Since the "downloading from KaZaA" thread was closed...

[mikemover]

...for a VERY STUPID and illegitimate reason....I'm posting this on a new thread.

Musical Scares
By James V. DeLong 07/01/2003
excerpted from www.techcentralstation.com



The Record Industry Association of America dropped the other shoe last Wednesday when it said that its anti-downloading enforcement actions will no longer be limited to the purveyors of swapping software. It will go after the users themselves, finding them via the same programs that are used for swapping. As a start, it will target major uploaders

It is startling to realize that until May 1999 no one had heard the name "Napster," considering how completely that program upended the world of music and, indeed, the entire universe of intellectual property. By February 2001, when a federal appellate court upheld the music industry's copyright infringement suit and pretty much shut down Napster, almost 80 million people had signed up for it. The fallen torch was picked up by Kazaa, Morpheus, BearShare and other refiners of P2P technology. In 2002, these had 57 million users in the U.S. and accounted for 5 billion downloads, and by May 2003 Kazaa alone had been downloaded 230 million times, worldwide.

If the music industry could, it would far prefer to sue only these intermediaries and avoid going after the users. The downloaders are its customer base, and suing your customers is one of the great no-nos of business strategy. But the industry is in a tough legal and political box, and has been left with little choice.

In Napster's technology, a list of songs available on the network at any given time was compiled on the company's servers. Someone seeking music then searched this list, and was directed to the appropriate computer in the home of a fellow user of the network. This let the courts enjoin Napster as a business, and its practice of listing available songs even if they were under copyright, without eliminating Napster as a technology.

Napster's progeny operate in a decentralized fashion.. A search request goes not to a central server but to a group of nearby computers. Each of these sends it to another group, each of which sends it on, and so on. There is no central node involving copyright infringement for a court to get a purchase on.

This allows the producers of the software to say:


"Hey, we are just innocent software providers. We tell people not to infringe copyright. See? Look right there on our website. Or here, where we say, 'support the artist; buy the record.' And P2P is a valuable technology; you can't outlaw a technology just because it might be used to perform an illegal act. If you don't like infringement, go after the infringers."

We all know that this is tosh. It is like a mimeo sheet circulated during Prohibition that said: Warning: This page contains information on how to manufacture the illegal substance known as beer. . . . Do not follow these directions or you will be breaking the law. But it is a solid point legally, at least as far as P2P is concerned, since P2P is indeed a valuable technology. Determining the legality of a program according to the subjective motives of its distributors is not a comfortable position for the legal system.

The point is even more forceful politically, because the tech community is frightened witless, and with good reason, of anything that smacks of legal limitations on innovation or government specifications of allowable technology.

In rejecting the music industry's recent effort to enjoin Grokster, the trial judge hewed to this line of thinking. Whatever the motivations of the company, it did not control what the users did with the product. He likened Grokster to companies such as Sony or Xerox, which can know full well that VCRs and copying machines will be used by many to infringe copyrights without themselves becoming liable for these actions.

Given this concatenation of forces, the industry decision to proceed against swappers, albeit cautiously, was inevitable. The timing was facilitated by the growing number of paid download services, especially the recent success of Apple's iTunes. In the past, a swapper could argue that the industry had no right to insist that people buy $18 CDs when it should be delivering its bits over the Internet for a pittance, but the moral force of this argument is declining as the bits do indeed become available over the Internet.

And it is important to be clear that the contest is fundamentally moral. As part of its announcement, the RIAA lined up a slew of artists and composers to say, "Look, this is our livelihood you are taking, and it is not right." This is good, but it does not go far enough. RIAA should have added some consumers saying:


"We like music, but we are not 18th century dukes who can hire their own composers and orchestras. What we need is a method of pooling our funds with other music lovers so that we each pay a little to the artists we like and the middlemen who get the stuff out, and in return we get a cornucopia of music delivered over the Internet. (Let's call this method "a market.") Someone who free rides, who takes advantage of our monetary support of the music industry without contributing himself, is not acting morally. Someone who deliberately sets out to destroy the market for ideological reasons -- because he thinks "music ought to be free" or some similar juvenile slogan -- is worse. He is the equivalent of a medieval barbarian, who destroys the basis of civilization out of aggressive ignorance. Someone who sets out to destroy the market so he can sell ads as he does so is the moral equivalent of a World War I 'merchant of death' arms dealer."

The record industry can win in the long run only if this moral case is heard and understood by the public. There are encouraging signs. The reaction to Wednesday's announcement was muted, not what must have been feared at the RIAA. An overwrought academician said in the LA Times: "The RIAA pits itself against ordinary Americans who use file-sharing programs legitimately," which is a bit of a non-sequitur, since the very purpose of the initiative is to go after only those who use programs illegitimately, and the RIAA actually benefits from academic illogic because it shows the defects of its opponents' case.

Also, the swapping software industry made a tactical, perhaps a strategic, mistake. The CEO of Streamcast responded to RIAA with a promise to organize the illegal swappers to lobby Congress against the enforcement initiative, a stance that totally contradicts Streamcast's avowed opposition to copyright infringement. Its website says:


StreamCast Networks does not condone copyright infringement. Due to the nature of peer-to-peer software, StreamCast Networks is unable to monitor or control the types of files shared within the Morpheus community. If you locate a file being shared by a user who you believe may be in violation of copyright law, please report your concerns to the user directly.

The lawyers who must defend Grokster appeal by arguing that Streamcast is just an innocent purveyor of technology, uncondoning of any illegal activity, must not be terribly happy today -- they will see their CEO's statement again in court, and the contrast with the purported policy only makes it more striking. In the court of public opinion, the statement demonstrates an affinity with the early 20th century figure Sir Basil Zaharoff, widely known as "the merchant of death."

The music industry must do its part. It must get the pipeline of paid services open and flowing, and ensure that the material is readily available at competitive prices. It must avoid enforcement actions against people who upload material that is not available through these legitimate channels, even if it is under copyright. It must be very careful not to go after the wrong people, and, when it makes mistakes (which it will) it must grovel handsomely.

But if it does these things, the moral contest can be won. And I, as a consumer who is salivating over the thought of an Internet full of classical music at low prices, will be delighted.

---Mike

hey mike, i asked this before, but assumed you had me on "ignore"

which would you prefer?

A- download capable: i heard of a band named doubledrive .(thru a net forum) download 2 songs from net, if i like, i probably purchase a CD. if not, i possibly DL newer songs later again for 2nd evaluation.

B- no DL capable: never know if i might like DD or not.

im not saying either is right or wrong, and dont know if DD has a site or samples, but have been curious about your band, but would be very unlikely to buy CD without hearing your beats.

keep on rocking. respectfully, - ben

[mikemover]

Originally posted by ThrillBilly
hey mike, i asked this before, but assumed you had me on "ignore"

which would you prefer?

A- download capable: i heard of a band named doubledrive .(thru a net forum) download 2 songs from net, if i like, i probably purchase a CD. if not, i possibly DL newer songs later again for 2nd evaluation.

B- no DL capable: never know if i might like DD or not.

im not saying either is right or wrong, and dont know if DD has a site or samples, but have been curious about your band, but would be very unlikely to buy CD without hearing your beats.

keep on rocking. respectfully, - ben

I've answered this before, but I'll answer it again:

Downloads are a GREAT marketing tool, and a great way to sample an artist's music....and my band offers samples on our own site, and elsewhere such as www.mp3.com, www.amazon.com, etc...and I have no problem with people downloading music that artists WILLINGLY provide for such purposes.

The problem is when people make an artist's songs available for download WITHOUT the permission of the artist. I don't care if it's my band or my worst enemy's band...the principle is WRONG, and it's illegal.

Mike

is that a B ???

[mikemover]

What?

Mike

[BenzOnline]

YA! why was MY thread closed?

[jsmith]

i for one hate KaZaA mainly because of it's hidden spyware and foistware payloads. i just recently cleaned up my kid's PC and got stumped when it lost access to the internet despite having an ip connection. it turns out that the naming services settings, i.e., DNS, had been messed with and basically turned off.

i think KaZaA will die a natural death in time now that the legit sites are up.

BTW, Thrillbilly, I think he answered "A".

[Zach Maggio]

I thought it was closed because Bard posted some sort of nonsensical gibberish message that had nothing to do with the discussion at hand and effectively disrailed the debate.

Since the "downloading from KaZaA" thread was closed...

...for a VERY STUPID and illegitimate reason....I'm posting this on a new thread.

What was that reason Mike?
You are eloquint and passionate in your defense of your position, Mike. It is hard for me to disagree with you because I believe in the nobility of free interprise. But that may be precisely why I disagree with you. I have compared the sale of intelectual property to the sale of the right to use fire. That we should be paying the decendants of that caveman as we pay George Harrisons estate for the right to listen to his music.
The courts have a very difficult issue to sort out. Just like the wagon builders of a century ago, the RIAA should look at some other way to protect their members interests, because the public has a new and differant way to get to the music they want.

All great truths are simple in final analysis, and easily understood; if they are not, they are not great truths. Napoleon Hill (Andrew Carnegie biographer)

[Zach Maggio]

Originally posted by bmunse
What was that reason Mike?
You are eloquint and passionate in your defense of your position, Mike. It is hard for me to disagree with you because I believe in the nobility of free interprise. But that may be precisely why I disagree with you. I have compared the sale of intelectual property to the sale of the right to use fire. That we should be paying the decendants of that caveman as we pay George Harrisons estate for the right to listen to his music.
The courts have a very difficult issue to sort out. Just like the wagon builders of a century ago, the RIAA should look at some other way to protect their members interests, because the public has a new and differant way to get to the music they want.

But fire isn't any sort of property - not an invention, not a creation, but rather a natural phenomenon. Cavemen didn't make it, they discovered it. It can't be any more patented or protected by law than a new moon or comet that's discovered.
That being said, anyone can have free access and the right to make fire simply because there's no way anyone can own it. And of course, nobody can own it because nobody made it. We don't pay Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison for the use of electricity, do we?

Music is not something that appears out of nowhere. It's not like sunshine, rain, or the wind. Someone - in fact, a lot of people - have to labor very hard and spend a lot of money to make it and shape it into a form that makes it accessible to the public. You aren't born with an inherent right of liberty to enjoy, at no cost to you, the music you like - any more than you have an inherent and God-given right to drive a Ferrari if you want to, or live in a bigger house that might seem more appealing to you than where you live now. I take particular issue with your phrasing here: "because the public has a new and different way to get to the music they want". As if wanting it alone justifies having it. I have a new way to get to all those Aston-Martins I want; I'll just break into a dealership and tow one away. All sarcasm aside, I can't see where it's OK to simply take music that I want from the internet but not OK to walk into a music store and shoplift a CD; in both cases I get the music I want, without paying for it. Will someone please explain to me the difference, morally, ethically, or otherwise?

Fire is very much like music. It occurs naturaly but it takes a man to make it useful. It took a series of decisions by a man to recognize fire and then to put it to many digfferant uses which we still continue to do today. What I mean to say is that so many advances are made in technology that don't have the same protection as a music copywrite.
Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison's heirs probably should be getting royalties because of the magnitude of the effect of their ancestors inventions. Can you say the same for the writer/performer of "Itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini" who may still be getting royalties whenever it is sold?

[Zach Maggio]

Originally posted by bmunse
Fire is very much like music. It occurs naturaly but it takes a man to make it useful. It took a series of decisions by a man to recognize fire and then to put it to many digfferant uses which we still continue to do today. What I mean to say is that so many advances are made in technology that don't have the same protection as a music copywrite.
Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison's heirs probably should be getting royalties because of the magnitude of the effect of their ancestors inventions. Can you say the same for the writer/performer of "Itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini" who may still be getting royalties whenever it is sold?

I disagree. Fire is nothing like music. You're right that fire occurs naturally and that man has developed ways to harness it, but to argue the same of music is not an adequate analogy. You may as well say that a Picasso is worth nothing because while he organized paints and colors in a certain manner, they already existed prior to his intervention and therefore he hasn't created anything of any new or inherent value. It's rubbish to say that, of course, because art is more than just utilizing pre-existing natural resources (color, sound) and "putting it to different uses", as you put it. Music, in fact, does not occur naturally; I will grant you that sound does, but I'm not interested in listening to just sounds. Someone has to have the talent and iungenuity to use sound to create something new and inherently more valuable than sound alone. That's music, and I'm glad to rightfully pay the people who create it for the right to listen to it.

Ben Franklin didn't "invent" anything - he simply discovered something that already existed. Why should he get royalties for that? He didn't create a new technology, didn't develop any new use for electricity, he just conclusively proved that it existed. There's nothing to pay him for, really.

Thomas Edison, in fact, did patent his design for lamps and collected many royalties from their sale. He was involved in a famous lawsuit against the U.S. General Electric Company where he suid them for infringing upon his patent. He won an injunction preventing them from making lamps that utilized his patented technology. A case of intellectual property being rightfully defended against those who would steal it.

Why don't we pay Edison's heirs today? Because it expired, per the law, in 1897. Otherwise we would be.

As for Tiny Tim, why shouldn't he get paid royalties for that song? After all, he wrote the damned thing, and even if you don't like it, people still buy it. It's how the poor man, God rest his soul, made a living. You'd take the food right out of his mouth, and on what grounds? If he wrote a song, performed it, and people buy it, why shouldn't the man get paid? I'm confused.

Ok Guys. To set the record straight, I believe in the right of a misician or anyone else who comes up with a unique idea or product (two very destinct but equally useful entities) to sell that item to the highest bidder. It is the foundation of a capitalistic soceity that I would defend to the death. I am saying that the way they deliver their product has nearly become like setting it out on the counter and telling people to use the honor system to pay for it. The existance of Kazaa, Morpheus is to the music industry as the invention of the auto was to the wagon industry. Please excuse me for not coming up with a better analogy but the point is that a tech advance made the cd no longer a safe place to store music that you have for sale.
I am saying that it is too late to try to sue people. The barn door is wide open and the horses are in the next county. I don't agree that it is right just that it is. When Riaa starts filing suits, the stuff will hit the fan.

Originally posted by bmunse
Fire is very much like music. It occurs naturaly but it takes a man to make it useful. It took a series of decisions by a man to recognize fire and then to put it to many digfferant uses which we still continue to do today. What I mean to say is that so many advances are made in technology that don't have the same protection as a music copywrite.
Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison's heirs probably should be getting royalties because of the magnitude of the effect of their ancestors inventions. Can you say the same for the writer/performer of "Itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini" who may still be getting royalties whenever it is sold?

What's the name of that hawk that uses embers to ignite fields to drive out mice? Thomas Edisons heirs are getting regular checks and song rights are passed down or sold.

You're so wrong you’re almost right again.

[anthonyb]

Did the other thread cover used cd's?

If you buy a used cd from someone/somewhere, the artist doesn't get any royalties, right? If so, one copy of an album could be used by any number of listeners throughout it's lifetime, but the artist would only get the royalties from the first consumer. If the argument against file sharing is that you are listening to music without compensating the artist/label for it, then couldn't a similar argument be made about the market for used cd's?