Post #99,094
4/28/03 3:29:48 PM
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OK, I've put up another article . .
For years, my biggest traffic generator was my old article on Napster. Got plenty of flame email out of that one, so I expect no less from [link|http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit031.html|The RIAA Comes for You].
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #99,097
4/28/03 3:36:57 PM
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A nit...
and this is a nit I have with EVERYONE on BOTH SIDES of this argument.
"Sharing" a copyrighted file is theft IF AND ONLY IF the owner of said copyrighted file is opposed to the sharing. There ARE musicians who freely distributed mp3s of their music... and distributing those files ARE NOT THEFT. They just aren't.
And there are sites out there, more than just mp3.com, that are full of these files. And it's all legitimate, and it really ought to be acknowledged.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #99,099
4/28/03 3:48:15 PM
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Such as:
[link|http://www.soundclick.com/|http://www.soundclick.com/]
Good stuff there. The band that did the background music for an ubergeek.tv Flash movie is on soundclick.
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #99,101
4/28/03 3:51:40 PM
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Also...
[link|http://www.artistlaunch.com|http://www.artistlaunch.com], of which I am a partner. :)
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #99,103
4/28/03 3:52:53 PM
4/28/03 3:55:16 PM
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A good point, and one I had thought of . .
. . but time was short and I didn't get that in. I'll make sure a paragraph on that is added tonight.
Working it in will require modifying a couple of other paragraphs as well.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #99,110
4/28/03 4:21:58 PM
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It's not theft
It's misappropriation. \r\n\r\n Distinguishing the two is left as an exercise to the intelligent and discriminating reader. --\r\n
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n
[link|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n
[link|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n
\r\n
Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n
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Post #99,132
4/28/03 5:32:53 PM
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Also MP3 files for sale
I am sure they shouldn't be redistributed, but some sites are selling MP3 files.
Apple is launching a music store online:
[link|http://news.com.com/2100-1027-998590.html|http://news.com.com/...-1027-998590.html]
99 Cent downloads. Monthly fees. The music will be paid for that way.
"Bill Gates cannot guarantee Windows, so how are you going to guarantee my safety?"
-John Crichton to the Emperor of the Scarrans on [link|http://www.farscape.com|FarScape]
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Post #99,211
4/29/03 12:54:40 AM
4/29/03 12:56:43 AM
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Correction - No monthly fees
I got a chance to use it today. You can browse by album, artist or genre and listen to 30 second clips of any song to see if you like it.
Individual songs are indeed $0.99 apiece but an entire album is $9.90. (Expect prices to go down and available tunes to go up as the service works out the kinks.)
The files are in AAC format, not MP3 and are keyed to your Apple Music login and password which you can set on up to three separate computers as mentioned below.
The service is integrated into iTunes, where you can browse, sample, purchase and download the music. Songs purchased can reside on up to three computers simultaneously and you can sync them up with as many iPods as you want. The music can be burned to CDs but any given playlist can only be burned ten times. (You just have to manually rearrange the songs to reset the burn count.)
As an added bonus, they finally put Rendezvous support into iTunes.
The new software required is iTunes 4, Quicktime 6.2 and iPod updater 1.3. (all are free downloads)
The downside: it's currently US only as international licensing gets ironed out and it's currently Mac-only. (I don't consider that last a downside myself, but some do.)
Windows support is supposed to be available by the end of the year.
It's pretty cool and easy to use. I snooped around this afternoon and found a John Prine album ('Sweet Revenge) that I hadn't seen in a store in years. In fact, the last time I saw it was pre-CD. I like the fact that there's no monthly fee, that you can sample music easily and that you can buy individual tracks instead of digging through thirteen tracks of junk for the two songs you actually like when you buy a CD at the store. In addition, there are 'Staff Recommendations' and ala Amazon, 'others who bought this music also bought xxxxx'.
One possible caveat: This thing is so easy and convenient to use that it could bring new meaning to the term 'impulse purchasing'. It's about as close to a frictionless shopping experience as I've seen yet.
Tom Sinclair
"Man, I love it when the complete absence of a plan comes together."
- [link|http://radio.weblogs.com/0104634/|Ernie the Attorney]
Edited by tjsinclair
April 29, 2003, 12:56:43 AM EDT
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Post #99,289
4/29/03 12:43:43 PM
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Good for Apple
it works in nice with their media services. It is to their advantage to make a Windows clients, because the more people that purchase the songs the better. So right now it is a downside for Apple, as they are limited to Mac only sales, unless that Linux port is out as well?
"Bill Gates cannot guarantee Windows, so how are you going to guarantee my safety?"
-John Crichton to the Emperor of the Scarrans on [link|http://www.farscape.com|FarScape]
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Post #99,291
4/29/03 12:49:09 PM
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It's definitely a pilot
Word is that the 'Big 5' have only signed a one year commitment so they can see how it works out.
As proofs-of-concepts go, I think it's a winner.
That being said, I'd like Apple to publish some ongoing stats on how the service is doing.
Tom Sinclair
"Man, I love it when the complete absence of a plan comes together."
- [link|http://radio.weblogs.com/0104634/|Ernie the Attorney]
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Post #99,202
4/29/03 12:12:11 AM
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A nit with your nit :)
It does depend on the copyright holder, but that's not always the artist themselves. Artists *in the biz* typically publish their material through distribution houses such as ASCAP and BMI, by record deal mandate. They're very much against sharing. Major record deals typically dictate what artists can do with their own material.
A distinction also needs to be drawn between indie artists and those in the mainstream. Mainstream artists under a major record contract will almost never offer more than one complete song for download from a CD. It's more common to see clips of songs, at poor quality, rather than complete tunes. A lot of the time, those are streamed only, no download. Indie artists, on the other hand, will offer more complete tunes, at decent quality, with the intention of making a name for themselves. They WANT these files distributed as far and wide as possible. Incidentally, Indie artists do make money from their CD sales, often a large part of their income. Mainstream artists usually make about 10 - 15 cents per disc or tape sold.
-----
Steve
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Post #99,242
4/29/03 10:20:31 AM
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A nit with your nit re. my nit :)
I guess I can see the importance of the distinction, insofar as the majority of artists against file sharing have little direct ownership over their music. That's an interesting thing I haven't considered. Though, on ArtistLaunch there are a lot of artists who are very much against file sharing... and I even wrote an article that got posted on Slashdot about how Napster was "bad" (archived on my own site, [link|http://baptistdeathray.dtcweb.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7|http://baptistdeathr...viewtopic.php?t=7]), though I was really talking about the "music wants to be free" movement that was growing around Napster. I had no real problem with Napster per se.
In my own experience, a lot of musicians seem to want to trade their music until they can "make it," and then they want the trading to STOP, and they want everyone to buy everything. That seems a bit inconsistent.
From my own perspective, Pandora's box is open -- unlike the Greek myth, music swapping has advantages, just like tape-swapping did. The only practical solution is to get the music swapping community to be amenable to supporting the artists they like. To do this, the big-name bands and their labels are going to have to change some of the ways they do business. For one thing, they're going to have to freaking lower their CD prices. Your average CD costs $16 a pop, and "average" CDs are rarer and rarer these days. That's just... stupid, and that stupidity is just more fuel to the fire for the more radical elements of the online music trading venue.
Ooops, I'm ranting again... time to get more coffee.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #99,247
4/29/03 10:31:48 AM
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ICLRPD (new thread)
Created as new thread #99246 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=99246|ICLRPD]
===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #99,112
4/28/03 4:27:16 PM
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Your last paragraph is wrong
I personally have a playlist with over 3000 songs that I like on my computer. I ripped every one of them myself, from CDs that for the most part are sitting on the wall less than 3 feet from the computer. (A few are in knapsacks etc elsewhere.) Most of the CDs were purchased new from a local bookstore.
Why do I have them on my computer?
It is simple. First of all I own it, I see no reason to get another device to do what my computer already does perfectly well. Second, I like being able to pick and choose music. The computer makes that very convenient - a single song that I don't like on a CD can be eliminated while keeping the rest. Third, it is nice to be able to listen to a variety of music without changing CDs.
Of course I don't play music at work. And I don't use file-sharing applications at home or work.
But I think that having music on my computer is perfectly legitimate. And whether or not you think that I have a compelling reason for doing so, I certainly do, and it has been compelling enough for me both to do it and to expand my music collection several-fold because of the additional utility I derive.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #99,122
4/28/03 5:00:05 PM
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agreed
I have a hacked [link|http://www.adamlotz.com/iopener.html|iopener] with a 30GB drive full of MP3s. I just boot it up and let it random play when I want to listen to some music. It's really handy for parties. It's no different than making "mix tapes" of music you already own.
99% of the music on my iopener is ripped from CDs that are stored on the other side of the room. The remainder comes from artists, such as [link|http://freezepop.net|Freezepop], who let you download tracks off their site.
Darrell Spice, Jr. [link|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
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Post #99,152
4/28/03 6:50:41 PM
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Yes and No
I am doing some rewriting in response to comments here, and that last paragraph is already being changed to reflect some of your concerns. My stuff normally starts a little extreme and then gets moderated as I re-read it a few times.
In any case, your computer is yours, and you can do whatever you want on it. Since I am speaking to the business manager, it's not the employee's computer, it's owned by the business for business use, and it's the interests of the business that need protection.
The business person has several problems here. One is the workload of the computer, which may or may not affect productivity. Another problem is inability to tell what content on the computer is legitimate and what is not, because s/he doesn't know where it came from. If the machine has a popular file-sharing program on it, the chances of copyright violation are very high. If it just has an mp3 player on it, then it's a much more open question, but the RIAA wouldn't be able to find it anyway. An additional problem is the adware / spyware, which tends to destabilize computers, often forcing a service call.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #99,188
4/28/03 9:35:13 PM
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If it's a business computer,
what is the need for an mp3 player? Most businesses will/should have a policy against this. You want music, bring in a radio/cd player. The computer is owned by the employer, they are liable for what happens in the workplace. If they let the workers use the company network to share files, who cares if the files are copywritten? That's a secondary issue. The bandwidth costs without a return are enough to put a stop to it. Or so I surmise most business folk would think if they understood the term "bandwidth costs".
The world is only a simple place to the simple.
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Post #99,200
4/28/03 11:58:44 PM
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MP3 players and businesses
true most businesses will have a policy against MP3 players, file sharing, IM, chat programs, and other things. But some companies may allow them as long as they aren't abused.
"Bill Gates cannot guarantee Windows, so how are you going to guarantee my safety?"
-John Crichton to the Emperor of the Scarrans on [link|http://www.farscape.com|FarScape]
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Post #99,281
4/29/03 12:38:16 PM
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Also some news items are in audio format
either using Real Player, MP3, or some other audio format for keynote addresses amd other things. Which could be work related if you are researching new technology, etc.
"Bill Gates cannot guarantee Windows, so how are you going to guarantee my safety?"
-John Crichton to the Emperor of the Scarrans on [link|http://www.farscape.com|FarScape]
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Post #99,205
4/29/03 12:18:54 AM
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Files no, player yes.
I don't store any mp3s on my work laptop, but I do have several CDs full of mp3s that I play regularly with it.
Besides, is it even possible to get rid of Windows Media Player? ;)
-----
Steve
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Post #99,222
4/29/03 8:12:31 AM
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Hah. Good point.
The world is only a simple place to the simple.
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Post #99,500
4/30/03 4:06:21 PM
8/21/07 6:08:48 AM
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I haven't used a company supplied computer
in an awfully long time. I end up using my PowerBook and I take it everywhere.
So of course it needs tunes (although they live on an external firewire drive - there's no room on the local).
"Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes.
Contestants in a suicidal race."
- Synchronicity II - The Police
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Post #99,201
4/29/03 12:12:07 AM
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I've revised the article . .
. . taking into account the comments posted here - mostly in the last section.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #99,254
4/29/03 10:45:22 AM
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Nit, typo and a question
Nit: Nothing "free" is ever really free, and "free" file-sharing services aren't either. They deliver adware / spyware to your computers Except for the open-source ones that either don't have any adware/spyware, or you can remove the hooks yourself. Typo: The risk of sexual harassment suits resulting from employees downloading pornography is well know. Should be "known". Personally, I don't trust software firewalls (Norton and the like) because I see no reason why a trojan program, working from within, can't disable or bypass them. By software firewall, do you mean software installed on each system? Or do you mean software running on a dedicated computer acting as a router/firewall? I suspect you mean the former, but as written it looks like you're saying that a general-purpose computer configured as a dedicated firewall isn't as effective as a single-purpose firewall box. I'm not a network security guy, but that doesn't sound right to me. Another typo (or is this a style issue?): Napster's users had no thought whatever but to amass vast amounts of top artist's music The way I learned it, that should be "top artists' music". ===
Implicitly condoning stupidity since 2001.
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Post #99,260
4/29/03 10:53:32 AM
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artists' ?
Why is that? I thought the s' combo was used only when the singular form of the word ended in "s."
Well, or if it falls under one of those "special cases" that occur all too often in our quirky english language. But I don't think this is one.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #99,263
4/29/03 11:14:03 AM
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It is used for the possessive of plurals as well
[link|http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_apost.html|http://owl.english.p...mmar/g_apost.html]
In this case there are multiple people described by the phrase "top artists" so its possessive ends in s', and not 's.
Cheers,
Ben
"good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not"
- [link|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html|Stefano Mazzocchi]
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Post #99,292
4/29/03 12:52:24 PM
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Re: artists' ?
Actually, it's only used in the plural possessive form. So, "I'm getting my class's syllabus," is correct, because 'class' is singular. But, "I need to know all the special cases' exceptions," is also right because 'cases' is plural (although the sentence itself is of questionable English...;-) ).
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #99,297
4/29/03 1:09:06 PM
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In summation,
I hate the English language. :)
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #99,480
4/30/03 1:28:07 PM
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It'd be OK, if only its exceptions didn't have exceptions...
jb4
"We continue to live in a world where all our know-how is locked into binary files in an unknown format. If our documents are our corporate memory, Microsoft still has us all condemned to Alzheimer's."
Simon Phipps, SUN Microsystems
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Post #99,265
4/29/03 11:18:35 AM
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Yes, I meant individual firewalls . .
. . which is why I mentioned Norton. I've changed the wording to "personal" firewalls to make that clear.
Your other suggestions and corrections have been incorporated as well. Thanks.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #101,584
5/12/03 10:20:54 PM
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Fizzer
Had to add a paragraph today to reinforce one of my points. [link|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9456|Fizzer] is here.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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