P2P vs. RIAA: RIAA Wins 251
revscat writes: "Salon has a nice writeup of the persecution and eventual success of the RIAA vs. commercial MP3 entities. And while alternatives exist, they "may eventually succumb to the might of the RIAA, which is already making noises about targeting software developers, ISPs and individual users of the network with lawsuits." Basic gist: for profit MP3 has consolidated into the hands of the recording industry." Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Goo goo gajoob (Score:1)
I'd quote or parody a certain Beatles song about a walrus, but that would violate some sort of "intellectual property" restriction!
It is really governments against people (Score:1)
Re:Its kind of like seat belts. (Score:1)
And translated it means (Score:1)
Looking at the big picture... (Score:2)
So, what power would they have over, for example, over a P2P development effort hosted in Europe?
Not being a resident of the US, the more I read, the more I think that the right to free speech is an illusion, a modern day opiate for the masses, if you will.
About the only thing that seems to be left in the Constitution that has any power is the right to bear arms, which only seems to come in handy for those days when school has been a real bitch...
Mainstream - the downfall of diversity. (Score:2)
You, the user, provide content for the user*.
This means, that if the amount of users decline, so does the content. The "big-boys" are also only concearned with that which is mainstream. Its profit, and profit will be fought for. They wont give a damn about gnutella and the likes, if they stay small. Once they're mainstream, the hammer falls.They will initiate lawsuits against the potential driving force behind the concept. The first to fall, are those commercially involved. Those that remain are the innovators that "develop for the good of mankind"(take that with a pinch of irony, if you will.. for it is partially intended) and the users: You and me.
The innovators will be pressured, until their activities are halted - for they are dependant on the system that twarts them. This is the most obscure part of the procedure, for it involves a complexity, that allows the procedure to exist.
In short: The "bigboys" will find ways to affect the innovators. In the market, their careers will be controlled in such a way that they will innovate for someone, rather than for everyone. Futhermore, their resources and their access hereto will be controlled. Their means of distribution will be controlled, directly, or indirectly. If the programmer cant be touched directly (though he will be, eventually), you go for his means of distribution.
Isp, host, whatever - they're all entangled, and subject to the complex system that is capitalism.
The rhethoric is simple:
If you provide so-and-so as a service, you can forget this contract. Now, you've got to ask yourself. Where's the profit? So-and-so-non-commercial-client or us?
Though the software may remain legal indefinately, it has become tabu, because the "bigboys" want it to be.
In anycase, and I stress this, its no longer mainstream.
The average joe wont know about it, and thus it looses its potential
So its back to obscure systems designed for shadowy-content hunting. Limited to those with the knowledge, but limited also to their own taste.
A farvel to diversity - at least for a while, until structures are established, where the lighter side of capitalism enforced innovation amongst the bigboys.
David's been trampled on, and now the giants are left to fight it out in the ring, or so it would seem.
Mainstream vs. diversity. (some paradox, huh?)
Final note: I brought about many points, in a somewhat disorganized fashion. The logic may have slipped somewhere along the way, but I should very much like to hear any view points on the topics brought up, in anycase. * This statement is only true in a certain context (as statements tend to be), for in the end, the content is generally provided by artists that are controlled by "big-boys" (If the term annoys you, I beg your pardon, but I have grown fond of it, in this context).
Re:Slashdot Internet Radio? (Score:2)
That doesn't make them a radio station, mind you (though they do streaming- using Quicktime :P ) but I couldn't help noticing that they were totally not mentioned at all in the Salon article. Maybe that's good. Flying under the radar, eh?
All I care about is, they have a terrific artist's agreement/contract, and they have just gone live on their CD program- which allows for selling CDs online that are duped FROM RED BOOK MASTERS. Yes! REAL CDs! And they hold no monopoly on that, they're just the first to go that far. The more indie internet 'labels' selling full-on CDs over the net, the better. Indie is NOT just all about mp3 anymore. We have control of the means of production >:)
Re:A little early to call the champion (Score:2)
All commercial rights reserved: noncommercial copying allowed
It is impossible to drive up the costs and risks of free access to THAT sort of music, because if the freeness (like grateful dead concert tapes...) is authorised by the copyright holder, the legal system supports it.
The legal system does not make any guarantee that the MEANS of communication of this free stuff is protected, and this is worth watching out for. But as long as there are people wishing to further electronic distribution of 'just the bits' of their creations, there will be means of doing so. The trick is to try to get one of those methods to go mainstream on as big a scale as mp3.
Finally, as an artist, I am not saying that the RIAA is NOT going to make it difficult for me to legally offer my music for download. They will, to the limit of their ability. They have also been involved in price-fixing and tied to the Mob, and certainly would not balk at 'cutting off my air supply' just because I wasn't affiliated with them, quite impersonally. They can and will TRY to do this. They are.
I'm just saying- the law is on MY side here. For that matter, so is capitalism ;)
Re:It's up to the artists. (Score:2)
This is deliberate flamebait - check this link... (Score:2)
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just call it: (Score:2)
There are haves, and have nots. If you're a have not, get ready to pay the rent, or be evicted.
If you're a have, get ready to pay tribute to your lord - er, I mean campaign contribution to your congressperson.
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:2)
If your goal in life is to get music for free without compensating the content creators... in other words being leeches upon society. Then Napster is who you should support.
If your goal is to fight the chokehold that the RIAA has on copyright law as it applies to say things like DMCA, copyright extensions, etc. then you should be lobbying Congress.
If your goal is to fight the unfairness of RIAA contracts with music creators in terms of sharing profits fairly, control of copyrights, etc. Then you should be lobbying Congress on behalf of artists.
If your goal is to try to create a new grassroots music distribution system where new artists can distribute their content with low startup costs and no commitments. Then maybe you should have been supporting mp3.com.
I'm having a hard time buying these arguments of community and public good on behalf of Napster. All I see is parasites and leeches.
Re:Copying is not theft or piracy (Score:2)
Re:Corporations vs. People vs. Artists (Score:2)
Re:A little early to call the champion (Score:2)
You can still buy cocaine in the United States, despite it being illegal.
But it's not easy. You have to go through some risks and effort to get it.
Of course the distributors of cocaine also face risks and effort and so they charge a lot for their product.
Now back to the music...
You will always be able to get copies of music.
But the RIAA is going to make it difficult for you to do so, at least on the internet.
Unlike Cocaine, the RIAA wins by making it difficult for you to do so because they can drive up the costs and risks of the "free" music such that it becomes anti competitive with the CD's that you can buy in any store on any street corner in any city of the US.
I've come to find people who use the term FUD are usually just stupid.
Detecting P2P traffic (Score:2)
Endpoints are the key (Score:2)
The US legal system operates on the auction principle, where the favourable ruling goes to the highest bidder. And the RIAA can outbid consumers, the EFF, and those pinko librarians and academics.
Anyway, the Internet is becoming more centralised (Score:2)
Freenet will be pulled (Score:2)
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:2)
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Re:No, but they can drive it underground (Score:2)
And will encrypted connections also be outlawed? (e.g.: SSL-protected HTTP connections; also: Freenet) If so, how will secure e-commerce continue? If not, how will they be able to detect P2P?
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Brent J. Nordquist <bjn@visi.com>
"Subscription" based P2P - Hah! (Score:2)
P2P systems are lacking in once significant regard: If the other "P" you're downloading from signs off, you're done... Transfer Incomplete!
Now, with something like the "old" Napster, this was an acceptable limitation, since there was no "official" and legal method to obtain most songs there. You kinda new the risks of aborted transfers and crap-quality rips and slow peer connections, but since it was free - no complaint.
Why on God's Green Earth(R)(C)(TM)(Patent Pending)(etc) would I PAY some company for the "rights" to the above P2P limitations and difficulties? If I were going to join a subscription service to get RIAA approved downloads - it would most certainly have to be a centralized, mirrored, high-bandwidth, dedicated, reliable repository with high-quality files. This would NOT be a P2P system! Yet all of these articles I read state over and over how such-and-such P2P system is now owned by some RIAA member, or this other RIAA member has announce this-and-that subscription P2P system. ACK! Get real!
Oh well, that's my rant for the week~
Re:Your french (Score:2)
freenet (Score:2)
But despite that, there's a growing community of freenet users. There are stable websites posted within freenet. (And I hear rumor that a few webcams are soon to get linked in to the system).
One of the central problems with maintaining gnutella during a RIAA attack will be maintaining repositories for getting your first host. Freenet pages can mitigate this, and/or provide its own transport/trading system.
Other problems, such as attacking ISPs if their users have gnutella ports open, and attacking the main developers like bearshare and limewire are separate issues, but still very relevant. It might be a good idea to start dealing with these while the RIAA is occupied with Aimee--I mean, Aimster.
Re:Looking at the big picture... (Score:2)
Oh, appeals to the government of the country in question, threats to withdraw their products from that market, pressure on the American government to put pressure on the country's government, and, for the really paranoid, pressure on America's government to send in the FBI/CIA/troops (delete according to personal conspiracy theory preference).
If a company/group is powerful (read: rich) enough, there are ways and means for it to achieve almost any goals it may set itself.
Cheers,
Tim
gnutella/freenet (Score:2)
Jesus, what a depressing piece.
At least she didn't mention Freenet [freenetproject.org]. Let Gnutella face the fire while Freenet gets off the ground.
I wonder whether she actually knows about Freenet, and chose not to mention it by name. She said, "Collective projects that are free from any corporate ties are still flourishing, and small companies with nifty ideas lurk on the fringes." And from reading previous pieces by her, I know she's got more than half a clue when it comes to file-sharing.
Re:Corporations vs. People vs. Artists (Score:2)
Where is the business plan for paying the artists anything for their hard work
Right here: www.fairtunes.com [fairtunes.com]
Re:Money to artists, not the "music industry" ! (Score:2)
I listen to jazz music you wouldn't have heard of
This is evidence of failed marketing, then.
Of course, the RIAA isn't solely to blame for this. The corporations that own the radio stations must share culpability as well. Why, for example, can I find no less than 6 of those bland Lite-Rock/Mix stations on my radio dial? And then, when they finally re-introduced an alternative rock station here last week after many years without one, they took away the unique R&B oldies station instead of one of the Lite-Rock clones.
If Rob Kaper and I don't hear your beloved jazz music on the radio, it's because the music industry has decided not to market it to us in an effective manner. Releasing music is not the same as marketing it.
Re:First battles in the philosophical war (Score:2)
"Business As Usual, During Alterations" by Ralph Williams; first appeared Astounding in 1958; anthologized in Prologue to Analog, Tomorrow, Inc. , and One Hundred Years of Science Fiction.
Re:Chokepoints (Score:2)
One word: NFS!
It Will Happen, in Time (Score:2)
The problem is that for current established artists, there is significant momentum and acceptance of the current system. I think it has less to do with laziness and stupidity than a fear of an unknown, largely untested paradigm. To some degree, this fear is not entirely unfounded.
This issue sort of parallels the discussions of Linux on the desktop that were taking place a couple of weeks ago. I can make rational arguments to my company management about why it might make sense for us to switch to Linux and other open source software on the desktop, but the company is run by established businessmen who have done things a certain way for a long time, and what they have been doing largely works. They just don't see that the benefits of the change outweigh the costs and perceived disadvantages.
So, don't count on established artists to make the change. It will be new and upcoming artists that will see the new distribution medium as a viable option, just as it will be today's college students that will push Linux onto the desktop once they go forth and start their own companies. But unfortunatly, this means that the transition will take time. It won't happen overnight. Once the first new artist makes it big this way, then perhaps it will snowball and become a popular means of distribution.
Re:like this will have any effect (Score:2)
Read the docs at cryptome.org, it makes somber reading.
Turn of the net (Score:2)
I payed for the music. I'll listen to it where and how I please.
If this continues I'll go underground, stop buying and start stealing...
That what these people want?
The Solution (Score:2)
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Re:A little early to call the champion (Score:2)
I think you missed the point of the article. Nowhere in the article is it claimed that MP3 as a technology has been taken over by the recording industry, just that for profit businesses based on either MP3s or P2P have been assimilated. In fact, the author specifically mentions that the technology continues to thrive.
- Rev.^^ It's late, but good: Mod above up plz ^^ (Score:2)
Artists vs. Scam Artists (Score:2)
BTW, California has a larger economy that the Netherlands OR Russia, largely because of geeks with business plans.
I'm sure somehwere there IS a business plan for paying artists, but no one part of the RIAA has it. Their plans only include selling them into slavery. Funny, the recording budget for a major RIAA-type release is up to $100,000. Dave Grohl built his own fucking studio for that much and can record all the records he wants without paying the labels a cent. Now THAT'S capitalism.
Skip the RIAA, boys and girls, it's DIY or get screwed! Sure, their racket (and I use the word advisedly) on distribution channels means you'll have to pay a little "protection money" sooner or later, but it's better to negotiate with them AFTER you have enough of a following to drive something like a fair bargain. Those extra years of being a "starving artist" will be major street cred once you Get There. Look how long those millionaires called Metallica have milked it!
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:Some reasons this isn't going to stand. (Score:2)
In other words, the human race will be no more than a bunch of gibbering savages until we invent replicators and limitless energy, thus ushering in the post-scarcity economy and releasing us from the "useful" demands of money. Then, the winning argument will be limited to the number of people ready to raise hell.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Re:First battles in the philosophical war (Score:2)
Re:will alternatives succumb to the RIAA? cDc won' (Score:2)
There's little any Government would have to say against that. Unfortunately, that "little" reads as follows:
"Oh shit, that also means us!"
It would therefore be followed up with a ban on use of the software, with draconian penalties.
Re:It's up to the artists. (Score:2)
Re:It Will Happen, in Time (Score:2)
Re:Looking at the big picture... (Score:2)
Oh, I don't know. Go ask Jon Johannsen, maybe? I'm sure he could tell you.
So you hate the record companies... (Score:2)
OK, the RIAA is evil. I concede that point. The labels rip off the artist. That pretty much has been proven (see Courtney Love's article). Many
Sony is part of the "evil empire'. How many of you guys rushed out to buy a PS2 the second they were available? Congratulations, you just put money into the pockets of an RIAA member.
Re:First battles in the philo... - Education (Score:2)
Learning in school means:
- Our information comes from an "authority". This authority has very little accountability.
- Our behavior is checked absolutely by an "authority". Again, very little accountability.
- Our ability to change the _system_ while we are learners is almost nil. We might be given small scraps of superficial ability to respond to the teachers' performance.
Most people are satisfied with this system of education because we are aclimatized to it so early in our lives. The internet and the web are really opportunities to change this circumstance by creating a new educational system which is not autocratic but community oriented, not arbitrary but meritocratic, and most of all, not rigorous but incredibly flexible and dynamic and interactive. Knowledge is created by communities, its worth is determined by communities, and spread freely within communities. Why shouldn't education reflect that!!! Please check out Oomind which is an attempt to create a new educational system which works on these principles - its brand new so please forgive the dearth of content. Instead, contribute something!!!http://www.oomind.com/
Re:A little early to call the champion (Score:2)
Given their mention of gnutella though, I suspect that they are merely not considering the full set of download tools available, not just the for profit ones.
Re:I don't think they can completely wipe out p2p (Score:2)
Re:RIAA and Censorship (Score:2)
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MP3 pirating. (Score:2)
Plus ça change (Score:2)
Don't you mean cha-ching? This is the RIAA we're talking about, after all...
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Chokepoints (Score:2)
I'm on cable, and as far as I can tell, NO cable allows you to accept connections. My specific TOS says 'run no servers for the use of others'. I run SSHD, and justify it because it's a server for my own use, not others. I know the restriction stinks, but it's the only way I can get a high-speed connection. I have grudgingly traded accepting connections for bandwidth. If/when DSL ever becomes available to me (43,000 ft from CO) I'll revisit that tradeoff, but not before I review the DSL TOS, too.
The ability to accept a connection is the new chokepoint.
To be on your side for a moment, now we need to invent a new protocol. TCP is great, but that blasted SYN packet just sticks out like a sore thumb. We need to move our hiding down to a lower level. (Actually, I'm completely on your side, just a bit more pessimistic.)
Re:I don't see why people worry (Score:2)
#1 Send the requests through an intermediate node, but download the file directly from the server.
or
#2 Force the intermediate node to download the file, then to double the bandwidth used and send the file again.
If #1 is the case, you are doing just what Gnutella does.
If #2 is true, which a few have claimed, FreeNet bandwidth use will be exponential, subject to bottlenecks from slower nodes, and ravaging the bandwidth of ever node without and benefit to the user.
So, while in this stage of development it's hard to say how things will work out, either FreeNet will be no better than Gnutella, or it will be unusable because of the incredible ammounts of bandwidth required to transfer an single file.
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I don't see why people worry (Score:2)
As long as the public knows the law, and knows their rights, RIAA can't stop decentralized networks like GNUTELLA (and no, FreeNet does not offer any more anonymity or protection than Gnutella) because there is no single entity to shut down or hold responsible.
Follow these legal guidelines, and RIAA will likely stregenthen the community, rather than even slightly harming it.
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Re:Goo goo gajoob (Score:2)
Monthly Cable Internet Service_____$35
80 Gig Hard drive _______________ $250
Really screwing over RIAA ______ Priceless
---=-=-=-=-=-=---
Re:alt.binaries.mp3 is not "underground". (Score:2)
how it's done (Score:2)
If the government were working so effectively to control communication between citizens, we'd be talking tyranny and armed revolution. When corporations do the heavy lifting on their behalf, we bitch and moan on Slashdot.
Yet any system that allows distribution of copyrighted materials despite the wishes of powerful interests is invaluable for a parallel purpose: trading ideas and information that the government would like to suppress.
For example, Daniel Ellsberg might well have distributed the Pentagon Papers [bartleby.com] via P2P. Secure P2P could have been used to distribute suppressed writings in the former USSR in place of laboriously mimeographed samizdat. Not long ago, Linda Tripp held tapes that could destroy the president of the United States-- a terrifying position. Nowadays, she might post them on Freenet.
The existence of a mechanism for ordinary people to trade information by a means uncontrolled by elites shifts the power balance in an important, positive way. But here's a chilling thought: almost the same words were spoken in the early days of radio. People celebrated it as a new, uncontrolled medium for public expression of ideas that would enhance democracy in America. Now major stations are controled by media megacorps and low-power radio is flat-out illegal. Is this the future of P2P?
With certainty, there will be further occasions when the public needs to communicate through channels outside government control. The moment some politically explosive document is released on Freenet, the Supreme Court is going to take a very different view of P2P. I hope Freenet lasts long enough for this to happen.
Perhaps one need not reinvent the wheel in figuring out how to oppose RIAA and MPAA. Many organizations have a long history of fighting powerful interests and well-established techniques [earthfirstjournal.org]. It's remarkable that a fringey, but dedicated outfit like Earthfirst! manages to be more active than the 50 million Napster users combined. That need not continue.
Also from Salon.com (Score:2)
Re:Pull down the MegaStars (Score:2)
Re:Looking at the big picture... (Score:2)
So, what power would they have over, for example, over a P2P development effort hosted in Europe?
Interresting theory.. if I'm not misstaken, USA stands for "United States of America"... you mean the USA dont have any incluence in Europe either ? ;-)
Re:Some reasons this isn't going to stand. (Score:2)
Even assuming that it would be possible to get read of economical scarcity, you have to remember that our psychological and soial make-up are designed for scarcity. We are driven towards our personal goals by the scarcity of what we desire. And we are forced to interact with others by the same scarcity. If we get rid of real scarcity, we will create an artificial one that will allow us to exist. Some people say we already did.
Re:Some reasons this isn't going to stand. (Score:2)
One could make an argument that gun makers do not merely facilitate the second ammendment, they make it happen. You cannot have a meaninful right to bear arms if guns do not exist. On the other hand, banning circumvention devices does not vacate the first ammendment, it merely reduces its scope, which is permitted if there's "good" reason.
This is casuistry, but casuistry is what lawyers do for living. At bottom, the complexity of the world makes sures that any position on the issue can be argued in a principled way. The winning argument is the argument that has either more money, or more people ready to raise hell.
I don't want to say that your argument by analogy isn't good. Only that good arguments rarely win on their own.
Re:One Sentance Summary (Score:2)
The first copyrights were not much better than the church regulation had been. While copyright protected one publisher (who had to pay the author a small pittance) from other publishers, it left in place the ability to censor everything that was printed - this time in the hands of the publishers and the government.
In 1710, Queen Anne enacted a copyright law called the Statute of Anne that was a copyright for authors and, at the same time, created the Public Domain (before this copyright was perpetual.) Our Constitutional basis for copyright is based on the Statute of Anne, copyright for authors instead of publishers.
Modern copyright law, however, has mutated back to something resembling the Stationers Guild Copyright - might as well be perpetual, benefits the publishers (more than the authors) and is a tool for censorship (especially the way the RIAA and the MPAA wield it!)
Check out my website for more on copyright - Pamela Samuelson has written an excellent paper on how copyright is moving full circle.
Re:Copying is not theft or piracy (Score:2)
As for your damaged CDs, perhaps you should have backed them up onto tape cassette or
Re:One Sentance Summary (Score:2)
My Favorite Lines (Score:2)
Anyway, they seem to contradict themselves when they go on to say: Err, say what? How in the world could the RIAA possibly "shut down" gnutella? Even if they were to sue the devlopers into oblivion, that cat is already out of the bag and having kittens! What are they going to do? Enter everybody's home and check their HDs for a copy of gnutella? Even if they were to sue a few pimply faced geeks for trading music online in a high profile case, they would be sowing even more ill will with the public (i.e., the people who line their coffers).
Is it me, or does Salon's pronouncement of victory for the RIAA seem less than a forgone conclusion?
-- Shamus
Brain for sale, hardly used, low miles. Inquire within.
Gnutella works well enough for me (Score:2)
Commercial mp3 entities? (Score:2)
The only trouble is, development [freenetproject.org] is being held back by sloppy, haphazard software "engineering" and creeping featurism (before the basic network is even functional).
The lists are flooded with the technically illiterate, who are just along for the ride, and the politically extreme, who want to "destroy global capitalism".
As far as I can see, what was once the most promising p2p platform is now stewing in its own faeces and will fizzle out gradually, to be replaced by an ever changing plethora of http-based systems.
The developers don't even know whether freenet is a Java program or a network protocol.
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In the end its all about us. (Score:2)
Slashdot Internet Radio? (Score:2)
How hard would it be to set up an open-source ethos internet radio station to showcase these works, and thereby bypass the big companies control over what new songs get heard? A non-profit station with no commercials or fees to artists or consumers? A real station, with DJs that have personality and producers who actually know good songs when they hear them and can build a decent playlist?
Well, it sounds like a good idea to me, anyway. If the songs were halfway decent it could really suck the wind out of the radio/record companies' sails.
cryptochrome
RIAA or Mo-no-po-ly? (Score:2)
It is an association of music-industry conglomerates.
These conglomerates own the rights because they purchased them from the artists.
The system seems to be:
- Lure young, stupid, talented artists, and convince them to sign onerous contracts.
- Gussy them up and present them as the sole progenitors of their creativity and marketability.
- Discard them, retaining the intellectual property harvested by them from their own creative soil.
Is it not?So:
--Blair
Re:Copying is not theft or piracy (Score:2)
So, let me get this straight. You're saying...
Is anybody else confused by this?
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:2)
RIAA (Score:2)
Not exactly. (Score:2)
Indeed, in the preface to the First Folio, Shakespeare's friends lament that publishers treated him and his plays badly, and that that fact was a main reason for publishing the First Folio, copied from authoritative editions rather than from badly copied notes or early drafts.
The officials in charge of regulating the publishing industry at the time were only interested in censoring too-bawdy works, and in preventing unauthorized publishing of works by wealthy people with influence. The average writer had no copyright protection whatsoever.
And as for the U.S., our copyright system has absolutely nothing to do with an English statute and nothing at all to do with being for the authors. It is instituted for the purposes of advancing the useful arts and sciences, by giving writers and inventors the exclusive right to profit from their creations for a limited time, originally 14 years. In fact, the Constitution reads "Congress shall have the power . . . 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 idea that copyright in the U.S. has anything to do with upholding a self-evident right of the author, or anything to do with his benefit, is false. The Constitution grants Congress this power for one reason alone--that it promotes the advancement of arts and sciences by giving people an incentive to create. Thus, it has to do with the advancement of the people's interests in having more literature and inventions and knowledge, and nothing to do with the author's benefit.
Otherwise, I agree with you.
Re:Artists vs. Record Companies (Score:3)
mp3.com is now owned by Universal. Artists have to pay off mp3.com to get timely service and be eligible for 'payback', and agree to a contract that Universal can change at any time with no warning. Plus, artists also agree to give Universal perpetual nonexclusive rights to their material, and give blanket permission for editing and alterations to take place at Universal's discretion.
When mp3.com blew it, it blew it BIG.
What you are thinking about is currently more like ampcast.com. Ampcast has an infinitely better contract, has just gone live with a _true_ audio CD program (send in a Red Book master and they dupe it as needed- full CD quality for indies at burn-to-order availability), and seems to be dedicated (even down to their mission statement) to providing an alternative to the majors.
Ampcast isn't big, but doesn't look to be blowing it any time soon. If they did, there will just be somebody else, because it's simply not that hard to dupe and print up full quality CDs anymore. Just because mp3.com blew it doesn't mean there won't be others.
Re:RIAA and Censorship (Score:3)
By not being able to copy the latest Britany Spears song from some guy in Vermont?
This is censorship?
Since when? you didn't create the song, you don't own the rights to the song.
It's amazing how bloody stupid people can be these days.
Money to artists, not the "music industry" ! (Score:3)
The artists SHOULD earn money for their creations.
The music industry on the other hand, they should be eliminated since they are no longer needed in the Internet age.
If a smart geek could figure out a system to get the same amount of money tranferred directly from the consumer to the artist as today - but bypassing the record labels - that would be something.
The artists are currently not paid well.
(No, I'm not an artist)
Possible responses to preserve freedom. (Score:3)
http://www.oomind.com/
Re:I don't think they can completely wipe out p2p (Score:3)
Re:First battles in the philosophical war (Score:3)
For most of us, ISPs constitute choke points. Threaten enough legal action, and I can forsee filters not at every ISP, but enough to reduce P2P below the critical mass necessary to threaten the RIAA/MPAA business model. An yes, we can always come up with ways to weasel P2P around those filters and chokes. But in order to remain beyond RIAA/MPAA ability to block with lawsuit-inspired filters, etc, they probably remain beyond the average Win-user's ability to install and use. The net effect is the same.
And I can agree with you that in the long run, they will fail. I guess I don't really want them to fail, I just want them trimmed down to size. After all, in my post I did recognize their 'editorial' value. Content is not free to create, after all. Plus there is truly editorial value, in the classic sense, in filtering the quality before it goes out. (One might look at the summer movie lineup, or at TV in general, and argue that they've failed miserably at this.)
But I'd rather they be trimmed down to size in my lifetime, preferably within the next decade. After all, Rome was around for over a millennium, and the Catholic church still has quite a bit of power after longer than that. I'd rather not think the RIAA/MPAA chokepoints have that long to go.
Change of focus ? (Score:3)
The appearance of broadband has made a 4 MB mp3file very easy to download, so what does take time and resources to download now ?
Some Swedish computer magazines have identified the DivX media compression as a successor to the "king-of-piracy-file-format". They showed how to download, and even provided several programs on the bundled CD, such as gnutella.
I wonder if we will have a company providing .mpg and .avi exchange in the same way. Why dont they just write a more binding licence agreement and start over with a new mediatype ?
My 2 bytes
Re:No, but they can drive it underground (Score:3)
But I don't think you'll see any "indemnity boxes" and if you do they'll be a joke. P2P is such a huge buzzword now that people forget that it is pretty much just another way of saying 'the Internet.' You don't need a fancy application for this stuff; IRC, FTP, HTTP... Gopher, even, if you wanted to resort to that... all of these are 'file-sharing' technologies and there's no way that the RIAA or anyone can tell that the packets you're swapping are copyrighted material or not. Even if you're using a detectable client, the onus is going to be on RIAA to prove that you're swapping stuff they own, not your own files. Legislation is not likely to change that--it's too firmly embedded in common law and common perception. But the penalties... you are quite right; those are a different matter.
ftp (Score:3)
Re:RIAA and Censorship (Score:3)
sheldon writes:
How have you been censored?
By not being able to copy the latest Britany Spears song from some guy in Vermont?
This is censorship?
Since when? you didn't create the song, you don't own the rights to the song.
It's amazing how bloody stupid people can be these days.
Assuming that I am not a criminal and I used Napster to find unknown artists who have choosen Napster and other P2P means of distributing their music with their permission, then I have been censored by a court-induced filtering system that is so paranoid that it returns no songs for the word "dog"!
Its the equivelent of a court ordering all file servers to filter their files to prevent piracy. Searching for "windows"? You must be a pirate, since there is no free software that uses the term windows. Or how about "office"? Most people can only think of one software company that releases a program that has the word "office" in it. Thanks to the RIAA, the precedent has been set for this sort of action.
I do however have to agree with your sig. :)
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:3)
Now if someone can show P2P operating with the orginators of the music getting money then this case goes away. Napster hasnt done that (saying 'oh.. err, well how about if we add subscriptions?' doesnt seem to have cut it) and thats why napster is dead.
The trouble is, the RIAA will never let such a system exist unless it's under their control. That, in a large part, is why we have yet to see a successful, profit-making online music system. Everything that has come along has been killed, crippled, or bought out by the record companies. Even Napster's subscription model could have been a success...sure, they would have lost a large portion of their user base, but they might have been able to retain enough users to make a profit and pay the artists. That's probably not the case any longer, with the droves of users who have already abandoned the almost worthless file sharing system for other P2P networks.
The only pay music networks that we're going to see will be the ones owned by the labels, and on those, the consumer is going to be paying absurd fees for music they can't burn to a CD, transfer to their Rio, or even move to another PC. And they won't even be buying this music...that would be far too unfair to the record companies. No, we only get to rent [cnet.com] it for a short time. If we want to keep it longer, we pay more.
A point to make here is that CDRs werent banned when people started copying CDs with them. Why should it be easier to ban a non-physical medium which
There's a difference between CDRs and P2P systems...CDRs have a very obvious, proveable, legitimate use as a data storage medium. As much as the RIAA would probably like to use their legal clout to restrict CDRs, they haven't figured out a way around that legitimate use. P2P file sharing networks, on the other hand, are a new technology, and, unfortunatly, no one has really come up with a useful, widespread, 100%-legitimate use for them. There are probably many, many legitimate purposes for which P2P could be used, but we just haven't figured out what they are or how to apply P2P file sharing technology to them. Unfortunatly, with our legal system, that makes the entire P2P file sharing concept a target, because the precedent seems to be that you must prove something can be used for a "substantial legitimate purpose," or else it is automatically considered illegitimate if it could contribute in any way to something illegal.
DennyK
RIINS vs.The Big Man (Score:3)
Yesterday the RIINS (Record Industry of Intergalactic Normal Space, a descendant of the RIAA of Earth's 20th Century) filed suit in Galactic court against GOD. While it is a well-known fact that GOD was a fictional char of the past thanks to Oolong Caloophid the RIINS believes that the very creation of the universe has been damaging its profits for near a millennia.
A spokes person for the RIINS is sums up the chain of events that leads to the damages generated by GOD.
Well, the Millennia old battle of profits driven by corporate greed continues, Full story at 11:00.
It may be a *Good* thing in the long run (Score:3)
See, they've already been found guilty of price-fixing on CD and tape sales for the last 15 to 20 years, and although nothing has really come of that finding for the consumer, we know that the RIAA will not be able to resist charging similar prices in cyberspace to the ones they charge in meatspace. Well, what is the music industry's excuse for expensive music? "We don't own the whole process, not only are there promotional costs, but production costs for the cover art and costs of the actual press run blah blah blah blah blah." In reality the conglomerates which are the record companies own the whole process in subsidiaries, so the actual costs are next to nothing.
But on the Internet, there is no need for a press run. Costs of duplication are effectively equal to bandwidth costs, which are small relative to a meatspace CD press. And there is no need for shipping costs, no expenses for space at the retail store, etc. So when the music industry charges almost the same thing to download an album as it charges to buy the physical version, there will be a backlash. And thanks to a few enlightened ones like Orrin Hatch, Congress will get involved. I predict that in the long run the current high price structure, and lack of sufficient pay to artists, will be forcefully ironed out when the transition to cyberspace sales is made and the RIAA members try to keep charging their insanely inflated prices.
But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong. But let's hope they shoot themselves in the foot, eh?
RIAA and Censorship (Score:4)
No, but they can drive it underground (Score:4)
Meanwhile, P2P software has been ruled to be every bit as much a "digital crowbar" as DeCSS. You can find it, but it is deep underground.
The RIAA have the means to achieve this; they have billions of dollars to spend on winning court cases and buying legislators. The very survival of artificial scarcity as the foundation of information-age corporate capitalism depends on them winning.
Of course, if the measures prove to be ineffective, they will do what is always done: increase the penalties. Instead of blocking file-sharing software, they will switch to tracking users and making examples of them, with high-profile prosecutions. After a few pimply-faced teenagers get jail sentences for criminal conspiracy, people will be a lot more afraid to use this software. It will become a high-risk activity, much like the illegal drug trade.
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:4)
protecting the livings of musicians. I know the musicians get a unfairly small slice of the pie but thats a different issue. The fact is that if everyone could get music for free the musicians dont get any money, so they dont make music. No music != public good.
Now if someone can show P2P operating with the orginators of the music getting money then this case goes away. Napster hasnt done that (saying 'oh.. err, well how about if we add subscriptions?' doesnt seem to have cut it) and thats why napster is dead.
I think is scandelous that all P2P has been labelled 'MP3 based piracy', but lets face it, 90% of it is.
A point to make here is that CDRs werent banned when people started copying CDs with them. Why should it be easier to ban a non-physical medium which
It's up to the artists. (Score:4)
And I hate what the record co's do in terms of commodotizing and exploiting art on the one hand, and justifying their anti-piracy on the grounds that we shouldn't be stealing from these poor, hard-working folks who are pouring out their souls to us.
But i'll go on record as saying that if there's one group of people who can solve this problem today (although not really retroactively) it's the artists themselves. They need to decide, now, that they're going to market and distribute themselves, that they don't need to be on TRL, that they don't think that garnering 13% of gross sales is fair, that while they're in it for the money, they're rock and roll stars, for god's sake, and there's lots of ways to make money that don't involve telling your fans all the things they can't do.
The house-negro-field-negro paradigm applies here quite powerfully (although, of course, I make no pretensions that ip rights as they relate to music are in the same league of injustices as black slavery in america). Artists have depended on record deals for a long time. It's what they've strived to get, it's the measure of success, and it sure would be nice to get to ride in a limousine rather than shlepping our crap around in this van. They've come to identify the music industry's interests as their own. And by keeping the supply of success low, the industry has kept demand high among those working hard out in the field.
And just as this paradigm was invoked to make people see how pathetic it was to be happy being a house-slave, although it was understandable, the best, and simplest way to make all of this argument and litigation go away is for the *artists* to stand up and walk out. They don't, cause they like cash, and who doesn't? But they're getting the table scraps, comparatively, and they thank and defend the industry in return. It's sort of sad.
There's nothing to argue over if the artists themselves realize that they've got a monopoly on whatever it is they do, and that they don't need to sell the rights to distribute in order to be heard, or in order to make money (although lots of smart people are trying to figure out the best way to do this). The record companies are being jerks, but at least they're doing it in their own interest. The artists, they're doing it because they're too lazy, stupid, and well-trained to see what a shitty situation they're in.
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:4)
First, I am a musician (IAAM?). Second, this post is hogwash. Musicians don't have a "RIGHT" to make millions of dollars off their music. Good music from LOCALS is good for the public, not over priced, over engineered crap. I know many musicans that have 0 to do with the RIAA, and are NOT negatively affected by any form of piracy. Musicians will always be around for the public at clubs, on the Internet, and at festivals - without the RIAA.
Thanks to real musicians who love music as an art, the entire "music industry" could collapse and we'd still have great music for all to enjoy.
Heck, our music would probably be more cultured and less expensive to enjoy.
Corporations vs. People (Score:4)
alternativsuccumb to the RIAA? CDC won'! (Score:4)
I've frequently thought about how cool it would be if we could think of a "legitimate" use for the Gnutella network, so that
- an ISP can't possibly feel itself justified in shutting down anyone shoving gigabits through the Gnutella port (you've already heard about this probably...), and
- so the Government can't try to stop Gnutella (company?) from distributing Gnutella software (it wouldn't matter if it did: Gnutella's already out there and since it's P2P the government can't do anything to get gnutella company to shut down the service, but:)
- Or worse, to try to go after the users and to make it illegal to use gnutella! (Which isn't so farfetched...)
The government or RIAA can say today, "Look, there's no justification for using gnutella since it's basically only used for piracy, so anyone that's shoving data over it has every reason to be denied that right."But if we could say: "Uh, actually, it's just a distributed internet surfing system with encryption, which also happens to work as file-sharing as part of its distribution scheme, since it doesn't differentiate between html documents and binary documents, which isn't a meaningful distinction anyway since you can MIME encode anything into html if you want,"
THEN the government will be forced to say: "well hot-damn. We can't have ISPs shutting down distributed information sharing, which is the only thing WEB-SURFING can be construed as, since it would be a denial of freedom of speech (denial of right to know. Freeedom of speech, although IANAL, only is a meaningful right as long as those who want to listen to you have the right to listen to you.)
There's little the Government or any ISP could say against "It must be encrypted so that the information becomes available to users under a totalitarian regime. It must be distributed so that that regime cannot shut down a web server and cause the source of the information to cease."
The upshot: the government, your ISP, the RIAA, etc, etc, will have NO way of keeping the ENCRYPTED, DISTRIBUTED, "stuff" that you share from happening to be pirated. They can shut down Gnutella of today to some extent by making the software illegal to own, since they would be fairly justified in saying that it is used almost exclusively for illegal purposes. If you started doing web surfing over it, there is no such argument.
For this reason alone, all of us should start doing all of our surfing through this new system as soon as it's featurey enough.
Besides, at the very least, if we started doing that, then whatever we do websurf will be hidden from our ISP by being encrypted, and documents will probably come over much faster under a distributed system. Well, static documents would at least. Maybe this system would also serve to route you around faster, mimicking IPV6, so we could still do better to use it than surf straight. There's no limit to how much good we could get from doing all of our surfing through a distributed, encrypted system, and since the fact that it would make piracy easy is an inherent but small side-effect, it would mean that no one could stop it.
Long Live the Freeedom to Rip Artists Off!
(Which I happen to disagree with, but to a far less extent than I do with the RIAA's trying to force us not to share our files. If artists included an address to send money to in the extended descriptions fields of their MP3's [yes, artists should distribute their own mp3s], I know that I for one would take advantage of it and give them their due. As it is, it's far too much trouble and far too much of what I would pay would go straight to the record industry's pocket. That reminds me of a joke [netfunny.com], which is actually a good analogy for why we share name-brand artists instead of no-name artists, even though name-brand artists are being whored out by the record industry.)
~
Re:First battles in the philosophical war (Score:4)
First of all, those who are currently 'beat down', Napster, Scour, MP3.com, etc... were stupid. They were trying to make money off of an already existing artificially scarce resource.
What the 'Second Generation' P2P models all strive for is freedom of information duplication and transmission, even over control. Take Gnutella, for example. Everyone in my office used Napster, once upon a time. Those that were too lazy to setup Napigator once Napster started filtering now use Bearshare, which uses Gnutella protocol. I'm using it right now. Gnutella use is skyrocketing, according to the Salon Article, and I beleive it.
The *only* way for the record industry to get rid of Gnutella is to somehow make it illegal, as the MPAA has tried to do with DeCSS with very little success.
Layer all the other 'free' P2P clients such as Freenet and CDC's new project on top of that. It can't be stopped.
Look at Usenet. Gigabytes and gigabytes of the most illegal information ever in the form of Warez, pirate MP3's, porn, bomb-making instructions, etc... pass through the alt hierarchy on a daily basis. Newsfeeds has a NNTP servers dedicated to both MP3 downloads and Warez downloads, yet you don't see anyone trying to shut them down.
The 'publishers', the RIAA, the MPAA, and all the existing book publishers are fighting a rear-guard retreat. Sure, they have more money, more influence, and can crush any one person into fine paste, but what they don't realize is that they're not fighting individuals or even other companies. They're fighting progress.
The Roman Empire tried to do it. Look where they are now. The Catholic Church tried to do it, and even succeeded for many centuries, but were eventually beaten down by the invention of the printing press. The nation-states of Europe tried to do it, when they colonized the rest of the world. Now the information industries of America are trying to do it.
Just like their predecessors, they *will* fail. You can't fight time.
RIAA Sues DoD for creating Internet (Score:5)
Upon learning that the case was summarily dismissed, the RIAA sued the messenger who delivered the news.
A little early to call the champion (Score:5)
It was pretty apparent to me that the big names in early file sharing (Napster, MP3.com etc) would go down. They had pretty, bright red targets painted on their foreheads.
However, now that it is started there will be no stopping it. You can filter for music and people will just encrypt it before sending. You can shut down central servers and people will go peer to peer. You can publish FUD about the death of music sharing and people will ridicule you.
Bah, just go to freenet. [freenetproject.org]
First battles in the philosophical war (Score:5)
For the first, I forget the title. But it was about an unspecified era in which aliens try to 'help' us by giving us replicators. First there are attempts to control access to the replicators. But of course, someone manages to replicate the replicator, and it's all out of the bag. Along the way, someone speculates that the aliens were really out to ruin us by destroying our economy, which is based on scarcity. Finally, the 'hero' of the story realizes that by controlling the originals, he can still be rich. Economy of scarcity is maintained, only at the 'manuscript' level.
In Joe Haldeman's "The Forever Peace", the United States invents the NanoForge, essentially a nanotech-based replicator. Then they nuke the lab that the prototype was in, telling the world that the NanoForge exploded, so it's established as *physically dangerous* technology. (It's really not physically dangerous, just politically and economically.) Thereafter, some dozen NanoForges are government-run at high cost, with some public access, because they're just too dangerous any other way. Once again, economy of scarcity is maintained.
This is it. The Internet enables an economy of abundance based on exchange of information. Bits are bits, and from a technological perspective, they can be copied for near-zero cost. But information exchange is not a new business. Prior to Internet and electronic exchange, it was done on dead trees and discs. (First laquer, then vinyl, then CDs.)
The publishing industries arose in order to disseminate information. They made their livlihood doing so, and grew into empires. Ironically, they are now threatened by more efficient means of dissemination, and are fighting for their continued existence by *restricting* those newer means.
From another perspective, there are (at least) two aspects of publication, be it music, movies, or print, editorial and duplication. While the editorial aspect is still necessary and valuable, the duplication is becoming obsolete. Yet in common perception, the editorial value has faded and the duplication dominates. So someone downloads music, and wonders what value the record company contributes.
We were headed toward a world with wide, free spread of information. It had some problems, in that it didn't recognize the editorial value of the current publishing industries. Now, as a result of RIAA and MPAA actions, we are headed toward Joe Haldeman's world, where a potential economy of abundance is being thrown away, in favor of information and access control. I don't like this at all.
But *they* have more money, and more influence in the courts and congress than *we* do. We can fight the good fight it's a sad reflection on "Justice" in the USA that I expect us to get beaten down every step of the way. Rather cynical for a Friday, I know.
The philosophical war began in music and movies, and is moving to the print world. There are signs that it would like to move into software, though we have a good, strong beachhead here. I wonder where else it will try to go.
To be more positive, we first need to recognize the *editorial* value of the publishing industries. The bar for publishing on the web is low, and there are a lot of clunkers out there as a result. We need some way other than a few portals and hit-based Google searches to recognize good content. If we want to take the battle for music and movies to a different front, we need to grow the alternative - free (or at least non-RIAA/MPAA) content. We need to make it known where it is, and how to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Even after the first few battles, most of us don't recognize the breadth of the War. This is a wholesale societal change for the better that we're letting slip out of our grasp.
Re:Corporations vs. People (Score:5)
So call now, our stock of wannabe poiticians is overflowing! We've seen the MP3 battle coming for years and have planted lots of personalized politicians ready for you to own!
America(TM): land of the free (reign of large companies), home of the puddles where free use used to be.
...what happen? Michael set us up the French! (Score:5)
M. LE CAPTAIN: C'est vous!!!
MICHAEL: Comment allez-vous messieurs.
MICHAEL: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
M. LE CAPTAIN: Quoi vous dites!?
MICHAEL: Vous etes dans le chemin à la destruction.
MICHAEL: Vous avez pas du chance pour survivre faites votre temps.
MICHAEL: Ah-hau hau hau hau.