today's news
j. alfred prufrock
bo...@ecru.propagation.net
"This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
Todd Morman
"This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
No it isn't. If Xerox were hyping copiers as a great way to get whole books
without paying for them, and 70% of Xerox's business came from people who
use the site just for that purpose, then you might have a point.
todd and yes I signed the boycott morman
Duncan Murrell
photocopying machine?
Duncan
>I think one of my friends said it best:
>
>"This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
>
bo...@ecru.propagation.net
on Napster, but hard to copy a whole novel on a photocopier, one is more
or less "right" than the other.
Bo
Duncan Murrell
Napster is "like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books," or
whether that's just a rhetorical strawman masquerading as an argument. For
years, authors, publishers and other copyright holders have tolerated a
certain amount of copyright violation on photocopiers because it's too rare
to be a threat to revenue and royalties. If millions of people started to
routinely using Xerox machines to photocopy books and distribute them, you
can bet your ass that publishers (and quite a few authors) would be
screaming for regulation on Xerox. But millions of people don't use Xerox
machines to copy and distribute books _specifically_ because it's too hard
and expensive.
But no one said anything about one being more or less "right" than the other.
Duncan
bo...@ecru.propagation.net
itself at all. Napster the company, that is. Napster the phenomenon hypes
itself as a way to get music for free, but Napster the company is not
responsible for Napster the phenomenon. Really. It isn't. Not legally.
All Napster the company did was create a nice, searchable interface for
peer-to-peer file sharing. All Xerox did was create a nice, easy way to
copy a piece of paper. If you use that interface/machine to do something
illegal, that is no one's fault but your own.
Bo
Ross Grady
specifically oriented towards file-sharing of MP3s. Kind of like if
Xerox, for example, built a copier that would pick up the book & turn
the pages for you as it copied . . .
--
------> http://metalab.unc.edu/ch-scene <------
the alt.music.chapel-hill guide to the triangle
--> "like sick cats running over hot coals" <--
Matt Brown
>Reply-To: ch-s...@lyris.unc.edu
>Subject: RE: today's news
>Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 16:09:26 -0500 (CDT)
>
>But Napster doesn't hype itself that way. Actually, Napster doesn't >hype
>itself at all. Napster the company, that is. Napster the >phenomenon
>legally.
No, they didn't do anything to hype themselves. The Venture Capital
just fell outta the sky and IPO's really, just materialize. You don't have
to do *anything* to go public.
Sorry, i'm all for sharing files but these Napster folks should be
drawn.
brown
>All Napster the company did was create a nice, searchable interface for
>peer-to-peer file sharing. All Xerox did was create a nice, easy way to
>copy a piece of paper. If you use that interface/machine to do something
>illegal, that is no one's fault but your own.
>
>Bo
>
>
>On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Todd Morman wrote:
>
> > Bo quoted a pal:
> >
> > "This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
> >
> > No it isn't. If Xerox were hyping copiers as a great way to get whole
>books
> > without paying for them, and 70% of Xerox's business came from people
>who
> > use the site just for that purpose, then you might have a point.
> >
> > todd and yes I signed the boycott morman
> >
>
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Karen Mann
Really? Why? Is it because they're a middleman? Do you feel the same way
about Gnutella and the other file-sharing programs? If not, why not?
I've never used Napster, but my general feeling is this: If decades of
cassette copying haven't killed the music industry, file copying won't do it
either. (And if it does, a better system may well emerge.) If the music
industry can find a way to embrace this technology rather than attempting to
erase it (which shutting down Napster won't do), they might actually
increase their profits by getting the music to more people.
KM
Ross Grady
people, and I have to say that I find the knee-jerk reactions of all the
'net progressives to be a little bit absurd--they're behaving as if this
is some huge watershed case and if Napster loses, we're all going to be
privacy-invaded & internet-taxed and yadda yadda.
The fact is that Napster is designed specifically, and used almost
exclusively, for wholesale copyright violation. Plain and simple. If the
'net progressives don't like the copyright laws, then more power to
them, let them work to repeal them in congress, or challenge them in
court (though I would hope they'd do it a bit more intelligently than
Napster has). But getting all righteous and pretending peoples' "rights"
are being trampled is just ludicrous and it makes me feel pretty
unsupportive.
And the counter-argument ("well, the music industry has stolen from
artists for years") is just as bad.
However, in reading between all those lines, I've gotten one clear
message from a lot of people, which is "I'd be willing to pay something
for MP3s I like, if I felt the artist were going to actually see even
10% of the damn money." The kids using Napster may or may not be willing
or able to articulate it, but there has apparently been a huge
semi-conscious public awakening, finally, to the fact that the Music
Industry pays the artists dead last, after every possible other leech
has taken their share.
Which is kind of cool.
Seems to me that fairly quickly now (1-2 years) we're going to have a
bunch of artists running their own websites, releasing songs in, say
FM-quality MP3 format (~64k) for free, and then selling the high-res
versions (preferably *real* high-res, as in 24/96 uncompressed .wav
files) for a buck a song or something like that. Hopefully these damn
Napster kids will be old enough to afford a decent hi-fi setup and be
able to tell the obvious difference between a 64k MP3 and a real hi-res
version. But if they can't, then how is that different from them taping
a song off the FM radio anyway?
Don't ask me who'll service radio (or, more to the point, who'll wade
through the hundreds of unsolicited emailed MP3s that'll be washing up
on our e-shores) because I don't know, but I assume the independent
promoters will still have jobs. I assume a lot of the Industry
infrastructure will still exist, but as independent contractors,
contracting to artists to provide their services for a flat fee or a
small percentage.
So if it took Napster to wake the kids up to some kind of consciousness
about the absurdity of $19 list price CDs (or to move them to coherent
protest) then more power to the kids. But I see no reason to defend
Napster the company, who are just in it to make a buck from ripping off
artists. They're no different than the Industry they're being sued by.
Ross
Ross Grady
Now, what if millions of people download Steven King's new novel & don't
pay? Oh yeah, he's already figured that out: he's only selling one
chapter at a time, and if enough folks pay for the first one, he'll
release the second one. Kinda interesting paradigm, doncha think,
especially in the context of this discussion . . . ?
--
Bo Williams
technical limitation on it such that it can only be used for mp3s. It was a
completely arbitrary decision- as easy to change as changing a ".mp3" to a
".*" in the code.
I'll argue about Napster for days, btw, because I still haven't made up my
mind, myself, about the whole thing.
Bo
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ross Grady" <gr...@metalab.unc.edu>
To: "Chapel Hill Music Lovers" <ch-s...@listserv.unc.edu>
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: today's news
> But you're not exactly right. It's a nice searchable interface
> specifically oriented towards file-sharing of MP3s. Kind of like if
> Xerox, for example, built a copier that would pick up the book & turn
> the pages for you as it copied . . .
>
> bo...@ecru.propagation.net wrote:
> >
> > But Napster doesn't hype itself that way. Actually, Napster doesn't hype
> > itself at all. Napster the company, that is. Napster the phenomenon
hypes
> > itself as a way to get music for free, but Napster the company is not
> > responsible for Napster the phenomenon. Really. It isn't. Not legally.
> >
> > All Napster the company did was create a nice, searchable interface for
> > peer-to-peer file sharing. All Xerox did was create a nice, easy way to
> > copy a piece of paper. If you use that interface/machine to do something
> > illegal, that is no one's fault but your own.
> >
> > Bo
> >
> > On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, Todd Morman wrote:
> >
> > > Bo quoted a pal:
> > >
> > > "This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
> > >
> > > No it isn't. If Xerox were hyping copiers as a great way to get whole
books
> > > without paying for them, and 70% of Xerox's business came from people
who
> > > use the site just for that purpose, then you might have a point.
> > >
> > > todd and yes I signed the boycott morman
> > >
>
Duncan Murrell
The New York Review of Books about the future of book publishing, an
article that people in the industry have been talking about (and Xeroxing,
probably) for months. It's a long article, but it might also be a useful
way of looking at the future of music. (Epstein is a crotchety old Random
House editor known for his bad attitude toward the industry, which makes
his optimism about its future quite remarkable.)
http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWfeatdisplay.cgi?20000427055F
Duncan
Ross Grady
like making a Xerox machine with a big sign on it that says "book
copying only!" They're just kind of dumb, in the way that any company
based around a piece of software written by a bored college sophomore is
going to be kind of dumb. ;-)
Bo Williams
in the way that any argument propogated by so many college sophomores is
going to be kind of dumb. =)
The thing is, I have yet to see *anyone* formulate an argument as to whether
Napster is a good or bad thing. Knee jerk arguments all around. I still say
that just because it's not efficient to copy a book with a Xerox machine
doesn't mean that the possibility exists, and thus there is precedent. I
still say that just because something makes a violation of the law possible,
that does not mean the enabler violates the law. Other than that, it's
anybody's game.
I mean, Macrovision. DVD encryption schemes (given, you've got the whole
DeCSS thing going on there, and that wasn't even about copying). The real
question is why was the RIAA stupid enough to approove a digital medium with
absolutely no copyright protection? They get what they deserved, in my
opinion.
And quit bitching about the artists. Everyone knows, and this whole fiasco
is making eminently clear, that the music business has never been about the
artists. Everyone would get way more money if it costs 50 cents to exchange
a song through Napster and we just stopped selling CDs altogether.
Ross Grady
> And quit bitching about the artists. Everyone knows, and this whole fiasco
> is making eminently clear, that the music business has never been about the
> artists. Everyone would get way more money if it costs 50 cents to exchange
> a song through Napster and we just stopped selling CDs altogether.
>
And I think I addressed this point at some length in another post. But I
don't *want* to "quit bitching about the artists" because it's still
their fucking art and it's about goddamn time somebody bitched about
them. You know? It's real easy to talk about how silly it is to stop
person X from copying 1s and 0s freely if they're in one sequence, but
not if they're in another sequence. It's a little harder, and more
important, to talk about whether we as a culture believe that the
average musician is overcompensated or undercompensated, and what we as
a culture believe music to be worth to us.
I say: stop bitching about abstract silly stuff like the freedom of the
internet and the inevitability of piracy in a digital age, and talk
about whether or not we as a culture want to literally pay the piper,
and how much, and whether the piper wants to continue to play now that
the writing is on the wall.
Ross
Marty Cassady
>When was the last time you, or anyone you know, copied a whole novel on a
>photocopying machine?
Probably about 5 minutes ago, someplace in China. More likely, it was
an American engineering textbook that sells for $100 at US university
bookstores. Before long it'll be available at shops there for US$10 or
less. (My brother the engineering prof hipped me to this practice. His
Asian students turn up with bootleg textbooks all the time.)
As for the Napster thing, read this:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index.html
It's a piece by Courtney Love (!) that's actually quite interesting.
---------
Marty Cassady
Carrboro NC USA
mc...@mindspring.com
j. alfred prufrock
> Probably about 5 minutes ago, someplace in China.
that and anything else reproducible in any form by any means.
my favorites are the vcd's of first run movies that sell for the
equivalent of $2 in any south asian market. somebody goes into a theater
with a video camera, tapes the whole movie, the tape is then encoded
into avi or whatever, and a cd burned of the files. periodically you
will see the shadow of someone walking in front of the screen to go get
popcorn. cover art is xerox reproduction of a photo of the movie poster.
love comes out the eject chute.
3
J. Winfrey
>> But you're not exactly right. It's a nice searchable interface
>> specifically oriented towards file-sharing of MP3s. Kind of like if
>> Xerox, for example, built a copier that would pick up the book & turn
>> the pages for you as it copied . . .
>>
kind of like those things that shoot steel out of their
snouts...definitely not created to cause harm...when's the last time
Smith & Wesson went to court for the thieving of lives?
You'd think that the courts would have more pressing issues to attend
to.
Napster is your friend, if it's not, it's you own damn fault.
S. Warner
"Ross Grady" <gr...@metalab.unc.edu> wrote in message
news:398200F8...@metalab.unc.edu...
(snap)
>Hopefully these damn
> Napster kids will be old enough to afford a decent hi-fi setup and be
> able to tell the obvious difference between a 64k MP3 and a real hi-res
> version.
I'm not holding my breath on that one. Most of all the shit that's coming
out DDD or 24/96 is that garage-y drums, blistering heavy-thunka guitar, and
screaming vocals that sound like they were coming out of a guitar amp- Not
to mention the horrible clipping from the 'louder is better' school of
thought (Chilli Peppers' latest immediately comes to mind) that plagues the
labels and radio stations (well, commercial ones anyway).
I think MP3s sound fine in the car; error correction and road noise mucking
it up anyway. But I hate MP3 in a decent listening environment. However,
judging from the corrupted tracks that I have downloaded from Napster, half
these folks don't understand a thing about digital audio. Some folks can't
even be bothered to get the frikkin' titles right. I see a general lowering
of standards here. And I can hear it as well.
My hope for all this is some kind of quasi-revolution that benefits the
recording artists. I still think we need labels; but, this time, the labels
have become victims of their own bullshit.
> But if they can't, then how is that different from them taping
> a song off the FM radio anyway?
Taping??? What's that?
-Scott
Ludkmr
>Napster is a good or bad thing.
Ok, I'll try. The whole Napster debate is good because:
It gets people thinking about large companies owning artists' creations and the
whole trainload of inequities in the music industry. Napster's challenge
underscores that most artists loose their works because to make it, the majors
screw them to the wall.
I agree that Napster is probably not legal Title 17 wise because they are
overtly facilitating reproduction of copyrighted works. But, in challenging
their business model, the music industry exposes the unfairness of their own.
kmr
Thad Anderson
"However, judging from the corrupted tracks that I have
downloaded from Napster, half these folks don't understand a
thing about digital audio. Some folks can't even be bothered to
get the frikkin' titles right. I see a general lowering of
standards here. And I can hear it as well."
That's funny - I find that annoying, too. Last time I was on
Napster, there were at least four different attempts at naming
David Bowie's "Space Oddity", including "Major Tom" and "Space
Odyssey".
Other things I don't like about Napster (some of them obvious):
1) The death of the "album". You don't get the full concept
behind an album if you're only downloading some of the songs,
and even then, unless you play them in order, you don't really
get the full picture. I'm not just talking high-minded attempts
at "concept albums" - on any good album, at least some thought
went into making sure there's continuity. I've always been
fascinated with the way bands/artists sequence albums.
2) The loss of graphic art. I like album art - even if its
shitty, you have something you can visually link to the music,
instead of just a file on your screen that says "01 - David
Bowie - Space Oddity_mp3". Or if its a band someone's only
vaugely familar with, they can say "Which Melvins album is that
song on? The one with the cartoon of the kids on it?".
3) More time on this damn computer I'm sitting at, which is very
similar to the one I use at all day at work. If live concert
simulcasts catch on maybe we won't have to go out of the house
again ever! I guess I'll have to buy a computer billiards game,
pour beer all over my floor, and start smoking heavily to
simulate rock club conditions
Thad Anderson
-----------------------------------------------------------
Got questions? Get answers over the phone at Keen.com.
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Todd Morman
news:000d01bff8df$3b2466a0$e1e9...@ne.mediaone.net...
> That's always been the weird thing about Napster, to me- there is no
> technical limitation on it such that it can only be used for mp3s. It was a
> completely arbitrary decision- as easy to change as changing a ".mp3" to a
> ".*" in the code.
I agree that I'm not sure about this stuff completely.. But why did Napster make
the arbitrary decision to only share mp3's, Bo? (Hint: it's related to why
they're in court right now).
Answer: they specialized in file-sharing of music to make money. Napster is now
in deep shit for two reasons: 1) the moronic way the founders bragged of
downloading major label artists (have you seen those emails from the president's
computer?) and 2) their easily identifiable central server. Why did they keep a
central server, instead of following the much more open model of sites like
Freenet? Simple: they wanted to make money. Remove the desire to cash in and you
have no reason for anyone to attempt to keep centralized control of the
file-sharing. Check
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=features#nohost if you haven't
already) or Gnutella (http://gnutella.wego.com/); they tell you what I mean.
Napster is a piss-poor hero for the information-wants-to-be free crowd. I think
MP3.com had a much better case, actually, since they (allegedly, anyway) bought
the CDs in their database and forced you to verify you owned the CD before you
downloaded it electronically. I was surprised and disappointed that they caved
so quickly.
Oh, and I agree with Kirk completely; this episode has gotten the RIAA a ton of
unwanted attention and can only help draw the lines more clearly between greedy
fucks at major labels (and their few lapdog success stories) and consumers who
just want to enjoy life with the music of their choice, as well as the artists
who realize they no longer need labels to get it to them.
At worst, I think the RIAA will move faster towards a pick-your-own-songs model
for selling CD's, which would probably sate mainstream folks for a good while.
At best, the realization that we don't need crooked, bribing, ripoff middlemen
will permeate the globe. I just hope there will still be niches for small record
stores selling interesting product after that happens.
todd this really is a major salvo in the struggle for the future of the net Ross
morman
Todd Morman
> Exactly. The analogy falls down because toner & paper are too expensive.
For confirmation of the above, note this, from a good article at inside.com
(http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,7327_9,00.html):
"A key to understanding the post-Napster world is the RIAA's admission
that it is not particularly concerned with e-mailings of MP3s among
friends. Ease of use, and the attendant mass file swapping, is what the
labels really fear.
If the major record groups can confine file-swapping to a
Gnutella-centric community of people with time on their hands and
technical skill -- i.e., college students who rely on a central
campus network and have real computer savvy -- the record industry knows
it will continue to prosper, even as it continues to co-opt the inventors of new
technology and software."
todd the labels aren't going anywhere is the point morman
grady
> todd this really is a major salvo in the struggle for the future of the net Ross
> morman
No, it isn't. It's one more skirmish in the struggle for the future of
making money on the net, and it's one more skirmish in the struggle for
the billions in profits made by the "entertainment industry." The future
of the net lies where it always has: as a massive decentralized
peer-to-peer network which allows folks worldwide to share their ideas
with each other.
What, y'all thought Napster & Gnutella invented peer-to-peer
file-sharing networks? You'd be excused if you did, since the media
makes out like they did.
The RIAA doesn't give a shit about the words I type into this little
box, nor the photos I take with my camera & put up on a WWW server
somewhere for people to look at.
And I feel not much but pity for all the people who stayed up late this
week downloading MP3s as fast as they could for fear that their little
drug spigot was going to be shut off. Fuck all of them. Fuck them until
they get off their fat asses and learn some HTML and take 15 minutes to
install Apache on their cable-modem-connected PCs and actually add some
fucking original content into the equation, instead of just clogging up
all the backbones moving the same 200 top-40 MP3s around and around in a
big circle. Jerks.
Ross
Todd Morman
> Todd Morman wrote:
>
> > todd this really is a major salvo in the struggle for the future of the net
Ross
> > morman
>
> No, it isn't. It's one more skirmish in the struggle for the future of
> making money on the net, and it's one more skirmish in the struggle for
> the billions in profits made by the "entertainment industry." The future
> of the net lies where it always has: as a massive decentralized
> peer-to-peer network which allows folks worldwide to share their ideas
> with each other.
I'm glad to see we share the same vision, but I'm less certain we'll get there
than you seem to be. Court cases like the RIAA/Diamond Rio one and maybe this
Napster one are precedent-setters, and can stir up lots of consumers, which will
hopefully get the politicians thinking intelligently about decentralization of
the Net when the issues arise in other contexts. Which they will. The future you
foresee is far from guaranteed, Ross.
> What, y'all thought Napster & Gnutella invented peer-to-peer
> file-sharing networks? You'd be excused if you did, since the media
> makes out like they did.
Not guilty as charged. But now's a great opportunity to raise awareness of them
to a new level.
> The RIAA doesn't give a shit about the words I type into this little
> box, nor the photos I take with my camera & put up on a WWW server
> somewhere for people to look at.
>
> And I feel not much but pity for all the people who stayed up late this
> week downloading MP3s as fast as they could for fear that their little
> drug spigot was going to be shut off. Fuck all of them. Fuck them until
> they get off their fat asses and learn some HTML and take 15 minutes to
> install Apache on their cable-modem-connected PCs and actually add some
> fucking original content into the equation, instead of just clogging up
> all the backbones moving the same 200 top-40 MP3s around and around in a
> big circle. Jerks.
Feel better? I understand.
todd do you really think the mass of humanity is interested in adding original
content to the Web wow you're more of an optimist than I thought morman
Todd Morman
http://morons.org/articles.php3?SECTION_ID=1&aid=14
They argue that Napster qualifies as a service provider/search engine, and is
thus protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Napster also meets the
legal criteria for "safe harbor" from claims of copyright infringement of
material passing through it, they argue.
What do y'all think?
todd anyone have links to Napster's defense strategies morman
j. alfred prufrock
> todd anyone have links to Napster's defense strategies morman
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/07/28/000728hninjunction.xml
a couple of weeks back _info world_ also had a story about napster's ceo
being called in front of a senate committee, who were apparently
conducting a trial of their own.
the print version of _information week_ (different ridiculous trade
journal with similar name) also has an article on july 17 that doesn't
appear on the webified version. it stated that the judge ordering the
injunction did not accept napster's argument for precedent in sony v
whomever concerning copying copyrighted media for personal use because,
as she harangued at napster's attorney's, "the internet is not a
device."
i agree that the arguments on both sides of the issue are dumb. but
then, i believe argumentation is dumb.
what is particularly dumb about the judge's argument (and since the riaa
did not present the argument, this playing prosecutor on the part of a
judge is very galling) is that the internet is precisely -only- a
collection of devices. all the metaphysical arguments with which people
amuse themselves, that the net is this or that virtual concept, just
should not hold any sway to the material facts of the case. the internet
is a bunch of wires and routers and satellites. devices. any concern for
the software driving the devices should recognize it is a collection of
implementations of open protocols. the software that drives the internet
is not any less part of the device than the firmware in the chip driving
the microcontroller that controls your vcr. any concern for the content
should recognize the content is not dependent on the devices. music was
copyrighted before the internet came along. movies were copyrighted
before vcrs. content on the internet is not the internet. the internet
is a collection of devices. people interoperate the devices in an agreed
upon fashion. the judge is stupid. the judge can't help but be stupid.
as long as people believe in the religious horseshit known as
"intellectual property," they can't help but show their stupidity.
argumentation will be stupid on both sides. we are arguing a stupid
issue. pointing out that napster kids are technically feeble or guilty
of bad taste is not relevant. pointing out that the napster
implementation is a less than ideal business model is not relevant.
pointing out that napster supporters should instead be getting involved
and going after copyright laws fails to understand that american
government and law are set up to give corporations more rights and more
advantages over any given individual than any given individual has over
business. napster supporters have a much better chance of winning the
napster case than revising copyright law or overturning the railroad act
of 1890.
it's a given that the arguments are all going to be dumb. given that, it
comes down to, who would you tell to get fucked? napster kids or the
riaa?
just another litmus test.
oh, and metal up lars's ass, also.
"whatever." i got to watch a five year old see her first giant waterfall
in the wilderness this weekend. i got to see a 72 year old woman prove
she can still climb a mountain. i stuffed myself with country ham,
redeye gravy, and freshly made chunky applesauce. i tramped through a
whole forest of mountain laurel in full bloom. i stood ten feet away
from a groundhog half my height. and i brought home grown tomatoes and a
big mess o' squash back with me. can't touch this.
3
Tony Patterson
<ifo...@yahoo.com> was declared certifiably insane after writing:
>my favorites are the vcd's of first run movies that sell for the
>equivalent of $2 in any south asian market. somebody goes into a theater
>with a video camera, tapes the whole movie, the tape is then encoded
>into avi or whatever, and a cd burned of the files. periodically you
>will see the shadow of someone walking in front of the screen to go get
>popcorn. cover art is xerox reproduction of a photo of the movie poster.
>
Supposedly there were theaters in Moscow running "Waterworld" a few
years ago months before the movie was released. Someone had snuck a
camcorder into a test screening before it was completely edited and
before the incidental music was added. All that trouble for
"Waterworld"? Those silly Rooskies...
Cheers,
TP
"Hey, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" -
Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love da Bomb
Philip Ayers
James Hepler
> Napster is "like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books," or
> whether that's just a rhetorical strawman masquerading as an argument. For
> years, authors, publishers and other copyright holders have tolerated a
> certain amount of copyright violation on photocopiers because it's too rare
> to be a threat to revenue and royalties. If millions of people started to
> routinely using Xerox machines to photocopy books and distribute them, you
> can bet your ass that publishers (and quite a few authors) would be
> screaming for regulation on Xerox. But millions of people don't use Xerox
> machines to copy and distribute books _specifically_ because it's too hard
> and expensive.
Maybe the quote would be better if it were closer to, "It's lke shutting down
Copytron because people are copying books". Which is what came kinda close to
happening when I was in College. There was a big huff about professors copying
copyrighted texts for coursepacks and what not. Here where I work, we aren't
even allowed to transfer copyrighted material from beta to VHS or from PAL to
NTSC.
But the bottom line is, no one is going after the people who technically make it
possible. They are going after the virtual place you go to do it. More like
Kinko's than Xerox.
James Hepler
Dale Christianer
was $60, and I could copy it for 10.
Dale
-- Begin original message --
> From: Duncan Murrell <dun...@algonquin.com>
> Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 17:10:09 -0400
> Subject: Re: today's news
> To: "Chapel Hill Music Lovers" <ch-s...@listserv.unc.edu>
> Reply-To: ch-s...@lambada.oit.unc.edu
>
> When was the last time you, or anyone you know, copied a whole novel on a
> photocopying machine?
>
> Duncan
>
>
> >I think one of my friends said it best:
> >
> >"This is like shutting down Xerox because people are copying books."
> >
> >On Fri, 28 Jul 2000, j. alfred prufrock wrote:
> >
> >> http://www.proboards.com/napster/
> >> http://technews.netscape.com/news/0-1005-200-2373030.html
> >>
> >> 3
> >>
>
>
-- End original message --
Margaret Campbell
Sky Isn't Falling in Music World
Victoria Slind-Flor
The National Law Journal
July 31, 2000
God didn't sue Johann Gutenberg for copyright infringement. Neither did the
monasteries of Christian Europe, which, until Gutenberg's invention of
movable type in the 15th century, enjoyed a complete monopoly on Biblical
texts.
Richard H. Horning doesn't see much difference between Gutenberg's printing
press and the Napster software that allows users to download and swap music
files across the Internet on a peer-to-peer basis.
Both the printing press and Napster software are technological advances
allowing users a new level of access to content, says Horning, an
intellectual property litigation partner at Palo Alto, Calif.'s Tomlinson
Zisko Morosoli & Maser. He has represented the San Francisco-based
Electronic Frontier Foundation in several high-profile Internet technology
cases.
"Consider the trafficking in alms that the monasteries enjoyed by having the
only copy of the Bible," Horning says. The monks, he says, probably suffered
a real monetary loss at about the time printed Bibles began to be widely
available.
Morgan Chu, a partner in Los Angeles' Irell & Manella L.L.P., agrees it's an
apt analogy.
"There are usually a series of battles among different interests that unfold
whenever there is some new technology," he says.
Professor Paul Goldstein, who teaches copyright law at Stanford University
and is of counsel to San Francisco's Morrison & Foerster, echoes that
sentiment, saying that he's seen a lot of sky-is-falling sentiments from
content owners who fear Napster and videodisc de-encryption technology.
"The sky is not falling," he says. He points to a series of similar concerns
that date back through the development of piano rolls, radio broadcasts of
recorded music, videotape cassettes, and home video machines. Charles
Dickens, he notes, complained bitterly that his novels were being pirated by
the more efficient U.S. publishing companies.
And Goldstein predicts that eventually the content owners will come up with
a pricing model "high enough to give them a decent return, but low enough so
users will be disinclined to go through the trouble of hacking."
The most successful model, he says, came about as the result of the movie
studios' loss of a copyright case involving home-use videotape, Sony Corp.
of America v. Universal City Studios Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984). "Video
rentals now rival box-office receipts for the studios."
THE NAPSTER RULING
In the most recent court case involving new technology's access to content,
the content owners won, at least for the moment. On July 26, in A&M Records
v. Napster, No. C99-5183, Leiber v. Napster, No. C00-0074, U.S. District
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued an injunction that would have shut down the
Napster Web site at midnight Friday, saying that Napster supported "such a
wholesale copying effort" that "I just can't let it go on." The 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of the injunction hours before it
was to go into effect.
Russell J. Frackman, a partner at Los Angeles' Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp,
had argued on behalf of the music industry, saying that 90 percent of the
music downloaded by Napster users is copyright protected, but that the
artists, retailers, the union members behind the scenes, and the
distributors receive no compensation. He said that Napster could prove to be
the destruction of the music industry's business model.
The Napster legal team, led by David Boies of Armonk, N.Y.'s Boies, Schiller
& Flexner, is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit. Boies led the government team in the antitrust case against
Microsoft Corp., and Patel provoked laughter in the overflow courtroom by
calling Napster "the Microsoft of the industry."
But the solution to invasion by new technology is simple enough says Chu:
develop a new kind of business model -- "not to frustrate technology, but to
leverage it."
He declines to discuss the advice his firm is giving to clients. But he does
say that "at a theoretical law firm with a hypothetical content-company
client, developing new business models has to be a major topic of
discussion, and the far-sighted business executives will see the new
technology as a great opportunity."
Litigation isn't the best way to settle these disputes, Chu says, but is
inevitable.
"People who run these companies -- indeed, most human beings -- abhor change
of any kind," he says. "If you have a model that has been successful for the
past 20 or 30 years, you're reluctant to turn it upside-down.
"Content owners may be successful in a series of battles protecting their
view of copyright law in business models. But the technology will eventually
force people to adopt different business models."
FOLLOWING EUROPE
Mark F. Radcliffe, a partner in Palo Alto, Calif.'s Gray Cary Ware &
Freidenrich, suggests that European countries will provide the model. He
notes that, in Germany, part of the fee that people pay to use a photocopy
machine goes into a pool that is distributed to copyright owners. A levy is
charged on blank tapes so that some revenues go to the music industry.
"We need to understand that, as the technology gets easier and easier to
use, there'll be much more personal copying," he says.
But there are "a whole bunch of ways the record companies could blow this
opportunity," Radcliffe warns. They could fail to make the new music
available rapidly enough, develop an overly complex downloading technology,
or charge too much per download, all of which would encourage illegal
copying.
For the moment, though, companies that are planning to develop new
Napster-like technologies may find themselves cash-starved. Radcliffe
predicts that venture capital firms will be leery of companies that may
become targets of copyright infringement suits. Says Radcliffe, "Venture
capitalists make lemmings look like rugged individualists."
Carey R. Ramos of New York's Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison is
representing songwriters and music publishers in the Napster dispute. He
notes that content owners are already involved in discussions with companies
working on a technology to insert a meter on peer-to-peer Internet music
exchanges that would provide revenues to his clients. "A solution that would
provide for the payment of royalties is of interest to our clients," he
says.
>From: hep...@email.unc.edu (James Hepler)
>Reply-To: ch-s...@lyris.unc.edu
>To: "Chapel Hill Music Lovers" <ch-s...@listserv.unc.edu>
________________________________________________________________________
Ben Donnelly
>
> And a legal discussion....
> God didn't sue Johann Gutenberg for copyright infringement. Neither did the
> monasteries of Christian Europe, which, until Gutenberg's invention of
> movable type in the 15th century, enjoyed a complete monopoly on Biblical
> texts.
I do think that the mp3 controversy is the latest version of the
home-taping thingie that record companies and their most synchophantic
artists have been complianing about for years. But the record
companies can only blame themselves.
I think there is some merit in arguing that Napster has aided in
copyright infringement, but whatever happens to them won't make a
difference in the long run. All Napster did was service a pent up
demand- mp3 was the right compression/quality ratio, peer to peer was
the way to distribute it.
Here is a new analogy- it's like Christies and Southeby's suing eBay.
Napster only helped whet the appitite that's led to the decentralized
protocols like Gnutella. Trading digital music was an inevidibility.
The record companies used to brag that every cd was of identical
quality, and this was one of a host of reasons to ditch analog. Now
it's biting them in the ass. They're the ones who've been marketing
digital music as though there were only three compact disk pressing
plants in the world. This is a period of market adjustment.
Maybe the music consumer will start getting decent liner notes,
booklets that don't crumple and tear, albums with less filler and
packaging that doesn't shatter and break your fingernails as you try
to open it. I'd gladly pay ten or eleven bucks for such a product. If
they'd stick two or three albums on a cd, I might even go and
re-purchase the Beatles and Stones recordings I've got on vinyl.
Artists should remember the adage that there is no such thing as bad
publicity. How many bands have you bought records from after being
given a tape of their music? I think this is the way most underground
bands gather followings. Home taping allowed the Greatful Dead to
continue for twenty years after they stopped making relevant studio
records. Mp3 bodes poorly for the one-hit wonders of the world, but
that's never been a career anyways.
Bendy
Ludkmr
The Kinkos lawsuit — '92?'93? — which forced them out of the coursepack
business also required them to enforce the copyright code on their self serve
machines. This was done by posting the code on the wall and cracking down on
the batant stuff. We did this at Copytron as well even though we hadn't been
sued. The coursepack business there survived because Dana Stamey — yes,
Chris' lovely bride — and I worked out a way of logging requests and getting
preclearances prior to reproduction. We also had to cut deals with publishers
to keep prices from getting insane. Paying the royalties about doubled the
price of most packets, but kept us in business.
Equating this with Napster doesn't work exactly but it's close. Napster as far
as I know doesn't charge for their product so there is no pricing system, no
real trading with the user. Tacking a royalty onto this model would be, uh,
problematic.
There is no easy way to establish what a document — or file — is so that a
royalty can be affixed without upsetting the privacy and immediacy of the
internet.
That's the basic question to answer here.
Let me know when y'all figure it out.
kmr
SPOOKY5
notes that, in Germany, part of the fee that people pay to use a photocopy
machine goes into a pool that is distributed to copyright owners. A levy is
charged on blank tapes so that some revenues go to the music industry.>>
eMusic.com apparrently operates in the same way. Deals are negotiated with
artists and labels, the customer subscribes, $9.99 per month for a year, and
can download from the catalog of copyrighted material. The monthly
subscription fees pay royalties to the label, and/or the artist and the
remaining $ is profit for emusic. This is most likely what will become of
Napster, as they themselves have mentioned negotiating with the labels and the
possibility of becoming a subscription service. But why pay anything close to
$9.99 per month to be linked to other users, who may disconnect during your
download?
j. alfred prufrock
> Just, you know, so we can bring a little bit of case law to bear on this
> whole thing.
you provoked my dog into biting you. the toughness of your hide injured
my dog's teeth. my dog didn't bite you. what dog? i don't own a dog.
clearly, napster needs simply to switch to .wav files, since mp3s are
not digital audio recordings under case law, and we need to replace our
computers with d/a devices and tape backups since devices running
windows and incorporating hard drives cannot be used as digital audio
recording devices under case law. also, make sure you don't have a clock
radio with a tape deck because audio recording devices can obviously be
used only as audio recording devices.
i told you you needed to pay attention to rio. i told you so. i told you
so. but noooooo. those mp3s just glut up my internet with bad music.
fuck 'em. those mp3s are all encoded by technically semi-literate 14
year olds. with pimples, even. fuck 'em.
i'm glossing over a lot (of dross), but recognizing the ridiculousness
of the argument in the riaa's petition provides napster with both the
probablity of success (ok, only in a just world in that parallel sliders
universe, but) and "serious" legal questions (ok, if they weren't so
ridiculous for being posed in the first place, but).
here's the gem in riaa's petition: "napster is causing a vast number of
consumers to believe that free music on the internet is an entitlement."
the horrors. damn those "consumer" beliefs and entitlements.
co-worker (you know who): "so what you're saying is, as long it's legal
to copy music for personal use, it should be ok?"
why no. but point taken. thanks!
same guy who pirates every piece of software for commercial use he can
get his hands on.
3
grady
(phew!) is a pretty concise summary of what they see as the salient
legal points of their argument--and you can skim it in about 10 minutes
and understand most of it. It's here:
http://www.riaa.com/pdf/nap_app_rep.pdf
Just, you know, so we can bring a little bit of case law to bear on this
whole thing.
Ross