The Napster DMCA Defense 281
kabloie writes: "This Cnet article at Yahoo! sheds light on the defense strategy of
the folks at Napster in their suit with the RIAA, which invokes the service provider provision of the DMCA. The lawyers interviewed say that if Napster wins this one, the RIAA (et al.) will be heading back to the legislative well again . "
I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napster (Score:2)
People, stop kidding yourself: Napster is a tool that is used exclusively to steal from legitimate artists. Don't give me this crap about how you know "this guy who is a friend of a friend who has a garage band that uses Napster to distribute his music." That sort of hand-waving is nothing more than cheap mental masturbation.
If you use Napster, there is a greater than 99.9% chance that you are a thief.
That doesn't mean that I think the RIAA are the good guys here. They're not. They have consistently opposed reasonable, fair use of music that I bought and have a right to do with what I want. But Napster is not reasonable or fair. They have a legitimate point, and I hope they stick it to Napster and stick it good.
Now I don't know what the RIAA is going to do about all of these "open source" napster clones that have popped up, but the open source community would do well to get a life and realize that they're creating a public relations fiasco for everybody. If you aren't willing to pay for your music, you don't get to listen. Period. Don't like it? Deal with it.
Get a clue. (Score:2)
My thoughts on this (Score:3)
I've been following the Napster "saga" since its start as shown here on /. a while back, and I've got to say that IMHO Napster is a bad thing. On /. we hear all the time about how "information wants to be free" despite information itself having never said any such thing, and the social consequences of such a naive policy are swept under the carpet and ignored.
Napster is a tool which allows artists to be deprived of the revenue which allows them to make a living. Making a living doing a job is the central point of a capitalist society such as the one we live in, and programs like Napster make a mockery of its principles. Every time you pirate a song using Napster you are directly harming the artist that spend days and weeks lovingly crafting a creative piece of work. Why should they bother when some 31337 h4X0r is just going to pirate it and distribute it across the net?
The DMCA was the response from the beleagured music industry to this new wave of blatent infringement of their, and their artist's, rights to profit from their work. If tools such as Napster and Gnutella hadn't encouraged this kind of rampant piracy then these laws would never have been bought into law in the first place. And now the Napster people are trying to subvert this protection measure to their own ends, without thinking of the consequences again. It doesn't suprise me, but it does sadden me.
When will we as a community learn to consider the consequences of our actions before blindly following someone elses "manifesto"?
How it all works (Score:5)
or Ignoring that Cognitave Dissonance
You may notice a large number of posts made on Slashdot concering Napster, or similar programs such as Gnutella or FreeNet. Often these will be posted under "Your Rights Online" (YRO), in order to show how the use of Napster affects your "rights". You may wonder what the hell programs whose sole purpose is to circumvent copyright laws is doing on a conservative (yes, I mean it) site such as Slashdot.
Let me explain to you. In the back of their minds, most Slashdot readers ("Slashbots") know that they simply don't want to pay for anything which they can get illegally for free. Most people are exactly the same way. Napster et al allows them to get music for free, so they use it. They know that this is copyright violation, which is a bad thing to do. This brings them feelings of guilt which they want to do away with.
How do they do this? They rationalize it away. It's the copyright laws that are wrong, not them. DCMA needs to be rewritten. The MPAA needs to be destroyed. It's an expression of free speech. And those greedy record companies take all the money anyway. Never mind that with pirate mp3s the artist never sees any money anyway. This way, they are sticking it to "the Man", who exists to make life difficult for 31337 Linux users like themselves. Yes, it is flimsy, and yes, it allows them to take the moral high ground by robbing hard-working artists. Yes, many will say that modern popular music is all horrible anyway, and that their favorite music is the only worthwhile type, but then go on to slam others for being "elitist" in any discussion in which Gnome or KDE is mentioned.
And what about the Corel Linux beta? Didn't that violate the GPL by attaching a boilerplate disclaimer saying that only people over 18 years old could download it? And remember the cries of the Slashbots that Corel should be sued, destroyed. boycotted, etc.? All because Corel who was helping out the Linux community mistakenly added a certain clause to their beta, which violated the GPL. As you can see, the "community" is quick to cry foul when the copyrights on their software is violated, even by companies with good intentions. Our copyright good, yours bad.
It's called "hypocrisy" and if you read Slashdot enough, you'll have to get used to it.
Now ask yourself exactly why ther is coverage of Napster on a site obstensibly devoted to Free Software. Napster is proprietary as hell. Those protocol specs had to be reverse engineered. Isn't proprietary software bad? Isn't all free software superior? Isn't "open sourcing" a piece of software the best way to improve it?
These are all bleatings of the party lines. Here, we consider proprietary software Evil until Rob Malda tells us otherwise, or it gets ported to Linux. Then it becomes a special class of proprietary software which somehow becomes better than the rest. Napster is one example. WordPerfect is another. Somehow, they are able to ignore this seemingly large discrepency by claiming that these companies are "helping" the "community". The only one being helped is Andover.Net who gets to sell ads to these people after giving them free publicity on the most popular "Linux" site of them all.
Stop lying to yourselves.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Incorrect. Perhaps you use Napster illegally, but many of us use it legally. While some of the legal use is indeed garage bands distributing their music online, this is not the only legal use of Napster. A large number of artists (Pearl Jam and Phish come to mind offhand) allow recordings of their live performances to be freely distributed, and there is a great deal of this going on (legally) on Napster.
Now I don't know what the RIAA is going to do about all of these "open source" napster clones that have popped up, but the open source community would do well to get a life and realize that they're creating a public relations fiasco for everybody. If you aren't willing to pay for your music, you don't get to listen. Period. Don't like it? Deal with it.
You would do well to realize that the software is not going to go away just because you dislike it. If there is a demand for it, it will continue to be developed. And, of course, there will always be people who listen to music they didn't pay for. Period. Don't like it? Deal with it.
Re:How about another defense... (Score:2)
Re:Art is NOT a "product" (Score:2)
The fundamental problem is that there is NO WAY to prevent people from killing each other. It is an IMPOSSIBLE TASK to stop it
Unlike the copying of digital data - which consumes no physical matter nor leaves any physical traces - the act of killing someone leaves physical evidence and has a physical cost. Enforcing laws against murder IS possible (in fact, shamefully routine)
Your analogy does not hold.
Music is a product, because people can survive by supplying it to an audience whose demand permits this.
No, the playing of the music is a service the artist provides. That is what consumes the artist's time, and that is what the artist is being paid for. If nobody is willing to pay the artist, up front, for that service (be it a concert or a recording session) then that artist is not in demand. If the artist is not in demand... well, then why should they be considered an artist. I can call myself a "brain surgeon" all I like, but if my services as a brain surgeon are not needed or wanted, then I have to find something else to do.
Note that we have not removed "capitalism" from the equation - we're just paying for what is actually provided: a service.
If a musician can only expect to make money from the initialial recording of their music, and to not only survive, but to make an industry from it, they would need to charge a great deal of money for the initial recording. Either that, or musicians are not entitled to any large degree of wealth.
Yes, and yes, and there is a third option - do more recordings. You know, like a day job?
Do you think that software companies would be able to pay software engineers $100k/y, if they could only be guranteed to make money off of the initial sale of a single shrink wrapped piece of software?
Another broken example - the vast, vast majority of software engineers are not employed in the production of for-sale, shrink-wrapped software. The majority of us work for other industries as "problem solvers". We write code to fix specific business problems. Software engineering is much more like being a doctor, or a plumber, then it is a farmer.
However, let's examine your argument by replacing "software engineer" with "musician" as there are far more software engineers out there than there are decent musicians. Why should a recording company pay a musician money to record music if it's only going to be copied anyway?
It's called "patronage". I like musician X's work. I know that if recording company Y is going to continue to produce CDs of X's music, that Y has to sell enough CDs to cover their overhead and a little profit. So I buy the CD with the explicit knowledge that if people don't buy the CDs, then no more of X's CDs will be produced. In an indirect way, I am compensating X for their time by proxy of Y.
If, however, I decide to provide copies to my friends, then they get to decide if they want to buy the CD or not - and they may not want to - and that's fine. That's the risk that the recording company has to take.
Perhaps the recording company will choose to position itself as a service to the musician instead, where the musician pays the recording company for the use of the studio, the CD press, the distibution, etc. The musician sets the price of the CD, and the recording company sells it. But then the risk is on the musician as to if anyone will choose to buy the CD or not.
But either way, this is a "distributed patronage" system, not the selling of property beyond that of the physical plastic and metal that makes the CD. The bits are just that - bits
Thank God for the Grateful Dead - they showed that exactly this kind of system is entirely workable. They encouraged the wholesale copying and distribution of their material, and yet they made a fine living off it.
The whole concept of "intellectual property" is just soooo broken... there's no "property" there - it's just information. There is no cost to duplication; it's not a zero-sum game. It's not the bits that are scarce, it's the services of the people who can arrange the bits. But any business model that functions via an artificial scarcity of bits is doomed.
Yes, I do fully understand the full ramifications of my beliefs, and frankly, I welcome it.
Art is NOT a "product" (Score:3)
Fundemental problem number one is that there is NO WAY to prevent the copying and distribution of music files (or indeed, of any digitally encoded information). It is an IMPOSSIBLE task to stop it. You can restrict it for a time, you can nail a couple of individuals, you can do anything you like, but ultimately, you're playing whack-a-mole with a whole lot of moles. Any law written to prevent this activity is ultimately unenforcable, and an unenforcable law is an exercise in legal masturbation.
That does not, in of itself, JUSTIFY the behaviour (ie, "they can't stop me so it's OK" is not a valid line of reasoning) but the fact that you cannot stop it MUST be taken into account.
The second, much more important problem, is that art is not a product to be bought and sold. The recording industry has tried very, very hard to make this so, and they've poisoned generations of artists into believing that "art is a product" to help justify the neat little racket they've created, but the concept is flawed and rotten at its core.
Consider this: an artist sits in a recording studio, plays the song, and the song is recorded and mixed into the final cut. The whole writing-recording-editing process took a certain amount of time, and yes, the artist deserves to be compensated for that time. But once the artist has finished the recording, then there is no further cost to the artist - the job, as it were, is complete. If one copy is distributed, or a thousand, or a billion, it doesn't change the amount of work the artist needed to do to make the recording.
Why should any artist expect to continue to make money when their job is finished? How is that reasonable?
Consider this - I want my house painted, because I want people to look at my house and say "Gee, what a nice house!". So I pay someone to paint my house. Once paid, the artist moves on. It would be entirely unreasonable for me to pay the painter a royalty for each time my house was viewed - the job is done.
If I want a really nice paint job, then I hire a really good painter. Because he is so good, he can charge more up front for the job - but this is a service I'm purchasing. I'm not licencing my paint job from him. I compensate him for his time and talent, as is right and correct, but that's it.
Sound farfetched? It's not. Replace "house" with "ceiling" and pretend I live in the Cistene Chapel. Aha! Historical precident!
Record companies have legit costs - studio equipment and land use overhead, printing costs, distribution costs, etc - that they have a right to try and cover. They also have a right to try and make a profit. But the current recording industry is an aberration built on an erroneous assumption - that art is a product. It's not. It's a SERVICE. And if the money they make selling CDs is not enough to cover their overhead or to make enough product when anyone can copy the recording and distribute it at will, then what they have is a **failed business model**, not "theft".
Just because you've been selling ice cubes to Eskimos for years doesn't mean you will be able to continue to do so. And laws designed to prevent Eskimos from scooping up the snow outside because it circimvents your business aren't right either.
Art is not a product. Artists are service providers, not manufacturers. And it's time we stopped treating both of them as such.
That ultimately means that the days of bilionaire artists are coming to a close - and that's fine by me. Are the Backstreet Boys really worth 10,000 high school teachers? 5,000 doctors? I sure don't think so.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
I consider napster quite useless for the distribution of legal music from unknown artists, so using it as an example for the possibilities to spread such works is IMO a bad idea.
You've made a suggestion that might make Napster better for distributing legal MP3s, but you haven't proven that it's useless for that purpose without the improvements.
I think that the users of Napster are the ones breaking the law, and while I don't have a problem with them doing that since I think the RIAA is doing things that are every bit as bad, and probably worse, the users are the ones that should be ultimately responsible for their actions, not the software that they used in order to break the law.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Do you have some reference to confirm this? From what I've read, the original poster was correct. I'm not at my usual computer right now, so I can't confirm my memory at the moment either, but I think he was right.
Re:Way to go Napster. (Score:5)
The problem isn't napster. It's people who are using it illegally. What these people are suggesting is like shutting down the Internet because it is widely used to commit copyright infringement. You don't go after the internet, you go after the people who are misusing it.
Now, that said, I don't think that Napster is that much of a drain on the music industry. I WANT to support the artists I like. Otherwise I might not be able to get any new music from them because they can't make any money at it. What I don't like is the current setup that the industry has. They make huge profits and most artists barely make a living (if even that). They jack up the cost of music for consumers, while providing no real benefit for us. If we could get our music from the artists without paying for all the unnecessary overhead, we'd pay a lot less for the music and the artists would get a lot more of the money. That's why I think the RIAA is bad. They are getting in the way of what needs to be done to change the system to benefit both consumers and artists. They're doing this because they realize that the unnecesary middle-men won't be able to leach off of a new system the way they've done with the old. They won't be able to control who gets their music produced and who doesn't. They won't be able to make artists give up their rights to the music they create in return for a chance at making a living as a musician. They realize they might have to make themselves useful for a change.
Why not go after Netscape (Score:2)
If they (RIAA) manage to kill Napster and it's cousins, is Netscape next? After all, Netscape is a powerful tool that all those evil pirates use to browse for and download bootleg songs. FTP is even worse! File Transfer Protocol. We all KNOW what files are being transferred don't we? Of course, sue Unisys for .GIF since that's how the copyrighted album covers are transmitted. Sue Apple for Quicktime. That's nothing but a way to steal music videos after all.
Why not sue IBM for inventing the PC, without which, there would be very little internet piracy? If they thought they could, they would sue God for not striking the pirates down and sending them to Hell.
Makes me want to go download some stuff from mp3.com!
Re:The great non debate (Score:2)
I'm not defending the abysmally low sound quality of MP3s, nor am I about to claim that 16bit/44.1 kHz PCM is the the ne plus ultra of sound quality. However, I would like to point out that a great deal of that information in vinyl is not really information at all, but noise. Vinyl producers can't possibly ague that their methods produce precision on a molular level. To do so would require a stylus capable of precision on a molecular level, something that presently does not exist, except, perhaps, in conjunction with scanning tunneling microscopes. And lack of precision results in noise.
Re:Can they use Godwin's Law in court? (Score:2)
You lose, now come up with some real arguments.
No, you lose [eurekanet.com]:
The argument is valid. The real point here is that if you asked people, a majority would say they would copy an MP3 illegally. Yet if you asked the same people if it should be legal for everyone to copy MP3s, a majority would likely say no.That's because, deep down, we all know that the artist gets $0 when we copy an MP3 instead of buying the CD. It's stealing, according to the law, and we shouldn't talk about changing that law until we're ready to deal with the full ramifications. (e.g. Music and books only written for a bounty.)
If you don't believe me, try selling GPL'd code some day. :)- ---------
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Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
Case in point:
Back when videocassettes were brand new, Paramount Studios sued Sony for a similar reason: people would be able to record stuff and obviously the movie studios would all go out of business. What really happened was that the movie studios now make more money off of tape rentals than they do off of showing films in the theater.
Large businesses have no interest in doing anything at all, they just want to keep making money doing the same thing that they were doing when they started making money. IBM thought of microcomputers as toys - they legitimized it, but their real businesses was in bigger computers. Detroit knew that cars were big and fast and had low gas milage. Japan proved them wrong (though the SUV craze is a return of old, bad habits).
So I wouldn't get your hopes up about the music industry. Force them to cope with Napster and we'll see some innovation. Otherwise if we let them have their way it'll just stagnate.
Re:Only April . . . (Score:2)
You _did_ read the post that I was replying to, did you not? The AC's argument is essentially that many
However, I believe that some of these people are acting in a manner consistant with their morals, even if it sometimes conflicts with the law. Thus the questions is raised, 'may laws transcend morality?' and 'do laws need to be in any way related to the morals of the people who are bound by them?'
So in that light, my argument is that there have been many laws which are utterly repugnant to the average person's morals. Slavery is one instance of this. That it was legal does not, to my mind, legitimize it in any way. The law was clearly *wrong*.
I doubt that you'll argue that point.
So his sweeping generalization about
For example, let us suppose that I am involved in a protest at some nuclear power plant. It may appear as though I am protesting the use of nuclear energy in general. However, it is also entirely possible that I am protesting the particular goings-on at this one plant, and that I believe that under different circumstances nuclear power is not offensive at all.
So is it not possible that there are some people who have been unfairly labeled here, who illegally redistribute music associated with companies which they are opposed to, but who do not do the same to companies who's practices they find acceptable.
Obviously this is not an excuse for breaking the law. But it is a defense against attacks such as the AC made. However when there is widespread disregard for the law, it is time to closely examine why this is so, and if the intent of the law, and the uses of it are worthwhile in the end.
For instance, there have been attacks made on first amendment rights (in fact, copyright laws infringe on the first amendment - you do not have the freedom to reproduce copyrighted material) for a very long time. But the extreme importance of the rights guaranteed by that amendment are frequently deemed more important. Sometimes there are exceptions - copyrights, libel, what can be said in particular venues - but typically the courts lean towards permissiveness because of the importance of those freedoms.
Clearly it does not hurt to closely examine why people wish to break the law, and whether or not the law is still justified in light of that. Sometimes it will be, and sometimes it won't.
But it's important to note that I am broadly trying to discuss the relations between laws and morals, more than I wish to discuss any particular conflict between them. (and that IANAL, but I play one on TV)
Now, getting over to the copyright law issue, I disagree that I'm a moron. There are no actual copyright laws in the Constitution. What _is_ in the constitution is the foundation for copyright law, which I do not have any significant problems with.
What the constitution says (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8) is: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The gist of current copyright law is that any author has the copyright on their work for their entire lifetime, plus another 70 years after they die. And there has been a trend for large copyright-holding concerns to periodically extend the length of time that a copyright exists retroactively so that in effect copyrights are no longer of limited length. That is unconstitutional, imho. It's as though Congress did not infringe on the freedom of speech, but did require that you get a revokable license in order to be able to exercise that freedom in any reasonable way.
Re:Is Napster a service provider now? (Score:2)
Literally, "Service Provider" would mean "One who provides a service".
In this definition, I can see Napster as being a "Service Provider" as they _provide_ a _service_ by which many users can exchange mp3 files with one another.
ICQ _provides_ a similar _service_ by which users can send messages, chat, and transfer files to/from each other.
Neither Napster, nor ICQ do any sort of censoring on what files may or may not be transferred. They simply provide a means by which to transfer files, much like the US Post Office provides a means to transfer packages from one address to another. The US Post Office is not responsible to check each and every package to make sure that it doesn't contain "stolen" information. Neither should ICQ or Napster be required to do such checking.
This is what the provision in the DMCA allows.
Of course, according to the laywers in the article, the DMCA was never meant to protect small, non-lobbying, non-multi-billion-dollar service providers -- evidently only the megacorps deserve to use the laws of this country as they were written.
Re:Is Napster a service provider now? (Score:2)
>shears
LOL - I never claimed I didn't bring out the industrial strength weedwhacker (to heck with the shears, I want POWER!
>Napster *does* censor the types of files you
>sent (namely, you can only send MP3s.)
Good point - but I wouldn't call it censorship per se - they don't check what sort of mp3s you're sharing - they DO get a list, that gets merged into the DB of the node you're on, which makes searching a bit quicker. I suppose you could say that "access" ISPs also get a "list" in the form of server logfiles. They're just as easily searchable, if you can get to them. Napster just makes it easy for ANYONE to search their DB.
>Napster can claim it is being hands-off on what
>people sent back and forth all it wants, it does
>aid said transfers.
It allows you to search the DB of shared files. That's part of the beauty of Napster - it lets you run a fine-toothed comb over the big mess 'o shared junk they have. In a way, so do newsgroup search engines, such as Deja and the like. Napster would be a LOT tougher to use if you couldn't search.
>Napster *does scan* peoples hard drives (for
>MP3s that are uploadable).
Hmm...last time I checked, it only scanned user-defined directories - in other words you have to tell Napster where to look before it will do a scan. Point it at an empty directory, and you'll share nothing, even though you could potentially have gigabytes of MP3s laying around on your HDD.
>>(An aside, what prevents me from encoding a
>binary into text, like BinHex or Stuffit etc.),
>putting a MP3 wrapper on it, and sticking it
>into my library for upload?
Nothing at all. I've actually done something similar to this as a test - and it worked beautifully - of course, the person on the receiving end has to know how to strip the file and decode it in order for it to be useful. Gnutella definitely has an advantage here in that they're allowing ANY type of file to be shared - so you don't have to go through all that hassle in order to share non-mp3 files.
I guess the main point is that services like ICQ, Napster, Gnutella and such _are_ service providers - they're not "access" ISPs, but by literal terms, they ARE ISPs of a sort. I do agree with you that the term ISP is VERY vague though.
The RIAA should give up on the lawsuits... (Score:3)
rOD.
--
Sing with me ... (Score:2)
You Are Indecent (Score:2)
So if Napster is like the Nazis because they (Napster) helped illegally copy a few millions MP3, I guess a lot of people here are as bad as Jeffrey Dahmer because they have a dozen mp3z?
You're fucking ridiculous. No, worse than that: you're intolerably stupid and pompous. Your political correctness makes me sick.
In the end, there's just one bottom line: lots of nice people have "illegal" mp3z, while the RIAA is a bunch of rich bastards driving ferraris. Choose your camp carefully.
Truth trickles out... (Score:5)
Reading between the lines...
San Francisco intellectual property attorney Neil Smith of Limbach & Limbach acknowledges the law is ambiguous but said he believes Congress intended it to protect (multi-billion-dollar) Net access providers like America Online, AT&T WorldNet and MCI Worldcom (who have paid lobbyists millions), definitely not companies like Napster (who are tiny little startups which can be effectively controlled).
Bah.
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Re:How it all works (Score:2)
-jwb
Re:How it all works (Score:2)
-jwb
Re:How it all works (Score:2)
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:3)
Copyright infringement is a crime with a victim: the copyright holder. I agree that distributing copyrighted music without permission is a crime and must be stopped. However, Napster has legitimate uses so it must be spared. Consider Napster to be just like any other directory service.
The law is not for the people (Score:4)
"The DMCA was never intended for companies like Napster."
So remember kids, the laws are written for the protection of big business, not for the people or small business.
Don't forget to boycott big music labels and movie studios.
-jwb
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:4)
On the subject of Napster, you are wrong again. Napster is a peer-to-peer file transfer tool, with a centralized directory service. You may be using it to commit crime, but I am not. Please don't project your own moral shortcomings on the rest of us.
-jwb
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
I know people who have over 100 CDs full of MP3. It's almost all (C) material, but material that YOU CAN'T BUY EVEN IF YOU'RE WILLING TO SPEND THE MONEY: nobody sell that stuff nowadays.
It IS theft of IP, but not "money stolen from artists and majors", since they do not care to sell old music pieces.
The solution: majors and or artists should start selling 'oldies' using the net. They get money, I get the music, and I have the option to listen to something I like without being a thief, that at least to me, is a really important thing.
Ciao, Rob!
You obviously don't know what you're talking about (Score:2)
You obviously are not aware of the greater issues at stake here. In your arguement, you appear to believe that both the RIAA are "not the good guys" and that Napster users are theives, to say nothing of your opinion of the company itself. You begin by saying:
Napster is a tool that is used exclusively to steal from legitimate artists.
The important point is that stealing from legitimate artists is not the only use of Napster. Napster is merely a program that uses a database and protocol to allow individuals to share files across the internet. It happens to be designed for the sharing of a particular file format, but as witnessed by the "Wrapster" hack, the files you share need not be exclusively music files. You can't hold the Napster company responsible for the actions of it's users, no matter how large of a percent of those users are using the software for illegitimate purposes. To do so would be to take away a freedom from any current legitimate users, as well as any potential future users. Period.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Just not this time OK?
If Napster will use DMCA successfully in its defence DMCA will go down in flames. And this is a valid reason to put champagne on ice!!!
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
You throw around strong words like "stealing" and "theft" but what is theft? Is making a digital copy of something theft?
If I invite you to my home to listen to one of my CD's, are you a thief? Whose goods have been stolen? Who is now missing something they once had?
If I lend you my album to listen to, and after giving it back to me you still remember the song, are you a thief? (repeat above questions)
If you made a digital copy of said album before giving it back to me, but (hypothetically) only listen to it when I am not listening to mine, are you a thief?
If you decide you want to listen to it whenever you want, are you a thief?
Where do you cross the line between listening to what's playing in my home, and becoming a THIEF?
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Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
If your corporation's business model stops being profitable in the face of new technology, it should NOT be the government's job to squash the technology in order to give your corporation a helping hand.
Unprofitable business models should follow the laws of nature: adapt or become extinct.
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Re:Is Napster a service provider now? (Score:2)
Yes.
How about AOL IM?
Yes.
Hey, I can post messages on slashdot. Are they a service provider too?
Yes. You made teriffic arguments for Napster's side, you know. Neither ICQ, AIM, nor Slashdot are responsible for the content provided by individual users. They are basically common carriers.
Internet Service Provider != Bank of modems that allow you to connect to the internet.
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Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
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Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
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Re:Whats the big deal about Napster (Score:2)
Bad Mojo
Re:Whats the big deal about Napster (Score:3)
Then I hope you aren't using a search engine, FTP, web browser, or other program. I guess you suit up with safari equipment and go outside and hunt them the old fasioned way?
plus I wouldn't want people accessing my files on my computer.
Both Napster and Gnutella allow you to prevent anyone from seeing or DLing your files. Maybe you should TRY these apps before you start comenting on wether they are worthwhile or not.
Bad Mojo
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Artists get what 50-60 cents per CD sold? That's before taxes, before legal fees, before management gets it's cut, and before promotional fees are deducted. Where does the rest of that money go? To the record company. To the lawyers. To the lobbyists. If you really want to help the artists, send a dollar directly to them.
Well, the Supremes tend to be smart people (Thomas excluded) so they said that it's all fine.
Why the dig at Justice Thomas? Do you not like black people? Conservative people? Or is it just black conservative people who get your goat?
LK
The Man sez... (Score:5)
Translation: if someone else uses our law, we'll change it so they can't. Laws are only for the use of our large, moneyed conglomerate and should never end up helping the little guy.
I wish there was a legal fund one could contribute to that would be guaranteed to finance a challenge to the constitutionality of the DMCA. Rather than supporting a bunch of different legal battles at once or supporting different advocacy groups (although groups like the EFF fill an essential purpose, don't get me wrong), it would be more efficient to have one case go "all the way".
Re:Truth trickles out... (Score:3)
Also from the article.
Pretty funny to use a broken law in this way, I wonder how it will effect the ability of the DMCA to be repealed. Could they point to us and say, "See they use the DMCA therefore they must like it. Any whining is just being hypocritical." I sure hope not.
Re:My thoughts on this (Score:2)
I agree.
No. If DMCA was a response, it was only a response to fear of infringement, rather than actual infringement. It was a (very lame) attempt to prevent people from being able to pirate, not to fight people who commit piracy. Unfortunately for us, it was also an attempt to create a new business models:
And unfortunately for RIAA, it also had other provisions for protecting common carriers, which Napster is invoking. (It makes me wonder if someone's going to set up a network for distributings CSS keys...)
Keep in mind that copyright violation was already against the law, even before DMCA. If RIAA wants to fight piracy, they start Napster, use it to find some pirates, and prosecute them. Maybe when the message gets out that people who used Napster (or http or ftp) to commit piracy ended up getting into legal trouble, things will settle down. No new laws are needed.
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Re:The great non debate (Score:2)
Because it's still pretty close to CD quality, especially if your audio equipment isn't all that great. It's good enough for many people.
So let's say you want to store your music collection on a hard disk, for user interface purposes. (You have to admit, that pointing and clicking is a hell of a lot easier than playing "find the CD in the pile.") In my case, I can fit my music collection in 80 Gigabytes, if I encode it as 256kbps MP3s. It would take 400 Gigabytes if I stored it as CDDA/WAV/etc. 80 Gigabytes isn't too hard to come up with. 400 is a lot harder.
Time will fix this problem, and some day I will buy a 1 Terabyte disk for $300. Until then, though, compression is my friend.
Oh, and another thing that makes MP3 great is precisely that they are not as good as CDDA or Vinyl. Encode a song at 64kbps and you get a really tiny file compared to the CDDA data. The resulting file isn't something you would want to listen to day after day, but it's great if all you want to do is evaluate whether you happen to like the song or not. Musicians have made a lot of money off me, thanks to this principle.
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Re:How it all works (Score:5)
You're right about Napster, but very wrong about DCMA/MPAA/DeCSS. DCMA really does need to be rewritten, and MPAA really are doing bad things. And none of this is rationalization for some desire to steal movies. It seems very unlikely to me that Napster has a legitimate use, which is why I don't bother to defend it. But if RIAA ever tries to outlaw MP3 players (which definately do have legitimate uses) then they'll end up in the same company as MPAA. Don't assume that all DMCA/MPAA opponents are out to violate copyrights. With DMCA, there are freedom issues at stake that are totally orthogonal to copyrights and theft.
I see your point, and in spite of my lil' rant about DMCA/MPAA, I know that your main point is correct. Something smells fishy about Slashdot covering Napster so much. Perhaps the issue is that a toolmaker being persecuted instead of the people who do illegal things using the tool. *shrug* If Napster were actually useful for something (other than stealing), it would be easier to have some sympathy for them.
There are multiple factions on Slashdot. There are free software advocates, and there are Linux advocates. The two are not the same thing. And yes, there are probably some people who try to belong to both camps, which inevitably leads to hipocrisy. FWIW, plenty of people do cry out warnings whenever some company tries to trick free OS (e.g. Linux) users into using a closed protocol or data format. If you don't hear those voices, then you're not listening.
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Re:How it all works (Score:2)
When I do a search for certain bands, I will sometimes get hits for MP3s that are good hits for songs by that band, but which do not in themselves have the name of the band in title.
When you download a song from someone's computer, you're actually seeing the entire pathname to the file (e.g., \My Music\Rock and Roll\Led Zeppelin\Kashmir.mp3). This pathname is sent to the Napster server when you login (if you're running the Linux nap client, read through your shared.dat file sometime). My suspicion is that the search engine is scanning this whole pathname, and thus you may be getting a hit on a part of the pathname that simply isn't showing up in your client's output.
Re:How about another defense... (Score:2)
Software cracks are not illegal generally
A couple years ago this was true. But under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) they are now illegal in the United States. Hell, I think even MS-DOS may be illegal under the DMCA, because it includes DEBUG.COM which can be used to circumvent copyright-enforcement technology.
The DMCA is evil. I don't really care whether Napster wins, but I want the DMCA to lose. It's unConstitutional and immoral.
Odd... (Score:5)
Come on guys, is that any way to talk about Hilary Rosen? You don't have to like her, but this is just a bit much! ;-}
Eric
Sigh... (Score:2)
The issue isn't the right to copy other people's work. What do you think the music industry does with every CD run? Making millions of copies! It's when and how making the copy is legal or not.
So if the artist is compensated in a fair way, to the artist's satisfaction, I don't see the problem of copying their work; and if they aren't satisfied, it's easy enough to just stop producing stuff for others to be copying.
A bigger issue is that the distribution method has changed/will change from Big Corporation and centralized marketing, production, processing, and advertisement, to a decentralized, word of mouth, speed of net, viral method. Now payment has to catch up, else all the artists will die, starve, or change jobs to make web pages.
I'm not particularly impressed with the need by the Big Corporations to survive. It's their job, not their right, to go with change and stuff.
-AS
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Interesting. We were at a studio yesterday, shopping for a place to do some demo recording, and this is (in effect) what we heard from the studio. That a few bands recording demos there have been "doing well at MP3.com", which in turn trickles into the napster networks.
I do agree that the commercial stuff has no business flying that free without compensation, but believe it or not, some people do actually use it to swap "garage band" works.
Some thoughts to cast in the pot. I haven't bought a commercial single-artist CD in months. I do however buy CMJ [cmj.com] magazine+sampler-CD on a regular basis. A subscription-based napster network following this model would interest me.
Let em head back.... (Score:3)
THIS TIME, boys and girls, every one of us had better get off our butts and do something to keep them from being successful.
Write your senator. Write your house member. You can do it very easily through email. It is not that hard. Call them on the phone and talk to them. Make them listen.
Re:True...and what musicians think (Score:2)
The musicians think you should pay for their work...(those gready bastards...)<--note sarcasm in parens.
('ve actualled lived with musicians, its not an easy living, actually music wasn't how they made their living. They would kill for some major label support.
article is <a href ="http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2000/03/24/nap
at http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2000/03/24/napst
since I can never get html posting to work
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Er, guy, take that ramrod out of your ass. Must be really uncomfortable, living like this.
Obviously your morals are your own business, but I wonder if you ever exceed speed limits or jaywalk. These are against the law, you know? Doing it is bad, eeeeeeevil. By exceeding speed limits you are endangering innocent lives, including children -- yeah, that's right, you are killing children every time you go 40 in a 35 mph zone!
So I don't see what the big deal (morality-wise, not from the point of view of RIAA) about MP3 is. Sure, I get stuff from Napster, listen to it for a while, then delete it. If I like something, I'd buy a CD since my stereo system has waaaay better speakers than my PC.
30 years ago you would probably been screaming that taping TV shows on my VCR is theft. Well, the Supremes tend to be smart people (Thomas excluded) so they said that it's all fine. I guess once the court opinion came down, your morals stopped having problems.
I don't think the recording industry's position is viable. They'll have to come up with new ways to make money from music distribution and I am sure they will. Some will probably die out on the way to the new future, but being a dinosaur sucks anyway.
So, no, I don't think that listening to music I got on Napster is theft. My morality is stretchable enough to accomodate it. Hint: if the morality of 90% of the population can accomodate it, the law is probably wrong. I can also spout a lot of legalese about fair use, right to preview and all that, but it's irrelevant. Morality, after all, is a personal choice. I sleep well at night.
Kaa
Re:put down the crack pipe (Score:2)
It is the absolute measure of an individual's identity (the property, either physical or intellectal, that he or she owns.)
Heh. Of course, if your identity is nothing but what you own, then, of course, who am I to argue... I, personally, still like to entertain illusions that my own identity doesn't have much to do with the kind of property that I have.
One of these days you Slashdot kiddies are going to learn that property matters.
Sure, property matters. Now, go to a bookstore and buy (no, don't read it inside the store -- that's theft) a basic textbook on property, standard issue for first year of law school. Perhaps you'll learn that property right are quite a complicated issue and are not absolute by any means. Besides, property rights for intellectual property are significantly different from those for tangible property, and there is good reason for this, too. Reading stuff tends to be more useful than walking around the block.
Deep down, you know that you are a thief and a liar as well, but as long as you can continue parroting the liberal line of moral relativism, you can rationalize it and continue to fool yourself into thinking that you're really not a thief.
Ah, a man who knows me better than myself! So, sir, pray tell me what should I do? Should I repent, cover myself with sackcloth and ashes, and prostrate myself before the trinity of RIAA, MPAA and the almighty dollar? Can I still be saved? Aiiiie, I feel the flames of hell licking me!...
Or maybe you are a thief, but you're a nice sort of thief, all cuddly and furry and stuff.
Cuddly and furry and stuff?? [boggles] [boggles some more] [gives up]
Here's hoping you put your favorite artist out of a job by flying into a violent rage every time he dares to ask money for his work product.
My favorite artists tend to be either dead or multimillionaires.
And besides that, flying into violent rage? Me? Wasn't I cuddly and furry just the sentence before that?
Kaa
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
90% of all statistics are made up.
Don't just make up statistics to back your view, especially if they are completly WRONG.
1 German man thought it was ok to kill off all the jew (ok maby more than 1), but that 1 man was very powerful and had an ability to lead and influence people. He told people what their morals should be, and people followed out of fear or being killed themselves.
The slavery south of the U.S. was a small percent of the US population. Many of the more free thinking southerners were opposed to slavery, but sadly as time went on childered were taught that it was ok, and the though of blacks being in slaves became breed into the southern culture as the norm.
These two instances are completly different that what you are arguing against where you have many completly free thinking individuals, and many artist themselves in support of programs like Napster.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
of a company to try an make money to the exclusion
of the rights of individuals
Sure.... if you show me where you have the "right" to copy other people's work.
Re:Sigh... (Score:2)
The issue is exactly the right to copy other people's work. The music industry can print CDs becuase the artists assign their rights to various record companies. They do not give them to Joe Smoe on the street. How are is that to understand for people?
VCR:Saving the Movie Industry :: Napster: ??? (Score:2)
So, it makes you wonder if by opening up digital usage of files, if it really would hurt the Music industry?
"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
Just because.. (Score:2)
IANAL, but thinking...
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Re:Truth trickles out... (Score:2)
The law is not equal to every citizen or legal entity in the US of A, instead money rules. Seldom has someone been so close to openly admitting it.
God save America, because no one there seems to try.
For me, a normal guy, I can't see the difference between napster and ftp. Ftp serves files, napster a certain type of files, and in addition building upon this with another popular protocol IRC.
It's not, as some has suggested, a ruse for me to steal music that I defend this, I might or I mightn't be doing that. It is, however, a fundamental wrong when lawyers go almost the mile and say that the law doesn't apply equally to all, but is only intended for a select few.
Then it has moved from the realm of me the little thief and to the realm of the big thiefs finally showing who they are (mobsters).
Re:Whats the big deal about Napster (Score:2)
Secondly, with all these lame-ass scams that are cropping up in mp3 search engines (Click on this url to get your free access password to our mp3's... uh huh
As for the rest of this article, I have to agree that this is probably Napsters best defense, and IMHO a legitimate one. How Napster is being used is not the responsability of the creators of said software. As nothing more than a glorified IRC client, the software in itself is nothing really remarkable. The simple fact of the matter is that it makes searching for mp3's that much easier than any other method for retrieving them.
Don't kid yourself for a minute into think that getting rid of napster is some kind of panacea for ending mp3 distribution, there's still ftp and http and now FreeNet, IRC, and god forbid good old trusty e-mail
----
Dave
Purity Of Essence
Audience or Market Share? (Score:3)
The major difference in my mind is that a majority of authors are more interested in having their work read by a larger audience (the reason they are writing in the first place is of people to read.) However, most people in the music industry seem to be preoccupied with money. Otherwise the MPAA and RIAA would be proposing useful implementations of Napster.
So if money is the driving force then controlling the distribution market is key. If you need a reference for this fact check you encyclopedia under Gates, Bill or Vanderbilt
Re:True...and what musicians think (Score:2)
Playing music for money ain't easy, anyone throughout history would tell you that. Unfortunately we've progessed into an industrial corporate based nation where people only "make it" if they are millionaires at 20. The really sick thing is looking at all those people who "made it" at 20, and are dead broke by 30. Not only dead broke but unable to play thier own songs (because they would kill for some major label support. , giving up their live's work is less than killing)
The musicians DO get paid for their work, right when they sell it as works for hire [livedaily.com] to the record companies, it's the new owners who get pissed that people are bypassing their billion dollar (and a bit o'profit) distrubution and promotion schemes. Artists also get paid royalties, but at a much lesser rate than the companies, not to mention the companies are now *legally entitled* to their works for life +75.
Does any of this smell fishy to you? I think it sucks, sucks for musicians, sucks for fans, and sucks for pretty much everyone except the people who are sueing.
So along comes technology that instantly replaces 50 years of infrastructure, and you're going to tell me it's "stealing", if it wasn't for the fact that music has been so expensive for such a long time, most people would call it "sharing".
(sorry, not a flame, but I have to go off on this subject at least once a (G)Napsterstory, call it a moral imperative)
.and here's clue #2, change that little box under the post comments box from Extrans to Plain Old Text, you'll look like less of a clueless idiot. (that's a flame) OHMYGOD, I just realized I'm replying to an AOLer and trying to help, I feel dirty.
--
Availability of Tools... (Score:2)
What needs to be espoused in the media is that not all of the music worth sharing with others is owned by the recording industry. Of course, the RIAA won't endorse this view because it makes the artists they represent a bit less godlike, hence, less worthy of our entertainment dollars.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
The issue is content creation vs. distribution (Score:2)
Arguably, if Napster was a record label, and signed artists which agreed to have their music distibuted via Napster, there would be nothing wrong with it. The fact that Napster does not produce the content is why "the DCMA was never intended for companies like [it]".
Re:Why is Napster at fault? (Score:5)
Two words: Fair use.
Under the fair use policy of the US you are allowed to make a limited number of copies of something if you paid for it already. You just can't distribute it.
Out of Copyright != Out of Print (Score:2)
I think you mean out of copyright books. As Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Thomas Paine, Plato, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander Pope, Thackeray, Henry Thoreau, Tolstoy, Trollope , Mark Twain, and Emile Zola - to name but a few -are all still very much available from my local bookstore.
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
You throw around strong words like "stealing" and "theft" but what is theft? Is making a digital copy of something theft?
If I invite you to my home to listen to one of my CD's, are you a thief? Whose goods have been stolen? Who is now missing something they once had?
Come on, I think you're trivializing a bit. You also fail to distinguish the concept of "harmed" from "wronged", both of which are generally immoral and illegal.
In the case of distributing copyrighted music over Napster, nobody is directly harmed in the way that a store owner is harmed when you rob something from there store. However, you're still wronging the artist.
Here's an example of wronging without harming that should appeal to the slashdot crowd. Let's say I break into your house (without damanging anything), and install secret cameras in all the rooms, and I watch you. Assuming I do nothing with the data I'm collecting, you haven't been "harmed". What's the difference if I watch you or not?
Of course, there is a difference. I'm violating your right to privacy, even if you're not aware of that violation. In this sense, you are being "wronged", even though you aren't being "harmed".
Similarly, illegally distributing copyright materials (warez, copyright MP3's), is an example of "wronging", but not "harming". Get it?
Re:How it all works (Score:5)
Media interests like the RIAA, MPAA, et alia are very interested in extending copyright privileges far beyond what has hitherto been allowed. These very same organizations would be the first to admit this goal, claiming that it is necessary to "protect their business models". Now, despite the words you saw fit to put into my mouth, I have no problem with respecting other people's property rights; I have no problem with paying for what I use. I do have a problem with the "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too" attitude that has come into vogue. I do have a problem with intellectual property laws that function more to shut out competition than to protect anyone from having their work ripped off. I do have a problem with taking away (for all practical purposes) the fair use rights that have traditionally been reserved to the consumers. Personally, I think these are reasonable stands on these issues; I would be interested in hearing why you think otherwise.
You do get one thing right, however, when you point out that Napster is one of our more embarrassing allies. Napster has very little legitimate use. However, "very little" is not the same as "none", and I suspect that this, combined with a fear of a "slippery slope" argument is what keeps a lot of people supporting Napster. If you admit that a tool like Napster should be banned because it has insufficient legitimate uses, you leave open the question of how much legitimate use is necessary to justify a tool's continued existence. Should a tool with 30/70% legitimate/illegitimate usage be banned? What about 50/50? 70/30?
Personally, I would love to see the opponents of extending copyright privileges dump Napster as an ally. I would also like to see an established legal standard of how much illegal usage is necessary before a tool should be banned. If the latter happened there would be no need to support Napster because there would be no fear that it might set a precedent for attacking tools that do have significant legitimate uses.
-rpl
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Any universal claim falls if a single exception is shown. Your "Don't give me this crap..." line is what is known in logic as "invincible ignorance" (i.e. a deliberate decision to remain ignorant by refusal to listen to the truth).
/.
Re:My thoughts on this (Score:2)
I am reminded of the pissing contest over Wayne LaPierre's accusation that Bill Clinton needs a certain level of violence, since it provides Clinton with opportunities for political ambulance-chasing. That, LaPierre implied, is behind the administration's failure to enforce existing laws.
Similarly, it seems to me that the RIAA needs a certain level of bootlegging, since it provides opportunities to demonize up-and-coming competitive business models. The ideal result for us would be to suppress bootlegging and support artist-authorized Net music distribution; the ideal result for the RIAA would be to strangle both. Whether this is behind the RIAA's non-efforts to track down illegal use of Napster (which reminds people that there is another kind) is left as an excersize for the student.
/.
If only... (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:Why is Napster at fault? (Score:2)
It's like suing Xerox for manufacturing photocopiers if somebody runs off a few copies of their favorite Dilbert [dilbert.com] and hands them out to coworkers.
This is infuriating, and it will be fascinating to see how (or if) it is ever resolved.
--
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
Sounds like economics to me (Score:4)
If the record industy wasn't such a bloated near-monopoly very few people would bother to copy and distribute copywritten music. Think $4 CD's and Napster becomes the underground/independant savoir it should be. It'll never happen, the music industry doesn't care about selling a quality product at a competive price, it only cares about hyping the next sensation and making teenagers spend mom's last Jackson on some CD that'll be in the discount bin in 18 months.
If there was real competition the radio would be chock-full of the great music that doesn't usually get signed instead of ballads about teenagers in love and the stores would be full of good, cheap CDs. The blame does belong on both the industry and consumers, more so on the industry for targeting their collective crap at the most impressionable demographic and selling some naive idealized love/lust. This isn't a freedom of speech issue, but do you really think anyone would care about Spears or Brandy if it wasn't for the huge amount of advertising bullshit constantly being poured into mass-media?
Real competition just isn't possible with the media control and advertising budgets record companies have, independants suffer and will continue to suffer until something is done. This is business in American in a nutshell. In the mean time why not steal and piss on the companies you don't like, you can still be moral and disobey the law and not be a hypocrite.
Re:Sounds like economics to me (Score:2)
It's possible to live without a single music CD, cassette,
The only reason those CD prices are high is because numerous people are willing to pay that much. If very few people were willing, then it'd be uneconomical to charge that much. It's not like it's an essential service, like, say, water or electricity, that is basically mandatory and thus has relatively inelastic demand; it's something that people can do without. Vote with your dollars, and don't buy CD's or records if you think they're pricey -- and don't steal what you didn't buy.
The quotes are interesting (Score:3)
These quotes illustrate one of the biggest problems with trying to write specific laws to cover specific, narrow behaviors. The wording of the laws always misses important details. Give me a simple law, a good jury and a judge to answer their questions over endless legislative tweeking any day.
Re:My thoughts on this (Score:2)
Ummm... who said anyone has a right to profit from anything?
I don't recall seeing anything in the Constitution referencing a person's right to `life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and lots 'o cash'. Do please tell me where that's listed, hrm?
Here's my [redrival.com] copy of DeCSS. Where's yours?
Why is Napster at fault? (Score:5)
Legally, MP3's are ok. I can chock my hard drive full of MP3's as long as I a) legally purchased that music or b) have consent from the authors/publishers to store it. I have a lot of cool MP3's on my hard drive that I put up on Napster that are 100% legal for anyone to download, possess, and redristribute. That's what Napster was supposed to do. The fact that yahoos trade illegal MP3's isn't the fault of Napster. Period. That's like saying if I store a pirated copy of Photoshop on my ftp site that my ISP is to blame, not me.
Maybe I'm way off on this, since I haven't been following this issue very closely. That's just how I feel.
The fastest law writers in the West (Score:2)
Well, it would get rewritten in two, but the geeks put a DDoS attack on the automatic voting system, and used that two minute windows as an excuse to hold the most memorable four minute filibuster in recent memory, which swayed congress for all of 30 seconds.
Although I must say that turning the law about on it's heels to actually protect the little middleman is quite admirable. It's sneaky evil, and I can respet that
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
If it's not sold or held in a firm copyright then you can't say it's theft.
Until there are massive databases of music that a particular company or individual can legitimately say is his/hers then it's not theft. If I write a book and then I die or no one bothers to do anything at all with the copyright in question then it's fair game.
If you don't believe this look at project gutenberg. All sorts of old out of print books that I would almost dare you to find a printed version of one of them in any bookstore. The writers are dead, the copyright gone, no way for anyone who (ethically) was concerned with the production of the thing. So you aren't hurting anyone nor are you violating the law.
Re:How it all works (Score:2)
or Ignoring that Cognitave Dissonance "
I really don't think we need to see you senior thesis for your degree in philosophy just yet ok?
Using artful language dosn't make your case any better than if you were swearing.
"You may notice a large number of posts made on Slashdot concering Napster, or similar programs such as Gnutella or FreeNet."
Well what do you expect from an article about those topics? The price of sugar in Pakistan? Anything in those threads not about those topics (or even having a large number) of them is automatically considered offtopic and demoderated as such. When you and your friends are talking about that new Bently you got because you were bored one day you don't just suddently start talking about circus clowns do you? That's what I mean.
"Often these will be posted under "Your Rights Online" (YRO), in order to show how the use of Napster
affects your "rights"."
That's because for the last oh about ~20 years principles of "fair use" were in effect and companies (who by the way have no god given right to make laws for me or
"You may wonder what the hell programs whose sole purpose is to circumvent copyright laws is doing on a conservative (yes, I mean it) site such as Slashdot."
Back it up. As I understand the American interpretation of liberal it is everything that slashdot stands for essentially:
1. no great love for religion or religious dogma
2. distrust of extreme concentrated authority
3. communal cooperation (usual conservative stance calls for isolation and "standing on your own two feet").
4. because of 2/3 massive concentrations of power ecconomically (corporations) are usually distrusted.
5. freedom of choice without regard to previously held beliefs.
These are what most of the people on slashdot believe (and the editor's as well). None of these things are even remotely conservative. Unless the definition of conservative changes.
"Let me explain to you."
Shh.. quite kids Mr. AC is going to speak
"In the back of their minds, most Slashdot readers ("Slashbots")..."
ooh calling people mindless drones good call
"...know that they simply don't want to pay for anything which they can get illegally for free."
Hmm ok so you are saying that for example if I want a new computer and see one in a store window I am (because I post to slashdot) going to steal it right? After all I am a "Slashbot" and have no free thought of my own.
Also your statement is an exceedingly arrogant one. I must make some basic assumptions:
1. Your income is above the national computed average released from government ecconomic analysis and the Treasury.
2. You are comfortably suited in your present position and feel that in fact you are rather unassialable in your position for quite some time.
3. Distrust the evil "rabble" that threaten your supremacy.
There are some people who commit crimes when the need arises and some that commit crimes because there are crimes to be commited in some manner.
This is a rather generalized manner to look at things. For example I don't download mp3's because I don't listen to music that much, my computer can't play the music, and I don't have an extra 20Gb of information avaible to store them, nor the bandwidth to legally/illegally transfer them. But I still believe in the concept of napster. Why because someday, somehow I will win and be able to get what I want through some means which are going to be entirely ethical. Labeling people because some of them do something stupid is not a good practice. Well some wealthy people have cheated, robbed, commited fraud, securities violations, etc. Then because you are rich you are automatically evil. Right?
"Most people are exactly the same way. Napster et al allows them to get music for free, so they use it."
While it is true that some people can get free things people can get free things in real life. Did you realize that for example if I know the right people I could conceivably clean up quite nicely at for example a loading dock? If the officials concerned with say security and such are on my side and quitly switch off the security system and then allow me to steal say thousands of dollars worth of goods. This is entirely possible wheather or not there are laws that strike fear into me if someone finds out.
The fact is every system is corrupt and unless there is a foolproof method of reading thoughts in someone's inner mind it's impossible to prevent in any system.
"They know that this is copyright violation, which is a bad thing to do."
copyright violations are often many and difficult to trace. Unless you know copyright law you most likely have violated some copyright in some manner. Knowing layman interpretations of the law dosn't cut it. You have to know the whole damn thing unless you want to break some laws.
"This brings them feelings of guilt which they want to do away with."
Criminals eventually will not care about "guilt". Using simple logic I can say that for example if I wasn't going to buy the CD anyway (I am broke) then they aren't loosing anything. See how easy was that? I doubt many people who are doing the "illegal trading" have feelings of guilt.
"How do they do this?"
Damn I thought that was a rhetorical question.
"They rationalize it away."
same as you are for letting people screw the consumer with artificially high prices but I digress
"It's the copyright laws that are wrong, not them."
An unjust law is still unjust despite the fact that the person is a "criminal" under the law. Martin Luther King was in fact a "criminal" under various laws what about him. Or Ghandi, or Harriet Tubman, all these people were "criminals" but they risked their humanity and risked death to do something a little nobler.
"DCMA needs to be rewritten."
I think so. When a small group of people tries to change policy for the rest of humanity then that is unjust.
"The MPAA needs to be destroyed."
Again a group of people who uses pressure and fear to prevent certain types of media from being shown to the outside world. Same with current abilities of ISPs and others to make publishing content prohibitively expensive for the average man. They just take away the presses.
"It's an expression of free speech."
Correct. Free speech is very important and essentially what Napster does. Thanks for playing.
"And those greedy record companies take all the money anyway."
Yup people who are lazy indolent bums who never did any creative thing in their lives are getting most of the money from the endeavours of the artists. This is an unfortunate pattern because it seems throught history middlemen have tried to screw people on both ends of the spectrum from the very poor to the very rich. Eventually the Middlemen become the rich and try to prevent other middlemen from screwing them but to no avail.
"Never mind that with pirate mp3s the artist never sees any money anyway."
There are no hard numbers for the number of people who would not buy music if it were for mp3's. As I said it costs mucho $$$ to actually get all these mp3's add this to all the other things that people do with computers and you have one hell of an expensive solution to a problem. People will always buy CDs because computers and the related technology will never catch up affordably to what people who are really in to music will ever want.
"This way, they are sticking it to "the Man", who exists to make life difficult for 31337 Linux users like themselves."
Uhh.. Mr. Dummy do you even realize that Napster (the official program) was developed for Winblows users first and foremost and not for the "31337 Linux users" as you claim?
I have never heard of (at least in my popular surroundings the phrase "the Man" used. I think this is an outgrowth of the concept or embodyment of Uncle Sam from the 19th century.
"Yes, it is flimsy, and yes, it allows them to take the moral high ground by robbing hard-working artists."
Do you even understand what is going on? Those hardworking artists make the most of their money on concerts. Any artist that is not making money doing concerts is usually some small band that probably sold only 3 CDs to their friends. They really have nothing to loose by letting others around the world hear their music.
"Yes, many will say that modern popular music is all horrible anyway,..."
I would say most of it just sucks and is really cheasy anyway. People are being shaped and moulded by the compannies so that they can become totally eliminated as a factor and have their opinion reduced to ashes.
"...and that their favorite music is the only worthwhile type,..."
exactly how is this new to any group of people with similar interests, look at history.
"...but then go on to slam others for being "elitist" in any discussion in which Gnome or KDE is mentioned."
What the hell do Gnome or KDE have to do with anything. The only thing I get out of debates about these things is that linux has essentially no advantage over windows except that there is open (and hence free code) and that there are more apps that I like.
Linux bloat is almost reached windows proportions. Loading almost any of the new window managers will make your computer that much, more inefficient. People want "pretty pictures" and frankly my budget can't affod their wonderout conception of what is good and not. I like pretty astetically pleasing things too but come on. Being forced to upgrade my computer because nothing runs faster than molasses dosn't strike me as fair or equitable. And running unupdated software that no one supports and that no one cares about is not an option. Hell I could have stayed with DOS if I had wanted that option. Believe you me nothing is less suported noadays than pure dos environments, even less with win16 because no one really cares about that one either.
"And what about the Corel Linux beta?"
yeah what about them
"Didn't that violate the GPL by attaching a boilerplate disclaimer saying that only people over 18 years old could download it?"
That's patently absurd in the extreme unless there is porn distributed with the OS there is no legal claim that would easily work.
"And remember the cries of the Slashbots..."
wow never get off that elitist kick do you
"...that Corel should be sued, destroyed. boycotted, etc.?"
When you violate the terms of a fairly open and equitable little liscence that tries to make sure that the code will always have value and not become useless and nonsupported people get a little reactionary.
"All because Corel who was helping out the Linux community mistakenly added a certain clause to their beta, which violated the GPL."
I don't know where you work but usually there is something called a legal department that is supposed not to make little boo boos with things like this. Also remember never offend the audience you are trying to sell to.
"As you can see, the "community" is quick to cry foul when the copyrights on their software is violated, even by companies with good intentions."
A liscence is different than a copyright please get this destinction in your head. I also don't recally that there is any liscence on CDs saying I can't keep copies for myself on alternative media or say give copies to someone who already bought one but say it got destroyed.
"Our copyright good, yours bad."
No more like our liscence good, yours bad but whatever.
"It's called "hypocrisy"..."
man I am going to have to look that one up
"...and if you read Slashdot enough, you'll have to get used to it."
Interesting that people refuse to actually associate names and the like with what they post. AC posts usually come off as rather elitist because the person wants to appear godlike and not in touch with the common man. You want to insulate yourself from the world and all that is in it. You don't like the people even enough to let them know who you are. Also an attempt to avoid criticism.
"Now ask yourself exactly why ther is coverage of Napster on a site obstensibly devoted to Free Software."
because it's called News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Napster matters.
Also it's just not about freesoftware but there are a lot of people who are affiliated with free software who post comments.
"Napster is proprietary as hell."
Agreed.
"Those protocol specs had to be reverse engineered."
Also agreed.
"Isn't proprietary software bad?"
In some instinces yes indeed it is.
"Isn't all free software superior?"
No but theoretically it can be.
"Isn't "open sourcing" a piece of software the best way to improve it? "
Yes. I will however not go over in depth why this is the case this is already quite long.
"These are all bleatings of the party lines."
And yours are not? Seems like you really want to staus quo quite badly. You almost remind me of people who lived back when my dad and his father were young. Stubborn, pigheaded, and wouldn't see change if it bit them in the butt.
"Here, we consider proprietary software Evil until Rob Malda tells us otherwise,..."
Rob malda is a technical editor. If I go here for news and find that Rob malda (or almost anyone) tells me that a piece of software has all these good points I might consider getting it. I have bought software before and I would like to see more reviews about it.
"or it gets ported to Linux."
Naturally most people left the windows desktop because the OS was expensive, the system was unstable, and the apps were crap. Not solely because they could get access to source code. I can't code worth a damn and the source dosn't make much sence to me. Therefore I have to use linux the only way I can for access to better applications.
"Then it becomes a special class of proprietary software which somehow becomes better than the rest."
To the community of computer users who use it yes. Windows software dosn't make people who use linux excited most of the time because you can't run it. It's the same reason why Quake III and the like don't get me excited. Namely because I am not rich enough to affort a machine to run it or a network connection to play it, or even the game itself. It just dosn't speak to me.
"Napster is one example."
like I have said napster matters because it's more of a social issue but it still dosn't run on linux only on win32 platforms.
"WordPerfect is another."
Wordperfect for years has been a stable of businesses who have not gone the MS way. People want an alternative to MS. And to be perfectly frank it's a good word processor.
"Somehow, they are able to ignore this seemingly large discrepency by claiming that these companies are "helping" the "community"."
Because my dear Watson they are if you look at the community in question. Linux community. People who write software for linux make it a better choice and make it better all around.
"The only one being helped is Andover.Net who gets to sell ads to these people after giving them free publicity on the most popular "Linux" site of them all. "
I don't give a damn. I never have clicked through and bought a damn thing from any banner add. The few times I have clicked through to anything it mostly wasn't on this site. Furthermore I have really no interest in this. Further still if you really think and looked at the articles about filtering cookies, blocking banner ads that slashdot has had in the past (I have text archives I can prove this). Many of the actual core slashdot clientielle are in fact not interested in ads in any way.
"Stop lying to yourselves. "
Stop being bigoted, lieing, and generally acting as an arch conservative who only wants to keep the rabble away from him ok?
Re:I don't like the RIAA but I hope they get Napst (Score:2)
a work."
Then pray tell how does an intelligent person get a copy of it?
Why worry about Napster when they give away music. (Score:2)
Friends don't let friends use MP3.
Fools! (Score:3)
If the RIAA shuts Napster down (And I don't really see how a judge could find for them without also shutting down every web and FTP server on the net) I'd be amused if some garage band were to sue the RIAA for restraint of trade or something.
Gnotella (Score:3)
Or you can, of course, use web-based gnutella-searches like this [speakeasy.net] to search for your strawberry-rhubarb pie recipes.
Re:Whats the big deal about Napster (Score:3)
Here's my [radiks.net] DeCSS mirror. Where's yours?
Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
> corporations try to increase profits as
> much as possible.
Are you saying that we should protect the "right"
of a company to try an make money to the exclusion
of the rights of individuals?
It does seem these days that companies only talk
about "rights" when it is the "Right" to do
something profitable.
If someone finds a way to makemoney...hey great.
If they can profit...fine. however, I don't
believe in any "Right to profit". If your buisness
model is not profitable in the face of new
technology, then it should die. Whether your
buisness and livelyhood die with it is up to you
and your ability to adapt.
The RIAA wants to perpetuate their way of doing
buisness, by strangling new technology. They
would rather force everyone to continue with
buisness as usual then have to actually adapt
to new challenges and actually compete on a
level playing feild.
They want to perpetuate utterly unenforcable
things like "Copyright" by trying to eliminate
peoples ability to copy without authorization.
Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
> Copyrights are unenforcable, or that you'd like
> them to be unenforcable?
I am saying that they ARE unenforcable. The most
that can be done is a few people be caught now
and again, only the biggest "offenders". When
someone copies a work, no dead body is left.
Nothing that would tip someone off to the fact
that it has happened. It is impossible to stop
unauthorized copying now that everyone and their
brother has the ability to do it.
(back when only a small number of people had
ready access to the technology needed, then
copyright was enforcable)
> Are you saying authors/artists/programmers have
> no right to protect
Claiming the rights of the authors or artists
seems a little backwards. What you are advocating
is the right of an author to dictate the actions
of other people. This is, in essence, my problem
with "Intellectual property" claims. it is
claiming the rights to something which exists
entirely in someone elses posession and on
someone elses equipment.
Rememeber, the original intent of copyright
was to make producing works profitable to authors
so that they would make works, in a time when
most authors did not have the ability to publish
on their own and thus to encourage them to
publish, offered them a way to make sure that the
publisher pays them.
Today, the means needed for publishing is
available to any author. The technology for
publishing is available to most any author.
I do not believe that we need, any longer, to
cede our rights to copy to the authors (which
is what copyright technically is) to encourage
the production of works.
Is this bad for some buisnesses? Only if they
are unwilling to adapt. Change happens. It will
happen no matter how much the RIAA and others
kick and scream about it. Survivors adapt and
move on. Its called progress.
Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
make their buisness model unprofitable, then they
must adapt.
As someone said in another group (mailing list) a
few weeks back...There used to be an
"Ice Industry" where workers would cut ice from
lakes and places where ice naturally formed, and
ship it to places where people could buy ice.
With the advent of freezers, any person who can
afford electricty to their home, can make ice.
Do you think that the Ice Industry would have been
right to lobby congress at the time to have laws
passed, to stop individuals from buying freezers
and making their own ice?
This is effectivly what the RIAA wants. They want
to stop new technology from being used by
individuals, because it conflicts with their
buisness model's profitablity.
The problem I see is that these laws of copyright
were designed in a time when coping a work was
either done laborously by hand or on a big
expensive machine called a "printing press".
The law was not made with todays technology in
mind. The law was not made to stop individuals
from copying and shareing works, it was made to
stop big publishing houses from publishing works
and making money, and not paying authors.
Now they are trying to take old ideas and patch
them with duct tape and bubble gum to try and
keep the old ideas from passing away. Thats not
surprizing, througout history those who were
in power before, opose any change that makes them
obsolete.
Re:What's with all the animosity towards the RIAA? (Score:2)
argument.
What I am saying is that the law needs to make
sense. The law, as it stands today, is
unenforcable.When a law becomes outdated it should
be removed.
The RIAA and freinds are trying to use the law
to stifle change, to maintain the status quo
because it is better for them.
If their buisness model becomes unprofitable (like
the ice industry and countless others over time
have) then their industry will die out. I do NOT
suport the passing of new laws to support
companies that can not adapt.
Re:Sigh... (Score:2)
fairly tangental to the discussion.
Where does the author get these rights?
The author gets these "rights" because we as a
society have ceded our right to copy freely to
them for a certain period of time. NOT because
they created it and deserve it. Simply because
our society felt it would encourage authors.
I argue that this cedeing of rights is an old
system and should be retired. It was designed
to protect Authors from Publishing Houses NOT
Publishing houses from individual comsumers (which
is what the RIAA - an association of publishing
houses - is trying to use it for).
As such, I support things like napster. Napster is
a perfect example of why copyright is both
unenforcable and outdated. Any individual can
copy works and share them with any other
individual. There is no real way to track them,
no way to catch them (all but the most public
of them, like the people who run napster itself
or rogue publishin ghouses that sell works - which
are rare when compared to simple everyday users
who do it)
Copyright was designed when the technology was
differnt. It was designed when the means for
distribution was outside of the reach of most.
Publishing houses served a purpose then.
Replication of information was a limited resource
as it took considerable time and investment to
do nothing more than make copies. As such, there
was a market, and they filled that market.
Now, these works can be copied for essentially
0 cost. There is no scarcity. With no scarcity
(ie anyone can do it for 0 cost, like breathig
air or drinking water) there is no market for
their service. The current market is created by
an artifical scarcity, caused by copyright law.
Re:just don't understand... (Score:3)
> People have always been copying tapes, taping
> shows
Yup...and the RIAA tried to put a stop to
that stuff to. They arte the reactionaries.
Whenever new technology comes out that could
give the public the ability to do things only
RIAA memebers and few others could do (ie, most
people can't stamp out vinal...until the past
few years couldn't make CDs...) they react
by trying to stop it.
Just look at the rukus over casset tapes when they
first became available and econimical for people
to use for copying music. Its the same thing all
over again.
Personally, I think that copyright is an outdated
system that is no longer socially useful, and
simply serves as a baton with which large
corperations can use to bully people and keep
everyone else at the bottom of the "IP Hill".
It was designed to help authors in a time when
mass production and distribution was out of
reach for all but a few people, ie those who
could afford a printing press. It was designed
to stop publishers from taking authors works,
selling them and not paying the author (the
original meaning of "pirate")
Now that technology is rapidly bringing mass
publication into the relm of the average
person, its time to abandon these outdated
ideas. If the current day media powerhouses
lose money because of it, then it was because
they couldn't adapt and were unfit for the world.
Now of course, the RIAA and record companies see
this happening. Like any organism facing
facing possible extinction, they are fighting to
remain alive.
Re:Is Napster a service provider now? (Score:2)
A service provider is one who provides a service.
My phone company is a service provider. So is my
dry cleaner.
OR...
service provider != ISP necessarily
Some observations (Score:2)
OK, here's some thoughts:
"Artists, music studios and the recording industry are angry they don't get proceeds from the swapped files"
That's interesting. I have yet to hear of any artists complaining. In fact, most of the new technology out there has been embraced by the musicians, who would be just as happy getting free of The Industry.
"All the new software could have been done by the record companies. But what you see is the industry trying to preserve the old model as opposed to it taking advantage of the new model and being innovative and cutting-edge."
This man (Jonathan Band) may be a genius. It's a PERFECT description of what's going on, all in two clear sentences.
Finally...
"The DMCA was never intended for companies like Napster."
He may not have intended it this way, but Neil Rosini is quite right. The DMCA was intended for companies like Sony, Columbia, and the RIAA. Note that this implies it also wasn't intended for the artists.
How about another defense... (Score:4)
I hate to argue against these guys, but that is going to be a very difficult thing to convince the judge, if phrased like that in from of a tech-savvy judge. Not only do they provide the protocol, but an indexing database server as well (as I understand the technology at least, I may be wrong.) Web(http) and FTP, the two example given cover the actual wire protocol.) The protocol's dont index the information which is available on the web, or ftp. There ARE services which can legally index the information, which is where I see their loophole being. Google hasn't been sued yet for carrying a database which contain links to software cracks (which they do if you type in the "-softwarename- crack" in their search.) It will even rank them for you, with the most linked to one first, and a cached version of the page!
I think it would be much better for them to take that line. I think (I am no attorney) that all they would have to do is prove they are linked to legit MP3's as well.)
Indexing content is consider "ok" on the internet, and so is deep linking. I don't think their argument on it's own can stand up, but these two together could create a fairly solid defense.
Don't take this as legal advice, or anything like that. This is my uneducated knowledge of the laws-Pete
Way to go Napster. (Score:5)
kwsNI
Re:Why is Napster at fault? (Score:3)
However...
You can't hold Napster responsible for what it's users do. Because I could be distributing my band's latest song, or I could be distributing Led Zeppelin's greatest hits. The software can't tell. This is like suing Smith And Wesson for a murder. Sure, the gun made it possible, but the shooter did it.
If Aol offered a Napster service (Score:3)