friday May 26, @03:04PM EDT (#622) (User Info) |
| They're not really journalists. That's not a shot or anything, it's just they make more of a point to try to get the tech right, which is why most of us are here anyway. -jpowers You Know You've Been Watching Too Much Ranma 1/2 When... |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:5, Informative) by roblimo (roblimo.nojunk@slashdot.org) on Friday May 26, @01:09PM EDT (#175) (User Info) |
| Timothy taped the interview and transcribed Lars' answers verbatim. No lawyers, no PR people. Just Lars, speaking off the cuff to Tim on the phone, totally unscripted, without "soundbite" time limits, in a forum where Lars knew he was allowed to say "fuck" if he wanted. I'll call Thomas Edwards at thesync.com (where Geeks in Space is hosted) and see if he wants to digitize the "Slashdot Lars Interview" and put it up. If he does, Timothy and I only live about 15 minutes away from thesync, and can run the tapes over there sometime this weekend. - Robin |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by jsydik on Friday May 26, @02:15PM EDT (#464) (User Info) |
I think that making this available in audio format would be important to cover a number of points: 1) I think that (good intentions aside), the choice to copy spoken filler verbatim will likely backfire. Slashdot has gained many users in recent months, including many casual observers. Without understanding of Slashdot's (unusual) interview policy, misinterpretation seems quite likely. 2) Not able to speak for Lars, I'm not convinced I would be thrilled to have that as my only form of response to a forum known to be potentially rabid (Was there a way to clear the final 'print' version with him?); 3) Slashdot is a media outlet in a period of fantastic growth. The maintainers and users appear to advocate the spread of information to the greatest (and clearest) degree possible. With that in mind, I think that not only this, but very probably any audio interview done by Slashdot (with permission of all involved) should probably be audio archived if possible for future reference. Slashdot interviews have changed from semi-novel looks at the inside of the community to fairly respectable candidates for primary source usage. |
| Tapes? MP3's! (Score:5, Insightful) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @03:28PM EDT (#674) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Call Lars and ask if you can get permission to release the conversation in MP3 format. Seriously! It's a good application for the format, it'll solve the "is this really him" debate, and if he authorizes it, it's totally legit. The cool thing is, this would be a way in which Lars could shove a rusty railroad spike up the RIAA's colective asses, by visibly and publically endorsing the use of MP3's for some purposes. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:Tapes? MP3's! (Score:2, Insightful) by Zach` on Friday May 26, @07:53PM EDT (#955) (User Info) |
| Whoa... Something just came to me: You put this interview in MP3 format. You call it "Metallica - Slashdot Interview.mp3" and post it up for download. Within minutes, thousands of people have it in their MP3 folders. Let's say a few of those people are running Napster right then. They slap that file in their folder and *boom* that's up on Napster. Moving on, a user (we'll call him Joe Smoe) on Napster decides to buck the machine and search for 'Metallica.' One hundred results show up and there, near the top of the list is this "Metallica - Slashdot Interview" MP3. He's curious, has no idea what Slashdot is, thinks it's a comedy deal or something and decides to pick it up. He listens to it, laughs, and forgets about it. Along comes NetPD for their weekly trolli... detective work. They find all the users possessing songs with "Metallica" in them. Again, they send a list of users who are "copying" Metallica songs to Napster to be banned. Poor Joe Smoe gets banned and is ticked. He fills out the counter-suit form and sends it in... adding to the 30,000+ people who've already sent it in. Now, this might be abstract, but *sure* - it could happen and just goes to show that there are more than a few innocent users in the 600,000 has pulled up. Something to ponder about... |
| Re:Tapes? MP3's! (Score:1) by TheGeek on Friday May 26, @08:52PM EDT (#991) (User Info) http://www.geekrights.org |
| Man, excellent idea! I have no doubt it would be a major download. Maybe we can ask him for permission to put it on mp3.com too!
|
| Re:Either/Or (Score:2) by IO ERROR (error+slashdot@underground.ath.cx) on Friday May 26, @03:55PM EDT (#706) (User Info) http://underground.ath.cx/ |
| Um, before you put up an MP3 of the interview, shouldn't you ask Lars first? Because, you know, it is his creative work, he spent a lot of time and creative energy to produce that interview, and it isn't right if you use it in ways he didn't intend without his permission. While you're at it ask him if I can put it up on Napster. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @05:51PM EDT (#853) (User Info) |
| "While you're at it ask him if I can put it up on Napster" AHAHAHHAHA. I almost chocked on the food I was eating here after reading that. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by muldrake (Rob_Clark@justice.com) on Saturday May 27, @01:17AM EDT (#1078) (User Info) |
| I don't understand all this whining about the interview being supposedly incoherent. I read it with no problem at all. Some people just have comprehension problems or like senselessly bitching. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:2) by roblimo (roblimo.nojunk@slashdot.org) on Friday May 26, @02:33PM EDT (#518) (User Info) |
| Well, Lars and the other Metallica guys were upset about the criticism they got over their "too slick" answers in the famous Yahoo! chat interview they did. And Yahoo! got heat for the slickness, too. Now Slashdot gets criticized for running a verbatim transcript of a phone interview that, like it or not, makes it clear (by its roughness) that Lars was speaking for himself and wasn't sitting on a legal or PR puppetmaster's knee. If accurate interview transcripts are now considered unethical journalism -- especially when the interview subject has agreed to have his or her answers transcribed and published verbatim -- than we need to rethink the concept of ethical journalism. I'm sorry, but I will continue to believe that accuracy is the essence of good journalism, and I will continue to detest articles that are rewritten press releases, interviews that are laundered to make their subjects sound better than they do in person, and all the other tricks that make news (and newsmakers) look "slick" at the expense of truth. But don't worry. I'm not young, and all the guys my age will be dead or retired in a decade or two. The spinmeisters who come after us will do what you want; make everything look all fresh and pretty, because they'll want all subscribers to the one remaining TV/Internet/Print news source (after all the mergers) to be happy, happy, happy with Hereditary President George Bush IV* (who will never make a mistake during an interview, as far you will be allowed to know). I sure as hell hope I die before this happens! - Robin * no partisan insinuation meant; it could just as easily be Hereditary President Gore. Or, since the two families have children of about the same age, perhaps it will be the GoreBush dynasty running things, with Rupert Steven Murdoch-Case III as press secretary. Either way, I'm sure all the news will be much better-organized than it is now, and all the reporters will have good teeth, blow-dried hair, and will wear makeup whenever you see them, as will everyone they are allowed to interview :) |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @05:45PM EDT (#846) (User Info) |
| The statements regarding journalistic integrity are noted and appreciated. The political fervor is, I think, kind of un-needed to drive this point home, but this is an open forum after all. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by satanic bunny on Friday May 26, @05:36PM EDT (#835) (User Info) |
| Hey: hold your horses!!! There _are_ ethical journos out here and half the work they do is sparing the public those endless "and...uh" or "as I said last time, uh...yeah" and so on...whilst preserving the voice they heard, the views someone is striving to articulate and the sense that the reader/viewer is meeting the same person that they did. Nothing pisses good reporters off more than the idea that it's either one or the other: either an interview one presents has to be bumbling and full off repetitive noises to be "authentic" OR it's ipso facto a prettified - to use Roblimo's term - re-written press release (or similar corporate diktat). Good journalists are not so numerous - they never have been. The Net has made their arduous task a lot tougher simply because - not to do a Lars on ya, but it's true !!! - the proliferation of news, magazine, "entertainment" and "media" sites has led to a near-desperation scramble for "content". This, in turn, has spawned a plague of virtual plagiarism. (Not to mention miles of boilerplate bad writing and "reporting"). Any reputable scribe (plenty of them write for the Web) will tell you this. Doing good journalistic work has never been easy and it doesn't help to have a cranky /. staffer, of all people, implying such work is worthless. Commendations to /. for persevering in getting Lars to answer their ?s. That, too, ain't quite so easy. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:3, Insightful) by Rei (_NOSPAM_spurius@earthling.net) on Friday May 26, @01:32PM EDT (#287) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| "I think a very very valid thing the other day, that all the people, that are sitting right now, the Sean Fannings of the world, and the guy in Ireland, and all these Internet guys that are sitting there coming up with all hese programs and all this stuff, you know what? The record companies should have hired those guys 5 years ago. That is the biggest single fuck-up that they did, was basically letting those guys get to the other side." Albeit a bit misstated (the whole "light side" and "dark side" thing, which further shows his lack of personal knowledge in the subject), this quote is perfect. Metallica - take a clue from this one - HIRE these sort of people, NOW! Start your own system. Don't just talk about how its the future - make it the future! Get with net supportive bands, like Limp Bizcuit (sp?). Get as many groups together as you can that are free to distribute their msuic without the RIAA's control, and form your own system. You can afford it, software isn't that expensive! Think about this: If people had a service, where, at any time, ever, they could download music from their favorite bands, without having to search, with nice software designed for it, maybee even having the capability to burn a cd as soon as it gets to their computer - any music they want - for a yearly fee that was half what they annually pay for their limited supply of cds - do you think there is anyone in their right mind who wouldn't sign up? The more a certain artist is listened to by each person, and the wider the audience range (the more people) that listen to it, the larger the percent of the profits they get. You could even scale it logarithmlicly so lesser known artists get more of a share of the profits than they normally would. This would be a truly wonderful system! If each person had a unique code, and its transmission was kept secure, it would be really hard to fake interest in the music that isn't there - to crack a million codes can *not* be a simple task. You could do this, and finally break the artists free - encourage new growth, encourage people who write music to come out there and see if people like it, and even get more money for yourself. And make the fans happy again! Do it! (please?) - Rei A woman's place is in the house... the White House. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by scenic (sujal@sujal.SPAM_LOVES_ME.net) on Friday May 26, @01:54PM EDT (#390) (User Info) http://www.sujal.net/ |
| I've had this idea for a while... It does seem to me, though, that the service would have to have some value add aside from the music (otherwise small groups of people would subscribe to the legit service, then go to gnutella and share it right away...) Of course, I don't know how willing people would be to give away what they paid for... Read any interesting quotes lately? Feed the quote monster!
|
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by Keepiru on Friday May 26, @05:07PM EDT (#809) (User Info) |
| Adding value isn't too difficult, help me find new bands/songs that I like. So... you like Def Leppard and Chicago (don't spam me for my music taste.) well here is a new band you might like to hear... |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by GeekBird (ljlpink@meatrahul.net) on Friday May 26, @08:55PM EDT (#993) (User Info) http://www.rahul.net/holmesiv/laubenheimer/ |
...if they streamed videos and MP3s it would be a killer combo. Ahh, but then f*cking MTV would get their knickers in a twist, and we'd be just as bored with it. --- Strip the spam out to email me. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by leo.p (venalcolony@COOLERTHANSCORCHINGmail.com) on Friday May 26, @10:02PM EDT (#1013) (User Info) |
| The cartoon channel. If they could also deliver a box of Fruit Loops every Saturday morning, I wouldnt have to get out of my pyjamas. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @03:54PM EDT (#702) (User Info) |
| Although somewhat interesting, the market for legitimate internet based music is somewhat out of reach at this moment due to demographics, potential price points due to free-the-information ideology, and lack of quality hardware to transfer these audio formats - which aren't available yet in somewhat secure incarnations - in the hands of the masses in any acceptable quantities in relation to regular revenues. Of course someone has to beat the path -- but they can't do that yet until the secure music technology is there. Since this is the internet, there will no doubt be many enthusiast sites introducing hack 42, to "secure" music version # whatever. This is fundamentally different than regular channels, as television music is a one way medium which is obviously interested in keeping industry order. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:2) by DJerman (djerman@pobox.com) on Friday May 26, @06:07PM EDT (#873) (User Info) |
| IIRC, Lars has a contract with his label. This probably excludes other distribution deals, so he probably can't hire these people until his contract expires. He's already said he'll probably or certainly be cutting out either the label or the retailer or both when the contract is up. -- |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by Rei (_NOSPAM_spurius@earthling.net) on Friday May 26, @04:28PM EDT (#750) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| What are you talking about? Its nothing similar to liquid audio. Liquid audio is the conventional system, but over the net. RIAA still gets profits, you still pay for each track you get (and of course, you don't really *own* it, just like normal music). Costs are still the same, you just get a digital copy instead of a hard copy. - Rei A woman's place is in the house... the White House. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by Rei (_NOSPAM_spurius@earthling.net) on Monday May 29, @09:33AM EDT (#1253) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| There are lossless compression algorithms, you know. And with modern bandwidth (cable modem, etc) it is more feasable to download them then just downloading regular mp3s over the net. The fact that mp3s have been so successful is due to the fact that people like having a *lot* of music, and are too lazy to make a cd image and burn it. Hence, my comment about ready-to-burn formats. - Rei A woman's place is in the house... the White House. |
| Re:Either/Or (correction) (Score:1) by Rei (_NOSPAM_spurius@earthling.net) on Monday May 29, @09:35AM EDT (#1254) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| That was meant to say, "...then just downloading regular mp3s over a regular modem" (something people have been doing for quite a long time). If you're picky about undiscernable quality loss (which, btw, you have in regular cds, but you don't complain about that, oh no....), then I'm sure this would be an option if a major service got out there. And besides, whats to stop them from printing and selling you hardcopies for the production cost? - Rei A woman's place is in the house... the White House. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by tchuladdiass (derekp@wwa.com) on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#290) (User Info) |
| The problem (preceived) is due to the fact that this is a transcript of a phone interview. Written language and spoken language are presented in two uniquely different formats. Especially during an interview situation, where thoughts are spoken as they occure. I'm sure that if you hear an audio version of this interview, it will make a lot more sense than the transcribed version. For other examples of this, take a look at the transcript for some Barbra Walters interviews (or turn on close caption on your TV). The person being interviewed sounds a lot dumber in the written transcript than in the audio/video recording. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by MrEd (tones at tande dot com) on Friday May 26, @01:48PM EDT (#361) (User Info) |
| Give the guy a break, he's a rock star. Obviously this was done over the phone, and Lars was probably rolling a joint on the table at the same time. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by ThePretender on Saturday May 27, @02:15AM EDT (#1101) (User Info) |
| Hopefully that was a joke, but if it wasn't we'll give YOU a break too for being an over-generalizing, non-contributing simpleton. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by leo.p (venalcolony@COOLERTHANSCORCHINGmail.com) on Saturday May 27, @05:01AM EDT (#1141) (User Info) |
| Tell it to Donny and Marie and spare us the trite politically correct knee jerk reactions. |
| Re:Either/Or (Score:1) by ThePretender on Saturday May 27, @01:42PM EDT (#1196) (User Info) |
| Not to turn this WAY off-topic, but you ASSUME I was blasting him because I am anti-pot or something... um, let's just say without a lot of detail that's a big ol' NO. BUT - I am anti-generalization so I had to chime in. It was probably a joke anyway (hence my original preface). |
| User Friendly Rewlz! (Score:3, Funny) by WiartonWilly on Friday May 26, @12:31PM EDT (#8) (User Info) |
| UF seems to have a grasp of this situation. hehehe ;^) http://www.userfriendly.org/static/ |
| Today's UF comic (Score:2) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday May 26, @01:13PM EDT (#191) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| Here's a link to today's comic that will still be there tomorrow: Today's UF To steal from one is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. |
| Re:Today's UF comic (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @06:00PM EDT (#868) (User Info) |
| Yeah and many politicians went to harvard and Dr. Laura is a doctor. Credentials doesn't mean intelligence. Not that this person doesn't have intelligence, as I am fully aware of the pared down writing process on the internet; It goes something like this: thought -> keyboard -> post. This is slashdot. I actually enjoy posting semi-moronic material. Long live pseudonyms! |
| Another one (Score:1) by WiartonWilly on Friday May 26, @01:49PM EDT (#366) (User Info) |
| UF Toon |
| Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:5, Insightful) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @12:32PM EDT (#11) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Okay, quick show of hands, who believes that was orchestrated by the record company execs? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? I think he's got damn good points. The statistic about *ONE* unsigned artist is particularly sobering. Let me share something with you all. I write music. It's not very good music. I don't have the bandwidth to post a URL here. I just put a couple MP3's up, and forgot about 'em. Last week, I got a fan letter. Someone liked my music. That was fucking awesome. I am also nowhere near making any sort of a living at this. Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work. Hell, the fact is, I'm not sure that Metallica would have said "no" if they'd been asked; if you read the interview, they're pissed because they weren't asked, not necessarily because people are copying their music. Anyway, I'm really glad it's Metallica doing this, and not a pop band that gets its entire mindset from the record label, specially shrink-wrapped. Not a bad interview at all; really, it frankly totally exceeded my expectations; how often do you see a public figure in a debate like this give any ground at all, or admit that the issue is more complicated than he thought at first? http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2, Flamebait) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @12:44PM EDT (#57) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| The statistic about *ONE* unsigned artist is particularly sobering. And you aren't the least bit suspicious that that number is cooked up? Just think for a second about what would be involved in coming up with an accurate number of unsigned bands being traded on Napster. I think he's either a) Ignorant (he isn't the brightest man I've even run across, after all) or b) lying. --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2) by technos (technos@crosswinds.spam.net) on Friday May 26, @12:50PM EDT (#91) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~technos/ |
| A third possibility exists. That NetPD was not told to watch for such traffic, and didn't. When asked, 'Oh, btw, how many unsigned artists got traded?' they pulled a number out of their collective asses.. Watch this space! |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @01:08PM EDT (#171) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| That's sort of what I meant by "ignorant"...not informed enough to know when he's being told what he wants to hear. --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Thursday June 01, @11:49PM EDT (#1300) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| Well, I've changed it... Too bad you're an AC. You'll probably never know. --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by delmoi (delmoi at hot mail dot com) on Friday May 26, @01:23PM EDT (#246) (User Info) |
| [NetPD] pulled a number out of their collective asses.. That would make him ignorent. [ c h a d o k e r e ] "We'll find a way to fuck with it" - Lars Ulrich on gnutella/freenet |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by haystor (spiff@waymark.net) on Friday May 26, @01:53PM EDT (#383) (User Info) |
| That would make him ignorent. I might choose to use the word "misinformed" instead of "ignorent". If only to avoid the hostile tone of someone that may occasionally make a mistake. |
| Re:Wow. That was a tumbling vomiting spew. (Score:1) by zeusjr (zeusjr@my place or yours?) on Friday May 26, @02:35PM EDT (#530) (User Info) http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=zeusjr |
| I would choose "misinformed" instead of "ignorent" because it would make me, myself look less ignorant - not that that's a particularly striving for a nondicum of ignorence, but because of the contextual obligations set in the precender's paragraphs, I must concur with the competing revelations, of which I know only five ("three to be revaeled at the curring instant, someothers later, I suppose, it can't be helped"): 1.) "The precidience of the metal's glowing embers reaks with the rumblings of an ancient squire." "Metal" must mean metallica, of course; as for squire's I don't know any! The legendary Arthur may have been a squire before he was king; could this be a reference to his fabled return? How blessed we are to be living at such a time as this! 2.) "To be revealed at a later time." I'm terribly dissappointed but I can't tell you yet - THIS INFORMATION NOT YET FREE. 3.) "To be revealed at a later time." Sigh - THIS INFORMATION NOT YET FREE. 4.) "The forth revelation concerns the final strew, that yonder fooligans belief was not to parlay with the manymore." I have to admit I don't understand this one at all! Does anyone else have any ideas? 5.) "The finalling state was to be reconsiderty before the end of the times if you, if you werrto be so dash. It is not tyh's to reconsider after thin rebluthering yell of 'sook' for which this was made. Be not afraid, noo." It's good to know everything will turn out alright in the end. I suggest everyone keep this comforting thought close to them in their darkest times. Thanks for letting me be so revealing! zeusjr of the state of comfort |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2) by Darchmare (jeff@velocinews.com) on Friday May 26, @03:44PM EDT (#692) (User Info) http://www.velocinews.com |
| --- I might choose to use the word "misinformed" instead of "ignorent". If only to avoid the hostile tone of someone that may occasionally make a mistake. --- I agree that avoiding a hostile tone is a good thing, but... 'Misinformed' is not knowing the statistic. 'Ignorant' is repeating a highly questionable statistic in a public forum as if it were fact. Of course, that's assuming that this statistic isn't true - I find it pretty hard to believe though... - Jeff A. Campbell - VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com) |
| Not to quibble, but... (Score:2) by hypergeek (nobody@middle.nowhere) on Saturday May 27, @04:24AM EDT (#1134) (User Info) http://www.votenader.com/ |
'Misinformed' is not knowing the statistic. 'Ignorant' is repeating a highly questionable statistic in a public forum as if it were fact. 'Uninformed' is not knowing the fact. 'Misinformed' is knowing an incorrect, but plausibly substitutable fact which one sincerely, and reasonably believes to be true. 'Ignorant' is when one should reasonably suspect that he's been misinformed, but chooses to 'ignore' it anyway, possibly for fear of admitting to oneself or others that he does not know the correct fact, and has been tricked into repeating an absurdly incorrect fact instead. I think it's the latter in this case. Lars & company may be royally pissed when they find out that the mp3s being traded are hardly the "pristine master copies" they've been led to believe by NetPD, or their managers, or, most likely their lawyers (the only people who can still actually profit from this arrangement). But, by then it may be too late for them to turn around and change their minds due to the sheer momentum of the whole process. They've got to save face somehow, and they're in a position where they'll piss some segment of their fans off no matter what they do, unless they get really creative. However I may feel about the issue at large, I think Lars, et al. have done a respectable job sorting through the information they've been presented, and the conclusions they've drawn seem reasonable based upon that information. So, although I certainly won't buy any Metallica CDs until the lawsuit is over (I refuse to fund this legal action.), I'm no longer going to automatically change the station whenever any Metallica song comes up on the radio. As Lars has said, it's important to separate the business and creative sides of the music. Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @12:50PM EDT (#92) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Not especially suspicious. I've certainly never met anyone who used napster to get music that they couldn't have bought on CD. It's easy to say he's "not the brightest man I've ever run across". Would you come out any better in a verbatim phone interview? And I certainly don't think he's lying. Too far out of character. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1, Flamebait) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @12:56PM EDT (#113) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| Not especially suspicious. I've certainly never met anyone who used napster to get music that they couldn't have bought on CD. WEll congratulations...you have now. It's easy to say he's "not the brightest man I've ever run across". Would you come out any better in a verbatim phone interview? That statement had little to do with this interview. I've never been particularly stricken by his intelligence. And he excerbates the problem by not knowing when to shut up. And I certainly don't think he's lying. Too far out of character. So you think that a member of Metallica, the epitome of corporate rock, would have any qualms whatsoever about lying to protect their pocketbook? What about their popularity? --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Lying? Stupid? Suspicious? (Score:1) by fugue (bwpearre@alumni.princeton.edu) on Friday May 26, @02:45PM EDT (#565) (User Info) http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwpearre |
I've never been particularly stricken by his intelligence. And he excerbates the problem by not knowing when to shut up. If he's not as smart as you are (yes, probably many slashdotters are pretty far above average, and you know what they say about drummers ;) just take what he says, and figure out what he means. It takes two to communicate, and if you can't figure out what he's saying, don't blame him. If he disagrees with you, do something cleverer than calling him stupid. I think he said a couple of dumb things, but his basic thesis---that people should be able to control what they create---is sound. You seem to differ? So you think that a member of Metallica, the epitome of corporate rock, would have any qualms whatsoever about lying to protect their pocketbook? What about their popularity? I tend to trust most people too far, but the interview did strike me as basically sincere. Yes, the "1 unsigned artist" did seem contrived, so how about we make like good scientists and try to duplicate the experiment? I haven't given Napster a fair chance yet, and Gnutella isn't organised well enough to help me find my own butt, but I find it inconceivable that people wouldn't use a free source to check out new things that they haven't heard of. To me, that's what it's all be about! |
| Re:Lying? Stupid? Suspicious? (Score:2) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @03:00PM EDT (#612) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| I think he said a couple of dumb things, but his basic thesis---that people should be able to control what they create---is sound. You seem to differ? Actually I would ignore this whole Napster issue when evaluating Lars' intelligence. It's undeniable that he does have valid points on this issue, and I have no particular problems with how he expresses himself. The problem is that the guy has a long history of being an idiot, which has hurt his credibility in this case. And when he starts throwing around numbers like "one unsigned artist traded on Napster in 48 Hrs" it frankly doesn't help. --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2) by DrEldarion (hwoarang29@yahoo.spamisevil.com) on Friday May 26, @01:08PM EDT (#174) (User Info) |
| Not especially suspicious. I've certainly never met anyone who used napster to get music that they couldn't have bought on CD. Hey, I'm right here. There are a lot of remixes of songs out there that are pretty much only available on Napster, along with other music (foreign, mostly) that would be near impossible to get any conventional way. They're never at stores, and the only websites that I can find that have them are in Japanese, which doesn't help me much. If I was able to actually find the CDs, I'd go out and buy them, but I resort to Napster because it's impossible for me to get the music normally. -- Dr. Eldarion -- It's not what it is, it's something else. All you Nobuo Uematsu fans, help get this released! |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by sugarman on Friday May 26, @01:31PM EDT (#286) (User Info) |
| Well, then you may be right, but the artists you're looking for, while Japanese, are not really unsigned then, are they? While the "not available on CD" comment of the previous poster != unsigned, it is a close enough approximation. Hard to get or obscure != unsigned *anywhere*. So the number of downloads of an unsigned artist who is just throwing his stuff out there may well be have been one during that 48 hour period. No need to get suspicious. --sugarman-- |
| A Good Question... (Score:1) by Cannonball (tom_bridge@mac.com) on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#297) (User Info) |
| You've raised an excellent question: Who's at fault for the "napster remixes?" Let's assume for a moment that any remix downloaded from the net is not in violation of copyright laws (since the original is altered to represent something that's NOT the original and the rest belongs to the remixer). Is the guy who grabs it from Napster at fault? Is the remixer who remixed the song at fault for not asking? Should the artist be flattered? What's the story here?
|
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by slycer (slycer@blahblahblahlinuxstart.com) on Friday May 26, @02:08PM EDT (#440) (User Info) |
| There are a lot of remixes of songs out there that are pretty much only available on Napster, along with other music (foreign, mostly) that would be near impossible to get any conventional way. They're never at stores, and the only websites that I can find that have them are in Japanese, which doesn't help me much. Ok, but how did you here of these artists? Through Napster? I think not. There is AFAIK (I don't use it a lot) NO browsing function within Napster, you need to run a search, the search is obviously some band/song that you know and want a copy of their music. So how does this promote independant artists? You still have to have heard of them in order to get their music. I think that was the point that Lars was making, Napster is a tool to trade music (legal or not), there still has to be someone to promote the bands, the record companies spend the money to do this. MP3.com is a viable alternative, but that's a different issue. -- ./sig is innapropriate |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:2) by DrEldarion (hwoarang29@yahoo.spamisevil.com) on Friday May 26, @02:50PM EDT (#579) (User Info) |
| There is a (sort of) browsing function that I use a lot. If you see a person that has a couple of songs from an artist that you do like (or if you see them in a chat room), you can put them on your 'hot list' and view all the songs that they have. Chances are that you'll come across some sonce that you like that you never knew existed. -- Dr. Eldarion -- It's not what it is, it's something else. All you Nobuo Uematsu fans, help get this released! |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Smitty825 (smitty825@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @03:11PM EDT (#631) (User Info) http://www.vuecam.com/ |
| Just a FYI, There is a semi-browsing function avaliable in Napster...If you go into a chat room and see all of the users, you can select one and see what music each has on their hard drives... Dan |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by ArtDent on Friday May 26, @03:12PM EDT (#633) (User Info) |
Ok, but how did you here of these artists? Through Napster? I think not. There is AFAIK (I don't use it a lot) NO browsing function within Napster, you need to run a search, the search is obviously some band/song that you know and want a copy of their music. So how does this promote independant artists? You still have to have heard of them in order to get their music. Not true. There are channels (actually, I think they call them "rooms" -- it's been a while since I've used the official client) for various music styles. You can enter a room, chat with others, and browse their collections (by user). |
| Re:Promoting the little guy (Score:1) by muldrake (Rob_Clark@justice.com) on Saturday May 27, @01:34AM EDT (#1085) (User Info) |
A lot of people have said that you can use Napster to find new bands you've never heard of. Considering one of the main features is a search engine, it's fairly difficult to use a search engine to find something you've never heard of, and therefore don't have a name for. |
| Re:Promoting the little guy (Score:1) by Ruddigger (joe at waughs dot com) on Saturday May 27, @06:02PM EDT (#1203) (User Info) |
| Yeah, it is hard to search for a band you never heard of, but it isn't hard to search for a band you have never heard. The music I listen to isn't played on the radio, and I have only met a single person in real life who is into it as much as I am. So the only way I have to find bands I like is to look through fan pages and review pages and try to find samples of their songs. I'm usually not successful with napster tho, I can only find more "popular" stuff like death metal... good luck finding any Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ or Last Days of Humanity on it... IRC is a much better way to find specific genres. -ruD -ruD |
| Napster Remixes (Score:1) by mosch (i_charge_1000USD_to_receive_uce@overtone.org) on Friday May 26, @02:46PM EDT (#569) (User Info) |
| Yep, these remixes probably are often the same things that you find in the white label section of your local independant record shop. White Labels, if you're not aware, records which aren't particularly legitimate. They're often used by DJs, and I sincerely doubt that any artist ever sees a dime from them. The napster remixes are the same thing, only more widely distributed. ---------------------------- Stupidity should be painful. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by [-HiDDeN-] (sabaka000@coolmail.com) on Friday May 26, @04:08PM EDT (#726) (User Info) |
| I download music from bands all the time that I can't buy albums of. They simply aren't in any music stores. ------------------------------------------------------------ To email: change cool to hot. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @04:12PM EDT (#730) (User Info) |
| Yes, you have a good point sir. Variety is not exactly conductive to current record corporation practices. This is not exactly their fault, as they can't throw a ton of money into promoting everyone - but we still do not hear the variety on the radio or outer music outlets. Therefore if we are not given this variety by music companies, we will seek out this variety through other channels as we become aware of that which is available. This, of course, is not a rationalization of stealing, but a logical explanation of my current behavior in sampling music over the internet for free. Given perfect information, I now make much more rational choices - as opposed to running out and buying a cd after hearing one song, or terrible clips from a few select songs off cdnow or amazon. This is, again, not conductive to the business model of large record companies, as they often rely on imperfect information and induced purchasing behavior, through hype. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Lx (lx at hellstunas.org) on Friday May 26, @01:22PM EDT (#241) (User Info) http://lx.dcwi.com |
| (raises hand) I use napster for things that I can't get otherwise. I'd rather have something on CD, where I don't have to spend hours finding a full album encoded at a decent rate, without the songs cut off. What I use it for is to get rare tracks, things off of albums that are out of print, live tracks, and singles off of compilations that have no other artists I'm interested in, and wouldn't spend the money just to get the one song. -lx -- BeDev ID #19497 |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by GoRK (g-o-r-k@w-h-i-d.n-e-t) on Friday May 26, @02:32PM EDT (#517) (User Info) http://www.whid.net/ |
| I have tried, and failed miserably, to find music from small (unsigned) bands that I have heard and like on Napster because either they haven't released an album or nobody distributes the albums. It's actually nearly impossible to find anything like this on Napster without being very specific. |
| Uses of Napster...... (Score:2) by Cplus (cplus(@)angelfire.com) on Friday May 26, @03:26PM EDT (#671) (User Info) Leave nasty comments about my mother here |
| As of this moment I'm downloading a 120 minute drum n' bass set. This is not something you can get in a record store. Guess who's computer it's residing on? The dj who did the scratching. This morning I downloaded a live cover of The Who's Baba O'Riley by Pearl Jam. I have seen it on CD, but it was a bootleg sold by a company from Italy.........not a penny to the artist anyway. A Jane's Addiction cover of 'Sypathy for the Devil', unreleased. A bunch of freestyles from Eminem and there you have it. A collection of live/rare music that would be impossible to get without Napster. Check out The Swindle. (lie)If it's successful they'll give us all millions. I swear.(/lie) |
| Re:Uses of Napster...... (Score:2) by G27 Radio on Friday May 26, @06:46PM EDT (#903) (User Info) http://g27.sourceforge.net |
| A Jane's Addiction cover of 'Sypathy for the Devil', unreleased. This was off of Jane's Addiction's first album which IIRC was only available by import initially. I was able to find a non-import version in a store 8 or 9 years ago and it's a great CD--all high-quality live recordings. Not sure if it's still available It's self-titled, available from XXX records. Also has a great version of Pigs in Zen and a cover of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll." I had a crowd of friends around my computer the other night that were amazed at how much impossible (or nearly-impossible) to find stuff they could find on Napster. Yeah, the bulk of what's available on Napster is so pervasive it's disgusting, but the only reason there's so much of it on there in the first place is that it's so pervasive to begin with. numb We're a virus with shoes. I can prove it on an Etch-a-Sketch. End of story. --bathroom wall, Jax, FL (paraphrased from Bill Hicks) |
| How did they monitor Napster? (Score:2, Informative) by sumana (sumanah@uclink4.berkeley.edu) on Friday May 26, @01:10PM EDT (#183) (User Info) http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/programs/gardner |
| I've used Napster a total of once. I'm slightly confused as to how you can tell what OTHER PEOPLE are downloading. How coudl they monitor the service to get this statistic? And weren't they manily looking for their own songs, anyway? So, maybe he's ignorant, or lying, but maybe he's just unknowingly using misleading statistics, which isn't the same thing. |
| Re:How did they monitor Napster? (Score:1) by wulfe on Friday May 26, @02:06PM EDT (#427) (User Info) |
| Who cares if he pulled the number out of his ass, can you really dispute his point that the vast majority of music downloaded from Napster is NOT from unsigned artists? |
| Re:How did they monitor Napster? (Score:1) by Nater (inkblot at geocities dot com) on Friday May 26, @04:51PM EDT (#792) (User Info) http://movealong.dhs.org/~inkblot/index.php3 |
| No, it's peer to peer. As in, you connect to the server and ask it who has "x" and the server says where "x" can be had. Then your client connects to somebody else's client and gets "x". They probably did one of a few things in order of probability: 1) They logged on as regular Napster users and searched for Metallica songs to see who's trading them. 2) They worked with Napster to actually dig through their online database of who's got what to see who's got Metallica songs. 3) They worked with Napster to watch searches to see who was searching for Metallica songs. Working with Napster? I really REALLY doubt that. When you search for songs, you get a list back from the server of places you can get them. On the list is also the name of the user who's running each source. If I were NetPD, that's what I would have done. "You laugh like a donkey. I like it." |
| how am I supposed to find them? (Score:2, Insightful) by ArchieBunker (root@[127.0.0.1]) on Friday May 26, @01:30PM EDT (#276) (User Info) http://www.warroom.com/ausguncontrol.htm |
| Just how in the hell am I supposed to find these unheard/undiscovered bands? Napster lets you search by keyword, not genre or type of music. Am I supposed to type in random words and find bands that way? The truth about RMS http://tlug.linux.or.jp/rms.html |
| Re:how am I supposed to find them? (Score:1) by SeanNi (seanni@canada.SPAM.B.GONE.com) on Friday May 26, @03:13PM EDT (#638) (User Info) |
| Exactly. You can't. Napster at best is dubious. I've always steered clear of it myself, and don't really blame Metallica for going after it. What REALLY pisses me off is them going after MP3.com. MP3.com was most definitely a legitimate venue for small, independant artists. And Metallica trying to shut them down -- now that, I will never forgive. -- It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it. - Sean |
| Re:how am I supposed to find them? (Score:1) by NetFu (craig@netfu.com_no_spam_please) on Friday May 26, @03:25PM EDT (#668) (User Info) |
| That is true, but first the search is just a way to filter out stuff you aren't looking for, so yes you could just do a search for "*" with 500,000 maximum results and you'd get a complete list. And yes, that's not the best way to find unknowns. Second, Napster is not the entire mechanism here, it just facilitates music transfers. You wouldn't find out about some hot new artist in Napster, you'd find out about them through the web like everyone does now (the artist's direct site, MP3.com, etc.). Once you've heard their music and you know you love it, then you use Napster to find everything available from them that's out there. It's that simple. I've been using the internet for about 7-8 years and I never thought I'd be finding unknown/unsigned artists I really like through the 'net -- but I have. This is where it's going and idiots like Lars/Metallica (who've shown in Lars' response they and their managers couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag) will either have to adapt or go bye-bye! |
| Re:how am I supposed to find them? (Score:1) by godlee (godlee@excite.com) on Saturday May 27, @01:52AM EDT (#1094) (User Info) |
| http://artist.napster.com/search.php If you can read this your threshold is too low. |
| Food for thought: unsigned bands (Score:2) by gnarphlager on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#294) (User Info) http://gnarphlager.tripod.com |
| I release my own cds. I have my own label. My distribution blows, and I could hardly consider myself a MINOR label. For all intents and purposes, I am unsigned. Yet (and mostly for copyright reasons) all my .mp3s mention a label in the headers (or they should anyway). So am I unsigned? Technically, no. Am I smaller than metallica? Of course. Does Lars give a fuck about anything other than his ego? evidentally not. |
| Re:Food for thought: unsigned bands (Score:1) by mcrandello (mcrandello@my-deja.com) on Friday May 26, @07:44PM EDT (#949) (User Info) http://www.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=cyoa |
| So you're saying that you could get on napster, I do a search for "unsigned" and I'll find your music? Wow, I guess that answers the questions above about how to find unsigned music. Just search for unsigned. That's almost too easy. Now if my Uni hadn't banned napster and weren't sniffing my machine (I work here, Hello upstairs!) I might be able to try this out... Bored? Choose or create your own /. adventure! |
| The number doesn't matter... (Score:1) by TopShelf on Friday May 26, @01:36PM EDT (#311) (User Info) |
| The point is that Napster is a search-based tool, and an unknown artist is going to remain pretty much unknown. Nobody is going to search for "Billy Bob and the Meat Beaters" unless they've actually heard of them before - thus established acts like Metallica, et al, dominate the network traffic. While the Internet offers interesting possibilities for independent bands to bypass record labels, Napster doesn't do anything in particular to assist in that process. Cut the geek-speak. Let's talk Hockey! |
| the brightest man (Score:1) by wfrp01 (rpeterson@y_e_l_l_o_w_b_a_n_k.com) on Friday May 26, @01:38PM EDT (#314) (User Info) http://www.yellowbank.com/ |
| Lars isn't "the brightest man I've even run across" or "ever run across"? Don't you just hate it when the spell-checker doesn't give your intellect a big enough boost? --You never do dunno, and sometimes you don't.-- |
| Re:the brightest man (Score:1) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @01:44PM EDT (#343) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| Well..my intellect is a discussion best left alone. :) --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Cooked up? More like pulled out of his ass... (Score:3, Interesting) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday May 26, @01:38PM EDT (#316) (User Info) |
| >And you aren't the least bit suspicious that that >number is cooked up? You might say that... Unsigned bands whose songs I've DLed from Napster: Atom and His Package Skif Dank Johnny Socko Discount Gigolo Big & the Barflies Don't Know Jack Nature Kids The Savoys Headboard The Usuals The Spitvalves Edna's Goldfish That's just off the top of my head, WITHOUT going through my MP3 folders to check. Fair bit more than one, eh? Now, some of these may or may not be associated with little indie labels, I'm not 100% sure, but NONE of them have whored themselved out to the RIAA majors. Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Atom and His Package not signed (Score:1) by FatSean (FatSean@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @03:06PM EDT (#625) (User Info) http://members.xoom.com/FatSean |
| But they tour everywhere and sell CDs. So even though they are technically not signed by a label, the download was done because somebody wanted to avoid buy a CD, not because somebody wanted to check this no-name band out. All these local low-budget cats waitin' for they WIC checks, I'm already buzzin' and I ain't even hit the spliff yet. |
| Before you throw around baseless accusations... (Score:2) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday May 26, @03:45PM EDT (#696) (User Info) |
| Try knowing what the hell you're talking about! >the download was done because somebody wanted to >avoid buy a CD, not because somebody wanted to >check this no-name band out. I happen to own ALL THREE of his CDs!!! A quick check of his website shows that those three (self titled, Making Love, and A soceity of People named Elihu) are the only releases he's had in CD form (excepting the limited edition Fracture release). Yeah, I downloaded some of my Atom MP3s before I owned the CDs. But if you know who Atom is, then you know that it's HARD AS HELL to find his CDs in stores! This ain't something tou can pick up at best buy, tower, or virgin. I was living in Orlando, FL at the time, and even most indie stores had no idea what I was talking about. Finally, almost a year after I first heard "Avenger", I found a guy working at DIY Records who knew who I was talking about and was able to special order them for me. And even then, it took about a month and a half for me to get all three. And guess what? The entire time, I was downloading every Atom MP3 I could find! Not because I wanted to avoid paying for the CDs, but because I didn't want to wait till I could find a store that knew what I was talking about. And you know what else? Napster made the search easier! So I had a few MP3s BEFORE I owned the CDs. Bog F-ing deal!!! I guess the admission I paied to see him live TWICE, when he toured through Florida, the Shirt and sticker I bought, and the purchase of the three CDs means SQUAT because I had a few MP3s before the CDs. Napster stole from Atom. Yeah right. You can take your "the download was because you wanted to avoid paying for the CDs" arguement and stick it up your ass! john Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Re:Before you throw around baseless accusations... (Score:1) by Aaron39 (flamingwatermellons@fallenbest.com) on Friday May 26, @04:56PM EDT (#796) (User Info) |
| BTW, hard as hell, maybe if you said it right, i bet you asked about "adams package" or something. hard, jee, take a look... http://www.cpcn.com/articles/091798/ear.person.shtml http://www.atomandhispackage.com/ http://www.midheaven.com/bin/state.cgi/2047356281/artists/atom.an http://val.looksmart.com/eus1/eus52213/eus156227/eus156477/eus522 http://atomandhispackage.webjump.com/ http://expage.com/page/atomgo http://audiofind.net/atom_and_his_package.html http://kickbright.com/shows/atom.html ttp://www.outtoeat.com/thewhitelodge/atom.htm http://citypages.com/databank/20/990/article8216.asp http://www.catnet.ne.jp/kiuchi/atompic2.html oh, by the way, theres an electric fetus in just about every city. you can find LOTS of atom and his package there. oh, btw again, these links are all of one search. Dont let school get in the way of your education ~Noah~ |
| Okay jackass... (Score:2) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday May 26, @05:44PM EDT (#844) (User Info) |
| >maybe if you said it right, i bet you asked about >"adams package" or something. hard Okay dickwad, if I thought the name was "adams package" how did I get a search string that returned "Atom and his Package" in napster?!?!? Now, the list of links you found with "just one search" http://www.cpcn.com/articles/091798/ear.person.shtml -- Can't order CDs http://www.atomandhispackage.com/ -- You have to send money to some outfit in Gainsville to order CDs -- no SSL credit card option -- Yeah, riiiight. http://www.midheaven.com/bin/state.cgi/2047356281/artists/atom.an -- Returned an "internal server error" message http://val.looksmart.com/eus1/eus52213/eus156227/eus156477/eus522 -- Returns "no longer exists on our servers" http://atomandhispackage.webjump.com/ -- Can't order CDs -- Takes forever and a day to load http://expage.com/page/atomgo -- Can't order CDs http://audiofind.net/atom_and_his_package.html -- Can't order CDs -- but you CAN DL MP3s I'm not gonna bother with the rest of your links. I suspect they're just as defective as the first few. Only ONE of the links offers his CDs for sale, and that ONE just tells you to send money to Gainesville w/ NO secure credit card option. Not bloody likely. >theres an electric fetus in just about >every city. Really? (http://yp.yahoo.com/py/ypResults.py?stx=electric+fetus&stp=a&city=Orlando&state=FL&slt=28 .538099&sln=-81.379402&cs=4&Search%A0Now=Search%A0Now Sorry, no electric fetus found in or nearby Orlando, FL. ) Not in Orlando. Care to try again, asswipe? john Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Re:OT -- Rollins College radio... (Score:2) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday May 26, @08:42PM EDT (#985) (User Info) |
| Yeah, it was pretty sweet. I usually alternated between PRK and Real Radio WTKS. Howard in the morning, Monsters during lunch, passed on Phillips in the afternoon usually for WPRK, Drew at night, and, after thet got rid of love lines for that phil hendrie guy, WPRK again at night. All of that interspersed with TV, work, and a doven other things tho. I moved to California about a month ago, and have been hurting, radiowise, ever since. The only thing radio stations here have on Orlando radio is better sponsered concerts and music festivals. What REALLY hurts is that there's no SanFran equivelent of Real Radio (at least not that I've found so far). Ameoba Records in Berkeley, however, puts DIY to shame, as much as it pains me to say it. john Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Re:Cooked up? More like pulled out of his ass... (Score:3, Insightful) by Ralph Wiggam (barry@spiced-ham.summex.com) on Friday May 26, @03:09PM EDT (#629) (User Info) http://www.redmeat.com |
| Johnny Socko is hardly an unsigned band. They have one album available from cdnow.com and their new one is sold on www.johnnysocko.com. They are definatly on the lowest popularity rung of bands traded on Napster, and they're a "regional" midwest band with a real record contract. Lars' figure of one unsigned band may be made up, but I don't think anyone could say with a straight face that legal trading of unsigned bands using Napster for publicity makes up anywhere close to 0.01% of all Napster trades. -B Your favorite band sucks |
| Like I said... (Score:2) by SvnLyrBrto on Friday May 26, @03:49PM EDT (#697) (User Info) |
| >Johnny Socko is hardly an unsigned band. I wasn't sure for 100% that none of the bands I listed were signed on indie labels. But you have to admit, even though Asian Man has more quality bands signed than Virgin, that it's still a VERY small, independant, label. Signing with Asian Man is vastly different from whoreing yourself out to the RIAA labels like virgin, sony, etc. john Resistance is NOT futile! |
| Re:Like I said... (Score:2) by Ralph Wiggam (barry@spiced-ham.summex.com) on Friday May 26, @05:04PM EDT (#804) (User Info) http://www.redmeat.com |
| I will absolutely agree with you that Asian Man is an all around better label than Virgin. The point I was going for is that downloading a Johnny Socko mp3 is every bit as illegal as downloading a Metallica or Britney Spears song. That is Johnny Socko/Asian Man's intellectual property and you are using it without permision. If you want the mp3s that the band wants you to have, go to the web site, they're giving away 4 song clips off the new album along with some older stuff and one whole live show. If you want to use Napster to get free music, go ahead (I know I do). Just don't use the justification that it's ok to do it for small bands because they're not available at Wal-Mart. -B Your favorite band sucks |
| Re:Cooked up? More like pulled out of his ass... (Score:1) by SigVn on Friday May 26, @04:29PM EDT (#752) (User Info) |
| Endas Goldfish is signed by either MOONSKA or Ska Satalite same label "If All Else Fails....X=8" |
| Re:Cooked up? More like pulled out of his ass... (Score:1) by NoahPhex on Friday May 26, @10:23PM EDT (#1023) (User Info) http://www.dougal.org |
| On the subject of Atom and His package... One of my freinds on IRC introduced me to Atom a couple years ago with some mp3's he made. I was instantly hooked to his music. There's just something about a 20 something punk rocker singing strange lyrics in a high voice while "the package", or the QY700 plays on in the background. Anyways, so far, I've been to 4 of his shows, and have all 3 of his cds, a couple of 7"s of his, and coincidently, I happen to be wearing one of his shirts as we speak (Go Metric Now). Woulds I ever have heard about Atom if it were not for mp3's of his? Possibly, but mp3's were what got me into him. |
| Re:Cooked up? More like pulled out of his ass... (Score:1) by schtum on Saturday May 27, @07:10AM EDT (#1157) (User Info) |
| Wow, nice list of unsigned/indie bands there. While you're at it, check out the dismemberment plan. If you go to their web site you'll find a very intelligent argument in support of napster. But they don't archive their posts so check it out quick. This is my first time attempting a post with Mozilla. 3...2...1... |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by doodaddy on Friday May 26, @02:12PM EDT (#456) (User Info) |
| Don't forget that Napster fundamentally works by the NAME of a song or artist! "What was the name of that artist I've never heard of again?" (-: So theoretically, to find even ONE artist by name when you have never heard of his name is a very high hit rate. (-: Now using MP3.com or some similar service, I believe several unknown artists, searched via LIST instead of name, get 10s of thousands of hits! But don't quote me on that. I'm just trying to remember and I'm too lazy to look. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:5, Insightful) by Jordan Graf (jordan_graf@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @02:22PM EDT (#488) (User Info) |
This of course begs the question, how would NetPD even come up with a figure like this? If you want to get a list of everyone who's pirating Metallica material, it's pretty easy, you do a search for "Metallica" and maybe a few other variations and then pick all the user names out of the results. You could pretty easily devise an automated tool to do this, you run the search all weekend and presto, 300K odd names. But claiming to know how many times a track was downloaded is a much more difficult problem. You have to somehow convince users to tell you how many people have downloaded a particular title. Obviously the server itself can do this because requests go through it, but as an outside client? Maybe the protocol lets you do this, but I doubt it. Then, to find out how many unsigned artists were downloaded, you essentially have to track every client on the whole system and how many times every track was downloaded and then figure out which tracks were by unsigned artists. This essentially means having a master list of all signed artists in the world and doing some sort of text match against all the titles listed on Napster to eliminate signed artists. I find it highly unlikely that NetPD did this. I suppose you could develop a list of "known unsigned bands" (maybe scrape it from mp3.com or something) and see who downloads those tracks, but this is hardly accurate (And a great way to undercount.) My guess is that this figure is invented. Whether NetPD or Lars invented it, I can't say. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by spinor on Saturday May 27, @04:24AM EDT (#1133) (User Info) |
| I wonder how many unsigned artists renamed their MP3's 'Metallica' or used Metallica songnames in an effort to get people to download their music because of all of the publicity surrounding Metallica and Napster that week? Just a thought, but you never know.. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by crimsonandclover on Friday May 26, @02:24PM EDT (#494) (User Info) |
| "The statistic about *ONE* unsigned artist is particularly sobering..... And you aren't the least bit suspicious that that number is cooked up?" It makes sense though. Given a palette of a hundred bands that are widely hyped, household words, and a thousand complete unknowns, what will the average consumer on a dialup connection download? Whose got time to read ALL the Slashdot comments? I can usually tell a song I'll like 10 seconds into it. But it's the whole file or nothing. So do you bet on the unknown? "Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." |
| Re:Wow. That was... /signed but not big artists (Score:1) by Otus on Friday May 26, @02:33PM EDT (#519) (User Info) |
| Personally, I often use Napster to check out signed artists who aren't well known - I run across a review, or hear a friend mention them, but I don't want to spend $16 on a CD I've never heard - and if I like it then I'll be buying a CD I wouldn't have otherwise. I think it's that situation that really benefits artists (and record companies). |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Jeff Monks (jeff at skunkeye dot com) on Friday May 26, @03:18PM EDT (#653) (User Info) |
| One other thing to note here is that the statistic about how much Metallica music was traded is probably inflated, as well. I don't mean by the band; I mean that all this controversy and coverage and legal wrangling has brought a ton of publicity to Napster and Metallica, so it seems likely to me that during the 48-hour period they observed, the number of Metallica tracks changing hands is somewhat higher than it would have been had no fuss been made. Granted, we're talking about a huge number of downloads either way, but I suspect that a graph of Metallica downloads via Napster over the last few months would show a pretty significant spike right around the times of all the major press coverage of the issue... |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Ranger Nik (nik@spam.proof.nanospace.com) on Friday May 26, @03:18PM EDT (#654) (User Info) |
| And you aren't the least bit suspicious that that number is cooked up? i was, in fact, wondering about this: how could he possibly know? is there a filter for "unsigned artists"? unfortunately, you are missing his whole point. the point is that you are not going to get the numbers without advertising, which is what the record companies do for you. in addition, this was not his reason for going after napster. i think the analogy with the book of the month was just excellent. no-one asked metallica. metallica has no say about whether people can copy their material or not - that's, quite understandably, their problem with it. this interview is totally consistent with metallica songs, so i have all the respect in the world for this man and this band. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:4, Informative) by dirk on Friday May 26, @03:24PM EDT (#665) (User Info) |
| The statistic about *ONE* unsigned artist is particularly sobering. And you aren't the least bit suspicious that that number is cooked up? Just think for a second about what would be involved in coming up with an accurate number of unsigned bands being traded on Napster. I think he's either a) Ignorant (he isn't the brightest man I've even run across, after all) or b) lying. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @08:00PM EDT (#961) |
| The point was not that the number might be innacurate by X%. The point is that the number is made up. Even if Napster, Inc wanted that number, it is almost impossible for them to get, since the mp3 ID3 record does not contain a "signed with a record label" field, and even if it did, you could hardly count on it to be accurate. More importantly, Napster is probably not going to help NetPD/Metallica get that number, so evidently Lars is claiming that they got that number by connecting to the Napster network as a client, which is a lie that anyone who has even glanced at the Napster protocol (or even thought about it for more than 3 seconds) knows is impossible. Making obvious, and self serving lies in a public forum is the best way to build credibility with people. I assume that Lars thought he could get away with that lie, because he has no fucking clue how Napster works. |
| All Recorded Songs are Copyrighted (Score:2) by Brian Ristuccia (brianr-slashdot.org@osiris.978.org) on Saturday May 27, @09:06AM EDT (#1167) (User Info) http://brianr.978.org/ |
Thats means there were...counting on fingers and toes... 28000 copyrighted songs to every song by an unsigned artist. All songs, including those by unsigned artists, are copyrighted as soon as they are fixed onto a physical medium. Even songs without explicit copyright notices or on which such a notice has been intentionally omitted are copyrighted under the international Berne Convention, in effect in most countries including the United States. Mirrors: CSS and LiViD, Cyber Patrol Info |
| Re:All Recorded Songs are Copyrighted (Score:1) by icebike on Saturday May 27, @01:15PM EDT (#1195) (User Info) |
| In US lay, a copyright only exists if asserted. You have to claim it, by simply stating that it is copyrighted it becomes so. |
| Maybe they served their music themselves... (Score:1) by HoriZoNe on Monday May 29, @06:44AM EDT (#1252) (User Info) |
| Maybe Metallica or whoever run the tests for them actually put out a lot of Metallica MP3 in a regular Napster client(s) and added some unknown home-made stuff. All this on a VERY fat connection and then just counted all the hits... Whereas the unknown music just got one download attempt. Would they do that just to get the figures? (maybe they modified a napsterclient to abort all transfer attempts so they did'nt release their own music. It would make the 1.4 million hit possible on a nice connection) |
| Number of unsigned artists not clear. (Score:1) by Kowh on Friday May 26, @03:52PM EDT (#700) (User Info) |
| Note that he said "of an", not "all". This may just be unclarity, but perhaps they picked one unsigned artist and then monitored just that artists songs. This means they can pick a crappy band, which no one will download except by mistake, and then draw their "one" number for greater emphasis. Not that I'm accusing them of doing just that, but there is probably no "average" unsigned band that they could monitor just like there is no "average" person. Monitoring just one artist seems a lot more realistic than all unsigned bands. Does anyone know how hard it would be to find out if 1000*n bands are signed or not? I'm assuming it's rather hard, and that finding out if just one band is signed or not is a lot easier. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @03:26PM EDT (#670) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| Monitor all titles and artists, log them to a file. Get a file of known artist (or maybe just top 40) Lar's said: "we came up with the 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music, there was one, one downloading -- one! of an unsigned artist the whole time." You've given me an extremely inaccurate way of finding titles available for download. You really think that by filtering through their list of known artists they would come up with one artist? And you call me ignorant? Hmmm... --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by yobtah on Friday May 26, @12:44PM EDT (#60) (User Info) |
| Maybe... but I think they're also pissed because they might make less money. Lars talked about "western capitalism." Metallica is definitely capitalistic first. Their main concern is making less money. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by mtrupe on Friday May 26, @01:10PM EDT (#180) (User Info) http://www.angelfire.com/in/chico |
| What is wrong with wanting to make money? What is wrong with wanting to make shitloads of money? I want to make shitloads of money. Maybe that's greedy, whatever, I think its human nature. Big deal. I don't care if Lars like money. I love money. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by edunbar93 (grimmex@yahoo.spammers-can-lick-me.com) on Friday May 26, @03:29PM EDT (#677) (User Info) |
| but I think they're also pissed because they might make less money Heh. Perhaps you just skipped right over the interview and posted without reading? This guy isn't pissed off because he might make less money. He's not too terribly concerned with making more money than he already does. (personally, if I were such an artist and had more money than I needed, I would focus on my art, because I don't _need_ to focus on making my rent.) He's pissed off because noone _asked_ him if he wanted to distribute his music on Napster. I know a number of erotic writers who really get pissed off when their stuff shows up on a porn site that charges money for their stuff. These writers aren't making _any_ money off of it, and they don't want to. They publish their stuff with the expressed intention that it be FREELY AVAILABLE. However, entirely too many people are willing to say "Hey, it's on the Internet, so it must be public domain, so I can start charging people money for it." Don't deny that this attitude exists, because it's so rampant it's not funny. And Napster is most definitely making money off of this. And they expect to make a profit too, or you wouldn't see VC's pouring millions of dollars on them. If Napster had asked Metallica if they wanted their stuff to be distributed in this way, Metallica just might have agreed. But people didn't ask, they just started raping them. And I also think it's funny the way people think about the music industry. If a guy in the Real World got a job doing the thing he really loved, people would look at him and say "hey, there's a really successful/lucky guy." But when a musician starts making money doing the thing he really loves instead of barely existing on a job at a fast-food joint, (or worse, struggling to make rent on the club circuit - most everyone would be really tempted to do "whatever it takes" under those circumstances.) then he's sold out to The Man and doesn't deserve the time of day. Gimme a break man. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by DGregory (di_gregory@hotmail.comTHANKGODFORSPAMFOLDER) on Friday May 26, @01:02PM EDT (#145) (User Info) http://www.feick.net |
| There IS a place that you can put your own mp3's on... www.mp3.com. On there, they ONLY have mp3s that the person with the rights to have let them put them on there. You might want to think about doing it with yours. I've come across some bands that are pretty good on mp3.com that no one else has heard of, since about the only big name band on there is TMBG. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by otis wildflower (otis@unixslave.com) on Friday May 26, @01:06PM EDT (#163) (User Info) |
| Yeah, my friends' band is on there and they seem pretty happ with it (I was the one who encoded the MP3s on my UltraSPARC and uploaded them to the artist site).. They've been playing together for 6-7 years or so and are as good or better than STP or Rob 'Smooth' 's band IMHO ;) There are ways... Your Working Boy, - Otis (GAIM: OtisWild) |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by GnrcMan (casey@sarahandcasey.com) on Friday May 26, @01:06PM EDT (#164) (User Info) http://www.sarahandcasey.com |
| since about the only big name band on there is TMBG. To go off on that tangent, TMBG have always been incredibly enlightened about this sort of thing...ever since dial-a-song (which, last I checked, is still connected) I'd like to hear specifically what they think about Napster and the like. --GnrcMan-- Some bastard with an unacceptable opinion thought I should change my sig. Seems he thinks it should be "The Irritating Crank". Screw 'im. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by DrXym on Friday May 26, @01:04PM EDT (#151) (User Info) |
| The unsigned artist thing is interesting since Napster requires that you know what you're searching for. Since by definition an unknown artist is, well, unknown, who the hell is ever going to find their songs? |
| Unknown != Unsigned (Score:1) by Saint Aardvark on Friday May 26, @01:20PM EDT (#230) (User Info) http://st_aardvark.tripod.com |
| Whoah there, big fella...there are plenty of musicians who aren't signed to major labels that are still not unknown. Ani DiFranco 'd kick your ass for that... I am now blessing your keyboard... |
| Re:Unknown != Unsigned (Score:1) by Defiler on Friday May 26, @02:39PM EDT (#544) (User Info) |
| Gah.. Ani DiFranco is the worst musician I've heard recently. |
| Ani (Score:1) by Shadarr (shadarr@STOPSPAMMINGME.crosswinds.net) on Friday May 26, @06:29PM EDT (#891) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~shadarr |
| Most of the people I know who listen to Ani DiFranco are 20-something hippie feminists. Whether they actually like the music is hard to determine, but I suspect they just like the dogma she's preaching. I listen to a wide variety of music, and while I won't say she's the worst musician I've heard she's certainly down there. The funny thing is that her last album didn't suck quite so bad and her longtime fans accused her of selling out. Hee hee. Scones! Oh you are a cruel giant teabag. - Kevin MacDonald |
| good point (Score:5, Insightful) by FreeUser on Friday May 26, @01:22PM EDT (#240) (User Info) http://jean.nu/ |
| Since by definition an unknown artist is, well, unknown, who the hell is ever going to find their songs? That's a good point. However, you can use the "browse user" feature and browse other songs a particular person is sharing, and stumble across stuff this way. The problem with doing this with napster (at least for those of us conscientious about downloading only music we have already paid for in another format) is, how do you tell what is legitimate "mp3.com" material, and what isn't? Other than the big-name RIAA bands, of course, which obviously aren't. A mixture of mp3.com and FreeNet is what is needed. An mp3.com style interface, overview, etc., coupled with FreeNet's inability to be censored. No more banned music or songs, in any country. We can't stop unauthorized recording, or trading of illegal copies, whether its on cassette tape or in mp3 format. We can, however, maximize the exposure of underrepresented bands, put mechanisms in place that provide the opportunity and encouragement for people to behave ethically, and accept the fact that teenagers and college students will get allot of their music for free (just as they do now on the radio or via friend-sneakernet and cassette), and that these same people will buy their music when they can afford it. I think if Lars had the ability to count the number of bootleg tapes people have (live bootlegs which he allows, or copies of studio work, which he doesn't), he would be shocked by the number. The fact that such statistics are easier to track on the net than elsewhere has perhaps contributed to his sense of panic. In addition, I have downloaded numerous songs multiple times (once at work, once onto a laptop, once at home, once on a friends PC to play the song for her, etc.). Since I own the song these aren't 'illegal', or at least 'unethical' but they would certainly show up in the artist's statistic as multiple 'illegal' downloads. I understand his fear and concern, and he has the right, however misguided, to persue whatever means he feels he needs to to protect his rights to his work, but as another pointed out in his question, he could be spending his time and energy far more wisely in developing a business model tailored to the new technical reality which has, for better or worse, completely changed the economic landscape of mass media distribution. If Lars & Co. are wise, they or their agents will get in touch with mp3.com. Their contract may not allow them to have any business or distribution arrangement, but they could learn a tremendous amount from the conversation regardless. In the meantime, I will personally continue my boycott of RIAA affiliated music for philisophical reasons, irrespective of how much I may like or dislike a particular personality. |
| Re:good point (Score:3, Insightful) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @02:15PM EDT (#462) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| I suspect that if you counted the bootlegs of concerts, Lars would be not especially surprised, and if he were surprised, it'd probably be positive. I suspect he wouldn't even be surprised by the number of bootleg tapes of studio albums. Why? Because I suspect that number is self-limiting, in a way that MP3's aren't. Bootleg tapes of studio albums aren't that good. They wear out. Hell, I haven't personally put any music but mine on a tape in at least five years. People tend to buy CD's if they like an album... IF the copy they have now isn't a perfect, non-degrading, digital one. You've got lots of ideas for how a band can get sold among the tiny little group of people who are out looking for new bands. Record companies have found ways to get a new band sold to people who are in music stores. Until you can do that in your business model, you're not improving on anything. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:good point (Score:2) by FreeUser on Friday May 26, @05:40PM EDT (#840) (User Info) http://jean.nu/ |
| Why? Because I suspect that number is self-limiting, in a way that MP3's aren't. Bootleg tapes of studio albums aren't that good. They wear out. Hell, I haven't personally put any music but mine on a tape in at least five years. People tend to buy CD's if they like an album... IF the copy they have now isn't a perfect, non-degrading, digital one. I probably should have included unauthorized CD copies people have made with their CDR burners and $0.75 blank CD's when I made that point. This technology has been in the mainstream for going on three years (and I don't know anybody who hasn't made an illegal CD). These are digital copies with no reduction in quality (unlike mp3's, which lose significant quality in the first generation). I suspect of Lars were able to count the number of metallica CD's alone, he would be horrified (and justly so). Nevertheless, despite 3 years of widespread availability and use of CD burners, and over 1 year of widespread mp3 usage, CD sales are up. You've got lots of ideas for how a band can get sold among the tiny little group of people who are out looking for new bands. Record companies have found ways to get a new band sold to people who are in music stores. Until you can do that in your business model, you're not improving on anything. From the RIAA's point of view, the emerging paradigm will certainly not be an improvement over the stranglehold they currently enjoy over marketing, distribution, etc. The reality is that the internet in general, and mp3 technology in particular, have fundamentally changed the economic landscape with regard to the distribution of mass media. Either you change your business model to take that into account, whether or not it is an "improvement" over the existing monopolistic cartel (from your point of view), or you simply go under. Legislation, legal thuggary, and the like will do little to stem the tide. Even if the United States were to resort to extreme authoritarian measures to maintain the status quo, you can count on most of the rest of the world (Europe possibly excepted) putting up some resistence. Given the nature of the internet, even one small island refusing to go along with such nonsense will suffice to undermine the entire effort. Enter technologies like FreeNet and begin to see how fruitless such efforts at putting the genie back in the bottle really are. In short, adapt to the new reality or perish. |
| Re:good point (Score:2) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Saturday May 27, @02:28AM EDT (#1106) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| The CD's are an interesting question. I see no benefit to duping CD's; I already have the ones I want. Even then, it's still not a *distributed* medium; even if I were letting friends dup my CD's, the copies wouldn't be going to thousands of people. MP3's are *not* widespread. Not by comparison with, say, CD players. MP3's aren't even close yet. In a couple years, when MP3 market penetration is in the tens of millions, and at least a few million of those people have portables, *THEN* we'll see what effect it has. Also, "CD sales are up" and "MP3 is widely used" are not necessarily related. We're also, if you hadn't noticed, in a period of fairly strong economic growth, with record low unemployment, meaning, a lot of people who couldn't afford CD's in '98 may be able to now... We have no evidence for causality. (We also have no real evidence against it. My instinct is to guess that, right now, MP3's are having only marginal effects either way on CD sales.) So, here's my question: Let's say that the music industry *can't* find a way to adapt to the MP3 thing, because there's nothing anyone cares about once they can copy MP3's. So, they go under. What are we going to listen to? It may turn out that, once perfect copies are that easy, it's not worth it for anyone to go "pro". Touring may not be an option, if you can't make enough money on album sales to fund the marketing... This is why I think we need to find a solution that keeps the musicians paid. The alternative might be a serious drop in the quantity and quality of new music produced. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Re:good point (Score:2) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Saturday May 27, @08:59PM EDT (#1211) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Yeah, "do it for the love of music". That means no full-time efforts on producing albums. Crappy recordings because you can't afford studio time. Using lower-quality equipment so you can't get the sound you really wanted. Imagine if you couldn't get paid for programming, so you were stuck using a 386 laptop running Windows 3.1, but you did it because you "loved programming". An improvement? I don't think so. Get real; professional musicians are a good thing in terms of availability of music. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| Record companies... (Score:2) by Danse (danse@no.s.p.a.m.satx.net) on Friday May 26, @06:08PM EDT (#874) (User Info) |
The record industry doesn't seem to do all that much to sell the bands except to get them played on the radio and tv. If a band gets a decent amount of radio play, and mtv play, they get popular. Now, the record companies can fund the making of albums and videos, which is why Lars is saying that they're like banks, and that they, or some similar entity, will always be necessary in some capacity. I haven't found fault with his statement yet, so I think he's right about that. Someone has to front the money for the expensive stuff, and whoever it is is going to expect a return on that investment. You can't do it through ordinary banks because that just isn't something that they will fund. Record companies play an active role in the process, and they know the business, which is why they are willing to fund these artists. I'd really like to see an alternative to this situation. MP3.com is a good start, and it would be nice if radio stations would work with companies like that, but they don't front money to the bands for videos and studio time, and if they did, they'd probably want the control, and a return on it just like the record companies. |
| Re:good point (Score:3, Insightful) by Malc (Malcolm_Ferguson@yahoo.NO_SPAM_PLEASE.com) on Friday May 26, @02:52PM EDT (#586) (User Info) |
"Since by definition an unknown artist is, well, unknown, who the hell is ever going to find their songs? I think that it's a very major point. I gave up on searching through MP3's for new music because there was too much choice and 99% of what I listened I didn't like or thought was sub-standard. Maybe I'm too picky. The record companies pay a lot of more to people to do this full-time. I grew up liking just about everything that labels such as RoadRunner put out. My tastes have changed now, but there is a place for record labels: they provide a selection from which I am more likely to find something that I like. If I want something new, I can look at the (generally indie) record labels and browse their catalogues. |
| Re:good point (Score:1) by MrEd (tones at tande dot com) on Friday May 26, @03:27PM EDT (#673) (User Info) |
| >Since by definition an unknown artist is, well, unknown, who the hell is ever going to find their songs? That's a good point. However, you can use the "browse user" feature and browse other songs a particular person is sharing, and stumble across stuff this way. Except that the vast majority of people only share the songs which they themselves have downloaded off Napster... leaving their main collection elsewhere to stave off bandwidth-sucking users. Selfish? Yes. It happens. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by knugfjunk (baneswish@ihatehotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @01:09PM EDT (#176) (User Info) |
| A band I was in a few years ago posted a couple of mp3's and wavs and we actually got a few random orders for our cd and got some small gigs for it. Lars seems convinced that if you are in a band, you automattically are doing it for a living. I'd be willing to bet that the great majority of bands are just "normal" working people or teenagers in high school just messing around in their basements or garages jamming away. |
| Actually his weakest point. (Score:3, Interesting) by Chouser (chouser@bluweb.com) on Friday May 26, @01:11PM EDT (#185) (User Info) http://bluweb.com/ |
I just put a couple MP3's up, and forgot about 'em. Last week, I got a fan letter. I think your statements shows how weak his point about young artists is. I don't doubt that there was only 1 non-label artist download on Napster in 48 hours, because Napster is not a good forum for finding artists you haven't heard of. Try mp3.com, instead. But his point was that young artists need record labels in order to be heard. This is so wrong. What are your chances of getting signed by a record label? From your comments, I would bet you would agree they are slim. But by circumventing classic (archaic) record labels you got heard, which is more than any record label would have done for you. So he is wrong to think that classic labels are needed by young artists. And he said himself that as soon as they get out from under their currect contract with a record label, that they will be looking at internet distribution ideas. This obviously spells doom for classic labels. Other than that point, however, I think he was surprisingly articulate and I can certainly understand his position. Whether or not trading music should be illegal, it currently is, and by law, Metallica should be able to seek some kind of relief. Whether or not what Napster as a company is doing is illegal or not remains to be seen... BTW, I kept referring to 'classic' record labels, because places like mp3.com and labels like GoodNoise "get it", and fulfill some of the roles of record labels that are still needed. --Chouser "To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." -LL |
| but that's the point (Score:3, Insightful) by Sister Mary (sister_mary@lovemail.com) on Friday May 26, @02:55PM EDT (#595) (User Info) |
| mp3.com is for unsigned artists, yeah. Napster is a corporation looking to go ipo who doesn't give a crap about unsigned artists. THAT'S the whole POINT!!! Napster makes money off the intellectual property of others, under the current system. End of story. Gnutella and some other programs don't, which is a BIG distinction. --Hail Mary, for she has the largest shotgun of them all.-- |
| Re:Actually his weakest point. (Score:1) by Malcontent (malcontent@msgto.com) on Saturday May 27, @03:11AM EDT (#1118) (User Info) |
| "I think he was surprisingly articulate". Really? he seemed to have a bit of difficulty with the english language and an obvious ignorance of the technology involved. He is a dinosaur in a dinosaur band. He is going axtinct and he doesn't even know it yet. Do unto others what has been done to you |
| Re:Actually his weakest point. (Score:1) by scotch51 (slashdotted@overbyte.com) on Monday May 29, @12:55PM EDT (#1256) (User Info) http://www.overbyte.com |
That's the nature of transcribing spoken English. Read the legal transcripts of any court proceeding or legal wiretap and you'll see the same thing. As humans, we only rarely speak as we write, and most of those times we're reading what was already written, as in giving a speech; or performing, as in a play.
The important point is that it's his intellectual property and therefore he should have some control over how it's used for someone else's profit. The good part about this lawsuit is that it's going to focus attention on the issue. Lars and Co are also going to learn a lot in this process as will you, me and the IP industry. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:3, Insightful) by RomulusNR on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#298) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| Aside from half the questions chosen being pretty piss-poor and redundant (/me watches my karma drop even more), Lars' answers weren't the least bit useful. If anything, he proved once and for all that Metallica really doesn't know what the fuck is going on. It looks more like a show of the agressive metal theme being played on a corporate stage. Lars would like it to look like its the scruffy, underdog metalheads fighting the evil, thieving corporation. And in reality its the embittered, out of touch, aging superstars against the geeks. It's feels like an orcs vs. kender battle suitable for a D&D tourney. I don't know how Lars can take this fiasco seriously. I can understand the "I can take a dare" theory of why they went through the trouble of finding all the names. I mean, hiring someone else to find the names for them. But they have less than a passing knowledge of whats going on. It's not anything like the macho aggressiveness of a street fight, of the sort you would expect from a metalhead, but the cowardly scheming of a rich, well-connected bureaucrat (with lots of yes men) trying to... i don't know... trying to stop the X-Men, or something. What I mean is that Metallica isn't getting so much as dirt under their fingernails over this, but that doesn't stop them from parading at the front of the horde when the gauntlets are thrown. Enough metaphor. I'm not impressed by any of Metallica's arguments. Lars' answers are full of holes, not only exhibiting his almost total lack of knowledge of even the details of the case, but also repeatedly contradicting himself. Sure, Napster trading isn't causing our income to go down, but it's the principle of the thing -- unless the trading is on a smaller scale, like the guy down the street with the Iron Maiden record; that's a different principle I guess. The bottom line is Metallica wants to pick a fight, and they can't do it with 600,000+ users directly (their current count), and they can't do it with Gnutella or Freenet (which they haven't quite realized yet), so they do it with Napster. They want to blame Napster for what 600,000 other people want to do with their music. Maybe they should blame Jagermeister for all those mornings they were ill and hung-over, too. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Bryan Ischo (bji-slash@ischo.com) on Friday May 26, @01:48PM EDT (#360) (User Info) http://www.ischo.com |
| Well, at least he gave REASONS for his beliefs on this issue. If you did that, instead of just attacking this Lars guy without any apparent justification, then I might take you half as seriously as I took him. BTW, with all the negative spin on the Metallica-Napster issue here on Slashdot, I had let myself come to the same conclusion as everyone else, that Metallica was just being greedy assholes about this. But like alot of people, I am sure, I read the interview, and am extremely happy that I have been given the opportunity to read about the real issues instead of just hear the spin, and I have changed my mind about Metallica. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:2) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Friday May 26, @04:23PM EDT (#743) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| But like alot of people, I am sure, I read the interview, and am extremely happy that I have been given the opportunity to read about the real issues instead of just hear the spin, and I have changed my mind about Metallica. How do you mean "changed your mind"? So instead of being greedy assholes they are now just misinformed assholes? (not looking for a flamewar, I'm just curious if that's what you meant) And what were those "real issues", while we're at it? Was it Lars' "spin" that changed your mind? -- currently at V.9 |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Saturday May 27, @01:14AM EDT (#1077) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| we make up superfluous excuses about being pinched by record companies,... ...who, incidentally, were cited by the government for illegally inflating CD prices... but I suspect we'd still bitch if music was all you can listen for $1. Music is already all-you-can-listen, for $0. Remember radio? And according to the RIAA's own ads for the 1999 Grammy Awards, "the music belongs to all of us." what happens next? we get crappy content. ...a good portion of people who are motivated by the riches of content making won't produce anymore. If you ask me, as it stands now, the riches of content making seems to motivate people to make some pretty crappy content. I really think you should look in to that radio thing to see what I mean. If you're defending the existence of major music companies... personally I think that the music being put out by most of these companies is so bad that, if the popularity of their music coupled with the ease of illicit downloading via Napster is going to demotivate those companies to stop producing the crap they sell, I'm not the least bit upset. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Saturday May 27, @02:12AM EDT (#1100) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| yet, we don't want to pay for content. we make up superfluos excuses about being pinched by record companies, but I suspect we'd still bitch if music was all you can listen for $1. so we won't pay for content anymore. what happens next? Where do you get the idea that we shouldn't pay for content? We should just pay something that's a bit closer to the actual price. content will never go away but a good portion of people who are motivated by the riches of content making (this is still a capitalist world, right) won't produce anymore. we all lose out. for what? Hmm, I have the general feeling that those who produce content solely for the value they expect to gain in return are producing content that I probably don't want anyway. I'd rather support and consume content created for content's sake. let's let the artists control their content, ok? How EXACTLY do you propost to do that? And it's not the artists' content, it's the copyright holders, a big diff IMHO. -- currently at V.9 |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Friday May 26, @04:26PM EDT (#745) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| Well, at least he gave REASONS for his beliefs on this issue. If you did that, instead of just attacking this Lars guy without any apparent justification, then I might take you half as seriously as I took him. Well, I don't take you seriously, since you didn't do that, either. (Neener neener.) I'm not here to argue my views on Napster with Lars. For the record, they're rather Stallmanian, and I doubt they would go over well. But in any case, I'm not going to try and engage in a point/counterpoint with Lars on the issue, because I'm positive he's not around to hear it. My response was directed at Slashdot readers, not Lars. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by plunge (cosym@yahoo.com) on Saturday May 27, @02:03AM EDT (#1096) (User Info) http://drew.cosym.net |
| This just in- some guy from Romulus has opinion! He wont tell anyone what it is though, because no one can measure up to his standards. But damn- he sure thought the interview was stupid! |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:2, Informative) by Gorbie on Friday May 26, @04:44PM EDT (#777) (User Info) |
| I am not sure that what Metallica is doing can be equated to a testosterone-laden pissing contest. I think Lars stated, acurately if not eloquently, that the members of Metallica feel that wholesale distribution of their music by an unauthorized corporate entity is wrong, and that they choose to fight it. This is about distribution channels and how Metallica's music travels through them. Its about their right to prohibit a company like Napster from reaping the rewards of Metallica's hard work without any accountability to the people that generated the product in the first place. Equating this to people making mix tapes for their car has no relevance here. If Record Town decided to open up a bunch of Metallica CD's in their store and allow anyone who purchased blank tapes to tape them in the store without paying, that would be a similar situation and I'm sure the band would take action. They aren't interested in getting into anyone's livingroom and stopping their fans from enjoying the music. They are attacking the corporation facilitating mass copyright violation. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by umrgregg (n_m_g_@_u_m_r_._e_d_u) on Friday May 26, @05:12PM EDT (#814) (User Info) |
| I think you hit that pretty much on the head. --- "An eye for an eye would make the world blind." --Ghandi "A tooth for a tooth would be great for Jello stock." --Nick G. |
| you are absolutely wrong (Score:1) by SethJohnson (seth@*REMOVETHIS*mac6100.dhs.org) on Friday May 26, @05:56PM EDT (#862) (User Info) http://mac6100.dhs.org/~seth |
>They are attacking the corporation facilitating mass copyright violation. Seth Want a cool job? |
| Re:you are absolutely wrong (Score:1) by DrumHacksaw (hacksaw@FISHFISHFISHhacksaw.org) on Saturday May 27, @01:14PM EDT (#1194) (User Info) |
| 1. Did Napster even try to protect copyright? It's one thing to say they are a service provider, but it's clear that unlik regular ISP's, which in effect promote free discourse, Napster can only exist by promoting the copying of materials that are copyrighted about 99.9 percent of the time. 2. You can't run a business on a protocol. Napster had some business plan that would let them make money. Did they have a model to compensate the artists who works they were using to promote this business model? Apparently not. Metallica's suit could be likened to restrictions on gun dealers: You may only sell assuming you promote correct usage. Sell guns to people who basicly say they are going after the president, and a case could be made that you are promoting assasination. If an ISP promoted use of their system to arrange for assassinations, you can be sure it would be shut down. Pin the spig. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Saturday May 27, @02:21AM EDT (#1104) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| wholesale distribution of their music by an unauthorized corporate entity is wrong I just said to another poster that, if I were to look at this situation through the confused, not quite-getting-it eyes of Lars, I might feel much more sympathetic towards Metallica. (But, I'd pity myself for being clueless about what I was dealing with.) So, once again, this view of things is through the muddy eyes that equate Napster with an underground pressing plant. An operation that deliberately acquires a copy of a particular artist's music product, then deliberately copies it themselves, and then deliberately sells those copies themselves, and pockets a direct profit from each individual sale of a copy. Unfortunately for Metallica's position, Napster does none of these things. to prohibit a company like Napster from reaping the rewards of Metallica's hard work It's pretty arbitrary. Again, Lars doesn't get it because he's been encouraged to believe that Napster is simply just like that underground pressing plant. And he's lost as to why it's not a clear-cut case of copyright infringement. Lars seems to want to think that Napster's profit equals some pre-existing K plus (individual transfers of Metallica songs) x (price per song). Of course, that's not at all true. If Record Town decided to open up a bunch of Metallica CD's in their store and allow anyone who purchased blank tapes to tape them in the store without paying, ...I'm sure the band would take action. That's an interesting scenario. My question is who would Metallica take action against? The Record Town or the people making the copies? As a matter of fact, if I walk into Tower Records with a live tape recorder while they are playing the latest Metallica album -- assuming we agree that that would be a copyright violation -- who would be responsible? They are attacking the corporation facilitating mass copyright violation. That's the big hole here. "Facilitating". Let's go back to the Jagermeister analogy I used. I said that if its OK to sue Napster for the phenomena of MP3 trading, it should be OK to sue alcohol companies for incurring headache, dizziness, and nausea. Not to mention various cases of rape and vehicular homicide; and even less to mention loss of money, productivity, reputation, virginity.... There's also the gun companies, which through the sale of their products have "facilitated" murder, armed robbery, assault, and less obvious crimes like treason, insurance fraud, poaching.... And the tobacco companies. Incidentally the list of crimes "facilitated" by the sale of tobacco is pretty low. It pretty much stops at lung cancer and sale of contraband to minors. That's the only industry that's been hit with anything close to the broad arrow of "facilitating". So... going back to your Record Town scenario, what about the companies who make audiocassette tapes? Or CD-R's? And the tape decks and the CD-R drives? Those companies are also "facilitating" the illegal duplication of music. Shouldn't Metallica sue them, too? Shouldn't they prevent the people who copy Metallica albums from buying cassette tapes? (Uh, somehow?) One of my points in previous threads was that Napster is just an arbitrary target, and what they thought would be an easy one. There's no evidence to show that Napster has somehow done more damage than audio media sellers or makers of recording devices. There's no reason for anyone to believe that Napster is somehow more responsible for what is going on than the users who are doing the trading. If anyone is "facilitating" the trade of Metallica's music, its the users, and only the users. Without the users doing the trading (far longer than Napster has been around!), there would be no Napster. No, Napster is a high-profile target, and one that is easy to attack in the popular media, and attacking them is just meant to make a stink. There's no principle involved. Like I said, they just want to pick a fight, and Napster is it. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Metallica not sueing napster, just banning users (Score:1) by Platypii (__ken__@yahoo.com) on Friday May 26, @04:45PM EDT (#778) (User Info) |
| you said that "The bottom line is Metallica wants to pick a fight, and they can't do it with 600,000+ users directly (their current count), and they can't do it with Gnutella or Freenet (which they haven't quite realized yet), so they do it with Napster. They want to blame Napster for what 600,000 other people want to do with their music.", but you have to keep in mind, that they aren't taking action against napster, they simply banned the users in question, which was prefectly fair. They broke the law, they should just feel lucky they weren't actually sued! |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Eric the .5b on Friday May 26, @05:18PM EDT (#817) (User Info) |
I think Lars proved he does understand the basic issues involved. Sadly, everyone here is denouncing the guy, first of all, because he came across as a bit inarticulate in a verbatim transcript of what looks like a phone call (which is incredibly stupid - have you ever paid attention to a conversation and listened to how people trip over phrases and wander around to get to the gist of an idea? - especially in light of just how badly some slashdot posts come across, when the writers have editing and preview capability). Second of all, everyone's trashing him for the simple reason that he disagrees with Slashdot Wisdom. Ergo, because he disagrees with Slashdotters, he's a fool, QED. Lars has done his research enough to know what's going on. I was actually impressed; I did not expect him to have any real understanding. He just doesn't buy the self-serving arguments of MP3 pirates and Napster, and he presented reasonably well why he doesn't, particularly in the tricky rhetorical areas of "isn't this just like tape-trading?" and "this will free artists from record companies!" And, for the record, I suspect that the number of 1 unsigned artist's MP3 DLed in a 48 hour period is very close to the actual number. Even the people here talking about "unsigned" artists whose MP3s they have found will tell you about owning that artist's CDs. Hello, people! Indie record companies ARE record companies! Someone signed up with such a company is by definition NOT an "unsigned artist"! Napster is a tool used something like 99% of the time to illegally distribute music of published artists. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @06:20PM EDT (#885) (User Info) |
| Hey, nice posturing without saying anything of use at all. ENCORE |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Adam Selene on Friday May 26, @07:33PM EDT (#940) (User Info) |
| I particularly liked where he called Gnutella and Freenet "Companies" that can be stopped - The guy is clueless. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Tardigrade (roevans--at--linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us) on Friday May 26, @07:46PM EDT (#951) (User Info) |
| "Sure, Napster trading isn't causing our income to go down, but it's the principle of the thing -- unless the trading is on a smaller scale, like the guy down the street with the Iron Maiden record; that's a different principle I guess." That was only part of his beef. The other was that Napster was potentially profiting from this. The bootleggers of old generally were not. You have to look at his argument in it's entirety. At the very least, they are being non-hypocritical by *not* going after the individual mp3-traders (ie. the bootleggers in your example), but after the Napster corporation. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Saturday May 27, @01:47AM EDT (#1091) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| That was only part of his beef. The other was that Napster was potentially profiting from this. The bootleggers of old generally were not. Perhaps, but this would lead me to think that, okay, Lars doesn't mind users of Napster trading the songs off their CDs any more than he would mind kids in the old neighborhood trading copies of his garage tapes. But, he does, because he just got 600,000 of them banned from Napster for doing it. Metallica did try to sue Napster, and found out (or decided [or their lawyers did]) that they wouldn't be able to pull it off. So now they are trying to weaken them by handing them big stacks of paper. But the trading phenomena isn't going to go away. Granted, they don't know that yet. So... if I look at the argument through the confused view of the Internet that Lars has, then maybe I can see some merit to what he's doing. But since I know what is really going to come out of all this, I think I would change tack if I were him. At the very least, they are being non-hypocritical by *not* going after the individual mp3-traders (ie. the bootleggers in your example), but after the Napster corporation. How do you conclude that they aren't going after the traders, if they are trying to get them banned? I mean sure, they are basically trying to ping-flood Napster with lots of paper, but... it's not just an attempt to waste Napster Inc.'s resources, but an attempt to wear them down until they become "responsible" and manage to prevent the users from trading their (i.e. Metallica's) music. But banning users who trade Metallica songs wouldn't affect Napster even if they got say $10/mo. per user with no possibility of re-registering with a new name. The effect is to deter users from trading Metallica songs. The message is if you trade Metallica songs, you'll get banned; if not, you won't. Right now Metallica is just policing Napster's users for them. And it's a waste of their effort, when they could be writing new songs instead. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by Tardigrade (roevans--at--linknet.kitsap.lib.wa.us) on Sunday May 28, @04:46AM EDT (#1225) (User Info) |
| "How do you conclude that they aren't going after the traders, if they are trying to get them banned? I mean sure, they are basically trying to ping-flood Napster with lots of paper, but... it's not just an attempt to waste Napster Inc.'s resources, but an attempt to wear them down until they become "responsible" and manage to prevent the users from trading their (i.e. Metallica's) music." Napster didn't allow them any other recourse to getting their songs off the list. Metallica didn't *legally* go after the users. Napster did state that Metallica would have to give them the id's of the users if they wanted this stopped... so Metallica did. Metallica also gave fans permission to make bootleg tapes of concerts, they didn't give the fans permission to trade mpeg's of the cd's. There is a distinct difference between actions of differing magnitudes. Such would be the difference between a murder, and serial murder; a couple of bucks to a bellringer, and the donation of one's estate to a charity. "Right now Metallica is just policing Napster's users for them." Because Napster refused to do it themselves (according to Lars, that is). |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Monday May 29, @01:23PM EDT (#1257) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| Metallica didn't *legally* go after the users. I'd say that's only because they couldn't, or didn't know how. Napster did state that Metallica would have to give them the id's of the users if they wanted this stopped... so Metallica did. I don't think even Lars is clueless enough to think that Napster is directly responsible for their songs being listed. I mean... do they not realize that each ID they turned in is an actual person? Metallica also gave fans permission to make bootleg tapes of concerts, they didn't give the fans permission to trade mpeg's of the cd's. Which is an issue they have with the "fans" who have the MP3's, not anyone else. There is a distinct difference between actions of differing magnitudes. Still, a matter of muddled perspective. Say the average trader offering Metallica MP3's has an album worth of them taken say once or twice a day. That's a resonable quota for a kid in high school sharing his Metallica CD with friends who make a copy of it. If I'm in high school and I tell my whole class that I have the new Metallica CD, and they can borrow it from me if they want, aren't I comitting the same crime at the same magnitude as the average MP3 trader? This what they don't get. Despite their perception that the crime done via MP3 is somehow more damaging, it's not the case. "Right now Metallica is just policing Napster's users for them." Because Napster refused to do it themselves (according to Lars, that is). I have a hard time believing that Metallica thinks the 'controllers' of a society are responsible for the actions of that society's members. This is heavy metal we're talking about. It would be like Metallica taking responsibility for the guy in the mosh pit who lands on his head. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by demi on Friday May 26, @10:20PM EDT (#1019) (User Info) |
| Well, I don't think the interview was dumb. It's unfortunate that Lars didn't answer the questions in writing, frankly, because a transcript of a phone conversation does sound pretty stupid, although I also think that helped convince people that Metallica, not the record label, was behind the lawsuit. But Lars really doesn't get it--he says his beef is not with fans or individual napster users; but it is! He doesn't understand peer-to-peer file sharing--he thinks people are downloading pirated Metallica mp3s from napster.com. He thinks the same kind of central "company" organization is happening with Gnutella and so forth. His beef isn't with Napster any more than with ISPs or the phone company, all three of which provide the medium for exchanging musing, it's with the end users themselves. And that's ugly, although I think it's within Metallica's right. demi |
| Re:There is a difference (Score:1) by nocent on Friday May 26, @11:47PM EDT (#1043) (User Info) |
| Sure, Napster trading isn't causing our income to go down, but it's the principle of the thing -- They are doing this because of the potential in the future for it to become a huge financial problem if it isn't one already. Home tapers they feel will never hurt their sales as much because of the reduction in quality of their tapes and because you could only trade with a few people at a time. It's the potential of millions of perfect digital copies available to millions that scares them. He said: "Understand one thing: this is not about a lot of money right now, because the money that's being lost right now is really pocket change, ok? It's about the priciple of the thing and it's about what could happen if this kind of thing is allowed to exist and run as rampant and out of control for the next 5 years as it has been for the last 6 months. Then it can become a money issue. Right now it's not a money issue." You wrote: unless the trading is on a smaller scale, like the guy down the street with the Iron Maiden record; that's a different principle I guess. Perhaps the "principle" Lars is talking about is the principle to be able to say "No, I don't want to be a part of it". He said, "What it ultimately comes down to, and this is really the simplest way of saying it, is 'Who controls it?' And I want the right to control what is mine. And if I decide to give -- I respect the next guy, who wants to put his music on Napster, but I want him to respect the fact that maybe I don't. It's that simple. It's really the point. This is what the whole point of this country is, you have the right to make your own choices in this country, and we were not given that right. People take for granted that our music should be out there and be traded. What if we don't advocate that? They shouldn't argue with that. Napster has the right to exist. I support Napster's right to exist, OK? But I want them to support my right to not be part of it." |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:3, Interesting) by plunge (cosym@yahoo.com) on Saturday May 27, @02:12AM EDT (#1099) (User Info) http://drew.cosym.net |
| Regardless, no one has made any sort of convincing argument as to why these users deserve free music. The arguments here all biol down to "you can't stop us- neener neener!" and "you're stupid and misinformed." Guess what- it doesn't matter if Lars is a complete fool (and despite his relative net innocence, I think this interview showed to me that he's not)- he has a right to say what can be done with his stuff. You're welcome to hate him for it. You're even welcome to point out that such efforts don't hurt the industry or bands (which I'm still not sure about, and I don't think anyone else has a legitimate ability to be sure about either) or even that its benefical via free advertising. It's still his stuff, which was released under his terms. Maybe he's behind the times. Maybe it's counterproductive. But that's HIS decision to make. If it kills Metalica's future, maybe he'll learn. But it in no way justifies stealing. It is entirely hypocritical to claim to hate the state of the music industry and then to take their music all the same. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:2) by ddstreet (ddstreet@ieee.org) on Saturday May 27, @06:47PM EDT (#1204) (User Info) |
| Regardless, no one has made any sort of convincing argument as to why these users deserve free music. No, actually Lars himself gave the reason in the interview. Ok. Lars says that it is ok for a person to copy their friend's music. Now, this amounts to one person copying another's music using a tape deck or CD burner. This is no different than one person copying another person's music using Napster! Lars mentions that that one person copying a friend's tape is lower quality than using Napster, but this is not a valid point; is it ok to copy a tape, but not a CD? Many people have CD burners/duplicators. If tape copying is ok, CD copying is ok too. After all, who among us can really tell the difference in a master tape and a copied tape (assuming a good tape dubber)? Lars' last point was the quantity of Napster. This is just silly. Ok, Lars, why don't you tell us exactly what the cut-off on copied tapes is? If one is ok, is 10? Can I copy 20 of my friend's records? 100? |
| Habitual bootlegging or Piracy? (Score:1) by ^chewie on Saturday June 03, @04:21AM EDT (#1304) (User Info) http://wookimus.net/chewie |
Lars' last point was the quantity of Napster. This is just silly. Ok, Lars, why don't you tell us exactly what the cut-off on copied tapes is? If one is ok, is 10? Can I copy 20 of my friend's records? 100? This statement is purely argumentative and misses the point that Lars is hinting toward, but not outright stating. Reproduction of media has time, cost, and scope of influence to consider when making this argument. Tapes are cumbersome, outdated, expensive, and is certainly limited-life media format. MP3's living in Internet space are sleek, extremely mobile, easily reproducable, and almost eternal. If you really take the time to add it all up, MP3's and the Internet have won the distribution contest hands down. So, it turns out that Lars does have a point hidden in this ad hoc-ish style interview. Computers and the Internet -- not simply Napster -- have changed the rules. Subsequently, so have the definitions of bootlegging, which Metallica supports, and piracy, the unauthorized mass distribution of copyright protected materials. The fact that Metallica went after Napster is simply an ends to a mean. They disagree with the forum/environment/service/whathaveyou Napster provides and the manner in which it provides it. This discussion isn't really about what constitutes a legal media or distribution path, or the business practices of record companies, rather how to protect copyright holders in this new technological environment. Look outside the box at the larger picture. On a side note, I'll take Lars' implied advice. Bootleg all you want (tape, mp3, whatever), just don't make a professional habit of it. ^chewie |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by shandrew (shandrew+slashdotorgcomment@alumni.stanford.org) on Saturday May 27, @11:59PM EDT (#1215) (User Info) |
| he has a right to say what can be done with his stuff. Wrong. He sold many of those rights to the record companies. Regardless, once you release something, it is less in your control. If you want to keep it under absolute control, just don't release it; don't sell it. |
| Re:Out of the mouths of drummers (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Friday May 26, @04:21PM EDT (#741) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| You didn't really think Lars was going to magically get a clue, recant, and say "Jeez, we were really acting like a bunch of fuckin' assholes, weren't we?". Did you? No. But the pulled-out-of-his-ass banter that passed for an interview here wasn't the only way they could have answered this. You seem to use the term "get a clue" to mean the same as "recant", which isn't necessarily true. They could be perfectly clueful, and still remain on their crusade. If Lars had said "well, this is the first battle before we tackle the real big problems" such as gnutella networks and Joe's FTP L33ch S1te, that would show cluefulness. Or, if he had said "well, I guess the real thing we need to attack is the public opinion of album dubbing", that would also show cluefulness. But he doesn't show anything close to a clue. He basically says "now we're suing Napster, and soon, when those Gnutella and Freenet companies get big enough, we'll sue them too". He doesn't get it, and he's in for a shock if he's involved in this circus long enough to see it that far. That's my first point. My second point is that he basically puts his own foot in his mouth by trying to defend live concert bootlegging and home recording while attacking MP3 trading. He goes so far as to advocate duplication of unowned albums and then tries to cop out out of the contradiction by saying its a different issue because its done on a smaller scale than Napster. (I don't doubt that the root of that conundrum comes from Lars' having taped friends' records while never having downloaded an MP3 himself). I point these things out because bad musicians and others like the one that posted the beginning of this thread are going "yeah Lars, rock on! (party time! excellent!)" and declaring their undying support for his cause, when this article should be a reason for them to step back and realize the flaws in those arguments before they bark up the same wrong tree as Metallica. -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Out of the mouths of drummers (Score:1) by jshare (jwiz@8inc.com) on Friday May 26, @05:20PM EDT (#820) (User Info) |
| That's my first point. My second point is that he basically puts his own foot in his mouth by trying to defend live concert bootlegging and home recording while attacking MP3 trading. He goes so far as to advocate duplication of unowned albums and then tries to cop out out of the contradiction by saying its a different issue because its done on a smaller scale than Napster. (I don't doubt that the root of that conundrum comes from Lars' having taped friends' records while never having downloaded an MP3 himself). I guess I don't see how this is putting his foot in his mouth. It is a different issue. One is worth your time to pursue, one isn't. It's not about whether trading (MP3s or bootlegs) is "morally right" or "morally wrong." I think it is pretty clear that they would be well within their rights if the also went after the bootleggers. They choose not to. That doesn't have anything to do with Napster. It's a different situation; they deal with it in a different manner. I agree that it is the same issue involved. I think they have the same rights in either situation. But they aren't going after bootleggers. They are going after Napster. Bootleggers have nothing to do with their case against Napster. When Lars answered the question about this topic, he was explaining why they chose to go after Napster and why they choose not to go after bootleggers. Yes, both are breaking the same laws. Yes, they could go after both of them. Nowhere does he say that he gives up his rights against bootleggers. He just doesn't enforce them. I don't see where the conflict lies. Jordan |
| Something needs fixing.. before it's too late... (Score:2) by Danse (danse@no.s.p.a.m.satx.net) on Friday May 26, @04:43PM EDT (#773) (User Info) |
I've been a Metallica fan for the last dozen or so years. I was really pretty ticked off when they sued Napster, because I felt they were missing the target. I wasn't one of those people who was wanting to burn all my Metallica cds and t-shirts and whatnot, but I was annoyed. After reading this interview though, I can see why Lars is upset and why they felt they needed to do something right away, even if don't think it was the right thing. Now, I think Napster does bear some responsibility here. They operate and profit from the service they provide. They told Metallica what they would have to do (i.e. give them a list of names) in order for Napster to comply with their wishes. I think Lars is right that Napster didn't really think they'd do it, and now that they did, it's being used as a PR club against Metallica. I think it's pretty obvious that the users who were banned were committing copyright infringement, simply because they were allowing anyone to copy their mp3s without any verification of whether that person owns the right to that music. I think the heart of the matter is that Metallica does have the right to enforce its copyrights, which is what they seem to be doing here. Unfortunately, the way Napster is set up, anyone who allows others to download copyrighted music (that they don't hold the copyright to) from their drives is potentially committing copyright infringement. Now not everyone is actually infringing, because I'm sure that in many of the cases, both the host user and the client user own a copy of the music. Unfortunately, there is no way to distinguish unless you can identify the people and verify that they own the right to a copy of the music. Since that is probably not feasible, we have a problem. How do artists protect their copyrights without bankrupting themselves with consultant and lawyer fees, while at the same time not interfering with legitimate copying? This is something that needs a solution before the government and the RIAA get together and come up with their own solution, which I can guarantee we won't like. |
| Re:Something needs fixing.. before it's too late.. (Score:1) by shandrew (shandrew+slashdotorgcomment@alumni.stanford.org) on Sunday May 28, @12:25AM EDT (#1216) (User Info) |
| How do artists protect their copyrights without bankrupting themselves with consultant and lawyer fees, while at the same time not interfering with legitimate copying? They can do what the software industry has done with regards to software piracy. Forget about it because it's not really worth the time (and is sometimes beneficial), except in the case of large piracy rings. In the end, music is still a very human, analog artform. No digital recording will ever replace the real music which comes from the mouths and instruments of real human performers, not 1's and 0's. That has been and is the way the majority of musicians make money (though certainly not the way the majority of money in music is made). |
| Re:Something needs fixing.. before it's too late.. (Score:2) by Danse (danse@no.s.p.a.m.satx.net) on Sunday May 28, @02:47AM EDT (#1223) (User Info) |
You could be right. At least partially. But remember that not all performers actually perform live. Many make their music electronically and each song takes quite a long time to assemble. This sort of performance cannot be performed live. I'm sure people can think of other similar cases. We need to be fair to all types of artists. I would hope that in the absence of traditional copyright laws, people would continue to support the artists they like so that those artists have the means to continue to do what they love and keep providing us with what we want. I think this is a lot more likely to happen in the internet age when most or all of the middlemen are cut out. Music and other art ends up costing a lot less, therefore we can all buy more of it and support more artists work. It seems like a win-win situation. I can only hope it works out that way. It's hard to be optimistic about it though. People often think only short-term and take the cheap way out. This is often enforced by our corporate culture where quarterly profits are everything, damn the environment, workers rights, etc. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking dumb interview. (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @06:23PM EDT (#887) (User Info) |
| Check out his web page. It's fucking hilarious. (notice the org). This is, of course, assuming you aren't a troll. |
| Re: waveamerica.org not .com [o/t] (Score:1) by RomulusNR on Saturday May 27, @01:21AM EDT (#1079) (User Info) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/romulus |
| Thank you for catching that. I'm glad someone has seen it, and liked it. (moders: I'd normally reply via email, but he has none.) -- Keep your school safe! http://www.waveamerica.org |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1, Insightful) by Phexro (ieure@hormel.sickfuck.org) on Friday May 26, @01:38PM EDT (#313) (User Info) http://sickfuck.org |
| there were a few good points in there. but i still feel that metallica is wrong to sue napster. napster isn't pirating metallica's music. and i don't think it's right that metallica is laying responsibility for the actions of their own fans at napster's feet. napster gives music fans a freedom they didn't have before. it's not their fault if that freedom gets abused. think of the second amendment; do we curse the writers of the constitution and the government whenever a person is killed with a gun? no. we punish the _individual_ who commited a _crime_. not the person/people/company who gave that person the freedom/ability to commit the crime. i don't see how this is any different with music. if you pirate music, the legal consequences are _your_ responsibility. even though i can feel for the band's position - the bit about the book club, though muddled, did have merit - i'm still glad to see 30,000+ people who got kicked off napster fight back. anyways, enough rambling. back to work. -- |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Ian Wolf on Friday May 26, @03:01PM EDT (#614) (User Info) |
| Sorry, but your analogy is a little weak. But if you supply a firearm to an individual who is not allowed to posses one, and they commit a crime you can count on being brought up on charges. You can also face charges in some states for storing your firearms in a "negligent" manner. The simple truth of this matter is, it is illegal to pirate copyrighted materials. The copyright holder has every right to enforce their rights to control the distribution of that material as they see fit. If they want to allow bootlegging, home-taping than that is their right. If they want to remove their material from a "service" such as Napster, then that is their right also. The purpose of Napster is to traffic in copyrighted works, anyone who believes differently is deluding themselves. On another note. Who the hell gives a damn about the intellect of a drummer? Compared to some of the other drummers, I've heard in interviews Lars is the brightest with the exception of Neal Peart. "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Phexro (ieure@hormel.sickfuck.org) on Friday May 26, @02:34PM EDT (#526) (User Info) http://sickfuck.org |
| well, i think my example still holds water. the fact that gun manufacturers are being sued for crimes committed with their product is just as wrong as napster being sued. and in any case, the gun manufacturers aren't the ones who gave u.s. citizens the right to bear arms. the people who wrote and passed the second amendment are. my point was that napster is a liberator. the founding fathers of the usa were liberators. they were both seen as criminals by the powers of the day, though all they wanted to do was give people more freedom. it's just that that freedom conflicts with the beliefs of the powers that be. of course, napster is also in it for the money. so it's not a perfect example, but i'm sure you understand. -- |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Ian Wolf on Friday May 26, @03:21PM EDT (#658) (User Info) |
| NAPSTER IS NOT A LIBERATOR! The founding fathers liberated 13 colonies from the British Empire. A moved that helped to form a new country built on unproven ideals, that have somehow managed to stand the test of time. Napster hasn't liberated anyone from the record companies and their greedy retail cronies. There is a BIG fundamental difference between the founding fathers and Napster. The colonists were forced to do what England told them to. You don't have to buy that shiny new CD the day it comes out, its a luxury. Don't get me wrong, I hate RIAA. And I hate paying $16 for a CD, which is why I don't! This whole gripe about CD's being overpriced is bullshit. There are plenty of record stores that sell the latest releases for reasonable prices ($10-$11). Napster didn't liberate me, Newbury Comics and some of the other smaller stores did. "A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila." |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by AltGrendel on Friday May 26, @01:40PM EDT (#326) (User Info) |
| Then why don't they try and cut a deal with Napster? This is a great oppertunity and it looks to me like they're going to throw it away. Yes, they should get paid for their work. But I think they're reacting like someone that owned a horse and wagon when the car started becomming popular. They aren't thinking about the potental here. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by Luminous on Friday May 26, @01:49PM EDT (#364) (User Info) http://www.stygianlabyrinth.net |
| I'm not going to come out defending Metallica completely but it isn't their responsibility to turn this into an opportunity. I agree that the way we think of the music industry is slowly dying and these lawsuits are the beginning of the death spasms, but the rights of the artist to control his/her work have to the paramount. Expecting Metallica to suddenly learn a new technology, to throw out the advice of their managers and Industry groups in order to embrace a new and untested way of doing business is a bit absurd. Napster, if it wants these attacks, no matter how unwarranted, to cease, needs to develop a business model that allows Metallica and any other artist being traded on Napster to get sum compensation. Essentially, without those artists, Napster wouldn't be as popular, thus Napster owes those artists something. |
| Hmm.. answers were somewhat expected (Score:1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @01:45PM EDT (#353) |
| Nothing really new here, you knew what he was going to say. It was good that he actually responded to the interview, but I don't think there were enough questions to get the whole deal. Basically the attitude is "They're ripping us off, getting something for nothing, so we should stop that". I can agree with that. There are however, big differences between piracy and stealing physical property. You can't go into the street and instantly copy a $500,000 car. If I steal the car, then the person who owns the car is directly affected. However, if I copy the car and drive off with it, the owner of the car doesn't lose anything. Piracy doesn't affect the music artists as directly as stealing of physical property. The artist is only affected when people stop buying records from the artists and turn to the pirated copies. That is wrong. But what is the right way to prevent it? That is the question. Intellectual Property is an increasingly thorny issue in a world where information is increasingly easier to get. Sueing people is not the answer. Look at it this way: Technology allows the recording companies to sell ONE performance millions and millions of times. They're happy, and jack up the price as much as they want. Suddenly, when technology is working in reverse, they want to kill it. Going back to the car analogy. Lets say instead of you being able to copy cars only the car companies could do it. But they still charge the same amount of money for the car, because they can. Eventually this copying technology advances and consumers have it. They start copying their own cars. Which is the greater evil? CD prices and piracy ARE part of the same issue. People PAY others $5+ for burned CDs. Recording artists could very easily make as much or more money with lower CD prices. I'm not sure I understand. Metallica wants customers to put up with insanely high prices when there is an extremely cheap alternative on the honor system when it won't fight for cheaper CD prices itself? Sounds pretty selfish to me. Like "haha, I don't have to deal with high CD prices, that's the customers problem. But please don't steal from me!!!" Customers are dealing with the problem the only way they can. How can you expect them to honor you when you aren't honoring them? |
| Re:Hmm.. answers were somewhat expected (Score:1) by s_fuller on Friday May 26, @07:22PM EDT (#930) (User Info) |
| "You can't go into the street and instantly copy a $500,000 car. If I steal the car, then the person who owns the car is directly affected. However, if I copy the car and drive off with it, the owner of the car doesn't lose anything" I don't think this is a very good analogy, because in this example, the person who owns the car (ie the person that bought the CD) has already paid the car's producer (the artist), the requested fee for the car (CD). You are right, that the person that owns the car isn't affected. But the issue is that the company that made the car just lost a sale because you have a perfect copy of the car. The only way that many people would actually go out and BUY the car, was if they could only drive it on a certain road. |
| Another sobering fact (Score:2, Interesting) by Lac on Friday May 26, @01:51PM EDT (#372) (User Info) |
I was listening to the CBC radion the other day. A pianist was talking about his personal experiences with mp3.com. He was originally very optimistic about it because his personal weak points were "selling himself" and business sense. He hoped mp3.com would free him and allow him to directly benefit from his musical talent alone. He registered and put up a few songs for free download. The others were up for sale. He was apparently quite talented, because he quickly got to the top ten download list in his category, and stayed there for months. He was very excited about all of this, and saw possibilities for fame and an honest, hassle-free living. After four months IIRC, he got his first check. It was an mount of just over seventy dollars. Needless to say he stopped bothering with mp3.com. He still gets fan e-mail, which makes him feel good about himself, but the man has to eat, too. So much for the theory that mp3.com is allowing artists to benefit from their art. Maybe their poster childs aren't so representative of what really goes on. |
| Re:Another sobering fact (Score:1) by slycer (slycer@blahblahblahlinuxstart.com) on Friday May 26, @02:23PM EDT (#491) (User Info) |
| After four months IIRC, he got his first check. It was an mount of just over seventy dollars Maybe that was because he was a pianist? :-) -- ./sig is innapropriate |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:3, Insightful) by jafac on Friday May 26, @02:24PM EDT (#495) (User Info) |
| Like I said before, it's all about mindshare, market bandwidth. Lars DOES have a point, Metallica IS in a special position, because they have LOTS of mindshare, mindshare that was very expensively bought by the record companies. Where he is wrong though, is to say that record companies will always be necessary to generate this mindshare. Perhaps Napster, as it currenlty stands, isn't the best model to generate this kind of thing. But the thing is, people have come to accept this lemming attitude that the major music labels are THE authority on what is good music, and what is not. Sometimes, they hit on good talent, and it gets out. Most of the time, they do not, but it is still sold and hyped and cast upon the masses, and sorry to sound like an elitist here, but the masses buy it, and the record labels make money, and these one-hit-wonders retire, or they go on to capitalize further on their fame. It's largely this fame that keeps them going. Rarely is it excellent talent. When it is, Then, I'd say the system is working, the system is functional. What I believe that most of us here, on /. agree on, is the philisophical opposition to the fact that talentless fucks can go out, blow a record executive, get signed, and posess this great mindshare for years, or even decades, when great talented bands are swept aside by what is essentially fasion. The mere fact that the record companies make such obscene profits is really beside the point. It's much easier to argue the ethical drawbacks to that issue, but it's not really the point. This is why you hear these intangible arguments like, how bad backstreet boyz are, or brittney spears is. I think what we're looking for is a mechanism to circumvent the record industry's dictatorship, and a lot of us are taken with technology as the cure-all solution to this problem, because we see it solving so many other things right now. It's true that in this perfect dream world, that a lot of crap unsigned bands will exist, and will in-effect, drown out the signal of good talent. The fallacy is that we need some kind of authority to "tune-in" the consumer to what is good and what is bad. The fact is, I believe that the strong collaborative power that the internet lends us all, can be harnessed to focus the signal that the few good talented musicians out there represents. I believe strongly that probably, some successor to Napster will be that tool - but it probably will be in conjunction with tools in other media, like TV, print, and radio, which have traditionally been the best promotional tools. They've been the defining and leading tools. I think they need to be tools that follow from what goes on the internet. The internet is where music fans will discuss, SAMPLE, read about, new music, whether it's from crap bands, or good bands, but they'll all be UNSIGNED bands. Perhaps there will be agencies that will promote the bands on the internet, radio, print, and TV, but no longer will those agencies have a monopoly on what is heard and what is not. The reason I use SAMPLE above, in all caps, is because that is the main missing element today. We can't sample the music easily or conveniently. This was the essential component Lars was talking about, the free sample, well, he's afraid that the free sample is a perfect first-generation recording. FACT: it is not. Not even at the highest bitrate is MP3 equivalent to even a CD, which also is not equivalent to a first-generation recording. Where do they want to draw the line? Obviously, what they want is some kind of technology that gives them control of distribution, (like SMDI). At the same time SMDI will let bands who want no control to free it. What they don't want is something that increases supply infinately (which is what MP3 does) because that theoretically drives down demand to 0. Demand for what? for a digital copy of a recording? Profits are made from selling the CD, and from concerts. This is the argument we've made all along. Drive demand for the digital recording down to 0 where it belongs, and you do not devalue the true art, the live performance, and collateral materials (CD, liner notes, cover art, lyrics sheets, etc.) Control the sample with something like SMDI, and the potential is that you could be paying $20 for a single you could listen to one time only. THat's what that kind of control can give you. It's the capability to eliminate scarcity by the free copying of data, that pops intellectual property like a recording right out of the market equation. It's no longer a commodity, it's a promotional tool. Which is what it should be. It's what videos originally were, promotional tools, not actual products. Tell me Lars, are your videos currently profit centers, or losses? That should illustrate the point. I just remembered this old Metallica song. . . -OOPS! time to cut Lars another check! |
| Wow. That was a fucking cool post... (Score:1) by fReNeTiK (cryogenic@yahoo.com) on Friday May 26, @04:32PM EDT (#761) (User Info) |
| ...And it is extremely frustrating to see it at level 1 where it doesn't belong. The moderation system is broken (whine, whine). This is only a "me too" post but I'd like you to know that I share your opinion and you expressed it far more eloquently than I could ever have. I'd like to thank you for that. But information really wants to be free, and here's your nickel :) -- 1 sig beneath your current threshold. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @06:30PM EDT (#892) (User Info) |
| I agree and have reiterated this many times in my other posts. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by M$ Mole on Friday May 26, @02:30PM EDT (#512) (User Info) |
| I agree with Seebs here. This is probably one of the best interviews I have ever seen on /. I think Lars makes some excellent points about the entire debacle between the band and Napster. And we all know that he's right, Napster could have easily just made it impossible to search for Metallica mp3's (of course that would just lead to renaming the files to distribute them...). Of course, like everyone, I'm biased in one direction or another. I've always felt that Metallica was in the right for doing what they did. Two thumbs up on this one. "It Aint Like That" - AIC |
| Re: Just more intellectual property (Score:1) by deacent on Friday May 26, @02:59PM EDT (#604) (User Info) |
Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work. This whole thing reminds me of ftp archives that let anyone upload software. It was always up to the maintainer of a reputable archive to make sure that the software was legit. I think Napster's best bet to continue survival is to review submissions before posting them. Any recording that doesn't have the owner's permission to be in the public domain is rejected. At first, there would probably be a huge number of rejections, but people would get the message quickly. Of course, unless popular artists (or the record companies) give permission for some of their work, this would mean a huge loss of subscribers. -Jennifer |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by neowintermute (mbc at deneba dot com) on Friday May 26, @03:01PM EDT (#613) (User Info) http://www.fiu.edu/~mcarde02 |
| Here's an accurate translation of this article: Money Good! Napster Bad! http://www.joecartoon.com/buddies/chaos/index.html :)))))))))))) yeah... ___________________________ Michael Cardenas http://www.fiu.edu/~mcarde02 http://www.deneba.com/linux |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by TobyOne on Friday May 26, @04:04PM EDT (#721) (User Info) |
| I agree with seebs and believe he has picked out the two most important points raised by Lars. The first is that people should expect to have control over their intellectual property. That is incontestable. Of course it could range from relinquishing control; 'yes I put my work out there for anyone to do with as they please' to 'those who wish to enjoy my intellectual property must pay'. Then the buyer can decide. The second is as important. Without publicity and promotion unknowns will stay unknown. At the moment publicity and promotion cost money. I'm not sure how that can change. That seems to necessitate the need for a middle man of some kind. Finally, how much should it matter that a person is not particularly articulate. If that person has good points to make the requisite effort should be made by the reader or listener to discern those points from amongst the chaff. It is a rather ugly class of snobbery to dismiss a person's views just because they are not expressed clearly. That is a kind of censorship. Who on the internet supports censorship? |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by lgas (john@ginch.org) on Friday May 26, @04:20PM EDT (#737) (User Info) http://www.2wrongs.com/ |
| Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work. Napster doesn't distribute anything. They simply provide software which allows users to distribute files directly to each other. What you really mean is "it would be nice if the users asked permission before trading my music." Good luck. As was pointed out in the interview, Napster is a drastically different paradigm (largely because of the drastically different scale) than taping your friends Iron Maiden albumns, but the individuals doing it still view it the same basic way, they're not going to ask permission. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by EEEthan (emh26@columbia.edu) on Friday May 26, @07:11PM EDT (#922) (User Info) http://3than.com |
| It's funny-I'm a musician too, and I do make music. I've played, I've recorded a bit. The idea of someone asking your permission to redistribute is nice, but...as an artist, you can't control the audience. In any way. You can try-you can affect them a bit maybe...but somehow, this issue of transmission of songs doesn't surprise me. It's incredibly hard to make people satrt listening to your songs-and it's incredibly hard to make them stop. Music is one of those things, a near-magical entity which is hard to understand and impossible to control. Maybe it doesn't seem like this means anything, but look at the way music has been a social issue in the past and the way it is now. In the 60's a lot of music was concerned with issues of equality, peace, freedom, etc-there have more recently been anti-nuclear events and things like farm aid. But the big news now is an abstract public forum/conflict over IP and the ownership/transferrance of music itself? A couple of things: this is really depressing in a way. Is modern music just a big moneymaking scheme? Has it always been this way? I for one honestly believe that record companies in their current configuration exert a powerful negative influence on the artistic and technical quality of music. The other thing is this: it seems that this really had to happen eventually. Music 'piracy' has been going on for awhile-it's been a big part of the tech for a while now, and it's a great feature for people. I think mix tapes and such things are one of the few ways that people reclaim their connection to music. In a world where music is not considered a necessary part of education, it's one of the few ways many people can be involved. If this sort of thing is every effectively banned, it would really be sad for everyone. The issues just cut so deep-the ownership of music is probably an unresolvable issue. In classical music, composers would routinely rip off one another's music-Chopin's nocturnes are completely ripped from some English guy(whose name I don't remember)'s Nocturnes-but we listen to Chopin's (more) because they're better. A lot of that went on, because classical, i.e. written music is an inherently 'open' standard-written music is the 'source' what you hear is the 'program.' It seems to me that this is a good thing, even if we don't remember that English guy's name. So what to do? Well, in order to stop Napster-esque stuff, it will basically be necessary to monitor all information transfer on the web. I hope that this is impossible, but it seems to me that a totalitarian information state is on the remote outskirts of society. Issues like this (ok IP issues) are disturbing for some people: the people that own the IP. But I just don't think that the rules for information 'ownership' should be the same as the rules for ownership of physical goods. They aren't now, of course, but the way that IP works now is this: if you 'buy' a piece of info, software, music, etc, you're really only buying a license to use it in certain prescribed ways. But you have no actual ownership, and you're forbidden from manipulating the info in any but the prescribed ways, which is a vastly smaller subset than what is possible with technology these days. So you 'buy' a cd-but you don't own it. It's not 'yours,' as in to deconstruct, give away, copy, scramble, etc, it's a contract in which you can listen to it on your cd player and nothing else. Software too... So right now, they're selling things to you that you don't own. Now, add to this that they're selling it to you at very high prices. Next, add in quality concerns-Britney Spears, win98. What do you get? An alienated public? Not really. We realize that we DO own this stuff-we can freely distribute or whatever it because we, the public, exist on such a massive scale. Imagine this as the U.S. revolution, but instead of the Boston Tea Party, it's a Tea Party all the time in every harbor, and England can't do shit but ship more tea because if they don't, they'll disappear. There are obvious problems with this analogy, the biggest one being that people were willing to fight and die for that cause, and I would imagine a much smaller subset of the .mp3 using public is willing to do that for this one. I'm sure there are a few, though. And England can't win this time either, which they'll realize in a few years. What is going to happen is that companies are going to adapt-free stuff is a huge, confusing mess(only compared to money stuff of course). The way companies are going to make money is to make everything available, and in an understandable way. And there will always be a market for repackaged pop crap, just because people like young, attractive people. I think that the reason the only hot pop music is total transparent pop shovelware is that people have already realized what the industry has to sell. And soon, the industry will realize. It's just a shame that bands like Metallica have to victimize themselves by showing how little they understand the situation. Also, their recent albums kind of blow, but that pretty much happens to every good band(insert the other rambling invective against the recording industry here.) So people should just chill. The good thing is that, as the interview shows, Metallica is already chilling. |
| Cutting profits (Score:1) by zygut on Friday May 26, @08:03PM EDT (#962) (User Info) |
| What is Metallica actually losing, what is the bottom line here? Is not Metallica mega-rich already? Why do they need more money? Isn't there a point in every musician/artist/CEO's life where they have made too much money? I'm not talking out of jealousy here, I am just talking about the Bill Gates phenomenon. People say Bill Gates is great because he donates this or donates that to X or Y charity, but said charity would not need his donations if they had money already. Does Bill Gates directly take money from charities and then selectively give it back? No, but we are talking about the distribution of wealth over all and the enormous and rapidly growing gap between the rich and the poor. As Bill Gates' pie gets larger, our portion gets smaller, and more and more we come to the table and ask, with our pleading dog-eyes, "'Smore please?" While a minimum wage is a good thing to have, there are good things to having a maximum wage too. Where would all the money go if Bill Gates had to quit after $X would it disappear, fly into the air, catch fire, become too stinky to pick up? No, it probably would be more distributed than hoarded in a closely guarded mega-vault on the other side of Lake Washington... |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by zeedotcom (zeedotcom@techie.com) on Saturday May 27, @12:26AM EDT (#1055) (User Info) |
| I used to spend a lot of time on mp3.com looking for good stuff, even ordered a few cds. Back in the day when I actually shared files by default, before I realized that a 56k modem was not meant for this, I noticed that about half of the stuff that started downloading was no-names from mp3.com. I never saw any metallica come off of my computer because there wasn't any there. Something called the imperial March which I was told was a spoof. Unknowns are helped by this. I am pretty sure that the people who downloaded from me were just randomly surfing for music, not looking for it, because they downloaded stuff from a local band, that sold like maybe 100 total CDs and didn't sell them on mp3.com. Think about that. You can beat me up,but I will KICK YOUR ASS!(No,not physically. I mean:You sue: I make you miserable.(nagging annoying,childish,petty...Get the picture?)Deal? |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by perfecto on Saturday May 27, @04:02AM EDT (#1128) (User Info) http://perry.fecteau.com/ |
| Last week, I got a fan letter. Someone liked my music. That was fucking awesome. I am also nowhere near making any sort of a living at this. as dead republican i was able to push about 150 tapes over the internet. i actually got a few letters and was reviewed in gajoob. this was about four years ago and before mp3. anyway, my point is, i was able to sell alot more tapes over the internet than i could have in "real life". i do see legitimate bands who havent gotten a fair shake from the major labels seeing this as an opportunity to get heard. it worked for me and i never played out. not like 150 makes me a star but to me it was an acheivement. alot of bands don't realize the potential and still chase these slave masters because they see it as the only way. but i think word of mouth and internet distribution will take alot of them farther than any record company ever could.
|
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by AnarchoFreak_00 (spoonman at mmm... spam abforestry dot co dot nz) on Saturday May 27, @06:47AM EDT (#1153) (User Info) http://www.abforestry.co.nz/cv/index.html |
| Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work. Although it sounds like a good idea. It needs a bit of work. Anyone have any ideas on how this could work? 'cause I know at the moment -- if i remeber correctly -- that napster lists everything in a folder. And it would be a bit of a pain for ppl to sort out legal, and illegal mp3z (It has to be easy for them or they won't do it). Also, alot of people are going to do it anyway. |
| Re:Wow. That was a fucking cool interview. (Score:1) by scotch51 (slashdotted@overbyte.com) on Monday May 29, @03:03PM EDT (#1260) (User Info) http://www.overbyte.com |
| This is a superb example of the power of slashdot and a a presentation of it's limitations. What's great is, direct access to a major personality, and lively insightful discussion of the issues thereby raised. What's soft is the verbatum transcription of that personality's words without editing, and the transient nature of /. postings. One poster said he seemed to have a bit of difficulty with the english language which is not at all true. What we see is an unedited transcription of spoken English. Read the court reporter's transcripts of any court proceeding and you'll see the same thing. We do not talk the way we write. Most interviews go through an editing process, but the urgency of /. makes a transcription like this the norm. Another softness is that /. exists in internet time. My reply is a few days after the original posting so it will probably never be seen by more than a handful of readers. That said, and mostly to please myself I extracted the points that Lars was making and did heavy editing. Please don't cancel my license to your CD's Lars. I just think this makes it easier for some to follow
We are not stupid. Of course we realize the future of getting music from Metlalica to the people who are interested in Metallica's music is through the Internet. But the question is, on whose conditions, and obviously we want it to be on our conditions. We do not condone, and do not want to be part of, illegal trading of our masters through sources we have not authorized, it's that simple. Why did napster bounce Metalica fans rather than simply prohibit Metallica songs from being distributed? It clearly looks like Napster was not dealing in good faith when you take that into consideration. The record company had nothing to do with the lawsuit. The band discussed it, did research and launched the project. Just because somebody feels that that CD is too expensive doesn't give them a right to steal it. When somebody fucks with what we do, we go after them. I can guarantee you it's costing us tenfold to fight it in lawyer's compensation, than it is for measly little pennies in royalties being lost. That's not what it's about. Understand one thing: this is not about a lot of money right now, because the money that's being lost right now is really pocket change. It's about the priciple of the thing and it's about what could happen if this kind of thing is allowed to exist and run as rampant and out of control for the next 5 years as it has been for the last 6 months. Then it can become a money issue. Where it can affect people, where it is about money, is for the band that sells 600 copies of their CD. If they all of a sudden go from selling 600 copies of their CD down to 50 copies, because the other 550 copies get downloaded for free, that's where it starts affecting real people with real money. Comparing home taping to going on the Internet and getting 1st generation, perfect digital copies of master recordings from all the over world, is just not a valid.
I don't use the Internet a lot in my daily life, personally, because I choose to pick up the phone rather than send somebody an email. It doesn't mean I despise the Internet. I respect it, I understand that it plays a major role in a lot of people's lives. I don't think the record labels have paid attention to this. I think that there's been a major, major wakeup call in the last couple of months. When we monitored Napster for 48 hours we came up with 1.4 million downloads of Metallica music. There was one downloading of an unsigned artist that whole time. You have to remember that for every one band that you hear about, [the record companies] lose their shirt on nine other ones you never hear about. I have come to actually change my position. I believe that if it's not Napster, then a type of service like Napster has the right to exist, on the condition that the only thing being traded through that service is music by artists and owners who have given that service permission. Why is this a music issue right now? Music is most easily transferrable with today's technology. We're probably not more than a year away from downloading Mission Impossible 3 the same day that it opens in the theatre. If you could download movies right now, Hollywood would come out swinging. One of the main things that needs to be worked on for the next year, is the public debate about it. The bottom line is the scale and the quality of it. When we check Napster out, we get 1.4 million copyright infringements in 48 hours. This is different than trading cassette tapes with your buddy at school. Again, it's the quality. The quality and the scale. Commentary: I discovered Metalica late, with their self titled black album and now consider myself a fan owning several of their CD's. Like others on /. I was dismayed by the lawsuit, but the residual goodwill I feel for the Band caused me to read the interview and form my own conclusions. I don't mind if your conclusions are different than mine if you've also read the interview. |
| Re:Amateur musicians (Score:1) by SigVn on Friday May 26, @04:41PM EDT (#771) (User Info) |
| I have never heard of a record company losing millions on a new artist, what I have heard of is record companys who advance the money for recording, videos, promotion, Concerts and such, and then take the money out of the future earning of the record. If you want examples check out the Clash and TLC. "If All Else Fails....X=8" |
| Thanks Lars... (Score:1) by zipped (zipped@evil-bitch.com) on Friday May 26, @12:33PM EDT (#12) (User Info) http://www.lauan.com/ |
| Thanks for the interview Lars. It is good to have you answer questions from the general population, so that we can get answers to our questions about the issue, not the media's ?s. |
| can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:5, Interesting) by T.Hobbes (mhannonatis2dotdaldotca) on Friday May 26, @12:33PM EDT (#13) (User Info) http://carleton.ucis.dal.ca/hannon |
| ... where he refutes lars? |
| Re:can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:1) by TheReverand (marc@ksac.com) on Friday May 26, @02:12PM EDT (#454) (User Info) |
| No because Chuck D is about a gazillion times more intelligent than Lars and will make him look terrible. We should be fair after all and get someone who is at a similar level. Anyone know if Carrot Top is in favor of Napster?
Flame all you want, I'll post more. |
| Re:can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:2) by Mr T on Friday May 26, @02:19PM EDT (#479) (User Info) http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~kljense3/MrT.html |
| Yeah, I want to see an interview with the Hard Rhymer. |
| Re:can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:3, Informative) by crackpot (gomezal@REMOVETHISTEXTnetscape.net) on Friday May 26, @03:00PM EDT (#608) (User Info) |
| As many of you might be aware Charlie Rose (on PBS) had a head-to-head interview with Lars and Chuck D. on 5/12/00. Essentially, Lars and Chuck agreed to disagree, however, both were quite "eloquent" in their arguments and I was impressed with Lars' passion for pursuing a public debate. Chuck D. was equally (if not more) impressive in his knowledge of the issues (philosophical and to a lesser degree technical). I can't seem to find a transcript on the internet but if you go to the PBS site you can order the dead-tree version. I was provided with additional input that was radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version." --Colonel Oliver North |
| A link to Chuck-D-versus-Lars debate excerpts: (Score:2, Informative) by freeBill on Saturday May 27, @02:43PM EDT (#1198) (User Info) |
Excerpts from the Napster debate on Charlie Rose have been posted, but the whole interview is 20 minutes long. It's available (as a video or transcript) from 1-800-ALL-NEWS (1-800-255-6397). The cameras do record Chuck D's bemused look while Lars is trying to explain technical issues (like how MP3s are perfect digital reproductions of the original masters). |
| Re:can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:1) by asdffdsa on Wednesday May 31, @03:13AM EDT (#1283) (User Info) |
| Yes. It was an interesting show. Unfortunately Chuck D and Lars just talked past each other the whole time. Lars essentially granted Chuck D's argument that Napster can be great for unknown bands who would otherwise be dominated by their labels. Chuck D didn't really address Lars's argument that Napster removes all control that an artist would have over his or her work. Neither really refuted anything the other said. |
| Re:can we now have a chuck d interview... (Score:2) by Glowing Fish (mnoelharris@(onmaps)uswest.net) on Saturday May 27, @06:36AM EDT (#1151) (User Info) http://www.users.uswest.net/~mnoelharris |
| How come Chuck D keeps on getting smarter and smarter while almost everyone else in music gets dumber and dumber?
|
| How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1, Funny) by quakeaddict on Friday May 26, @12:34PM EDT (#16) (User Info) |
| I think Lars has been drumming for toooooo long. He could barely write a complete sentence. An example: "But the bottom line is, whenever somebody -- whenever somebody, whenever we feel that somebody -- I don't want to sound too combative here, but you know, when somebody fucks with what we do, we go after them" It just goes to show that uh, you know, you don't have to uh go to um you know school, to make alot of uh...money. I'm still working on a clever footer. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by jmpvm on Friday May 26, @12:41PM EDT (#40) (User Info) |
| Errr, he wasn't WRITING this. It was obviously a phone interview and that was the transcript. If you have ever heard him talk you'll know thats exactly how he speaks. I am sure if it had been WRITTEN from him it would look alot better, but probably taken alot longer to get. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by hockeygeek (pettitjr@spammity.clarkson.spam.edu) on Friday May 26, @01:37PM EDT (#312) (User Info) |
| From the way he talks, I'd be surprised if he knows how to write... "Pardon me while I burn, and rise above the flame.... " - Incubus If you don't know how to email me, don't. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @04:20PM EDT (#736) (User Info) |
| Considering he's trying to grasp the subject, is a little angry about it, and he had no idea what the questions were going to be, I have no problem with his use of the English language. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by arthurs_sidekick (kingwanker@wankers.org) on Friday May 26, @12:43PM EDT (#51) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
Have you ever really listened to the way *most* people talk? Often, we seem to employ some sort of semantic filter that distills the information contained in the utterance rather than commit the actual noises to memory. (that's a pop-psychological analysis ... I claim no research behind the proposed mechanism, but the phenomenon is clear enough) "Verbatim" transcripts often never are. There are tons of pauses and "um"s and so forth that get filtered out in the transcribing process. What emerges here is that Mr. Ulrich wasn't prepped, he's not a trained / seasoned public speaker, and this is how he sounds. Does it sound dorky when you write it down and think of how it would have been said? Yes, I suppose it does, but I bet you wouldn't notice it *as much* in a face-to-face conversation. I actually thought he was reasonably articulate. I now know what happened and why, and what his position is. "Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich. |
| Mr. Ironic Example, at your service (Score:1) by arthurs_sidekick (kingwanker@wankers.org) on Friday May 26, @12:45PM EDT (#62) (User Info) http://www.theonion.com |
| "often never are" ... whoa, that sucks, especially in a discussion about sentence construction =) "Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich. |
| Re:Mr. Ironic Example, at your service (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @04:22PM EDT (#742) (User Info) |
| Oh yes, king wanker. Oh yes. Oh yes. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by RichDice on Friday May 26, @12:43PM EDT (#55) (User Info) |
| Come on, cut the guy some slack. It was a telephone interview; he didn't _write_ anything at all. Few people have the ability to speak in formal essay style on the fly in real time and at great length. After a certain point, even a sentence or two gets muffed. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:2) by mindstrm (moctodemohtamrtsdnim) on Friday May 26, @01:01PM EDT (#135) (User Info) |
| What did you expect? Do you have some illusion that all big 'artists' are highly educated, perfectly articulate public speakers? Most people I know would speak about the same way. I'm quite HAPPY that we didn't get an edited-by-five-publicists review.... we got it from Lars' mouth. And he has a point. Regardless of where future technology is, napster is making money by helping people pirate music. Plain and simple. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by JMZorko on Friday May 26, @01:09PM EDT (#179) (User Info) |
| There is a big difference between speaking and writing. It's evident Lars was speaking, and this was transcribed. It is no reflection of the intelligence of the speaker. So, while I disagree with Metallica on this whole thing (i'm more in agreement with Chuck D's position), I also disagree with labelling people. The Big Guy labelling the Little Guy as a 'nerd' or 'thief' is bad. The Little Guy labelling the Big Guy as 'ignorant' or 'stupid' is just as bad. Life is Bigger than the Internet. Regards, John |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (An apology) (Score:1) by quakeaddict on Friday May 26, @01:17PM EDT (#212) (User Info) |
| Woops...I didn't realize this guy was talking and this was a transcript. I thought he was sent the questions and then he wrote his replies. My apologies to Lars. I'm still working on a clever footer. |
| He wasn't writing, he was speaking on the phone (Score:1) by timothy (timothy@slashdot.borg) on Friday May 26, @01:21PM EDT (#238) (User Info) http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/ |
| You'd be surprized how different they are when you read a transcript :) When you speak to another person, there are all sorts of cues which don't necessarily translate well; pauses and emphasis can help make something sensible that might read oddly in a letter. timothy CTY 91-98;UT@ustin 93-98. Why not "appropriate/inappropriate" rather than "fair/unfair"? |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by Gunther Dull (gunther.at.kosher.com) on Friday May 26, @01:26PM EDT (#259) (User Info) |
| He could barely write a complete sentence. It was a PHONE interview. You've never rambled on the phone? I know I do all the time. Ramble, get distracted, forget to finish sentences. Typed communications, on the other hand, can be sliced, diced, thrown away, re-done, etc. before they are put out for digestion. (What do you think the /. preview button is for!?!) I thought that: a)It was very kind of Lars to take time to answer our questions and b)It was good to hear that the band IS open to suggestion and NOT locked into one mindset. It takes a pretty big (intellectually) person to understand that some issues are bigger than you first realized and that it is NOT a weinie thing to do to change one's mind. After reading this interview, I can't really fault Metallica at all for the position they have taken. Gunther T Dull is not responsible for his opinions. |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by Darby on Friday May 26, @04:50PM EDT (#791) (User Info) |
| >>(What do you think the /. preview button is for!?!) I think it's mostly something to be used in the abstract. e.g. If I had previewed maybe I would have remembered to close my italic tag. (of course the sad part here is that I previewed to make sure that this "feature" hadn't been fixed ;-) ---CONFLICT!!--- ->TROLL |
| Re:How Does This Guy Make Any Money (Score:1) by AnarchoFreak_00 (spoonman at mmm... spam abforestry dot co dot nz) on Saturday May 27, @07:01AM EDT (#1156) (User Info) http://www.abforestry.co.nz/cv/index.html |
| think Lars has been drumming for toooooo long. He could barely write a complete sentence. Uh... Maybe you should read a bit more carefully -- It was a phone interview. |
| Re:He was talking on the phone, dummy. (Score:1) by Darby on Friday May 26, @04:52PM EDT (#794) (User Info) |
| I generally try to speak in complete, grammatically correct sentences. ;-) ---CONFLICT!!--- ->TROLL |
| He "gets it", but he doesn't. (Score:2, Interesting) by caferace (caferace...@...well...com) on Friday May 26, @12:35PM EDT (#17) (User Info) http://www.well.com/~vimages |
| It's enlightening to hear that he seems to understand the technology. It's also unfortunate to see that he doesn't understand the impact, and would rather try to fight what is way bigger than him rather than try and work with it. His and the bands loss, unfortunately, in the end. |
| Re:He "gets it", but he doesn't. (Score:2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @12:41PM EDT (#43) |
| Actually, it sounds like they wanted (want) to work with it but were never asked. There's a slight difference. |
| This guy is hard to follow (Score:1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @12:35PM EDT (#18) |
| This guy is hard too, i mean, 1st of all, it's like, well, I wonder if this guy is, you ever think this guy is on something and can't finish a sentence. You know: subject and predicate, whether compound or simple? Sure, as I've spent more and more time online over the years, I take certain liberties with the Englinsh language, but this guy seems to throw all the rules out the window. He's a drummer and not an orator, so it hardly matters, but I couldn't finish the interview. Music good! Coherency bad! |
| Re:This guy is hard to follow (Score:1) by Mawbid (hawk/gagarin/is) on Friday May 26, @01:07PM EDT (#165) (User Info) http://gagarin.is |
| He's hard to follow because you're following him through a transcript of a telephone conversation. If you'd either heard the conversation, or read a written response, I'm sure he would have come across a lot better. People ramble a lot in voice conversations; they start sentences, change their minds what they wanted to say and start again; they go off on tangents and fail to return to the departure point to finish the sentence, etc. Even in IRC chats, people are more organised than that because they can backspace and restructure their sentences. IIRC, A while back there was a telephone interview with someone more "one of us" on Slashdot, someone technical, someone we liked. He sounded just as bad as Lars, but no-one jumped on him for it. |
| Re:This guy is hard to follow (Score:1) by Mawbid (hawk/gagarin/is) on Saturday May 27, @10:34AM EDT (#1174) (User Info) http://gagarin.is |
| Hehe! I went searching for the interview I was talking about and I couldn't find it. Perhaps it *was* the Bill Gates interview I was thinking of! :-P -- Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something. |
| Re:This guy is hard to follow (Score:1) by Forrestina (burn_324_@nospam.hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @01:07PM EDT (#170) (User Info) http://geekjuice.com/ |
| i hate to break it to you, but as someone pointed out above... 1. he doesn't have a backspace key for his vocal chords 2. i ramble and cut off sentances, and forget what i was going to say when i'm talking on the phone, a lot of people do. 3. what, you wanted a work of art or somthing? it's just an interview, and actually a fairly refreshing one i think, since it sounds like a real human being, not a record company made canned POS. there, thats my rant. ------- |
| And the Misfits owned their music too... (Score:1) by CComp on Friday May 26, @01:17PM EDT (#211) (User Info) |
| But for some odd reason Metallica didn't pay for their copy of that album. Quality be damned. If they're going to bust a hissy about ownership and permission, they can't excuse their own actions by trying to claim that the copy was a shitty tape and therefore it was ok to illegally copy it and not pay the rightful owner of the music. Metallica needs to get a little bit less hypocritical - people might start listening to what they're saying. |
| Re:And the Misfits owned their music too... (Score:1) by Cannonball (tom_bridge@mac.com) on Friday May 26, @01:42PM EDT (#336) (User Info) |
| Don't you get it? Third generation scratchy-ass recordings is different from a perfect digital copy you'd get on Napster in MP3 format. THAT's his point. That and the scale of it. He's willing to say, yah some people copied this stuff in the past, but they did it and took a quality hit. Now, with Napster, they can do it millions of times a second AND without a quality hit. It's become easy to do what in the past was time-consuming and pointless to do. So there I was, naked in the refrigerator, smoking a cigarette with a pot roast on my knees. That's when things got REALLY weird. |
| Re:And the Misfits owned their music too... (Score:1) by CComp on Friday May 26, @02:55PM EDT (#597) (User Info) |
| And it's very obvious that you didn't get *my* point at all. Read carefully: If they're going to claim they're in the right because they OWN THE SONGS AND REQUIRE THAT PEOPLE OBTAIN PERMISSION TO COPY THEM, (and they HAVE DONE THAT, their lost income is NOT THEIR ONLY COMPLAINT HERE) then they need to stop being so cavalier when talking about the copying that they've done in the past without permission. They've shown that they don't respect other musicians' copyrights. That makes it very hard to respect theirs, and very hard to take them seriously when they start whining about people not having their permission to copy their songs. |
| Re:And the Misfits owned their music too... (Score:1) by Cannonball (tom_bridge@mac.com) on Friday May 26, @04:27PM EDT (#748) (User Info) |
| Lars didn't say he had a problem with people copying on the small scale (i.e. taping your friends record so you could listen in the car), he did have a problem with the digital nature of napster's theft, and the fact that napster allowed for everyone to grab a copy of their recordings at fast download times. I don't think you could find a soul out there who hasn't violated copyright at least once in their lives, Lars was being honest. No less, no more. So there I was, naked in the refrigerator, smoking a cigarette with a pot roast on my knees. That's when things got REALLY weird. |
| Re:And the Misfits owned their music too... (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @04:29PM EDT (#754) (User Info) |
| Copy protection isn't based on moral enlightenment. Copy protection is based on technical and legal mechanisms. This is why large copyrighted images are not on the internet. This is why easily copied books are not on the internet. This is why ... |
| Get the users leave Napster Alone (Score:1) by shinoda on Friday May 26, @12:35PM EDT (#20) (User Info) |
| My only problem is the condemnation of Technology. Napster can't stop users from passing stuff around except by banning them when they are notified of the problem. The users ARE LIABLE FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. LEAVE NAPSTER ALONE THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG. |
| Re:Get the users leave Napster Alone (Score:1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @01:18PM EDT (#219) |
| But we have to remember that Napster could easily drop any query that involved a "Metallica" statement. Napster "COULD" be doing more to protect Copyrights. |
| Re:Get the users leave Napster Alone (Score:1) by tecnodude on Friday May 26, @02:04PM EDT (#422) (User Info) |
| True but that would also drop queries for Metallica parodies, live proformances, or even this interview if it was in MP3 format. All it would force people to do is rename and change the ID tag to read "Mtallica" or some other variation. If they banned stuff with certain checksums, just encode a second of silence. Its not easy to mess with something so open, you'd add way more overhead to Napster. |
| Re:Get the users leave Napster Alone (Score:1) by NI3 on Friday May 26, @03:07PM EDT (#627) (User Info) |
| You can give your files any name you want to. So Napster would also have to check if the MP3's in question were made from copyrighted material. Not that easy to do I believe. |
| Re:Get the users leave Napster Alone (Score:1) by RingTailedLemur (Spam.jbdigriz@hushmail.Spam.com) on Friday May 26, @01:43PM EDT (#342) (User Info) |
| True, the person who chooses to download music that is obvously under copyright is at fault. HOWEVER, Napster is designed in such a way that it almost encourages this. I don't think its totally unreasonable to modify the tool so that it is less easily abused. --I think I'll drop it in the bushes after work. Though it'll prolly get eaten by a bird.-- |
| Long winded webby awards (Score:2, Funny) by British on Friday May 26, @12:36PM EDT (#21) (User Info) http://british.nerp.net |
| Just imagine a chat transcript between Jon Katz and Lars. The conversation would be a terabyte long. Kids love the rich taste of web content! http://british.nerp.net |
| Re:Long winded webby awards (Score:3, Funny) by Lord Kano on Friday May 26, @12:56PM EDT (#115) (User Info) http://trfn.clpgh.org/wpngg |
| Katz:"Lars, what do you think is the driving force behind the opensource MP3 dominated, internet freedom, napsterized,internet and natalie portman influenced, hellmouth paradigm shift?" Lars:"It's like, well you know when, sometimes you just have to, and since I don't know too much about those types of things. On the other hand James and Jason think that, well that's not exactly accurate, there was once this time that we all took this think and did stuff with it. That isn't really important here because, you know what? My dad just got this AOL account and I used up all of his free hours then he was all like, "Lars, those were MY free hours!" and I like blew him off about the whole thing. I have a little dreidle, I made it out of clay, and when it's dry and ready, with dreidle I will play. Um, what? Oh, oh, oh, the technology thingie? My managers, like said that it was, um bad for me or something so I, uh think that ahhh , I'm against it. I think?" LK Are you moderating me up/down because of the quality of my post or because you agree/disagree with my point of view? |
| Re:Long winded webby awards (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday May 26, @01:06PM EDT (#162) (User Info) |
| Obviously not at the quality of your post, or else it'd be "-1, Reduntant reduntant redundant, dammit, why do we KEEP getting posts mocking how Lars talks, after a million of them have already been posted, rather than actually making any readable points". No, today we have the monkeys moderating. Enough computers and enough time, and one of them would eventually come up with a comment worthy of getting read. Unfortunately, this is the dumbest slashdot message thread I've read in weeks. It'd be nice if everyone could GET OVER how Lars talks, and actually agree/disagree with points in the interview, or even *gasp* critique a point or two! |
| Re:Long winded webby awards (Score:1) by Lord Kano on Friday May 26, @01:47PM EDT (#359) (User Info) http://trfn.clpgh.org/wpngg |
| If you were paying attention you'd have seen that it was directed towards both Lars AND Katz. LK Are you moderating me up/down because of the quality of my post or because you agree/disagree with my point of view? |
| Re:Long winded webby awards (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday May 26, @04:43PM EDT (#775) (User Info) |
| Pay attention? If I did that, I might break into double-digit karma. Ack. I try to keep informed comments to Anonymous only. |
| Re:Long winded webby awards (Score:1) by 3x3eyes on Friday May 26, @02:27PM EDT (#501) (User Info) |
| Yeah.. I seen a lot of bad post today.. but LK's post is pretty funny though 3x3 |
| ONE unsigned download? / OT: mp3.com banned me (Score:3, Funny) by dayeight (dayeight@digivill.net) on Friday May 26, @12:36PM EDT (#25) (User Info) http://www.puSHove.com |
| That doesn't seem right at all.... I constantly am getting stuff from bands with avante garde names or if I hotlist someone with similiar music taste, you can find some unsigned bands as well. And there is no bigger rush for myself, then the occasions when I type "bratwurst orange" and see my music up for trade. It's great. Uh, so check out my band too. As an aside, my side project, XIR (xir is recursive) has banned me for making a song called "kill everyone who works at mp3.com" bad taste? sure, but it was obviously a joke and I put it in the comedy genre and deleted it when they put it on hold, but now XIR is no more on mp3.com ::Dayeight:: Japan, Emulation, Parasites, Bratwurst Orange... |
| Re:ONE unsigned download? / OT: mp3.com banned me (Score:2) by FreeUser on Friday May 26, @01:30PM EDT (#281) (User Info) http://jean.nu/ |
| As an aside, my side project, XIR (xir is recursive) has banned me for making a song called "kill everyone who works at mp3.com" bad taste? sure, but it was obviously a joke and I put it in the comedy genre and deleted it when they put it on hold, but now XIR is no more on mp3.com So is there somewhere else I could download the mp3 from? Preferably with a clear license attached, assuring me its ok to do so? I'm kind of curious to hear the "kill everyone who works at mp3.com" song. :-) |
| Re:ONE unsigned download? / OT: mp3.com banned me (Score:1) by lambda on Friday May 26, @08:45PM EDT (#988) (User Info) |
| Too bad you sign away your music when you post it up on mp3.com, eh? |
| The point is: How do they get paid? (Score:4, Insightful) by mckwant (bschurleATyahooDOTcom) on Friday May 26, @12:36PM EDT (#28) (User Info) |
| At issue isn't whether, or how such things should be transferred digitally/electronically, as that appears inevitable. What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort. Well produced albums take time and money to produce. Freeloading (those that don't buy the CD) mp3 addicts use the product without paying anything back to the artist. While Lars isn't the best spoken guy on the planet, and I'm not a fan of most of what he's saying, I think THAT's the issue here, and it's not one that anyone has an answer for yet, TTBOMK. |
| No, that is exactly NOT the point (Score:1) by FascDot Killed My Pr on Friday May 26, @01:50PM EDT (#369) (User Info) |
| What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort." FALSE! I cannot stress this enough: FALSE FALSE FALSE. The members of Metallica are not our employees who have had their insurance premiums raised and so need a little extra something in their paychecks. We have no moral OR legal obligation to provide money (let alone profit) to Metallica. Clearly that's an issue for the musicians, but it is not the issue. The issue is about freedom. All economic arguments are secondary to that. The issue is: When I buy something, do I own it? And if I own it, can I copy it? And do I own the copy? And can I resell/give away the copy? I'm not saying that Metallica should be barred from making a profit--only that it's up to them how to do so. It is absolutely wrong to reduce public freedoms for the sake of an individual's profit. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail? Try MailOne for Linux! |
| Re:No, that is exactly NOT the point (Score:1) by Buttercup (mjpeck@fatchicks.com) on Friday May 26, @02:58PM EDT (#603) (User Info) http://mjpeck.fatchicks.com |
| Moderate this up. Everyone must read this, it is the very crux of the entire issue. MJP |
| Re:No, that is exactly NOT the point (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @06:48PM EDT (#905) (User Info) |
| When I buy something, do I own it? Sure And if I own it, can I copy it? Sure And do I own the copy? Sure And can I resell/give away the copy? Under fair use and in limited quantity, obviously. Law can't define this as such, because you're obviously going to share your music with more than one person in many cases. Copyright protection is only about controlling general trends in copying which subvert revenue. They do deserve to be recompensed for their time and effort because they produced these products. If general trends in piracy arise that subvert this intention, then law or precedent could then be set to stop these trends. You don't have a natural right to free information you know. If you're talking about giving a copy of your CD to people on napster, that would be a resounding NO. Fair use only goes so far. "It is absolutely wrong to reduce public freedoms for the sake of an individual's profit." Blah blah, and we should have digital books on the internet and freely available to everyone, because free stuff is freedom, and free stuff is RIGHT -- because I want it. Freedom is not an absolute. Freedom is not free of coercion. Freedom is balance. Metallica is seeking balance from their personally perceived injust activity (i.e., thousands of people trading their music for free). "All economic arguments are secondary to that." Nonsense. They create it, they own rights to replication. Fair use obviously comes into play, but not in this case. |
| Re:No, that is exactly NOT the point (Score:1) by FascDot Killed My Pr on Friday May 26, @08:16PM EDT (#968) (User Info) |
| When I buy something, do I own it? Sure ... They create it, they own rights to replication. So which is it? Do I own the it or do they? Personally, I have an opinion. But I think you agree that this is the crux of the matter--it's not about "how do we pay artists". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail? Try MailOne for Linux! |
| Re:No, that is exactly NOT the point (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @09:36PM EDT (#1005) (User Info) |
| Obviously you own that copy. You can convert it, splice it, dice it, remix it to your hearts content. However, there is a gray area at a point where you start copying your cd and giving it to friends. Lets say you create 500 copies and give it to your friends. I'd hardly call that fair use. You own your copy, but it isn't a license to create copies for everyone else in the world a la napster. The proponents of napster seems to think that just because you can, you should. Obviously if you can there will be many that will. That does not make it technically legal under the law. Anyway, napster isn't arguing any of this. They know it is illegal. They are arguing that they aren't doing the trading so they aren't doing anything illegal. This is clearly a case of technology outstripping law (although the DMCA somewhat covers it). Napster knows what they are doing is matching people up who are primarily trading in illegal music. It's like me setting up a service to allow thousands to download free computer software. I don't think it's too much different. |
| A very interesting question (Score:5, Interesting) by A nonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @01:59PM EDT (#403) (User Info) |
| If you look at the history of artists being paid, the recorded era is an aberration built on scarcity of the physical media. Before the printing press or the record or photograph, copy protection was a natural result of the process involved. It was too difficult to copy a book or painting. Someone could listen to a storyteller or musician and "steal" their work, but it inevitably changed in the process, such that the stolen copy was noticeably different. Artists made a living by performing or producing new material. Most producers had very little luck getting royalties, even when the concept existed. Beethoven worried about copying. "What have you done for me lately?" was the question, and the answer was, "Next show at 9." There was no concept of living off the past. They had to keep producing or keep performing to make a living. Recordings changed that, and good communication enforced it. The net will turn things back, with more hobby artists and fewer mega artists. The scarcity aspect is fast disappearing. Contrary to what Lars thinks, it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists. Reputations will spread by word of mouth, searches, and respected sites. Without marketing and retailers gobbling up 90 percent of the retail price, artists will be able to survive on far fewer paying customers. More artists will produce merely because they want to. People will support the artists they like, though nothing like the inflated way of today. Concerts and new material will become more important. Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take. In the 1930s and 1940s, when records were just taking off, Fats Waller usually went with his first takes. In the 1960s, the Beatles came out with, what, 5 albums in a couple of years? Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better? -- Don't give your right name, no no no --- Fats Waller |
| Re:A very interesting question (Score:1) by tableau20 (wwee@sharpcurve.com) on Friday May 26, @11:00PM EDT (#1032) (User Info) http://www.sharpcurve.com |
| One thing I think you are overlooking -- people really do like what other people like. Everyone (yes, even you) like to know what other people are talking about, even when they are talking to you about some dumb tv show or a top 40 song. Whether you engage in that sort of behavior or not, the sort of mass media culture that is around these days is pretty enjoyable to a lot of people. And to a lot of people listening to a good song is worthless unless other people have hear of it. |
| Re:A very interesting question (Score:1) by Commie on Saturday May 27, @05:42AM EDT (#1146) (User Info) |
| The beginning of your post is trash. Why? Because like oh-so-many people, you speak as if you know everything when you don't know what you're talking about other than scrips and bits you've read here and there. I'll skip -- it won't take huge marketing budgets to promote artists Someone, somehow, will be pushing a huge marketing budget to promote someone, regardless of the media/techology involved. These people will win over those without, period. . More artists will produce merely because they want to The notion of purity aside, I don't think you'll find any artist that doesn't fit this description. Most artists will forego the expensive and lengthy editing which studios and book publishers have used to justify their huge take. Your ignorance continues. Book Publishers? "Look Mr. King, you really need to try out this fancy font effect here and here". Studios are expensive because the hardware put in a pro-studio *costs a fortune*. Let me also explain, for someone who's obviously never attempted to record a song, that the endeavor is not a "here it is, let's cut it" process. With all kinds of new, very expensive, toys availible, experimentation begins. Some of my favorite albums cost a fortune to record because the artists spent a LOT of time playing around and attempting to really exploit what they had availible (My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, is a good example. 500k over quite some time to get it done, but I think you'll find the product wasn't finished in someones basement using some boss pedals and a 4 track). Nowadays music is so heavily produced that bands are lucky to come out with one album a year. Is the music really that much better The music? If it's a band bent on the purity of their live sound, maybe not. In all cases though, the quality of the recording has improved leaps and bounds. Buy a couple ADATs, a BRC, and whatever software you choose to record, edit, and master something. After spending that 10k, please attempt to record a band and make it sound half-way professional ("Dude, I ran Waves on this, but the levels still suck, whats the deal"). Once you've done that and you realize it sounds like shit, please consider the quote "Know of what you speak" may carry some weight when attempting to make a point. |
| Re:A very interesting question (Score:1) by awol on Sunday May 28, @11:47PM EDT (#1241) (User Info) |
| Artists made a living by being patronised by those who had money (and by patronised I mean those with the cash kept them in food and shelter ie sustainence) Mozart was fated by the Vienese toffs whilst Beethoven would have to write a bit of party music from time to time to make ends meet (there was some reference to his scottish agent in a SciAm Connections article recently IIRC). The same principal can return us to a more just regime of paying for reproduceable art (ie not paying) since once the art is made we dont gotta spend more social surplus (ie money) on spreading it around other than the cost of actually getting it around. If the artists starve then the music stops and so if you like the sound then you better start patronising the artists (just like the vienese toffs). In the 21st C we can use a million peoples dollar rather than a single millionares dollars to keep a million dollars woth of artists in sustainence. |
| Re:The point is: How do they get paid? (Score:1) by nanotech (nanotech at good ol' geocities.com) on Friday May 26, @02:25PM EDT (#498) (User Info) |
What IS at issue is exactly how the artists will be recompensed for their time and effort. Well produced albums take time and money to produce. Freeloading (those that don't buy the CD) mp3 addicts use the product without paying anything back to the artist. Why not treat Napster like a radio station? I'm sure this has been proposed already, but what about a tariff paid to RIAA from Napster, a certain percentage of their revenue. Sort of like how radio stations work (or used to work). Back in the 30's radio stations paid 5% of their revenue to ASCAP. I'm sure there is still a similar system in place, but don't know the specifics. Now, 5% is pretty low, especially for a company like Napster which could quite likely never show any significant revenue, but the theory is sound. The problem is that the RIAA would not accept 5%, they'll want 100%, so they'll just squash Napster and (eventually) do it themselves. It would certainly be nice if the RIAA or the individual labels would start a distribution system like this (after all, the 'net is supposed to eliminate the need for a middleman) but that isn't gonna happen for a while with the recording industry's Polish duke decision process. Maybe this would be a sufficient solution in the interim. |
| Re:The point is: How do they get paid? (Score:1) by Hnice on Friday May 26, @02:38PM EDT (#542) (User Info) |
| Figuring out how they get paid isn't my problem -- it's something that everybody in an information-selling industry is trying to figure out -- magazines, books, music, movies. So Metallica 'isn't quite there yet'? Not my fault they (and everybody else, save for chuck d) are dragging their feet. Given the number of people who have gotten rich selling what appeared at first to be next-to-nothing online in the last ten years, am i really supposed to sit here until Lars gets around to learning Perl? F this. An industry which becomes obselete because it hasn't even *tried* to keep up does *not* have any economic rights. No one has a right to make money through a particular devliery platform -- if in fact metallica owns the music and not the platform, they should be trying to get the music out via every available channel. the fact that they haven't shows that Lars is being disingenuous -- they aren't just lazy, they're in bed with the people who *do* need cds to hang around. Metallica, Britney Spears, Milli Vanilli. Enjoy it while it lasts. hniceatcrazygrandpadotcom |
| Re:The point is: How do they get paid? (Score:1) by Matt Gleeson on Friday May 26, @04:47PM EDT (#783) (User Info) http://gleeson.org/matt/ |
| Maybe the point is: you won't get rich making an album of 8 songs every 2 years anymore. Those days are over now. Though I'm talking out of my ass here, I think it's possible that a lot of musicians were hurt, not helped, by the invention of the phonograph. How many live acts lost work because they were replaced by jukeboxes and radios at diners and saloons? Didn't those musicians have a right to get paid? No, there's no right to get paid for what you do: if you need money, you do something people are willing to pay for. And sometimes technology comes along and shakes up your business, and like the buggy-whip makers and big-band musicians, you have to figure out some other way to make money. I would like to get paid to drink beer, but that isn't really possible for me. So I do something else that pays me money (writing software) and drink beer as a hobby. |
| Journalistic ethics (Score:3, Insightful) by streetlawyer (johnsaulmontoya@MAJORPORTALENDINGINEXCLAMATIONPOIN) on Friday May 26, @12:37PM EDT (#29) (User Info) |
| Errrmmmm ... I know you guys aren't professional journalists, but Roblimo has been in the business long enough to know that leaving in all of somebody's "You know"'s and "OK"'s in an attempt to make them look like a moron isn't good ethics. I certainly hope that this utterly verbatim account is at Metallica's request, otherwise it looks a bit shabby. And bTW, what did he actually say which Emmett replaced by [fight] above. I'm guessing he used the c-word? |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:5, Interesting) by technos (technos@crosswinds.spam.net) on Friday May 26, @12:47PM EDT (#72) (User Info) http://www.crosswinds.net/~technos/ |
| I actually think it's better that all of the verbal gaffs were left in. You could tell it was Lars, you could tell it was off the cuff, and you could most certainly tell there was no laywer sitting between Lars and the phone. If they had screened the gaffs, we would have indebatably spent the next 300 comments complaining that 'Lars musta been scripted or something'. Watch this space! |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:5, Informative) by roblimo (roblimo.nojunk@slashdot.org) on Friday May 26, @01:36PM EDT (#308) (User Info) |
| Lars' words were published verbatim by prior agreement. It would have been a lot easier for us (especially timothy!) if we'd gotten neatly-typed answers. But the band and their publicists wanted to make sure you knew that you were getting honest, unfiltered opinions from Lars himself, not a bunch of stock lines cooked up by lawyers. Timothy and I both know how to edit and "clean up" an interview transcript. If this was CNN's Web site, we would have. But this is Slashdot, where we figure most of the readers like the unvarnished truth better than the laundered version. And, if this was CNN's Web site, we would have written the questions ourselves instead of doing the "Slashdot thing" and asking questions that were written by readers and chosen (through moderation) by other readers. Slashdot is often accused of not being the New York Times, or ABC News, or whatever other medium you happen to favor. Guess what? It isn't supposed to be! :) - Robin |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Friday May 26, @02:20PM EDT (#483) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| Guess what? It isn't supposed to be! :) Thank all that's good and holy for that one. Keep going with the nitty gritty so-much-info-only-a-geek-would-like-it coverage. It would also be cool (if possible) for the verbal interviews to include a link to an MP3(!) of the interview and not just the text version. Good work, keep it up! :) -- currently at V.9 |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by Wah (Hello!?thewah@uswest.netWhat?!) on Friday May 26, @04:10PM EDT (#729) (User Info) http://wahcentral.net |
| or a ragin' horde of geeks to mirror it. You can encode voice at 8kbs (vs 128kbs for music) and it still comes over fine. This story alone for me is a 300K+ DL. I don't think the audio portion would be too much larger than that, and I'd only dl it once, versus the 5 or six times I will for this story.(or they could just put it on Napster, and let the people shoulder the massive bandwidth costs :) -- currently at V.9 |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by kel-tor (keltor@micron.net) on Friday May 26, @04:09PM EDT (#728) (User Info) |
| I don't read traditional print media anymore, that is, specifically I don't read the local newspaper... the journalism was just to yellow-- only the news that they get good coverage of, Front page full page of Di's death with Mother Theresa's death on page 2, -- it's all glamour and fashion, or yellow journalism. And there is one thing that I find more 'yellow' than everything else... the corrections are in small type, bottom corner, of page 2, 4, 5 or 6 depending on day, of section D. If they were journalists in the sense that I understand the word, I would expect that corrections would make the front page and keep their community informed and not operating under a misconseption because they didnt catch the correction. My 2 cents. ie, /., for me, whenever you print corrections, please keep them obvious (like the Hellmouth book, the Update: that you add, etc) an image had better be worth a 1000 words-- it takes longer to download. (this message posted from my Debian X-box) |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, @04:33PM EDT (#762) |
| I just wanted to let you know that, indeed, Slashdot is not the New York Times. However, the New York Times is a known quantity that plays by known rules. Slashdot, obviously, operates in a different universe and by different rules. It was not clear, then, that Metallica has any hand in choosing how the interview with Lars was presented. Both myself and my coworkers were under the impression that the interview was printed verbatim to make Lars appear foolish, in typical disinformation fashion. If you have ever read a court transcript, you'll know that even sans "ums" a verbatim transcript of a conversation looks, well, unpolished. That's why reputable journalists don't print verbatim off-the-cuff conversations very often (the New York Times often does include complete transcripts, but generally deal only with politicians and other professional speakers). Hence for Slashdot to do something outside the journalistic norm without explaining itself simply looks suspicious. In the future, extremely relevant and useful information such as "why the information is presented in this manner" should be put forth prominently at the start of the article. To do otherwise simply smacks of yellow journalism. Brian |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by killmenow on Friday May 26, @05:00PM EDT (#800) (User Info) |
| after I explained the nature of a Slashdot interview, and how the questions were gathered and chosen, as well as the fact that he was free to be as candid and discursive as he'd like, [snip] ;) Lars seemed impressed by the forum that Slashdot offered and called it "a nice setup" for an interview. Did you miss that or what? I think you're totally off base. I applaud /. for putting it out there for what it is without editorial mangling. Most "reputable journalists" print/air exactly what their news directors tell them to...which is all too often EXACTLY what their corporate sponsors, political friends, et. al. want them to air. Thank you /. for displaying that NEWS is supposed to be direct dissemination of FACTS...and that bull@#$! editorializing and [snippage] equates to SOMEONE ELSE deciding FOR ME what IS and IS NOT relevant to a given issue. ... I really don't want to get into how messed up "real news" is here... Suffice to say: I can decide what's relevant for myself. Put it all on the table and let ME decide how I feel about it. Consequences, monsequences...as long as I'm rich. |
| Re:INCONSISTANCY: Did you read THIS carefully? (Score:1) by Rares Marian (rmarian@winblowsstart.com) on Friday May 26, @04:02PM EDT (#717) (User Info) |
| God take a joke and chew on it. Caught signal SIGSIG read this comment again. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:2) by Chalst (cas-at-achilles.bu.edu) on Friday May 26, @12:48PM EDT (#77) (User Info) http://achilles.bu.edu/cas |
| The advantage of the verbatim transcript is that not many people are gping to think that this is the 16th version that finally made it through a panel of lawyers review. I'm guessing Lars wanted it this way. I don't think Slashdot are guilty of treating this interview casually. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by emmett (emmett at slashdot dot org) on Friday May 26, @12:49PM EDT (#83) (User Info) http://www.mentaltempt.org |
| And bTW, what did he actually say which Emmett replaced by [fight] above. I'm guessing he used the c-word? I secured the interview, but timothy conducted and transcribed it. --Emmett |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:2) by Robotech_Master (robotech@eyrie.org) on Friday May 26, @12:50PM EDT (#94) (User Info) http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/index.html |
Allow me to call your attention back to part of the interview--specifically, to the line I've highlighted in bold. But I should also say that we are, we're also, this is going to sound -- make sure you don't edit this! -- we're also, I know this is going to sound like we're full of ourselves, but I know we're also quite smart.Get it? Besides, if it had been edited and cleaned up, then everyone would have been ragging on it being the lawyers speaking, not Lars. This way you can be pretty darned sure it's the genuine article. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:2) by dylan_- (ddyyllaann__7733@@yyaahhoo..ccoomm) on Friday May 26, @12:50PM EDT (#97) (User Info) |
Errrmmmm ... I know you guys aren't professional journalists, but Roblimo has been in the business long enough to know that leaving in all of somebody's "You know"'s and "OK"'s in an attempt to make them look like a moron isn't good ethics. I doubt it was to make the guy look like a moron. They said it was difficult to get hold of anyone, the interview seems to have been conducted over the phone, and you know what the alternative to a verbatim account is; clean it up, send the final version back for approval, and then post it.... Maybe they didn't want to wait another 6 months to post the interview. :-) Anyway, I suspect they asked "you mind if we just run exactly what you said" and he agreed.... dylan_- |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday May 26, @12:57PM EDT (#116) (User Info) |
| I actually don't mind minimally edited transcripts. Anyone with half a brain knows that's how most people talk, and that most journalists edit it out. Basically, anyone who posts "oh, Lars is such an idiot, look how he talks" is not only going to get ignored, he's going to get modded down. Well, unless he makes some extraordinarily funny joke involving Chuck D, User Friendly, and fsck. For the rest of us, who are at least slightly intelligent, we get to read an interview that sounds like it was done with an actual person, not a publicist for the RIAA. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by startled (mfranklin@ILIKESPAMhomestead-inc.com) on Friday May 26, @01:00PM EDT (#132) (User Info) |
| Oops. Nevermind my previous post, quoted below. Apparently, all it really takes to get modded up to 4 is saying "like" a lot of times. But I couldn't have overestimated the intelligence of either the poster or the moderators, so I must just not "get it". I actually don't mind minimally edited transcripts. Anyone with half a brain knows that's how most people talk, and that most journalists edit it out. Basically, anyone who posts "oh, Lars is such an idiot, look how he talks" is not only going to get ignored, he's going to get modded down. Well, unless he makes some extraordinarily funny joke involving Chuck D, User Friendly, and fsck. For the rest of us, who are at least slightly intelligent, we get to read an interview that sounds like it was done with an actual person, not a publicist for the RIAA. |
| That's *exactly* how Lars' talks (Score:2, Funny) by gad_zuki! (user245REMOVE@THIS.hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @01:01PM EDT (#142) (User Info) |
| He's just as incomprensible in person, though I'm sure its his meth addiction that keeps stopping his train of thought every 3 or 4 words. This .sig is here to make you think, "Him again?" |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by cowmix (march@NOSPAM.indirect.com) on Friday May 26, @01:06PM EDT (#161) (User Info) http://www.cowmix.com |
| One thing that bugged me is that there were a ton of mis-spellings in the interview. These mistakes look Metallica look bad when it is not their fault. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:1) by kirwin (deathb4spam@zoomnet.net) on Friday May 26, @01:11PM EDT (#188) (User Info) |
| It is now a documented fact that Lars has communication problems. Chastising the interviewer for not cleaning up the dialogue is completely trivial. Had Barbara Walters done this interview on TV, no one would question her integrity whilst Lars is swinging his heaad around and cursing. I wouldn't give Matt Lauer hell if Lars forgot to shower. It is Lars responsibility to not make an ass of himself. |
| Re:Journalistic ethics (Score:2) by deusx on Friday May 26, @02:51PM EDT (#583) (User Info) http://www.ninjacode.com.com/deus_x/ |
| Lars' own words (emphasis mine): ... But I should also say that we are, we're also, this is going to sound -- make sure you don't edit this! -- we're also, I know this is going to sound like we're full of ourselves, but I know we're also quite smart ... This is more a transcript of a conversation, and I think I can accept that without thinking Lars was intentionally made to "look like a moron". So, I'd say that respecting his wishes to forego anything except minor editing shows very decent ethics. -- I'd have a really cool .sig, but right now I can't even remember my own damn name. ICQ: 11082089 (work) 492905 (play) |
| Post the sound file! (Score:1) by Gorimek on Saturday May 27, @01:09AM EDT (#1074) (User Info) http://u1.netgate.net/~mette/lars/ |
| So they demanded and got a verbatim transcript. Fine. But is there anything stopping slashdot from putting up the interview as a sound file so we can hear it? I think it would be easier to follow if heard. You don't have to make it an .mp3 file. |
| Another take on Metallica v$. Napster (Score:1) by el_chicano on Friday May 26, @12:38PM EDT (#31) (User Info) http://www.brokersys.com/~vatoloco |
METALLICA: "NAPSTER - BAD!" -- You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork! Morris Fletcher, The X-Files |
| Re:Another take on Metallica v$. Napster (Score:1) by Edax Rarem on Friday May 26, @02:00PM EDT (#407) (User Info) http://timandmary.com |
| ROTFLMAO Consumer of all things |
| Scale makes it wrong? (Score:5, Insightful) by meadowsp on Friday May 26, @12:38PM EDT (#33) (User Info) |
| I'm amazed that Lars can say that the taping vinyl is OK but MP3ing vinyl isn't, purely on the basis of scale and availability. Assuming I was incredibly rich and created millions of tapes of one of his albums and made them freely available to everyone in the world, is that the same as taping or MP3ing? At what scale does it become unethical? It's such a bogus argument, it's almost unbelievable, it's either alright or it's not, there's no half way. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by clgoh on Friday May 26, @12:44PM EDT (#61) (User Info) |
| Fair use could be considered half way, and big scale trading is obviously not. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by marcushnk (marcushnk@hotmail.com) on Friday May 26, @12:57PM EDT (#120) (User Info) http://www.slashdot.org |
| He also said that it was about QUALITY of music, The quality of mp3's is a great deal better than tape. I can understand their aurgument when said that the sheer QUANTITY of the songs sent batched with the quality of the rip... Fair enough.. but I dissagree with their view in general. I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed preson. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by crm0922 on Friday May 26, @01:53PM EDT (#385) (User Info) |
| He also said that it was about QUALITY of music, The quality of mp3's is a great deal better than tape. I can understand their aurgument ... No it is not. A good quality tape reproduction of a CD is far superior to warbly dynamically compressed MP3's. Napster is a way to hear a particular song when you want to hear it without paying $16 for 10 crappy songs and the song you like. (not that metallica has one song anyone should like) It is the equivalent of making mix tapes from all your friends much more easily than with real tapes. So what, who's gonna stop the millions made from tireless promoting of standard video and audio mediums. Certainly not MP3. I have and never will pay for a poor quality MP3 version of any song by any band. Chris |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by Molly on Friday May 26, @02:23PM EDT (#492) (User Info) |
| >>The quality of mp3's is a great deal better than >>tape. > >No it is not. A good quality tape reproduction >of a CD is far superior... It's the quantity of that quality that makes the difference. The lossy nature of analogue recordings means that you can't make more than a few generations of copies before you have to go back to the master (or CD, or whatever) and start again. Nobody is claiming that digital is perfect, MP3 isn't, even 16/44 PCM isn't. What you do get with digital is all the loss up-front, once only, and perfect copies thereafter. Molly. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:3, Interesting) by Golias on Friday May 26, @02:08PM EDT (#437) (User Info) |
| The quality of mp3's is a great deal better than tape. A good dub tape sounds much, much better than an mp3 rip. Anyone who has listened to both on a quality hi-fi system and thinks otherwise has ears of tin. Of course, being a drummer in a heavy metal band for your entire adult life could make parsing out sound fidelity pretty tricky. When Lars says that mp3's are a perfect copy of the masters, I'm sure he is taking somebody's word for it; no doubt everything he hears is blended with a steady "eeee..." I would have used more "e"s to make my point, but the dang lameness filler kicked in. :( I never said I was afraid of dying. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:5, Insightful) by seebs (seebs@plethora.net) on Friday May 26, @01:03PM EDT (#146) (User Info) http://www.plethora.net/~seebs/ |
| Yes, scale makes it wrong. Is it net abuse to send a single email to a single person asking about a possible economic relationship? No. Is it net abuse to send a few million? Yes. Many, many, things are problems only if done on a large scale. Most people have come to the conclusion that morality and ethics have to allow for grey areas, as something gradually shifts from harmless to harmful. Concrete example: If I touch someone, I probably kill a skin cell. This is not a problem. If I killed enough of their cells, it would be a problem. How do you decide whether causing cells in someone's body to die is immoral? Well, you look to see if it's doing measurable damage. At some point, it's clearly doing damage. At some point a little before that, it's ambiguous, and you have to look at the context. Bob's Nearly-Successful Band probably doesn't care if I make a copy of their band for my wife. However, if I give away thirty thousand copies that are good enough that people don't buy their album, they may be screwed. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=GZX636 - Get paid to surf |
| No, the scale just make it's high profile (Score:2, Insightful) by Pierre on Friday May 26, @01:30PM EDT (#275) (User Info) http://www.icaen.uiowa.edu/~pwgreen |
| The scale get is notice but it's wrong either way. I have agreed with Metalica's right to do with their music from the start. It just like a software developers right to choose a license for their work. I may not always like the choice but I respect it and would people to do the same for my work. I think it's clear in this interview that Lars is being hypocritical when it comes to copies. An illegal copies is an illegal copy. It doesn't matter how good or how bad your Xerox was. That is the thing that bugged me about this interview. He flips back and forth from strong ethical arguments to strong cash flow arguments. It's my work I should have control over it's distribution to Well that's different it was an analog copy. come on... |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by meadowsp on Friday May 26, @01:42PM EDT (#335) (User Info) |
| I can't agree with you there. Suppose you got an email that looked like spam. Would you respond if you thought that it had only been sent to you? What does it matter who else has been sent it? |
| These other responses are idiotic (Score:2) by Fas Attarac (attarac@fastolfe.net) on Saturday May 27, @11:26AM EDT (#1182) (User Info) |
| Of COURSE scale and quality matters. I see posts here trying to literally compare the act of 1 unauthorized copy to MURDER for God's sake. I can't believe we have people here a) saying making a tape for your friend of a few choice songs is just as evil; or b) letting people download millions of copies of high-quality digital albums is "ok" and even "right". You people clearly do not understand the way the world works here.. The original poster explained it best by saying there *are* gray areas DEFINED by scale and quality. Murder OBVIOUSLY is not one of them. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by Kwil on Friday May 26, @01:23PM EDT (#242) (User Info) http://www.cadvision.com/kwil/index.html |
| The scale it becomes unethical at is when you're giving tapes out to people you don't know and won't get to know. As long as its restricted to your circle of friends, there is a limit as to how far its going to go, and there also is more of a sense of responsibility - your friend gave this to you. You know it's not legit, there's no way you can pretend its legit, and there's that slight moral wiggle in there that may one day encourage you to actually buy one of the albums. If not this one, then maybe the next one - if for no other reason than so you can return the favor to your friend. You get the song from some anonymous source be it Napster or some incredibly rich guy with a poor sense of values, there's less of a moral connection. "Hey, he was giving it to everybody. It's not just me.." and hence less compunction to eventually purchase. "I'll just wait til the rich guy gets it..." |
| Re:Scale? - Free speech not matter of convenience (Score:1) by sparkane on Friday May 26, @02:43PM EDT (#554) (User Info) http://64.26.11.169 |
As long as its restricted to your circle of friends, there is a limit as to how far its going to go, and there also is more of a sense of responsibility - your friend gave this to you. The whole scale thing is slightly skewed, first of all, because napster isn't one action on a massive scale, but a huge amount of little actions. Therefore the effects take place on one scale, but the causes exist on an entirely separate scale, and this is important to know. To address the "between friends" as being the scale where it becomes unethical - that too makes it sound much bigger and badder than it really is on the individual user's scale. In fact there probably aren't that many downloads taken (by strangers) from any individual user on napster. there may be more than that user would have actually given to their friends, but probably not that many more, so it certainly isn't going to seem like it's taking place on a huge scale to the user. In fact it can't take place on a huge scale for an individual user, unless they have a T1. My modem at home doesn't know the meaning of "scale", except scale=1 download. Really the scale argument is fundamentally flawed, in the sense that your free speech is not a matter of market convenience. If piracy suddenly becomes easier to do, does that mean that tools to do it with like Napster or the companies that distribute them are illegal or that our rights to use the internet should be severely curtailed? It's preposterous. I'm not saying that infringing copyright is a good thing, but if all the attackers of napster can say is "hey! we're going to lose a lot of money!", that doesn't mean they're right. --- |
| Of Course Scale Makes it wrong (Score:1) by delmoi (delmoi at hot mail dot com) on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#291) (User Info) |
| If I stole an empty pop-can from your house to get the rebate on it, would you care. If hacked the bank and transfered one million dolars from you, would you care? Where do you draw the line? I don't, but obviously you can draw it somewhere [ c h a d o k e r e ] "We'll find a way to fuck with it" - Lars Ulrich on gnutella/freenet |
| Re:Of Course Scale Makes it wrong (Score:1) by Sir Joltalot on Sunday May 28, @01:42AM EDT (#1220) (User Info) http://petecaffeine.cjb.net |
| Hehe.. if I had a million dollars in a plain old bank account, I probably wouldn't care because I'd have a lot more in other places. I know what you're trying to say though.. it's a good point. But.. I think a slight fallacy does lie in the fact that people who have a lot of stuff to be stolen don't need it as much. If I stole a pop can from a homeless person who needed the 5 cents to buy a cup of coffee, would he care? So in the case of Metallica, I think it's just crappy that they're doing this. Lars admits it's really of no concern to them and it's costing them more to fight it. If he's so worried about it then he should be helping the unsigned artists sell those other 550 CDs he mentions... And of course, there's another argument there because unsigned artists need the distribution, but that's another issue entirely... "The less you know, the better you sleep." |
| Scale a Factor in Fair Use Analysis (Score:5, Informative) by Bloo on Friday May 26, @01:54PM EDT (#389) (User Info) |
| Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides a non-exhaustive list of factors to be examine when determining whether the particular use of another's work is permissible. They're not long, so I'll post them: "In determining whether the use made of a work in a particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--- (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." Obviously, factors 3 and 4 reflect the weight of Lars' argument. The difference in quality between a digital MP3 and a tape cassette copy of a vinyl recoring might easily fall into the scope of the "substantiality" term. Also, the NET Act (No Electronic Theft) Act amended the copyright law placing volume and dollar value thresholds for criminal copyright violations, closing the so-called "LaMacchia Loophole", which enabled an MIT student to escape liability because even though the computer service he provided (IIRC this was pre-WWW) allowed people to pirate and otherwise infringe the copyright of computer games, he did not personally profit from it. Disclaimer: I'm a lawyer but I'm not your lawyer. And I dont' practice right now anyway. |
| Re:Scale a Factor in Fair Use Analysis (Score:1) by sparkane on Friday May 26, @02:49PM EDT (#576) (User Info) http://64.26.11.169 |
Scale may be a factor in fair use, but fair use is not a factor in using Napster. The files which are legal to distribute on Napster are not at issue, and it is only those to which fair use applies. Trading Metallica's songs on Napster is simply infringement and there is no fair use defense. In regard to our rights to use Napster or software like it, fair use never comes into the picture. It's all free speech, right to read, right to privacy, hell, even right to assemble. In regard to these rights, "scale" is a red herring. Totally. Absolutely. And Really Red. --- |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by Hotaine (User Name: hotaine, Domain Name: acm.org) on Friday May 26, @02:09PM EDT (#444) (User Info) http://www.hotaine.net |
| I don't think he said taping vinyl is OK. I think he was saying that bootlegging their concerts on tape was acceptable. I don't think they appreciate any piracy of their studio work, whether it be taped from vinyl or ripped from a CD. Free MP3's! Take 'em! Copy 'em! Pass 'em around! |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by deepakhj on Friday May 26, @02:18PM EDT (#473) (User Info) |
| You are dead on. Exactly what I thought. My friend's have lots of copies on tapes. The only reason we don't do it anymore is because we were forced by music companies to USE CDS. That's why we copy CDS NOW. It's so stupid. I remember at warehouse the whole store were tapes and one aisle was cds. Now it's the other way around. What the f*ck do you expect people to be copying? He doesn't understand that if your friends copy, then you can bet others do, and it's probably a much more significant amount of people who copied tapes than he states. One of my friends has like 100s of tapes. But now she burns cds rather than tapes. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:3, Insightful) by belgin (b dot elgin at worldnet dot att dot net) on Friday May 26, @04:46PM EDT (#781) (User Info) |
| I'm amazed that Lars can say that the taping vinyl is OK but MP3ing vinyl isn't, purely on the basis of scale and availability. ... At what scale does it become unethical? One word: Microsoft. Most people on /. are not fond of MS. Is the stuff they are doing that much worse than that done by many smaller companies? No, not much. Scale does become a factor in that one, because it gives them the power to pummel anyone who interferes with their plans. In general, there are a lot of things that people overlook all the time. When you do those same things on a massive scale, people start to care. Kill a bug: who cares? Wipe out a healthy species: Some people are going to care. The scale at which people care varies by person. An entymologist or environmentalist is going to care about someone killing bugs long before your average yuppie. An average Washinton DC politician probably won't care until studies come in showing that many voters care about the fact you wiped out the entire population of mantids everywhere in the world and we now have locusts. It just varies from person to person and what they care about. |
| Re:Anonymity in copies; freedom of music (Score:1) by emgoldman on Saturday May 27, @12:46AM EDT (#1067) (User Info) |
| Well, besides scale and quality (and digital rips | digital copies at least have the potential to sound as good as the originals) the other factor involved in Naptster (and net copying more generally, as in hotline) is anonymity. When I used to get tapes of records from my friends, that was just it--they were my friends, and the tapes were a labor of love or at least friendship. Likewise, I made lots of tapes for my friends, some requested, others just because I had to turn them onto some music I liked. When I use Naptster (or gnutella or websites or hotline) I generally have no clue who is providing me with the music--and it doesn't matter. Likewise, people are constantly downloading stuff from my harddrive and I make no effort to monitor them, let alone get to know them personally. Home taping has a self-limiting factor, in the size of friendship circles. Even old-fashioned "taping trees" (designed to maximize the convenience of making lots of semi-anonymous copies of live bootlegs) tend to limit at a small size (relative to sales of the same artists' major-label releases). I do think that people are using Napster at least some of the time to avoid buying CD's of songs that they might otherwise buy. And I agree that the artists who originate the music should have some right to say whether and how that music may be distributed, and especially that they deserve a cut if someone's making money off the distribution. If you want the equivalent of free software (as in speech, not just beer), then join the folk music movement. People there share songs because they like to play them together, and to hear how the songs grow and change as they get passed from player to player. But taking prerecorded music from the musicians withouth their permission is something like theft (even if it doesn't leave the artist with an empty warehouse). |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by drunen on Saturday May 27, @02:03AM EDT (#1097) (User Info) http://ian.cahoon.com |
| The difference between the two is your barrier to entry. Creating a large music collection via taping is MANY orders of magnitude more difficult than doing it with mp3 and Napster. You even mention it, assuming you had a million dollars... In an ideal world both methods are wrong, but from a practical perspective (the perspective I believe Lars is coming from), cracking down on taping just isn't worth the hassle. |
| Re:Scale makes it wrong? (Score:1) by ortholattice on Saturday May 27, @11:50AM EDT (#1183) (User Info) |
| If Lars admits to having made a single unauthorized copy of music from a friend, which he has, then he is a hypocrite. He even implies it's semi-acceptable, which to me makes his argument invalid. Sure, it's onesies and twosies on an individual level, but you have to multiply that by the number of individuals. (Unless he, as Lars, thinks he's somehow special -- I particularly like the condescending way he puts down his gardener and pool cleaner. I'm sure many a struggling artist has cleaned pools, and talent does not necessarily equal appeal to the masses.) Why is it (kind of) OK for a million individuals to obtain copies from a network of friends but not OK for them to get the same thing from a network of computers? Pot...kettle...black. When I was in college before the internet it was (almost) as easy to obtain just about any music you wanted from a network of friends, and many students built up taped music collections that way. On the other hand many others (including myself) liked the feeling of having the official physically packaged product and would purchase at least the ones they liked the best, despite their easy availability. I don't see why this would change. The "degradation" argument doesn't hold because these would all be first-generation copies, which were practically indistinguishable (except to a few nitpicky audiophiles) from the original. Comparing Napster to email spam, as one poster did to argue that it's the scale of things that counts, is not a valid analogy. The first involves a private exchange between two consenting individuals. The second involves an involuntary intrusion into your space. I don't see that widespread free distribution is doing any more harm than playing the song over the radio. If anything it's helping them IMO. It's free publicity, and the more publicity the higher the likelihood that some individuals will want to purchase the official package, go to concerts, buy souvenirs, etc. Recording industry profits are at an all-time record level. The only "evidence" of harm I've seen wass a recent survey showing a small decrease in sales of stores near colleges. Well, record stores have also lost most of my business simply because it's so much easier to find and order over the internet, and certainly college students are more internet-savvy than the average person. A valid study would also look at internet purchases by these students. (Disclaimers: As more of a classical-music type, I do not like Metallica's music and in fact rather dislike it. I just accept it as a fact of life that I'll be around people who do, and do my best to tune out Metallica's noise which for me is a kind of auditory "spam". I also tend to hold the philosophical view that a private transaction between two consenting individuals should be a private matter, a view that is sometimes at odds with copyright - and other - laws.) |
| It is the quality and the scale?????????? (Score:1) by redleg141 on Friday May 26, @12:38PM EDT (#34) (User Info) |
| Lars: Yeah, I mean I think we answered that before. Of course we have, ok? And of course it's a valid point. The bottom line is the size of it. The size of it and the quality of it. When we go in, and check Napster out, we come up with 1.4 million copyright infringements in 48 hours, this is a different thing than trading cassette tapes with your buddy at school. I mean, 48 hours! So it's the quality, the quality and the scale. It is the quality and the scale?????????? Who is he kidding. Can he prove that of those 1.4 million copies, noone who downloaded them owned the appropriate CDs? I own several CDs but I don't want to carry them everywhere I bring my laptop. However, if I have MP3s for all of my CDs, they don't add any wieght to my system. How I get the MP3s is another question. should I spend 20 to 30 minutes a song and rip them myself of should I download them from someone else who owns the CD as well and has already ripped them in 5 to 10 minutes a song. My time is valuable. I think I'll go for the shorter time. As for Napster, it is a tool that allows me to easily find the files for the CDs I already own. I have a question for the peanut gallery; how many people out there download MP3s for CDs they don't have and keep them permanently? I don't. I use the MP3s I download to decide if a CD is worth buying. |
| Re:It is the quality and the scale?????????? (Score:1) by Spatch (spatula@!nnuendo.com) on Friday May 26, @12:57PM EDT (#118) (User Info) http://spatch.ne.mediaone.net |
| Sure, 1.4 million copyright infringements in 48 hours is different than one fellow trading tapes with his school chums. But surely Lars isn't trying to say that one person's MP3 of "Enter Sandman" on Napster equals 1.4 million 'copyright infringements'. And surely Lars isn't insinuating that only one person in 48 hours has home-taped a song for their buddies. I respect Lars for being able to openly and honestly speak his mind about the events with Napster without using a PR shill or, worse yet, a lawyer, for his voice. However, this whole thing now smacks to me about as hypocritical as Rosie O'Donnell's being at the moment -- the tireless anti-gun crusader's son's bodyguard is applying for a concealed weapons permit. It's bad for other people, but not bad given personal circumstances. I guess I was most shocked to see Lars still exhorting bootlegging, really. |
| Re:It is the quality and the scale?????????? (Score:1) by Saint Aardvark on Friday May 26, @01:16PM EDT (#207) (User Info) http://st_aardvark.tripod.com |
| I have a question for the peanut gallery; how many people out there download MP3s for CDs they don't have and keep them permanently? I don't. Honestly? I do. I plan on getting the CDs eventually, since the MP3 is only playable on my computer with its noisy fan that kind of annoys my girlfriend...but I don't have the CD now, and it might well be a long time before I get around to buying it. Does that make me a bad person? It certainly makes me a thief. |
| Re:It is the quality and the scale?????????? (Score:1) by ZVSMedia.com on Monday May 29, @04:09AM EDT (#1250) (User Info) http://zvsmedia.com |
| My reason for grabbing Metallica MP3s (pre-Napster) was to replace my worn-out old cassettes that I bought years ago - surely there must be many other people in the same situation! Maybe I'm being a bit anal about it, but your typical MP3 is *not* a 1st generation master as Lars keeps repeating. It's far from it - somewhere between a cassette and a CD (generally speaking). While I think MP3s are great for listening to, there is an obvious (at least to me - I do it for a living, but so does Lars) difference between an uncompressed digital master and a compressed MP3. In terms Lars might be more comfortable with, the difference between the genuine product and the bootleg can be readily established. I so wish that Metallica would have put all this time and money into a constructive solution, like a secure digital download format, rather than penalizing their fans and making a bunch of rich lawyers richer... |
| Re:Why should he prove it? (Score:1) by redleg141 on Friday May 26, @04:37PM EDT (#767) (User Info) |
| Have you ever heard of the concept of "Presumed Innocent until Proven Guilty?" |
| Help! (Score:4, Insightful) by Anonymous Shepherd (louisjr@cco.caltech.edu) on Friday May 26, @12:39PM EDT (#35) (User Info) http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~louisjr |
| It's very strange. It seems Lars tacitly acknowledges that he's responding out of ignorance and concern. It would seem a good opportunity to use this as a way to change the way the market works. He obviously cares, otherwise he wouldn't put this effort into Napster, MP3s, and the internet vs his music. How is it that we can use this to our(Lars, artists, and consumers all) advantage? Is there a way to *work* with the artists, like Lars, rather than against them? They just want to make music, want to sell it, want to have it spread. We want to hear it, obviously, and share it. Can some genius, someone with the right insight and the right knowledge, right now work a system up that puts all of this together and create a win-win situation? I don't think I am that person. I don't know how we can create a system that gives consumers instant access, perfect quality, convenience, and acknowledgement, and the artists the satisfaction of being heard, being paid, and being loved. Anyone? -AS *Pikachu* |
| Re:Help! (Score:1) by Garth Vader on Friday May 26, @01:18PM EDT (#221) (User Info) |
| Well what you really need is basically a huge music server where you can pay 50 cents or a dollar for a song. They could have two copies of each song, one with dimished quality which would be free to allow you to sample without buying. The other would be in impeccible quality which would be the pay song. Would people use something like this? I probably would. One thing I don't like about Napster is that the selection changes constantly, sometimes a file is mislabled or sounds like it was recorded through somebodys ass. I would certinly pay to get quality, but I hate paying $16 for two songs that I like and 10 songs I never want to hear again. I don't have the time, resources or energy to try and set something like this up but I do think it wouldn't be that hard as long as you could get a bunch of artists together. |
| Good idea. (Score:1) by StatGrape (no@got.com) on Friday May 26, @01:43PM EDT (#338) (User Info) http://www.nerdperfect.com |
| Perfect idea... everyone wins. Who hasn't bought a CD just for one or two songs, never intending to listen to the rest? NerdPerfect.com : breakfast of champions. |
| Re:Help! (Score:1) by NI3 on Friday May 26, @04:05PM EDT (#722) (User Info) |
| Would people use something like this? Biggest problem is the method of payment; I don't wanna send my credit card info to every site on which I wanna spend a few dollars. If I could buy a smartcard for say 100$ and plug it into my PC to pay for little things, (specially downloads), I certainly would consider buying my MP3s (at a reasonable price ofcourse!). And I could finally register some of those sharewares I've been using for years ;-) |
| Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:3, Insightful) by phossie on Friday May 26, @01:21PM EDT (#239) (User Info) |
Lars has admitted here (we all knew it) that their information is screened for them. Lars probably doesn't know how digital compression techniques work, or that the majority of mp3's are noticeably not CD quality, much less master quality. To illustrate: ...we do not condone and want to be part of some kind of illegal trading of our masters through sources we have not authorized... There is a difference, I think, ... comparing that kind of home taping to basically going on the Internet and getting 1st generation, perfect digital copies of master recordings from all the world, is just not a fair comparison. Some .lawyer. decided to tell the band that mp3's were "perfect digital copies" of their masters. Not that under usual use, mp3 is a lossy compression algorithm. Why, I ask, didn't they just request that Metallica mp3's encoded at a bitrate higher than 160 be banned? Because someone told them their masters were in circulation. It sounds like if Lars knew that mp3 had a little quality problem (again, in normal use) he, and presumeably Metallica, would also have a little less of a problem with Napster. |
| Re:Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @02:33PM EDT (#520) (User Info) |
| Close enough to CD quality that the average person does not notice. It also does not degrade when copying. Thank you, Good bye. |
| Re:Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:1) by t0m f00l on Friday May 26, @02:34PM EDT (#522) (User Info) |
| Close enough to CD quality that the average person does not notice. It also does not degrade when copying. Thank you, Good bye. |
| MP3 = lossy (Score:1) by Platypii (__ken__@yahoo.com) on Friday May 26, @05:55PM EDT (#860) (User Info) |
| true, mp3 is a lossy compression algorithm, but at any bitrate higher than about 64 is close enough to the original quality, that the loss of quality is negligeble. Yes, you can hear a slight diffence in CD vs. 128kb audio, but a cd player hooked up to bad speakers could be worse too, the point is that the songs were pirated, and the people who pirated them violated the law, and should feel lucky they weren't sued! |
| Re:Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:1) by Zimm on Friday May 26, @06:20PM EDT (#884) (User Info) |
| MP3's can be close enough to CD quality so that there is little value added from buying the CD. This is the important concept to consider, since this is part of the process someone goes through when the deceide to steal or buy a song. |
| Re:Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:1) by matthead (mattguy@usa.net) on Friday May 26, @09:12PM EDT (#998) (User Info) http://members.xoom.com/matthead |
Bull. You don't get liner notes with an MP3, nor do you get the master PCM audio data. What you get is a med. to high. quality reproduction of the audio that is good enough to enjoy listening to. There's still added value in a CD. - Matthead |
| Re:Lars: (an MP3 == master (?!?)) = problem (Score:1) by shandrew (shandrew+slashdotorgcomment@alumni.stanford.org) on Sunday May 28, @12:49AM EDT (#1217) (User Info) |
| It sounds like if Lars knew that mp3 had a little quality problem (again, in normal use) he, and presumeably Metallica, would also have a little less of a problem with Napster. That's not all that relevant; even if sound compression methods were unavailable, people could still trade uncompressed sound files from CDs. Sure, the file sizes would be ~10x bigger, but in 3-4 years, there will be at least 10x more bandwidth, 10x faster computers with 10x more storage. What is relevant is that even the uncompressed digital bits on the CD are still just a representation of the music; the real music is what the musicians play and sing. You cannot digitally copy that; it is purely analog. |
| Re:Help! (Score:1) by Kwil on Friday May 26, @01:33PM EDT (#292) (User Info) http://www.cadvision.com/kwil/index.html |
| Sure there is, it's called SDMI Unfortunately, it seems right now that nobody in charge of developing SDMI has an eye out for anything beyond profitability. The big worry they have developing a reasonable SDMI is controlling redistribution. Personally, I think if they simply started charging reasonable prices per song (85 cents a song? 25 cents per minute of music?) and worked out a convenient way to implement the charge - their worries about redistribution would fade to the level of bootlegs, if not smaller. (Here that, RIAA? Lobby for micropayment legislation, not DMCA - it's a win-win situation for you) KWiL |
| Re:Help! (Score:2) by jd on Friday May 26, @02:12PM EDT (#458) (User Info) |
| That has got to be one of the most intelligent points ever made. You're absolutely right, that there has to be a way to resolve this, in EVERYONE's interest, rather than to deliberately have one faction trample over another. IMHO, this is exactly what Lars was saying. He doesn't want conflict, but would rather have equal rights to everyone else. IMHO, anyone who puts their own wants above others needs or rights deserves a visit from the Phantom Flan Flinger. (Tiswas, anyone?) |
| Ideas (Score:2) by Anonymous Shepherd (louisjr@cco.caltech.edu) on Friday May 26, @02:45PM EDT (#561) (User Info) http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~louisjr |
| A lot of people through out the idea of micropayments: Per minute or per song... This isn't a bad idea, I guess. I was thinking there should be more, though, because you're paying for the distribution mechanism. What's stopping people from reposting the song back onto Napster or Gnutella once they pay for a copy? Perhaps the songs that Metallica releases should have a 'digital fingerprint', and go after Napster/Gnutella legally/technologically? I would think membership and fan clubs, and as other people have pointed out, access to merchandise, t-shirts, concerts, etc, after showing proof of ownership, or by being a member. Dunno, I think that's as many good ideas as I've seen today -AS *Pikachu* |
| Re:Help! (Score:1) by Bernal KC (kc@imajazz.com) on Friday May 26, @04:21PM EDT (#740) (User Info) http://www.imajazz.com |
| The key question is how can the internet help emerging artists garner publicity and promote their work. The answer is definitely not Napster. Napster reilies almost exclusively on the user having prior knowledge of the work and seeking it out by artist or song title. The result is that the Napster community ends up a hostage to record company, and radio industry, promotions. Lars sees this as an ongoing role for the record company. I don't see that as being the best answer for artists. For me, the real breakdown in the music industry lies in the complete commerical corruption and industrialization of radio. Radio today sucks. Completely homogenized pop crap. All choices are the same. Non-mainstream formats and styles are completely out in the cold. Complete loss of control by artists to the industrial pursuit of profit. There is no art, no alternative visions, no creativity in radio programming. Just ads and marketing. Music is not a creative work. It's just a product, a vehicle for selling ads. In this view the answer lies in creation of a viable, low entry barrior, popular internet radio. It is almost there. But it is not sufficiently differentiated from broadcast radio to effectively complete with and displace FM radio. A Napster-like trading community could also work on a fee basis. But without some vehicle for promotions, web based music is incomplete and remains hostage to the apparatus that is dominated and corrupted by the record companies. |