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Music Media

Napster Settles with Metallica/Dr. Dre 135

Posted by michael from the just-seven-thousand-four-hundred-lawsuits-to-go dept.
jeffy124 writes: "Metallica and Dr Dre have settled their lawsuits against Napster. Lars Ulrich says the terms of settlement allow Metallica to have final say over what songs of their's are permitted to be traded over the Napster service." It's pretty easy to settle when you're completely shut down anyway.
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Napster Settles with Metallica/Dr. Dre More

Napster Settles with Metallica/Dr. Dre

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  • Re:Alternatives (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Your link to audiogalaxy is incorrect. I hope that wasn't intentional, www.audiogalazy.com is a good example of why people who register typo domains should be shot.
  • Do you understand what the implications to the computer industry would have been had Apple won it's lawsuit?

    It had no merit and would have stagnated the industry.

    It would have been like Ford suing Chevy in 1927 because they copied the look and feel of the Model T by making their car black with 4 wheels.

    It amazes me how ignorant people are sometimes, they just wish to attack Microsoft without really understanding the alternative.
  • You must be young, or at least you don't remember the lawsuit filed by Bowie/Jagger against Vanilla Ice for sampling 'Under Pressure'.
  • Whoops. Yep, Queen/Bowie.

    Got that confused with 'Dancing in the Streets'. ;(
  • ...Beer Good
    SPOON!!!

  • Lars interview on internet (Score:5)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:20AM (#87732) Homepage
    go to http://www.joecartoon.com/buddies/index.html [joecartoon.com]
    and click on napster bad.

    for a recorded interview with Lars on Napster and these events.
  • actually no, he has to pay royalties for any music that is sampled. unlike many so called ska bands which basically pirate older reggae music as original peices of work.
  • Because "sampled" music author gets paid royalties by the "sampler."

    (Remember Vanilla Ice and Queen/Bowie over "Under Pressure" and "Ice Ice Baby." Ultimately Queen/Bowie got writing credits and therefore, royalties.)
  • Well, don't worry too much, They are sure to do it in a way that their analysts tell them will be profitable to *them*.
    Napster worked using a very simple algorythm:

    unless(music eq $free){
    die("No way, Dude!");
    }

    No other formula has been shown to be effective. None are likely to work until another variable comes into play and I just don't see it...
    Of course, after a while, Forbes Magazine will declare that P2P is dead as a business model and people will go back to trading on IRC and Gnutella.

    Cheers,
    Jim in Tokyo

    MMDC Mobile Media [mmdc.net]

  • In other news... (Score:3)

    by wirefarm ( 18470 ) <jim@mmdCOWc.net minus herbivore> on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:00AM (#87736) Homepage
    The Iran hostages are in day 18,470 of their freedom and Princess Diana is still dead.
    As is napster.
    I mean, when was the last time anyone downloaded *anything* from Napster?
    Sayonara, Napster, it was fun...Nothing to see here, move along...



    MMDC Mobile Media [mmdc.net]

  • Re:Filters... (Score:4)

    by wirefarm ( 18470 ) <jim@mmdCOWc.net minus herbivore> on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:34AM (#87737) Homepage
    Interestingly, someone here pointed out that searches for N'Synch and Ricky Martin yeilded results when artists like Tom Waits were blocked.
    One has to wonder if the companies were keeping some searches unblocked, just to see how it affected their sales.
    Personally, I don't think I'm alone in being some one who mainly used Napster for old, obscure songs that I doubted I'd be able to find at the local CD store. I can't help but wonder if that's the market that the RIAA really wanted to kill, while examining the viability of the peer-to-peer market for new releases.
    I will miss Napster's feature of seeing what else a user has on their hard drive - If someone actually has Etta James' "Out of The Rain" or Gavin Bryars' "Jesus Blood Never Failed me Yet", I want to see what else they have. Probably stuff worth acquiring...

    Cheers,
    Jim in Tokyo

    MMDC Mobile Media [mmdc.net]
  • Gnutella doesn't scale well and is already starting to show signs of that...
  • Erm, no one who actually does like rap
    would consider those to be good.

    So shut up.
  • What would be a more sensible question
    to ask is why Dr. Dre is not averse to
    promoting other criminality, eg
    Gun violence,
    whilst acting so righteous over other
    people freely promoting his music.

    Sampling is a different issue.

    Ps I enjoy Dr.Dres music, but consider
    Napster etc to be free advertising.
    Not anything people should care
    about. It just means the people who only
    got tapes off their friends now get MP3s,
    ie no change in market size.

  • Hm, bzzzzzzt, but as soon as you say bzzzzzt, you lose. Godwins law extension number 56.

    Everyone who is satisfied with an mp3 would have been satisifed with a tape. Everyone who can nw get an mp3 could have gotten a tape in the past.
    Remember public libraries? Remember "I got this as a gift and I already had it"? Dumbass.
    No change in market size. Thery may get it quicker, but any business model based on lag is useless. Freeloaders are freeloaders, in this society that *is* acceptable. The upshot:

    You are a dumbass and I claim my five pounds.

  • but isn't Lars saying Napster cannot use his copyrighted material without asking him? If I wrote a book could I say I do not give libraries permission to loan out my book without asking me? I could claim it was taking away book sales since the people who check the book out from the library would not be buying a copy from a bookstore.
  • So if I write a book, can I then say that I do not want it available for free in public libriaries?
  • And you want to bypass the RIAA's preferred subscription services & support the artists directly (good music isn't free) and voluntarily, then you want a system where you can tip artists; either directly with our currency [e-gold.com] (blatant plug!) or others, or just something like Fairtunes [fairtunes.com].

    The problem I see is that plenty of people (I'm not singling you out, this is a general rant) spend a lot of time *saying* that they don't want to steal from artists, but folks don't seem to go out of their way -- even a little-bit -- to try to pay for the music that they get now for free, since they "haven't had to before." This is unfortunate (and it's a lousy excuse, IMO) but now there's no 'tipping culture' in online music. Obviously, I think that needs to change (preferably with a wide variety of payment choices). Perhaps someone more-eloquent than I can cause the change, I don't know.
    JMR
    (speaking only for myself, as always)

  • Lars,Dre,RIAA et al: Great! Now that we've shutdown the one that was centrally served/non encrypted/public about their actions, and forced users off to other much harder to track systems, we can.. ah.. oh.

    They have traded the enemy they know for the 20 or 30 that they don't.
  • Actually not after a really big fight. Originally, Ice tried to claim that Ice Ice Baby was original simply because he doubled one note in the bass line. He's right, there is an extra "bum," but the argument was so utterly comical that he gave in.

    The other posts I've seen answer the royalty question well. Sampled music is paid for. Many of rap music's background "melody" lines are done by people like George Clinton or whomever and they get royalties, or percentages.
  • Unless the sampled song is free of author rights, sampling is subject to severe rules. You can't freely sample something and use it in your own songs unless the result substantially differs from the original sample.

    -- Pure FTP server [pureftpd.org] - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
  • are done by people like George Clinton or whomever and they get royalties, or percentages.

    Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but in the specific case of George Clinton, he doesn't make much in royalties [google.com] because of mismanagement.
    --

  • yes, but the point is that napster is dead. that has nothing todo with the fact that is ones perhaps was a good service ( which it never was besides .. )
  • Why, does the RIAA check Efnet a lot?

  • Alternatives (Score:4)

    by mr100percent ( 57156 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:17AM (#87751) Homepage Journal
    Aimster [aimster.com] and Gnutella [wego.com] are still alive and kicking, as well as morpheus and Direct connect, and audiogalaxy [audiogalazy.com] and audiofind [audiofind.com].

    Hey, in my day we used mp3 search engines and FTP,like Oth.net [oth.net]

  • I think by now this is a pretty moot point, few people if anyone is still using their service, with multiple OpenNap networks (go OggVorbis!) holding their own, along with all the other P2P clients out there. It's a shame MusicCity moved away from OpenNap onto their own client, their server farm was awesome (though I'd love to see a Morpheus client for Linux, they have some really neat stuff going on there).
  • Dr. Dre couldn't give away coppies of Chronic 2000.
    That album has been certified platinum six times over. That's over six million copies sold. If you were talking about his flop Aftermath from 1996, that's another story.
  • Archie might have applied, once upon a time. Haven't checked how well it works lately.
  • was that not Queen/Bowie ? ? I think Bowie/Jagger did "dancing on the ceiling".
  • As far as I can tell, since everyone has so much 'beef' with napster, they should stop settling and start supplying McDonalds...more money in that than the pay service anyways...
  • Go to campchaos.com - they have an entire series of the "Napster Bad" cartoons. It followed along with the lawsuit and media stories. The entire series consists of:

    Napster: BAD! (The original)
    MetalliCOPS (Pretty decent)
    Metallica Millionaire (Better yet)
    MP3: Good or Goblin? (Ft. Nutty McShithead of the RIAA)
    Sue All The World (w/ Elton John, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Sheryl Crow, & more)
    Napster Dead? (HYSTERICAL!)
    Bizarro Napster Bad (The Final Episode to date)

    And the following "Special Features":
    Special Fucking Edition (featuring "Monkey Notes")
    Fire Bad! (video game)

    I recommend you watch them in series... they make more sense that way, and it adds to the comical flavor. The series exists at:

    http://www.campchaos.com/cartoons/napsterbad/index .html [campchaos.com]
  • Actually, that first story is right here: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/09/165220 8&mode=thread You *do* have a Science slashbox set up, don't you?
  • Given the latest slashdot headline it appears as though some publishers ARE saying that, however your analogy is still wrong. As I said before, if I loan you my Metallica CD (The equivalent of checking out a book), you only have that CD for as long as I let you borrow it. Once you give it back to me, you have to buy it to listen to it. (or borrow it from me again).
    By downloading an MP3 you know longer have to pay for the song, yet you can listen to it anytime and anywhere (with a portable mp3 player) that you want to.
    So I repeat, there is a huge difference between borrowing something and copying it. Lars doesn't want people COPYING is copyrighted work without his consent. He has shown no problem with lending or borrowing.
  • Any garage band can sign with the various collection agencies to get their 8 cent royalty, this isn't about just the big record companies.
    What you are saying might take place on Top40 stations, but what about Oldies stations, or Classic Rock stations, do you think that many, possibly defunct, record companies are still paying to promote "Hey Jude" or "Stairway to Heaven"?
    What some companies do for promotion of some songs is completely irrelevant to whether or not there is in fact a royalty paid on music aired on the radio.

  • No,
    Just like Metallica can not say that you cannot BORROW a Metallica CD from a friend, nor have they tried to say that.
    There is a world of difference between BORROWING and COPYING, as is there a difference between BORROWING and STEALING.
    There was just a story in our local paper a few days ago about a small record store that was ran out of business, because after the big chains came in, it's main customers were students at the local college (William and Mary), after Napster was released most of the students got their music off of it, and quit buyng CD's. So in the name of "sticking it to the evil record companies", you've ran a mom and pop store out of business and made it's owner unemployed.

  • Boy, Napster fans really are quite ignorant about the music industry aren't they? For all of you who don't know, radio stations pay a royalty of something like 8 cents every time they play a song.
    And just so you know, HBO doesn't just grab a DVD of the latest movies and broadcast them, the also pay the studios for the broadcast rights.

  • You can't freely sample something and use it in your own songs unless the result substantially differs from the original sample.

    Someone should remind Dr. Dre of that ...

    Of course, Dre may not be the patron saint of music ethics, either. He's just been sued for copyright infringement by George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd., which claims the rapper stole its "THX Deep Note" sound for the opening of his quadruple-platinum album, 2001. http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,6363,00.html [eonline.com]

  • If I'm reading this right... (Score:4)

    by 11thangel ( 103409 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:55AM (#87764) Homepage
    Metallica/Dre have agreed to allow some of their songs to be traded, and the ones that are allowed will be rotated from time to time. Which sounds like a decent compromise to me. But the RIAA (which claims to be representing said artists among others) is claiming that napster is still in violation of copyright laws by doing such a thing. I will say, I have new found respect for Metallica/Dre (even though i hate their music anyway), but this just confirms the RIAA is a bunch of money-grubbing execs who don't care whether or not they hold the copyright for the music they sue for the infringement of.
  • Not only that, FTP is obscure and hard to use. To the point that the world at large is going to pretend that it does not exist.

    Music sharing's going underground again.

  • Sorry, but by obscure and hard to use, I mean by Joe User's standards.

    I understand that there was and has been many people (myself included) who are well acquainted with FTP. The lack of Napster is not going to stop these bunch.

  • You mean, as Napster was intended for (or at least, what mp3.com was intended for and Napster kinda liked and borrowed), artists such as the fine gentlemen mentioned above are actually going to USE this new medium to promote songs, sort of a "special offer" deal, so long as it's not subject to abuse? How novel!

    Seriously, this sounds like the best compromise to the situation. I feel kinda bad that it had to go as far as it did the way it did but, as we all know, part of this is anger caused by a lack of understanding, and part of this is because like it or not, copyright infringement (I won't say illegal) is a little on the "hinky" side.
  • There is a way to plug 100% of the holes and still allow trading. Have an accepted songs list and only allow those songs on the list to be traded (sucks in that people with new legal songs would have to submit to napster to allow the song on the accepted list.)
  • Most of the people using it were idiotic theiving scum who have the morals and self-worth of a sewer rat. They were there simply to steal something they wanted and couldn't be bothered to pay for. They didn't care at all about the effect they had on the music industry, simply that they could steal with little chance of having to answer for their crime.

    This is not theft. Theft is taking something from someone, so that they no longer posses it. This is copyright infringement. There is a difference. Also, you don't seem to realize that when you buy a CD in a store, you're paying for the distribution costs of the CD. Why should I pay the same price when I download it myself, using bandwidth I've already payed for? To support the bands? Hah! Read Courtney Love's article on the music industry.

    If you think any money from CDs goes towards a band, think again. The RAIA is not about making music, it's about distributing it. It should be called "The Distribution Industry"

    c.

  • Actually, I still use FTP exclusively, and find it to be far superior to any type of peer-to-peer program that has been written thus far.

    How do you search thousands of FTP sites? Peer-to-peer media exchange apps have a decentralized search function.

  • regarding your .sig: have you used OS X?

    I've never even had an opportunity to touch a Macintosh computer with anything past OS 8.5. My own Mac runs 8.1 because that's what runs best on a 75 MHz PPC 603 based machine with only 16 MB of RAM.

  • ...something they wanted and couldn't be bothered to pay for. They didn't care at all about the effect they had on the music industry...

    You mean, like listening to music in the radio?

  • First off, I completely agree with you about the rights of the copyright holder.

    My question is about how napster is responsible. I kind of think of them as a service provider, like the phone companies. They provide the service that allows their clients to share mp3 files.

    How are they responsible for content on their service? I would think that the individuals sharing & d/ling would be responsible, not the service. In the case of the phone company, they're not liable if I make prank calls.

    I know this has been asked before, but in my modest (not all encompassing) reading on the topic, I've yet to find an answer I'm happy with. I'm just hoping someone can help shed some light.

    garc

  • When somebody downloads Dr. Dre music from Napster it's stealing. But when Dr. Dre steals others music, it's called sampling? Would the real song stealer please stand up, please stand up...

    ---

  • oh for the love of some mod points...
    I would mod this up.
  • I think it's unfortunate the way /.'ers are now treating Napster. I have personally known several people who work there and I don't think anyone can really appreciate how hard it has been to pour your blood, sweat, and tears into something, only to have it punked by the courts and the establishment. The people at Napster don't want to filter the songs or swich over to a crappy model, they wanted to become the new distribution of music and give even unheard of artist a fighting chance in an industry that is very controlled and cynical. Yeah, they planned to make a little money off of it too, but that's ok with me because I would have gladly paid a reasonable subscription fee in exchange for access to the new music of my choosing, not some top 40 playlist. Let's not forget to recognize that Napster did change the world. It brought MP3s to the public. My grandmother now knows how to download songs off the net and loves it. How would this have ever happened without Napster? And while some might snub this as important, I'd argue that getting the genie out of the bottle was step one. Some others may suggest that a file trading network was an obvious thing that had to happen. I disagree. MP3's were out there for years before Sean put Napster together. Had Napster not come along, there is nothing to say it wouldn't have taken several more years before someone came up with the idea. New ideas breed other new ideas, do you think Freenet would have happened if Napster hadn't? And the second most important thing that Napster showed the world is that record companies are evil greedy bastards who have no interest in changing the status quo. I'm pretty sure that no one outside of the artists that have to deal with these guys really gave it much thought before Napster. Napster played David to the RIAA's Goliath and threw a huge pile of money and the some of the best attorneys of our time to prove to everyone that the system is broken. If people hadn't believed that, there certainly wouldn't have been the tremendous amount of development on the Gnutella side of things in the past year. The recording companies were stupid not to partner with Napster. If they had, they would have been able to keep some measure of control over the outcome of things, but at this point I don't see how they will tame P2P. Gnutella has its share of shortcomings (like failing to hide your IP address) but even if it were to somehow fail, we'd build a new one that uses proxies and crypto to hide from prying eyes. Forbes or some other member of mainstream media who simply doesn't get it will surely make comments like "P2P is dead" when they should really be saying "you may not be able to make money off of simply building a P2P network and expect people to pay for it". But think about the intangibles out there, MP3's are the carrots that were needed for people who otherwise wouldn't to sit at a PC and learn how to use the internet. I think that this is A Good Thing. Here is where I'm really going to get flamed...and I'm only going to pose this as a question. What do you think has touched more lives and changed more opinions in the past two years, Napster or GNU/Linux? I'm an open source bigot, but I think if you were to do the math and remember that most of the world is not like /. you'd come to the conclusion that it's probably Napster. Napster may die, but I feel that we owe them a debt of gratitude, not the "Napster is dead and they suck anyway" scorn.
  • Just closing the door, just closing the door. Closure is nice after such a long, screwed up, greed-filled, hypocritical, disgusting, embarrassing lawsuit. Now hopefully we'll never hear about Metallica again.

    ____
  • I agree with you. The funny part is, so does michael. From the article:
    It's pretty easy to settle when you're completely shut down anyway.

    He says that its completely shut down anyway, yet he still posts the article. Not quite awake, yet, michael?

    You know the really bad part, michael has a tendency to mod down people that make fun of him. I guess you all can still see my posts after this if you browse -1...

    --
  • wow that was just a pile of comedic genius.

    Here is the problem with everyone here: THe GNU/GPL license. It serves the same purpose as the copyright, to protect rights. But....coming from a hypocritical group of zealouts, im not surprised to say the least.

  • Isn't this one of the signs of the Apocalypse? Just thought I'd ask...

    -----
  • And besides, even if Napster did increase CD sales, what relevance does that have ? It's the copyright holders' right to enforce their copyright however they choose.

    Personally, I agree with you. However, legally, I seems like it could theoretically help protect Napster. A ways back, Slashdot had a really nice, detailed legal article discussing contributory and vicarious liability (I believe those were the terms) and how they related to the P2P situation. I may be misremembering, but "showing harm" may have been on the laundry list of criteria necessary for the appropriate liability to be invoked. If that's the case, then it is something that could help Napster's legal standing. Of course there's still the issue of proving that it helps CD sales.

  • Even if there weren't half a million graphic interfaces to FTP (starting with the venerable favorites like "Fetch"), it is simply a sad comment on the state of computing that a program that is as hard to use as typing:
    ftp ftp.freemusic.com
    cd /pub/metallica
    get Creeping_Death.mp3
    is considered "obscure" and "hard to use". If you can't use FTP you don't deserve free music. Which is exactly your point, music goes back underground.
  • Yeah. if what you're doing is illegal (like sharing metallica songs), then you may find you need a username or password to get on a site, otherwise anonymous/a@b.com works as a user ID/password on most any legal FTP site. Although some of us are good netizens and we do enter our email for anonymous FTP.

    That said, what makes FTP so hard to use that wasn't just as much work with Napster? What it did great was peer-to-peer indexing with search capabilities, not file sharing.

    This same function is performed by Google for web sites (which could include links to files)-- except that no one wants to put up a web page of mp3s because they know it's illegal.
  • Try bearshare it gives better QOS insight and allows resuming of files. ALTHOUGH I now have a 20 minute version of "Boney M Flight to Venus (the rasputin mix)" becuase It just slapped them together from 3 different versions of the same song without any crc of any sort because they were spelled the same... If you see a 14 meg version out there don't d/l it unless you want to see xmms/winamp go from 128 but to 256 bits and from 7 minutes at start to 20 minutes at finish. ;)

    BTW I have not used gnutella for awhile in linux and was wonderin' if anyone has had any luck with anything besides limewire (java is the devil on my linux box) ...

  • People have mentioned gnutella and gnutella clients such as limewire, which I have tried but these are slow and you have a good chance that you will never actually download what you want.

    I can recommend Kazaa [kazaa.com] which, apart from having an awful name and being windows only has a LOT of files, including movies/audio etc - it also has the killer feature in that if you find (e.g) 5 people who have the file you want you can d/l it from all 5 simultaneously, like some "download accelerator" programs do, it means you can use all your bandwidth more effectively. It also resumes so when someone shuts down just as you get to 99% of a 800MB file you dont pull your hair out.

    One thing to watch out for, I think they have a search function on the web page - it doesnt have the features of the client software (and its lame downloading but not sharing!) so get the client software instead.

    --
  • Yes, this was part of my playlist around 15 years ago and as I still have it in LP -which I am too lazy to take the time to sample correctly (no noise, etc)-, I consider I have the right to just collect it from anywhere as I already payed for it.
    BTW, I consider I don't require anyone's permission to listen to whatever I want.
    --

  • Filters... (Score:4)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @04:55AM (#87787) Journal
    Last time I connected to Napster, I wanted to perform a search about David Lee Roth.
    No result.
    I then mis-typed his name "Dave Lee Roth" and, hey ! Almost all...
    If this is only what these so called filters consist of, then I guess some r3b3lZ L4ngu4g3 might do the trick?
    Of course, we will have to change the way we write names whenever a new "adapted" Napster version will occur, but... well, ain't this a typical example of Darwinian Evolution, where the predators are the Majors?
    --
  • Ok, time to burn some karma. I have plenty anyway. The huge dropoff Napster has seen since the last ruling and subsequent removal of most copyright material shows us one simple fact. Most of the people using it were idiotic theiving scum who have the morals and self-worth of a sewer rat. They were there simply to steal something they wanted and couldn't be bothered to pay for. They didn't care at all about the effect they had on the music industry, simply that they could steal with little chance of having to answer for their crime. At its peak the /. opinion was 'Hey, leave it alone RIAA and Metallica! Its us expressing our right to information! Information and MP3s WANT to be free!'. Now the courts have made a decision that Napster should stop what it was doing (facilitating copyright theft through gross negligance and failure to provide a safeguard to ip owners), and /. steps up with 'Who cares! Old news! Napster is dead!'. Perhaps those who stated so loudly their opinions about Napster would like to actually have a little courage in future, and stand by what they said previously. Don't be so damn fickle next time.
  • I see Napster in exactly the same light as I see warez sites. People try to get something that they'd otherwise have to pay for without parting with the cash. I don't use Napster now, and have never used it in the past. I do however buy CDs.

    I'm sure 'e-gold' is a great idea, best of luck and all that (have you been reading Neal Stephenson books alot?), but in the end a 'tipping culture' is not whats needed. Its just a little responsibility for your own actions thats needed.

    o2k
  • Heh. Yeah. Well, I actually thought for once I might be trolled down.. just covering my ass.
  • Dr. Dre is actually the head of a secret world government. That's why Metallica took so much heat over this- not because Lars is such a weenie, but because they just don't have any pull in Dre's administration.

    That's why, bee-otch.

    Bryguy:)
  • I for one do care! I didn't care about music ofr probably five years until I discovered MP3's and then Napster. I began downloading songs that I had never owned but liked from the radio years ago. I did pirate but something strange has now happened, my wife and I have joined two CD clubs (bad investment but thats another story) and are again listening to music. Napster is really dead but it everyone wants to dis it now when it really was an excellent pioneer in the way information can be shared. And no I don't really believe all this P2P will change the world crap.
  • Two cases in point: Dr. Dre couldn't give away coppies of Chronic 2000. Metallica, unable to get airtime on MTV any more, is on VH-1 with Sting, et al.

    If it weren't for Napster, they might have to do some soul searching. Maybe people just aren't as interested in my music as they once were.

    My guess is that the secret agreement is that the two artists drop their suits in exchange for a small sum of money and a promise to take the blame for their poor sales figures. [ridiculopathy.com]

  • Does the world still need... mp3server.larsulrich.net? napster.larsulrich.net?

    NO. I'm suprised he and ICANN haven't come looking for the domain name.

    bm :)-~

  • Ok. Oy nowl Oy mizzpellid surprise. Zorrey.

    bm :)-~

  • Usually, it's

    ftp ftp.freemusic.com 4711
    anonymous
    x@y.com
    pass
    bin
    cd /UPLOAD
    put /boot/kernel Metallica.mp3
    cd /pub/metallica
    get Creeping_Death.mp3
    get "Metallica - Creeping Death.mp3"
    quit

  • Napsters new filter (Score:4)

    by Afreet1 ( 224290 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:10AM (#87797)
    In recent news Napster had finalized their 100% filter!

    From now on, any file that falls under the wildcard "*.mp3" will be blocked.

    Napster was unavailable for comment.
  • theirs - possessive pronoun for "belonging to them"
    there's - contraction for "there is"
    their's - not really a word

    mike (http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif)
  • The recording industry can hire programmers and consultants just like anybody else. They know full well there are no more holes. This is just an excuse to keep Napster shut down.

    What do you mean there are no holes ? There is at least one post here today already documenting how easy it is to circumvent Napster's lame filtering (the example given was searching for 'Dave Lee Roth' instead of 'David Lee Roth'). And though it may prove impossible to close every last hole, why should the artists and the recording industry care ? If they want some of the holes, they should want all of them closed.

    And please, no more of the 'try-before-you buy' and 'people buy more CDs with Napster than without'. Even if true, this is a marketing decision that only the copyright holders should be entitled to make - NOT you or I. What if I decided that maybe people would use and contribute more Free Software if I began distributing binaries of modified pieces of Free Software without making the source available ? How would people here feel if there were networks (say, run by Microsoft), whose obvious main raison d'etre was to traffic GPL-violating binaries ?

  • Don't these people realize that services like Napster actually increase their sales? Look at the recording industry and their numbers, I have seen no decrease.

    So you can tell by this that Napster is not hurting their sales ? Did you also consider the fact that there are now more people of CD-buying age now than 2 years ago, that there are more people with CD-players now than 2 years ago and that CD players are now more prevalent (Discmans, cars, etc.) than 2 years ago ?

    Did it occur to you that maybe those factors explain why CD sales may not have decreased in the face of rising Napster use ?

    And besides, even if Napster did increase CD sales, what relevance does that have ? It's the copyright holders' right to enforce their copyright however they choose. If you are correct, then the artists and recording industry might be foolish to oppose Napster, but that is their choice. Maybe GPL'ed software would become more prominent if Microsoft starting selling MS-Emacs or MS-Linux without making source available. Should this fact by itself be enough to allow then to do so, if their violations of copyright ultimately helped the FSF's cause ?

  • The previous poster notes:
    searches for N'Synch and Ricky Martin yeilded results when artists like Tom Waits were blocked.

    One has to wonder if the companies were keeping some searches unblocked, just to see how it affected their sales.
    This is a vary interesting point. We've already seen the RIAA explore online music distribution for their own ends [slashdot.org] (whilst screwing the artists)so now that they have thuroughly stomped all over Napster, I'm not suprosed to see them manipulating it for their own market research before they roll out their own music sharing solution. It's much cheaper to exploit the infastructure of your dead rival than to build your own for market research...

    --CTH

    --
  • Recently I saw a banner on /. linking to LFS (Linux From Scratch) a non-profit open source project.

    If /. advertises non-profit sites like LFS why not gnutella or other peer-to-peer search-and-share system like freenet ?

    It'll certainly help to fill napster's vacuum much quicker and it'll look better in /. than all these banners of OSDN keiretsu...


    --
  • That must be a law of some kind - The only good rap music wasn't rap to begin with.

    Puff Daddy - I'll be missing you
    Puff Daddy - Kashmir
    Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby (well, stretching things a little on that one)

    Ahh damnit! There are so many more, but I just (for some unknown reason *cough*) don't remember the names to rap songs.

    -Nano.
  • Yah, only I think he's y'know, kinda dead. -Nano.
  • Yep yep..OpenNap has been great to me so far, and not just for mp3s..and don't forget IRC either kids. Just look out for EFNet k?

    ----------
  • Nah, just cuz of all the DoS hits they've been taking recently [slashdot.org].

    ----------

  • I will miss Napster's feature of seeing what else a user has on their hard drive - If someone actually has Etta James' "Out of The Rain" or Gavin Bryars' "Jesus Blood Never Failed me Yet", I want to see what else they have. Probably stuff worth acquiring...

    Try WinMx. [winmx.com] Yeah, it only works on Windows, but it has all the features you wished Napster had ... hotlist, enqueueing in Winamp, etc. Plus, it has this really neat feature that auto-displays your speed as "14.4k" when two or more people are downloading from you. The UI is way too complicated, IMHO, but they have enough MP3s on their network for me not to care.

  • Thats right we shouldn't be bothered to shake things up a bit, we should all just go along with whatever business model suits corporate america best because that's the way it's always been done and if you don't agree with it we'll crush you too...

    Seriously now, there have been media changes in the past and there will be media changes in the future driven by technology. While I agree to an extent that it shouldn't all be 100% free, there must be an amicable solution to these problems or big business will yet again stifle technology and maintain control over what you listen to and how you listen to it. I do believe I should be allowed to rip every damn cd I own for my own personal use at least. So in the next trial we'll let you cast the first stone. Calling people "idiotic theiving scum who have the morals and self-worth of a sewer rat" dosent exactly solve any problems or even acomplish anything now does it?

  • Even if Napster is dead, I think that it ended up playing a very important role, i.e. showing the potential of the internet to the great public.

    And with 'potential of the internet' I don't mean 'copyright infringment at large', but the indication that the distribution costs for digitally reproducible material is near-zero, which will definitely help in bringing back the market to a more sane state (well.....I hope :). Also, it exposed a lot of people to copyright law, and how it can be abused (in particular by the recording industry), something which was not really known by many before the Napster debate started.

    Even if now sharing will move on to different means/protocols/etc. I think that Napster will/should not be forgotten as it'was a landmark in the early "digital era".

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I beg your pardon?

    I re-read what I wrote, and don't see how you are justified in your inference that I was expressing my opinion concerning the merits of Apple's case. Frankly, I'm not all that familiar with the case. I know only that it had to do with MS implementing reasonable facsimiles of Apple's design elements (Trash Can/Recycle Bin, etc..).

    The gist of my analogy was that by the time the case had been settled, it's outcome was not terribly important. It's not an altogether good analogy. I wanted something with the Pony Express, but I'm not that clever.

    Regardless, I was not attacking MS at all. Not in the least. Take a breath. Remember to exhale. ;)

  • Is there a Dr. in the House? (Score:3)

    by daniel_isaacs ( 249732 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:29AM (#87813) Homepage
    I sprained my ankle jumping off the Napster bandwagon.

    This is just like MS settling with Apple on it's win95 ripoff cases three years after MS gained %90 of the market. It's moot [dictionary.com].

  • Actually, I still use FTP exclusively, and find it to be far superior to any type of peer-to-peer program that has been written thus far. If nothing else, the FTP sites archive the files for later retrieval with just a quick e-mail to the siteop, not to mention the control over the users with accounts, the users selection of music, etc. etc. And, possibly the strongest point of FTP...it's not going away. You can't make a protocol with tis much longevity just vanish off the face of the Net by a legislation or two.
  • As was mentioned a bit earlier, I use http://www.oth.net to find sites with relatively obscure artists, and then see about getting myself an account there. Ratios don't bother me, in fact at some of the sites I'm on, it's kind of fun to see who can upload the best albums before anyone else does. Also, on some of the more organized sites, there are message boards for the users to discuss imcomplete/badly ripped uploads, and searchable online archives. Top it off with a group of account holders who are dedicated to quality music and quality encodings, and you have a very nice setup indeed.
  • maybe a little dark, but it is undeniably funny. if only I had some mod points to spend - this is NOT a troll. get it right.

  • One of us left the company a while back, and the other two do not contribute quite as often. So, mostly, its just me.

  • Bring Back Cliff!
  • yeah.. very strange.. Led Zep is the only band ever to have put 3 albums in the top 100 hits at the same time in the US (it was in the 70's), and Led Zeppelin IV is still in the top 5 of the most sold albums ever. so i bet Jimmy Page didn't do it for money !!!
    btw what's shocking to me there is that there's a huge gap between that vacuum that is Puff Daddy and Led Zep, that basically invented heavy metal rock (some say it's Hendrix, but i'm not that convinced about that..)
  • In Napsters sorry carcass!
  • Gnutella seems cool, but almost every time I try to download something I get put into a waiting queue, then ultimitly a 'could not download' sort of message pops up. What Gives?
  • Napster is DEAD and will be forever. People have moved on, using better war3z software now. So what was the result of napster shutdown? Evolution. More law-resistant file-sharing programs have been developed, people feel more secured and share more, storage space has increased, Internet connections are faster. Does Music industry understand that they actually subserved pirates, even right now they're picking rotten corpse of Napster with smiling face thinking they have defeated pirates. Oh well.. let them smile..

  • Why is it that... (Score:4)

    by 10Ghz ( 453478 ) on Friday July 13, 2001 @05:29AM (#87848)

    ...When somebody downloads Dr. Dre music from Napster it's stealing. But when Dr. Dre steals others music, it's called sampling?

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