Hmmm, nothing like getting to the party late. As I see it, the pro Napster ethical position seems to be:
I can do it. Therefore, it is not wrong for me to do it. Besides, musicians are greedy.
As compelling as such an argument might be, particularly when bolstered by retoric such as, “it’s the way of the future,” I find myself unconvinced. Intellectual copyright is an important issue to any society that claims to value creative thought. Is distributing copyrighted material without obtaining the right to do so equivalent to robbing a bank? In scale, no. In principle, yes.
It is the small cases that define an ethic. It is easy to go through life without committing murder or rape. It is harder to adhere to an ethic when the consequenes to others are small and the benefit to yourself is large. It becomes even easier to rationalize an unethical act if you can demonize the victim (selfish musicians, evil corporations, power mad IRS). Downloading a single mp3 does not make one an evil person. Neither does shoplifting a candy bar from 7-11. But both acts are theft. Both acts are unethical.
To those who argue, “I bought the CD; therefore I own the music outright.” Can I assume that you have not purchased, rented or viewed a videotape in the last 15 years? Does the phrase “FBI warning” ring any bells? No doubt you ignore that also, but do you at least understand that it exists? Transfer of property occurs under a set of legal rights and obligations. You can repeat “I own the music” until you grow hoarse. That does not make it true. You bought that CD (or album or tape or wax drum) under a contract that was implicitly bound by the rights of intellectual property. Violating that contract because you don’t like its terms is unethical.
Well, PLD is doing just fine here as always, so I shan’t jump into the overall fray, but after reading Rosethorn’s remarks about Yale, I had to share the following two thoughts:
[rant]You go to Yale and you don’t understand what theft is or that stealing is wrong? I hope they aren’t planning on graduating you just yet. [/rant]
On a lighter note, I wanted to share this uncorroborated factoid, shared at a recent investor presentation by Greg Maffei, CEO of 360 Fiber and former CFO of Microsoft. He said that the reason that universities such as Yale are shutting down MP3 servers these days is that 60% of the bandwidth on college campuses is being used by MP3 transmissions. Sheesh! Download your homework and email Mom for Ghod’s sake.
Of course, being a bandwidth salesman, he did not seem overly distressed by this trend. But to be fair to him, he only told the story in the larger context of new uses for ever-increasing bandwidth. He made no remarks one way or another as to the legality or morality of Napster.
To be fair, that’s not all actually downloading, there’s a helluva lot of intra-campus emailing of BAFs (Big-Ass Files) as well. So the universities are getting screwed two ways–their 'net connection and their internal mail system.
from the beginning, this isn’t “Great Debates”, i was just curious on peoples angles. The issue turned into one of legality and morality, and sub issues of ripping off bands and “Napster Sucks/Doesn’t Suck”.
So now i’m bringing up something else. What do you think they “The Music Industry or Napster” should do to resolve the issue/s? And how could the music industry turn it into something positive for themselves without charging the masses of fans who already own the application?
If the RIAA can successfully kill Napster, and put them out of business, they can develop their own program and begin to charge for the service they provide.
If they can’t, they really can’t go anywhere with this. I don’t think Napster is willing to turn this into a fee-based program, and I suspect that most of their users(students, cheapskates Et. al.), will stop using the service. So the RIAA will effectively put Napster out of business one way or the other.
Is there a resolution? I don’t think so, and if there is, it’s not an easy one.
You want to know how the music industry/Napster can resolve their issues? I already posted on this in great detail, at least from the aspect of what the music industry should do, and my positions are mostly unchanged.
To clarify the above quote: when I said “even though it’s wrong that they should have to”, I mean if people have to adjust to technology because technology enables an easier and more convenient form of theft, then yes that is “wrong”. You should not have to “advance with technology” to prevent a being the victim of a crime. However, you cannot ignore the obvious fact that the world has changed, and it is folly therefore to NOT advance with the technology to avoid being the victim of a crime.
I know the above paragraph is perhaps not very clear. I hope you understand what I am getting at though.
I do believe this: expect the mass media (which owns/is owned by several music companies) to start making it a front-page team-by-team reporting event when MP3 pirates start to have federal agents arrest them. A few spots with Peter Jennings clucking his tongue as you watch “MP3 Underworld Kingpins” being led to jail in plastic cuffs will probably reduce Napster traffic by about 50%. And, if most companies start treating downloading MP3’s at work like they do downloading porn that will reduce Napster traffic another 25% (imagine going home saying “I got fired because I downloaded a Bananarama MP3” (hopefully at least not “Robert DeNiro’s Waiting” ;)) ).
Speaking of Lars, and Metallica, I think they’ve come to an alternate solution to sueing everyone and their mother who downloads their music on Napster. They write new music that TOTALLY sucks, so nobody in their right mind will waste their lives downloading it! Anyone hear “I Dissappear” from Metallica off the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack? Holy shit! I think I’d rather listen to a choir of 42 deaf mutes trying to harmonize and sing a classical opera piece.
Speaking of Lars, and Metallica, I think they’ve come to an alternate solution to sueing everyone and their mother who downloads their music on Napster. They write new music that TOTALLY sucks, so nobody in their right mind will waste their lives downloading it! Anyone hear “I Dissappear” from Metallica off the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack? Holy shit! I think I’d rather listen to a choir of 42 deaf mutes trying to harmonize and sing a classical opera piece.
looks like they decided to pull the plug on the listed users, without thinking that the users could reinstall Napster with different user names. it goes on…
So did anybody here get pinched? I never downloaded any Metallica tracks, so I’m still in the zone. I have, however, downloaded a few N.W.A. tracks, so if Dr. Dre comes up with a similar list, I’m probably screwed.
Some of the first MP3’s I downloaded off Napster were Metallica, and I’ve yet to get knocked off. Maybe I didn’t happend to download any at the time Metallica hired some third party company to monitor Napsters users and what they were downloading… who knows…
I’ll still download Metallica if I see a song I want. I don’t yet possess the capabilities to burn the songs onto a cd, so if I hear something I like, I will in fact, go out and purchase the CD. In some ways Napter DOES help the artists out there… Just not the major ones, at least in their opinion.
i haven’t downloaded any metallica, but i have their albums as mp3’s on my drive, and they were definitely being uploaded plenty. never got pinched though.
as for the scenarios…
so, the band/club pays it’s fees, big deal, i’m still downloading mp3’s, (hypothetically of course :D) what can they do? The bands and clubs aren’t the issue, it’s the populous that is easily “getting away with” downloading music that is the issue. They don’t pay their fees.
Recently i encountered an MP3 file that would not let me make copies of itself, or download it to my rio, it was on a cd, would let me convert it to mp3, but not make a second copy, it gives the message that it was intended for one copy only. Why don’t these bands take those steps?
I’m not going to pretend that somehow someone would be cheating me out of anything that was my rightful due by making Napster vanish forever. I have quite a few mp3’s I’ve snagged from them. Most of them are songs I would never have THOUGHT to buy. If I couldn’t have gotten them through Napster, I just wouldn’t have gotten them, and would probably never have missed them.
I actually use it as something of a utility. For instance, I’m looking for a song by the Scorpions. I don’t know the title. I don’t know any of the words. I don’t know which album it was on, I don’t know in what year it came out. I have d/l’ed and listened to seven different Scorpions songs looking for it. They haven’t been it; I’ve deleted them. Eventually I’ll find it, and then I’ll know WHICH Scorpions album to buy when I get around to buying one.
Friends ask me to find songs for them. With a couple of clues, I can do it, and then THEY know what artist to look for when THEY decide to blow some money on CD’s.
As far as making money on the enterprise goes, I would be more than willing to pay a $10-$20 fee for using Napster. They could charge a flat fee, track downloads (good luck, though; talk about a massive database) and at the end of each month pay each artist the corresponding percentage. Hell, KC & The Sunshine Band would probably make the first dough they’d seen in YEARS.
thats it, i got snagged. (kinda asked for it huh?)
time to reinstall with the metallica out of the file thread and under a new username, plus gotta go into the sysedit and delete a few strings.)
nah, i wouldn’t mind paying a one time fee of 10-20 bucks myself now that i think about it.