response 40 of 151:

Jul 12 16:37 UTC 2001

Longer AP story on the Patel ruling at:
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,45184,00.html

Napster CEO Hank Barry agrees with me that the Patel ruling 
goes directly against the appeals court order, and furthermore its
logic makes the operating of any file sharing system impossible.

response 42 of 151:

Jul 13 08:06 UTC 2001

More detailed stories on the Patel order are popping up everywhere; it was
a closed-door hearing so I guess the leaks are taking a while.
 
-------

Cnet ran an article Thursday on the growing tussle between libraries
and librarians on the one hand, and the copyright industry on the other.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-201-6545588-0.html
 
In a future world where every access to copyrighted material is 
controlled by the copyright owner, and charged for, and where material
is routinely destroyed if the user doesn't continue to pay for 
it, it's not clear how libraries continue to exist.  

Quote:  
> What's more, as a rising number of copyright owners and software 
> developers turn to licensing models, librarians worry that they'll 
> be forced to pay perpetual rent on a product or lose the work--a
> possibility that could endanger the important archival role
> of their institutions. 

> "If I buy a book, take care of it, and nobody rips it off, I'll
> still have it 500 years from now," said Jim Neal, dean of
> libraries at Johns Hopkins University. "But if I buy an
> electronic book and don't keep paying for it, it's gone." 

Cnet found an inflammatory quote from the Association of American Publishers
comparing some librarians to "Ruby Ridge or Waco types" for wanting to 
preserve free access to material for their users.

response 44 of 151:

Jul 18 03:24 UTC 2001

http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,45279,00.html

Paraphrasing the teaser: MP3 files are easy to use and interoperable
with lots of software and hardware.  But -- other than consumers --
no one wants to use the format.  :)
 
The copyright industry has decided that consumer choice and convenience
takes a back seat to making files copy-proof.  Software firms have now 
decided that they have to make products to appeal to the copyright
industry rather than to consumers.   The Napster tale is horrific...:

> Napster, the file-trading service that was the bastion of free,
> downloadable music, has recently become the poster child for
> secure music. On Monday, Napster unveiled more of its plans for
> security, announcing plans for a proprietary digital music player
> that will be used with its new subscription service set to launch
> before the end of summer. 
>
> The new service won't allow consumers to move their music
> away from the Napster file-trading network to other media
> players like RealJukebox or Windows Media Player. Instead, the
> service will only play proprietary ".Nap" files on the new player. 
> The Napster system will take MP3 files that run through its main
> server and create the new, proprietary format, said Dube. 
>
> "Napster is doing this because their chance for survival is to
> leverage the huge volume of MP3s out there," said Dube. "They
> saw this as a business strategy, to leverage all those MP3s out
> there." 

I can just see the customers lining up to pay money for restricted-use
files...  

response 46 of 151:

Jul 18 13:04 UTC 2001

Re #44: That's no good.  How'm I supposed to use 'em in my portable MP3 
player? ;>

Re #45: Wonder if anyone's tried cdparanoia on one of these discs.  
I've seen it rip clean audio off discs so scratched up they wouldn't 
finish playing in a regular CD player.  There's a similarly good 
Windows ripper, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

response 48 of 151:

Jul 19 02:42 UTC 2001

resp:37 and subsequent:  The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned 
Judge Patel's order closing Napster until it could show that it was 
perfect at preventing the trading of copyrighted files.  (No surprise 
to this layman; Patel's order seemed to go right against the heart 
of the Court of Appeals' previous ruling.)  Napster expects to reopen
a form of its service shortly.  (You know, we've been discussing this
preliminary injunction for a year now...)   The story is covered 
in most online news sources so I won't punch in a URL.

response 50 of 151:

Jul 19 05:14 UTC 2001

(Subtitle: "Why Thomas Jefferson would love Napster.")

response 52 of 151:

Jul 20 03:51 UTC 2001

Heh, beat me to it.  The Salon article is a fairly bleak catalog of 
failure.  It points out that Napster and file trading can't account
for the crash in concert ticket sales; it appears that consumers, 
in general, are tuning out music as a way to spend entertainment
money.
 
Salon also has a summary article on the current situation with 
file trading systems, which doesn't have much we haven't already 
covered here: it describes what's happening now as "the Napster diaspora."

response 54 of 151:

Jul 20 12:32 UTC 2001

Sounds to me like people are waking up to the fact that they're getting 
gouged. Should we really care that Britney Spears, Eminem and 'N Sync 
are selling fewer records this year?

response 56 of 151:

Jul 20 14:58 UTC 2001

(serious drift)  Did anybody see the new Pepsi commercial with Britney Spears?
Did she get that outfit from Cher's garage sale or *what*???  No wonder her
popularity is collapsing.

response 58 of 151:

Jul 20 16:32 UTC 2001

Re #55: The "average artist" doesn't get a record contract, so his/her sales
are essentially zero. ;>

response 60 of 151:

Jul 21 03:39 UTC 2001

There just isn't much to be excited about in music right now.  NSync and
Spears are probably two of the only major names around right now--nobody else
with huge name appeal is doing anything.  Metallica hasn't released original
music since Reload, and with Hetfield entering rehab, they probably won't be
for a while.  It's a typical example of a band that is theoretically a big
seller that isn't doing anything.  

Music has no major trend that's moving albums right now.  Boy bands are on
the way down, grunge is gone (there are survivors of these trends, but no
trends themselves to pad sales), and nothing has moved in.  The music industry
is partly to blame for this, for pushing trends so heavily-with such limited
portfolios, they would go broke in two weeks on wall street.  To follow
cliche, they should have diversified long ago.  They still should work on
that.  Produce music that a lot of people will find interesting a buy
consistently, if not outrageously.  In a better market, people like ken whose
interests are not at the top of the charts would have a niche that actually
got attention.  People without ken's verve for music don't get served at all,
and they stop buying anything.  

response 62 of 151:

Jul 23 21:44 UTC 2001

Same old same old...  from Wired:
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,45234,00.html

Title:  "What if Napster *was* the answer?"
 
At a music and technology conference, anonymous major-label execs 
say privately that the labels should have managed to come up with 
a solution to work with Napster, because the post-Napster world is 
looking even tougher for them.
 
Analysts say that the major label download plans still look like losers,
and the majors have maybe 6-9 months to come up with something 
consumers will accept before the Napster successors are as big and
entrenched as Napster was at its peak.

response 64 of 151:

Jul 24 04:30 UTC 2001

Napster's CEO Hank Barry, who was installed by the venture 
capitalists who funded Napster in its early stages, is stepping down.
   http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6651876.html?tag=mn_hd