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Music Media

Napster files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy 483

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-surprise-there dept.
Joey Patterson writes "CNN Money reports that Napster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy." Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better.
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Napster files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy More

Napster files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

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  • The funniest part... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jucius Maximus ( 229128 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:05AM (#3630548) Journal
    ...is that Hilary Rosen probably thinks she's won.

  • let's not forget (Score:3, Interesting)

    by boyko ( 575916 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:07AM (#3630563)
    Napster is gone, legally they're caught, but lets face it, P2P is quickly becoming a killer app, and Napster made that possible. Brian.

  • soooo.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by matth ( 22742 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:07AM (#3630564) Homepage
    If I understand this correctly.. Napster is gone... which leaves now... wait.. no it doesn't get rid of sharing software.. instead we now have access to tons of FREE (napster was to be pay) sharing software for MUCH more then napster ever dreamed of when they came out..
    Want paintshop? Ok.. let me fire up KaZaa!
    Want videos? Ok.. let me fire up KaZaa!
    Want sheep? er.. that's not my department but you can probably find that on KaZaa too.

  • who's next? (Score:2, Informative)

    by anoopa ( 98436 )
    "RIAA Sues Audiogalaxy" [slashdot.org]

    The music/movie industry seems to be going after napster and co one after the other, with the money and clout they weld who can and will stand upto them? We can look forward to corporate networks serving you movies/music for monthly charges continuing their shrink wrap monopolies.
  • Not every good hacker is a good business person.

    Not every great idea can be best exploited by its progenitor.

    Napster was, at worst, a means for the long-standing fact of exploitation of artists by record labels to become common knowledge. Even teeny-boppers are familiar with the concepts of mechanical royalties, publishing contracts, and "recoupment".

    Napster is dead; long live Napster.

    • Re:A Business Failure; Not a Technological One (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gabec ( 538140 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:28AM (#3630718)
      I just wanted to note that this is not the death of Napster, it's simply that it's the planned way for Napster to shirk its debts before they're officially bought up by Bertelsmann... or that's what I got out of this ZDNet article [com.com].

      " Bertelsmann stepped in on May 17 with $8 million to buy Napster's assets. As part of that agreement, Napster was to voluntarily seek bankruptcy protection and emerge as a wholly owned unit of Europe's second-largest media group. "

    • Napster was, at worst, a means for the long-standing fact of exploitation of artists by record labels to become common knowledge. Even teeny-boppers are familiar with the concepts of mechanical royalties, publishing contracts, and "recoupment".

      Napster had good effects as performance art, however I always thought that the idea that Napster would make money out of the scheme was kinda wierd.

      Napster became popular by offering people something for nothing. While a lot of the criticism of the record industry is valid the justification of Napster rapidly became an exercise in rationalisation 'the record industry rips off artists, so I am morally justified in ripping them off as well'.

      The recording industry did not help in their response which completely failed to understand that the principle mechanisms that cause laws to be respected are psychological and not technical.

      However the business plans that Napster dreamt up to 'monetize' the user base they built up were pretty slimy, and it is no suprise that their replacements all specialize in propagating scumware that will report your every move to advertisers (and with the recent Ashcroft changes J. Edgar Mueller's FBI), bring up pop up ads at every turn and redirect your DNS to an Idealab! startup so that if and when new.net goes the way of Pets.com your machine will stop working and you won't know how to fix it.

      Napster as a political statement worked, but as a business it was never going to survive. Even if it had won the copyright case the inevitable outcome would have been a change in copyright law to outlaw their business - which inevitably would contain even more clauses to push copyright law in the direction of Disney and Time Warner against the public interest.

  • (jumps up on soapbox)

    Folks, I am sorry, but Npaster was truly only a place where people stole copyrighted material. The arguements that it helped/hurt the industry do not matter. The arguements that they weren't hurting anyone do not matter.

    Right now sharing music in the way that we want to share software is illegal. There is no musical GPL. Even if there were, the artists who's music we want would not be released under it. Napster could have been a great place for budding artists to get some coverage. Instead it was used to get the Staind tracks onto CD without ever making it to Sam Goody.

    One of the things that would help this community tremendously is to respect the laws and try to get done what needs to be done within the framework of them. Crying out as a group because some poor little business that was struggling along broke a law and that aided in their demise is worthless.

    • Maybe, just maybe, people steal music because it is too expensive in their eyes. I believe (I have no facts to base this on) that many man-hours are spent calculating the right price for music (and other copyrighted material that can be pirated in this fasion) in order to make sure enough people buy the music and few enough people pirate it.

      People ignore the speed limits if they are set "unreasonably" low, and people ignore the copyright law if the copyrighted material is sold at too high a price. This is the way it is going to continue to be. P2P apps are just the latest way for people to break the laws the do not feel are just.

      • Maybe, just maybe, people steal music because it is too expensive in their eyes.

        I really want a Humvee, but I probably couldn't even afford the tires for one. Does that mean it's ok if I just rip one off at the lot?

        Just because it's easy to break a law, does that mean that you should??

        • I really want a Humvee, but I probably couldn't even afford the tires for one. Does that mean it's ok if I just rip one off at the lot?

          This is comparing apples to oranges. When you steal a Humvee, someone will be missing that Humvee. When you share a copyrighted song, no one is missing the song. The record label MAY be missing revenue based on that song, provided that you were going to buy it in the first place. I'm not saying that trading copyrighted MP3s is right (the RIAA certainly doesn't think so), but if you are going to make a "you steal from me" comparison, you need to be using the correct context.

          Oh, and to the original starter of this thread, there is a license for the "GPLing of music": the Open Audio License [eff.org].

          • You're right. A better analogy would be:

            The markup on Humvees is outrageous. They should sell them at cost, or better yet, give them away. That means it's OK for me to drive one off the lot so long as I leave a cheque for the cost of replacing it.
      • If CD's are too expensive, then don't buy em. Instead, buy the music you find acceptably priced. Or listen to the radio where they play music for free.

    • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WebWiz ( 244386 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:27AM (#3630708)
      I'm a songwriter, and I considered Napster to be a really great vehicle to get my music to others that would normally not get the opportunity hear it. I own my music, and I wanted to give it away free. That is my right. Are you telling me that this argument doesn't matter? Also, Napster didn't break "a law". There were no laws governing P2P file sharing technology. The people using Napster and downloading copyrighted material that they DIDN'T ALREADY OWN were the ones breaking the laws. Not the company itself....if I use my Jeep Wrangler as a getaway car in a robbery maybe we should sue Jeep for "Breaking Laws" and giving me the opportunity to commit a crime. Those Vehicle Making Bastards.

      • If you are an artist and want to give away your music, please do so. I never said you couldn't. I am speaking of what the majority use of napster was. If you think it was something other than theft of copyrighted material, you are quite kidding yourself.

        Napster providing the avenue for the theft is an accessory to copyright violation. That is a crime. The getaway car analogy is childish.
        • Napster providing the avenue for the theft is an accessory to copyright violation. That is a crime.

          No it's not. And you can't dismiss the getaway car anology without some justification.

          A better analogy might be firearms. Handguns have legitimate uses, but the primary use is killing people. Now when somebody gets shot with a handgun nobody talks about charging the manufacturer with murder. They do talk about banning handguns.

          Whatever your position on gun-control, that's at least a more reasonably response. If society decides that Napster-like services are bad then it's reasonable to outlaw them. It's not reasonable to hold Napster responsible for all the crimes committed using the technology.

          • "A better analogy might be firearms."

            That analogy falls a little flat in that the gun manufacturer is not party to the event every time a gun is fired. Napster both wrote the software and continued to run the servers.

          • hand gun bans mean one thing...

            the only people left with handguns will be the criminals and the law enforcement agencies....and law enforcement would be greatly outnumbered.

            Napster facilitated copyright violation on their own network daily. They knew about it and did nothing. The software was specifically designed for sharing MP3s. It was then used to share MP3s.
            Illegally.

            It's really the same arguement as whether or not a hosting service is responsible for, say, hosting a kiddie porn site. Should companies be held responsible for the content that they are serving? They ARE making money off of the service, and thereby profiting from an illegal act.
      • if I use my Jeep Wrangler as a getaway car in a robbery maybe we should sue Jeep for "Breaking Laws" and giving me the opportunity to commit a crime.

        FYI - Wranglers make shitty getaway vehicles.

      • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @10:05AM (#3630997)
        "I own my music, and I wanted to give it away free. That is my right. Are you telling me that this argument doesn't matter? Also, Napster didn't break "a law"."

        You're allowed to give your music away. However, the reason Napster was so popular was because of the illegal mp3 trading. There were and are venues (such as mp3.com [mp3.com]) that try and keep things constrained to legal mp3s. Furthermore, the filtering imposed on Napster (which is a big part of what killed it) should've theoretically had a minimal impact on legitimate trading (but unfortunately, the filtering was overly broad). So in reality, the only reason why Napster was a good venue for legitimate trading was because it was using illegitimate trading as a form of marketing/bundling.

        Also, it's my understanding that Napster did get nailed for breaking laws relating to contributory and/or vicarious copyright infringement. These issues were hashed out on Slashdot awhile back. It basically boiled down to Napster being aware of the copyright infringement going on and unwilling take means to stop it when confronted on the issue.

      • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:4, Insightful)

        by xinit ( 6477 ) <rmurray@foo . c a> on Monday June 03, 2002 @10:34AM (#3631252) Homepage
        Yes, but if you drink at a bar, drive, and kill 20 schoolkids, why is the bartender sued?
      • Nobody is claiming that you don't have a right to distribute your own music however you see fit.

        The problem is that you don't own the rights to Metallica's music, and as such don't have the right to decide how they should distribute their music. Now as a consumer you can choose whether or not to give Metallica any money. That is, you can buy the stuff in the manner they choose to distribute it, or you can walk away. That's it, those are your choices.

        Jeep never made the Wrangler with the purpose of being a good getaway car, nor has it ever advertised it's use in this capacity. Your argument in this instance is irrational when compared to the Napster situation.

    • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuationNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:30AM (#3630732)
      Everything Jesus did was illegal.

      The Boston Tea Party was illegal and involved stealing.

      The American Revolution was illegal and would be considered stealing from the king.

      Freeing slaves through the Underground Railroad in the 1800s was also considered stealing and illegal.

      See a pattern here? In the grand scheme of things, history has been determined by those who followed their hearts and did what they felt was right, rather than following the orders of another man.

      • Are you insane? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Gorbie ( 101704 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:40AM (#3630823) Journal
        you are comparing music theft with Jesus' acts, the boston tea party, and the freedon of slaves?

        Thanks for making my point. You really did just fall off the turnip truck.

      • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TWR ( 16835 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @10:08AM (#3631024)
        And the difference between all of these things and Napster?

        Profit.

        Napster's business model was based on stealing. Let me repeat that one more time, just in case you didn't get the point. Napster's business model was based on stealing.

        While it's likely that some of the people on the Underground Railroad were in it for the money, helping slaves isn't usually a prime source of income. You'd think turning water into wine would be a money-maker, but Jesus wasn't trying to undercut Manishewitz. And the Boston Tea Party/American Revolution? Becoming independent nearly bankrupted the colonies/states (and many of the Founding Fathers did indeed die broke). Ever heard that popular expression from the 1790's "not worth a Continental?"

        Napster deserved to go under. It's a shame that BMG has rescued them. Personally, I think it shows that BMG is either pretty stupid (as there is nothing in Napster's technology that couldn't be replicated in a matter of weeks by a competent programmer) or that they have a LOT of money to throw around.

        -jon

        • I guess I'm going to have to be the wiseass who points out that Napster never got anywhere near making a profit.
          • Just because it was a crappy, underpants gnome-esque business model doesn't invalidate my point.

            Napster didn't exist for the Great Unwashed to get music cheap or to free Courtney Love from Universal. It was planning on morphing into a for-pay service using the same stupid business model as every other dot-com: get eyeballs, then charge a price when it seems that people can't live without it. The difference between Napster and, say, Pets.com was that Napster was quite rightfully sued out of existence before they ran out of money.

            -jon

            • Agreed. Napster clearly intended to make money off the work of others. That was the basis of their entire business model.

              I don't understand how people can possibly defend the company's actions. It's like claiming the protection racket of the Mob is an innovative form of insurance.
        • Actually the Boston Tea Party was as much about profit as Napster, and so far the backlash by the controlling parties have been similar as well. Only history will tell if Napster will be one of the battles in the war to free ourselves from copyright. If copyright law is overturned, Napster will be hailed as a heroic effort. If it is not, it will be nothing more than a footnote in history.
        • Napster's business model was based on stealing. Let me repeat that one more time, just in case you didn't get the point. Napster's business model was based on stealing.

          It seems to me that Napster simply provided a service to make easier what was and still is common practice: sharing music. Napster took the practice farther than it had been taken before, and so became a test as to what extent music sharing could be taken and remain acceptable, but it essentially offered nothing that wasn't available before in one form or another.

          Fundamentally, there was nothing immoral or unethical about what Napster did. You, I, and the RIAA may all have our own ideas as to what extent the sharing of music should be tolerated. So did Napster. It appears that, in the U.S., the lower courts didn't agree with Napster. But they didn't endorse the RIAA's or anyone else's vision of what should or shouldn't be allowed either. The question remains unresolved, but certainly Napster served to bring the question into the public eye.

          The aftermath of Napster has brought many public policy questions to the forefront, most of which remain unanswered. While the RIAA may have preferred that the questions remained unasked, I happen to disagree and think that Napster did us a great service by forcing the issue. (The fact that I was able to locate some old tracks that I had until then never been able to find anywhere was a pleasant side benefit.)

          Stealing and theft are heavily loaded terms which imply that one has already made a moral judgement about an issue which is far from cut and dried. Downloading music is only stealing if society collectively decides that it is. And that decision has yet to be made.
      • Well, the problem with this line of reasoning -- comparing something like Napster to so-called "great" political achievements -- is that I'm not certain Napster is pushing any philosophical, civil, or ethical envelopes. Legal, maybe -- but that's about it.

        It's about information sharing, yes. And I'll agree that information sharing is important. But in the grand scheme of things, I'm pretty certain information sharing is not in the same league as civil rights or human freedom. In fact, I *know* it's not the same league -- much as some folks wish it to were so.

        We're still too close to the Napster "revolution" (so-called) to know what exactly happened, but my guess is not much. Not much happened.

        On a more personal note, I'm repulsed by the notion that "Napster" is in the same league as slavery. It's not. Nor is it anything like a legitimate "freedom" struggle. Information is not the same thing as a human being, and the only real "struggle" at work with this P2P stuff is a struggle for control.

        There's nothing particularly interesting, provocative, or important in a struggle that pits big corporate greed against so-called "innocent" youth. The demise of Napster is not even a "triumph of capitalism." Nor is it a "triumph of global corporate control."

        It's really a triumph of nothing. And in light of human rights abuses across the globe -- including abuses here in America -- I'm not sure we can really derive any "lesson" from the demise of Napster except that, well, there's other, more important battles to fight.

        P2P is not a revolution -- not in the sense, at least, that Napster-advocates would like it to be.

        The only "triumph" at work with Napster is the "triumph" of the corporate lawyers. And unless you're one of them, pulling a paycheck from all of this, it's not much of a triumph at all.

      • Everything Jack the Ripper did was illegal. Same goes for Bin Laden.

        Does that make them right?

        Uhhh....

      • Re:It's just a vehicle for theft (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Erasmus Darwin ( 183180 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @10:44AM (#3631335)
        "Everything Jesus did was illegal.
        The Boston Tea Party was illegal and involved stealing.        "

        Sure, and everything that Albert Fish, Ed Gein, and Paul Bernardo did was illegal, too. That doesn't mean it was right.

        In this case of copyright law, there's this great notion that if you don't agree, you can just refuse to play the game. Just as Richard M. Stallman takes a strong position against commercial software without resorting to piracy, you can elect to only download music from artists who make it freely available. Even better is the fact that you don't have to worry about the interoperability concerns that plague the software realm of this issue -- there's no real equivalent to someone emailing you an MSWord document.

      • See a pattern here?

        Yeah, I see you trying to justify your actions in your own mind by recalling past examples that really don't have a thing to do with the Napster situation. Oh I know, you're "fighting the good fight" against greedy corporations looking to take away your rights. Let's see if I can clarify it further for you:

        Jesus - Religious Freedom, Equality of Man
        Boston Tea Party - Taxation without Representation
        American Revolution - Same thing, freedom from tyranny
        Freeing Slaves - Equality of Man
        Napster - You getting music (a luxury item) for free.

        "One of these things ain't quite like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong." But whatever helps you sleep at night I guess.
    • There is no musical GPL.

      Ok, well, it may not be the music you want, but I've released quite a bit of music under the OAL [eff.org], and I've actually had quite a few people interested in using it. But then again, those people actually play music.

      And besides, people often cite the Free nature of OSS as evidence of it's poor quality, and that certainly is not the case.

    • I think the big point is missing, this vehicle of theft was more adeptly used to fleece investors out of their money so certain executives could rake in the bucks using a business plan they knew was illegal.

      Essentially, get loads of cash from an IPO, hold out in court till you can sell, and then say "oh well"
    • ask john mayer and his "napster song"

      of course, he'll soo be on tour near you, so check out his show, whereever you are.
    • One of the things that would help this community tremendously is to respect the laws and try to get done what needs to be done within the framework of them. Crying out as a group because some poor little business that was struggling along broke a law and that aided in their demise is worthless.

      It's right it's currently illegal.

      Have you ever asked yourself who makes the laws? And what purpose they serve?

      Actually we the citizens make the laws! Not directly altough, we elect our representative who make the laws, _for_ _us_. Their purpose is to serve the community, and rule in favor for the whole community. They should be the way it is best for us.

      Now for copyright law we should ask ourselfs if they are the best thing. Would there be more creativity if they were (only a bit) looser? Would we all benefit from laws beeing benefit, or would we suffer from an other understand?

      Laws should be not the way they are, but the way they should be for us.

      Honestly from my point of view, I don't see why I should pay 20$ for a CD so micheal jackson can have his 10th nose operation, while thousends of backstage bands suffer turning every cent three times. Sometimes I ask myself where those that money really go to? CD Manufacturing costs say 1$, 2$ if you produce very low quantities. Now the artist gets how much 5%? I've heared it's even less. Now what happens with the 15$ remaining? (counted generous for the real expenses). Should I pay for it?

      I'll happily say pay 5$ for a sampler. Since it is also work to download and costs bandwith. But never (okay seldom) the 20-25$ they want from me!
      • I totally agree, and yes, I have asked myself about the law making process.

        We, the people, have the power to speak freely, exert influence, and vote. That can influence the lawmakers. I vote with my dollars, and if I think something is unreasonably priced, I don't buy it. I vote in elections and chose the people that I think will make an effort to make the right laws.

        If more needs to be done, then please get on with it. I am happy voting for now, with dollars and at the ballot box.

    • *sigh*
      • (jumps up on soapbox) Folks, I am sorry, but Npaster was truly only a place where people stole copyrighted material.

      Before Napster, I scoured FTP sites for what I wanted. There were even search engines for it.

      You appear to be attacking a name (Napster) rather than a concept - which is exactly why efforts to remove the concept are destined to fail.

    • You are correct in identifying a legal vacuum. You are wrong with your moral verdict of theft.

      The intention of copyright was to allow creators of content to make a profit for a limted time. Somehow during the fascinating evolution of our legal system it has turned into a tool for allowing corporations to exploit artistic works indefinately, throwing scraps at the original creators. Especially in the music branch, artists rarely have the copyright for their own work.

      Now technology has blown up the copyright system. Though still legally enforcible, it is technically infeasible to enforce it. Copyright owners have only two options left: sueing users of such technology and sueing creators of technology. Right now the focus is on the latter. However, this is increasingly difficult due to the distributed nature of both development and usage of the technology.

      Take Gnutella for example. There is no owner of the protocol, there are multiple implementations of the protocol, some of which have no single, identifiable owner (i.e. are open source). By design, the protocol does not depend on a central server node.

      However, Gnutella makes it dead easy to identify users. Technical solutions (e.g. freenet) to that problem are under construction and will likely be adopted rapidly should the music industry ever decide to focus on users of p2p technology.

      What follows from this is that copyright increasingly is a legal utopia. The intentions of the law are noble (allowing an artist to exploit his work), the legal practice is much less noble (corporations pull in the money) and the practicle enforcement is becoming impossible.

      Respect for laws is certainly noble but without the technical tools to back it up it won't work. Rather an ecomomic model needs to be found where providers and consumers of art forms such as music can live happily together. Such an economic model won't include a middle man (sorry RIAA) since there is no technical need for such a middle man.

      Right now the middle men are in a state of denial which results in attempts to regulate technology, flawed designs for copy protection technology (all ignore the rule that if it's playable it is inherently recordable) and amusing fuckups (sony copy protection bypassed with a post-it note). The ultimate result will be that some will adapt to the new situation and some will perish.

      Real artists do not perform for money in the first place. For example Van Gogh died as a poor man and I don't think Mozart was a multi billionaire either.

    • Folks, I am sorry, but Npaster was truly only a place where people stole copyrighted material. The arguements that it helped/hurt the industry do not matter. The arguements that they weren't hurting anyone do not matter.

      Bullshit. You cannot steal copyrighted material, it is not physical. You can only infringe on copyrights. As Jack Valenti, head of the MPAA, admitted in the VCR court proceedings, him and his family do it and it is ok because they are consumers.


      One of the things that would help this community tremendously is to respect the laws and try to get done what needs to be done within the framework of them.

      We don't have the money to buy the neccesary senators. The government has been bought out by a mafia linked cartel and sold our american freedoms to the highest bidder.

      This country was founded on the principles of democracy and the equality of mankind, principles that have been eroded over time by the inclusion of big money into major party...oh, look...

      FlaskMPEG just finished encoding, I gotta go clean up the video stream and slash commercials.

      Later.

  • So? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 72beetle ( 177347 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:11AM (#3630601) Homepage
    Don't tell me nobody didn't see this coming - the innovator is rarely the successful party in any technology leap, usually it's the follow-ups that jump on the bandwagon and streamline/fine tune a process that make the big bucks.

    Napster paved the way for P2P, but really, who thought they'd get rich doing it? Well, besides Shawn Fanning, anyway.

    -72
    • Actually, Shawn Fanning could still get rich. He just needs to write a book about the rise and fall of Napster. Give it a catchy title and make sure it doesn't sound like 3 years olds ramblings that should have been scrawled out in crayon, and he'd probably sell a few hundred thousand copies.

    • Don't tell me nobody didn't see this coming

      I ain't never gonna not tell you somthin' that won't never happen, noways.

  • FTP has now been banned under the DMCA since it can be used to distribute copyrighted material.

  • Chapter 11 is for protection of their assets (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fly ( 18255 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:16AM (#3630639) Homepage
    The Chapter 11 filing was part of the deal to sell to BMG. It protects Napster from its creditors since I presume BMG didn't want to buy Napster only to have people taking pieces of it while they work towards a transition.

    If you recall, K-Mart has also filed [cnn.com] for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to protect them from their creditors while they attemp to reorganize into a profitable company.

    Filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy does not mean that the company is gone or is no longer operating. In the case of Napster, the great levels of piracy ended long before today.

  • Personally this is my two cents. I really could care less to see napster go. I buy my music, because i like collecting CD's and records. The only reasoned I cared at all about napster is because when it came out. I found it was an awesome way to find new music i hadn't heard... preview it in good quality, listen for a while make sure I wouldn't get bored, then I BOUGHT THE DAMN CD! Alas, I know I am one of the few people who used napster that actually ended up buying more CD's because of it. Thats because radio in this day and age, at least where i lived, which is philadelphia, sucked and still does, and is one sided. BUT that is a whole other rant for a whole other topic.

    Anyway so Napster is gone.. I'll just have to go back to free previews on www.cdnow.com to figure out if I like new music that i want to buy.
    • <sarcasm>
      Somebody please delete this post. According to Rosen people like the one above don't exist. Note that

      " I buy my music, because i like collecting CD's and records"

      We all know that NOBODY that uses Napster buys music because it is a den of thieves and lowlifes... I know this because the RIAA told me so

      Also..

      " I found it was an awesome way to find new music i hadn't heard... "

      This is another fallacy. The only music that you find on Napster is copyrighted, pirated, ripped illegal music. Music that you hear on the radio, media pressed, mainstreamed music. You don't find any other kind of music on Napster but illegal music. I know this because the RIAA told me so.

      so either this guy above doesn't exist... or the RIAA has been lying to me. And I trust the RIAA
      </sarcasm>

  • The Music Industry has Lost (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:23AM (#3630690) Journal
    With the Recent court ruling in the netherlands that Kazaa cannot be held reponsible for the actions of it's users, the Music industry has lost.

    They will never again have the opportunity that they let slip through their fingers because they killed Napster. Napster had the widest selection where anyone could find anything, and it worked well. They threw away the opportunity of a lifetime because they got greedy.

    Instead of working out a system where they could have gotten paid something somehow, they grasped for millions, throwing away billions

    It is a typical case of the big fish in the small pond fearing the ocean

    There will probably never be the same chance to create a market and integrate it all into one service again.

    There was a pretty good interview with John Lanning on CnetRadio [cnetradio.com] that is worth listening, goes into the history, and where he sees things going from here.

    • Re:The Music Industry has Lost (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ooblek ( 544753 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:35AM (#3630782)
      ith the Recent court ruling in the netherlands that Kazaa cannot be held reponsible for the actions of it's users, the Music industry has lost.

      Don't count on that. They still have more money and time to throw at the problem. My guess is that they will do so, at whatever level it takes. They are a big part of the US economy, so I would guess there will be some sort of political pressure through treaties or something.

      For now, though, the seas are open and there is loot to be reaped.....er, music to be downloaded.

  • When Taco Doesn't Even Read The Article...Sheesh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:25AM (#3630703) Homepage Journal
    Bertelsmann stepped in on May 17 with $8 million to buy Napster's assets. As part of that agreement, Napster was to seek bankruptcy protection and emerge as a wholly-owned unit of Europe's second- largest media group.

    Chapter 11 means protection from creditors while reorganizing, which has been the plan. They're not shut down, they've not gone away, they're just shifting debt around and restructuring (i.e. laying off any worker bees left, negotiating terms on debt payment, etc.)

    This is hardly a surprise, nor the end of Napster. The only effect against "music piracy" is that Napster, under BMG's thumb, will simply be a store front for their products. In a way, similar to what the Mega-swill Brewers did 10-15 years ago, buying up all those threatening little micro-brews and screwing up their distribution to preserve market for the highly profitable [yecch] that they sell (i.e. you don't become billionaires without putting rice in your mash instead of expensive barley.)

  • What is stealing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nukeade ( 583009 )
    Sure, Napster has gone bankrupt because the efforts of a typically greedy industry, but don't side with their "moral" argument and accuse me or Napster of stealing MP3s. I never stole anything. I copied someone else's zeroes and ones, and zeroes and ones are not music until you interpret them. In fact, I could interpret them in any way I want to. Go ahead and argue that I was in fact always and exclusively interpreting them as musicm but the fact remains: they will never, ever be the music exactly, they will always be a digital approximation, however convincing it is. I will not agree with the stealing argument until the RIAA defines clearly what the music is and what is stealing them. By their argument, am I stealing the song if I sing it? That's an approximation too. You'd have to plug the analog hole in my head and stop me from thinking of the song after listening to it. How close to the song does the approximation have to be until it is considered to be the song? And what defines the song? Is the song zeroes and ones? No, it's a pattern of sound waves reaching my head, but the pattern is never the same as it was in the studio on a digital approximation. What if these zeroes and ones can be interpreted to be the music in mp3 format, but if I change the extension to .doc and open it in word, it's really an informative paper? If you allow people to copyright digital approximations of a song, you effectively allow people to own numbers, which are a natural phenomenon. Look at the case of the people who wanted to translate their DNA sequences into MP3 format for the same degree of copyright protection. You might as well copyright air if you are going to say, "This, and anything I decide is arbitrarily similar to this in a specific interpretation is mine!"

    The fact is, stealing is a fuzzy line when you speak in terms of zeroes and ones, and what music is. I believe that due to this argument, the music industry has no choice but to adapt to use file sharing to its benefit, and the RIAA is working against consumer and its own interests in this case.

    Hilary Rosen, shut your analog hole.

    ~Ben
  • located at news.com. [com.com] It's quick and to the point.

  • lame slashdot editor's comment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by astrashe ( 7452 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @09:44AM (#3630855) Journal
    Whatever you think about Napster, the editor's comment on this story is lame.

    Putting a murderer in jail doesn't put a stop to all murders. Does that mean it's a waste of time?

    We're blowing this argument, and when we lose, everyone's going to blame the record companies, but it's going to be our own fault.

    Defending stealing is wrong, and as much as everyone likes free stuff, it's just not possible that the "stealing is ok" argument is going to fly in the courts and in congress over the long run.

    The other lame argument that people make is that "the record companies would be better off if they allowed sharing." Maybe. Probably not. But the point is that it's their property, and they get to decide what to do with it.

    There are two issues on the table. The one that everyone talks about is piracy. There's no way to win this in the law, although technology will probably make it possible to steal music and share it over the net for the foreseeable future.

    The other one, and the one that is winnable, is about whether or not there will be open electronic distribution systems. Right now entertainment companies control distribution, and that's how they make their money.

    Movie studios make money by controlling access to the multiplexes -- indpendent films have to make "distribution" deals if they want to be seen. And if you want your CD in the Virgin Megastore, you've got to cut a deal with a big label. That's the toll booth.

    The entertainment companies are using the piracy issue to cover up their other agenda, which is to avoid open distribution at all costs.

    And their biggest allies aren't corrupt senators, they're whiny assholes with a sense of entitlement, sitting on their asses, believing that the world owes them free eminem records.

    The arguments for stealing marginalizes the people who make it. It marginalizes the public's interest. It's suicidal politically and morally bankrupt.

    Take my karma. I don't care.
    • "Movie studios make money by controlling access to the multiplexes"

      Actually they make most of their money on VHS and DVD releases. They recoup their costs, pretty much, with the theatrical releases, and the video releases is all profit.

      Ironic that Jack Valenti was convinced that VHS would be the death of the movie industry, which now, apparently, is the primary vehicle sustaining it.

    • But the point is that it's their property, and they get to decide what to do with it.

      Except once they sell it to me, it becomes my property. That's what selling means.

      Of course, we have copyright laws to make sure I don't sell multiple copies of the work, but within those laws, it's my property, and I get to decide what to do with it.
      • You're confusing the tangible medium with the expression contained therein. You can't distribute the latter independent of the former.
      • What does that have to do with Napster?

        I'm not saying that the RIAA is right across the board -- far from it. They are evil leeches. Fair use should be protected.

        The only way they look good is when they're standing next to apolgists for theft.
    • "Defending stealing is wrong"

      Bullshit. Stealing is wrong. "Defending stealing" is free speech. "Prosecuting fair use" is wrong...

    • You make a lot of good points and they're all points that have been made before.

      The way I see it is that it all comes down to the age old argument "guns don't kill people, people kill people".

      You can say all you want about Napster's intent but the fact is that intent usually doesn't come into play in U.S law. There was a case a year or so ago about a guy who wrote a parody or a satire about the Church of Scientology. Well they took the guy to court and won because despite the guy's intent and the context in which his parody was used, what he said was considered a threat and was therefore illegal.

      The same thing can be applied to Napster but in this case I don't think Napster was doing anything illegal.

      They provided a way in which people could share mp3 files. Sure they're intent may have been for you to grab the latest Staind songs and burn them to CD but using the case I described above intent has nothing to do with the law and I have yet to read a law where it says that royalties must be payed on all mp3 files regardless of who owns the copyright!

      The fact is that it's entirely up to the users as to wether the mp3 files that they download are copyrighted by someone who demands royalties on them. I know that Napster got burned because they lmiited their system to audio files only but I'm baffled at how the courts can look at that as illegal because as I just stated there is no law which states that all audio files are property of the RIAA so you're really alienating the users who use the system legitimately regardless of how small that user base may be.

      When intent is taken into consideration in the judicial system then you can burn Napster for intending to violate copyright but for now it was just a tool.

      And just for the record I don't miss Napster. I used it for a bit but I don't care now that's it's gone. I'm not defending them because I want to see them thrive I'm defending them because I don't see why what they did is illegal (but I'm not a laywer so what do I know?). If they were still around and just as popular as they were 2 years ago I would not use it.

      To shamelessly quote Dennis Miller: "Of course this is just my opinion I could be wrong".

      --
      Garett
      • As a matter of fact. "intent" plays a HUGE role in US law. That's the difference between murder and manslaughter. Napsters "intent" was to give away commercial music for free. That was their advertising slogan and they even wrote a theme song about it! They bragged that you wouldn't have to wade through tons of indie and unknown trash to find the good stuff.

        Napster was special in that they intended to distribute other people's copyrighted works for free. They were no Morpheous or Kazaa. They were guilty as hell from day one.
    • There are two issues on the table. The one that everyone talks about is piracy. There's no way to win this in the law, although technology will probably make it possible to steal music and share it over the net for the foreseeable future.
      The other one, and the one that is winnable, is about whether or not there will be open electronic distribution systems. Right now entertainment companies control distribution, and that's how they make their money.

      Bingo! We all know that the Piracy stuff is grossly overstated by content distributors, but we also know that full-fledged Piracy does take place, but doesn't effect* sales to the extent that the distributors contend. We also know that there is no practical solution to the problem.

      But the Powers That Be are anxious to do anything to make it look like they're being useful. Any action is better than no action in their eyes.

      Content companies are using the Piracy problem as an excuse to make proposals that secure a government-sanctioned oligopoly on content distribution on the Internet. AOLTW and Sony and Disney get to distribute conetent, and you don't if you don't have their blessing. Ever. Preventing Piracy is just a smokescreen. Anyone who whines about Napster or Fair Use without making this point will simply get ignored.

      * = affect or effect? I always get them confused...

  • "God of puppets"

    Only one song on the CD will be worth listening to.

  • Libraries completely killed the book publishers... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @10:06AM (#3631006) Homepage

    "Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better."

    Remember what happened when Carnegie endowed thousands of libraries across the United States? Well, people could then get their books free! And the obvious thing happened: The book publishing industry never sold another book, except to libraries.

    Not!

    Then there was that second socially destructive technological advance, TV. Once people could get their entertainment at home, and without paying extra, the movie industry almost completely disappeared, except for sales to TV broadcasters.

    Not!

    Well, the movie industry was already dead, of course, but another technological advance, the VCR, killed it again. When people found that they could record perfectly good movies on video tape, they stopped paying for movies! It was completely logical and understandable that this would happen.

    Not!

    The fact is, no one completely understands the issues surrounding intellectual property. We can't write a good law if we don't understand. Someone must sit down and do the thinking, and the thinking hasn't been finished.

    The music industry is so abusive that I tend to stay away from music. I find that, when I have access to free music (tapes and CDs from the library), I become interested in a particular type of music and buy more, not less. Maybe there are a lot of people like me, because, during the height of Napster, the U.S. music industry had its best year.
    • It's funny how libraries are rarely attacked, because the industry probably knows that if they did that, there's no way they could get their agenda through. Libraries offer more than books, most offer videos, cds, dvds, magazines, etc. for to people to borrow for free.

      I'm glad that libraries are more protected that most places; especially with that required censorship bill being shot down a few days ago. (Although it will probably show up in the Supreme Court).

      Without libraries I would have never learned how to code or read 1/2 the books I read. Many of which I now own, because they were such good books I wanted to be able to read them again and share them with other people such as my family or kids someday.
  • this one has been beaten to death.

    Can we find a new joke to make for any "death of Napster/Gnutella/KaZaa/P2P" news?

    -jon

  • I've been using AudioGalaxy, but I just read they are going to be sued, and presumably go under soon.

    What is the easiest way to get MP3's now that doesn't have a company that can be sued?
  • Couldn't they just release all their code to the public as their strategy for restructuring? Making Napster's configuration to allow for your choice of a server would be great, and if Napster sold the "server" for $100 or something, think of how many non-US servers would pop up.

  • Here's the thing; Napster isn't filing for bankruptcy as a result of government oppression or RIAA meddling or anything of the sort. They were simply a neat idea with no business merit at all. Napster:TOG was neat, and it was free... Maybe under the mistaken theory that they could get people addicted and then start charging $5 a month to the junkies to get access to the network. Not a workable solution, as we've all seen in the past, as free service after free service folded. They'd begin to realize that buying $5000 laptops for all their staff and cool cars for the execs didn't help the bottom line when there was no revenue at all. Ah, the post-IPO spending sprees.... Napster:TNG stood no better chance of making money. They were pinning everything on the BMG deal at the end, and as anyone knows, if your company only has one client, you're that client's bitch. N:TNG was effectively what resulted when the government and industry forced the company into the "charging" stage of a failing dot.com. Don't kid yourself that they'd have done alright if they'd been left to their own devices and moved to a subscription model on their own timing. People get pissy when they have to start paying for something that's always been free... Paying for Slashdot yet?

  • Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better.

    Yeah and it's a good thing we caught Timothy McVeigh, cause now there's no more terrorism in America.

  • My how the times have changed. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bons ( 119581 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @12:22PM (#3632104) Homepage Journal
    "Thank god the industry shut them down... now that piracy has been stopped they can all sleep much better."

    It seems to be a far cry from the old days when the free software/open source movements were about letting the creators of a work choose the license and the distribution methods.

    Apparently, some of us have decided that that is a freedom that should be reserved for some of us, and not for everyone.

    If the large corporations in the music industry want to limit their distribution method and use antiquated licenses, we should respect their decision. They do not have a monopoly on music. There are alternatives and just as the open source community would prefer people using open source software, other musicians would like to get their music heard.

    For once, lets consider treating others the way we want to be treated.

  • turn coat's burn me up (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DEFFENDER ( 469046 ) on Monday June 03, 2002 @02:25PM (#3633161)
    well all is said and done for the people that dont understand that chapter 11's can be a blessing to a company. if you dont have enough money to run the company you go chapter 11 and you have a slime chance but you do have a chance to bounch back. microsoft crony's and the like that want it to be all done and over with are sending out the message the Napster is done for. go to http://www.business.gov/busadv/frame.cfm?urltest=h ttp://www.inc.com/incmagazine/archives/09930861.ht ml&catid=365&urlplace=maincat.cfm
    to read more.

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