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Napster to block thousands of songs

updated 03:00 pm EST, Fri March 2, 2001

Beginning this weekend, Napster will block 5,600 copyrighted songs that were submitted by major record labels from distribution over its service. The voluntary move was announced at a court hearing today that could determine the fate of the service.

by MacNN Staff

(59)

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03/02, 03:27pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
everything

Anything recorded is copyrighted. I was a pro for many years and still get performance royalties from some tunes. I assume that this really means that you have to complain about a specific work to have it blocked or rather, the record co has to; otherwise there would be no content whatsoever.
(BTW, I download too.)

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03/02, 03:42pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Psssst

Just name your files is pig latin.

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03/02, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
constitutional amendment

"For the People, by the People... when corporations deem it appropriate"

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03/02, 03:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
BOOO

We all better get downloading!!

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03/02, 04:08pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Apsternay is uckedfay

But pig latin is a good idea ;)

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03/02, 04:09pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
pig latin

With pig latin, it'd be easy to write a script to filter out those as well... no, use metphors... :)

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03/02, 04:12pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
well.

lets say the record industry can say that you can no longer download a song by the beach boys. with no naming conventions on napster and users encoding their own mp3s and naming them whatever the heck they want, how are they going to block this? if they do find some way, maybe we should encode our mps with the bands name and song titles in pig latin. that way theyll never get us! har har! we be piglatin napster pirates!

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03/02, 04:27pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
LIARS

The RIAA are LIARS! Look at this article that shows that even with Napster, they gained 1.4 billion dollars over last year.

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/02/26/1812213.shtml

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03/02, 04:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
yeah okay.....

Where can I see a list of these 5,600 copyrighted songs?

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03/02, 05:00pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
beginning of the end

I'm afraid this is the beginning of the end for Napster...the record industry is too greedy for it's own good, and I don't think they'll work something out with all 5 of the major labels.

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03/02, 05:13pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Helps RIAA's EGO

The RIAA is well aware that Napster has helped them for the most part. But when you look at ethical and moral issues the only right thing to do is shut down Napster. Now this naming scheme is just a ploy by Napster so that they can continue on business as usual. So they block Backstreet Boys, ppl can name their songs bsb or backboys or b a c k s t r e e t b o y s.

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03/02, 05:21pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Yeah, business as usual.

The record industry also wants to continue it's business as usual. Acting like pimps and treating musicians like their whores.

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03/02, 05:23pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Ethical and Moral Issues?

You're joking about this right?

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03/02, 05:28pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Ethical and Moral Part II

To clarify last statement, the record industry has no ethics or morality to speak of.

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03/02, 05:30pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Napster Sucks

s**** Napster. It is too corporate and they are not fighting the RIAA. They just want to take the easiest path to money.

Download LimeWire.... by far the best gnutella client out their.

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03/02, 05:44pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Re: Ethical and Moral

Ha! How can the record companies be fightring for morality and ethics when they've defrauded consumers for half of the 1990's. Go here for more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/record_companies.html . No one seems to remember this case, but the FTC made the big 5 stop their Minimum Advertised Pricing, which they put into place to keep CD prices up. Just last August, 28 states filed suits regarding this case against the same record companies.

Here's a quote: "The FTC estimates that U.S. consumers may have paid as much as $480 million more than they should have for CDs and other music because of these policies over the last three years." And to make it worse, the big 5 paid their fees, but never admitted wrongdoing.

The fact is, if you walk into Sam Goody or The Wall here in the NYC area, CDs are priced $18.99, $19.99 and go on sale for $16.99. There is ABSOLUTELY no way I'll buy a CD at those prices, and I feel no remorse for downloading over 7GB of songs over the past year from Napster, or about 2000 songs that I will never need to buy CDs of ever again.

There are sites already where you can donate money directly to the artist and skip the record companies altogether.

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03/02, 05:55pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
but...

used cd shops rock!

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03/02, 05:57pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Larz MoneyBags

Didn't realize this before.. but we all know how the record companies s**** their "artists" as much as they s**** the public. Mr. lars metalmoney OWNS HIS OWN FRIKKIN" RECORD company. So does the other guy (doens't he style himself a "gansta?"). So when he screams about stealing HIS stuff, he's talking about him getting money both as a record company and as the musician.

yeah, larz, right here dood!

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03/02, 06:09pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Hoooray!

I'm all for getting all the commercial, top pop drivel off of Napster and open up the bandwidth, database and concentration to indie, collectable, out-of-print or otherwise unavailable music that you can't buy in a store or online.

Napster has been key to putting things into my CD collection that I could not find through traditional channels.

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03/02, 06:12pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Wrong About Lars

I can't speak for Dr. Dre, but I can clarify about Lars Ulrich.

Lars' company, TMC, does not own the rights to Metallica's songs. Therefore, TMC does not make any money from Metallica's songs; Elektra and the members of Metallica do.

Also, TMC is not a full fledged, big name record company. It has a partnership with Elektra.

For the record, I fully support Metallica and Dr. Dre in each's battle to protect their property.

There's this funny sketch Lars did at the MTV Music Video Awards where he came into a college dormroom to confront a Napster user downloading Metallica's property. The college kid explained, "it's just sharing, man." Lars took this advice and proceeded to "share" numerous objects belonging to the college kid (read: take without asking, etc.), and then shared (took off with) the college guy's girlfriend. Get the message?

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03/02, 06:15pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
What's really sad is...

Copyright law is ment to protect the rights of artists, not protect an industry that takes advantage of aritists, namely musicians.

This whole thing is about distribution and not about copyright enforcement anyway - the fact is that if the music idustry looses control of distribution, they have no reason for existing anymore. They aren't needed to pay for studio costs. Digital recording has made that quite affordable these days. Promoters handle touring. They don't foster talent, they eat if up and spit it out when their done with it. So what are they needed for?

We're talking about at billion dollar a year industry here folks. Do you think they're not going do everything they can to keep the distribution power that they have?

Copyright law is a good thing(tm). The music industry sucks!

So go ahead and download away, but remember when your favorite artists come though your town on tour, GO SEE THEM! That's how they make their living, not on record sales.

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03/02, 06:28pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Metallicrap

As if anybody gives a c*** about those has-been.

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03/02, 06:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Wrong Again

"As if anybody gives a c*** about those has-been."

Only a few million people around the globe.

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03/02, 06:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
only properly named files

with correct id3 tags and all will only show up to begin with. if a file is not recognized by the napster servers, it does not exist
to the outside world. after that filter you can match the existing files an individual has to a DB list that is set up as a second "filter". then share away. its really easy actually. regardless, the RIAA is so screwed.

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03/02, 06:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
No gun to my head!

No one is holding a gun to your head to buy $19 cd's. If you don't like the price don't buy. If no one buys cd's then the Record Co's won't make money and will lower prices. It's simple economics. Nobody is holding a gun to the heads of musicians to sign contracts with record companies to get their music played on radio stations, placed in stores and hire promoters for concerts. If a musician wants their music traded on Napster they can do it, but it is up to them not you. You do not have a "Right" to free music, If you like a song grab your wallet. In the end though, if the musician doesn't sign a contract and you don't buy cd's then the record co's are out of business. Boycott, buy used cd's or make your own.

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03/02, 07:08pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
You guys are ALL wrong!

No where is it proven that Napster helped produce sales for the music industry. You can all try to justify it in your minds all you want, theft of copyrighted material is theft! There is nothing wrong with you making a copy FOR YOURSELF. The second you put it on the Net in a public arena, you violate the laws. Sure the Net was founded on "free" type basis where things are shared, but never was that intended to include people's music. And to all of you who think you are gonna stop the music industry, haha! You are so wrong! Until YOU put up the front money to support these artists and put YOUR a** on the line financially, you have nothing to say! Yes, by the way, I am in the Industry.

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03/02, 07:12pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Aimster, here we come

Haven't used this yet because the Mac version isn't ready, but apparently it piggybacks's onto AOL Instant Messaging to add file sharing capabilities.

There is no central server so it can't be shut down.

Sounds good!

www.aimster.com

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03/02, 07:14pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE: No gun to my head!

"Nobody is holding a gun to the heads of musicians to sign contracts with record companies to get their music played on radio stations"

But they have no other viable choice except to sign with them if they want their music to be distributed.

It's as plain as that, which is what gives the record industry so much power to take advantage of musicans.

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03/02, 07:16pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
They were affraid!

major labels were affraid of the alternative. they can't sue gnutella, they would have to sue every user instead.

i'm very happy napster doesn't shut down. this way i can continue to download some oldie, live version, demo version, and most important, discontinued songs. that's why i love napster.

they even made me buy 2 albums since yesterday! (not from major labels, i don't buy from these thiefs!)

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03/02, 07:21pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE:you guys are ALL wrong

"Until YOU put up the front money to support these artists and put YOUR a** on the line financially, you have nothing to say!"

If you truly are in the industry then you know that the way the contracts work, all that front money is recoupable - so you're really not putting your financial a** on the line much.

Expect that is if the musician declares bankruptcy - which I understand the industry is trying make more difficult for musicians (in Califoria at least).

You guys pimps - come on face up to it. You can just get away with it by law is all.

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03/02, 07:46pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Record Industry Cancer

I have no problem supporting artists, but not the entourage of leeches that the recording industry has honed to shark-like perfection.

I supported Napster before BMG.

Artists, engineers, technicians, and manufacturers deserve my money, and hardly anyone else. If musicians want to make their living, they should do it through touring. Music shouldn't be patented. It should be performed and appreciated, and not exploited.

If I can't hear what I want to listen to on the radio, why should my taste be excluded from "free music"?

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03/02, 07:53pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
F Napster

F*%# Napster everyone they already sold you out when they made that deal with the record giant and decided that they were going to start charging memberships this summer. Napster doesn't care about you they sold you out. So F them go to some other software like Mactella and say F Napster!

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03/02, 08:27pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE: No gun to my head!

"No one is holding a gun to your head to buy $19 cd's."

That's true taken by itself. However, the FTC basically said that the record companies used promotional monies to make sure retailers didn't sell anything lower than the $19 CDs. So where consumers once had a choice to buy $14 CDs as opposed to $19 CDs, the record companies saw to it that they didn't have a choice, it was $19 CDs or nothing at all.

I don't think the original poster (I'm guessing you're referring to the Ethical and Moral post) said anything about having a "right" to free music. But Econ 101 also says that attempts to create price floors will almost always create a black market along with it. The record companies sorta did this to themselves! And attempts to block the digital distribution of music pretty much engenders feelings of bad will in consumers, making them all the more likely to "share" music.

I know of many many people who may buy a single copy of the $19 CD and then go home and make 10 copies for friends and family. And they're the ones seen as the good samaritan, to save others from spending $19 each. So Napster is only the most publicized outlet where this behavior is being seen. Remove Napster and you end up with hundreds of thousands of closed sharing circles. College dorms have always had the local bandwidth to share music. Remove Napster and they'll go right back to that.

Consumers (me included) are willing to buy the right to listen to music, but not when record companies pull things like they have in the past (re FTC stuff). Napster, Gnutella, iMesh, copying CDs, whatever, create artificially high prices and people will steal instead. That's simple economics.

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03/02, 08:49pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
wooooohooooooooo

ahhh poor people... now you have to PAY for music.

WHAT A CONCEPT!

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03/02, 08:51pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
napster=theft

ahhhhhh haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

gotta run to my local tower records to BUY some music.

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03/02, 09:38pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
MP3 has a long way to go

MP3s are convenient when working and I use Napster a lot but it is always with the intent of buying the stuff I download. I don't care about burning CDs. It takes too long, the quality is never as good as the original and MP3 is not a native format found in most stereos or car radios. This may be changing but it will be a long time before there is an economical removal media that has MP3 as a native format. The current "boom" is only because there is free access.
People will not pay for MP3s unless they can play them everywhere and buy them in stores. One must remember that MP3s reach is actually very small compared to the full population of music buyers. Only half of people have a computer for starters... Regardless of whether Napster closes or not the end winner will be decided on format and distribution which extends past free MP3s.

What we have had so far is a wakeup call. The best thing to come out of this is people's tastes will get more refined as they sample. Napster has made so many "normal consumers" aware that most music costs too much. As Courtney Love said, the only artists losing from Napster are those with lots of c*** on their albums. The 70s philosophy of one hit on an album is over, thankfully.

People aren't going to buy full albums, not because they can get songs for free, but because they realize the albums suck. And they're not going to download one song for pay because it is actually inconvenient.

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03/02, 10:29pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
don't buy at the mall

I've downloaded tons of mp3's, I also buy tons of cd's, but not from any chain store or anywhere where I pay more then $15, nor do i usually buy major label stuff. The problem is every mom out there is buying crappy backstreet boys and screamy whiny skinny girl records at $19 at those mall stores. As long as the general public is stupid enough to pony up that much money for spoonfed drivel, the industry can get away with charging those prices. So seek out your local shop, or even use amazon or cdnow, they're still cheaper, any thing but those stores. Even Tower is ridiculous. They're just a semi-wannabecool facade on a Sam Goody mall store.

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03/02, 10:40pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
AD 2101 War was beginning

All your base are belong to us!

You know what you doing

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03/02, 10:40pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
If Napster is ok then ...

Napster needs to be shut down because it greatly facilitates mass copyright violation. If the court were to allow Napster to continue as they have been then it opens the door to even greater copyright infringement in the future.

MP3 quality is not quite as good as the original AIFF CD audio tracks, but that does not make it ok. Besides, the only reason that MP3 files are being used is the file size; as higher bandwidth and larger hard drives continue to become more and more affordable, there would be nothing to stop Napster from also allowing AIFF files or even whole ISO CD images to be "shared."

If it is ok for Napster to help illegally distribute copyrighted audio, then wouldn't it be ok for them to also help illegally distribute copyrighted video? Right now a lack of bandwidth and data storage would essentially stop most users from participating, but that is changing quickly.

What about other copyrighted material such as computer software? Could a Napster set up a system for users to "share" their favorite commercial software applications with millions of their closest friends (as well as enemies and total strangers) ? Wouldn't it be cool if everyone could just search Napster for the latest software releases and then download them all for free?

I realize that audio, video, and software piracy has been happenning every day around the world for nearly as long as such copyrighted materials have existed. Napster did not really even invent any new technology for piracy, but just improved upon Internet software that has been around for many years. However, they crossed the line; they made it too easy and they gave themselves the power to police it, but chose not to utilize that power. If the courts do not shut them down or at least force major changes, then they will be setting a huge legal precedent that will open the door for even greater threats to intellectual property in the future.

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03/03, 12:25am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Love Napster

This technology can be used both ways. Honestly, where else can you find the Star Spangled banner sung live by Marvin Gaye (at the NBA All-Star Game in '84)? I can't think of a Sam Goody, Tower Records, or Wherehouse that would carry that one! I found within seconds on Napster, and was able to listen to it while it downloaded. However hard-headed and stubborn you might be, you can't deny that that is simply awesome!

As for Napster as a whole, I love the fact that I can check out entire songs before I actually purchase the whole cd. Ever buy an Ace of Base cd, and realize after tearing off the sixteen dollar plastic wrapper, that it's the most worthless piece of plastic in the house?!

Yea, but the great part is is that I can sell it back for five bucks! Whatta deal!

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03/03, 01:17am | report spam | close Reply | delete
What next?

Think Different...... Think China

Heck. There's only 1 licensed copy of Windows in China. The other couple hundred million are copies.

Someone in China will pick up where Napster left off. If anyone could care less about the record industry, or copyright in general, it's the Chinese.

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03/03, 09:11am | report spam | close Reply | delete
macigator

hey, i doubt anyone is actually reading this far, but if you are, you can go to http://www.zdnet.com/mac/download.html and search for a program called macigator. it works in conjuction with your napster client. there are hundreds of servers that work the same as napster servers, but are independent of the napster system called opennap servers. this program connects your napster client to one of those independent servers. they are faster than napster servers, have more files than napster servers usually, and will never be shut down or fee-based. just thought i'd spread the word

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03/03, 10:18am | report spam | close Reply | delete
RIAA is losing profits...

Because the music that they manufacture just isn't as good anymore. It just doesn't have the same message.

If you want to rename your files to get them through, use ROT13 encryption. Toodles..

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03/03, 11:46am | report spam | close Reply | delete
For all you Star Wars...

I just felt a grave disturbance in the 'Net. 5600 files screaming out, then all is silent.

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03/03, 11:52am | report spam | close Reply | delete
RE:RIAA is losing profits

Well..... RIAA lost and gained profits to be truthful.... CD single sales were down last year by a number I cannot remember, but overall music sales were up over $1 billion...

Also, I concur with the previous posters who stated that Napster should be a place for undiscovered artists who have no contractsand discarded artists whose records are out of print. That being said, can anyone point me out the Canadian Remix of Falco's Rock Me Amadeus in the record stores? I can't find it in GOOD quality on Napster.

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03/03, 12:22pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
no subjet to prosecution

there is simply no subjet to prosecution from anyone... Napster does nothing illegal.. the users do! Napster is just a medium, a service. For exemple, you don't close a highway to prevent people from going at 160 if they want.. or you don't shut down Netscape because some users view illegal material with it... It's just simply illogical!

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03/03, 12:27pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
re no subject

but they DO have to TRY and stop the theft go over their lines. that what they seem to be doing as of friday....

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03/03, 01:59pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Da Genie

Da genie him out da bottle and him don't wanna go back in.

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03/03, 02:59pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
They Just Don't Get It

I can recall about 15 years ago when VCRs started getting popular
and cheap. The Motion Picture Association went ballastic. "Nobody
is going to the theaters anymore!" they screamed. They tried
various strategies to kill the VCR such as taxing blank video
tapes.

In the end, the wide distribution of movies via videotape created
a larger market for movies, not a smaller one. Today the
motion picture industry makes more money than ever.

Does this apply to Napster? Of course at least a little. The point
I'd like to make is that like the motion picture industry clutching
to their old ways in the face of change, so it the music industry.
If they had any brains at all, they would realize that the genie
is already out of the bottle. Make a deal with Napster, for
Christ's sake. If you don't, then by killing Napster a thousand
other flowers will bloom and you'll never be able to get a
handle on it.

I've paid thousands of dollars over the years for music. Every
bit of music that I have (36gig to date) I either already owned
on album or CD. Napster means convenience to try music out. If I
really like something, I'll buy the CD and get the liner notes,
photos and artist info.

It's that simple

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03/03, 03:53pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
a vcr

can't send 1 million illegal duplicate videos in a day. napster can. what is diff from the vcr battle is that a person sphere of influence has changed.

a person can make perfect digital copies and send them out to millions of people.

this is a long way from the trials if you could record your soap operas or make a copy of a tape for your car cassete player....

sigh....

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03/03, 04:47pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Napster will be closed

They tried to shut napster down back in august but they never got to it. They did something a couple weeks back but hey... I'm downloading some stuff right now! Har har har!! Napster will always survive and theres nothing those fat cats in southern Californica can do about it!!! MUAHAHAHAHAHA

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03/03, 09:35pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
nice to see

the 12 year olds chime in.

sigh...

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03/04, 12:23am | report spam | close Reply | delete
things change

Things change, and you can't say that just because Napster is shutting down that things will return to normal, that kids will just start unloading 1/10 of their paychecks to buy some overpriced piece of plastic. When did music stop being art and expression and take on the role of a commodity? Just because something's been one way for the last few decades doesn't mean that it's the tried and true RIGHT way. Things change, and it's not because there's some kind of widespread illegalities going on, it's just because the people who are the market are going in a different direction than the corperations want them to go in. The only people that are trying to herd everyone back to the old way of things are the people who benefit from the old way.
These developements are going to have to be accepted, or else things will continue as they are now. Shutting down napster won't turn everyone back, it will just make everyone move to some other file sharing program...

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03/04, 03:08pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Use OpenNap!

There has been an open source alternative to Napster for quite a while called OpenNap. There are Mac programs which let you use your Napster program with these OpenNap servers.

Some examples are:
Macigator! 0.25
Napster MiniBrowser 1.0d2
Smacigator .10

OpenNap is opensource and not owned by anyone, thus, what can corporations do?

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03/05, 01:22pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
couple words from me..

ok, first off, that piglatin thing won't work. id3 tags are read. have you ever done a search on napster? you can get results such as Hail Mary.MP3. what was my search? for skold. that's one of the songs on their album. so renaming it won't do anything, unless, of course, you have no id3 tags. but then no one would know what it was. personally, i use it to preview albums, and get songs that i like off the radio. speaking of radio, how about this? i hear a song i like, i record it off the radio. then i convert it to an mp3. is that stealing? it's being broadcast for free across the airwaves. anyway, napster is good in a way. like others have said, finding songs that you just can't buy, and hearing music you would never hear anywhere else. but getting a whole album? that should be paid for. but then again, cd's are overpriced. so what to do? send emails. write letters. somehow make a message to the record companies that as long as cd's are overpriced, people are going to find other ways to get the music. there's a few cd's out there i want, but i don't want to pay outragious money for them. so i just stick to the songs that i've heard on the radio, and such. only full album i've downloaded from napster, is one that i do own, but the cd itself is damaged, and skips like crazy. unlistenable. i'd buy another one, since it's one of my favorites, but it's out of print. so in that case, it's not stealing. it's just another form of my paid for, damaged disk. but anyway, i beleive i'm going to shut up now, cause i'm rambling. but the truth is, the record companies need to wizen up, and make music easier for us to get(cheaper), otherwise we'll just end up getting it the easiest way possible(free). and they may beat napster, but it's not going to stop the technology from making it possible for similar trades. ok ok......i'm really shutting up now..........

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03/06, 12:45pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
move to Gnutella

A move to Gnutella et al is the best thing. Napster is finished because it has its own servers.
Sharing files, be they music or anything else is something that can NOT be stopped. Pointless arguments about who is worse, the record co's or Napster can stop.
I have files I am willing to share - end of discussion.
Computers and the Internet have been touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread by Govt's and Institutions around the globe.
Good. Lets use them any way we can.
You cant sell me a car and a tank of gas and then tell me I can only use it in reverse gear on Sundays.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum - be happy!

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03/07, 01:07am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Pig Latin......

This is in reply to one of the first 10 messages, but anyway!!

Yes, there is a program for PC that translates to and from pig latin aswell as other less common forms, but moving on, this reminds me....

WHY DOESN'T SOMEONE JUST WRITE A SCRIPT TO PIG-LATINIZE SONG NAMES?!?!???!?!
well you could go even further and shift every character a specified place to the right or left, ie 1 to the right, a would become b, b would become c, z would become 1 and 0 would become a, this would therefore bypass the name filtering system? anyone know more C than me to make a prog that will do this to a folder full of mp3's, maybe even make a patch to napster to read these encrypted names as the originals, and for the really talented, a patch for the finder, windows, or whateve gui to show the files as the original names whilst keeping the actual filename encrypted(as to still serve the purpose of bypassing the name filtering)

well there you go peoples, that's my solution!!!!!!!!!

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03/07, 03:10am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Just some facts...

One of the writers above referred to the record companies making millions off of MAP (minimum advertized price). In reality, the record companies made no money from MAP. MAP affected only the *advertized* price of CDs, not the wholesale price that the record companies received.

The logic behind MAP was simple; by requiring a minimum advertized price, the record companies attempted to put retailers on an even playing field. What the record companies were trying to prevent was large retailers moving into an area and selling CDs below wholesale costs (and you know who these retailers are), thus slowly, over a period of months, or a year or two, driving small retailers out of business. With the small retailers gone, the large retailers would then be free to set any price they wanted, including pricing demands to the record companies. MAP was an attempt by the record companies to prevent the distribution channel from being dominated by a handful of large retailers. These facts were never explained fully in the press, as the DOJ concentrated on hyping their "victory" instead of the settlement.

As far as the record companies ripping off artists, I am sure you will find that most artist that are signed to record companies disagree with this assessment. Yes, the record companies take a good chunk of the money, but that is because they take the majority of the risk (as in any business, those who take the risks share the most in the profits.) A record company might risk a couple of million dollars on a new act, most being spent on marketing and promotion. If anybody doubts the value of these services, then you are more than welcome to try and market yourself and your music on the internet.

The sad fact is that even for the record companies, most CDs lose money. A typical large label might put out between 500 and 1000 titles a year, but only about 20 to 40 might make decent money. Many sink without a trace, the record company quietly losing millions in the process. If you think that record companies are obscenely profitable, then just take a look at their ROI (return on investment). Most run under 15%, which is hardly obscenely profitable. Many software companies have profits much higher than that.

And yes, it costs only 50 cents to press a CD, but that price is the same for software companies as well as record companies. Adobe charges $600 for a copy of Photoshop on CD. Does anyone think that the cost of content should be the same as the cost of the piece of plastic that it is pressed on? Gee, you paid $8 to see the latest movie, and all you got was a torn ticket stub that is worth maybe 1/10 of penny.

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03/07, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Why the end?

I'm not looking for freebies. Napster is great for downloading a song you love without having to buy the whole CD. (I've bought whole CD for one song and the rest of the CD bit.) I have no problem being charged for each download. Why does it have to be the end? Downloading a song here and there and burning it on a CD gives me a CD with a great compilation of all kinds of music. It would still save me a fortune.

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Napster to block thousands of songs

updated 03:00 pm EST, Fri March 2, 2001

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