Courts Gives Napster 72-Hour Deadline 290
Several folks have submitted a variety of stories proclaiming that Napster has been given 72 hours to remove copyrighted materials from its servers. Meanwhile, websites are cropping up everywhere to encode filenames to simple things like Pig Latin, as well as more complicated stuff. No doubt open-source Napster clones will have that built in within a few days.
blocking any copyright songs (Score:2)
Thanks goodness! If it had said they have to block all copyrighted songs they would be in trouble. Now, they just have to block two and they will be ok. My nominations are "REM - Shiny Happy People" and any of the songs by Souxie(sp?) and the Banshees.
Re:Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, ... (Score:3)
Follow my logic. The legal system is all about suing who has the money. Even those who have a passive role in the commission of a crime are obliged to pay damages. Who has money and facilitates the commission of these crimes? ISPs. With the advent of "technologies" like Carniwhore or POS-2000 or whatever its name is, those who are in court will realize (mistakenly) that ISPs can filter information passing through them. Thereby, injunctions will be slapped on the big ISPs like @Home, etc. (but not AOL, for some mysterious reason). The ISPs will then start filtering for known patterns of bytes of Freenet, Hotline, etc. traffic and block them in either direction. Of course, this solution is ridiculuous to think of, but then again, judgements of law are often unencumbered by the thought process.
Of course, there are obvious ways around this. They will be implemented until the ultimate work-around (use of encrypted packets) at which point entire ranges of ports will be banned. Probably, even worse--everything but port 80 from a list of "registered web servers".
If you think this is absurb, try this on for size. Broadcast something for 24 hours at about 100MHz. Yep, that's right, the FCC will be on you in a heartbeat to shut you down.
To think that these cannot be shutdown is absurd. To think that the government will not try to regulate the Internet in an absurd fashion is hubris. They have done it before (from the sinking of the Titanic onward, the US has regulated airwaves) and they WILL do it again.
The fact that we have licensed radio stations is proof enough for me.
PerES Encryption [cloverlink.net]
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Um, it should be easy for them to see what you're sharing, BECAUSE YOU'RE SHARING IT. If you don't want other people to see it, don't share it on something like Napster where you know anyone else can get to it.
And people shouldn't feel sorry for the poor old record companies. They make billions every year, of which only a tiny percentage goes to the artist. They'd just rather use lawsuits to protect their cartel rather than riding the wave themselves. If they sold songs online for 50 cents a download from a reliable server then no one would even bother with the likes of Napster.
Why am I the only one to see what would happen if this were the case. You buy a CD and what is the first thing you do? You rip it and share it on Napster. Why would it be different if you downloaded it for 50 cents? You are going to put it with all your other MP3s, in the big folder that is shared by Napster. Then everyone else goes and gets it from Napster and saves 50 cents.
Let's start assigning blame. (Score:2)
The issue is that even though Napster doesn't store any files on its servers, it is an easy target. Hence the RIAA goes after Napster. Napster doesn't do anything but say, "Hey, you want this file, well he has it". You then go there and download it. Shutting Napster down, in my opinion, is therefore a violation of its rights to free speech. Everyone knows this but somehow, the powerful RIAA has gotten the judicial system to buckle.
The funny thing is that they will be unsuccessful if they think that they can curb the flow of information. What in the entire Universe is easier to share than information? They are also very wrong if they think that somehow they will make more money by doing this.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:3)
Hey hey hey, good bye (Score:2)
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
But it's (©) copyrighted so don't even think of trying to share with with your budz.
--
Umm... (Score:4)
----
Dave
MicrosoftME®? No, Microsoft YOU, buddy! - my boss
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
How do you maintain that "approved" list when you're not checking the content of the files? My "Parody of Metallica" could just as easily be a pirated copy of a Metallica album as not, regardless of whether I'm part of the "registered" system or not. An "approved" list like that is effectively what's already in place (and being largely ignored). When you create a Napster account you're agreeing to their Terms of Service, which _explicitly_ state that trading pirated mp3s is not allowed. Your "approved" list doesn't do anything to prevent illegal mp3 trading, and is simply another barrier in the path freely and easily exchanging _legal_ mp3s online. Sure, you get their ip address and username, but they _already_ have that information. That's how Metallica was capable of dumping thousands of Napster users in the first place.
Also note that MD5 sums are useless in the mp3 world. Adding a fraction of a second's worth of dead air onto the end of the mp3 changes the MD5 sum. So does changing the ID3 tag information. MD5 sums are very, very easy to get around, and are only useful for verifying that the file you're looking really is, in fact, the file the person sending it claims it should be. The contents of the file are completely unknown.
The real problem here is not Napster's service. The problem here is that the recording industry is going after the people with money, rather than the people actually comitting the crime. I hope this gets appealed to Supreme Court, as it would be a very interesting and very pivotal case for the coming years in regards to Internet freedom.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:5)
me too, but what would actually happen is this: the riaa might sue a couple people. the rest of the people would see this and back down-being that they are willing to stand on the civil disobedience pedestal until it becomes inconvenient. this is typical of the apathetic populous here in the us.
alternatively the riaa might threaten the isp's who will cut the cords of their users. reguardless of wether or not the riaa has a legal leg to stand on is irelevent. many of the ips would cut the users so that they dont have to go through the legal hassels. not to mention the aol/tw connection. the folks at time warner call over to aol and say: "hey cut the user who had this ip address at this time. he's a violator".
the us legal system can take alot. look at the "war" on drugs. in the last decade the number of people in the us prision system has increased dramatically. many of these folks are in for minor drug charges and come out alot worse than they went in.
in my opinion the us has become a subsidiary of corporations and the population is happy to be told how to live by watching mtv/suvivor/etc. anything that might be worth the time will infringe on their convenience and we cannot have that.
give me convenience or give me death.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:Next Napster Will Be RIAA Backed Not Hacker Bac (Score:2)
All hatred of the industry aside, I might be willing to pay a subscription fee for unlimited high quality downloads of a huge database.
I would _never_ pay for Napster. It relies on the lowest common denominator; a bunch of kids, more or less
Would I pay 100$ a year for a legal substitute for buying CDs? Perhaps.
Re:This Could back fire on the RIAA (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
If Napster can't list music that RIAA owns, it's pointless for them to list music that it doesn't. Indy labels in Napster are like the little CD in the bin next to the 500 copies of something popular. You might grab the little CD because it looks interesting, but you never would've come to the store if the 500 copies of something popular weren't there.
Besides, it's pointless. Copyright is dead. If Napster doesn't survive, something else will. It's like making laws against picking your nose or spitting on the sidewalk. You can scream like howler monkeys every time someone does it and maybe even try to arrest people for it, but you'll never actually make any significant dent in the number of people doing it.
The only solution is to realized that copyright based models for paying artists are dead and think of something better. Here are some links to a couple I've seen:
None of those guarantee money to an artist for every person who gets a copy of a work. My suggestion as to how to deal with this is to get over it. I think many of them will work well enough that decent artists will make a good living. All of them significantly diminish the role of the middleman.
Re:Use Antivirus Approach (Score:2)
At any rate, it was a good source for every media format in existence and now the whitelist is enabled there's nothing to download anymore. I would call it nothing more then a better version of FilePlanet but it depends on the hosts hosting all those files, not servers. My point is that in effect the PG network is now a POS not only because I cant d/l music through them but cuz it's only a source of shareware/freeware which I can get off the web (which I'd rather do) instead of using a custom app that has no guarentee that someone will host the file I want and (more importantly) give me a decent transfer rate.
"Me Ted"
Next Napster Will Be RIAA Backed Not Hacker Backed (Score:2)
Your analysis would be correct if the RIAA had no plans to create an online music distribution system similar to Napster. But we all know that various RIAA members have expressed interests in online music delivery including Sony [wired.com], BMG [zdnet.com] and EMI [bizreport.com]. The reason the RIAA has cleared the scene of Scour.net and Napster is so that people stop getting used to the idea that online music should be free. Once all the free online music services for the masses have been eliminated the RIAA can step in to fix the MP3 cravings with an online service that charges a mere $10 - $20 a month.
As for hackers creating a rival service, as long as the RIAA owns the copyrights on the music that people want to hear the law will be on their side. This means that any hacker(s) who create(s) a popular online music distribution system must be ready to contend with lawsuits and harassments from law enforcement and RIAA lawyers. Since most hackers already know where to get MP3's without the common tools (Gnutella, Napster, Scour, etc) it is unlikely that any hacker will put himself through the RIAA wringer just to enable other people to be able to download free music. Corporate investors will also tread warily with regards to facing the RIAA after what has happened to Scour and Napster.
Quite frankly, the RIAA is about to prove that "He with the most lawyers wins".
Re:In the end... (Score:2)
And if the judges have a brain in their head, that's exactly what will happen - once the RIAA demonstrates what a farce this "filtering technology" is.
This whole thing is funny. All the Napster users that expect free music are doing so for various reasons, but I've seen many complaints about the RIAA's unfair pricing/payment practices. Yet, these same people insist on slaying this dragon with the equivalent pea shooters. Everyone's so busy shooting the dragon with peas, they fail to see (or use) the arsenal of rocket launchers right at their feet. There's a word for this arsenal - BOYCOTT. Yes, it may take the cooperation of more people to get the desired results, but it CAN be effective. If the RIAA doesn't HAVE to change, why should it? It seems like the only effective solution would be to create an environment that makes this so. Otherwise, stock up on the peas - it's going to be a long ride.
Re:Ye GODS! Napster overdose! (Score:2)
Yeah. The RIAA is what's fundamentally wrong with the universe today...
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
The scary thing is, using agent and downloading all your mp3's from newsservers is a piece of cake, and MUCH less frustrating than using napster ever was. Of course, you sometimes have to be patient, because you can't get everything all at once, but given a short length of time, everything eventually becomes available.
However, as easy as using usenet is, its way beyond most of the the internet users who were bred on AOL and still think that Internet Explorer IS the internet. The entire concept of usenet probably escapes them and even if they decided to investigate it, they would be initially overwelmed and forget about it, rather to spend hours a day desparately searching on webpages, sifting through numerous porn banners and such.
Thats why napster was such a hit. Just type in the name of the song you want and keep clicking on the name until one of them downloads. It saves the users the trouble of thinking too much.
This is no big loss. Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about it. But there probably WILL be a backlash. The public as a whole has gotten a taste of what the internet CAN offer, and its going to be very hard for them to be pacified. Even the whole Pig Latin thing probably won't take off. Thats more complex than they want to deal with. They're going to want it to be as easy as it was before. And if market forces have their way, they may actually succeed.
-Restil
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
Regarding the motives of Napster use? Well, that's always a tough call. I do know that all of the people that I helped with Napster were interested in previewing albums before buying. These folks are still in the CD age. They still like their music in CD-Audio format. The wouldn't have a clue how to convert an MP3 back to CD-Audio. (Even though it's easy.) Crap, I'd say it's a fair estimate based off my own observations that most of those 30 million napster users don't even own a CD writer.
I guess I should wrap up my rambling... I never thought about Napster being a martyr, but the commenter is right. Napster will make a wonderful martyr. The RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) is outdated. The time is up. I believe they are fighting this to delay the inevitable. Why delay? Because they are still making money the old way. If it costs $100 million in lawyers to keep them making $1 billion, then they do it. The problem is that such a large percentage of the profits go into the pockets of a very few. And those very few don't want it to stop. Their time is up.
Shawn Pack
Re:RIAA was foolish (Score:2)
BTW, I don't think that everyone is going to go through so much inconvenience. Only the hardened Napster-criminals will do so, the average Napster-luser will not bother. Then they have a convenient way of identifying the hardcore thugs, and they can lock 'em up and throw away the key.
Likewise, if they move off shore, the thing to do is go after the users. If napster appear to be making good faith efforts to make their service legit, it's not really fair to blame them for the actions of their users.
Re:Question (Score:2)
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Actually, as a consultant, I would use a variation on the streetperformer protocol. In fact, most consultants already do. Very rarely does a consultant impose any distribution or copying restrictions on what they produce for their client.
That is NOT a 'panhandling' style protocol. The closest an artist has come so far has been Stephen King with "The Plant", but he didn't follow it precisely. The streetperformer protocol tends not to let you reap as many rewards from popularity as some other ideas, and apparently either Stephen King didn't know about the streetperformer protocol, or he wished popularity to still figure strongly into how much money he got, so he used a variation that was less likely to succeed, but more likely to reap rewards proportionate to popularity.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:5)
I've talked to a knowledgeable person who works in the record industry and they tell me that the feeling there is that music sharing has already won. The music industry may be able to shut down Napster, but they've lost the war. There are hundreds of ways to share music files now and more are on their way. There is not just an entire generation of music fans who have begun to think differently about intellectual property laws, there is now Joe and Jane six-pack who want to share Led Zeppelin MP3s.
Those of you who whine about musicians being ripped off by online music sharing are still missing the bigger point. This controversy is about music *distribution*. Napster and others like it are a new, easy-to-use technology which removes the middleman from between artist and fan. Nobody is crying over the record companies and the profits they are missing out on. More and more people are beginning to understand that music distribution is controlled by 5 to 6 companies and perhaps a few more retail outlets (i.e. WalMart). If anybody has been ripping off artists it's been record companies and their monopoly. If a small band lose its contract, it is destined for oblivion because the alternatives are few. We all know who bland FM radio is with its limited playlists that are designed to sell us a select few artists. Never mind the fact that most of the FM dial is owned by 4 or 5 major companies.
What can you do? Keep sharing music. Buy CDs from small labels and distros. Go to a concert and pay to see a band. If you are a programmer, help develop open source P2P software. Set up a server to host MP3s and movies. Turn off that corporate radio station and start your own pirate station. Several years ago there were hundreds of pirate stations on the air in the U.S. It takes less than $1000 to start a station with your friends.
Finally, don't get depressed about this because our side is winning!
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
While the court proceedings are going on, I tell you about how the company screwed me over. You say, "the bastards! I'm going to steal from the evil company and keep the pilfered items for myself."
How does this help me?
If you want to attack record companies by violation of copyright--regardless of whether or not they're abusing copyright--I won't stop you. Just don't pretend that you're somehow helping the artists by this action.
If record companies are screwing over musicians, then it's up to musicians to lead the revolt.
Re:Hey hey hey, good bye (Score:2)
- where the RIAA accidently (or maliciously) asks for the blocking of legitimate works that the artist does want shared.
- so that researchers can figure out whether banning a song from napster affects it's popularity in the stores.
- so that people have the ability to respond appropriately when they learn that the RIAA (or others) don't want their songs listened to. (or don't mind).
(don't bother telling me that I can't count)--
Re:Hey hey hey, good bye (Score:2)
Better to... (Score:3)
If I may give a terrible example, if I want to stop a bicycle from moving easily, should I remove the wheels or the pedals? Well, let's say killing Napster is like removing the pedals. It is still possible to (somewhat comfortably, albiet at a greater inconvenience) ride the bike around by pushing it with your feet.
Even if you remove the wheels (which are a bad metaphor for the Internet as a whole), one could still carry the bike on their back.
That's not to say I think Napster is good. The legality of their business is mired in an endless gray area ("How gray?" "Charcoal." -- Fletch) but the RIAA needs to understand that they are going to lose out (not legally, tho) anyways. When you can't beat em, join em. But the RIAA has gone too far, too long to turn back now (which, IMHO, is why Metallica got on the anti-Napster bandwagon... the RIAA needed a "hip" band, and probably managed to convince poor weak-minded Lars... by the time they were getting hit from their fans' backlash, it was too late to back out).
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
I object to 'masses ripping you off'. It presupposes a mindset that copyright is 'right' in some ethical sense.
And I guess that I mean it should be dead in the case of people giving copies to random other people or friends, but not in the case of someone selling many copies to large numbers of people.
Whether or not Napster falls into that category is highly questionable. They don't sell copies. They 'sell' a way for people to find other people who are willing to give them a copy, which isn't quite the same thing.
I also think the unenforceability problem is a very big problem. It really can't be enforced unless you want to wage a 'war on pirating' like we already have a 'war on drugs'. Even then, it can't be enforced. You'd practically have to have a police state if you wanted to enforce it.
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
And how is this rectified by listeners ripping off the artists and record companies alike?
Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
I'm wondering, why is it necessary to encode song names? Since the vast majority of Slashdot are law abiding citizens who would only use Napster to trade non-copyrighted music this should be an issue.
Is the encryption being used to allow people to keep trading copyrighted material? If so, why not give the artists the pay they deserve the purchase their MP3 or CD?
Thats right (Score:2)
And one day, in an enlightened future, IP legislation will be cast off as the backwards barbarism that it is.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
You are hilarious and an idiot. Copyright is dead. Think of a different way to make the money. It only really helped the middle man anyway.
lets face it (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:blocking any copyright songs (Score:2)
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:Let's recap. (Score:2)
One would think that this would be legal.
However, the ruling in mp3.com says precisely the opposite: even if the downloader/listener already has legal license to that music, the person who bought the CD that the streaming bits came from is the only person allowed to hear them.
see... oh... this press release from mp3.com [mp3.com]
and
wired news article [wired.com] about a congressman trying to create legislation that says "if they already bought it, they can listen to it!"
Re:Let's recap. (Score:5)
Now answer me this: how can they tell it's "infringing?" Just because it's copyrighted doesn't mean it's being infringed upon. There's a possibility, yes, but... well, here's a ferinstance:
I bought Blue Man Group's album, Audio [blueman.com], last month. It plays fine on my portable CD player, but put it in the CD-ROM drive, and it misbehaves. I can't even rip it. I have a license to make fair use copies of it, so presumably, if I can find MP3s of this album, aren't I entitled to download them?
Similarly, the Beatles' White Album. I bought that on vinyl, and later on cassette. Am I really required to buy it AGAIN to legally download MP3s that other licenseholders have made?
Forget the technical problems for a sec, and just look at the legal presumption of guilt here.
I'm offended. I really am.
Use Antivirus Approach (Score:2)
Now that it is clear that Napster has to try to stop the swapping, nobody seems to be interested in trying to do a really good job of it. Letting renaming of a file get around the swapping ban is just too lame.
Shouldn't the filter for copyrighted stuff be like an antivirus? Changing the name, or even making insubstantial changes to the content should not evade the filter.
Re:Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, ... (Score:2)
Or one could encode data in email messages. Make it look like English, at least close enough to confuse filters (i.e. something more subtle than uuencode). Not that hard to do.
Plus ISP's (which include telco's) might not appreciate blanket injuctions denying user-to-user rather than user-trusted server communication. Could hurt their bottom line. Telco's are mostly sleeping giants, but they'll wake at this. They've got WAY more money than Hollywood or the RIAA or the software police.
Re:Yeah right. (Score:2)
log on to OpenNap servers. they're just as good as napsters own server, and actually have more people more often than not. Fuck gnutella, that shit is for chumps.
Let's recap. (Score:5)
2) What Napster is required to do is block all ifnringing materials from being searched for.
3) The Record companies must furnish napster with a list of what to block.
So.. what the court ordered was that napster had to bock all infringing materials the record companies told it about. Isn't that what napster said they would do in the first place?
Sounds fair to me anyway.
RIAA will lose in the end (Score:5)
Re:Umm... (Score:2)
But the movement of sharing music will live on, like the words of Obi-Wan "If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could ever imagine"(or thereabouts) Watch the RIAA even try to take on all the servers which will now fire up.
--
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
You're selectively misinterpreting the streetperformer protocol. I kinda wonder if you've actually read the paper.
Consultants often negotiate a specific compensation for a specific product. That's exactly what the streetperformer protocol is about. It's actually sort of misnamed. Go read it.
You are right in that they usually work for an hourly rate, but the kind of contract I talked about is not uncommon.
The streetperformer protocol stipulates that you ask for a specific total donation before you will release your work to the public. You then provide the work to people who've donated more than a certain amount for free, and charge everybody else to download it. You're only guaranteed to make the original required donation. As I said, that particular method doesn't do well for generated increasing returns for increasing popularity. Only in the sense that you can start asking for larger guaranteed donations. Combining (but not replacing) the protocol with one of the reputation and social pressure based protocols would result in more popularity based revenue, and still guarantee you the initial donation.
In the hopes of generating the more familiar popularity based revenue, Stephen King just sold it without requiring a fixed initial total donation. He based whether or not he'd release the next chapter not on getting a certain amount of money, but on the 'free rider' rate on the current chapter. Not the same at all.
Also, the success of his venture depends on how you measure. He made a great deal of money that way, and I think he got a much larger cut of it than he would've from a print publisher's royalties. I think, given that he largely set himself up for failure in the first place, that he did surprisingly well.
I think they have a chance of increasing compensation because the middleman is less able to demand a large cut, which is what happens now.
OpenNap (Score:3)
Is 1GHz 1000MHz, or 1024Mhz?
Re:Alternatives (Score:2)
I set up the server after reading this post and went on to get a feel for how much information is currently accessible with Mojo Nation. I wanted to start with something nice and broad, nice and vague, to see what kind of information is available and accessible. So I searched for images across 34 other machines and came up with squat.
I also searched for audio, and got a whole lot of mp3 listings (predictably). But none would download. Not a single one. For every one I was left with an empty file on my machine. I tried about 10. Also, every time I tried to download for some reason, the files didn't have extentions. What the heck is up with that? And none (and I mean not a single file) had the standard "musician - song title" format. It was always just the name of the song. Can you explain why this is happening? I think I followed the instructions just as the are described. After all, I can search. I'd normally just contact you from the Mojo Nation page, but since you posted this to slashdot, I thought I'd ask you here as others might be interested too.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
You mean THAT Supreme Court? Surely you don't want to entrust Internet freedom to those jokers do you?
part of the court order / bootlegs (Score:2)
The RIAA didn't agree to anything. This is part of the court order. And you can understand why... if Sony says "Remove Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man" and there's a copy that someone has which is inexplicably mislabeled (both in the file name and the ID3 tag) "Weird Al Yankovic - Dancing Queen", it's absurd for Napster to be expected to recognize it without being explicitly told about it.
What I'm curious about is the status of bootleg remixes and bootleg live versions. When Joe Basement Producer makes a megamix of Pink Floyd (on Capitol) and Underworld (on TVT), who needs to contact Napster? Capitol? TVT? Joe Basement Producer?
[TMB]
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
According to the internationally signed and agreed Berne copyright convention [cornell.edu], the lifetime of the copyright is that of the lifetime of the artist plus 50 years [cornell.edu], and has been that way since 1971.
When was it last 14 years or so? When Jefferson was around?
Simon
Re:Perhaps not.. (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
I didn't say it should be difficult to share, I said it should be difficult for automated tools to see what you're sharing. Napster obviously needs to know what's on your machine but third party tools should be deterred. Napster could implement a number of measures that hardly inconvenienced the average user but made life considerably more difficult for automated tools:
In fact many of the same measures that the likes of Slashdot, Hotmail etc. employ to prevent spammers could be utilised in Napster.
Why am I the only one to see what would happen if this were the case. You buy a CD and what is the first thing you do? You rip it and share it on Napster.
The thing with CDs is that their high cost makes ripping and sharing worth it. When songs are sold electronically for 50 cents or few bucks for an entire album then there is considerably less motivation. Freeloaders will still use it of course, but for the sake of a few cents I suspect a great many people would rather use a reliable commercial service than waste their time with broken downloads, bad encoding and copyright theft via Napster/Gnutella.
The Backlash Begins... (Score:5)
I mean, if you know more than absolutely nothing about the internet, you can download agent or x-news and point it at the MP3 binaries groups and get a wealth of high-quality audio, that has usually been encoded by people who know what they're doing. The same goes for IRC channels.
What Napster has done is to remove that first little bit of knowledge necessary to start yourself down the good-intentioned road to MP3 hell. It's all point and grunt. Even Journalism Majors can use it. My step-dad can use it, and that's pretty damn scary.
So Napster's effectively gone away. If Mr. Berry's figures are to beleived, this means that the RIAA doesn't have a few ingenious crackers and hackers on their hands trading MP3z on undergound IRC and Usenet channels. They have 30 MILLION FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, PISSED OFF users from all classes and races! Worse, they have a veritable legion of crackers and hackers who want to support these people's dirty MP3 habits in order to make money/points/karma/etc...
What's the old saw? If one man owes you a lot of money and won't pay, then he's in trouble, but if many men owe you money and won't pay, then you're in trouble.
This applies here. It was one thing for RIAA companies to pick on the hackers. Now they have visibly, audible, and a finacially insulted the American Public as a whole. Now all that's left is to whip the addled mob into a blood-thirsty frenzy.
Good bye, Napster. You'll make a wonderful martyr.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
You are absolutely correct.
However, I'm not talking about right and wrong. I'm talking about the law. Far from disagreeing, you are proving my point. Note that the law changed regarding ALL the things you mention when enough people wanted it to change.
Re:Alternatives (Score:2)
As far as not having the artist in the mp3 file name; Mojo Nation has seperate XML metadata describing files and for Audio that includes Title, Artist, Genre, and others. There is no need to put all of this information in the file name with Mojo Nation.
Burris
Here's some music (Score:2)
When you open that (youll need to have Mojo Nation running on your box) you'll get an html page with info about the show and links to the individual tracks. This is freely redistributable music.
Burris
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
I agree it's better than trying to filter based on filenames. I think filtering based on filenames is doomed to failure, as the RIAA, Courts, and Napster are already demonstrating. However, the system you describe simply wouldn't be feasible, either in theory or in fact.
Napster is so popular, in part, due to the fact that it is so damn easy to use. Somebody in another comment mentioned that even his Uncle could do it. Requiring a submissions process for getting your uploads approved immediately destroys the ease-of-use that Napster currently has. Your standard "newbie" Napster user isn't going to have any idea what bitrates are or what an MD5 sum is. If you kill off the ease of use, you kill a lot of what makes Napster so popular. It's not popular because it has the best search algorithims, or the best network protocols... It's popular because it's easy!
Audibly listening to each mp3 submitted would be a nightmare as well. Lets say you listen to the first minute out of each mp3 submitted. That means, if you do _nothing_ but listen to mp3s one immediately after another, you can do 60 in an hour, per person. Except, you can't do that, because the listener also has to indicate whether it's acceptible for the system or not, and if it is, go through the process for approving it and contacting the user to let them know that it's been accepted and that they can start serving it.
Song approval would very, very quickly lag behind the number of requests being filed, and the cost of hiring more people to satisfy the approval requests would _far_ outweigh any potential revenue gains as a result. And it still doesn't solve the sticky question of bootleg music, which some bands allow for trade online. The Dave Matthews Band, for example, has a fairly liberal bootleg trading policy. What if I want to register my bootleg archive of several hundred bootleg DMB songs with the new system? There are bootleg collections out there that could occupy a single person for _days_ on end to ensure that they're all valid, and that doesn't even raise the issue of whether or not the system would allow bootleg recordings at all...
Song comparisons performed by humans, while being a fairly accurate means of determining whether a song is pirated copy or not, are far, far too costly and time-consuming to ever be used in the online music industry.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Actually, the core assumption of democracy (see previous post in this thread regarding difference between technical and conversational usage of the term) is that people should govern themselves. The "tyranny of the majority" is an unfortunate but necessary side effect which must be controlled.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Agreed.. but. (Score:2)
They've said that if the record companies want napster to block a file because it infringes, then they have to give napster the name of the file, and napster has to block it.
Whether that is PRACTICAL or not isn't the issue. The court merely says that if napster will do this, then they can continue to operate.
No. (Score:2)
They attract viewers by encouraging the unlawful trading of music. Yes, their system can and is used for other things, but napster inc. knows they will have tons of users because people want to pirate music. This is the flaw in their business model; the chief way they attract viewers is by encouring/helping them do something illegal.
A website based on the same principle would be just as bad.
Now the courts have said that Napster can stay in business, as long as they block searches that the record companies tell them to. What's unfair about that?
Re:blocking any copyright songs (Score:3)
i know about the aimster pig latin stuff, but my question is who has the burden to identify a particular song as copyrighted, and who is responsible in the case of false positives and negatives.
I would like to see a system where the RIAA has to implement servers to answer go/nogo for each song to be listed by napster -- with answers in reasonable time frames and with reasonable penalties for false positives. I guess any song they haven't flagged in 1 minute is assumed to be ok.
So each time a user logs on with a list of songs, Napster's servers sling a bunch of URLs to the RIAA and they go through and flag any they disapprove of. Since the SDMI watermarks worked so well, they already have a technology they claim can do this.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Remember, Napster has more users than George W. Bush got votes.
I do not give a shit what the *majority* of U.S. internet users want - I care what the *majority* of the country wants. If indeed these Napster users form more votes than George W. Bush got, why didn't they vote for someone else? Merely expressing an opinion does not impress me - you need to work within the system to vote representatives in who agree with your causes. If you get outvoted, too bad. For the record, the majority of U.S. citizens support copyright laws (and other intellectual property laws).
Napster is not, nor ever will be, murder. Don't push the arguement to extremes. This is the reason for Godwin's Law.
The argument I was responding to was the "consent of the governed" argument. I was using an extreme case to illustrate the how ludicrous the claim that one may disobey a law one disagrees with is. It is equally invalid reasoning with less extreme cases, but since the author of that claim made a broad claim about "consent," I used one of the cases in which it is easier to understand its error. In effect, the author of that claim had really meant to say "I can break laws only relating to Napster because I disagree with them," but instead attempted to invoke grand (but flawed) principles (which are flawed for the reasons my examination of an extreme case indicates).
And Godwin's law has nothing whatsoever to do with this subject - it involves ad hominem attacks on people calling them Nazis, and it not a "law" so much as a general response to the over-use of such attacks.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
You aren't actually interested in thinking, you're interested in calling people names. A great deal of the software I write is under GPL. I purposely do this so that people will be free to make copies and distribute it widely. I've purchased my music library. You wish to call people names simply because they have a different opinion than you.
Tell me then, do you want a 'war on copyright infringement'? If there isn't a different model, that's exactly what will happen. It'll be a nasty war, and a lot of people will end up in jail, and you'll end up having to feed them, and their contributions will be lost to society. Is that the right thing? Even then, it won't stop 'freeloaders'. They'll exist in even larger numbers.
Trying to stop the free flow of information is like trying to stop people from having kids. It just isn't going to happen. You can call people names all you want, but that fact won't change.
Copyright has now become a horrible solution to the problem it was meant to solve. Attempting to make it fit will cause some of the most horrible civil rights degredations that this country has ever seen. The DMCA was just the beginning. If that's what you want, just go right ahead and keep on being righteously moralistic about it, and above all, avoid thinking about something that might actually work.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
I posted a reply to this that got lost.
I wouldn't object to Napster if they charged. I think they'd just become as banal and marketing driven as radio then though. And all the money would go straight to the middlemen's pockets, not to artists.
As for the GPL Quake thing... I think the guy should be treated as a social outcast for doing what he did, but in my world, it wouldn't be legally actionable.
Once a piece of work has been released into the world, the artists wishes should be respected, but the artist shouldn't have legal control over whether they are or not. It should be based largely on reputation and social pressure.
Perhaps, after we'd done this for awhile, some conventions would arise that would be possible to enforce and maybe then laws should be enacted then. I think the incredible ease of digital copying changes the equation so fundamentally that a 'destroy the old and let a new arise' approach is the only thing that will work.
If you have to become a police state to enforce your law, the law is wrong.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
New law:
You must win, not a majority of the votes cast, but a majority of the votes of eligible voters in order to unseat the current president.
New law part 2:
A sitting president may not in any way attempt to influence the outcome of a presidential election - NO CAMPAIGNING TO STAY IN OFFICE!
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Copying multiple full albums and then offering those same pirated albums up for download by other people is most certainly not covered under "fair use" by any definition of the term. Look up what fair use actually is before you start spouting nonsense.
Intellectual 'property' is not property unless is has a corresponding physical objectivity.
Do you have any backing for that claim? Why should I respect your physical property but not your intellectual property? Keep in mind that there are plenty of people who disagree with you on both sides - on one side a communist would disagree that either sort of property is really a right to have, while many people think both are. Why should I accept your claim that physical property is and intellectual property is not (rather than either of the other two claims)?
Napster will probably have to shut down in the end (Score:4)
Which means that Napster is pretty much screwed, as they cannot filter anything else beyond names, and therefore will have to resign to shut down their server completely, or face further penalties for disobeying the injunction.
Three things that must be provided (Score:2)
Record companies will need to keep searching Napster, and provide them new with lists of file names that they want blocked. There are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them.
OpenNap and MusicCity (Score:2)
Re:OpenNap (Score:2)
Hertz is different than bytes, hertz is a measured frequency...
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
One of the best things I have seen recently was a TV summary of European Napster usage. The Spainish came out top with a wopping 31% using Napster to get an average of 3 hours audio a month! Figures throughout Europe suggested an average of about 14% usage at an hour and a half of audio a month. Sounds like enough to make Napster a martyr and to ensure that free music sharing will have a prominent place in our society for longer than the internet has already existed. Long die the Music Industry, Long live the Music!
Just when did Music become an industry anyway? Did Mozart or even the Beatles create their works for controlled distribution and maximum profits or were they just happy to be paid to do what they loved, and perhaps even happier still when they actually saw a fair return for thier work/it's results?
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
No, I call a spade a spade, someone who freeloads a freeloader, and someone who commits crimes a criminal. The remarks weren't necessarily directed at you.
A great deal of the software I write is under GPL
Good for you. I write free software too, though I prefer the LGPL (for *everything*, so I'm not scrwed when I want to factor code into a library)
If there isn't a different model, that's exactly what will happen.
I don't mind if there's a different model -- but obtain it without vandalism. If your model depends on vandalising the current model, and forcefully redistributing authors works against their will, it's unacceptable. I agree that looking for new models is desirable. I don't believe we need a techno Khmer Rouge to do it.
nd a lot of people will end up in jail,
Bad idea to put too many people in jail, especially if a lot of people are doing it. Lock up the big offenders, give the others small fines. Since they're only in it to save money, they'll quit if it causes them to lose money.
Trying to stop the free flow of information is like trying to stop people from having kids.
What, inconvenient ? They managed to stop people having kids in China. I object to the napsterites talking about "free flow of information" when what's really going on is freeloading. The napsterites aren't interested in information at all, they want to be entertained for free.
Pig Latin (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
It doesn't mean "willing to turn yourself in", but it does mean "willing to get caught and prosecuted for what you believe in"
Big Difference
Re:Hey hey hey, good bye (Score:2)
Thanks, Monkeys-In-Robes! You just fertilized the market to cause a Million Napster to bloom!
I'm a big advocate of evolving Napster into a legitimate means of distribution that rewards individuals as bona fide distributors of entertainment. I'm in the Napster Action Network and I have dutifully phoned and emailed my representatives to "change the system from within."
However, my position is that word of mouth has always been among the most powerful means of advertising and the least compensated, monetarily. Accordingly, the legacy financial models of entertainment distribution seem to violate fundamental principles of economics. Those who are creating value in the form of word of mouth marketing and sales have not ever received their proper cut.
Enter Napster, creating vastly more perfect market information in this regard. I think that it should be incumbent upon the entertainment industry to keep up with the times and create new business models that spur technology rather than defending oligopolies and stifling innovation.
In the meantime, we the community must scatter in a number or random directions now that the feds have effectively shackled Napster.
I feel really bad for Shawn, but the only way to keep the spirit alive is to abaondon Napster altogether and go somewhere else ... and we must keep migrating and scattering like this until the feds get the hint that file sharing is not going away simply because the RIAA pays them to prop up their anachronistic institution.
Here are some starter ideas - LET A MILLION NAPSTERS BLOOM!
Hotline [bigredh.com]
Gnutella [wego.com]
Fidelio [ee.auth.gr] - Hotline for Linux
Gnucleus [gnucleus.com] - Another Gnutella for windoze
BearShare [bearshare.com] - Another Gnutella for windoze
Aimster [aimster.com]
And lots more on ZeroPaid [zeropaid.com]
Question (Score:3)
Are you doing anything wrong?
Will you be banned from Napster?
Re:OpenNap (Score:2)
you're right of course. it's only confusing when you're talking about bytes, not any other SI measurement.
a few years ago, in an effort to bring "bytes" back to the SI norm, the units kibibyte, megibyte, and gigibyte where introduced. nobody seems terribly interested in following this standard, but for what it's worth:
1 Kilobyte (KB) = 1000 bytes
1 Megabyte (MB) = 1000 KB
1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1000 MB
1 kibibyte (KiB) = 1024 bytes
1 Megibyte (MiB) = 1024 KiB (1,048,576 bytes)
1 Gigibyte (GiB) = 1024 MiB (1,048,576 KiB)
there used to be a site on the 'net about all this, but the only references i could find in a quick google search was this page [tinet.ie] (at the bottom) and this message [uts.edu.au].
so needless to say, it's not commonly used :)
- j
Re:OpenNap (Score:2)
for anybody who actually cares, i just noticed that there's a related entry on everything2.com [everything2.com]. apparently it's gibi, kibi, mebi, etc.
- j
Re:Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, ... (Score:4)
Yeah well, that is going to be a lot harder than folks think. If they start outlawing code based on what it could do (and I mean original code - not code reverse engineered ala DeCSS) they'll realize it useless. You can't do it.
Freenet is in its infancy. They do have a new MP3 sharing client called Espra [espra.net] If it works - the RIAA may be in trouble. Sure they could try to ban Espra - but that'll be harder (Just see all teh DeCSS mirrors out there) I'm surprised the RIAA isn't shaking in their boots. FreeNet CAN cause them major heartache. Admins have NO idea whats on their servers, it is encrypted. No central servers except for key servers, etc. They can go after key servers, but again, they aren't the sole distribution medium for keys.
Yes, Freenet is in its infancy and the media has shrugged it off, but I'm impressed by the advances they've made. Give it 6 months and more resources in development as Napster as a protocol faces the 'music' (which IMHO is a shame since P2P is so much more than MP3)
Run a Freenet Server [sourceforge.net] today!
--
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:4)
1) the song is beyond the original copyright period (14 years or so) and you disagree with the extension.
2) you own the tape and shouldn't be required to also buy a cd
3) you own the cd but don't have the ability to rip it
since you got rated up instead of down i thought i'd reply, probably should be rated down as a troll though.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
There's a big difference between free speech (even if it's offensive) and replication of someone else's speech in full. You can make an offensive movie - you cannot make copies of someone else's movie.
Do you have backing that it is not? There has never been a case before the Supremes that has dealt with IP without corresponding physical representation of that IP. The corporate piggies are going to get a rude awakening when their lame software patents and excessive music/literature copyrights get dumped by the Supremes because their is no objective property to protect. If Napster goes all the way to the Supremes, they will win.
I'm not speaking in a US legal sense, but in a moral sense. We've already established I'm pretty sure that laws are not the same as morals - copyright violation could be legally permitted in the US but still be wrong, and no Supreme Court decision can change that.
By the way... in spite of your nationalistic indoctrination, this isn't an issue of 'Commies vs. the good guys'. The commies are gone now, remember?
I'm not speaking of socialist regimes like the former USSR, I'm speaking of communism as a legitimate philosophy. There are plenty of legitimate communists who believe that neither physical nor intellectual property are things you can "own," but merely something that you are allowed to have for the public good. You seem to agree with this position half-way, arguing that it only applies to intellectual property, while physical property is somehow an "inherent right" - my question is why?
FWIW my personal position is more in agreement with that of the communists, though in practice I disagree with most political communists in my ideas of how property should be allocated. Neither physical nor intellectual property is an "inherent right," but something granted by the government; physical property should IMHO nearly always be granted as a pseudo-right and only rarely taken away, while intellectual property, due to its easy replication, should carry less weight (though certainly it should still carry some weight), and be more open to utilitarian arguments about benefiting the public as a whole.
So in practice it seems I agree somewhat with your position, but I disagree strongly with your assertion that physical and intellectual property are, in a moral sense, fundamentally different. I see no basis for your claim that physical property ownership is a fundamental right while intellectual property ownership is not.
Bwahaha - hysterical (Score:2)
After which, Napster will have 72 hours to block access to that file. Or, in other words:
Napster users will change their file names every 72 hours.
RIAA was foolish (Score:2)
This Could back fire on the RIAA (Score:4)
Re:Correction (Score:2)
That way they have to specify anti-RIAA names.
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Simple, really. The RIAA is not bothering to check the actual content of the files they're asking to have banned. They're simply requesting anything with, say, "Metallica" in it's name be banned.
Now, last I checked, it was perfectly reasonable (through fair-use and parody laws) for me to record my own single called "A Parody of Metallica". Why should it banned from Napster when I could quite legally be selling it from the street corner or playing it on the radio?
This is exactly what the purpose of the filename encryptors is. They allow you to use the service in both a) the manner in which it was intended and b) in full accordance with your rights as a US citizen (assuming you are, in fact one. Things gett messy in this area when you go internationl
I do find the DMCA references that places like Aimster are using an absolute hoot though. It would be both vastly amusing and incredibly interesting to see it tested in court against the RIAA...
Are mp3's really copyrighted material (Score:2)
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
But.
Given the choice between a legitimate, massively publicised system, and a shady or just downright illegal system, which your mate down the pub recommended, most new users will opt for the one they understand and feel comfortable with. And understanding is built by advertising, in today's sickly consumer environment (no, don't say it isn't true, because it is).
I think it's easy to see a future where the RIAA and pals would own the predominant music distribution network, despite "free" alternatives. Thankfully, however, I don't think they have enough brains between them to realise this future, so I think we'll have "free" music for quite a while yet.
Woohoo.
Why Pig latin? (Score:2)
Banning Pig Latin, etc. (Score:2)
one big mess where all possible forms of encryption are banned, except for use by megacorporations.
Criminals, actually.
Remember, if encryption is banned, only criminals will have encryption.
hmm ...
RIAA = ???
works for me, since their tactics have reminded me of a mafia family protecting their profits.
This is walking into the direction of one heck of a bloody mess in the coursts and the legal system.
Re:In the end... (Score:2)
The RIAA would be doublly enjoined from 'finding out' because they couldn't use the program to decrypt the new mp3s under UCITA, and they couldn't break the encryption under DMCA.
Re:Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, ... (Score:2)
Re:The Backlash Begins... (Score:2)
Anyone out there willing to start a petition and boycott??
--
Perfect Tense Disappears from Language--Film @ 11 (Score:5)
The whole nation is reeling in ambiguity today, as the Perfected Tenses have disappear entirely from the English language. What was once thought to be restricted to those of lower socioeconomic status has spread viciously throughout America.
A Dr. Hanfkopf was interview today. He say "Television has probably contribute more to this than anything else. The TV people have let these people be hear without ever having correct them. My God, now it has happen to me!!!
Moral: There is no excuse for anything less than mastery of the language by those who use it.
If you love God, burn a church!
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:3)
If you consider that a valid reason, then why not just say:
1) You don't care about laws.
and have done with it?
Some big media "get it" (Score:2)
Re:Why Encode Song Names? (Score:2)
Wasn't it Tom Petty that put one of his tracks online and Sony or whoever owned his contract made him take it down.
Alternatives (Score:3)
Burris