FYI Napster was granted there appeal and will not be shut down unless they lose in court again.

Yes I just read that now too. Good news for now.
Sounds like it was 2 different judges this time. This ought to shut up the people posting the "anti-napster" messages... at least temporarily hehe. Even if they do shut Napster down, there will always bee mp3 available, especially considering the amount of support Napster has.

"Two federal appeals judges Friday granted Napster Inc. a stay allowing the music trading service to stay online at least temporarily."

Don't underestimate Judge Patel's knowledge on information and computer matters. She rendered the big ITAR/AER cryptography verdict several years back. I found an interesting blurb from http://www.cyberspacelaw.org/aoki/prev1.html
that seems to be somewhat inconsistent with her current view on Napster.
----
Additionally, Judge Patel found the distinction between print and electronic media in the EAR amendments untenable, particularly after the Supreme Court's opinion in Reno v. ACLU, "Thus, the dramatically different treatment of the same materials depending on the medium by which they are conveyed is not only irrational, it may be impermissible under traditional First Amendment analysis."
------
I certainly have difficulty reconciling her above statement with her Napster ruling given that the same material (the music)can be conveyed, and legally stored for that matter, over a radio/satellite/tv and recorded with a cassette/cd/dvd/vcr legally, yet the same material cannot be conveyed over the internet with a hard drive / cd storage option.

You poor little MP3 leeching peons. No more napster for you.. boo hoo hoo....

Yes, those poor little pirates are really hurting! I laugh at that statement cause MP3-pirating services are just like fast-food chains, they're a dime a dozen...they all have the same content (food/music) and purpose(eating/pirating), but a different name. Whether I go to Wendy's or McDonald's, I'm still getting my food (whether its better or not is personal preference). In the same way, whether I use Napster or IRC, CuteMX (which will be back up soon), Scour.net, Gnutella, or good ole FTP sites, etc., IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. You know why? Cause in the end, I'll still be getting my music, it just won't be from Napster. The RIAA is not hurting the pirates in this trial, only the Napster company. Peer-2-Peer apps will ALWAYS exist, they will NEVER be able to shut down all of them. The RIAA is fighting a losing cause. They need to attack the source of MP3-pirating problem FIRST, which is the fact that anyone can easily rip/distribute music online. Period. It's that simple. They should spend their money more wisely on attacking this problem but instead, by going after Napster, they're just taking away a small piece of the puzzle that is easily replaced. Oh well, doesn't bother me that they're going after Napster, cause really they're just doing us a favor by wasting their time/money on nothing...

Very well put rani. I couldn't have said it better my self.

someone told me about a music group today that i might like but i now have to struggle with other more "difficult" programs to hear them so now i cant get their cd until i hear it somewhere i'll probably end up not buying it ALSO HELP NAPSTER SIGN THE BOYCOTT OF THE RIAA http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/view.cgi
http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/view.cgi
http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/view.cgi
http://linux1285.dn.net/napster/view.cgi

Patel needs to have a mind toward current trends in technology and the future. Her ruling that a computer is not a home audio recording device is mistaken. I hope that Napster succeeds in appealing.

Napster's whole problem is that they made their software strictly for mp3's. Other than that, it's not too different that IRC, AIM, and any other chat venue where you can trade software. We need a technically minded judge that can see that.

Napster is nothing comparied to the wide world of MP3 internet piracy! For the 20 minutes it take a 56ker to download ONE song I can download TWO CDS off a T3 server! As I was saying NAPSTER IS NOTHING comaired to waht is availibe! Though I don't download mp3s because I have the money to buy real cds! If you are interested in seeing this vist irc.dal.net #cmp3
you can find PRERELSE CDs. Upto 4 weeks before they are released!
-ToXiC

I laughed so harding reading this article by some 2-bit news reporter that does not know anything about computers or the whole "internet scene". Go to www.msnbc.com and read the article by Lisa Napoli, regarding napster. She agree's with Lars, she think because we use napster we are cheating the record industry. All I can say is wrong! For starters, more albums have been sold since napster was release. EXPLAIN THAT! Second, people like Dre who steal cars and sing about it, are crying stating that we are stealing there music... PLEASE get a life! If it wasn't for us listening to your music, deciding if we like it or not and then buying it if it is worthy, you would still be selling crack on the corner. Lars... what can I say... they promote demo tapes and trading, but downloading a demo now is illegal? I am confused... Last, but not least, Metallica and Dr. Dre do not want us to use napster because they can sell us a crap album and we have no way of telling because we cannot sample it before purchasing it. I say screw them!! I for one hate Dre's music anyway, but Metallica use to mean a sense of freedom, freedom of mind, and now that they have stolen my freedom to use napster, I feel they have closed that door that made me want to purchase there music. I guess Metallica has LARS to thank for 1 less music album to be sold.

http://www.romp.com/dl/napster4.swf

Thats all!!

Why?? There are a lot of MP3-servers NOT owned by Napster Inc.
Just download the napigator and log on to another server than the Napster server. You only need MS IE4.0 or higher to make it work.
On the napigator site there is a whole list of MP3-servers. Just pick one out and start downloading your favorite MP3's with Napster !!

Lets see the RIAA shut ALL the MP3-servers down !! Good luck :)

Sorry, forgot to say the URL for napigator.

http://www.napigator.com

http://dieriaa.netfirms.com/boycott.htm
http://www.lickmysweaty.com/

boycotting!

Did you know them actually CDs cost much less than Tapes to produce?
But why does the RIAA price them over tapes? Because it was cheaper to copy casettes than CDs and they tried to balance the cost of a new tape with a copy. They are screwing us with extra high priced CDs. I do not have empathy for them in no way. They make premium profits over the artists and the consumers since they had monopoly over distribution channels.
(And also why do they sell me all 12 tracks whereas I would only like to buy two????)

wow, that article sums me up pretty well :-) except for a couple things... if something truly (in my mind) deserves to be bought, I will buy it. Take Eve 6's new album, Horrorscope for example. I downloaded it a month and a half ago, and it just came out in stores on Tuesday. I absolutely loved the CD, and when I like something that much, I'll buy it. So I did. If I hadn't downloaded it, I probably wouldn't have ever heard more than 1 or 2 of their songs, and those songs wouldn't make it worth buying. Moving on, there are other albums I've downloaded... some of them are OK, with a couple pretty good songs. However, if I don't like them enough, I simply won't buy them. Yet I keep the downloaded versions. Am I depriving the RIAA and musicians of their money? No, because I wouldn't buy the CD regardless of whether or not I could get the music for free. No amount of moral persuasion is gonna make me buy the album if I don't love nearly every song. The same with software/games. Example: Diablo 2. I downloaded the Diablo 2 ISOs, and I loved the game. Nearly everything about it. Since it was a very well made product and very fun to play, despite its flaws, I decided it was worth buying. So I bought it. Unlike many people out there, I acutally do buy things if I like them enough. However, almost none of those people would buy the product if they couldn't download it for free. I buy products to support the people that actually made them, however, most of my money goes towards greedy corporations such as game publishers and the RIAA/MPAA, not the actual recording artists or game developers.

There is a lot more I would like to say, but I'm too tired to write it all... I'll conclude with my 2 favorite quotes:
"Rather than buying a game, download it, and send $15 to the developers. That's more than they make off each sold copy anyways."
"Rather than buying a music CD from a large record company, download it, burn it, and send the artists $5. That's about 5 times what they make off each CD sale anyways."
By following this advice, you still produce those who made the product, yet don't contribute to huge greedy companies, like the *cough* RIAA *cough*

-Neo8234

Correction to that last post...that should be Manifesto...not Manifest. My apologies.

Like so many others in this discussion have stated, the ruling on shutting down Napster is totally pointless. Let's think about this for a moment...compare the amount of time that IRC has been around to the likes of Napster....throw in FTP sites, Warez sites, personal distribution, etc, and you have several other means of getting what you want for free. The thing is that the "government" has no idea how the biggest tool in history works....that being the Internet. Hell, if they were even stupid enough to shut down the Internet and World Wide Web all together, all we'd do is go back to the good 'ol days of BBS's. By shutting down Napster, all the RIAA is doing is pissing people off more than ever, and adding more fuel to their own fire. As spoken in the words of a very important Manifest..."You can stop one of us, but you can't stop us all."

I just have one comment...One reason that some people get mp3'z are because the song's have not come out on albums yet, or some stupid s*** like that. I mean they rip it off the radio. Ok so Napster is gone, and lets say that RIAA succeeds in banning all the napster style products out there, and even gnutella and irc. You still listen to the music on the radio, and you can just as easily rip it off that too... What was the point have having blank audio cassetts back in the day. Obvious answer is to copy other peoples tapes, so this is exactly what people do now with digitaly encoded music...RIAA will never succeed in stopping the distribution of music... It's a tough fact those retards should learn to cope with...

Exactly. If they want to stop people copying music, they should go to some trouble themselves and make it impossible for people to copy music. They just think they can print "Copyright" on the cover and expect no-one will copy them.

Yes, I agree. But the consumers are not the only ones copying music on to cassette tapes. Recording artists do it as well to learn cover songs, for example. Also, what about rap artists bas****izing old rock songs? Is this not piracy?

Here is a quote directly from the RIAA site:
----------------------------
What is your stand on MP3?

This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right. To learn more about digital music, visit the Music and the Internet section.

---------------------
anybody here remember when they tried to sue Nullsoft for creating Winamp which plays MP3s? lol....

dont try to justify mp3s as legal or as some right. i use napster a decent ammount, but i never get into some delusional state where i tell myself that it's ok. nowhere is it said that you have some god given right to download songs before you buy an album.. i assume i'll get some kids telling me that im stupid because i said this, oh well. im not saying i dont use napster and mp3s, im saying that i know its not legal.

This judge Patel is an idiot.I personally think napster is very unlucky.Look what he's saying.Monster? Form this word i can understand that this judge hates napster.**** US laws.Napster can go to another country and build their servers there.So no idiot US judges can decide those kind of things.If they're clever they'll build their servers where nobody won't mind.Then what RIAA can do? Nothing.Sue Us teenagers for downloading music?Then half of the US youth will be in jail.I think the real monster is RIAA this judge Patel and US laws. That's it.

Patel is an a******! someone should find his personal email address and everyone send him hate mail. I don't use Napster but this is going to hurt all future programs for trading. And he's a complete moron people will just move to something that HE NOR RIAA can stop. All the others out there like Gnutella that have NO server! All they are doing is providing a stable server to connect to just as IRC itself does and they don't regulate what people do on IRC.

Ummmm...Marilyn is a she. But since you spend all your time downloading from Napster you don't go out on dates. The only companion you need os Rosey and her five little friends.

stubear, you are an ass

I never download copyright material, only non-copyright songs. This injunction interferes with my constitutionally protected rights to free speech. I object your honor.

It wasn't that long ago that ppl assumed to be witches were burned. It's a good thing the churches aren't that ignorant these days. It took a few hundred years for the chruch to finally set those beliefs straight. Just as this stemmed from ignorance, so do all the legal procedings on the internet these days.

The most expirience any one of these judges has with any electronics is changing the battery in their hearing aid. How can you make a decission about something you know nothing about?

Can someone tell me why the internet became so popular to begin with? Is it possible that it had something to do with the fact that the internet used to be a place you could go to AVOID leagal bull$hit just like this.

The legal system works mainy be re-stating previous cases which have already been resolved. You can be asured that this case will be the cornerstone for most of the decisions made regarding MP3's from this date forward.

Let's get rid of cars now too, because someone got nailed by a drunk driver.. there must be something wrong with all drivers, so let's not make cars available to anyone any more either.

It's time for someone to build a new internet, with only one restriction, NO LAYERS, POLITICIANS, NO SOLICITORS, and definatley NO US GOVERMENT.

Amen. add to that: No www. crap! i remember when there was no www. and even still if you don't type the www. the page opens. in fact the www. causes problems! with web hosters that give you subdomains.

Whay is the next best thing, since Napster is off the air from Friday ?

Hey everyone! A new file sharing program will be available on Aug. 1 just visit the website to download it then! www.filerogue.com

Yeah, I second this, Filerogue is excellent (I'm a beta tester), far more powerful and offers quite a load of options (i.e : file categories, personnal messaging system, etc....)

I've used Napster primarily to download music from older artists that I *cannot* find on CD-NOW or my local CD store. How, exactly, did my downloading this music deprive the artist of money when there was no way I could buy the CDs even if I wanted to?

If RIAA is really serious, they'd do something about distribution.

I never heard of napster untill it was in the news. Now that its going away, I will do what I always have, goto ftp servers.

May I add they hadd no proof illegal activitys were going on in napster? Im sure it broke the disclaimer, although who reads that? how do they know that all the downloads weren't done by people who own the cd? or went out and bought the cd after listening to it. I wouldn't Be suprised if this hurt the industry more then help. The people will still get the mp3's. but it will be harder to find the new ones, which will hurt sales, noone buys a song they havent heard before, thats crazy.

Speaking for myself. I can see the where the RIAA doesn't like Napster, alot of people are getting free copyrighted material. Put yourself in the artisis shoes. HOWEVER, I can honestly say I've purchased three CD's in the past 2 weeks after not having bought ANY in over a year. By coincidence I downloaded Napster for the first time, you guessed it, 2 weeks ago. After hearing a couple of tracks from the artists newest CD's (Sting, Eminem (Not my type of music, but dammit, Slim Shady is Funny) and Tracey Chapman), I went out and bought them. AND, I could have freely recorded them "Digital Quality" off our satellite and off the Radio. The RIAA condones free distribution of music themselves via Q94FM here in Richmond, VA. It's a catch 22, I can see both sides. But, if the artist are in it for the ART, what do they care. You'll soon find that the real artists could care less, as long as they're making music that people love.

What I really liked was "these arguments were shot down by Patel, who said that computers are not audio home recording devices."

Well s***! What have I been doing for the last four years? All this time I thought I was making music on my home computer, but now they say that what I've been doing isn't home recording? A computer is not a home audio recording device?

BWAHAHAHAHA!

I could see this coming. The first sign was that 40 year old ladies at my work were coming up to me and asking me how to use Napster and wanting me to show them how to install it. The second sign was the bandwidth issues that certain Universities got involved in which sparked the national debate. And the last a final sign of Napsters doom was punk a** sellout Lars Ulrich opening his mouth to try to shut something down that he doesn't know anything about, nor understand. Are Metallica's record sales down? If they are, I think I know why, THEY SUCK. Face it Lars, quit blaming other people for your mediocre music. And then there's Dr. Dre. He is just pissed because all those record sales losses that the RIA gripes about, means less weed for him and his hommies to smoke.

sorry about that double post

I could see this coming. The first sign was that 40 year old ladies at my work were coming up to me and asking me how to use Napster and wanting me to show them how to install it. The second sign was the bandwidth issues that certain Universities got involved in which sparked the national debate. And the last a final sign of Napsters doom was punk a** sellout Lars Ulrich opening his mouth to try to shut something down that he doesn't know anything about, nor understand. Are Metallica's record sales down? If they are, I think I know why, THEY SUCK. Face it Lars, quit blaming other people for your mediocre music. And then there's Dr. Dre. He is just pissed because all those record sales losses that the RIA gripes about, means less weed for him and his hommies to smoke.

You cannot kill the technology.
You (riaa and other s***holes) might be able to shut down one or more products, but no matter what you do, the file swapping technology is growing bigger.
So, instead of ignoring it and fight for your damn CD sales, learn to accept it as a fact and try maybe to get your benefits out of it.
I guess RIAA are kinda slow and it will take some more time for their tiny brains to get it...

Hehe.. in fact they are TOTAL MORONS! I bet you since they made this a big publicity thing that MORE people know about Napster and alternatives than ever before and so they will probably lose even more sales.. LOL.. What morons.. hmm.. what did they graduate at the bottom of the class for common sense? Everyone knows the way to make a problem bigger is to make it a high profile known problem.

first off, napster is still going to work, past friday and all that.
Anyone ever hear of napigator? b****x.dimension6.com? mpnapster? opennap? all these other servers that run their own services, that just use the standards set by napster. There are also other clients as well. Napster will live until those unrelated servers are shut down, which may be very difficult, maybe.

The part i liked best is "This is an important win for artists."
BULL! you're not even an artist, how would you even conceive what is important to them?! There was an artical on Salon.com written by Courtney Love about how Big Record and the RIAA SCREAWS OVER ARTISTS.
She went on to tell how THE ARTISTS pay for studio time, how they only get $0.20 to $1.00 per record sold, and how the only real way artists make money is they use the subsequent publicity to attract fans to concerts and for them to buy merchendise. It has been shown among Napster users specifically that the people who use Napster, buy more records. Its how i got to hearing several artists that have now become several of my favorite. Bands like filter, incubus, the deadlights. The RIAA itself released a report showing their record sales had GONE UP (!), not down, in the past year. They cant stop it. If they make mp4 too secure for piracy, im sure someone will create a hack/crack for it. There are too many other devices and methods that can be used for downloading mp3s and such. The other servers such as b****x.dimension6.com, gnu/gnotella, IRC, ICQ, AIM, FTP, it all can be alternatively used to distribute mp3s. I'd like to see them shut down gnutella, or IRC for that matter. heh.

Napster's easy to use, it's attractive & convenient. But the end of Napster isn't the end of file-swapping, it's just the end of an accessible method of initiating it. But that's no biggie, for if one has a mere half brain, he/she will realize that there's more than one way to wave the "magic wand" or to "skin a cat", afterall the internet shall remain an anarchy until the FEDS decide to "put the foot down". Oh, by the way, **** THE FEDS! They are caterers to the RIAA as well as most other representatives of "big business". **** having to spend 15-17 bucks of my hard-earned dollars on a CD that's worth under ten bucks!! Anyone willing to shell out a 20-dollar-bill for a CD--I don't care if it's The Best of Beethoven--is ****ing out of their freakin' minds! Be a victim, I can care less. In the meantime, I'll continue to download music for FREE--that is until the industry decides to price CD's reasonably.

what does a CD cost to make these days? 50 cents? there's a phenominal markup there... and i'm sure that the odd $14.50-$16.50 does not go to the artist. important win for artists my ass... more like an important win for the riaa.

i will continue to release my music for free. **** the riaa... long live free music.

Just as Napster was the most common mp3 sharing utility, AIM/ICQ are the most common messaging apps. And both have file sharing capabilities. With AIM, you can basically run a server. It's so damn popular among the commoners, how many millions does AOL claim use it? So, just share your mp3's on AIM, let everyone know your screen name, and stop paying taxes to a government which will always ask you to grab your ankles, please.

Unless they can stop one user copying or sending a file to another user, there is no way mp3 trading will cease.
They are hardly likely to be able to acheive that. 100million people have this ability and they cant stop them all. Youd have to ban email or the internet itself to prevent music copying.

I think the reason why Napster was targetted so exclusivly was because it made the job of trading mp3s TOO convenient.
Seems its ok when you have to know where to go, how to get onto specific FTP servers or whatever, but Napster took all the hassle away and dedicated a program to it.

This will scratch the music copying that goes on over the internet but it cant come close to stopping it.

Oh and CompDoc, your an a******. See the big picture and realise what a sad loser you are.

No, they went after napster because it was a high publicity single target, the exact reasons why gnutella will never be banned, because its not high publicity currently, and even if it was, there is no single target.

They might have a chance if they start executing people who transfer mp3 files to use them as an example of what could happen. Of course, that won't happen...anytime soon at least. My point is, that is the only way they would have a chance. I guess they really don't understand how the internet really works and are making themselves look like asses on such a wide scale. One illegal or legal popular site goes down, 20 others see an oportunity to take over it's popularity and replace that one.

No, they went after Napster because it was an easy target to start setting precedent. There now exists a legal argument with which the RIAA and the MPAA can start prosecuting other internet related copyright infringement cases.

Gnutella can be sued and they can be forced to stop distributing their software if it can be shown that it is used mostly for copyright infringement. Eventually they will start shutting down domain names and stopping these sites at their souces, the ISPs.

This is not a revolution nor is it a cry for freedom from opression. You petty thieves do a greta injustice to the real issues of opression that plague this world.

**** You Weenie, why would I pay $20 to get one maybe 2 songs on an album. If they want to charge me a buck or 2 for the songs I like thats fine but until then I will get the music I like without having to spend thousands on albums for the 100 songs or so that are any good.

Of course it's a revolution. A revolution on how music will be "legally" distributed in the future. You can't be so blind as not to see that.

I love when people talk about something they know nothing about. Gnutella can't be sued, since its not a company or an person. The guys created it, put it up, and now its spreading. It will only get more popular if Napster is shut down. And since its not made for just mp3s, it hard to use the same arguement they use with Napster anyways. To shut down Gnutella would require going after each and every user. Last time I was on, there were 4,000 or so users. If Napster is shut down, this will increase. I doubt it'd be worth it for anyone to try and track them all down, even if they could.

gnutella isnt a program, its a protocol.... a text file .... since when has it been illegal to distribute a text file?

I'm blind? Don't you see that the vast majority of the people supporting this application just want free music? Some music labels have wisened up to the digital distribution method and have begun to offer a couple of their songs online. If you think they are going to offer the whole CD online in hopes that some people are going to be honest and purchase the same material they just downloaded for free you are blind.

To the dimwit who said it costs $0.50 to make a CD, you need to do a little more research. Bands don't work for free, their time is estimated in the cost of an album. Recording Studios are not cheap either. They also charge for their services. Album art needs to be created, and I speak from experience when I say graphic designers charge as I myself am one. This all adds up. The reason the RIAA takes their clice of the pie first is because they LOAN their money to artists to record these albums. As some of you may already know, andI ma abotu to find out through personal experience, banks expect to have their money paid back from house and auto loans, to name a couple. The record labels (aka RIAA) are in a similar position.

Since Congress approved the DMCA. Go read it, and then come back and tell me I'm wrong.

oh dear oh dear... american congress thinking they own the internet again.... one day someone should let them in on the secret that the internet is a world thing, not just an american thing.

Ok, fine. Go investigate the Berne Convention then get back to me. I think you'll find that member countries are prone to support the laws of other member countries.

As to the US owning the internet, do you know where the internet started? It was a project started by the United States Government which is controlled by the American Congress. Another half which joined this military project was started by American Universities. To thin it is American might me wrong to a certain degree but where are the companies that sell Domain Names located? What happens if the US shuts down its digital borders (hypothetically spekaing)? Where is the "world internet" then?

To think that the internet belongs to the US just because it was invented here is one of the most idiotic things I've ever heard. The automobile was invented here, so I guess the US owns and controls all automobiles. If the US were to dissappear from the internet, it would still be functioning fine. There are root DNS servers located around the world, and places acredited to register them. The internet by it's very nature is meant to be distributed and not centralized. Admittedly if the US were to dissappear from the global internet there would be about 90% less content on the www. The chances of that ever happening is virtually zero though. The US government would never close it's "digital borders" if it even could do such a thing. There was an article on /. last week on this very subject of the US role in the internet, go read it, and you realize how wrong you are. stubear- the graphic artist, legal expert, and now computer internet wizard

pretty much what I was going to say, thanks for saying it for me!

I never said they own it but they do own and operate a major share. Also, existing copyright laws are respected through teh BErne OCnvention. While the US doesn't own the internet, going to another country to avoid US copyright laws won't work. Case in point, the kid who wrote DeCSS. He was arrested but he was neither an american citizen, nor was he on american soil.

Now, go read about copyright and quit posting your irrelevant freedom of speech crap elsewhere. This is not YOUR speech to pass around, it is owned by the artist(s) who created it. If they want to let you have free copies of their music then they will let you know.

Slashdot, what a useless rag with which to wipe my a** (figuratively speaking; I know it's an internet site not a real newspaper). That site is full of people are anti-everything just to be anti-somthing. If that is the best data source you can cite then give it up. Slashdot, that's a good one.

By the way, I never claimed to be a legal EXPERT, I just said I bother to educate myself and take advantage of an oppurtunity to do so while in college. The only reason I didn't go to law school was because I hate writing so much. I scored in the 90th percentile on the LSATs though.

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

Support Napster and surf to this URL: http://boycott-riaa.com
Show the RIAA and the world who really controls the music industry in this country. The FAN !!

Are we promoting the illegal copying of files? NO we are not. What we
are advocating is a boycott of RIAA member recordings for the month of August.

Is the fan going to start paying the (upwards of) $200,000 required for bands to record their albums? Are the fans going to start paying to have album art designed and packaging made? Are the fans going to start paying the music stores to promote said artists?

It's a chicken and egg problem. The RIAA was the chicken (no comments, please), the artist was the egg and the fans ate rather well. Sure there were a few bad eggs but the fans wanted them (n'sync and the BackStreet boys come to mind here.) Sure, you and I certainly wanted these bands to die horrible deaths but the larger portion of consumers wanted this music.

$200,000 to record an album is ridiculously high. What happened to the days of garage bands? You practice, you get it all down then you go in and record it until you get it perfect. For $200,000 you could buy halfway decent instruments and your own recording equipment and then have enough left over for a little advertising and distribute your music over the internet in mp3 format for a reasonable price. It's an investment, you either win or lose, but if you win it's all on your own, no middle man. Also, who said anyone cared about album art and packaging? Obviosly not the mp3 community.

Your chicken and egg theory only shows that you feel an artists ability to generate music good enough for the public is only possible through the RIAA. Afterall, without a chicken there is no egg. Hate to tell you, but music has been around long before the RIAA has.

No, but there have always been patrons of the arts. Mozarts and Beethoven would have been nothing without money from their patrons. Sure they would have had musical talent and genius but how would they have earned a living?

Use their musical talent and genious to charge an admission at the front door. Their fanbase can be their patrons. Why do we need the RIAA to lead the way? If the RIAA wasn't in place then musicians are going to what, make 2 million dollars less a year? Just maybe bands like Metallica would have to actually work a little harder instead of spewing out crap that WILL sell because the RIAA will make it sell. Or your one hit wonders who get into it for a quick flash of fame and a few million bucks. This kind of stuff is a disgrace to the music scene and is paved by the RIAA with all their glamour and marketing schemes.

Tell me just one thing? Who buy the records? green ET from Mars?

So you'd rather be screwed by TicketMaster than the RIAA. Good plan.

My point was you don't get to buy a record until an artist records it and the artist doesn't record it until they get enough money to go into the studio. The labels loan the artists this money and the RIAA sees to it that the labels get their money back.

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

Yes, a real life experience is more valuable than a wasted piece of circular plastic that only collects dust. Perhaps if we could listen first, then purchase, we might get some good use out of it.

FTP, IRC, and a spawn of Napster clones will take over where Napster left off. The RIAA should give up it's losing battle with respect to this issue and find viable ways to adopt mp3's to it's own advantage because with many other ways to distribute mp3's to those who want it. And with other ways to distribute mp3's the RIAA is just wasting on money that can be used into creating a secure format delievering CD
quality audio that can take less space than the average mp3. The nightmare has just began for the RIAA.

I read everyone elses posts and god i love the funny stuff people say aboot the judge and government. I agree, there is no end to the mp3 thing and with like 6 other file sharing programs, non-napster servers,irc, and plain ol web sites, the mp3 controversy will never end. If they seek to shut other programs done then go ahead.....more are popping up in their place and the newer ones are immune to the retarded government.

What I find fascinating is how many posts there are saying "the government is stupid" or "damn the government" or "the government has their heads up their asses." What does the government have to do with this?? The RIAA is suing Napster. Sure the court system is the government, but the government is not suing, RIAA is. This is not the Microsoft case. Name calling in and of itself makes you look completely ignorant but you're not even addressing the right party!! Think before you post - you make yourself look like an idiot and you lower the quality of intellectual thought on this site.

The government is for the people and by the people yet they sided with a large money guzzling industry. So, you're right, we shouldn't be pointing our finger at the judges but at ourselves. It seems to be human nature to always fight over property, who has the most money, and of course who has the largest d***. And you will be removed if you slightly exceed someone with a smaller d*** than you.

Lets make a list of all the other sharing programs in line to be shutdown also. This is sorta sad to have a list that is so big and the gov'nt still doesnt get the picture. We run the show you guys just put the film on the spindle.

Scour Exchange
Cute-MX
GNutella
Share-It
The Gnutella clone.. Forgot the name

Ontop of that I was reading an article about a company developing a program the relies on peer to peer connection much like ICQ does. With no server what is there to shutdown? Thats the idea behind it. Napster relies on a central server to connect with and etc. Without the server using a peer to peer connection chain much like the internet its unstoppable. The internet design was invented by the goverment itself. Connecting multiple computers together using an infinite number of connections. If one link goes down there are still other links to the computer through another computer acting as a router for the data. If we implement that design into a Naptster-linke client when the goverment says to shut it down the citizens have the choice as to say "**** off goverment" or be a law abiding citizen and say "yes sir". Which would you pick? I would pick **** off goverment personally becuase I dont think they do a very good job at deciding things in the tech world at all. We have like 40 - 50 - 60 year old people with no tech experience barely, grew up with the computers the size of entire rooms using vacum tubes and put on spectation for amazement down to deciding company threatening decisions whether to break up the biggest corporation in the world to deciding if the age old problem of piracy has loomed into one single program. I would rather have my dog decide between a piece of bacon and a piece of dog food. I mean geeze at least his decision would be logical.

They should go after microsoft on this as well really... I mean Windows shares files, hmm ... I suppose you could set up SQL server to share files as well.. oh and Exchange server.... All could easily share mp3s....

...i think you're referring to Gnotilla...

perhaps everyone should run opennap servers, and rely heavily on napigator to get around... ;)

anyone using napigator knows that there are about 3 times as many other servers out there that napster doesn't own.

Thank you, Lars Ulrich....*LMAO*

See the comment below....*L* I had a little too much to drink last night...

Told you inexperienced, infringing f**s that Crapster would be shut down !! LOL !! : )

"I told you so...".
go back to kindy for **** sake -- and_stay_there!

Compdoc, you sure have an attitude problem. Don't you think its time you grow up?

Yeah a******s, you're correct in stating I have an attitude problem. Especially towards those that think it's AOK to steal in any way shape or form. I challenge you to try and steal from me and see what happens. Stupid morons.

Umm... How can you say that we are "stealing". Stealing and copying are two completely different things. Perhaps you should check your dictionary before posting such stupid comments.

check the dictionary? last i checked, laws on steal, material property ownership, and intellectual property ownership were defined by the laws which the country creates and enforces. and last i checked...it was illegal to distribute a person's or group's intellectual property without their permission, which is exactly what Napster, Gnuetella, Scour, and all the others, allow people to do. i'll grant you that such programs should not necessarily be held responsible for the parties using them - there are some legal uses of the programs - but that still does not take away from the fact that transfering music, movies, or anything else which is someone else's intellectual property is illegal, and yes, it is considered 'stealing'

steal from you? hmm.... whatchoo got that's worth my time?

Key word is, "allow them to do". Napster has NO part in the actual trading, they merely provide the transport.

Should we sue our cities and have them shut down the streets because a robber got away in a car on a street?? That's what's happening to Napster.

Only those that want to sue would call it "stealing". It is the only word they can use which sounds illegal.

It could also be that that it is like hold gun makers responsible for the murders that take place as a result of gun use.

Compdoc, are you 2 years old or just have a frat boy's mentality in a little s***s body? If you dont have anything intelligent to say dont waste our time.

Maybe Napster should pump some money into the Mexican economy and setup it's servers there. Hell, it doesn't really matter where they put there servers since users link to each other and just use Napster as an interface.

Finally, some common sense. Illeagal is as illeagal does. Theft is theft.

Your 2 dimensional thinking will just keep you behind the times my man. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that MP3's are here to stay. The music industry is run by a bunch of total ****ing retards. They b**** about losing profits, but they'd rather flush their money down the toilet in court instead of figuring out a way for the public to just purchase tracks for a couple bucks.

The music industry didn't stay ahead of the times and let their guard down. Now they're paying for it just like any business would. Remember Netscape?

Why would you listen to music made by a "bunch of total ****ing retards" anyway ?
If you do not like that these "retards" want money from their work, then don't listen to them. Instead find some artist that gives away their music for free.

You do realize that the RIAA is a trade group that represents the RECORDING INDUSTRY and NOT the artists? They are out to protect the interests of the cartel, not the artists that are signed to the cartel.

Other than that, nowhere did anyone mention the artists are ****ing retards, but rather, the cartel is run by ****ing retards.

I bet the judge doesn't even know what a computer is. What an inconsiderate little prick. I thought courts were designed for the benefit of the public, not money-making scams like RIAA. I hope a billion other companies start-up other simelar services and make it dominate - keep the f*ckheads busy.

The courts were not set up to be a benefit to either the public or the corporations, they were designed to be an impartial system that interpretted law. Our Government is set up with a simple system of checks and balances, each branch of the government watching over the other. The courts very seldom make law, they only conlcude a certain law should be interpretted in a particular manner.

Exactly stubear, which is their way of creating many "new" laws derived from "old" laws without seeming unconstitutional.

no new laws are created. Congress is full of people with absolutely no legal background. They tend to pass laws that don't pass constitutional muster. The court system takes these laws and interprets them with the constitution in mind. I much prefer this method instead of letting congress run amuck of the constitution, don't you? (Think Jesse Helms, Orrim Hatch and Phil Graham.)

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

OK, I've already stated this before, but it's what I predict will happen. First, I wasn't really sure that the RIAA would win because file sharing has been around for quite a while, and this is just a "fun" form of it. That having been said, and having read below about iRC, it's conceivable that iRC COULD be shut down, but likely not. The last thing that I'll say and/or predict is that FTP's shall never be "closed down". They have been around farrrr to long. They are part of academia (higher learning/education), and I would love to see somebody TRY to track down people in the act of SHARING "illegal" files, i.e. mP3s. RIAA, you have enough money and prestige to influence courts, but THE PEOPLE will win this one.

Okay let me get my ranting out. First, I'm sick and tired of these freakin old judges trying to understand an industry in which they know nothing about. There is no judge that sits on the bench that is even remotely qualified to make judgements on anything concerning the Internet or Intellectual property. I know that doesn't matter because judges are suppose to come up with the best solution with the knowledge they are presented, but the problem is that they make harsh rulings the counter existing laws. Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 applies for every single computer simple because, well computers are in the home and they have the capacity to Record audio. Betamax decision also qualifies protection for napster because there are users that use it for non-infringing uses. She's trying to validate her decision that says it's not enough but I'm doubtful that the Betamax decision required a certain ratio in order for you to be protected. This is the most idiotic ruling i've heard since the Microsoft Anti-Trust suit. Congress really needs to get moving because if it were up to judges we would still be conversing with people through paper and pen. Times have changed. Their has never been a time in history where so much information can be exchanged so freely. As far as I'm concerned no government should make laws against anything on the internet simply because their government doesn't and can never control the WORLD wide web.

couldn't have said it better myself!

First let me say I am sick and tired of average people trying to interprate laws. They have no basic understanding of legal proceedings nor do they have the basic skills required for debate. Please quite interpretting laws of you are not in the legal profession.

If I'm not mistaken you are in the graphic designing business and I've seen you interpret laws on here. I am not in the law profession, but if I have to live under a certain law I sure has hell will interpret it has being reasonable or not. If I find a law unreasonable, should I dedicate my life to changing it? Of course not, imagine if everyone did that. We already have way to many lawyers and polititions and way too many laws. Therefore, I just won't abide by the law. So be it, call me a thug if you will, that's your judgement which faces consequences as well.

Actually I educated myself to certain aspects of the legal field that pertained to being a graphic designer. While in college I took advantage of classes geared towards copyright law, contrat law and thelegal issues in starting a business. I think I understand the basics of Copyright Law, thanks.

I REALLY LOATHE when someone thinks that just because they know a little about a subject, that they think that they can tell everyone else what to and not to do. You're NOT better than anyone else. Stubear, man, get a life. They only thing you are doing is showing everyone how ignorant you really are......................

No, I'm simply pointing out the flaws in your logic. You only make my assertions more concrete by attacking me verbally instead of rebuting my arguments.

No, what I am saying is that whether you realize it or not (or even care), you portray yourself to be a snob. My opinion is not the issue in this particular comment, although, I do see some of your points.

I am not a snob and apologize for coming across as such. However, legal matters follow a certain logic. If you don't understand this logic then you can't comprehend why things are the way they are. Ever wonder why legal documents are so long? Because they have to cover every possible loophole known to mankind. Talk about security. The arguments such as "people will just go elsewhere..." or "the RIAA is screwing the artist so I'm going to screw the RIAA..." or "Napster is just a file transfering utility..." fail to meet the logic inherent in our modern Copyright laws. It is a plain and simple fact that whining will not refute or alter.

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear, you are an ass

stubear this is for you: copyright for music is now useless so why bother talking about it. no matter what a company does to prevent mp3 distribution, it will be unsuccessful. there is no way that this can ever stop short of shutting down the internet. down with riaa and anyone else like that and up w/ the piracy!

The trial was pretty pointless. It was obvious the RIAA would win. I'm not happy about it but its true. Napster really did nothing wrong. It was the users who abused the capacity to transfer mp3's. The government can't shut down every user, so they do the next best thing which is shutting down napster. Its not fair, but there's not much we can do about it. There are other means of trading mp3's but they are not as good as napster. Its just matter of time before the other file sharing programs get shut down. The only thing they can't really do anything about is IRC, but it's a pain to use. The casual Napster user won't know about IRC anyway. What I want to know is can Napstr appeal the case to teh supreme court like Microsoft is doing? They won't win, but at least the program would be open for a few more months.

Napster IS NOT SHUTDOWN. I just finished downloading some music and the latest beta version.

It says Friday..

ok.....we all know how to get free music through irc, scour, etc. but it worries me that maybe if napster is brought down (completely shut-off) there could be a chain reaction which could lead to scour, irc, etc. I mean if the f*ckin governement can stop napster, where do they stop??

Maybe so but you forget.... these are different companies they knew what they were getting into so im sure they are ready for a battle. And each battle takes nearly a year so thats plenty of time. While its doing that there will just be another one. Hell if this does happen I will create my own sharing program.

Well the goverment does NOT own the Internet. The Internet is worldwide.

There will always be Napster like programs around, they can't stop it all.

they should just move the servers to another country or something, f the riaa. i saw something on the news about this island not owned by any country, and ppl can put things on servers there that governments can't touch.
that would be some funny s***, untouchable napster

i am for sure, not buy a single cd ...period
i bought quite a few after sampling..u see i dont have a cdrw..so i dont burn my own cd..so buying i a good option after a few time listening to be sure i dont get bored with that song..but now i just got this for u RIAA...F... u and i moving to the next napster..come on and close the whole www if u can!!!!

LOL! Now that would be cool :)

I guess I should not be mad... I will find an FTP with not just a song from Metallica, but the whole damn album, and all the older albums too! Lars... You opened up door you cannot close!

I still think that trial was pointless... I mean all that napster does is give users the ability to share music... this has been goin on for many years on irc... before napster there was irc, and i'm sure that there will be something after napster, or even if not, there will still be irc, which gives users the same options of searching and recieving files.

IRC will be declared illegal within a week, most likely. Oh, and then will follow ICQ. And e-mail will soon follow. Burn those floppies as well. CD-R's and CD-RW's? Nah, can't have those anymore, cuz they can hold MP3s as well. In short, this is the biggest joke I've ever heard. All Napster's servers do is provide a pass-through arena for people to transfer files. You can do this with just about ANY program and an Internet connection! I guess the Internet is now illegal.

i agree with you to a certain extent. i mean anyone who's not a novice knows plenty of places to get pirated music. but there are plenty of people on the net who are novices. these are the people who will find it harder now to get the pirated music and therefore it has a limited impact on the piracy of the music.

there will be plenty more of these cases if the RIAA is serious about eliminating the mp3 threat though!

That'll force the music piraters to load Napigator and join the enormous number of non-napster servers.

I would not be so sure about Napigator. Undoubtably, it will be declared illegal as well as part of the judgement. No official word on anything on Napster's website yet, except for this:

A Message to the Napster Community
source: napster.com
Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. PDT Hank Barry, Napster CEO and Shawn Fanning, Founder, will give the Napster community a brief update on the RIAA's lawsuit against Napster.

That's in 30 minutes.

Im pretty sure that uhhh most people on napster dont know how to use ftp or dont even know what it is but we shall see g** d***IT "I WANT TO PIRATE THE WAY I WANT TO NOT HOW OTHERS TELL ME TO" rgrah

Court cases are only part of the strategy to do away with file trading for good. The other part, something maybe 5 years away maybe longer, however, will be much more intelligent computers, that 'know' what the user is doing, tampering with code, d/l copywritten material, etc. and will not allow this. If you try to tamper with the system, rather than being passive (as todays computer are) they will instigate a defense system based upon the situation. Much more than a simple program, these computers will be quite useful, because they immediately automate tasks that computer users do now. And many complex tasks we can only wish computers could do. Think more like HAL than today's PCs. (simple version of HAL, I might add).

Ok and tell me who will write the code or design the hardware to implement such a feature. Also your talking on the means of a simple version of "AI" or a type of computer world where everyone abides by the same standard? Even if they are able to create such a complicated means of coding using such a native language as c which is currently the most powerful programming language available we will be able to change it, hack it, manipulate it the way we want, becuase humans created it. Other humans with same knowledge can disassemble it. Reverse engineering has been around since computers were ever invented its a simple concept really. If its built, it can always be taken apart. Congress passed a law saying spam is illegal as long as there is no link in which to be removed from the list or stop recieving it. Yet everyday I get about 10 - 15 spam emails from an "anonymous" person that when tryd to mail back i get return email saying server not found. There is no way to stop or restrict on the net or with the technology progressing so fast right now. One day something is a standard the next day it is the old way of doing things. You need to learn the new way and redo it all. You have to realize that goverment cant restrict what we do on here. billions and billions of users on the internet. Cracking is illegal yet there are Billions of cracking sites out there billions of warez sites out there.

Look at how many posts have been put up on this (mine included). Now the question is, "What is the next phase for the MP3 traders out there?" . "If Napster is injuncted, the kids will probably move farther underground to peer-to-peer applications," he said, indirectly referring to technologies such as Gnutella.
that's exactly right. And since Napster was open source, you can bet that a whole new program will come out that will be just as effective. Gnutella and the likes are still going.
As for stealing? Pure BS. The great thing about Napster was that there were so many ppeople on at the end that you could find that hard to get song that is no longer in publication, but, it is stuck in your head and you have got to hear it. It made for great ways to see if that $20.00 CD had more than 3 songs on it worth listening to. It's not over by a long shot. In fact it's going to get more interesting as new ways to "avoid the parents" comes out.
Glad I got my Napster hat before this happened.

Much of the work that I have read around is being done by IBM, and is akin to their 'deep blue' system of computers for chess. It would be possible to hack at the code, but the code would be self-modifying and would not be 'passive' like today's code is, where you can disassemble it. This AI systems would likely require massive cpu power as well as neural net chips built into motherboards in the future. When I am doing something on my computer, the computer for the most part makes no effort to 'figure out' what I'm doing, or categorize it in anyway. Think of HAL not letting the crew shut the system down scenario. Or think of your own immune system responding to foreign invaders. Will these systems be 'hack-proof' probably not. But at some point they will be. Most of the work is being done on getting computers to identify pictures or objects in a picture, such as a tree or a shoreline or an airplane (basically complex patterns that share a few common elements) and work on other patterns, such as user interaction with a computer. This could be used to identify songs by a particular artist by his/her style for instance also or genre of music, just like humans do.
Right now this is still science fiction, but it will not be in 10 years or so.

download.com ....

Napster Alternatives - (http://download.cnet.com...are&qt=gnushare&;)

Don't let Napster's legal troubles stop you from sharing your files online. Check out this handy collection of audio search utilites and file-sharing programs.

I understand what you are getting at but you still dont understand that impossible has no meaning. Impossible is the thought of something not being able to happen. The theory of flight was once thought impossible. To split an atom into two .. Scientist say NO WAY thats impossible. Bacteria be good for you ?? IMPOSSIBLE!! You have to remember that nothing is impossible at all. I understand that the creation of a simple AI IBM has designed that can think on its own to certain extent. Its not thinking on its own its making it look like its thinking on its own. When in reality its crunching away hard wired code and random number sequentials based on certain factors of the other persons movement's, placements, and how the other person is playing the game. AI is actually one thing that we may reach in around 1,000 years or so. The complexity of such a coding environment where the code modifies itself to its own liking is overextending even the broadest imagination we can have today. Using static coding to create it is out of the question .. You would need infinite amount of variables to account for everything the AI creature would encounter. Infinite memory storage fast enough to computer extremly complex calculations such as light, intensity of light, sound, from what direction, how loud, touch, feel, site, what it sees, how it sees it. walking, talking, interacting... Look at it today. Programmers are getting lost in windows code it being billions of lines of code yet VERY simple in terms of AI would range in the amounts of Quadrillion lines of coding possibly even millions-quadrillions lines of code. An astronomical number of astounding proportions!