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Pay Lars 278

Posted by CmdrTaco from the this-is-funny-as-hell dept.
adimarco writes: "According to this article at Wired, a San Francisco company started paylars.com in response to Metallica's recent lawsuit against the music industry, their fans, and Napster. Major credit cards are accepted, and donations will be sent to the band. " This cracks me up.
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Pay Lars More

Pay Lars

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  • they should get their money from RIAA and recording industry.

  • Glad somebody called Metallica on their actions. I can't say how disappointed I am at Metallica, a band I had once imagined to be probably the least corporate band in the U.S., taking this stand.

    But I guess with the greatest hits albums, b-side collections, symphony appearances, I really shouldn't have been all that surprised.

  • Soon you will be able to go to payrandombit.com and give me lots of money. Why would you want to do that? Because you should feel guilty! Hell, you're willing to pay Metallica and they already have tons of money! I'm a poor college student!
  • I like the fact that it's pointed out (I forget if it's on the linked site or not, but it was pointed out in another weblog that I read, anyway) that somehow if fans give your work to each other, it becomes a commodity, while if you sell it, it is art. :)

    Just so no one gets the wrong impression: I do feel that copyrights need to be respected.

    --

  • You know I was considering buying their boxed set.
  • Probably just me, as I'm sure many people will donate. But it's a BAND. Bands make HUGE AMOUNTS of money.(At least the popular ones, and Metallica is popular.) Why should we be donating to them? Those that would donate to them would probably spend their money better buying one of their CDs, or something. Why would someone WANT to do this?

    Of course, you know that if you start a site and get enough publicity, you'll get suckers.. after all, there's a donator born every minute.. :P I suppose anyone can start a site and immediately get some donations.. still, it's quite insane, if you ask me. "Oh no! It's.... NAPSTER!! The ULTIMATE evil! It allows people to distribute our MP3's! Off our OVERPRICED cds that cost us a whopping 50 cents to make (and that's an over estimate) that we turn around and sell for upwards of 15 dollars!" Does no one but me see the insanity here?

    -=-

    Very funny, Scotty. Now beam down my pants.

  • You people should stick to hip-hop. You don't see any of them trying to dick napster.

    Dr. Dre also sued Napster this week. Which probably means that any acts he produces (Eminem?) won't be far behind.

  • Excellent. (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    I'd be tempted to do that, at least for their older stuff. Metallica used to be a really cool band, with some good messages. (believe it or not; some people don't know how to listen to the words)

    Nowadays, though, their music was just crappy. I remember when they started trying to make a comeback, and I saw them on TV doing another video of "Enter Sandman", and I was like, "That's not bad, but it's not Metallica!". Imagine my surprise when I found out it was, but that they just started sucking. Not too long after that, Load came out, and then they started playing it on the pop music stations...

    After that, and this record company pandering, I've lost respect for them. I'd be happy to pay the old Metallica for their music, probably more than they got paid in the first place. But I'd be paying for "Metallica", "And Justice For All", and basically everything but the new stuff...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Metallica became corporate in 1991 when they brought out the Emperor's New Clothes (aka black album).
  • You people should stick to hip-hop. You don't see any of them trying to dick napster.

    Well, on the Rap scene Dr. Dre is screeming bloody murder. His lawyers wrote a letter to napster demanding that they remove all of his music from thier databases. As if they have any control over that.

    --GnrcMan--
  • then if someone steals something, such as your car, you have no RIGHT to be angry, because it isn't his fault....it was a piece of shit anyway....

    Artists have rights too...
  • Ever here of Dr. Dre?

    Hip Hop just as money grubbing if not more.

  • ...and it's running MS!
    surprise, surprise!
  • You guys all realize what this means, don't you?

    After this, the rest of the band is going to go balistic, screaming out about how Lars is going to get all the profits...

    The ensuing battles might be enough to tear Metallica apart... (not that it matters anymore......)


    I'm a 21st century digital boy.
    I don't know how to read, but I got a lot of toys.

  • Sally Struthers (Score:5)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:37AM (#1119069) Homepage
    Can we get Sally Struthers to make an infomercial?

    Lars used to be a big-time rock star. Now his Rolls-Royce has been repossessed and his drug dealer will not front him any blow. There are hundreds of rock stars like Lars. Won't you find it in your heart to help just one needy rock star? If you don't help, Lars may have to get a real job.

  • Re:Hasn't Lars... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    damn straight, they just maintain their "hard ass" persona and gain media attention for bein piss'd yo, sheeeeeit.

    Can you say, coolio vs. wierd al?

    hehe, enuff generalization already

  • ...isn't it? Or should Lars & Friends be paid to SHUT UP instead of making a few kick ass guitar riffs??
  • I think this is a great idea. My friends and I, if we can get their address, will download all of a band's songs and then send them a check. It's really not fair that we steal their songs and they get no money, and by me sending them a check for $10 for 2 cds worth of songs, I would imagine that the band makes more off my $10 then they do off 2 CDs.
  • This is a totally worthy charity -- we all knew that Metallica are hard up for money, and yet we shamelessly traded their "art"...I don't know about you guys, but I'm weeping tears of shame as I write this.

  • You know, I don't think it was entirely serious.
  • C'mon... do we really have to do this one again?

    If I steal your car, you no longer have that car. A fair comparison would be me obtaining a replication machine, and you lending me your car so that I could create an identical copy of it.

    --

  • antidisestablishmentarianism (Score:4)

    by small_dick ( 127697 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:43AM (#1119076)
    hahahah that's so funny, a fund to pay pooor the metallica lusers for all that money they lost from mp3's.

    i especially enjoyed reading how Q1/2000 has had a greater increase in sales than the last several Q1 increases. mega-profits all around.

    here's an idea: maybe the DOJ should find every prisoner or criminal with a metallica-related tattoo, or is willing to sign that metallica influenced their urge to commit crimes, and then sue Metallica under the RICO statues for:

    1) Recover the cost of incarceration;
    2) Recover lost tax revenue over the life of the unproductive citizen;
    3) Establish a retirement fund for a "Metallica Druggies/Losers/Sluts Rest Home" so they aren't a drain on the social security fund;

    Furthermore, anytime USA law enforement gets a call on noise complaints, the offender's music collection is seized, and the artists similarly sued under RICO for disturbing the peace.
  • is metallica going back to playing in their garage because they have no more career. Wahhh. Get over it. You bitch and moan in your music, you don't have to bitch and moan in real life. If you want money, go play in the subway or something. Jeeze...


    / k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films [homepage.com] /

  • Re:money for Metallica (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No kidding! POOR "Metallica". I'm sure these guys are really starving! Hmmmm, should I donate money to Amnesty International or .....Metallica. Maybe I should give it to Mr. Lars there, just because he feels that he's getting ripped off! Who cares about any real issues (i.e. environment, etc..). Jesus Christ! I have lost any and all respect I might have had for this money grubbing band and there "sad but true" greedy state of affairs.
  • How long till someone hacks this site? Hmm.. excepts visa/mastercard how convenient!
  • This situation is more or less along the lines of... "Hey! Give us your credit card number so we can track you, then investigate you since your obviously only donating because you feel guilty about the fact you possess several peices of pirate music by (insert unnamed band here).".. Hopefully the RIAA dosen't just decide to buy this company so it has all the credit card information to start investigating people. Wouldn't phase me in the slightest.
    --- 'dex
  • Oh come off of it, we all know that trading Mp3s is just as bad as pirating software, when looked at legally. Why do we complain so much about Napster? I have it, but most of the tunes I have gotten off of it have been ones that I already own...on a media that I cannot transfer to my PC, i.e. record. Any songs that I don't own that I download, are just sort of a listen before you buy sort of deal, then if I like it I'll go out to a local store, such as a Circuit City, or other similar place where they sell the cd's for about $9-12. So please pike it with the complaints about how "unfair" it is that Napster is being sued, if you were an artist you would want every single fucking penny, too!
  • man...I see how slashdot is now...they respect only the people's rights they care about, their own. The amount of money a person has, should have NOTHING to do with their rights. if Bruce P. was filthy rich, would everyone in slashdot agree that he should stand up for his rights??

    That's what FREEDOM is all about...but I guess when you only have the the words of the godly Richard Stallman in your mind, it doesn't matter.

    If I was getting fucked out of some money, that I worked damn hard for, I would be pissed too.

    what would happen if you worked for an employer, and they just decided one day that you only derserve half your paycheck, because "you had enough money already". You would be just as pissed as Metallica is right now.
  • It's a joke, man. That's what you're missing.
  • You know, I think we need to launch a campaign .. www.feedthempaa.com, maybe. Put all the artists who *didn't* get a contract and/or have been screwed over by the MPAA. They want to persuade the public that they're all peachy and all the great music will just vanish if it wasn't for them. Let's make it a point to prove to the public that the MPAA has been making music vanish for DECADES.
  • Click here [dictionary.com].

    --

  • Its a joke, a farce, a mockery, a parody, a satire, a sham.

    If you click the Read More [paylars.com] link, it reveals this.

    from the site:
    "Until I can pay for my groceries with a pirated MP3 file, I think that Q Prime's position is nothing but hype, and does nothing to endear Metallica or its associates with their fans."

  • All music should be freely available for download, and it should be as easy as possible to pay for the ones you like. Some sort of proxy site would be best (go there, pay $20, and divide that money up among the artists you want to reimburse).

    You have to accept the fact that music is easy to distribute and you can't stop it. People will gravitate towards the most free/open solution, and not all of them will pay money for it. Get over it, and make it easy for the ones that will pay.

  • alright...lety's say I use your GNU software in my closed source program...and sell it...

    its a duplicate, You wouldn't lose anything

  • I just love when site operators get a bunch of hits, but it doesn't matter because they are using IIS. Guess this is why new startups with low capital should use free software.

    HTTP 403.15 - Forbidden: Client Access Licenses exceeded
    Internet Information Services

    Technical Information (for support personnel)

    • Background:
      The server you are attempting to access has exceeded its Client Access License limit.

    • More information:
      Microsoft Support [microsoft.com]
  • The ensuing battles might be enough to tear Metallica apart... (not that it matters anymore......)

    Nothing else matters!

    (Sorry, couldn't help it.)

  • CAN I MAIL IN .02$ to him ?

    "It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is."
    - Lars Ulrich,
    Metallica Drummer
    ART ----- yeah and we are trading art... so by not putting a price on the music we CANNOT be making it a commodity. I have always had a lot of respect for Metallica, they have been through a lot, but this makes me sick! BY THE WAY LARS, I heard SandM on MP3's and then went ahead and bought the CD... cause i like the art (from MP3's) and bought the COMMODITY for $20 from some CD place....

    Well its not that long ago that Metallica was a band that just a few of the hardcore Metal Fans would listen too... Bon Jovi and others like then were the taste of everyone else.... Now i remember when they came out with Garage days i had a copy of it, and some cool undergrounhd shit that was really really good... and i had made caassette copies for my friends to get them to hear how cool Metallica was!... Now you freaking stop that. i mean common dude, we have been passing music about for years! that was the whole freaking reason to have a two tape player.. so you could have your friends enjoy music as well!!
    Now that you can do it a bit more long distance and easy you stomp on it!!!

    This sucks really, cause then they were probably glad to see us "distribute" their art.. now when the same is being done, but they are famous enough, they are goinng to go after their fans! LARS grow the F. up and change your statement, it sounds dumb as hell and of all bands I would hope Metallica would not be one to do this shit! I have been a fan for years.... this is making it tough!!!

    HOW many Metallica fans did not copy Tapes back in the day when they were coming out with Kill'em All and Master of Puppets ? I dont like Napster too much myself cause it kills campus bandwith making surfing the web a pain... but this still sucks worse...

  • wait? (Score:1)

    by niekze ( 96793 )
    How can Metallica lose money to mp3's? I thought they all died in a plane crash with Buddy Holly or something. Like anyone stills listens to Metallica.

    I mean really...If you like the music, buy the cd. Since I can't find any places in here where i can listen to the music (the whole damn cd if i please) before i buy it.

    Metallica really lost their "badass" image by doing this. Now they are money worshiping corporate whores. (not that they were before, its just super obvious now)

    But hey, the RIAA will stop mp3's. There will not be 1 mp3 on earth when the RIAA regulates. (not)Seriously it will happen.

    It just pisses me off.

    Bands only make like 50 CENTS for each albulm they sell and they say the public is stealing money from them? BAH its the record companies stupid.

    CD's were more expensive at first because "they cost more to make than tapes". If they ever were, they sure aren't now and they still cost around $15 bucks. Give the artists the profits they deserve and let us listen to shit before we spend $15 bucks on it, and lower the damn prices and maybe people will take this "losing money" whiny bullshit more seriously.

    I've ranted enough.
  • Netscape used one of their album names on the control bar, so wouldn't they be running the risk of a lawsuit?

  • More about the case (Score:3)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:48AM (#1119094)
    This Reuters Story [yahoo.com] and this Variety story [yahoo.com] from Friday April 14 covers the original case Metallica brought.

    Yale backs down in this story [yahoo.com]with the headline: "Yale drops Napster, Metallica drops case against school".


    ___

  • Well, Napster could provide some sort of "opt-out" service that would prevent their servers from allowing requests which include $string1 in the artist field and $string2 in the title field, where $string1 is a trademarked band name and $string2 is a copyrighted song title. You own the trademark, you're responsible for policing it, and if Napster made it simple to do so, you'd see tons of copyrighted material disappear nearly instantly.

    I'm not saying it's a good idea, or that I'd want it, but they do have some technical things they could do if they really had to. The simple thought above would really suck in practice, of course, because $string1=tolower("Dre") and $string2=tolower("Day") would eliminate lots of potential free (beer) music that the artists would love to have traded on Napster.

    Oh well, just a thought...

  • For the life of me, I can't contemplate any legal use for Napster. The only thing I can think of would be to download songs you already own on CD, but that's just too impractical to be useful. There are plenty of rippers out there that make it really easy to rip your songs into mp3 - and it's a hell of a lot faster than downloading it over a 56k Modem.

    From the Napster Website:

    Imagine...an application that takes the hassle out of searching for MP3s. No more broken links, no more slow downloads, and no more busy, disorganized FTP sites. With Napster, you can locate and download your favorite music in MP3 format from one convenient, easy-to-use interface.

    Come On! Websites that carry mp3s are guaranteed to have porn and warez banners tagging along. FTP sites are NOT how the recording artists envisioned their music being distributed. It seems to me that Napster is saying "Hey! Instead of getting frustrated with all of those *unreliable* illegal sources, we have your #1 RELIABLE illegal source!"

    Sorry folks, but not all copyrights are bad. Everyone is saying something to the effect of "Hey, these guys are making TONS of money!" "I'd buy CDs if they weren't so overpriced!"

    The first quote implies that because the artist made a lot of money, that gives the person the right to steal copyrighted material. Please...That's self interest bullshit.

    The second quote is amazingly stupid. People buy CDs because they enjoy the music on them. They are purchasing the CD and in turn, showing support for the artist who recorded it. $15 is not a lot to spend on music you can freely listen to whenever you want, and wherever you want. (And for those of you who buy full albums for ONE song then turn around and complain.....STOP COMPLAINING. Head over to the CD Singles rack, and buy the song you like for $2.99. If that's too much to spend, listen to the radio.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Heh, that site's pretty cool.

    I was actually referring to Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org], though.

    --

  • PAYLARS.COM has given the record industry the perfect model. The ability to buy individual songs and not a crappy album with two good songs and eight worthless ones. I know, PAYLARS.COM is not selling music, but if you browse the site, just looking at how it is arranged is great. Imagine a Sony website where you could buy the entire an artist's entire CD on MP3 or just click selection boxes and buy songs individually.

    I think the record industry should take note.

  • Re:Commodities and art (Score:3)

    by paRcat ( 50146 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:50AM (#1119099)
    Don't commodities exact a price?

    commodity (k-md-t) n., Something useful that can be turned to commercial or other advantage.

    Last time I checked, using Napster was free. Metallica is the party making the work into a commodity, as they are selling it. Art, historically, is something that is meant to bring enjoyment to the masses.

    Personally, I love it when my fans copy my tapes and CD's. I look at it as a compliment. Granted, I don't sell them in the first place. I do think that someone wanting to hear my music is more important than money.

  • Commodity vs. Art (Score:3)

    by DeepDarkSky ( 111382 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:51AM (#1119100)
    Quite frankly, if you sell it, it's commodity. End of argument. Something can be art and commodity.

    Oh, Lars's definition is probably this:

    Art - something that is sold to benefit the 'artist'.
    Commodity - Something that is bought, sold, traded with no royalty or any kind of payment to the 'artist'.

    Someone tell the museums around the world that they aren't hanging art (esp. of the dead artists), but 'commodity'

  • Artists have rights too...

    Let me rephrase.
    The RIAA have rights too...

    Ok I admit it was a jab but the fact of the matter is the artists don't see very much money, if they see any at all, from the record sales. I am not saying that to justify getting MP3's that you haven't paid for, as in buying the CD or if it ever becomes avaliable, paying for the download. Downloading MP3's illegally if it hurts anyone, it is the RIAA. Metallica has a pretty loyal fan base. If they sold MP3's over a websight, they could easily pull in millions. If they sold 3 or 4 never before heard tunes on MP3 on a website for fans to pay for, selling them for $.25 each, assuming that 4 million fans pay(which is very doable considering their sales) they would get $3 million just from that alone. For just 3 songs! For 4 million sales of their album how much do they see after the RIAA takes their cut?
    Molog

    So Linus, what are we doing tonight?

  • Wow, if the Motion Picture Association has been doing that all this time, I'd hate to think of what the RIAA is capable of. Good thing the RIAA's busy commoditizing movies.
  • that this site is run by the same folks who bring you Orange Alley [orangealley.com] -- "the site that pays you to bootleg"?
  • I've often felt that this is how music money should be handled. Take Ani Difranco, for example. most of her CDs are $25+ Canadian - far more than I could afford. I'd be happy to cut her a check for however-much-she-actually-profits plus a bit for each CD. I don't care about the CD insert, the jewel case, i care about the music. I have a fair number of mp3s, a lot of them are legal (as I understand, because I own CDs for most of them.) And I'd be happy to do a "Pay Lars" for some other bands. Happier, in fact.
    It's too bad that most bands have signed with labels that would never let them get away with it, but if I had any musical talent that people liked, I would certainly grant people the right-to-listen to my music at $1 / song. More profitable, more pure.
    I suppose that's something along the lines of what mp3.com is trying to do, but from what I understand, it's not as pure.

  • which one is that?

    / k.d / earth trickle / Monkeys vs. Robots Films [homepage.com] /

  • Shareware music (Score:3)

    by SnatMandu ( 15204 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:53AM (#1119106) Homepage
    Kind of an interesting idea here, despite the fact that this is awfully silly.

    This is a model where the artists really *could* get payed. If every band set up a site, and said "pay us $5 for every album's worth of music that you download", and everyone who would have bought the disc downloads it and pays for it, the musicians would make more money per CD than they would through the record companies.

    Getting people to respect an honor system like that is going to be tough though.

  • Ok, looks like I'm going to have to spell it out for the majority of posters.

    It's a stunt. No this is not set up so that Metallica "can get the money they deserve" or anything like that.

    Paying here does not legally give you any rights (besides fair use) to copy their music. At the same time, it is not an admission of guilt.

    Read the fine print, and follow the other links on the site. The Point(TM) is that it is so easy to download music and make online payments, yet the industry has not set up any way for people to legitimately download and pay for music. By setting up this site, he is trying to prove that any moron can set up a payment system for music.

    At the same time, with its juxtoposition of Credit Cards and Lars' quotes, it really drives home the irony that (as someone else has metioned), if it is traded freely it's "a commodity" but if you pay for it then it's "art."

    Signed,
    a former Metallica fan.
  • I did not say that piracy is a good thing or that it's legal. I just pointed out your poor and inappropriate analogy.

    --

  • Its the shows stupid... (Score:3)

    by Mullen ( 14656 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @07:54AM (#1119109)
    Bands don't make much money when it comes to album sales. Many bands owe the record company money if there album sales are not in the millions and millions. Infact, a band will not make money off their album sales until their 2nd or 3rd really successful album.
    So where do they make their money? Concerts. There is a reason that bands do 250+ shows in a year. Same crap night in and night out. There is a reason you pay $40+ to see a band. If the band does not own their own label, they are getting screwed. Even the big names get screwed, and there is a reason they all own their own labels.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Well, I clicked on "start here" just for shits and giggles. They have a list of their albums and what they're charging per album ($8-$14). it's probably pro-rated then, depending on how many songs you want. I clicked on "calculate total" after checking a random song, and it said (in Netscape) "This Page cannot be displayed - there are too many people accessing the website at this time." Then another error "HTTP 403.15 Forbidden - Client access licenses exceeded, Internet Information Services" - "Technical information, background - the server you are attempting to access has exceeded its Client Access license limit - More Information: Microsoft Support"

    I think that they should be AT LEAST using linux if they want our support... no client access license limitations there!!

    Oh well... it would've been kind of interesting to see how much money they've made from this venture. I wonder if a lot of Slashdotters are accessing the page, and donating 50c just to say they're Kool and did it.

    I'm also wondering if they're not overcharging on their website. I mean, does the band REALLY get $14 for a CD? And here, we're not even getting CD quality, we're getting mp3's with no media, no pretty pictures in the CD cover, no nothing.

    geez.
  • I would imagine that the band makes more off my $10 then they do off 2 CDs.

    don't slur Metallica! They sold certain rights to the record company, and if you sent them $10, they'd be sure to send $9.50 of it on to the company. After all, they believe in everybody being scrupulously honest.

    Yeah, right. I wonder if they've ever taped any cassettes, like when they were in high school...

  • "I'd buy CDs if they weren't so overpriced!"

    Sounds like supply and demand curves to me. I'd buy more cds too if they cost a lot less. as it is i just check stuff out of the library nowadays - hardly ever buy or rent any media anymore.
  • Through all this, the one question I keep asking is: where does this stop? Are they going to sue Lycos for having a search engine capable of find Metallica MP3's? Maybe they should go all the way back and sue the original designers of ARPANET. Without it this never would have happened!
  • Sigh. You got me. I often confuse the two..
  • I think there's a misconception among a great many professional musicians that an artist who sells maybe 500,000 copies of an album should be able to:

    1. Live like rock stars did in the '70s (e.g. large mansions, limousines everywhere, their own LearJet, a steady supply of cocaine, etc.).
    2. Play venues that hold more people than can be found in the artist's hometown.

    I remember the Salon article on musicians' anger toward Napster and MP3 in general, on the grounds of "How are we supposed to make money? Selling T-shirts? I'm already in debt!" My response is, "Well, what did you spend your money on?" I think the happiest musicians are the ones who are comfortable living at their level of income, whereas many live far, far above their actual means.

    I think it's a major delusion on artists' part that a person who generates perhaps $10 million in revenue for a company should be entitled to all of it. You signed the contract, you take the consequences. Do salesmen who generate that much revenue for their company expect to be able to live like kings? Does a professional programmer expect to be given $5 million a year for a project

    Artists should be compensated for their work. Artists should be able to own their publishing and recording copyrights. However, living the life of a "rock star" is an artist's privilege, not his/her right.


  • good point. and this sunsite thing for organising software, that's got to go too. you go to a store and pay $500 for s/w and they're tryin to tell me that i can get it for *free*. yer jokin me.

    and the there's this whole vegetable section in grocery stores. i mean, c'mon, you can get practically all the ingedients you need for ketchup in there for 1/10th the cost. that's got to go.

    plus they let kids buy orange juice. you just know they let it sit out, ferment and then just get wasted...

    (hint, just because *some* people use something for illegal purposes doesn't mean we should all be denied)

  • Re:But what is it for? (Score:5)

    by rak3 ( 43270 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @08:07AM (#1119133)
    As a big Dave Matthews Band fan, I like to download live recordings from their latest concert. DMB allows the recording of their shows for personal use and trading, and nothings easier than trading MP3s. Read their taping policy [dmband.com] for more details. Napster is perfect for this purpose, allowing the latest shows to be traded quicker than traditional means (tapes, CDR).

    So, there is one of the legal uses of Napster that you were looking for.

  • Actually, the only time I ever used Napster was to recover songs from a few very damaged CDs I have. MP3s over my cable modem beat my CD-RW drive's rip speed and cdparanoia any time.

    If that fails, I use my.mp3.com and the MP3 to WAV feature of WinAmp (would say XMMS but my sound card doesn't work in Linux), and then reencode, although on my K6-2 300 that's rather tedious.
  • Okay, I realize it's a moot point, but actually attempting to submit the songs over SSL and "Pay Lars" gives a 403.15 error, which is some sort of Microsoft incarnate HTTP error code saying that the server has run out of "licenses". It even comes with a pretty little link to where you can buy more on IE 5.0. Argh.. LICENSES? I now know the answer to a question I recieve quiet frequently from my less-technical-savvy friends and relatives ("How does Microsoft do it?") - by being greedy assholes. Someone oughta drop this guy a Redhat CD in the mail with a link to www.apache-ssl.org while they're at it.

    --
  • If they sold 3 or 4 never before heard tunes on MP3 on a website for fans to pay for, selling them for $.25 each...

    The problem is that there's no infrastructure on the 'net for micropayments (which is what you're talking about) that's reached a consensus enough to become a standard. and no end-user wants to have to deal with more than one micropayment scheme, so a single standard/company needs to exist (but we all know who we don't want that company to be...).

    Yes, I wouldn't mind the ability to surf around, see headlines of stuff, and then plunk down a virtual quarter to see/hear/save the details, finally having all my quarters collectively charged to my credit card at the end of the month (or vice versa, i invest x number of quarters that are used up as i surf).

    But the problem is that too many people out there still feel the web should be "free", so the only B2C architecture out there is the standard pay a large amount for a product which is shipped to you of normal e-commerce. When credit card transactions cost the processing company a minimum of 50cents to either visa or m.c. each, how do you justify using a credit card to pay a quarter?

    The other hassle is that, again, once you've got it, what's to stop you from giving it to your friends? We're right back to the issue that napster's being bitten for in the first place.

    Microsoft's Media includes encryption, which makes some companies happy (like DGM/BootlegTV), but that has the side effect of annoying/excluding the rather large Linux-only customer base. Few of the other companies out there are supporting such approaches. Most pay per view sites out there (www.hob.com) are now exclusively supporting Windows Media Player.

  • When's the IPO?
    --
  • You mean like Emusic.com [emusic.com]? $0.99 per track for some major acts. $8.99 or so for entire albums.

    LetterJ

  • Turning Microsoft's Art into a Commodity (Score:4)

    by ninjaz ( 1202 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @08:20AM (#1119150)
    Apparently the folks at paylars.com are using Microsoft IIS like a commodity rather than the art that it is:

    There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.

    Please try the following:

    • Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
    • Open the 216.46.253.226 [216.46.253.226] home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

    HTTP 403.15 - Forbidden: Client Access Licenses exceeded
    Internet Information Services

    Technical Information (for support personnel)

    • Background:
      The server you are attempting to access has exceeded its Client Access License limit.

    • More information:
      Microsoft Support [microsoft.com]
  • So are you on record as saying you don't mind if people steal from you as long as it is in increments of less than .50 a pop?
  • I remember the Salon article on musicians' anger toward Napster and MP3 in general, on the grounds of "How are we supposed to make money? Selling T-shirts? I'm already in debt!"

    Yeah. The article featured quotes from musicians who thought that the record company was paying for their studio time, promotion, tour expenses, etc, instead of them.

    They dug around until they found musicians who don't understand the basic concept of an advance, then trotted them out to complain about how they aren't making any money, so they must be being ripped off, but it can't be by their kind, loving, generous record companies, so it must be by their fans.

    Pure industry propaganda. If the record companies really wanted artists to make money off their work, they'd offer them contracts that didn't rip them off.
  • Money...DOH! not the obvious thing. But what money? Lost Royalties? NO.

    The recording industry could embrace streaming media, but they don't want to. And it is not about piracy either. It is about the real value of their product.

    If you have visited mp3.com, you have seen that they removed the traditional barriers (who you know, who you blow) to entry in the music industry. You can put your music up there, and they will even market CD's for your band -- get this -- for about $7-$8 per disc is the consumer price. That is what the RIAA, and Metallica are fighting against. Educating the masses that they are paying too much for CD's. Sure, bands like metallica get some money out of the $15/copy. Enough to wantonly destroy hotel rooms, drive big cars, etc. Let's face it, most rock stars are overrated and overpaid (Except Bowie & The Stones)

    This is the big fear, and I think it is real. There is a redistribution of wealth taking place, and of course, the wealthy are bitching and using their army (police, lawyers, etc.) to protect their wealth.

    In the past, they put the sqeeze on Indie labels by manipulating discount schedules, supply lines, etc. with the record dealers. Go into a shop that has any kind of indie presence. Where are the big labels? About the only big store that carries any indie is Tower, and they got the might to tell the big labels to go fsck themselves.

    Sites like mp3 not only represent a threat to the record manufacturers, by legitimately illustrating how overpriced CD's are, but indeed for the "artists" themselves. Streaming media is a way for the indie's to get around the stranglehold on the record dealers. Most of the artists fear that if just anybody can make music, _and_ consumers can listen before buying, they will be out of a job. Not just because of market crowding. Some of the new entries will be _better_ than most of the pop crap the record industry makes anyway.

  • Re:But what is it for? (Score:3)

    by isaac ( 2852 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @08:28AM (#1119159)
    For the life of me, I can't contemplate any legal use for Napster. The only thing I can think of would be to download songs you already own on CD, but that's just too impractical to be useful. There are plenty of rippers out there that make it really easy to rip your songs into mp3 - and it's a hell of a lot faster than downloading it over a 56k Modem.

    I use Napster for one thing: MP3s of music I own on vinyl. I don't have a working phonograph, and a good chunk of these records are out of print in any format, but I can find MP3s of the contents on Napster.

    Just one data point.

    -Isaac

  • Do people really think that bands are losing money from Napster? Sure, some may, the bands that have one song on their album that's good and the rest that's shit, but so be it then, I say. For those other bands that have all good music, I can imagine a lot of people have the CD as well, and here's why...I can't listen to my MP3's in my car or on my stereo. Sure, listening to music while on the computer is nice, but if I realy like the music, I'm gonna want to listen to it at my friends place, on my stereo system, and in my car. Can't do that with my MP3's (as they stand now anyway). So if I download some songs people say are good, and I end up liking them, guess what? I buy them so that when I take road trips I can have the music with me. I'm sure there are a lot of other people like this as well. I'd venture to say that the record industry is gaining a ton of money from MP3s indirectly.

  • Doesn't the record industry already collect a tax on recordable media to compensate for copyright infringement? Why the hell should we be sued when we're already being taxed? They need to decide whether copyright infringement is legal, and thus taxable, or illegal, and thus non-taxable. They should not be able to have it both ways!

  • [Warning: This kinda rambles.]

    Given the opinion that a lot of slashdotters seem to have of Metallica, I should probably get out the asbestos suit for this post, but whatever.

    I love Metallica's music. Everything from their really early days to their S&M album. (And to all you people bitching about Metallica somehow being a sellout or what-have-you for doing this concert, keep in mind that it was largely Michael Kamen's idea [he's the conductor for the SFSO])

    Having said that, while I like their music, I've never really had an opinion of the band members themselves, because I've never paid much attention to them. However, I think this lawsuit is a little rediculous. I'm going to apply some of my thoughts on software piracy to this, since music piracy is similar enough. Companies that complain about money lost to piracy are basing that on the principle that they owned my money before I gave it to them. In reality, they did not lose any money; they simply did not make more. (Please note that I am not defending software piracy, I am merely attacking corporate philosophy on it.)

    Having said that, this lawsuit looks like nothing more to me than greed. And yes, I'll gladly put myself in their shoes and take another look at this issue. Would I be pissed off that people were trading my music without paying for it? Probably. Would I hunt down someone to sue for it? I would hope not. Napster may be used 99.999% for illegal trading of music, and it's impossible to prove that this was or wasn't their intent in writing the program, but they shouldn't be held responsible for what gets traded on their network. Metallica might as well sue Al Gore while they're at it. After all, he invented the internet, and without the 'net, this wouldn't be possible, right? =)

    Anyway, I won't be "donating" any money to the band through this site, even though it appeals to the part of me that loves a nice, sarcastic response to situations like this. I do still plan on completing my collection of Metallica CDs, though (it's dismally small at the moment). I may not like what they're doing, but I still like their music.

  • Re:This is good! (Score:3)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Friday April 21, 2000 @08:48AM (#1119174) Homepage
    Actually, I asked Larry Fast (of Synergy fame) if I could send him money for download his MP3's. He told me that if I did, he'd have to refuse it, because he signed that right over to his record company. One of the downsides of being a signed artist.
    -russ

  • Same legal use, different band. (Score:4)

    by antizeus ( 47491 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @08:57AM (#1119177)
    I use Napster to build my collection of live songs from Phish [phish.net], a group which also has a nice taping policy.

  • Ok, how about for the price of a cd, (15.99 or whatever) you can logon to the site for a year, and download any song from their library, as well as artwork, ticket sales, tour dates bios......

    What do these people really have to loose? Is money that important?It would be incredible if some big act (like metallica) would just tell the record companies to go fsck themselves, and go independant.
  • I'd have to agree with you that it would be silly to donate to the band. But I have a feeling the website is meant to be sarcastic. I mean, they have what I think is a truly assinine quote form Lars on the main page, but who knows? Maybe the guy is a diehard fan who really wants to help out poor Metallica.

    Dana

  • I think you may be referring to a proposed law up here in Canada where there were going to start charging a levy on CDRs to compensate the industry for all the piracy that they think is going on.

    I don't think the bill ever passed, but I can't remember for sure.

    Dana
  • Well, on the Rap scene Dr. Dre is screeming bloody murder. His lawyers wrote a letter to napster demanding that they remove all of his music from thier databases. As if they have any control over that.

    I'd just like to point out that Andre Young (aka Dr. Dre) may or may not be screaming bloody murder. To quote the Reuters article [emphasis added]:

    "We wrote a letter yesterday on behalf of Dr. Dre to Napster basically putting them on notice that the listing of his songs and masters on Napster and the facilitation of the transfer of those files constitutes an infringement of his copyrights," said Howard King, an attorney who sent the letter on behalf of Andre Young, known as Dr. Dre.

    "Dr. Dre has not committed to suing them, but that would be the logical conclusion if they don't take it off their site," said King, who also is representing Metallica.

    So the lawyer behind Metallica's suit is behind "Dr. Dre's" letter. Hmm...

    I'd like to hear Dre's take on the subject from his own damn mouth.

    -Isaac

  • It's not just you... The people who run the paylars.com site think it is incredibly silly as well.

    That's what the site is all about, making Metallica look stupid for suing fans for payment when they could have easily started their own paylars.com site (or orangealley.com or mp3.com). At this point, Metallica should be preparing to make a comment to the press about how the money will be donated to some worthy charity.

    Aside from fans *wanting* to pay the people who made the music, presumably there would be some measure of quality control in the generation of the mp3 stream and metadata that would make people prefer to "pay lars" than to pirate it.

    That's funny. I wonder if "pay lars" will now become shorthand for "pay the copyright holder."

    "Hey Joe, I just got a copy of the MIRV concert from last Saturday."
    "Oh yeah? Can I dupe it?"
    "No problem, but don't forget to pay lars..."


    -- Chris Goldman
  • I own Kill'em All, Ride the Lightning, ...And Justice For All, Master of Puppets, Load, Reload, Garage Inc., and S&M, and more importantly the still top selling Black Album (http://www.billboard.com/charts/popcat.asp). To think that a company is out to help a band that signed a $36 million contract is amusing. I'm not sure how much money Metallica is losing from their MP3s being distributed (if there is any lost, I doubt it's the bands' direct loss, more likely their companies: Elektra Records and CreepingDeath Records) but I don't think it's enough to warrant a lawsuit for software that is still used legally. If they ever come to southeastern Virginia again for a concert, I'm damn sure I'll be there with a "Leave Napster the F*CK Alone" shirt (without the asterisk, of course).

    ----------------------------
    --Loco3KGT
    --elguapo.penguinpowered.com
    ----------------------------

  • Re:money for Metallica (Score:3)

    by sudnshok ( 136477 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @10:13AM (#1119228)
    I can't believe how much it upsets them to get ripped off a little bit. But, yet they don't seem concerned that their fans get ripped off by having to fork over $20 for a CD that costs $0.20 to duplicate. Napster may be growing, but it's still very small. Even if a thousand people download Metallica songs from Napster and subsequently DON'T buy the album, would Metallica's accountant even notice? I mean, what is 1000 lost sales out of 2-3 million? The band has their own jet, Lars has 4 cars and they are all millionaires several times over. Proportionately, Metallica suing for loosing a few album sales is like the average Joe suing for loosing a nickle in a pay phone. F-Metallica!
  • gee, you failed to respond to the hint i see. ok, so you're content that ftp servers can be watched for illegal content (though you're ignoring the fact that most software, like most music, is under a much more restrictive license).

    then what about email? i could easily email music files around, and i could do them anonymously. combine irc and email and have a program hide the complexity of both and suddenly you have a method of "trading files" that would be akin to napster. does that mean email and irc should be banned?

    look, napster is bad for record companies for TWO reasons.

    the openly discussed reason is that it's used for illegal copies of music they own. i'll agree one thousand percent that that is wrong. i'll also agree that's a large portion of the time.

    however, it can also be used by musicians who want a publishing outlet outside of the major record labels. a band or solo artist could come up with a pay.com and then get people to share their music. (the grateful dead used a slightly less hitech way to do this) generate some hype for their web page (think blair witch project meets this is spinal tap) and they'll get fans to pay them direct. i've often sent money to artists whose work i appreciate - at no request of theirs.

    in that scenario the artist wins - they get more money from each fan (though i'm sure less fans will pay); the listener wins - because they get a better feeling of supporting the artists *they* chose and they get more choice since *they* do the edits; but suddenly there's not too much for the record companies (tours? web site design?).

    i honestly think that's what scares the record companies the most. and that's why i have no pity for them (and truly despise the bootleggers for giving the record industry a ruse to hide behind). of course decss hasn't had any documented cases of being used to break copy protection and it's being attacked, so maybe the bootleggers should be congratulated for not feeding money into the lawyers.
  • OK, I was pretty sure he was the drummer. I was just trying to pre-empt the flamage :) My wife, I'm ashamed to admit is a Metallica fan. Thery're not really all that bad, actually.
    ---
  • Since you asked...

    I'll probably still be a fan of their music when this all blows over, but for now, I can't listen to "And Justice For All" when the lyrics remind me of Metallica's hypocracy.

    Take a look at the cover. You see that money tipping the scales of justice. Well that is Metallica's money. On the other side is the students who lost their access to Napster, and possibly some of their freedom, without even going to trial... just the threat of 10 million dollars in damages.

    As much as I'd hate to admit it, Metallica sells a product... a product I enjoy, which is something I can listen to and get stirred up about society and all that BS. At least that is what they used to be, in the 80's I suppose. Be being so completely uncool, it retroactively subtracts from their music, making it a mockery. A mockery of me for buying into it.

    The music still kicks ass but music is also about how it makes you feel.

    (hacked lyrics, just the relevant stuff)
    Halls of justice painted green
    Hammer of justice crushes you
    Overpower
    The ultimate in vanity
    Exploiting their supremacy
    Seeking no truth
    Winning is all
    Rolls of red tape seal your lips
    Their money tips her scales again
    Make your deal
    Just what is truth? i cannot tell
    Cannot feel

  • Screw Lars- PAY US! (Score:4)

    by Chris Johnson ( 580 ) on Friday April 21, 2000 @11:05AM (#1119248) Homepage Journal
    Why on earth would you spend even _more_ money making donations to Metallica? They already _have_ channels in place to be paid- buy their CDs. It's that simple.

    What about the rest of us?

    There's this assumption that only major label acts count, that the rest of us are geeky guitar player or ReBirth-diddling dirtbags who don't _deserve_ to be popular. This, in the face of legis lation [livedaily.com] that rapes musician's interests even worse than usual- now musicians will be pressured into contracts that sign away their music FOREVER to the label. Is that fair? Is that right? If Metallica are part of that system do they deserve sympathy? Certainly. Do they deserve for people to support it just because Metallica are associated with it? Well....

    Meanwhile, I for one am feeling much like the Linux camp in "Cryptonomicon"- the guys with the free tanks that get 60 mpg and go 120 mph with air conditioning and cruise control and fuzzy dice. I go "Please, download my music! I've been playing and composing for more than fifteen years and my heart and soul is in the work, plus I build my own equipment and share my information and ideas freely with others and offer to help people get samples off my tapes if they want any!" and then what?

    I'll tell you what- then I post in Slashdot threads, because I love Slashdot and this musician is user #580... there are lots of musicians who read Slashdot. There are lots of _listeners_ who read Slashdot. Yet, I won't bother even asking if I can get a feature on the way I am trying to bring free-software principles into music, because it'd be 'promotion'- but Lars Ulrich GETS THE FEATURE on Slashdot, and the 'Pay Lars' site GETS the hits- why? Because they are 'newsworthy'! Because they are MAINSTREAM and joking about how some website wants to pay them is considered more important than my sweat and blood and heart and soul. It's a question of numbers. How are you going to stop the mainstream industry from smothering you if you just feed it every chance you get? Even bad attention is attention!

    TO HELL WITH THAT. I may not be able to get a Slashdot feature- I _wrote_ a Slashdot feature and am friendly with roblimo, but I am just too close to this one- maybe the mainstream media still makes a sick joke of journalistic objectivity but _I_ take it seriously enough that I won't try to 'sneak in' promotion in the guise of an article, even a good passionate persuasive one. Somebody should write that article, though. How many Slashdot articles have given hits to Metallica, the RIAA and their supporters, and how many have supported the musical equivalent of free software and Linux- the artists out there trying to use mp3 for good, inventing a whole new marketplace dynamic based on what free _software_ has taught us? Are we to be totally ignored, do you _really_ want to just only support the major labels here?

    And meanwhile- heck with being shy, Metallica is not shy, the RIAA are not shy, and I for one am getting steamrollered. BUY MY ALBUM [mp3.com]. Yes, I know that every song on it (actually I have _five_ albums up at mp3.com) is downloadable at no cost- I'm doing that on purpose, dammit! It's important to me that I give freely- I also share my production tips and technical tricks with musicians on the mp3.com boards quite freely. BUY MY ALBUM [mp3.com] anyway. There are several to choose from, my favorite is 'anima' a set of rock instrumentals based on animal themes, some are really damn good music. You can hear them all you want, totally free, with my blessing- download them from that page and there's no strings attached and I'm not _forcing_ you to do anything. I'm asking, like someone who has just seen yet another Metallica publicity-boosting article even here on Slashdot where I go to get away from that crap, to BUY MY ALBUM [mp3.com]. The Metallica is what, $14? $17? MY ALBUMS [mp3.com] are all $5.99- if they'd let me set the price lower, I would! And I'm _still_ getting 50% of that, more per album than Metallica will ever see. Buy the damn things! Argh! *g*

    Not only that, if you go here [mp3.com] like I am piteously begging you to do- you can download, again free with my total blessing, the first track on another killer album I'm putting together- a groundbreaking techno album so new I don't even have a cover for it or a CD of it yet! The sound rivals or kicks the ass of any major label release in this genre, especially bass-wise, and the music is TOO INNOVATIVE for the labels to cope with- the whole album is techno in unusual time signatures! "Fire Dragon" [mp3.com], the first track to be created (not 'released'- when I do 'em you get 'em that day!) is in 7/4 time! It still dances, but this stuff is too innovative for anything but FREE MUSIC [mp3.com] as we indie artists are doing it. You'll never see anything this fresh on a major label! They're even kicking Clive Davis out of Arista so they can get safer and more corporate!

    You can even get "Fire Dragon" direct from here and not even visit the page- here is a link to download [mp3.com] the mp3 file without even leaving Slashdot. It's only 4.7 megs, even if you're not into fierce innovative techno please give me just the seconds or minutes to download the song anyhow? You might like it, and as an indie musician I really could use the support. :)

    And _while_ I'm at it, I want to mention some really nice people- a sort of coalition of artists (of which I'm one) gathering together to try and promote their work in the face of this horrible indifference and in spite of how much more power the major labels have- Liquid Dreams Records [mp3s.com]. I am just one of _lots_ of neat independent bands working together on this, and we deserve the page-visit and listen! Trust me that there's a lot of wonderful stuff... one of my favorites was corruptdata [mp3s.com], who does neat fierce electronica that I kept listening to over and over and over :) please, go hunt down the free indie artists and talk about us and support us! Do you _want_ to be listening to nothing but re-releases of Metallica for the rest of your lives? (besides which, depending on their contract they might not even own their music at all)

    They said "I ain't gonna play Sun City"- now it's time to say "I ain't gonna waste my time talking about major labels!" To hell with 'em! Please help us real artists- and not 'help us to get signed' either, hell with that, it's too horribly corrupt, help us establish a new industry, one that is decentralised like Linux! Because you know what?

    WE OWN OUR MUSIC. We are _allowed_ to use mp3. And we're doing just that- HELP us.

    -chris

  • It's interesting you invoke Warhol, and rightly so, he's the first one who came to my mind when I read Lars' art/commodities quote. I was like, baby, where have you been the last 40 years? Ignored Warhol's take on Pop Art, of making commodities art? Forgotten all the cheap designs that take art and make it into commodities and decorations for everyday objects? What is Art and what is a Commodity has been a central theme in so many works and exhibitions, and now is spilling over into the digital domain with all new implications and modes. It has been discussed for a long time leading to startling conclusions and ideas about ownership and identity. But Lars knows exactly when what is what.

    I dunno too much about this Lars dude, but one thing's obvious: the most exciting innovations in actual art and artist communities of the last couple of decades have completly passed him by. For somebody from the Bay Area, a place that for so long has had a vibrant community of artists, that's really sad.

  • These are very nice sentiments. Now- please allow _me_ to give you [mp3.com] a copy of my latest track ("Fire Dragon", a neat innovative techno piece in 7/4 time with loads of attitude). OK? It's tempting to throw every link I can at you, because of the enthusiasm you show for supporting people like me- if you want them I posted the "Screw Lars- pay us!" post above this one- but it goes both ways. I want to let you have this music (so new it didn't exist at all yesterday- the net is cool, instant distribution, you get my music _as_ it's being produced instead of waiting on the machine to digest it), and I want you to have this free as MY gift to you. You can't even pay for it yet, don't try! The CD isn't done! So I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you enjoy it all the more knowing the artist is personally giving it to you in appreciation of your great supportive attitude :) (this goes for anyone being supportive- giving money to 'paylars.com' is _not_ a requirement tho :) why not just give the money to _non_ majorlabel artists?)

  • Anyone remember "Cliff 'Em All"??

    Seems like that was almost a celebration of the way fans snuck cameras in and recorded when they weren't supposed to. Sneaky Metallifux, they called 'em, along with thanks to everyone who sent the tapes in.

    Now this?

    I was going to buy the S&M album, but I think I'll pass now.

  • The exception disproves the rule. Moxy Fruvous' "Green Eggs and Ham" has an MP3, yet was never on any CD, only a demo tape.
    --
    No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
  • That defeats the purpose - I bet that Emusic still gets a large cut of the money.
    --
    No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
  • Like the site's statistics show ('course, I believe that the worlds a bunch of lies, damn lies, and statistics ;^) CD sales are ridiculously up.

    Besides, the MP3 crowd is an easy target. These are folks who openly trade music, as opposed to the tape trading crowd of years past (and if it weren't for tape traders, Metallica would probably still be some luser band in SanFran. :^P ) There are probably a lot LESS people that trade tracks via Napster than there are via TDK. The big difference, of course, is the fact that whenever DAT machines were poised to be released in this country, the RIAA pushed for laws that made it illegal to record for consumers to record on anything other than cassettes or other "legal" media. Computers aren't legal for recording. PLUS, the RIAA pushed for taxes on audiocassettes (because, after all, all tapes were used for was pirating music, right? never mind that I have more original music on cassettes, and all the rest of my cassettes are legal copies for my car...)

    Quite frankly, Lars & Gang are probably hurting as much as "Mr. Moneybags" Paul McCartney (talk about inane songs...who's worse, gang? I'll take "Battery" over "Uncle Albert" any day. :^)

    It seems like Western society bases importance on amount of pay (or vice versa.) If so, we have a pretty screwed up sense of who's important. The wealtiest people in the U.S. (besides folks like Gates, Perot, Forbes, etc.) work in the entertainment industry. The folks who are supposed to make the working class smile, laugh, cry, etc. Ditto for athletes. Heck, there are many athletes who are millionaires. I have an in-law who does genetic engineering for Monsanto, and lemme tell ya, she makes a LOT less money than Jim Carey. What does she do? Stuff like genetically engineering corn so those poor impoverished countries can have hardy corn to grow and eat (and give morons something to scream about in rallies...ahem...) What does Jim Carey do? He acts like a moron, and makes millions a picture. Oog.

    NOTE: Before you flame me, I realize that these artists are also a minority, while many others go hungry. I digress.

    Here's a thought: Let's rob Lars to pay Paul. (sorry, couldn't resist paraphrasing a cliche.)
  • Umm, your own "hypothetical" example argues against your point. Bruce Perens is filthy rich, and we still support him when she stands up for his rights.

    References:
    He's the CEO of a VC firm [slashdot.org]
    There's also a /. feature he wrote a while back about what new-found Open Source millionaires (including himself) should do to give back to the movement that spawned their wealth, but i can't find a link to it by searching...

    Yet most people still supported him in the recent licensing issue with BeOS [slashdot.org]
  • i don't agree -- the economic roll is about 5 years old and has been shakey the last several months. there is just no way to show any damage to any artist on a systemic scale.

    of all the plaintiffs, i think only the action against the individuals *may* has merit. after all, they (apparently) did make large numbers of mp3 files available. but radio, tv, libraries do a similar thing, in a different fashion. i don't think the students were charging for those mp3s, so it's not a simple case of bootlegging.

    but the servers? the company that wrote the software? it would be like holding the phone company responsible for a drug deal that used their lines.

    hence my sarcastic post. it does piss me off. i was just making up outrageous scenarios that i consider to be as ridiculous as the action against the other plaintifs.

    it will be an interesting case. this is definately not a bootlegging case. i think metallica could lose against every plaintif on every charge.

    when i listen to a metallica song on the radio, their intellectual property resides in antennas, wires, circuitry, my speakers -- does that make the manufacturer of my car a party in an illegal distribution of metallica's property? after all, the radio station has one cd, but possibly tens of throusands of radios are cooperatively distributing the information.

    it's like the battle over cassettes all over again, except now we can all be a radio station.

    why do the little people, the end users, always get litigated and blamed when we try to do the same thing the big guys do? and we're not even making any money at it. the court may rule in the favor of the people.

  • Re: Turning Microsoft's Art into a Commodity (Score:3)

    by Bob Uhl ( 30977 ) on Saturday April 22, 2000 @09:19AM (#1119306)
    This really points out one of the massive problems with a limited-license proprietary product. A site could be set up to serve a very small number of users, but when it is momentarily slashdotted due to media attention it can no longer serve as high a percentage of its customers. Bad thing to build a business on, if you ask me.

  • (I missed this story the first time around, so this is late. Sue me.)

    No, I'm saying that a "right" is something that society grants an individual.

    Nope. Society is simply a bunch of people trying to avoid killing each other. It has no power, and certainly it does not "grant" anything to individuals.

    Your rights are yours. They are not given to you; but you can give them away. Most people give them away -- they let the government pry into their lives and take their money; they let people tell them what to do; etc.

    For the most part, there's a trade-off. If nobody cooperated, then there'd be a perpetual state of violence among people. In order to avoid that, we surrender some of our rights.

    You, however, have been blinded. You've been led to believe that the government is the source of power and that they deign to permit you to breathe so that they can tax you and occasionally make you kill people for them.

    You've got the whole thing backwards.

    the execution of the law effectively grants rights.

    No. Governments have no right to exist unless we say so. People created the Constitution, which gave the government power to create laws (subject to limitations) in order to let us get on with our lives without constantly having to defend ourselves from our neighbors. People created the concept of intellectual property hundreds of years ago and made laws to define it. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. And up until about 30 years ago, it probably was a good idea.

    But times have changed. The rights that we surrendered when we created intellectual property are becoming more important than the alleged benefits of intellectual property.

    Among those rights is the right to share things with our friends. That's the big one for most of us. We no longer enjoy living without that right. We want it back.

    And we will take it back.

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