Looks like the RIAA is seriously going after Napster now. They are going to try to force Napster to remove all major label content from their servers. And they are trying to get an injunction to force Napster to comply while the legal battle is being fought. The obvious pro-Napster argument is "O.K., sure, done!" because the content isn't on their servers (only pointers to where the content is,) but my guess is that the RIAA might win this one regardless of such technical details. The funny thing is, defeating Napster will be the worse thing for the music industry. I'm not saying they shouldn't try. It might be that they have to pursue this or be seen as weak and ineffectual, but seriously, this will spell the end for them. As long as Napster is around I doubt that freenet or gnutella could break out to mass acceptance. They are simply not as easy to use. But if all the content comes down off Napster, people will switch. And at least with Napster the RIAA has someone to strike a comprise deal with. Stopping Gnutella would involve something like shutting down the internet - probably not going to happen. So while all this pirating may well be wrong, ethically speaking, I'm not sure that arguing ethical philosophy is really what the RIAA should be doing. To me it seems like they cut a deal with MP3.com, but are drawing the line with Napster. But what they should do is cut a deal with Napster and draw the line with Freenet and Gnutella.
i saw something about the mp3 deal. i wasnt sure if that was about putting your already bought discs online for them to stream back to you which i thought was part ofthe suit brought by the riaa. will they now be selling major label stuff on mp3.com? i saw one solution which seemed interesting, having napster as a subscription service. i dont know how it would technically work or how the gnutella/freenet issue would play into it.
Yeah, the MP3.com deal was, as you said, just about the Beam-it technology which lets you "upload" songs from your CD collection to MP3.com so they can stream them back to you (regardless of your location.) They have not struck any deals about selling music (at least that I'm aware of,) but this one deal serves to legitamize MP3.com as an agent the RIAA can negotiate with. Their stance towards Napster is more along the lines of "we don't negotiate with terrorists." But at least (for the RIAA) Napster is still a company. There is someone to bring into court. Gnutella and Freenet are protocols, not business entities. Suing them would be like suing the english language in order to stop people from swearing. It wouldn't work, but worse, it wouldn't even make any sense. There is no there there. Luckily (again for the RIAA) people haven't been adopting these totally distributed technologies as fast as they did Napster, and the reason is because they are a little more difficult to use. Or rather, Napster works good enough, so why would they switch? But as soon as Napster is shut down, people will make the plunge, and most will realize that it is not that hard to set up after all. Then the RIAA can either go after each individual, or they can try to shut down the internet. Neither of these options seem at all viable. I don't see how they can stop it. (Well, there is one way, which I mentioned on slashdot, but people told me to shut up and not give them any ideas.)
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- jim 6-13-2000 5:03 pm
i saw something about the mp3 deal. i wasnt sure if that was about putting your already bought discs online for them to stream back to you which i thought was part ofthe suit brought by the riaa. will they now be selling major label stuff on mp3.com? i saw one solution which seemed interesting, having napster as a subscription service. i dont know how it would technically work or how the gnutella/freenet issue would play into it.
- dave 6-13-2000 5:23 pm
Yeah, the MP3.com deal was, as you said, just about the Beam-it technology which lets you "upload" songs from your CD collection to MP3.com so they can stream them back to you (regardless of your location.) They have not struck any deals about selling music (at least that I'm aware of,) but this one deal serves to legitamize MP3.com as an agent the RIAA can negotiate with. Their stance towards Napster is more along the lines of "we don't negotiate with terrorists." But at least (for the RIAA) Napster is still a company. There is someone to bring into court. Gnutella and Freenet are protocols, not business entities. Suing them would be like suing the english language in order to stop people from swearing. It wouldn't work, but worse, it wouldn't even make any sense. There is no there there. Luckily (again for the RIAA) people haven't been adopting these totally distributed technologies as fast as they did Napster, and the reason is because they are a little more difficult to use. Or rather, Napster works good enough, so why would they switch? But as soon as Napster is shut down, people will make the plunge, and most will realize that it is not that hard to set up after all. Then the RIAA can either go after each individual, or they can try to shut down the internet. Neither of these options seem at all viable. I don't see how they can stop it. (Well, there is one way, which I mentioned on slashdot, but people told me to shut up and not give them any ideas.)
- jim 6-13-2000 10:10 pm