Thomas Middelhoff, the CEO of the media conglomerate Bertelmann, picked a very public platform to deliver the news about Napster. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Middelhoff announced that Napster would begin charging its users by July. Middelhoff further announced that a digital rights management system would become part of the Napster experience. The Napster corporation seemed somewhat confused by this announcement, and at first I chalked it up a clueless executive sounding off on the world stage. I didn't see how digital rights management was going to be incorporated into the Napster file sharing model; maybe there was some idea that they would put some sort of wrapper around the MP3 file as it was delivered to your computer? Then it struck me: first, Bertelsmann thinks that the $50 million it loaned Napster last fall gives it control. Second, Bertelsmann wants Napster's brand name and its 30-50 million users, but file sharing does not figure into Bertelsmann's plans. Bertelsmann's Napster will give users songs from central servers, not from everybody's hard disks. Essentially, Bertelsmann wants to take their failed BMG music download system, spiff it up a bit, and call it Napster. I'm skeptical that this will go very far with the existing Napster user base. I found confirmation of Bertelsmann's view in a recent issue of "Entertainment Weekly," in an article on the availability of racist hate songs through Napster. In that article, Bertelsmann senior VP Frank Sarfeld talks about "in the future, when Bertelsmann and Napster, in a new musiness model, will limit distribution to 'licensed music from major record labels.'" ((No indie labels on Napster? Hmm, I wonder if there's grounds for antitrust action here.)) Bertelsmann hasn't gotten any of the other major labels to sign up for a Bertelsmann-controlled Napster.134 responses total.
((( Winter Agora 124 <---> Music 294 )))
I forgot to mention: we're still waiting on the Appeals Court ruling on July's preliminary injunction to shut Napster down immediately. The trial court judge saw this as a slam dunk; the appeals court hearing was what, October? What's taking them so long?
It's true but tiresome pointing out just how thoroughly clueless music executives are about the mechanisms and motivations behind a Napster-like service..
There was an interesting "perspective" provided on NPR yesterday, where a journalist described his attendance at a meeting of investors who had lost big in the dotcom investment craze, and were looking for somebody to blame. (Their greed? That couldn't be it... it must be somebody else's fault.) The reporter indicated that they put the blame on those he described as "the Pizza Kids" - young adults who spent many a late night drinking coke, eating pizza, and creating code. They had all been suckered in. The journalist had a different perspective - the investors, in their quest for instant riches, had corrupted the "Pizza Kid" culture - it was no longer a valid use of time to build on somebody else's idea, or for that matter to develop any code that couldn't be patented. While "Pizza Kids" bought into the money culture and the dream of being dotcom millionaires, the investors drove the creative force out of the Internet. It's an interesting perspective. The place where the journalist, IMHO, is most clearly correct is in his refusal to place the blame on the "Pizza Kids". He didn't use the word "avarice," but that's what drove the big losses - even when the handwriting was clearly on the wall, early 2000, investors continued to pour their money into various Internet projects, hoping that they would reap exponential returns. A fool and his money. The patent issue is an interesting one. But for the grant of patents to online business ideas, a lot of the money that flooded into Internet projects would not have come. To get money, a company would have had to do more than race to patent the latest modest innovation, stifling the development of parallel projects - it would have actually had to innovate in a manner which inspired users. There is irony in the fact that Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL are the three biggest generators of page views - by a huge margin. None of them established that prominence on the basis of software patents or patented business ideas. Meanwhile, the patent holders seem to be folding in rapid succession. Meanwhile, the exectuives now behind Napster, eager to get back part of their foolish investment, will do little more than inspire a "Pizza Kid", who stands to gain nothing save possibly for notoriety, to create the successor freeware version of Napster.
#4> Wow. What a stunning condemnation of corporate avarice concluded with a tummy-tuck approval of "Pizza Kid" avarice. It's perspectives like these that lead to the mentality of "They steal from us, so it's ok for us to steal from them." ["steal" in the metaphoric sense, lest we go down THAT road again] #0> It seems to me that, since Napster allowed users to wholesale rip-off BMG, in the context of my last paragraph's mentality, that it's their karma to get butt-f%$qed right back. Hardly ethical on BMG's part, but hey, isn't lack of corporate ethics the moral underpinning of Napster in the first place? If BMG et alia weren't corporate raiders, Napster's users would cease to have any shadow of a moral raison d'etre... so why be surprised when the corporate megaliths live down to expectation?
Interesting interview with a Bertelsmann exec: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2683015,00.html (or get it from mp3.com/news) The exec is still talking about file sharing and says Napster has "a very good legal argument." About "security," the exec says: "... our number one goal is that the user experience that a Napster user has today is not tampered with." And, with respect to the digital rights management technologies which exist today, "Very few of them have proven to be sufficient when it comes to the element of ease of use. They're all highly, highly secure, but secure to the way that users can't handle. And we don't think this is the right approach."
Agreed, with the last sentence of the last post. Personally, I'd like to see a system where it was easy for users to get music that the artists have released into public domain, and difficult for users to pirate music (and easy for them to purchase it online, if the copyright owners so desire). But part of that, I think, involves a level of respect to copyrighted material that (again) Napster users have not universally expressed.
Ok. Are you ready? Here goes. I just received a phone call from an authoritative source (i.e. a napster employee) who gave me some definitive information: 1) There is NO definite schedule for the redesign/reimplementation of Napster. The July date mentioned is hopeful, but that's all. 2) Bertelsmann's millions were designated specifically for the development of redevelopment of Napster, and BMG has agreed to drop its suit when the new system goes online. 3) There is a Q&A on Napsters webpage, at http://www.napster.com/pressroom/qanda.html Unfortunately, I was totally unprepared for this phone call, and what I was actually hoping for was that someone there would join in the discussion directly, so I didn't get any real zinger questions in, but I assure you that my source is legitimate and firsthand.
I'm sure the "qanda" web page represents the views and best hopes of the Napster corporation. It does not explain why Bertelsmann execs are making highly visible public statements about the future of Napster which, as far as I can tell, do not square with that web page: in fact, the quote from "Entertainment Weekly" is a flat assertion that there will be no file sharing in the new Napster. (pages 3 & 4, "EW Internet" insert, February 9 2001.) Also see http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,21904,00.html
#8> Your source may be legitimate. So is the BMG exec. The legitimate sources are not in concord.
I did not intent to suggest that my information was absolutely correct and exclusive of all other, only that it was from a legitimate source and not n-hand information grossly altered in transit, or something I pulled out of my derriere, without foundation at all.
(I think brighn completely misread aaron. The "Pizza Kids" aaron refered to are NOT the folks stealing copyrighted music via Napster. They are the authors of the software systems various dot-coms were built on. They didn't steal anything.)
Actually, I was responding to his last paragraph. Aaron may be misrepresenting "Pizza Kids" in that paragraphs, but it's the clear implication taht the creator of Napster qualifies as one. And while he may or may not personally have illegally downloaded software, the whole point of the suit is that he greatly facilitated it (making him accessory). I know some "pizza kid" types, and they love to hack code that doesn't belong to them (not all of them, but many of them). And in case you've missed it along the way: I'm not saying I don't have illegal copyrighted materials myself. I do. I'm saying that I don't understand this mentality of exonerating the little guy just because the Megalith Corps are Evil Bastards. If the little guy is doing something he oughtn't (like creating Napster and implementing it in a way that greatly facilitates illegal behavior), then he shouldn't be exonerated of all wrongdoing.
What is wrong with creating Napster?
*shrug* I'm not going over it again. It was created with the sole purpose of exchanging music, with no real guards on whether that music was copyrighted. If you still don't get it, you won't.
Your problem appears to be with the use of the program, not the program itself. Do you actually believe that there can be no legitimate use for a program like Napster? Do you actually believe that programs like Napster should not be created?
Here's another fun Web article: http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2001/02/06/25833 from Business 2.0, titled "Napster Alternatives Lurking: Viable entities wait to fill the void of free music on the internet." The assumption underlying the story is that Napster as we have known it comes to an end this summer, more or less on the timetable announced by Bertelsmann.
#16: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." The evolution of that style of rhetoric. Yes, there are legitimate uses for assault weapons. Yes, I think that assault weapons should be legal. No, I don't think producers of assault weapons should be exonerated of all responsibility on the grounds that there are legitimate uses. don't tell me the creator of Napster was sitting around his dorm room one day thinking, "Gee, I sure wish there was a decent way for independent musicians to share their music with the world without having to prostitute themselves to the RIAA." No, more likely, the thought was more akin to, "Gee, wouldn't it be neat to connect up people's computers through the Net so we could all swap music, because it's just so expensive in the store." [I'm not going to say that the first thought didn't enter his mind at all, but I'd be willing to wager that if it did, it was an afterthought or a bonus to the latter thought.]
I do think you are too focused on Napster, and thus are missing the forest for the trees. With specific regard to Napster, I think programs like Napster are here to stay, in one form or another, like it or not. They do make it harder for the owners of intellectual property to ensure their ability to collect royalties.
I guess I should add this: I was speaking, specifically, with regard to your response to the comments I entered. But to be fair, I don't mean to criticize your focus on Napster in an item devoted to Napster. ;-)
Indeed. I don't think it's "too focused on Napster" to be responding to a post concluding with a paragraph on Napster in an item on the topic of Napster. A reasonable mind would presume that the intent of the original post was to present a perspective on Napster. Assault weapons are also here to stay. That doesn't exonerate their existence. [NB: I'm not saying that Napster is in the same "league" as assault weapons. I'm using extreme examples to indicate the irrelevance of Aaron's various defenses. In case anyone thought I was a loony who thought that Napsterites are one rage short of taking out a Mickey Dee's with an AK.]
However, you responded to that post as if the entire post were about Napster, when quite obviously it was not. And you continue to do so.
Yeah! Get 'em, Aaron! And don't forget to call him a pathological liar; it totally wins the argument for you.
Don't forget to demonstrate that you are a true Grexer, by entering gratuitous, hypocritical personal attacks.
re #23, 24: Round one goes to Scott..
Look - if it gives you and scott your jollies to take potshots, perhaps you could at least start a new item rather than demolishing this discussion.
Paul, why don't you tell us how you interpret Bertelsmann's apparent embrace of Napster?
I don't want to. Aaron's hurt my feelings. *sniff* (BTW, isn't #24 a gratuitous personal attack? Let's think about this. IF Aaron is a true Grexer, then #24 is hypocritical (according to its text). But Aaron is saying that all Grexers make personal attacks, ergo his making a personal attack and his being a Grexer makes #24 [as a personal attack] non-hypocritical. Therefore Aaron is not a true Grexer, by his own definition. Therefore #24 carries the implication that he does not make personal attacks, which makes #24 hypocritical, which makes him a true Grexer. Of course, we could resolves this by concluding (a) or (b): (a) Non-Grexers sometimes make gratuitous, hypocritical attacks or (b) Aaron's an asshole shall we vote on which we prefer?) Oh, anyway, back to the topic. Ken, that's an awfully broad statement. Personally, I would think that BMG has been given a lemon and would like to make some lemonade. That is, it sees these potentials: (1) Continue its legal assault on Napster. While they have the law on their side, technically, they appear to have public opinion against them, and I do think they have morality against them. The RIAA has attempted to portray themselves as Defenders of Art, and I think that the masses have bought that padlum even less than they've bought Napsters Defenders of Freedom mantle. A case COULD be made that Napsterites are only interested in the altruistic growth of Disadvantaged Musicians, but the bandwidth sucked up by Metallica alone casts a pall on that argument. But with the kind of attention that the RIAA has been giving to tripe like Britney and B*Boys, no major music label can claim that they're just Standing Up for the Boys. They're in it for the cahs, and they're willing to exploit the law as much as they can, even if it means fucking ethics over. (2) Be the first to partner with Napster. I think the goal was to make it look like BMG was the lone sheep, the one who truly WAS interested in the Art, and a marraige with Napster would show those cute little kids that BMG is willing towaver in its capitalist tracks enough to embrace the little guy, to give them an opportunity to grow. See, BMG isn't like those OTHER labels, which are just interested in money. BMG **CARES**. It saw the PR mess that the RIAA lawsuit has created, and decided to cut a plea bargain. And it can't lose, either, or so it thinks: If the other labels come on board, then they were the Trendsetters. if the other labels go on to win the suit and Napster is banned for ever and always, problem solved without having become part of the Man, the Bad Guy themselves. If Napster is barred from distributing all but BMG's and independent (read: some folkie who sings in Irish pubs, and some hacker who bangs on a Casio in his basement) music, then hey, BMG has its own little machine all pre-fabbed. And they're probably right about the possible outcomes.
brighn, it isn't likely that your effort to pick a fight with me will be more fruitful this time around than it was last time, so how about trying something new, and hopefully not too alien to you - by dropping it.
(I don't agree with all of what he's saying, but I think Paul is really smokin' in this topic. Hysterical laughter at the first part of #28.)
I think Napster, like so many things (the atomic bomb comes to mind), was created because it could be, without much thought as to whether or not it was a good idea.
Traditional music retailing strikes me as the wrong user interface at this point. Since the music is already stored as digital data, and computers are capable of playing it, it seems pretty logical that when I want a particular piece of music I should be able find it on line and download it. That's what I do with any other digital data I'm looking for. In contrast to that, having to go out to a store and buy a CD, or find it online and wait for the CD to be delivered strikes me as awfully cumbersome. Still, that tends to be what I do, both because I have ethical qualms about taking something without paying for it, and because my computer's sound isn't all that good. I've played with Napster a little bit, mostly to figure out what a piece of music was before going out to a store to blindly look for it. Napster's interface is pretty nice. I search for some keywords, find the song in a list, and click on it to download. Even with cost not being a consideration, it's considerably easier than going out to a physical store and buying something. However, beyond the interface, Napster in its current form kind of sucks. It's got its nice efficient search functionality, but once you decide to download something you're often pulling it off the "server" through somebody's 14.4K modem. I'm interested in seeing what the record companies do with Napster. If they, as I've seen implied, keep Napster functioning as is from a technical standpoint, but restrict the music there to music from participating major record labels, I expect that to be the end of Napster. The selection will be less, it will cost something, and it will still be slow. I think something Napsterlike could be made to work well, though. The server and client functionalities should be separated, such that the servers, rather than being end users' PCs, will be well connected servers belonging to the copyright holders or authorized distributors. Users would have accounts with the directory service -- probably direct credit card billing would be the way to handle it -- from which they could be charged some small amount of money for each file they downloaded. The money, post-commission, would be passed on to the distributor. Ideally the protocol would be an open standard, and the setup fees would be sufficiently small, so individual artists and small distributors could offer their stuff through the service as well. That's my grand vision for online music distribution. I don't expect those actually doing online music distribution to follow my idea for how they should do it, and I'm not sufficiently motivated, or expecting enough support from the major record companies, to make it worth doing myself.
Aaron: #19 and #22 contained condescending remarks. #24, #26, and #29 had no topic-relevant substance whatsoever, and were pure "pity me, I'm being attacked" posts. In contrast, #28 spend a paragraph calling you an asshole and two paragraphs actually addressing the topic at hand. Now, pray tell, sir, who's being uncooperative and single-mindedly belligerent? Get off it, and get off yourself, and either get back to the topic or shut up. <And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, will be the last I have to say on the topic of Aaron in this thread.> #31> A major theme of Real Genius. I'd agree with that. If we'd like to go abstract and drop the NApster-specific discussion, it might be interesting to explore the philosophical ramifications and ethical obligation of the inventor to the invented. #32> I agree with paragraph #1. The problem with Napster, as with online software distrubition, etc., is to balance the common-sense content of your paragraph #1 with the sense that most of us seem to have that if we download it, it should be free, or at least much cheaper than packaged goods, when most of the price of software and music is in the creation of it, not in the packaging.
brighn, I guess I did ask *far* too much of you. I don't know why I bothered.
Re #33: Most of the expense of music is in record label advertising and profits. The musician royalties and the cost of manufacturing are both tiny fractions.
The record industry is notorious for playing shell games with profits, so as to deprive artists of their royalties. A typical record industry contract, particularly for a first album, is carefully contrived to allow the record company to "lose money", no matter how many copies are sold.
New article today in www.salon.com discusses music marketers who are using Napster's tools to see what musicians and songs are on your hard drive and send you focused marketing messages. Some people see this as a validation for Napster and a way to repay, in a fashion, the artists and the industry. Other people worry that it could become just another conduit for huge quantities of unsolicted e-mail promoting musicians you'd never care about. In the story's main example, the management of singer Aimee Mann collected 1700 new e-mail addresses of dedicated Mann fans, even though Mann herself has been publically opposed to Napster. They are delighted to have 1700 fans to send new release and tour info to. Intriguing story. Title: "The Napster Parasites." Forgive me for not keying in the whole URL, it should not be hard to find on Salon.com.
Jane Siberry, the wonderfully quirky Canadian artist, who has been running her own label for several years, now, recently updated her webpages with a not about her forays into the Napsterverse, and her 'solution' for Napster Musician Care. It's an interesting viewpoint, and can be found here: http://www.sheeba.ca/napsterSweet.html
I'm assuming that online music could be considerably cheaper than store bought music not so much because of lowered production and distribution costs, but because I'm assuming that if music were cheap and easy to obtain on impulse, at the moment people felt like listening to it, a lot more of it would be sold. I'm skeptical of the chances of obtaining significant revenue by giving it away for free, but I expect that if it were priced at somewhere in the range of 25 cents to a dollar per song, revenues would be considerably more than in store revenues currently are. At least, I'd certainly buy a lot more of it.
#39> Hm. OTOH, if you could just buy, for instance, BNL's "Pinch Me" for $1.50, and you dislike the rest of the songs you've heard, then what impetuc would you have to purchase any other BNL stuff? This example is based on an experiment that's been tried and failed a few times in record stores: Allow consumers to select "mixed" albums with their 12 favorite tracks. What you're saying is basic economics: The price of an object, theoretically, is that number that will result in the highest profits for the seller. But that principle has been functioning on the music industry for years. The result? The prices we have now. I don't see how on-line music sales would mitigate that at all. The only thing it COULD do is lower the price SLIGHTLY because of the packaging and the lack of a middleman -- they could charge "wholesale" prices, because that's what they're getting now anyway. But that would be balanced by a need to increase per-song prices to justify "filler," which would still need to be produced for those people who still choose to buy full-length CDs. Plus, as many musicians have said (an example is PSB's liner notes on their B-sides collection), filler and b-sides are the place where many do all or most of their experimentation. The lead tracks are so the album will sell, and (at least for some) the filler is where the art is made. Allowing people to only purchase the singles, in this model, would be a disservice to music, not a service to it. [Other filler, of course, is pure crap.]
I'm as much into music as most people, and I am not exactly poor, but it has been many years since I have bought a new music CD in a store for myself. The sticker shock is just much too intense. Sorry, but I am not willing to pay $18 for a CD that I will at best play occasionally. The fact that most musicians will never get a penny of that eighteen bucks -- not one cent -- is a small but significant consideration. I don't use Napster either. I have just never gotten into the concept of using the computer as a music box. I'd like to hear music in the car, but I detest radio commercials. I do buy CDs from performers directly, at concerts, where I know they will get some of the money. And I will buy used CDs if they're cheap enough. And when put on the spot to buy a gift for someone, a few times, I have bought a CD from a store. But for most purposes, I am simply not in the music market.
I'm truly confused. Has anyone seen how most musicians -- at least, of the sort that major music chain stores sell -- live? Granted, most of the "starving artist" sorts don't make much money, but they also don't have contracts with BMG or Geffen. At the risk of sounding like "Look at that faggot, that's they way to do it, get your money for nothing and your chicks for free": Sting has a ranch in England, last I heard. Trent Reznor wanders around in high-tailored suits. Rap stars nearly OG on a regular basis [ref: I'm Gonna Get You, Sucka]. How can someone, with a straight face, say, "The fact that most musicians will never get a penny of that eighteen bucks -- not one cent"? Most musicians with Major Recording Contracts and serious airplay are hardly strapped for cash. Whose line have you been buying, Ken? The rap star with the gold tooth and the crystal cane and the Benz telling us how Geffen ripped him off and made him eat Alpo?
Well, flip that around. How much of a national star's "income" has to go to personal image demanded by the record label?
News item: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that its decision on the injunction for an immediate Napster shutdown will be delivered on Monday. Brighn seems to have mistaken polygon for me -- happens more often than one might think -- but also seems to have a rather odd idea that a major label contract means the musicians are well off. This one's been bashed down so many times I'm not going to bother arguing with it: look up the Steve Albini and Courtney Love essays, for starters.
Again, what is writer's share (royalty) per song, 2.5 cents per song per unit sold?
Re 42-45. There is some theoretical royalty amount per unit sold, sure. But all promotion costs are deducted from that, and only a very few acts net anything at all. See the essays Ken mentioned.
Also, see "The Heavenly Jukebox," which you can read on the Atlantic Monthly's web site, something like theatlantic.com
I think it is relatively easy to see why somebody, looking at the U.S. media and entertainment industry, would believe that every artist with a major label contract was rich. That's the image that the media wants to convey. By the time a new superstar is really getting attention, they are usually on to a big money national tour, or a second record contract, which can put them squarely into that "rich" category. Nobody points out that it is the exceptional artist who inspires a bidding war for a first record, and that most have to sign contracts which will provide little or nothing even if the album becomes a smash hit. There are exponentially more bands than the record companies are capable of promoting, and most of those bands want a record contract. "Take it or leave it" may not sound that good, but if the artist is savvy enough to understand the contract, the artist is probably also savvy enough to know that the odds are strong that a choice to "leave it" will not be followed by an offer from a different company. (There are rare souls who have the savvy and ego to say, "Thanks, but I'll make more money selling my albums out of the trunk of my car than I'll make from this contract," and who actually get a better offer. The now-forgotten M.C. Hammer, for whom that was literally true, being a case in point.)
Concerning preferences in music retailing: So long as the store is well-stocked, I would much rather go to the store than download from the Web. Web downloads take forever, even on a fast line, and then what have you got? A computer file you have to stuff away somewhere, and/or transfer to some other device, and remember what it's called and what's on it ... I'd rather have a CD. Also, browsing on the Web is a real pain. Click, click, click. Back, back, back. Wait, wait, wait. What the Web is really good at is finding things when you already know exactly what you want, and for checking out samples of things (assuming you have the time and desire to search for the samples, which I mostly don't). I've never used Napster, but I've seen printouts of song lists. They look like a chat room. Even before the use of instant messaging (something I also dislike) as an advertising concept, the whole Napster notion of automatically loading your song lists online creeped me out. Which is related to Napster's real crime: not that it's a copyright violator (there's plenty of those to go around), but that it's the bandwidth hog of all time. That, and not copyright concerns, is why universities have been banning it: it brings their networks to a halt.
Ah, David has hit on the reason I never tried Napster seriously. Even with the T1 line I have at work, it was far too much trouble to find music I wanted and it never downloaded when I wanted it to. I don't/can't leave my computer on all the time, and it just was too much of a time/bandwidth hog to ever seem practical to me. I, too, prefer buying the actual media rather than having stuff on electronic ... nothings... For example, at work, I have a couple of hundred songs stored on my work computer, which just sit there. Because I can't access them directly without some less than convenient wiring (being as at work I can't listen out loud) and some less than convenient messing with files, etc. And I can't just take them home and listen here. It's more trouble than it's worth.
#43 notwithstanding, Courtney Love doesn't seem to be hurting for high fashion gear herself. And as for directing me to essays written by musicians, may I refer you back to the last paragraphs of my #42? Finally, KEN, please re-read my #42 in re: the idea that major label contract = well-off. For instance, my stipulation about serious airplay -- most musicians on major labels don't get that. If most musicians don't net anything at all from being musicians (since I've read, repeatedly, that they net nothing from records and lose money from concerts), why are there so many career musicians? (NB: The contention on the table is "nothing at all"... if you want to tell me that, on an $18 CD, the average artist will make 1c per unit, that's a different kettle of fish.)
Having read the article to which polygon refers, I see the nit-pickery that is being made. The implication -- that buying a CD doesn't profit the performer -- is backed by this statement, for instance: "Performers rarely see a penny of CD royalties." But other statements in that article indicate that that's an exageration: Artists DO benefit from CD sales, they DO make money, it's just that it's usually just the advance the initially receive that's their payment for the album: "After paying performers an advance against royalties, ... record labels, unlike publishers, routinely deduct the costs of production, marketing, and promotion from the performers' royalties." ... "Unheralded session musicians and orchestra members, who are paid flat fees, often do better in the end." But if an artist doesn't sell any CDs at all, then they don't get their contract renewed. So to say, as Larry says, " The fact that most musicians will never get a penny of that eighteen bucks -- not one cent -- is a small but significant consideration" is a clear exaggeration. They won't get any additional money from that particular sale of that particular CD, because they've already gotten whatever they're getting of that $18, in the form of the advance, and the sale of that album will contribute to the likelihood that they'll get a future contract. I'll readily accept that most musicians make very little of the total sales of a CD. Most artists, in general, do. A portion of that is not entirely the RIAA/Big Label's faults, though: More people want to be artists (of all sorts) than the society (ergo the market) will bear... this is an accepted reality in writing, where most authors realize the likelihood of getting rich -- or even of eking out a decent wage -- on writing alone is very slim. Perhaps it's because writers, in the main, tend to be older and more mature than musicians that we hear fewer complaints coming from those quarters of unfair treatment (for several reasons: There's less complaining going on, we care less because the people are more likely to know the risks going on, careers tend to be longer -- at least for pop writers -- so the odds that they'll break through "eventually" persist longer, because the publishing houses are less capricious in their inequities, because writing overall is less cutthroat as an industry because it's not as sensitive to cultural whims). Ditto actors, although they have strong unions that I don't believe other artists have. And yes, as I've never denied, the Big Labels are bastards who want to make a buck. Shocking that they care more about profits than quality or fairness... stop the presses! Corporate America Worships the Dollar! [Atlantic Monthly quotes from http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/mann3.htm]
re #51: Most musicians realize, at some point, that they will never make
a living from their art. Even a "successfu" and "popular" local
band. You have to have the recording contract to really hit it big.
Very few artists who get a recording contract expect to be a "one
hit wonder" (even though most are either no-it or one-hit wonders.)
Again, if the choice is either having a chance (but making little
or no money from the first album), or turning down that chance
(knowing that it is exceptionally unlikely that another record offer
will ever be made), why does it surprise you that people sign on?
If an album sells a million copies, and the artist received a
$20,000 advance, is that fair compensation in your eyes?
My thread is not based on "fair compensation." I have acknowledged several times that, as far as the evidence that's presented to me indicates, record companies don't compensate artists fairly. This thread is based on the implication that record companies don't compensate most artists they sign AT ALL. I don't understand why I need to acknowledge that yet again, Aaron. I also don't feel that the record companies are as unfair as they're depicted in this and other places. When asked, only one person was able to produce a source by someone other than a musician about inequities. While it's not fair that a group mght receive, say, $20K for a platinum album, record companies also have to recoup losses from gambles that failed somehow. How about if the Famous Ass-Mouths have to not only pay back every cent for production cost, etc., when their album fails to sell, but they also have to compensate their record company for every bit of lost revenue and potential revenue? That's not fair, either... and they probably don't have that kind of money, anyway. I'm not about to pretend that record execs are minimum-wage grunts scrounging for money, and all these sales are being absorbed by losses elsewhere. But I think that this item is, for the most part, presenting a one-sided view. Major label record execs take a larger portion of the profits than they probably should be, but enough musicians are still getting paid enough money to attract more people to be musicians for the money. ... which brings us back to the independents, anyway. IF the major labels bilk artists for so much that most musicians would be better off selling CDs out of the trunk of their car (CDs which they don't have, because they didn't have a major labels funding the CD in the process of"bilking" them, but that's beside the point </sarcasm>), then how is it that the major labels are hurting the independents by not signing them (a claim that's been made in this same item). The Majors are bastards for signing people to contracts that, in part, are designed to minimize the company's losses for long-shots, they're bastards for not signing true, market-established long shots... they're bastards for only signing people when the contracts are likely to go gold or platinum, but they're bastards for signing people to contracts that protect the company when the album doesn't sell... [contracts>albums, two lines up] When did the Major Record Labels become a charity organization geared to the preservation of aesthetically sound music? This is a consumer economy, and we can blame the Big Bad BMG for the quality of the air waves all we want, but when Biffy and Buffy are going out and buying Britney Spears and N*Sync, and Lawrence Kestenbaum refuses to buy music because of the economic inequities, well, who do you think is going to have more of an effect on what BMG et alia produce? Non-consumers have significantly less of an effect on the sort of product available in the marketplace. Going back to another thread, whose fault is it, in the end, that Ann Arbor doesn't have a classical radio station anymore? When did radio -- like the major labels -- become a charity for the cultural elite? And if you're all so unhappy about the status quo, go do something legal about it... go start a radio station or a record company of your own, go support your local arts (which I'm sure some of you already do), go write letters to your politicians bemoaning the RIAA's influence on copyright and other intellectual property law (which I wouldn't be surprised if some of you may already have done). *shrug* Corporate AMerica is full of bastards. So is Grex. I'm one of them. Life goes on. *shrug* [And no, I'm not saying Corporations should be allowed to run roughshod over anyone and everyone. I'm saying that I think I'm becoming more Libertarian in my old age.]
Some of us do support the small artists -- I know that I buy far more music from artists at concerts than I do at the store (since most of my favourite artists are folk musicians, they tend to produce their own albums, or be on small independent labels) -- the only problem for me being that I can't easily tell people to go try, say, Garnet Rogers (who was at the Ark last night, and so is in my thoughts), since his records are available only through his own company and/or various obscure internet retailers -- they certainly are not in the record stores. As for your arguments about choosing to starve vs. being a musician, above, um, well, most of the musicians I have met have day jobs (or spouses with day jobs) to take care of the bills. Just as an aspiring author is advised to keep that day job or have a wife/husband to pay the bills, so too with musicians.
Oh. I should clarify that the only musicians I have personally met have been in the folk music field, so may not be of the same mindset and/or motivation of any other types of musicians. Yes, some of them *are* full-time musicians, but I don't think even the ones who are well-known are exactly making money hand over fist -- a lot of the motivation for being folkies tends to be for political/philosophical reasons, as well as the fact that they like being musicians. It is often said that folk music is a community, and this is part of why musicians stay in this field.
Now linked to the cyberpunk conf, your conf of social issues surrounding the internet, j cyber at the next OK: prompt.
#55, 56> Probably the only folkies who could qualify as making lots of money are what the pop music folks cal folkies -- Tracy Chapman, Suzanne Vega, Loreena McKinnett all seemed to do fairly well in their day, and there was also that hippie era was folk was popular (Traffic's heydey).
Most successful classical musicians are also music teachers, which doesn't seem to correlate at all to trends in more populist forms.
Re 52. It's NOT nit-pickery. If I pay $18 for a CD, and none of it goes to the band or musician, then they didn't get a penny of it, did they? The fact that the sale has some speculative vague effect on maybe some future event is of extremely limited relevance. How long is the band going to stay together, anyway? "Unheralded session musicians" are obviously not what we're talking about here. They get paid scale, just like the janitor who sweeps up after the recording session is done. And what's this crap about "Lawrence Kestenbaum refuses to buy music because of the economic inequities"? Apparently, you completely missed the point of my response #41, in which I identified the gigantically inflated cost of a new CD as the major reason I don't buy them.
That's an economic inequity, isn't it? ;)
Wow, I got Larry to say "crap." I must have irked him. Some of your $18 DOES go to the band, in the form of the advance they already received. If you don't want to call your statement nit-pickery, then at least admit it's oversimplifying. *shrug* Of that $18, btw, much of it must be going to the record store, since I can generally get new CDs for $13-16... which means wholesale must be around $12. I'm not sure how a 33% mark-up by the record store goes back to the Big Bad Major Labels. Maybe we should start a thread on how record retailers are ripping BMG off, and how that justifies BMG doing whatever it can to circumvent that? *eg*
Is that $12 wholesale price fixed, or do the record stores have to pay more for those new releases they sell for $18? I'd always gotten the impression that the profit margin for record stores is very slim. It was interesting to compare the prices of cassettes and CDs, when you could still get cassettes. The production costs are the same, and the manufacturing costs for CDs are *lower*...but CDs consistantly cost about twice what cassettes did. We're seeing the same thing now with DVD. A new release on videotape is often $5 or $10 cheaper than the same movie on DVD.
The ruling on the preliminary injunction is in. It is reported as a win for the record companies. The appeals court has ordered the trial court judge Marilyn Patel to craft a slightly different injunction, and I don't know the significance of that, but the essence of the appeals court ruling seems to be that Napster cannot allow its users to trade copyrighted material. More information will pour in through the afternoon, I'm sure.
Re 62. Let's say that you create a painting, and sell it to me, with all rights, for $100. In one case, I attempt to resell it, find no market for it, and toss it in the dumpster. In the other case, I make 100,000 reproductions and sell them for ten dollars each, giving me $1 million in gross revenue. Which one I do is completely up to me. Either way, you still have your $100. It doesn't change your $100 whether I get nothing or whether I get a million dollars. To say that 1/10,000 of that million dollars went to you is sophistry. If someone steps up and buys a copy of the painting from me, none of that $10 is going to you.
But you didn't pay me $100 for the painting. You gave me $100 to paint a painting, on the condition that I would get 0.01% of the sales of copies of that painting, but that you wouldn't give me a penny over that original $100 until after you'd made it back. If anything, that means that the recording industry works like a vanity press. think about it this way: The cut-off is supposedly 1M copies (roughly). Let's say you bought the 1 millionth copy. None of your money goes directly to the band. Now, the guy behind you buys a copy. 5c of that money goes to the band. On what grounds do you say that the guy behind you has given money to the band, and you haven't, when you just paid the same amount?
Re 66. Because the likelihood that the line will be that long is infinitesimal from the standpoint of the average musician.
re #66: Again, that is not how it works. The contracts available to
most artists are carefully constructed so that the record company can
claim to lose money, no matter how many copies are sold. "'A band will
make more money by giving away 500,000 copies of an album - if that
helps them sell more forty-dollar concert tickets and twenty-five-dollar
T-shirts - than it would by not giving away a single album and selling
only 200,000 copies,' says an agent at a high-powered talent agency."
Rolling Stone, "World War MP3", June 17, 1999. Here's a bitter account
of how a $250,000 "advance" can translate into barely more than $4,000
per band member - http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/problemwithmusic.html
.
For an examination of the same type of contract in a related industry
(motion pictures), see "Less Than Zero - Studio Accounting Practices in
Hollywood" - http://www.hollywoodnetwork.com/Law/Hart/columns/index.html
("The accounting provisions which are contained in the studios' SPDs
make it difficult, if not mathematically impossible in many cases, for
net profits ever to be achieved."), and "Where's The Profit" -
http://www.college.hmco.com/accounting/readings/12-bengei.html ("What do
Rain Man, Batman, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? have in common? At the
box office, all three are among the 40 most successful films of all
time, but each as remained in the red for those performers, writers, and
other filmmakers whose contracts provide a share in the film’s net
profits. And these three films are not unique in this respect. Fewer
than 5% of released films show a profit for net profit participation
purposes.") For the record, the movie industry based its accounting
model on the record industry's model. See T. Connors, "Beleaguered
Accounting", 70 S. Cal. L. Rev. 841, 847 (1997).
Quibbling over whether performers directly see any of the money paid for the recording strikes me as somewhat pointless. The more important questions are wehther they get paid, and to a lesser extent whether how well their recording does determines their wealth. If somebody buys services from my employer, and I then do the engineering work required for whatever they've bought, you could argue that I never see a penny of the money they're paying my employer. By the standards being used in this argument, you'd be right. I'm not paid on commission. Even if I spend this week bringing in more revenue than everybody else in the company combined, what I get paid for this week will be no different than if I'd spent the time sitting in my chair and staring at the wall. However, that's not to say that I'm not being compensated for what I do, or that getting work done doesn't benefit me personally. My employer pays my sallary on the assumption that I will be doing work, rather than staring at the wall. If I weren't getting work done, I probably wouldn't continue to receive that sallary for all that long. If I do good work, in theory the sallary will go up, or at least it will look good on a resume and cause me to get paid more by somebody else, eventually. Likewise, wheter recording artists are paid on commission provides a less than full answer to whether they are being compensated. If a recording artist is being paid only on commission, and the commission contract is rigged such that the artist won't possibly be able to make a cent, then the artist probably isn't making anything off that recording. If, on the other hand, the artist is getting a million dollar advance on the recording, and then not earning any royalties on it, the artist is still doing pretty well. It should also be noted that there are other reasons for doing things, beyond immediate payment and pure enjoyment. If an artist is getting a $100 advance and almost no chance for commissions on their first CD, but will then be in a position to do much better financially on their second CD if their first one does well, then releasing a first CD for no money can still have great benefits for the artists. How likely these benefits are to happen, and whether it's worth it, are things the artist has to decide. As such the first CD can be seen as a high risk investment -- something that will likely cause the loss of whatever resources are put into it, but which has some small chance of bringing extreme riches. There are also ways to make money off publishing that don't involve getting money from the publisher at all. I don't know how this works for the music industry, but there are certainly some fields where the prestige of having published a book can increase peoples' sallaries in their other jobs.
((response cloned from M-net:)) We seem to be into really subtle territory here in the difference between the trial court judge Patel's original ruling, and what the appeals court has directed. Based on the news reports I'm seeing, Judge Patel ordered Napster to police itself to ensure that copyrighted material is not traded using its system; the Court of Appeals directive is (if I'm reading this right) that the policing of Napster is to be done by the copyright holders; they are to send complaints to Napster, and Napster is only responsible for copyright infringement after they have been notified about it. This sounds like the DCMA's "notice and take down" rules, which is Napster's current policy!! I refer to it as the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" school of copyright enforcement. On the other hand, the appeals court clearly said that Napster's file trading does not fall under the protection of fair use. So I really don't know what to make of it... and this is all over a preliminary injunction anyway, the actualcopyright infringement trial starts this spring, and Patel has made it clear she's about as hostile to Napster as a judge can get towards a civil defendant. (Maybe the appeals court is telling the music industry that if they want genuine, effective relief, they'll have to start suing the individual Napster users?)
#67, 68> *shrug* We disagree. I'm moving on.
What is the purpose of Napster? Is it to allow general users to download non-copyright material? No. Is it to allow me who buys a CD of a 'band' to 'record' a specific song from that CD and personally use it how I see fit? No. (plenty programs to do that on me own machine) (I zap copies of Mary Wilson's Music and computer CDs so that when she destroys them (she never has originals) I can give her another copy. Wish I did the same for vhs cassettes (three copies of pocohontas and counting....)). The primary use of Napster is in fact to allow a user to download and record 'songs' he/she hasn't 'paid for' no matter how you look at it and no matter how Napster wants you to look at it. In the real world thats the way Napster is used (or mis-used). I frankly don't see the 'business model' for Napster that generate profit for investors even right now much less originally. If Napster's 'business model' was instead to facilitate the distribution of child porno instead of 'bootleg' recordings I don't think there would be any question about shutting it down. As for it only really hurting the 'big bad' record companies instead of the 'original artists', well... I would suggest that if it were not for the original 'record companies' -despite their extremely predatory practices - you would likely as not have never even 'heard' of the 'original artists'. The 'record company' *did* get the Beatles out there and last I heard with the exception of the dead one they weren't exactly on welfare... For every 'success' how many unbelievably stupid 'records' or 'films' were released by a 'major studio' and perhaps the 'creative accounting' on the part of the studios is in order to have the 'one' success subsidize the 400 major abject and outright failures each year in order for the studios to 'make money' for their investors so they can stay in business. After all, nobody forces the 'author' to take a percentage of the 'net' instead of the 'gross'. How many movie 'classics' now were considered 'box office disasters' upon their release? _Its a Wonderful Life_ I seem to recall was a 'box office disaster' comes to mind. No, Napster is clearly in the business of 'bootleg'-ing and ought to be shut down. Oh, I am looking for the english version of _Shanghai Noon_. I will gladly trade you a copy of the 'files' (two) on two CDs for the same in english. I have the VCD set with Mandarin in one channel and Cantonese in another with three other language 'subtitles' in the video...Mary Wilson and Nai-Nai enjoy it, but I would like to have one in english... (Is _Shanghai Noon_ even on DVD release yet? I bought the two cd (VCD) set in very professional package for less than a dollar in Hu Fei, An Wei province last year from a street vendor (I coulda probably got it for less except on account I look like I have money - am 'epicanthaly challenged')). Please to send me e-mail at bdh@bdh.nu.
Re 69. The issue is not whether somebody is getting compensated at all. The issue, for me, as I originally stated it, is that the cost of a new CD in a store is so outlandishly high that I'm not really interested in buying any at that price. The fact that none of that large amount of money benefits the artist, except very indirectly and speculatively, only reinforces this. Buying a CD at a concert is slightly different. It's almost like a donation toward the living expenses of someone who is doing music because they love doing it, given that they could enjoy a higher income doing almost anything else. In fact, at the kind of concerts I go to, usually it's the performer himself/herself, or a band member, at the CD table taking the money.
So for those who are against napster, and I'll admit freely that some use it for getting all they can, aren't we splitting hairs because the courts feel that a computer does not constitute a home recording device (even though I have a program like Adaptec's Disc Jockey where I can import my vinyl and tapes into it) therefore it's not protected like your dual cassette recorder is? I'm more offended that Eminem and other artists feel that "If you can afford a computer you can afford the $16 to buy my ...CD" I am COMPLETELY offended by that. I DO buy thier overpriced CD's. What you see coming out of the woodwork on this issue are hippocrites and money grubbing artists against this system. Case in Point, Metallica, who advocated bootlegging not only the albums, but the concerts they did, who now have been vocal about napster and equally as tightfisted with their concert material. they saw $$$. They had a big enough fan base. So they changed their mind. So that means that every other artist has to as well, right? Big bad metallica has offically spoken out of both sides of their face. I'm especially angry that the shift after Frampton Comes Alive is for MONEY to rule the recording industry. I am all for the little people who do what they can and produce their own, like Ani Defranco. But now you have MBA's dictating what the public will like, wanting cookie cutter bands, and warping any idea of "music" as played by the musician. The RIAA has made the artist a comodity of the Record Company, similiar to Slave Labor, and some of us might actually LIKE to hear something GOOD. If you go after napster, by all rights you should go after ever kid who gives his friend or his sweetheart a tape of "their songs". But because of all the BS that happened 20-30 years ago, you can't. It's just a matter of setting precident with a computer as a recording device. I wonder if I should send the appelate court judges a copy of one of the several computer programs that COMPOSE music?
(#73> Having reread the thread, I do admit that I took a side comment of Larry's and made a major thread out of it, and then, having forgotten it was a side note of his, commented as if it had been the crux of his argument. My apologies for that; it was inadvertant, not malicious, but it was still inappropraite.) #72> Beady, all the rest of your comments aside, child porn is illegal. Metallica songs aren't. There's a HUGE difference between the illegal exchange of legal material and the exchange of illegal material. While I think the former is still inappropriate, in the "Grand Sheme," your comparison sucks wad. If anything, it represents those of us who are opposed to Napster on solid moral grounds as fruitcakes who don't know the difference between Metallica and kiddie porn.
#74> The most apropos comparison to Napster in the non-virtual world would be someone standing at a concert with a crate full of home-burned CDs, giving them away to people for $1/per to cover costs. Someone giving copies to all their friends isn't a "large enough" example. The point being: You may have five or six friends that you regularly give pirated music to. Napster gives far far more than five or six people access to your HD.
Well, for an example, NO ONE has access to my hard drive. I don't allow downloads when I'm online. It slows down the process. Another thing, it is an urealistic expectation that a preson is going to do that, have a crate and sell them. First off, nothing is being sold, and secondly, those are the SAME fears that came with dual tape copies. And tapes from vinyl. Tapes were EVIL remember? It is the SAME thing, only we have the ability to make a cd, not just a tape. I think the problems are unfounded.
I think the big question with recording industry practices is "is there any alternative?" The problem is there really isn't. They control all the distribution channels, so they can conspire to make the contracts as bad as they want and it'll be a matter of "my way or the highway." At one point they even made a nearly-successful attempt to keep stores from selling used CDs. The syndicates that handle newspaper comic strips are in a similar situation. There's only about five of them, and if you're a cartoonist and you don't like the terms they offer you, well, too bad. They've locked up the market for newspaper comic page space. There's no room for independents.
Sun/ashke in resp:74 :: "aren't we splitting hairs because the courts feel that a computer does not constitute a home recording device (even though I have a program like Adaptec's Disc Jockey where I can import my vinyl and tapes into it) therefore it's not protected like your dual cassette recorder is?" This isn't the courts splitting hairs. This is the courts applying the definitions -- pretty clear ones -- laid down by Congress in the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. These are the same definitions which the courts interpreted to allow MP3 players to be sold, even though they do not incorporate SCMS. Yes, at some level it's splitting hairs, in the sense that most laws eventually end up splitting hairs somewhere. On the other hand, the AHRA was also one of those grand compromises which tried to balance the competing interests of the copyright industry, the electronics industry, and the consumers, and like it or not, resolutions like this are what Congress is for. See http://www.hrrc.org (Home Recording Rights Coalition) for a good background on the law. ((I have more to pass along about the Napster ruling and will hope to get it cranked out later today.))
But that definition was laid down BEFORE mass applications for computers were truly used....correct? The leaps and bounds in computer technology and home pc technology are amazing. If you had told me in 91 that I'd be playing music on a computer, I'd have called you crazy. Now? I use it as much as my stereo.
I was playing music on the computer in 1991. I was playing music on the computer in 1984. Mass reproduction has been available for quite some time. The law is plain: Reproduce a few times, and we won't prosecute, even though it's illegal. Reproduce a few thousand times, and we'll prosecute. This isn't a matter of new v. old technology. The only way that new technology is relevant is that it's now easier to break the law. That doesn't mean you're not breaking the law anymore.
Re #80, 81: Actually, the law says, "reproduce a few times, using a stand-alone audio CD burner and audio CD blanks, and we won't prosecute. Reproduce a few times, using a computer and data CD blanks, and we might." It does sort of split hairs. Stand-alone audio burners are considered "home recording devices" and computers aren't.
Brighn is somewhat mistaken in #81: he's describing prosecutorial discretion and allocation of resources, not the law, and we are generally concerned with civil copyright infringement here, not criminal. And so far no individual users of Napster have been sued. Gull in resp:82 :: yes, that's the law. In exchange for the extra royalties one pays for the audio CD burner and the audio CD blanks, Congress rules that you are immune from copyright suit for the non-commercial use of those things, even if you are duplicating copyrighted material. There's no technical difference between an audio blank and a data blank, merely a legal/royalty difference. You could be sued for copyright infringement for the use of your computer to clone CDs on data discs, and if you did it often enough the felony provisions of the No Electronic Theft Act would apply.
This response has been erased.
>Somebody somewhere here a long time ago referred to a law that limited home >copies to a certain number. There was some discussion at that point as to >whether or not that was a law or just a practice, but I thought that it had >ultimately come down that it was a law.
Re #83: Who decides who gets the royalties? Do they just go to the record companies? (Interestingly, it's also *impossible* to use the legal, audio blanks in a computer. You get an 'application code' error.)
OOC, I've been archiving my old vinyls onto CD via computer. Not that I'm going to stop or anything, but I assume that's legal... is it? (It's for my own usage, recording LPs I own into CDs I own). #85> I recall now that it was determined that it wasn't law, but rather a legal guideline agreed to by some grand power like the RIAA or other... details remain sketchy in my head, though. *shrug* This is why I keep trying to remind myself to stay out of legal discussions and keep to moral discussions. The law is overly intricate and pointless, in many ways.
Re #87: It's technically illegal, but the chances of getting sued over it are nonexistant.
In theory it is also impossible to use data blanks on home audio CD recorders, but some can be fooled and anything can be hacked. I've been prowling through Napster a bit. It is a good place to pick up those goofy fringe recordings of horrible things happening to a purple reptile or to mutants with video displays embedded into thier digestive systems, or other oddball things that you won't find on a mass-produced audio format. And if Napster does get heavily modified, as has been pointed out, alernatives exist already, including servers using Napster protocol that will work with clients that can be given specified servers. (I don't know what a real Napster client is like, so I don't know if this is easy/hard/impossible on them.)
The technological cat's out of the bag, re: Napster. Frankly, the best the Majors and the RIAA can hope for is maintaining enough of a PR image that some of us actually respect them enough to keep from ripping them off. I think that's Bertelmann's strategy. Of course, they could ALWAYS restructure how they pay artists so those of us who don't respect them begin to again. If anything, that's one really good thing that could come out of this mess, once the dust settles. Personally, I'm not going to hold my breath, but that DOES seem to be a motivator that I've heard a lot -- the first is that CDs are too pricey, but the second is that none or little of that money goes to the artists (directly, at least, and the indirectly is clearly too "indirectly" for some people's tastes).
Their best response, barring an unforeseen advance in encryption and pay-per-download technology, would probably be to offer affordable blanket licenses for various libraries of downloadable music (akin to what is available to commercial enterprises through BMI and ASCAP), while pursuing legal remedies against those responsible for any significant level of piracy.
Re 75 re 73. Many thanks for this acknowledgement. I appreciate it.
Back to my resp:0, second paragraph... today we have a wire service story about a Napster statement that they are continuing to work on developing their subscription service: http://www.latimes.com/wires/20010216/tCB00a6683.html "The new business model and technology enables digital music files to be transferred from computer user to computer user -- so-called peer-to-peer sharing -- but restrictions such as limiting the ability to copy files on a CD will be placed on the transferred files, Napster said." So I guess my first thought was correct: they must be planning on having either the sending or receiving program put a Digital Rights Management wrapper around the vanilla MP3 file. ???
Stanford University, where I work, has instituted network routines to put Napster and several other such services at the bottom priority of network processing. They've been eating up so much network resources it slows everybody down. There is no prohibition, and in fact they recommend certain times of day when other network traffic is low. As I suspected, it's the bandwidth. Response among students has been mixed. Some whine that they can't get everything they want RIGHT NOW. Others suggest that perhaps this move will improve the dating scene on campus, as students will be impelled to go out instead of spending all their evenings downloading music from the Web. A list of things that _I_ would prefer doing to watching little completion percentage bars crawl across my computer screen would be a very long list indeed.
At Michigan Tech they banned Napster use because they found the usage pattern it created was aggravating a problem with their backbone switch. (A problem that the switch's manufacturer had, at the time I left, been utterly unable to fix over a period of two or three months.) It wasn't a bandwidth usage problem, exactly; something about the rapid-fire way Napster makes connections was triggering the switch to drop whole network segments for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.
News item: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010215/tc/belgium_napsster_1.html "Belgian Cops Raid Music-Sharers." The raids of users homes were primarily aimed at a web site. However, the prosecution spokesman says, "four cases against Napster users were currently under review."
I much preferred the hysterical Slashdot extrapolations (jackbooted Belgian stormtroopers conducting mass arrests) to the actual story, which involves police seizing computers from several people who operated an MP3 download site, but this could indeed turn into a trend to watch..
www.inside.com has the best explanation I've seen of how a Digital Rights Management Napster is supposed to work. Grab the story quick before they move it from the "free" section to the "members" section. New Scientist has a piece on SDMI and watermarking. http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns22782 Like most good stuff, this is indexed from the http://www.mp3.com/news index page.
And the latest news is Napster wants to try to settel with all the record companies including the indies for a cool billion dollars. This works out to 20 dollars a subscriber for napsters current 50 million subscribers, assuming most of them stay signed up for a subscriber service which is a big if, with open nap, guntella, etc, available for free. Seems like a sketchy business model, but it could way to reach the win win solution of unlimited aqccess to music while assuring the record companies and more importantly the artisits their cut.
The artists? Doubtful even in the most optimistic model.
resp:96, resp:97 :: ZDnet(UK) runs a story that the IFPI (the global version of the RIAA) is pushing hard for raids on Napster users in Belgium. "The head of IFPI in Belgium, Marcel Heymans, claimed Thursday that Belgian police were poised to raid the homes of hundreds of Napster users." http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2687923,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnew s01 or some URL like that. As for the billion dollar settlement offer, it smacks of desperation to me. If the four major labels (other than BMG) wanted Napster to continue to exist, and if they thought it could produce a billion dollars in revenue, then they could just continue their lawsuit, win, and collect all Napster assets in the judgement; then they would own Napster and its potential revenues forever. Several of the pieces I read yesterday -- there was a huge flurry of them prompted by the billion dollar offer -- suggest the most likely outcome will be that someone sets up a Napster-ish directory server in one of the countries which currently host off-shore gambling sites. Revenue? One could probably get millions of Napster users to pay a small monthly fee for access to the directory server if the files traded were unrestricted MP3 files, rather than the restricted-use files planned for Napster II.
#110, 99> Even fairly optimistic lil ol' me isn't naive enough to think any noticable amount of Napster's settlement with the RIAA and the Majors will go to the artists. (er, that was 100, not 110)
Couple of fascinating (to me, anyway) news items. Slashdot's "YRO" (Your Rights Online) section links to a story at www.law.com about Dave Powell and Copyright Control Services, who hunt down copyright infringers on the net. So far his business has been mostly defending expensive software packages for pro audio, but he's just chomping at the bit to start working over Napster users. What's holding him back, so far, is the PR concerns of the record labels. The www.law.com URL is just too mindboggling to transcribe, sorry. And Congress, most notably Senator Orrin Hatch (R, Utah), continues to make noises. A story I missed at the Washington Post last Thursday quotes Hatch as raising the possibility that Congress could enact a "compulsory license" for the Internet sale of music. A compulsory license would mean that the copyright holder would lose veto power over the ability of a company to use or sell its music; it's similar to what exists today for radio, I think. The record company screams would be heard for miles. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va) criticizes the record labels for their reluctance to allow sales of individual songs, rather than complete albums. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12511-2001Feb15.html Non-original thoughts: Hatch, in particular, seems particularly irked because he was a principal author of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The act, which gave the copyright industry just about everything it wanted, was supposed to speed the arrival of an online music business, but here we are, years later, and there's no real online music business, just lawsuits galore. I've lost the essay which claimed that the major labels are still in "deep denial" about the Internet and its implications for their business. And I haven't mentioned a piece from www.musicdish.com, which put forth the proposal that the promotion and distribution sides of the music business converge on the Net... later this afternoon maybe.
(Side note. question: I'd also heard about ten years back or so that there were laws drafted or transcribed that would allow anyone who wants to *cover* a song to do so despite the wishes of the copyright holder, so long as they pay a royalty fee. Is that accurate, or was some media source confused about what was going on?)
I thought that was already the case..
That's essentially correct, as I understand it. The right to make a first recording is under the control of the copyright holder, but to make subsequent recordings, all a performer has to do is pay the statutory licensing fees, and the copyright holder has nothing to say about it. I am not aware that there was any recent change to these rules.
News item: "Next on record industry's hit list -- Napster clones"
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2689187,00.html
(or find it at http://www.mp3.com/news)
With the Court of Appeals ruling against Napster as a precedent,
the RIAA has fired off 60 legal notices to the ISPs of people who
are running "Open Napster" servers. Presumably this is the
DMCA "notice and take down" form letter, in which the ISP has to cut
off the user to protect its own immunity from copyright lawsuit.
What's not mentioned in the story, but what I think I remember from
the Scientology cases, is that the copyright holder has to follow
up with a lawsuit against the user within a short period of time,
or else the ISP and the user are free to continue as before.
The story mentions the difficulties with Open Napster servers located
outside the USA.
The RIAA's lawyer says they have ideas about how to attack Gnutella,
but he declined to discuss them.
Sounds like a losing battle to me. As soon as one program or service is beaten down, two will spring up to take its place. And that's not even taking into account websites outside the US.
Napster's next court date with Judge Marilyn Patel is tomorrow. She's supposed to be working on the injunction to force Napster to cease exchanging copyrighted material, under the direction she was given by the appeals court panel. Does this mean Napster will shut down tomorrow? Seems iffy, since Napster would probably appeal the ruling just to play out the string. But don't be surprised if the survival of Napster-as-we-know-it is measured in days or weeks. Watch online news media for breaking reports of whatever happens. Napster has urged its users to take its cause to Congress, and in response the RIAA has been stocking up on Republican lobbyists. Their most prominent signing is Bob Dole, and this one brings warmth to my heart: I can think of no better Republican representative of the Old Regime, the pre-Internet years, than Bob Dole, Yesterday's Man. The RIAA has also signed up Governor Marc Racicot, who is quoted in a wide variety of news stories that he sees his role as educating Congress as to the role of intellectual property. He specifically names Sen. Orrin Hatch as someone who needs to be educated; I hope Hatch, who co-authored the last major revision of copyright law and who is also a independent songwriter in his spare time, bops Racicot on the head. :)
This isn't directly a Napster-related news item but I'll stick it in here anyway, since some of the players and arguments have figured in the Napster arguments: http://www.latimes.com/business/updates/lat_love010228.htm Lead paragraphs: "Just as actress Olivia de Havilland brought down the Hollywood studio system in the 1950s and outfielder Curt Flood fought for free agency in baseball in the 1970s, rock star Courtney Love is determined to radically redefine the nature of the music recording business for the next century. "Love is seeking to break her contract with Vivendi Universal, the world's largest record conglomerate, and expose what she calls the 'unconscionable and unlawful' tactics of the major record labels." Summarizing: The basic argument seems to be that the standard record label contract is a servitude-for-life kind of deal, and courts have held those to be unreasonable. California has a law which limits entertainment contracts to seven years, but the law has never been tested in the music business. The record companies have settled similar suits with other artists, but Love has strong financial resources, since she controls the Kurt Cobain estate, and she has already fired her previous attorney for trying to settle the suit.
She may have a point. It's entirely possible that seven years exceeds Courtney Love's life expectancy..
There was a similar suit filed within the last six months or so, and my mind has gone vague on the details. It was by the leader/songwriter of Foreigner, or some similar hard rock hair band of days gone by. The plaintiff's argument went like this. Under the contract, he still owes two albums to the record label. However, the label has lost all interest in his style of music, which he admits is now out of fashion, and so the label won't accept or release anything he turns in. There is still a minority interest in his music, and he would like to be free to look for an independent boutique label or maybe market himself; but the label refuses to release him. So essentially he is in permanent bondage and can never earn money through recording music again. He asks the court to terminate the contract because it cannot be fulfilled. I've heard nothing further about this.
He should change his name to a symbol, and wait out his record contract. It worked for Prince, sort of....
Breaking news items on today's court hearing: Judge Patel "concluded the hearing by saying she will rule at an undisclosed time." Napster says it will block one million songs from being traded, starting this weekend, in an attempt to pacify the record companies. (from www.sfgate.com)
According to Britney Spears, there are nine million wonderful songs in the world, so that doesn't seem too bad for Napster. <cough>
Aaron, do you have a cite for that "statistic"? Seriously, it sounds like something which would be a pretty funny read. :)
http://www.mtv.com/sendme.tin?page=/news/gallery/s/spears00_2/index3.htm l
(the "l" wrapped)
Amusing little interview: "MTV: People always think, "Oh, this whole teen pop craze is only going to last five minutes." How is it important for you to show that that won't happen to you? Britney: I think it really boils down to good music. If you do that, I think you'll be around for a while." Hee hee. :)
News media reports differ on whether Napster is going to block "one million songs" or "one million file names;" the RIAA says that one million file names could be as few as 100 songs, since the users pick and mispell the file names as they wish.
So presumably users could get around any blocking based on file names, simply by renaming files. Is such an approach likely to satisfy the court?
Dude! Heard the latest mp3 from Meta11ica? ;)
In the original preliminary injunction order from Judge Patel last July, Napster was directed to halt all trading of copyrighted material involving their service, even if it required Napster to shut down. In contrast, the directions of the appeals court seem to be saying (this is based on press reports and fallible memory, remember) that Napster has to stop the exchanging of copyrighted files to the extent that their technology allows them to do so, while not unreasonably hampering lawful file transfers. All Napster HQ ever sees is the file names; the actual transfers of binary song files take place directly between the users. So the file names are all Napster Inc. has to work with.
Interesting. Thanks for the clarification.
Napster was supposedly going to install filters this weekend to cut down on the copyrighted song traffic, statistics right now are: 2075980 songs 10350 users 8874GB of data. So much for filtering.
Judge Patel's new injunction came out this morning. Reports on it are in most online media sources. The New York Times and inside.com have pretty opposite analyses of it.
regarding Napster song blocking, a friend sent me this.. > I love this idea, from a headline blurb on Slashdot. It can't see it > holding up, but it's a truly inspired idea. :-) > >> AIMster is offering a Pig Latin encoder that will encrypt your mp3 titles. >> They state that, under the DMCA, it would be illegal for the RIAA to >> reverse engineer their encoding scheme and try and filter the encrypted >> filenames from Napster. I have to concur with his assessment that it's unlikely to prevent much of an impediment to the RIAA, but I love the ironic angle..
remmers in resp:124 :: a good article on the injunction and what it requires of Napster is at the Washington Post: http://www.washtech.com/news/media/8141-1.html My guess is that what happens is that the RIAA goes back before Judge Patel in a week or two and says, this is not working.
"The Music Business Thinks Like Napster:" Found at Borders tonight is a sampler from the Verve label's new reissue program of old jazz classics: Ella, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and so forth. It's supposed to be free if you buy one album from the series: but if you want to buy it on its own, Borders will sell it to you for a penny. So far, pretty standard promotional stuff. The twist: for your penny, you get two identical CDs. "Music so good we made it twice," reads the package. "Keep one and pass it on!" This is actually the second time I've heard of this gimmick, though the first I've seen it in the store. (Note to Twila: the package also says there is a bonus new Diana Krall track in here, so you might want to scoop this up.)
a penny for a new Diana Krall song? I'm there..:)
resp:128 :: I lost the news story where the record labels are complaining that Napster is still allowing many song files to be traded. The LA Times reports that Napster is asking Judge Patel to appoint a technically competent monitor to verify that Napster is doing everything possible to comply with the injunction crafted under the guidance of the 9th circuit appeals panel.
I just found out that e-music is having a free promotion (through March 18th) -- they'll let you download fifteen songs (or a whole album, as you choose), for free. They do pay royalties to the artists, and it is a trial to allow you to see how good their for-pay service is, but I found some pretty cool artists on there, and some groups I wouldn't have expected (lots of Cooking Vinyl artists, Ken, and some Shanachie, too...). The url for those who might be interested is: t http://www.emusic.com/index.html#promoanchor (without the t at the beginning, of course)
As a law librarian, I've just had the privilege of cataloging a videotape recording of the appeals court arguments from last November by David Boies (for Napster) and other lawyers (for N's nemeses). My private personal conclusion: They're all idiots, every one.
I've started a new Napster item to be linked between Music and Spring Agora. It's item:music,304 in the music conference. Discussion here should probably stop, though I won't take the step of freezing the item.
You have several choices: