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Will This Genie Ever Go Back In The Bottle?
from the analysis:-the-music-industry-wins-a-whopper dept.
For several years now, the distribution of free music online has been evolving into a bitter, costly and signficant test of whether new information technologies will change the nature and meaning of copyright, or alter the ways in which culture and ideas have been owned, marketed and distributed. The Net has made possible, for better or worse, the free acquision of music and other kinds of intellectual and creative products.
MP3 technology -- a format which jumped from obscurity to ubiquity in 1999 -- has turned out to be revolutionary. Millions of people whose access to music was previously limited to radio and CDs suddenly had instant and free access to much of the music recorded in modern times. MP3 sparked a cultural and economic revolution that is just beginning to be understood.
An entire generation has grown up seeing the acquisition of music as a right. This generation has a voracious appetite for music, something that should please the makers of it. Industry executives and many artists, of course, see the way they satisfy that appetite as nothing more than a pervasive form of thievery.
A number of artists have bitterly complained that the downloading of music on sites like MP3.com is simply piracy. They have criticized writers like me (with justification) for not highlighting artists' rights as well as those of music lovers. Friday's ruling by a federal judge against MP3 was the clearest and most powerful blow yet struck against the by-now deeply ingrained tradition, especially among younger music lovers, of acquiring vast music libraries for free. MP3.com could face stunning penalties.
At issue is something complicated and important, something not taken into account, or even acknowledged, by the Federal court ruling. There is hardly anyone reading this who hasn't acquired some form of free intellectual property on the Net, from music to text to software. Artists definitely have a right to be paid for their work, but branding a whole generation of music fans thieves seems simplistic, even self-destructive.
The question now becomes political and cultural, as well as legal and technological. Judge Rakoff issued a startlingly brief order Friday holding MP3.com "liable for copyright infringement." The suit, brought by RIAA (The Recording Industry Association of America), a consortium of the world's largest record labels, seeks to shut down MP3.com. But over the weekend, some music industry officials, including Paul Vidich, an executive vice president for Time Warner, said RIAA wasn't trying to put MP3.com out of business as much as force it to change.
The court found that MP3.com had violated copyright law by creating an online database -- MyMP3.com -- of 80,000 major label records. The ruling doesn't affect the use of MP3 compression technology (not owned by MP3.com) to make copies of music via the Net.
It follows a growing number of lawsuits -- some by recording artists like Metallica and Dr Dre -- against Napster. RIAA also has a suit pending against Napster in federal court. MP3.com shares dropped sharply in late Nasdaq trading Friday afternoon.
As strong a victory for the music industry as Judge Rakoff's ruling sounded, it seemed both short-sighted and far from clear cut. MP3 has altered the music industry for good. Shutting down MP3 and Napster would hardly mark the end of the battle.
"The shame here," a dissident, savvy music industry executive said in a phone interview over the weekend, "is that the record labels could have embraced MP3 and Napster, rather than going to war against them. What they don't grasp is that while piracy issues have a lot of validity, Napster constituted a rebellion against monopolistic music industry practices and greed, as well as a copyright problem. Instead of reforming, and grasping a real chance to change, the industry simply used the most heavy-handed method in dealing with these issues. Those of us who know the Net know this ruling will last for about a week. Piracy issues aside, the industry has a full-blown rebellion on their hands. These kids are never going back to the old way of buying music. We need a new system that responds to them and really does protect artists."
There were hopeful signs over the weekend. Danny Goldberg, one of the industry's most enlightened execs, and chief executive of Artemis Records, an independent label that releases CD's and runs Internet radio and music subscription services, said of music-sharing: "It seems counterintuitive, but an increase in free downloads coincided with an increase in paid sales. Particularly among the young audience, the people who are most wired, the evidence is that it's bonding a new generation to music." Goldberg's comments suggest that at least some leaders in the music industry grasp that new transmission technologies could be good both for the music industry and for artists.
History suggests that once new technologies like MP3 and Napster exist, they will be used and replicated. Many music industry executives believe the recording artists would make more money, not less, if they embraced digital music-distribution technologies. When the record labels went after MP3, the industry triggered the Napster rebellion. Napster software, spreading wildly on the Web, allows MP3 users to share files. If suits against Napster are successful, why wouldn't yet another technology crop up? In fact, it already has, in the bumper crop of programs both client and server which basically treat the Internet as a searchable and vast remote filesystem.
Pretending otherwise doesn't protect the rights of artists, it simply sets them up to get ripped off forever, and needlessly politicizes the tradition of free music among younger consumers. Selling music more innovatively just might permit artists to get paid and let consumers keep their new-found ability to acquire more music for less money.
Brian Ploskina of inter@activeWeek.com quoted Gene Hoffman, chief executive of EMusic.com, an online MP3 store and showcase as likening the free music legal battles to prohibition, doomed efforts to restrict the sale of liquor. "In the 20's," he said, people made a lot of bathtub gin, but they don't do that today because they can buy it for $20." His well-taken point is that music-downloaders would probably pay for music too, if the prices were more affordable.
It was an apt analogy. The music industry and the Temperance movement both thought they could legislate the social tastes and desires of millions of Americans. Whether they have merits to their arguments or not, history says their task is impossible. Recent legal actions make it likely that key distribution points for both MP3 and Napster -- particularly universities and other institutions that till recently have allowed music distribution software on their servers -- will be shut down. Others will obviously emerge. The legal actions won't stop the proliferation of music-transmission software, or the epidemic resentment and anger at the way the greedy record labels operate. The music industry is in the odd position of winning one court ruling after another while alienating an entire generation of customers.
For years now, millions of music lovers have been acquiring diverse kinds of music for nothing, making music more popular than ever. In l999, the record industry posted an 8 percent growth in revenue -- from $13.7 billion in l998 to $14.6 billion in l999 -- while the number of audio and video units sold rose from l.12 billion to 1.16 billion, according to RIAA statistics. Many executives believe those numbers would have been higher if the record industry were using MP3 for sales and promotion. Hundreds of music-sharing sites exist all over the Net and Web besides MP3 and Napster, including ones which take advantage of instant-messaging systems and privately-built and run Web sites.
Do recording executives really believe that music fans will suddenly give up on acquiring diverse and numerous forms of music for free and go back to buying a handful of expensive CDs a few times a month? That wouldn't protect artist's rights or those of music lovers. This digital genie isn't going back into the bottle. Successful negotiatioins between MP3.com and the music would be the sanest step yet in the music wars, and a healthy precedent for other businesses who sell intellectual property as well as artists.
Note from timothy: Thanks to twiin and other readers who sent word of Metallica's upcoming online chat tomorrow (2nd May 2000) as part of an ArtistDirect promotion, where you can tell them what you think directly. I quote: "Hold nothing back: this is Metallica, after all. They can take it."
Paying for our culture (Score:2)
Anyway, since when should we be forced to pay for our culture?! This makes me so angry. Record companies promote music which (like it or not) becomes integrated into our everyday lives, but it's not legal to own a copy of that music unless you give a whole bunch of people a whole pile of money - we don't even get to own our own culture. It'll probably soon be illegal to sit around a campfire singing spice girls songs (actually, if it was just spice girls songs that it was illegal to sing, I probably wouldn't mind so much ;-).
Worst of all, personal copying of music is not the only avenue of income for these greedy companies and individuals who would persecute people for downloading files. Record companies and artists make money from the clubs, pubs, on-hold music, WAY overpriced concerts, and TV and radio stations that play their music in public for a profit. We the consumer get it from both ends - we buy our drinks and listen to the advertisments so we can hear the music in public with our friends, and then we have to pay again if we want to hear it at home in our own time. How does that work??
Sharing of MP3s means that less well known bands might actually get a chance to do a gig for 5000 people at $20 a pop. $100K is not bad for a night's work. Probably more money than most indy bands ever see from CD sales, anyway.
M.
I have to amend this one a bit (Score:2)
People are not going to be _coerced_ into paying something they originally got as free.
I personally have had three different CDs sold on mp3.com [mp3.com] for $5.99 when every single track is available for free. If asked I would provide even the cover art graphics to someone who wanted to make their own copy of my CD for free but couldn't or wouldn't pay. I already make it as convenient as possible to download every single track. My guess is that at least three people (each, interestingly, choosing a different album) independently decided that they would be willing to pay $5.99 to mp3.com for the convenience of having an audio CD made for them with a nice cover and all, and because I get half of the $5.99. I assume all of these people did originally get this as free- in fact I know it, because even if they didn't _take_ it, they got the music free because I made a point of giving it to them.
It seems that my experience flatly contradicts your concept, and this makes me happy and speaks well for the ability of an artist to earn money off free artwork through access to global distribution over the Internet. It's not much money but it's more than you'd credit, and I could do better still by working to produce greater music (or more commercial, accessible music): I know an artist (Bassic) who earns over $5000 a month on mp3.com from downloads and CD sales, and one important reason for this is simply that his music is more simple and accessible than mine. He loves Mike Oldfield, I love Mothers Of Invention- who do _you_ think is going to sell more CDs? ;) but I am happy about this because I _can_ produce the music _I_ like. Nobody is forcing me to make it like his in order to sell more of it. That's the beauty of being-paid-for-free-music, nobody can bitch if I'm not TRYING HARD enough to BE COMMERCIAL. I heartily endorse it to other artists who want creative freedom.
(And yes I also still endorse going and downloading my music and buying my CDs- by now the CDs of free music sold have been anima, Extended Play, and Hard Vacuum. So _every_ _completed_ _CD_ I've done has found at least one person who liked it enough to support it with their creditcard- I get a huge kick out of that, because I never expected that _all_ of it would see CD buys. Big appreciation to whoever's doing it, and I'm still making more and still making a point of giving it to you first and foremost)
Re:Is the main obstacle micropayments? (Score:2)
Mind you, I don't do this or support it so I can't tell you whether it works :) it is just not the way I choose to do business as a musician, but it _is_ out there. It's sort of like a shareware/crippleware concept. It seems to suggest that you have to coerce people in order to sell anything, which my experience tends to contradict.
Re:No (Score:2)
"Face it, the system is broken. If you're not a record exec or one of the top "artists" selling "15 billion singles a second", then you're getting screwed, plain and simple. Guess which ones are doing the screwing.
Album business level concept, rarely artistic one (Score:2)
Yes, because it's the basic unit of record company contracts. An artist signs a contract agreeing to create a certain number of albums, not a certain number of songs.
well-crafted songs are one thing, but an album represents a hour-ish long attempt to create a coherent/cohesive mood and statement.Sometimes, but rarely in my experience. Most of the time an album sounds just like the collection of all songs written since the last album was released. And all too often there's the phenomena of an artist putting out an album, not because the creative juices are flowing, but because of being obliged to do so by their contract.
Keep in mind that thanks to radio and MTV, people are used to thinking of songs as the basic unit of music, not the album. One of the strengths of MP3 is the ease with which it lets a person create a personal jukebox, freeing them from the tyranny of having to listen to the songs album by album, always in the same order.
Re:No (Score:2)
False, it's about control, but please.. continue.
there's a reason why artists create albums
Yes, I think it may be related to why they're called "artists".
ppl create a situation that debases all artists, bringing (insert your favorite band here) down to the level of a sisqo or christina aguilera.
False, again. The Grateful Dead didn't go out of business because people bootlegged their concerts. The Offspring (a MN band) isn't losing money because I loaned my CD out to a friend. There's a concept of "fair use" for non-commercial purposes that you need to be brought up to speed on. In some cases, it is (and/or should be) perfectly OK to listen to music without buying it. Shocking, huh? Second - yes, it's bad and wrong and evil for me to leech mp3's. Is it such a big deal though that we need draconian legislation like the DMCA to combat it? Isn't there something in the constitution about "cruel and unusual punishment"? Our justice system is supposed to mete(sp?) out punishment based on the severity of the crime. Why should people be liable for "billions" of dollars in "damages" and be sent to jail for years for this?
This is so... (Score:2)
...the movement of college kids to other music-sharing sites this weekend was amazing..
Not the issue here.. (Score:2)
You're fighting the wrong fight here. Everybody involved is saying artists should be paid for their work. The question is what's the best way. Read the comments of the music industry execs in the column. Some are actually acknowledging that they will make more money and artists will be better protected if they use the Net to sell music differently, rather than cling so stubbornly to the current mode.s
This is what the guy from Artemis says in the.. (Score:2)
...column above..he acknowledges that free music has increased sales and revenues, thus helped artists..It's an interesting take.
Online too late.. (Score:2)
...maybe I was online too late, but my version doesn't have a "was" in it..
Great question in this post..How MUCH? (Score:2)
..Since the Net changes the dynamics of music publishing, this is a great question...how much should artists be paid for digital music downloads?
uh.. maybe read the column? (Score:2)
It says twice -- in the intro and column -- that this ruling was about my mp3.com, not mp3.com
but mp3.com is the party held liable, since it owns mymp3.com
Puzzled in NY.. (Score:2)
I'm at a loss as to what my about-face is. I feel exactly the way I felt last week. I just want to acknowledge that I haven't been as clear about artist's rights as I have about users. But I think RIAA is way off base with these suits, as would be clear if you read the whole column. But I'm responding to the many artists writing me saying they feel I haven't been as clear on the one as I have been on the other. If that's an about face, I'm happy to make it.
Using terms like "steal" and "piracy" are the problem. An eight year old who goes online and learns to love all kinds of music..jazz, rock, rap..isn't a thief. he or she is using technology to acquire culture in an amazing way. No way these kids should be cut off from doing that.
Morality and theft (Score:2)
Even the recording industry is acknowledging that simplistic notions of theft and property, good and evil don't work here. The fact is we need a new system of distributing culture that accomplishes a number of things:
l. Protects the rights of people who have grown up with access to free forms of culture, via new technologies.
2. Protects the rights of artists to be compensated in ways (new ways probably) for their work.
3. Allows the free market system to function rationally and profitably.
3. Busts up the music industry cartel and monopoly over music, the biggest outside of Columbia.
Re:Artists view...Thanks for this (Score:2)
This is critical point of view..And it needs to be heard more often, IMHO. I can sympathisize with the feeling that artists need protection, but some of the portrays of the record companies as victims are nothing short of creepy. These new technologies have permitted lots of artist to get their music out. Sure, they will ultimately need to get paid, but this very articulate post is another reminder that the issue isn't as black and white as thieves vs. white hats.
Free != Antidote to Monopolistic Practices (Score:2)
Although this may fall on some deaf ears here at Slashdot, it's hard to argue that making something free is the best long-term antidote to monopolistic practices by industry leaders. If anything, doing so is at best a short-term, last-ditch solution when all else fails.
I don't disagree that MP3 and Napster may represent revolutionary new ways of distributing music, but that's almost a separate issue from that of making the music free. As an earlier poster pointed out, the music artists have to make money somehow. Mr. Katz' implies that the record industries growth figures have something to do with the advent of Web-based music distribution, but this is probably only an insignificant part of the picture. The growth is more likely due to the state of the economy and the much more pervasive ad campaigns launched on behalf of the artists by their record labels.
Just remember: Linux won't have been the biggest contributor if and when MS is broken up. MP3 and Napster certainly don't spell the end of the music industry as we know it.
The legal issue (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, the legal issue in this case is not that people are pirating the music, since they are required to own the CD before listening to the music on my.mp3.com. Rather, the issue is that MP3.com illegally copied some 80,000 CDs, which I suppose is a violation of DMCA. (Someone please correct me if I'm completely wrong.)
So, as I see it, the phenomenon demonstrated by MP3.com is that people are willing to purchase CDs, but want additional functionality, ie. the ability to listen from anywhere, or have the music in a more robust format. The recording industry could take away from this that if they sold music in a format that people prefer, with capabilities that people want, then people will buy it. And a CD (or web-accessible CD) won't be require much more effort to copy than is currently needed to rip a whole CD.
Bottom line: we'll pay for music if it fits our our modern music-listening needs.
Re:Of course... (Score:2)
Along the same lines, I suspect that DVD's don't cost much more to produce than VHS tapes do, other than the cost of creating the extra content and getting someone to "program" the menus, etc. on the disc, but I could be wrong...
That said, at least 75% of the MP3's on my computer are ripped from my own CD's. I would never have bought the CD's for most of the ones that aren't, as I tend to buy CD's that contain 50+ minutes of GOOD music, as opposed to 2 good songs and a whole lotta crap. MP3 doesn't really work for me if I want to listen to my Glory Soundtrack [amazon.com] or to my Simon and Garfunkel CD [amazon.com], as those CD's are meant really to be played all the way through. I defy anyone to say the same thing about Mariah Carey's latest CD [amazon.com].
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Your place in society - $20 a month (Score:2)
However imagine that RIAA and alikes manage to make their side dominant in our world... Imagine that you have to pay for every song, every lyric, for every shirt, cup, mug, pen with names such as Mettalica or BeachBoys. You don like it? Then what will you do? Stop listening to music? Stop to do something your own nature demands as a form of distress, confort or meditation? So hope that birds will not be forced to have their voices licensed by RIAA. Because it is probable that you may not listen to anything else.
It is a monopoly much more subtle than Microsoft. You may refuse to accept Microsoft rules of the game. Well maybe you will not be able to use a computer but, generally, this doesn't affect your life in fundamental aspects (you won't die of this). But not listening to music???? A thing that a common ancester between me and you did already in his times?
Yes you may choose to listen to music not-RIAA or even anti-RIAA. But, considering the way RIAA plays its hypocrisy in the table, you'll have to choose some underground cave to listen to it. You'll have to download music from warez or non-US sites that may still survive the grasp. So you become a paria, an outculture, a punck, a freak, someone that refuses the culture 90% of people live in. By happily paying their fee to live in society... The minimum? $15-20 for the late hit CD from their lovely group. If you want to be a social being, apart of paying taxes and buying goods, you'll have to pay, each month, your right to listen your lovely sounds. Consequently you'll have the right to communicate, to rest, to love or to concentrate...
Piracy due to expensive CD's (Score:2)
In your comment, you forgot one very important aspect of this entire debate: the cost of buying a Compact Disc.
Right now, the average cost of a CD is somewhere between US$13 to US$17 if you buy it at a record store; it's even MORE expensive in places like Japan, where album CD's cost 3000 yen, around US$28.50 at current exchange rates. That's pretty expensive for most everyone, and frankly, people are tired of paying these high prices.
If the RIAA were to decree that the record companies lower their prices for album CD's, I think much of the piracy problem will disappear VERY quickly. If CD's were priced at US$7.99 to US$8.99, the artists will make it up in more volume sales. After all, CD manufacturing technology has advanced enough that stamping costs is measured in a few cents PER CD!
Why artists create albums (Score:2)
Before CDs displaced records, an artist had the option of selling 45 rpm singles, with two songs. Hence the "singles charts."
Since the demise of the 45, an artist no longer has the option of releasing singles. In order to join the party, to get your one or two songs into the record store, you have to crank out an hour of filler so that you can release a CD. Granted there are some musicians who use the CD format to "create a coherent/cohesive mood and statement", but there are plenty of albums that are one or two good songs, plus a whole lot of filler.
Another effect of the music distribution monopoly.
Re:Paying for our culture (Score:2)
It already is. ASCAP went after the Girl Scouts, a well known organization of copyright terrorists, for unauthorized campfire performances.
Re:No (Score:2)
So what am I getting at? Well, every person who connects helps to contribute to either way things will eventually work. And lately, I think the number of people who don't realize this are outnumbering those who do realize this. The balance of power is shifting to a more controlled environment where a minority may rule.
It sucks.
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Of course... (Score:3)
I hope. In any case, I haven't bought CDs in a while. I've gotten a couple as presents, and I got The Matrix on a gift certificate. I was thinking of joining one of those music clubs ("11 Free CDs For $1" or whatnot), but they don't have much in the way of 11 decent CDs.
So what are you going to do, RIAA? Sell CDs at cost + royalties? Heck, give the artist a buck or two, I'll pay for that.
What does the current model look like?
cost
+ royalties
+ 3 cents for the artist
+ legal bills
+ media kickbacks
+ mafia kickbacks
+ money lost from drug seizures
+ legal bills from fighting the war on mp3's
I mean, really, *explain* where that $15-20 goes and I'll be impressed. That's a lot of money to account for. A book costs $5, and that's paper, wood pulp. The author gets money, the publisher gets money, the cover artist gets money, the book gets printed on a press that is already paid for. So where's the extra $10-15 that goes into the cost of the CD? Hmmm?
Or how about singles? They make money off of those, right? And they're about half the price of the CD. With nothing to make them cheaper. Implying that CDs could be half their current cost and *still* be very profitable.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
This is sad. (Score:3)
It's just reaffirming copyright laws in protection of the artist, which is what copyright is all about.
Copyright is not "all about" the protection of the artist. That's what the RIAA would like us to believe, but you shouldn't buy that line. Copyright exists in order to increase the number of artistic and/or literary works that people have free access to (i.e. works existing in the public domain). The goal is to provide an incentive, namely a limited, temporary monopoly, for artists to produce new works. After the monopoly period is up, those works are added to the public domain, and can be freely accessed, distributed, and built upon by anyone. THAT is what copyright is all about. Don't let the music or movie industries convince you otherwise. They've already managed to extend the length of copyright to an unreasonable amount of time, now they're trying to remove the limits on the monopoly they have. This is wrong and should be stopped.
Re:This is sad. (Score:3)
Well, I hadn't read the RIAA website before. Some very interesting stuff there. I was reading through the artists' comments and ran into this gem:
"I think the fact that Napster is stealing recorded music is something that we have to stop. It's taking money out of my kid's mouth. That's the way I look at it. It's wrong. It's inherently wrong. It's stealing." -- Art Alexakis, Everclear
This guy feeds his kid money?
Anyway, it's become clear from the comments by the artists, apparently solicited by the RIAA given the dates on most of them, that the artists only seem to know what the RIAA has told them. They're trying to make it into a black and white, cut and dry situation, which it isn't. They apparently didn't tell the artists that despite the rise of MP3s, the record industry profits are still increasing significantly ever year. They also didn't give explain basic business concepts like what you should expect when you overprice your products. Nor have they actually been able to establish that they are actually being harmed by Napster. I've explained what I think is going on in other posts under this story, so I won't rehash it here. Go to my user info page to read my other posts if you wish.
Re:uh.. maybe read the column? (Score:3)
And this is something that I have to say to you every time you write something. If someone were to take a copy of your book, duplicate it verbatim on to the Web, and let people read and download it for free, you and your publisher would sue the bastard to make sure that s/h/it didn't do it. The same holds true for music, whether it be in MP3 or some other format.
So yes, Jon, do some more research next time, and quit blowing what are really sound legal decisions out of proportion and saying that it's the end of the movement as we know it, people's heads are up their asses, blah dee blah blah. MP3 is not a revolution. This case is not a trendsetter or major MP3 precedent. It's just reaffirming copyright laws in protection of the artist, which is what copyright is all about.
This really is a shame, too. (Score:3)
Unfortunately, they didn't do that. They scoffed at MP3, and the result was only too predictable. They left it to the pirates, so the pirates jumped on it.
Music piracy is hardly a new thing. It's been around for decades. Prople were taping records, radio, and later CD's long before MP3 arrived on the scene, amd moreover people still do this (probably as much as if not more than MP3; the format does take a small amount of technological savvy after all). RIAA acts as though stopping MP3 will stop piracy for good; it won't. Other means will arise, and unless RIAA works within these new systems they'll lose big time.
For one, RIAA shouldn't be so averse to selling MP3's. There's no need to worry about SDMI and all that; while piracy will still exist, of course, there's lots of money to be made. Need I remind the music industry Bill Gates and Larry Ellison both sell software, and together they are worth more than the entire music industry? So clearly piracy may be a problem, but it's not a real barrier to making a whole planeload of cash.
Piracy is a problem, of course. But it's never going to go away; you simply cannot eradicate it. The best you can hope for is to minimize it. Sell MP3's over the Web for a dollar apiece (this being roughly proportional to the retail cost of a CD, which is higher than the price the industry itself gets for every disc). You'd be surprised how many fans will pay a buck apiece for music, particularly in places where you can't use Napster. The first company to actually try this (assuming they can get a decent-sized fanbase) will prove the model's validity.
It's a different way of doing things, yes. And of course it's scary; moving away from a model that was known to be lucrative in the past but is now losing out to technology is always a risk. But technology is evolving, and unless the music industry is ready to face that and work within it, they're going to be left behind.
No (Score:3)
In short, the RIAA shot itself in the foot - with the high cost of CDs and the even higher cost of going to a concert/show, people weren't left with much alternative. Prepackaging songs they didn't like with songs they did like and not allowing previews pretty much put the finishing touches on their coffin.
So common people like their free stuff, and who cares about the law? (insert long idealogical rant here)
The other component of this is that geeks enjoy their online freedom - whether information "wants to be free" or not, geeks are out there making sure it gets shared to as wide of an audience as possible. Part of this is that geeks operate on a kind of gift culture - you get more popular when you give away more, and partly because many (most?) come from a recent history where geeks were ejected from society and scorned in schools and communities. This is a kind of self-conscious revenge - a little bit of "damn the man!" .. ideologies aside there is a definite ego rush in standing up to authority. Now, I know I'm going to get flamed for the above statement - I'm not saying that everyone is like this, so keep that in mind, ok?
The last point I want to make is that the internet was designed specifically to share information. It was something of an accident and convergence of technologies that made it so you could share virtually everything - images, movies, pictures, text, it's all going into a huge funnel of digitalization making it even easier to share. The internet was designed to share information. The internet was designed to share information. From the hardware to the protocols to the software to the users, end-to-end it was designed to share information. What shall we do to put the genie in the bottle? Well, dismantling the internet and locking up all the geeks would be the only feasible way to do it. Good luck, guys.. there's a helluva lot more of us than you.
No, not what I am saying.. (Score:3)
No, as a person who makes (or almost makes) a living off of being paid for published work, I am not saying it's okay to pirate music. I am saying what you are saying and what Danny Goldberg, who is quoted in the column is saying...music-sharing has been good for music, generated enormous sales and potentially, can be great for artists. It doesnt' protect artists to protect that music can't be downloaded and shared. They will just get ripped off forever. What would really protect artists..and believe me, I am for that...is a new way of distributing music that offers it more cheaply and with more choice.
Nobody should be forced into open source, of course, but I don't see most of this kids as thieves. new technologies have given them access to unimaginable amounts of music, and they are using and loving it. If the record industry would get off its butt..as its own execs are urging (see above) then artists could be protected, they could make money, and people wouldnt lose this amazing new access to cheap and plentiful culture. I am not advocating music piracy, just trying to see this music revolution in a different context than: you're a thief, not I'm not!
Intellectual property, not intellectual argument (Score:3)
The artists can (and do) transfer their rights to the label. While it may seem "unfair" and "unnecessary" for the labels to shut down services like my.mp3.com, the service does, in fact, violate the labels' rights, and can consequently erode value of the artists' rights. If the labels' rights were entirely intact (and consequently the artists'), they might be enabled to sell a second digtal copy--my.mp3.com denies them this right. Similarly, the growth of my.mp3.com through the violation of the labels' rights, could marginalize the market position (not necessarily monopoly) of the labels. The artists could potentially use this as a bargaining chip, but my.mp3.com strips them of this. Likewise, due to technological flaws, my.mp3.com may, in fact, make piracy and far far more trivial, and the denial of the labels' right to control the distribution may negatively impact their profits. For example, I can borrow CDs from all my friends, hundreds of them, and gain access to all of the mp3's of those CDs in an hour or two with a cheap computer on broadband--No other technology enables this to be done so quickly and efficiently (e.g., nominal ripping (reading) time, no encoding, no storage space, etc.), not tape, not VCR, etc. I realize you, Katz, are no technological wonderkid, but I also have real doubts about the security of the my.mp3.com services insofar as internet piracy (as opposed to CD distribution amongst friends) goes, so it does not entirely follow that just because beam-it, my.mp3.com's client software, is challenged by the server to produce samples of the CD, that the user actually has the CD in their drive at the moment, or even an equivelent sized chunk of data.
The bottom line is that you should assume the artist is releasing his work under the current understanding of copyright law, and all that it implies. Unless the artist grants you that right to do otherwise, you are simply not entitled to do whatever you wish, no matter how just you may feel your reasoning to be. Any violation of the copyright law has concievable consequences, thus we generally don't leave it up to the individual to decide. If we, as a society, choose that it would be better to weaken copyrights across the board such that a single purchase in any format entitles you to get the work in any other format, and that it is ok for 3rd parties to provide that alternative medium service at a profit, that is acceptable. Until such time, however, we should respect the law.
My MP3 != Napster (Score:3)
Leaving aside the dead horse of "It's piracy!" "No, it's not! Information wants to be free!" "Tell me that when they start pirating your books." which has been so ably flogged elsewhere in this discussion, let's look at the issue of another straw man Jon's set up and whacked on a little in the article, which I haven't seen addressed as much.
So CDs only cost fifty cents to make and are sold at $15. So what? Despite the implication here that the record labels are uniquely evil for overcharging so, this is hardly a one-of-a-kind case. I would wager that many or even most of the things we pay $10 to $20 for are knocked off at, at most, $2 to $3 of actual manufacturing cost. Take a class in basic Economics, Jon. Better yet, take two, one each of Macro and Micro. I'm sure a college in your area offers them as night courses.
As someone who has had them, and had a surprising number of misconceptions cleared up by them...Jon, that $14.50 is not pure profit--at least, not for the record companies. There's the $5 markup by the record store middleman, the fixed setup costs not represented in the 50 cents figure, the factory overhead...and, yes, the profit. Companies do have to make a profit, you know. That's how they stay in business, satisfy their shareholders, and continue to produce the products that we want.
Despite what many of the "free as in beer" crowd would have you believe, profit is not an evil or bad thing. You're making a profit yourself when you get your paycheck--getting paid at least as much as and probably more than you think your labor is worth--or else you'd go work somewhere else where you were.
--
Devil's advocate: why should artists be paid? (Score:3)
The fact that an artist put a lot of effort into creation does not, in and of itself, establish a right to be paid. A simple counterexample: Parents put a great deal of effort and expense into raising children, but nobody suggests that this effort entitles them to make a financial profit on the venture.
--
"But, Mulder, the new millennium doesn't begin until January 2001."
Interesting about-face, Mr. Katz. (Score:3)
For the record, I can't stand what RIAA has become: a cudgel used by non-human immortal entities (read that: corporations) who exist solely for the purpose of maximizing profits for their few shareholders at whatever cost. In my opinion, the recording industry has suffered at RIAA's hands, becoming linked with the heartless materialism at the core of big business. And the industry's insistance on holding back the use of digital channels to move entertainment to the people (both RIAA and MPAA are guilty here) will most assuredly backfire.
Frankly, the time has never been better for a company to spring up who will sponsor digital recording of smaller acts in exchange for the rights to give away one (1) song from each act on the Internet. Skip the pressing of CD's and the add campaigns. That same company should purchase and give away Rio players to radio stations to give their acts air time.
But that idea does not give people the right to steal, and that is what most of those who are complaining about the lawsuits, and RIAA's actions, are doing. This is not a revolution; it is plundering. Those who are suing have every right to do so; indeed they have a responsibility, if they're going to protect their copyright.
Mr. Katz, you strike me as someone who was always in "rebel" mode. I went to school with plenty of them, and I've worked with some. They always had an axe to grind against "the establishment". Often, they were right. But they were just as often wrong, and I believe you're wrong on this one. You shouldn't be glorifying theft as "revolution".
Incidentally, as a network admin, I also point out that the universities who've banned Napster are doing so for several reasons, one of which is due to the unprecedented load of network traffic the music-traders (or thieves, if you will) are generating. And I fully agree with their decision.
Re:Not the issue here.. (Score:3)
I see this in a lot of "e-commerce" models. They tout their method is like "X" in the real world, but on the net, and they don't think through to the logical (if not pessimistic) conclusion that nobody needs "X" on the web.
I can copy my CDs for others, given: a) I have the time to do so (it's automated) and b) I own the means of production (2 cd drives, one being a burner, and a burnable silver CD) plus one original. Bam! Kick it up a notch with instant piracy! No net required. No download times. With the net out of the loop, even sending encrypted/tagged mp3s becomes pointless. Unfuck seemed to do the trick on Mickeysoft files, as DeCSS can do it to DVDs. The net is, as usual, a transport medium, and not a saviour.
rrr (Score:3)
Taking things from others is wrong; getting something for free is not. New technology allows us to do one without the other.
If I pirate software that I would never have purchased, I deprive no one of anything. Distributing NT in china doesn't loose MS any money, because the people can't afford it anyway.
Artists view. (Score:3)
As a musician that uses mp3.com [mp3.com] I feel like I need to say something here. This has let people hear us that would have otherwise never even heard of us. I don't see it as losing money or a waste of our time or resources. The people that listen to us are probably more likely to go to a show when we play close to them, which makes them more likely to by stickers, or shirts or cd's.
I don't see what all these huge bands are whinig about either. Sure there are going to be people that don't buy theur albums. Those people would be just as happy with a cassette or mini disc, either way it's a moral issue rather than a money issue. Almost everyone I know has an old cassette of some metallica album.
And for the money... I know that a indie band can record and produce cd's for 1 - 3 dollars per disc. At shows these are usually sold for 8 - 10 dollars. That's some helacious profit. I mean at worst that's 70%. I know that these major labels are getting a better deal on CD's. The manager at a music store that Ionce worked at told me that it was about 97 cents a CD for a major label. And the honestly want us to pay 15 - 20 dollars and NOT see if we really like the album first?
Grrr (Score:3)
The only way for a middle ground is to have a ruling that posessing mp3s from albums you own is legal, the same way that having a backup casette is legal, or having a backup set of disks from early software is legal (this is no longer embraced in the software industry, but was a standard in the early days of software being distributed on 3.5" disks.) Giving away music may be a crime, and wanting a profit (banner ftp sites, donation sites, etc) for distributing music is most certainly a crime, but we need to first establish that we are entitled to have mp3s for cd's we posess.
Music copyrights (Score:3)
Jon, you seem to be saying that it is alright to pirate music, basicly because music is expensive and we geeks are supposed to believe that Information Wants To Be Free (tm). Cars are expensive, but it doesn't make stealing them legal.
It would be great if artists made music free or cheaply available via download. But, as it stands, they don't and I believe that whoever creates the music (or software) has the right to set the license associated with it. If someone says, "Distribute my music however you like." Great. Fine. If I like it I will. If someone decides that I have to buy a CD, if I like the music, I will. No matter how much you talk about revolutions, Napster is still all about distributing illegal music (by and large). Most people I know don't have illusions about being internet revolutionaires. They know they are breaking the law, they just say they are too cheap to by the CDs.
You can't force Open Source on people who don't want it. It would be like someone decompiling, say, Unreal Tournament, declaring it GPLed and posting it on a webpage.
As a side note, I think it would be interesting to convince one of the Napster friendly artists to release a GPLed song, with a license that stated that anyone who sampled it have to make the new song GPLed as well
Dana
An assortment of issues (Score:3)
Despite the current illegality of most MP3 trading, the trade is so huge for two main reasons: 1) Given the fact that making a digital copy of a song is essentially "free," many people question the fact that a CD with 10 or so songs on it will run you $16. 2) People want the distribution format and the current legal channels are not providing it. MP3s encoded files are very convienent even if all you're doing is burning your CDs to your hard drive so you can queue up 16 hours of music without shuffling CDs. Never mind that the very act of encoding the MP3s is usually illegal by way of violating the Frauhauf institute's patents on the format.
Patent violations aside, the only way to shut the RIAA and their minions up is to not trade their music. Instead, trade garage bands (Many of whom suck MUCH less than Metallica) and independent bands who have explicitly released their songs for free trade. Encourage the LEGAL distribution of music that is legal to distribute. If you have a garage band, offer all songs in MP3 (or some non-encumbered -- they're starting to show up) format, even if you distribute only a few of them freely. If your music is good, we'll pay a fair price for the legal songs, and you'll end up making more money than you would have affiliating with the RIAA anyway. If your music isn't so good, you'll still get more exposure than you would have with the RIAA.
Web != Genie (Score:3)
But, the web is not a bottle. There is a big difference. A genie does not mirror itself all over the world.
With CPHack and DeCSS genies, once the genie got out, it got out and replicated itself to make sure that even if it was forced back into the bottle, there is still thousands of the same genie that is still out of the bottle.
Stealing Music - Missing the point (Score:3)
There are other ways for people to share MP3s, Napster and now Gnutella are just easier methods than others. Things like HTTP servers and FTP servers can be easily used, and illegal digital items have been traded on IRC for ages. The alt.binary newsgroups are another good source for illegal material.
The real point is that there is no easy way to stop the spread of MP3s. The music industry instead needs to change it's outlook on how it distributes music. Sueing the current sources of illegal MP3 distribution into the ground won't stop new sources from popping up.
Yes, downloading MP3s of copyrighted songs is theft. Most people understand that. Some argue it shouldn't be. But it's not the issue here, the issue is the fact that the music industry needs to change it's way of doing buisness, and that since the MP3 "genie" has been released, there is no real effective way to put it back in it's bottle.
Re:That's it... (Score:4)
Why is it that Jon Katz not only refuses to mention artist's rights except for this one line but also refuses to accept the fact that people who misappropriate copyrighted material without rewarding the copyright owners is stealing.
Actually, he mentions artists rights in at least one other, and probably two depending on your interpretation. The funny thing is that you quote both of these lines later in your post. Now, as for your statement here, I don't entirely agree. People "misappropriate copyrighted material" because the current system of distribution doesn't work. This isn't the fault of the people downloading MP3s, it's the fault of the music industry. People are realizing just how much music is out there, and they want access to it. Up 'til now, they knew what the top 40 was and beyond that, they had very little opportunity to hear anything else. CDs cost too damn much to buy on a whim. If you haven't been able to listen to the music first, you can easily end up with a $16.99 coaster (or maybe sell it to a used cd store for $3). What makes things even worse is that most radio stations play the exact same crap. They're all owned by the same people. Now people can listen to all sorts of music that they wouldn't want to buy because they hadn't heard it yet. They can hear more tracks from a band rather than making their purchase decision based on the one song they heard on the radio. I've downloaded a bunch of mp3s, but it hasn't cost the music industry a dime. If I liked the group, I bought the cd. If I didn't like them, I ditched the mp3s. Who got screwed? The main problem is that the RIAA is used to being the one that does the screwing. Now they won't be able to do that. Signing an artist up for a 5 album contract, spreading the good songs out across those 5 albums and filling the rest of the space with crappy filler songs isn't going to work anymore. Sorry if I don't shed a tear for them.
It isn't like if I started printing copies of his books and gave them away he would respond with "Hey, that's OK information want's to be free,anyway"
You're probably right about this. Until it happens we can't really know. Jon, care to enlighten us? What do you think about this claim? It strikes me as being similar to Jeff Bezos' claim that the patent system is screwed up, but that he has to play by the current rules in order to survive. Katz wants to make a living from his writing, so he needs a way to do that, even though copyright is becoming even more perverted than the patent system. Personally, I'd like to see Katz put his money where his mouth is and propose a solution and show that it can work by using that solution for his own work.
Of course not, and that is exactly why they are trying to shut down Napster.
His point here was that shutting down Napster and the others won't help. There's too many options out there and there are more cropping up all the time. He's saying they WON'T go back to the old system, and the RIAA can't make them go back. That's why suing is not the answer.
Why wouldn't it? Currently the rights of artists to decide who distributes their copyrighted material is being abused regularly by Napster users. Secondly, it would also protect the right of artists to be paid for their work.
This is true, but you also ignore the fact that the RIAA is doing the artists they represent a major disservice by overpricing their products. It's been shown time and time again that the more overpriced a product is, the more theft you will see. If the RIAA wasn't so busy gouging its customers, and if the system wasn't so broken, we wouldn't have this situation to begin with. They could fix it, but they won't do that. Why? Greed.
You may say that that still doesn't make it right, and maybe you have a point. That won't improve the situation though. The music industry's own greed is setting itself up for a fall. It's not the artists. They don't have much alternative right now. They sign over the ownership of their music in order to make a living. They could do much better, and so could their fans. We just need to get the RIAA out of the way. If they sold their albums for a reasonable price, more people would buy them, and if the RIAA wasn't sucking up the vast majority of the profits, the artist would get a much bigger cut of the sales, and wouldn't have to sell as many albums to make a good living. On top of that, more artists would be able to make money because people could buy more music. So rather than just those who get the most promotion by the industry making money from their work, many more would be able to profit from their music.
PS: Why does he keep calling MP3.com MP3? How out of it can he possible be?
Katz needs an editor... or a better editor if he already has one.
Ugh (Score:4)
>>Friday's ruling by a federal judge against MP3
>>was the clearest and most powerful blow yet
>>struck against the by-now deeply ingrained
>>tradition, especially among younger music
>>lovers, of acquiring vast music libraries for
>>free. MP3.com is certain to face stunning
>>penalties.
John - please. The suit was about my.mp3.com, not about the main business of mp3.com. And it ISN'T about getting music for free. It's about control.
my.mp3.com lets you listen to music that YOU HAVE BOUGHT in a more convenient way. It is nothing like napster, or cutemx, or gnutella or
I'm sure it took you a fair amount of time to write this column. Could you *please* spend just a bit more time up front checking the facts first??
JK and HGG? (Score:4)
"was has"? Sounds like Katz has been reading Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's guide to time-travel grammar....
Then again, if anybody could be said to be channeling the spirit of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, it has to be Katz. :-]
a mood and statement?? Please. (Score:4)
While I personally believe that music should be free (or for that matter, all art should be free; hence my personal unwillingness to sell my art) and available to all, I do understand that as an artist, you must devote all your time and energy towards the art and cannot split it with working a fulltime job. I do this now and let me tell you, my art suffers. A lot.
HOWEVER.
The vast majority of the shit that comes out of the recording industry today is vile and base. It does not succeed by it's own merits, it succeeds by the merits of the corporation's large and well-funded marketing machine.
No longer is music made for music's sake. (I realise that this is a naive view, but bear with me here, I'm a makin' a point.) It is made with the singular purpose of selling as many possible records within a very short amount of time.
I absolutly refuse to support that kind of nonsense any longer. When the day comes that music is pushed by the people that make it and those same people make the large percent of the profit, is the same day that I will stop taking any music that I still bother listening to and start BUYING IT. (I'm not gonna start with the inflated price of CD's..)
How many here believe that 50 years from now, people will listen to britney spears and the spice girls and think, "Wow. That stuff had soul!"
Go back thirty to fifty years. Louis Armstrong.. eternally cool. You know?
I went to a club last night and it was open mike night. There were musicians and beatniks galore. I may be making a generalization here, but the people there weren't in it for the money; they got beer, bagels and applause if they were lucky -- beer and bagels if they weren't.
That's the way music should be.
===
I realise that this was a completely incoherant post. My ability to make any sense seems to have taken an airplane from New York to New York.. the long way.
My apologies. I know that my point was in there some where.
Rami James
Pixel Pusher
ALST R&D Center, IL
Heinlein quote (Score:5)
In Life-line, an inventor has built a machine that can accurately determine the day a person will die. He is sued by the entire life insurance industry, who want to put him out of business because they are being bankrupted by his accurate predictions.
In rejecting the claims of the insurance company lawyer, the judge says:
Before we leave this matter I wish to comment on the theory implied by [the insurance trust lawyer], when you claimed damage to your client. There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all.
Same today as it was 61 years ago.
Re:uh.. maybe read the column? (Score:5)
The whole thrust of the piece is about downloading music for free.... metaphors about prohibition, etc etc.
my.mp3.com doesn't let you download music for free. Hence my annoyance. If i didn't know better I'd assume it DID because that is the slant of the whole report. It's like all those DeCSS stories that claimed that it was a tool 'that let you copy DVD's'. Anyone who did a second of reserach knew that wasn't the case, but those that are being EDUCATED by the column about the topic are being misled (whether deliberate or not is another debate). Sorry, but that's shoddy journalism in my book.
You seem to have some respect for the 'geek factor' and the techno-prowess of those that read this site. Look how fast the this comment was moderated up. Seems the opinion isn't just mine.
Realize what your target audience is here . A lot of those that will read your columns on
I'd be impressed if you (or somebody else) wrote a well thought out piece on the reality behind the whole my.mp3.com fiasco. Similar to what the NYTimes recently did with DeCSS.
That's it... (Score:5)
Artists definitely have a right to be paid for their work, but branding a whole generation of music fans thieves seems simplistic, even self-destructive
Why is it that Jon Katz not only refuses to mention artist's rights except for this one line but also refuses to accept the fact that people who misappropriate copyrighted material without rewarding the copyright owners is stealing. It isn't like if I started printing copies of his books and gave them away he would respond with "Hey, that's OK information want's to be free,anyway"
Do recording executives really believe that music fans will suddenly give up on acquiring diverse and numerous forms of music for free and go back to buying a handful of expensive CDs a few times a month?
Of course not, and that is exactly why they are trying to shut down Napster.
That wouldn't protect artist's rights or those of music lovers.
Why wouldn't it? Currently the rights of artists to decide who distributes their copyrighted material is being abused regularly by Napster users. Secondly, it would also protect the right of artists to be paid for their work.
This digital genie isn't going back into the bottle.
Agreed, but before the Record labels will embrace the digital revolution they will try their best to make sure they are not going to be robbed blind before investing in or creating an online business model.
Successful negotiatioins between MP3.com and the music would be the sanest step yet in the music wars, and a healthy precedent for other businesses who sell intellectual property as well as artists.
This completely true. If record labels can make deals with MTV and radio stations I don't see why similar deals could not have been made with MP3.com. From the exchange [mp3.com] between MP3.com CEO and the RIAA representative when all this started it seems the RIAA just wanted to be unreasonable from the start. This leads me to believe that they are interested in creating such a service themselves if not now then later on in the future and that is why they decided against even considering MP3.com's offers to license the music.
PS: Why does he keep calling MP3.com MP3? How out of it can he possible be?
Theft and fair use (Score:5)
But then I found a source of free and easy-to-obtain music, so that I can stand in my kitchen and listen to stuff I wouldn't ever buy without testing it first. I found some of Robert Palmer's solo stuff -- really good -- and an a capella group called _The Blenders_ -- musically better than The Bobs, but not as intellectually challenging. I got a bunch of old Elvis Costello CD's, with their bonus tracks; by God, I'm updating my vinyl.
And I'm confident that the RIAA won't be coming after me. They'll never find me, and even if they did, they wouldn't dare bother me.
BECAUSE I BORROWED THESE CD'S FROM MY LOCAL LIBRARY. What a lot of this debate misses is one key fact: there are ways of getting the good parts of MP3 and Napster without breaking the law. That's why the music industry wants you to be tied to a physical object, and that is why they're right. I have to return these CD's, but I'll buy some of them. And I won't be able to keep the ones I don't buy. And that's a perfectly reasonable compromise: I can listen to stuff that I don't own, without taking the artist's and the companies legitimate right to make money.
Now why is that so hard, Jon? Why is it so hard to distinguish between "borrowing" and "stealing", and why is it so hard to understand that there are middle grounds between the purely anarchistic attitude of