From: Adam Rifkin -4K (adam@XeNT.ics.uci.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 15:39:01 PDT
First Metallica, now Dr. Dre. It's like that and like this and like
that, you know. Looks like Dr. Dre is getting ready to place a cap in
Napster's posterior.
Bill Gurley's right, the music industry has no idea that Napster should
have been their fear 6 months ago. Too late. Right now there's a whole
new sheriff in town with all the reverse engineering Naptella script
jockeys showing us their Gnuts.
Once Pandora's Box is open, there's really no closing it.
Still, my wife actually went to the Best Buy yesterday and bought the
Limp Bizkit album (no comments on her taste, please) despite the fact
that there's no shortage of ways to get it for "free". Not everyone
believes in stealing from the record companies, despite what the music
industry believes. I do find myself buying less music nowadays than I
used to, not because I'm stealing tunes off the net, but because there
seems to be less good music being produced now than there used to be.
Or maybe I'm getting old. I still can't believe she bought Limp Bizkit.
As to the article's rhetorical question, "if Dre's request is
technically feasible, then why hasn't Napster worked harder to prevent
the trading of pirated works?", it seems that digital watermarking
efforts have been dragging their feet just a little too much.
Napster-like applications were going to happen sooner or later, and the
industry now has to live with not addressing digital property rights
sooner.
Maybe if the music industry hadn't gotten so greedy in raising the price
to buy from $9.99 for a record to -- geez, what was the Tower in Seattle
charging, Rohit, $19.99 per CD? -- then maybe people wouldn't actively
look for ways to get stuff for "free".
> TOP GROKS
> ~~~~~~~~~
> Can Napster's Week Get Any Worse?
>
> Only a Netco could get smacked by both a rapper and an Ivy League
> university within two days. On Wednesday, the press reported that
> rapper Dr. Dre had fired off a letter to music-software company
> Napster, asking the company to keep his tunes off its trading roster.
> Today's slap comes from the hallowed halls of Yale University.
> Officials facing a lawsuit from heavy-metal band Metallica have
> decided that allowing Napster software to cross the school's network
> really isn't such a hot idea after all.
>
> Dr. Dre notified Napster on Monday that he wants his copyrighted tunes
> off of its trading-style software application by Friday. Why bother
> with a letter when a lawsuit would do? Dre's attorney Howard King told
> Rolling Stone's Andrew Dansby that the missive went out in reaction to
> Napster's stated wish that Metallica had contacted company officials
> before slapping them with last week's lawsuit. Rolling Stone quoted
> the Napster statement: "Many bands who have approached us learned
> about Napster and how to leverage what we offer and understand the
> value of what we do," Dre is no doubt eager to see how the freebies
> Napster delivers to the college set will boost his earnings.
> Historically, he's been picky about the online distribution of his
> tunes: Earlier this month, he successfully prevented custom-CD
> retailer Musicmaker.com from selling tracks from his triple-platinum
> debut "The Chronic," claiming it had no rights to the material.
>
> Making hay from all the legal shenanigans and media coverage is
> attorney King, who is uncoincidentally also leading Metallica's suit
> against the software company. The Net seems to have given King a
> lucrative sideline: He told Reuters that 10 artists or managers and "a
> major publishing company" have contacted him about anti-Napster
> lawsuits.
>
> As for Yale, it has wiggled out of the Metallica lawsuit by barring
> Napster from its network. According to Reuters and AP, Yale had been
> edging toward the ban for a little while, first warning students about
> Napster's potential to infringe copyrights, then banning weekday use
> of its network for Napster trades. The lawsuit no doubt made up the
> school's mind. News.com's John Borland pointed out that Yale's folding
> of its hand could stack the deck against Napster by pressuring fellow
> defendants University of Southern California and Indiana University to
> do the same.
>
> Meanwhile, the student activists supporting Napster seem to lack the
> conviction shown by their anti-World Bank and IMF peers in Washington.
> According to News.com, Students Against University Censorship has now
> turned against the company, castigating it for "knowingly facilitating
> the transmission of copyrighted material." The SAUC might have a
> point. As the group asked on its Web site, www.savenapster.com, If
> Dre's request is technically feasible, then why hasn't Napster worked
> harder to prevent the trading of pirated works? - Deborah Asbrand
>
> Napster Dealt Copyright Rap by Dr. Dre (Reuters)
> http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1713635.html?tag=st.ne.ni.rnbot.rn.1005-200-1713635
>
> Dr. Dre Sends a Warning to Napster
> http://www.rollingstone.com/sections/news/text/newsarticle.asp?afl=&NewsID=10651&ArtistID=2545
>
> Musicmaker.Com Ceases Selling Tracks From Dr. Dre's "The Chronic"
> http://www.livedaily.com/archive/2000/2k04/wk1/MusicmakerComCeasesSellin.html
>
> Yale Dropped From Metallica Suit (Reuters)
> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,35794,00.html
>
> Yale Drops Napster After Legal Pressure
> http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1719530.html?tag=st.ne.1002.thed.1005-200-1719530
>
> Band Drops Yale as Defendant in Lawsuit (AP)
> http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?render=y&eetype=Article&eeid=2120546&ck=&userid=187483123&userpw=.&uh=187483123,2,&ver=hb1.2.20
---- Adam@4K-Associates.comIt's all about the he-said, she-said bullsh. -- Limp Bizkit, "Break Stuff"
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