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| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 165 responses total. |
krj
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response 106 of 165:
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May 16 04:32 UTC 2002 |
Wired thinks Napster is finished and runs an obituary written
by Brad King, their Internet music correspondent:
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,52540,00.html
-----
The Kazaa music sharing operation has been suggesting that
ISPs should pay a fee-per-user to the copyright industry, since
the ISPs are making money selling high-speed connections to
users who want to swap files. There's a tweak to the proposal
suggesting that the money should go directly to artists, with
nothing for the record company, and today's story in USA Today,
referenced via Slashdot, says that Verizon is now supporting
the idea.
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/05/14/232237.shtml?tid=141
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gull
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response 107 of 165:
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May 16 13:17 UTC 2002 |
Can't say I like that idea much. I have high-speed access, but I don't use
it to pirate music. Why should I be charged a fine just because they
*assume* I'm breaking the law?
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krj
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response 108 of 165:
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May 16 14:18 UTC 2002 |
www.fatchucks.com points to a huge parade of Napster obituary stories.
I'll single out this one from the Boston Globe for a few quotes:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/136/business/The_legacy_of_Napster+.shtml
> 'Napster was absolutely a groundbreaking technology that changed the way
> consumers listened to music, discovered music, and interacted with music,''
> said Stacey Herron, an entertainment and media analyst with Jupiter
> Research in New York. ''Napster so fundamentally changed the way people
> interacted with music that there's no turning back.''
Matt Bailey, of Redshift Research, a "consulting firm that covers the
digital entertainment industry:"
> ''If you take the three top free file-sharing
> systems together - Kazaa, IMesh and
> Gnutella - they had an average of 2.15 million
> users logged on at any given time in
> April,'' Bailey said. ''In February of last year,
> when Napster was at its peak, there
> were only 1.57 million simultaneous users on the system.''
-----
Also via fatchucks.com: Sony is trying to use the Scour technology to
whip up a little P2P enthusiasm for a limited number of artists.
The songs can only be played for 30 days, and only if you are a
registered user:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-913534.html?tag=fd_top
There's a really mean review of this "service" at:
http://www.slyck.com/newsmay2002/051502a.html
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krj
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response 109 of 165:
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May 20 04:14 UTC 2002 |
Many stories report that Bertelsmann finally gets Napster.
Bertelsmann pays $8 million to Napster's creditors in what one
article described as a "prepackaged bankruptcy filing."
This maneuver is also supposed to wipe out the potential billions
in liability for any past copyright violations.
(Bertelsmann had offered $20 million to buy Napster in February,
an offer the board rejected. In the new deal the shareholders get
nothing, so I imagine the shareholders will be quite displeased with
the board for failing to sell when the investors could have recovered
something.)
In personnel terms; Shawn Fanning's uncle John, who tried to eject other
members of the Napster board, is now off the board himself; Shawn Fanning
is back on the team, as is BMG's man chief exec Konrad Hilbers; and
in general it seems like the goal is to reassemble the Napster staff
to the way it was prior to last week's meltdown.
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krj
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response 110 of 165:
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May 22 18:09 UTC 2002 |
Reported everywhere: The new webcast royalty rate proposed by the
CARP panel has been turned down by the Librarian of Congress, who
for some obscure DMCA reason has the final say on setting the rate.
No news on what happens next for a month.
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krj
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response 111 of 165:
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May 22 20:25 UTC 2002 |
Cnet reports that the music industry is about ready to win two of its
cases against P2P firms by draining their resources before trial:
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-920557.html
"Kazaa, Morpheus legal case collapsing"
The original Kazaa BV corporation in the Netherlands has asked for
"terms of surrender," having sold the Kazaa network to the somewhat
mysterious Sharman Networks, based on a Pacific island. The RIAA
accuses them of playing a shell game to move the P2P technology
assets to a new corporate home.
Streamcast Networks, the US operation under the Morpheus name,
has run out of money to pay its lawyer, who has left the case.
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dbratman
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response 112 of 165:
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May 22 23:29 UTC 2002 |
Dreaming about what I'd do if I were Librarian of Congress ...
Make Nicholson Baker pay all the royalties?
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polygon
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response 113 of 165:
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May 23 02:07 UTC 2002 |
Plaintiff's briefs have been filed in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The list
of supporting amici is just dazzling. See full details at the new
web site: http://eldred.cc
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polygon
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response 114 of 165:
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May 23 02:10 UTC 2002 |
Re 110,112: The Librarian of Congress is the deus ex machina of this
whole story. I had no idea that the Librarian had this kind of power.
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jmsaul
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response 115 of 165:
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May 23 02:45 UTC 2002 |
Isn't the Librarian also the Registrar of Copyrights, or something like that?
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jp2
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response 116 of 165:
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May 23 03:00 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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remmers
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response 117 of 165:
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May 23 10:50 UTC 2002 |
(Side note: The Librarian of Congress, James Billington, was a
history professor of mine back in my undergraduate days.)
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gull
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response 118 of 165:
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May 24 14:05 UTC 2002 |
The Register has an article about the Librarian of Congress decision here:
http://www.theregus.com/content/6/25006.html
It doesn't really include much that hasn't already been reported here,
but they do have this interesting quote from Jamie Zawinski that sort of
points out why this system isn't a good deal for artists anyway:
"...regardless of what music you were playing, they take your money,
keep most of it for themselves, and then divide the rest statistically
based on the Billboard charts. That means that no matter what kind of
obscure, underground music you played, 3/4ths of the extortion money you
paid goes to whichever company owns N'Sync; and the rest goes to Michael
Jackson (since he owns The Beatles' catalog); and all other artists
(including the ones whose music you actually played) get nothing."
Jamie has an interesting article on the hoops you have to jump through
to webcast legally. Even without the RIAA royalties the rules are a lot
stricter than they are for radio stations:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html
For example, to qualify for a compulsory license, webcasters can't
announce songs ahead of time, play more than four songs by the same
artist in a three-hour period, or play more than two consecutive tracks
from the same album.
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krj
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response 119 of 165:
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May 24 16:03 UTC 2002 |
Cory Doctorow of the EFF wrote a good summary of the proposal to put
tight controls on all analog->digital conversion equipment, such as
soundcards and digital camcorders, and Slashdot
used that to prompt a roundup of the Broadcast Protection Discussion
Group. The goal is to make it impossible for anyone, anywhere, to make
a digital copy of "watermarked" video or audio through analog inputs.
The BPDG's work will be about as restrictive as Sen. Holling's
CBDTPA/SSSCA proposal, but it's being sent in under the political
radar as a minor technical thing. Slashdot also provides a link
to a US Senate page on the subject.
http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/archives/000113.html
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/05/23/2355237.shtml?tid=97
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krj
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response 120 of 165:
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May 24 16:12 UTC 2002 |
And a couple via the fatchucks.com clipping service:
Vivendi Universal is offering an MP3 file for sale, for a buck:
a song by Meshell Ndegeocello (and I don't think ZDnet spelled her
name right). This is reported as possibly the first time that a major
label has offered a plain vanilla unrestricted MP3 file for sale.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2110831,00.html
The record companies call for a federal probe of radio payola
issues, and for "a sweeping government review of radio industry
consolidation." Clear Channel responds that there is no payola,
and their grab in the industry "often has led to a more diverse array
of formats in a single market."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/23/radio.payola.reut/index.html
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jp2
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response 121 of 165:
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May 24 23:38 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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krj
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response 122 of 165:
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May 31 19:28 UTC 2002 |
A Detroit Free Press writer reviews the two satellite radio services,
XM and Sirius. In contrast to what terrestrial radio has become,
both satellite services are angling for serious music fans looking
for both diversity and depth in their radio programming.
The reviewer is positive about both services and says the choice
between them will be largely a matter of personal taste.
http://freep.com/money/tech/newman30_20020530.htm
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other
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response 123 of 165:
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May 31 20:30 UTC 2002 |
...until they edge out terrestrial service the way cable tv has then start
selling ads, and then start pushing crap...
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mrmat
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response 124 of 165:
|
Jun 1 16:42 UTC 2002 |
right on.
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gull
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response 125 of 165:
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Jun 1 17:18 UTC 2002 |
Either that or they'll go out of business, and all the early-adopters will
be stuck with expensive paperweights.
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mcnally
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response 126 of 165:
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Jun 1 17:46 UTC 2002 |
My money's on the latter..
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jmsaul
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response 127 of 165:
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Jun 1 18:33 UTC 2002 |
Same here.
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gull
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response 128 of 165:
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Jun 1 22:51 UTC 2002 |
Me too...even if they don't *both* go out of business, I really think
there's probably only room for *one* satellite radio company in the market.
It's sort of another VHS vs. Beta fight. I'd feel better about it if there
were some kind of standard, but these are both proprietary systems, so
you're locking yourself in to one service or the other when you buy a radio.
Personally, if I listened to the talk channels I'd miss hearing local news.
And if I want to listen to a specific type of music, I have an MP3-CD
player.
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senna
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response 129 of 165:
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Jun 2 17:36 UTC 2002 |
I think they're good ideas, and I think at least one of them will succeed.
Back when they first came out, I read something about a receiver that would
take both services, and I told myself I'd wait until that came out before I
thought about buying into the service. I'm still pondering it.
|
orinoco
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response 130 of 165:
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Jun 2 19:20 UTC 2002 |
I think if they fail, it will be because everyone expects them to fail, and
we're all waiting for all our neighbors to buy them first.
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