News 'Legitimate' Napster launch due

Bit of a follow on from the earlier legit download news. From the Beeb:

Napster, the pioneering song-swapping internet service, is returning to business on Wednesday after two years.

A legal version of the service, renamed Napster 2.0, will become available to customers in the US who will now have to pay for downloading music.

The original Napster had 60 million users but was forced to close when record companies began legal action over copyright infringements.

Napster 2.0 is offering single tracks for 99 cents and albums for $9.95.

Full story here.

So - no plans for an European service. But, as I stated in the previous thread this is bound to change (IMO). In the meantime, have any of our Cousins from the wrong side of the Pond downloaded and tried Nap 2.0? The Screenshots on the Napster site look quite nice...

 

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Hang on.... You're in the Peoples Rebulic of Yorkshire. How did you get to download tracks? Interesting....

Have you tried buying anything yet?

 

You can register and download files (well the free ones anyway) even if you aren't in the USA... dunno about buying them though.

 

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......

oh, theyre charging for music now? thats stupid.

 

Re: ......

To be brutally honest...

...You just made yourself look like a total idiot.

*n

 

Re: ......

[sarcasm]
Yeah, kinda like they charge for your car, your house, your computer, your movies. What the hell is wrong with them? Its not like they put any work into it.
[/sarcasm]

 

while i didn't mean what you thought i did, there is a very big differece between downloading an mp3 for free and stealing a car.

one has no victim, the other does. if i downlaod an mp3 i havent taken anything that could have been sold. i have a copy of something that i never would have purchased so noone lost any murchandise, money, or business of any sort. at least not in the case of me downloading mp3s. no victim so there has not been a crime. now then, in the case if a car, that is a material thing, it has been made and takes money to make. if i steal the car then the company doesn't get the money back that they spent on making the car so they have lost money and a physical object, that is a crime. downloading an mp3 is closer to making a viper from scratch - i mine all the resources, process the materials, put them all togather, and make an absolutly perfect working replica of a viper, and dodge didn't get a penny did i steal that viper? even if i wasn't ever going to buy one? mayby you see that as a crime but i dont, reguardless, it doesn't matter thats not what i meant.

what i did mean by my previous post was:
napster is selling music now? thats stupid because by doing that they will never be as popular as they were before, which is, im sure one of their motives of coming back

 

No, you're not stealing a material thing. But I suppose if some guy came over to appraise your home and you didn't pay him that isn't stealing either.

You can pay for two things in modern society, material goods or services (or a combination). Music falls under the services area. You are paying for their work (the creation of music). So yes you can steal music.

From what I have heard other online song distribution system (iTunes, BuyMusic.com, etc..) are doing pretty good. I don't think Napster will be as popular as it once was, but it will be used certainly. People don't mind paying for music, they just don't like being over-charged for it.

 

Personally, I'm glad that I'm now able to purchase and download legit music. The major problem that I have is with the restrictions that they impose on me as far as burning them to cd to use in my stereo or in my car.

 

sigh

the apraisal example doesn't exactly fit, that would be like if i went to a concert and didn't pay to get in. re-using my old example, where is the service if i make a copy of a viper? that i've seen the car before? if that is so then it should be illegal for me to hear music and not listen to a commercial, or pay for it? the service in a concert is the actual show not the music, because live music sucks

to tell you the truth, i realize that it IS technically illegal to download music. personaly i don't think it should be illegal, because there is no victim, but hey thats me. i also think that the music industry has a failed business plan, and that they shouldn't focus on trying to stop music sharing, but should instead focus on finding a new way to do business, and make money

there are other possibilities out there for them to do business with, perhaps not with music files per se but there are other ways to make money in that field besides cd's and trying desperately to bully people into buying them with frivolous lawsuits

one such example would be dynamically mixed music you couldn't rip exactly rip that, many videogames have music like that. ...but i don't know im not really an expert on what sells, and nor do i own a business that is still making tons of money, yet still feels the need to sue poor college students

 

Re: sigh

Except for that guy making the music for a living.

Okay, technically it isn't illegal to download pirated music, its only illegal to distribute it. However, you are stealing intellectual property. The same can be said for the Viper. Will Dodge sue you for making a Viper from scratch? No. Will they sue you for making Viper clones and selling them? You better believe it.

So you might have purchased all of the raw materials and slaved away at producing that Viper, but in the end where did you get the idea of the Viper? Dodge, they own it, its their intellectual property. So when you download pirated music you are stealing their intellectual property. To be accurate its the record labels intellectual property.

As far as a service goes, when you buy music you are paying for the service of the creation of music. The creation of music is intellectual property and (unfortunately) is owned by the record label. When you make a copy of a Viper you didn't actually design the Viper. All of that was done by Dodge, that is the service. Albeit a bit abstract.

 

Re: sigh

Not just technically, but actually illegal. If it where technically, would the RIAA have bothered with all those lawsuits?

And if you relize that it is illegal, no matter if it is technically or actually, why do you still do it.

I bet you try and get your cable free....

 

Actually its not illegal to download music at all. According to the DMCA you are able to download, but not distribute copywritten material.

Of course we all know the DMCA is structured about as well as jello.

 

I know people who are living on the breadline bacause they actively encouraged people to distribute and pass on their music for free.

The record label kicked their asses.

*n

(the band's debut mini album sold 30,000 and was copied and passed on to countless others)

 

wow, from what im hearing from you guys it wouldn't be illegal in the least if i were to simply leech my music without sharing? ...interesting

and about the intellectual property, thats just a really dumb thing IMO. the whole point of intellectual property is to keep people dumb. saying, "i thought of this first, and so you cant think of it now", just seems wrong to me.

AstrumPreliator - the artist is not the victim in my case, because i wouldn't have ever bought the cd, so they lost no business. I do own cds that i would have bought had i downloaded the mp3s first, for compatibility reasons

and to the great old one, why do i do it if i thought it was illegal? simply because i didn't think it is right to have something like that be illegal. just because something is illegal doesn't always make it right, for example, look at segregation laws back in the day

oh, and no i don't try to steal cable, i have nice parents that still pay for that =) and thats even a little different situation still, cable tv actually is a service that they are jetting out to me via a cable that we are both connected to. and reconnecting a cable is kinda like taking an object since im taking their signal through their cable. I don't think it would be stealing though if someone TIVOed tv and ran a wire to my house and i got my TV from TIVO because then it becomes something different than their service.

 

According to the DMCA (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) it is only illegal to distribute copyright material. If you'll notice the RIAA has sued nobody for "downloading" music, just sharing it.

The entire mentality of this approach is simple. If you can take legal action against distributers then the distribution will slowly die down. If nobody is distributing, nobody is downloading.

Thats not even the point of intellectual property. If you're going to make a statement like this, atleast know what your talking about. Here, I'll get you started.

I'm a proponent of hearing music before you buy it, but unfrotunately thats not how it works (on the internet atleast).

 

So when another band I love gets dropped by their record label and don't have the momentum or finance to keep going resulting in them splitting I'm going to personally kick your ass. That okay with you?

*n

 

So, you wouldn't buy the CD, but you've downloaded it so that you can listen to it? Why the hell would you download it if you weren't interested in listening to it. Unless of course you do plan on listening to it. In which case, if there was no such thing as music-downloading or other copying methods, you'd have gone out and bought it. No?


Of course there is a victim by downloading music.

But, consider this: If the Viper had never been invented, how could you make an exact replica? You couldn't.
Using your analogy; A company employs designers, engineers, mechanics and all manner of other people. Spends a hell of a lot on design, production, etc, and at the end of a long process produces a Viper.

Exactly the same for an artist. They spend time writing their music and (or) songs. Their label then spends money on studio time, and then on a producer. At the end of it, they have a record, which has cost them a hell of a lot of money. In order to recoup their costs, and eventually make a profit, they need to sell some copies of that record. If everyone just 'copies' that record, they make nothing back and are screwed.

Just the same as if no-body bought the Viper and just made their own, copying the design exactly. Viper would go bust.

Surely you can see that?