They're Shutting Down Napster!

Oh, the horror! A court just ruled that Napster allowing people access to copyrighted music is an infringement on artist's rights and it will have to be shut down. To me, this is very bad news. I thought Napster was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah, so it allows people to listen to music without paying. I think those darn musicians are rich enough. Can't they make money off their concerts? And how is Napster different from mixing tapes of the past?

How do you guys feel about this? Is it just a younger generation concern? Cause I'm freaking out.

no big deal

just use gnutella

I had heard they were gonna start charging a monthly fee to use napster

Charging a monthly fee was one idea, although personally I think it makes no sense. How could you distribute that money fairly to all the artists on Napster? Now, they're just going to shut it down. *sniff* This capitalist country is just not ready for free art.

rich whiner rock stars just want to force kid to spend money on cds full of crap. I miss the old days when you could get a sond on a single cassette for 2 bucks... now hardly anyone releases singles and you have to buy the whole cd... which sucks cause half the time you only like the one song

Napster hurts not only the big artist but the new struggling ones as well..

Yeah true Siren.. but it als opens doors for struggling bands. Your buddy says hey check out this song .. you like you download it.. you tell friend.. that band tours. you go see them they make money.. you buy the cd to hear other stuff... it's like free publicity

That is a few and far between result....

Siren, I was divided on this issue for a long time. But it has been proven that CD sales have not gone down because of Napster, in fact they have gone up. Napster is free publicity. A person downloads a song, decides they like it, and then goes to buy the CD. I know that personally, I have bought more CD's because of Napster. Before, I was hesitant, because as people have pointed out, you don't want to spend 18 bucks on a disk that might have only one song you liked. If you can listen to many songs, then you are more likely to go buy the CD. Countless surveys have proven this.

I just hope that those recording artists are happy when their record sales plummet.

Re: That is a few and far between result....

Siren said:

and it is free publicity on the backs of other artist
that get downloaded but not paid.

You all get paid for work you do....no one works for
free with a promise that hey it might work out for ya
later buddy...

why should they?

geeze...I cant believe you all think its okay to steal
their music....the artists are telling you that you are
stealing their music...
They are not saying.,...hey this is great free publicity for me...

get real.

Wolfy says:

If napster wanted they could offer the music with the artist
permission and you could get the music all you wanted...the
artist are NOT giving permission...doesnt that tell you something right there?

How would you like someone taking what is yours without permission?

How about your neighbor taking your new car for a week,,,its free publicity for you...look how smart I am for
getting this car publicity....would that be ok??


[Edited by Siren on 02-12-2001 at 11:39 AM]

Click to expand...

the difference... you aren't trying to sell your new car. If you had a used car for sale and your neighbor drove it around town.. that would be free publicity.

As for permission. Fine. But in a lot of cases it;s the record companies who get bitchy about allowing the artist to give permission


it's like Phish and their problems with elektra when they allowed free taping and trading of thier live shows... Elektra got pissed cause they "weren;t gonna sell cds and make it big that way"

You are all justifying something you know is wrong.

Re: You are all justifying something you know is wrong.

Siren said:

The artists have told you it is wrong.

You are more greedy than you blame the artist for being.
You steal their music, cause you want it for free...
then you say...hey its okay, free publicity, more sales,
bigger concerts...

They are telling you and asking you NOT to do this to them..
You dont care.
And you call yourselves a Fan?

Whose the greedy one...the one that wants to be paid for their work...or the one that wants the work for free?

Click to expand...

Not all artists are anti Napster.

and as for calling me greedy. I don;t even use it.. i can;t i have a webtv... but i beleive it should be allowed to exist

Carini...you are greedy....

rather be a free expression whore than a corporate one tee hee...

plus i love arguing so... even if i really was against napster.. i'd still argue about it with ya

Can't use Gnutella.. I don't have anyone's IP or whatever it is you need to connect to the damn server or however it works.

Re: You are all justifying something you know is wrong.

Siren said:

The artists have told you it is wrong.

You are more greedy than you blame the artist for being.
You steal their music, cause you want it for free...
then you say...hey its okay, free publicity, more sales,
bigger concerts...

Click to expand...

At http://www.baen.com/press.htm#Library Author LArry Flint says it much better than I can.

In part, he says:

"Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.
The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.
There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!
Alles in ordnung!
***

I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

1. Online piracy -- while it is definitely illegal and immoral -- is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc."

Click to expand...

While Baen Books free library is the subject of Mr Flint's words, they apply equally well to Napster, Gnutella, and all of the other music trading sites.

I should also note that many of lit's members recently participated in the outrage directed at plagiarism of literotica authors at another site. There is a key difference in that outrage and "piracy" and that's credit for who created the story.

Pirates don't (usually) try to claim credit for creating the works, they just make unauthorized copies.

The artists who complain about Napster are the heirs of those who objected to radio playing their songs when radio was cutting edge technology -- heirs of people you've never heard of because nobody ever heard their music.

Right on Harold!

*gives Harold a standing ovation*

I believe you said, Siren, that you if you want free music then go listen to the radio... well, I guess I could do that, but what's so different about the radio? It plays the music for free, anyone with a ten dollar recorder can record the song, then maybe even record it again and sell it... To me there's no difference at all, one just plays music on the radio and one plays music on an MP3 format...

Personally, I don't use Napster because it takes about 2 hours to download a song, but I still think it should be available. If I did use Napster, I think it would actually prompt me to buy the CD's, because being the poor college student that I am, I don't yet have a portable MP3 player... plus, I spend about 1/2 of my time in the car and that's where I listen to the majority of my music--on a CD player... if I heard the songs on Napster and liked them, I would go buy the CD...

Okay, I know it's easy enough to make the songs into wav files and burn them to a disc, but STILL! Most people don't have that kind of time, and would just as soon pay the $15 bucks or so to save the time...

my 1/4 cent worth, thanks to napster i have bought cd's that I never would have heard of or even thought of buying before napster.

Todd said:

my 1/4 cent worth, thanks to napster i have bought cd's that I never would have heard of or even thought of buying before napster.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY. Meeting various users on Napster opened my eyes to genres of music I never knew exsited, which I got to hear, and really got into. I have went out and bought every CD I have since I got Napster BECAUSE of Napster. I had never heard Trance or Jungle none of the underground stuff I listen to now. Which is now like my favorite music.

Not to mention that every new artist we represented were put out onto Napster when we made their first track. It really opened up the public to them, and two have cut record deals and stay true to the whole concept of Napster.

Speaking as a writer, I love to have my stuff out there, regardless if I get paid or not...as long as people know who wrote it.

What everyone seems to forget is that music is "given away free" ALL THE TIME - on radio, on promotional CD's by record labels, etc.

The issue here isn't whether "free" music hurts music sales. The music industry thrives on freebies. How many of us purchase music without knowing what it sounds like? We generally buy CD's after we hear it on the radio (FOR FREE), or on MTV (which is FREE with most basic cable). Bands dream of grabbing contracts that will get them the most exposure and thus the most sales.

The real issue - and it's a valid one - is whether artists can prevent listeners from giving their music away without them getting a cut. There are many artists who distribute their music through Napster, and many big artists whose music is traded who don't mind it - who even encourage it. There are many who don't want their music distributed on any online trading site. But even if you happen to believe that music trading is wrong, that still doesn't justify shutting down Napster.

You don't shut down the phone company because someone makes an obscene phone call. You don't shut down the Postal Service because someone uses it to send a mailbomb. You don't make VHS tapes illegal because people use them to tape movies off network television. Why? Because each of those things has a legitimate use above and beyond any potential criminal use. Same goes with Napster. If the author of a piece of music, an ebook, or a computer program wants to make his work widely and freely available, that's his or her decision. There's nothing illegal about that. If Metallica wants to sue the individual users who they feel are violating their copyrights, fine. Do it. But to try to suppress an amazing new technology simply because it MIGHT be used illegal is the height of ignorance.

It comes down to this...which is more important - copyright law or the First Amendment? Do holders of copyrights have the final say? These are important questions which will only become more relevant as time goes on.

Laurel.....I have only one thing to say to you....

And without Napster there is Gnutella, 100s of FTP sites, Scour Exchange, all doing the same thing Napster did, without the part about putting new artists out on the web the way Napster did.

They gonna sue them all?

Napster goes, something else is out there, and something else will come out eventually too.

Re: Laurel.....I have only one thing to say to you....

Siren said:

~

Click to expand...

Are you slipping me a little tongue, Siren baby? I'm telling Wolfy...

Yea, download it baby....