NAPSTER

[Rod Hagen]

If you are septic with a focus on prostitution ONLY this post isn't for you. This has nothing to do with escorting, hustling, prostitution etc.

 

Now that I am home more often and have a better connection, DSL, than I did at work, modem, I spend a lot of time pulling music using the now very-controversial Napster. I was wondering if anyone else is spending their time doing the same. I believe it's copyright infringement, but as their is no ruling yet, I am getting all I can grab. What do you all think about this phenomenon? -Hagen

[Traveller]

As my many postings indicate, I am totally putrefactive, with a complete obsession with sex and/or escorts, but turning my compulsive personality off for a nanosecond, I always thought that a napster was something you did around 2 pm when you were 5 years old. Oh well. Sorry I couldn't be of any assistance.

 

BTW, I did see Skeptic whiz by my office window riding side saddle on his broomstick with a large basket of apples. I assume he's visiting the orphanage on holiday again.

 

Later.

[Rod Hagen]

Traveller, sorry, Napster is software (and server) that's been on the news a lot lately. If installed on your computer, over an internet connection, you can see the music files on all the other computers in the world connected to the internet running napster.

 

The controversy is that if I look up Neil Diamonds "Dear Father" and download it to my computer from someone else's, Neil does not receive the royalty he would if I purchased the CD, and the record company is a bit poorer as well.

 

Those who defend it say it's no different than making a tape and giving it to a friend. And that it should boost CD sales because if you like the one Song you get off the cmputer, you'll be more likely to buy the whole thing (the idea behind radio-play).

 

Those against it say this is different becasue it's matter of thousands, even millions, of people having very easy access to "illegal" near-cd quality music.

 

I'm a huge music lover and now have a huge library of songs I would have never had before without Napster.

 

I only brought this up because it seems as if many on the board are able to spend a lot of time at their computer, either at work or home or both, and since theirs always something new in the paper regarding Napster (Napster.com), I was curious who else is on it. -Hagen

[Guest ecb]

Excellent summary of the controversy.

It is such beautiful noise!!!

Not a scruple either.

[Guest longtimelurker]

Rod, I haven't used Napster myself, but I find developments are beyond interesting, they are COMPELLING: business models, the very structure of the economy itself, will be forced to evolve into forms I certainly am not sufficiently brainy to forsee.

 

Is it "stealing" when radically new means of distribution (in this instance, "Napster", invented by the 19 year old Massachusetts-born, deprived child-slash-laptop genius, Sean Fanning, but you can also include the program "Gnutella" here) occur faster than creators and producers and traditional method distributors of "content" are able to create correspondingly new methods of imposing fair tariff? (The old economy distributors may already be out of the equation, as obsolete as wing collars and buggy whips.)

 

Did you "steal" that music--or did you turn your umbrella upside down? Pennies from heaven...even if they came out of someone else's pocket...

 

It is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle--or to unstir the cream from the coffee. It may not be their "fault", it may not be fair, but it will now behoove the creators/producers to formulate new methods of charging for their time, their labor, and occasionally, their genius, not only for their own sakes, but in the interests of their consumers and in the interests of society itself.

 

Napster, it seems, is only the beginning: a twenty-something Irish student named Ian Clarke, enrolled at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, has invented something called "Freenet" which will apparently work for ANY digital file, not just music, with one important, astonishing difference: Freenet will not only allow such a file--say, the director's cut of "Bladerunner", or even the newly released "Gladiator"--to be freely shared, but to UNRESTRICTEDLY accessible, as it will not, as with Napster, be stored on any one identifiable hard drive or server, but, hidden in plain view in the interstices of the internet itself, partly here, partly there, everywhere and nowhere, INERADICABLE, ready to be called up with a word.

 

Unstir?

 

You will remember King Cnute. Or more recently, Linus Torvalds.

 

It's a new world, whether we like it or not, whether we're ready or not, the waves are lapping higher.

 

And somewhere--in Massachussetts, in Edinburgh, in Manila--a kid with a laptop is typing furiously...

[bill]

Rod, you are adorable, but I think you are wrong. There has been a ruling that Napster facilitates copyright infringement and certain musical groups (ie, Metallica and Dr. Dre) have submitted lists of infringers to Napster, which has denied privileges to these infringers. Imagine a website that could duplicate the joy of being sexual with you without paying you and perhaps you can understand what concerns the musicians. Enjoy infringement while you can.

[Guest YR]

As Bill pointed out, you are in violation of certain copyright laws just by downloading the music in question - but, what the hell, if you can get a taste for free, why not go for it!!

[HooBoy]

>BTW, I did see Skeptic whiz

>by my office window riding

>side saddle on his broomstick

>with a large basket of

>apples. I assume he's

>visiting the orphanage on holiday

>again.

 

ROFL

 

I'm sorry, I quit drinking and I can only write in insipid internet initials, but this one had me rolling in my straightness. Damn, am I becoming trade?

 

HooBoy

Email: HooBoy@male4malescorts.com

[Boston Guy]

Because it's wrong to do so?

 

Speaking as someone who has spent a great deal of time in the software business, I view this as akin to copying software and using it without paying for it. Many of the same arguments apply: it's easy to do, it's out there, everyone does it, etc., etc..

 

But it's still wrong and it still amounts to stealing. It may be that it's possible to get away with it, but in so doing you are using the fruits of someone else's labor without paying for it.

 

No matter what job you have, imagine that someone could steal some of the results of your labor without your benefiting from that. How would you feel? How you do thing that these recording artists feel?

 

Free societies only work because enough of the citizens agree to obey by the rules and laws that the society creates, as long as those rules and laws have been justly created. Would you encourage someone to go steal tools from Sears if you knew the back door was left open every night and there was virtually no chance they would get caught? If you had a child, is that the lesson you would teach them?

 

Or would you tell them that the property belonged to this other person and it was wrong to steal?

[Guest OuterSider]

I think the recent court case that ruled that the super chain stores kept CD prices at a high level was a judgement for all music lovers. One of the reasons Napster and the rest are so successful is that CD prices have always been too high. Even in the early days of CD's it cost less to make each CD than it did a record, Yet the price was higher.

 

Free vs lots of $$$. It's no contest. As an avid Record/CD collector (I recently got rid of over 2000 albums and 500 CD's - and still have many CD's ). I bought a lot. Most of my purchases though were not new - ever. Used Record/CD stores are still my choice to purchase music.

 

I think Napster should be legal. Why, because THEY are not doing the "illigal business". It is music lovers who doing the trading of that are breaking the law. ( Unlike MP3 who purchased CD's and then allowed customers access - they have no music stored ). Napster provides the means. Napster shouldn't be held liable for that. If they charge Napster then logic follows that they should sue the Internet itself.

 

If the record company's were not so greedy, they could still make a profit and serve the music community. They refuse and continually make music fans angry. Some artists are going to learn this also. Metallica probably won't be selling as many CD's anymore. There stance against those that did trade their music on MP3 angered those fans - and some are going to ( and already have ) protest that action by burning and refusing to buy any more of their CD's.

 

.... Enough of my 2 cents for the moment

[Guest tabacone]

And for all of you with a MAC, there's MACSTER! Go to macster.com for details.

[Guest Sicilian]

A co-worker today told me there now is another site for Napster created by hackers where you download a file and all the registry information originally banning you from using the program (if you're a Metallica <sp?> fan) is now available today.

 

Sorry, I don't have any details. I'm not into Napster or downloading music in general...just thought I'd pass along the info for those of you who use it. He found it somewhere on a discussion board.