Greetings!

Okay. I have been doing a bit of cleaning up, and I feel that I no longer need to have one of my old units in storage. Especially since it is different from the others I have - it is not as good for a test box as my other spare and home machine. So, I am now offering my "Lab Rat" machine up for sale:

Empeg Mark 2 (original Empeg Mark 2, not a RioCar 2A, 12MB RAM)

- serial number 0900000587

This was my original empeg, purchased when I was still on the waiting list. It has seen use, so there are visible marks from having being inserted / removed from the docking sleeve. It also shows normal wear around the handle and body.

- 96GB capacity

Yes, that is 96GB. This machine has two IBM 48GB Travelstars in it. Obviously, they did not come that way from empeg, Ltd. or SonicBlue, so the machine has been opened, the hard drives replaced and the warranty voided. Well, given that the machine was manufactured in 2000, the warranty had already expired anyway.

- power, serial, USB cables, stickers (I think I still have the stickers)
- sled (never installed)
- extra sled (never installed)

I had an extra sled that I was going to make into a docking station. This will go with the unit.

- tuner module (never installed)
- smoke lens (DarkStorm's creation)
- with knob fix installed (see the board for more details)

I am asking $1,000 for this, which includes UPS shipping to anywhere in the US. This is still far less than I paid for it initially, and is approximately the "at cost" value of the components (original price for the tuner / sleds, $200 for a base emepg, pricewatch cost for the drives, etc.). I wanted to give the board / community a chance first, before listing it on ebay.

If anyone is interested, please send me a private message on the board.

Note: the existing music will be wiped from the hard drives before the sale. The buyer probably would not like my musical tastes anyway...

> Note: the existing music will be wiped from the hard drives before the sale

Darn, I might have bought it just for that.

> The buyer probably would not like my musical tastes anyway...

With 96 Gigs, I would imagine anyone would find something to their taste. I feel I have a pretty eclectic music taste, but I can not fathom that many gigs worth of music that I would actually want to hear.

Greetings!

> With 96 Gigs, I would imagine anyone would find something to their taste. I feel I have a pretty eclectic music taste, but I can not fathom that many gigs worth of music that I would actually want to hear.

True, I have playlists for various day-to-day use, but I have my entire collection available for listening at will, in case I get in the mood for something specific. Thus my migration from 96GB to 120GB - I needed more space. Also, with hijack installed, it doubles as a music jukebox for the folks in my office.

That's a great collection!

You ought to give the buyer the option of keeping the music or not. If I had an extra $1000 lying around I would grab it up. My 40GB is getting full and there is so much more I want to put on it.

You gotta love someone with both Mel Torme and Frank Zappa in the same collection.

You gotta love someone with both Mel Torme and Frank Zappa in the same collection.

Tony loves me! Tony loves me!

Yes, but in a strictly platonic sense.

Greetings!

phi144> That's a great collection!

Thanks! That has been the work of about a decade and a half... It evolves as my tastes in music evolves.

Laura> You ought to give the buyer the option of keeping the music or not.

I was tempted, but the files are out of date. I doubt I could fit everything on there at this point. Also, there is the big copyright thing...

Laura> My 40GB is getting full and there is so much more I want to put on it.

I know that feeling. You can never have too much hard drive space...

Tony> You gotta love someone with both Mel Torme and Frank Zappa in the same collection.

Actually, that is part of the new additions. I was in the mood for something different, experimental, exotic. So I picked up the Mel stuff on a whim... This is still a "work in progress". I have a bunch of new stuff that I am just starting to encode now. More strange combinations: off hand I can remember "The Beach Boys", "Iron Maiden", "Frank Sinatra",...

Greetings!

The empeg has been sold. Thanks!!!

"Also, there is the big copyright thing... "

It's not like anyone is gonna go file a lawsuit against you.

It's not like anyone is gonna go file a lawsuit against you.

Yz... you just don't get it, do you?

Are you so morally bankrupt that you think the only reason people are honest is fear of punishment? I don't know about you (well, actually, I'm afraid that I do... ) but most people are honest because they have to live not only with the consequences of their actions, but with their own sense of honor and well being.

I would bet that the overwhelming majority of participants on this bbs would take the same stand that Paul did in this matter.

tanstaafl.

(edited to make the name referenced above correct...)

I would

Who's Jim?

Who's Jim?

For some reason I had Jim Hogan on my mind when I made that post -- I really meant you, Paul. My apologies. I am going to go edit that and fix it right now.

tanstaafl.

Not a problem... Just kidding!!! : )

Well, it is done. All cleaned up, disks rebuilt, packed and ready to ship. Wow, that was much harder than I thought...

Well I don't think I need 96GB but I wouldn't mind taking that spare rio of yours off your hands.

Well said.

While many folks have enough character to realize the internal consequences of doing the wrong thing, many of the rest of us have to have made a big mistake first to understand the guilt that comes with one. Unfortunately, there are a few that are psychopathic enough that this lesson is never learned.

I feel confident in assuming that Yz33d is just a kid. I wouldn't be surprised if he just hasn't learned that lesson yet. Let him live on his own for a while and be given the chance to make those mistakes. Hopefully, he'll learn.

The problem is, of course, you have to believe its wrong in the first place. While I totally agree with you and believe that copying copy protected music is wrong, I fear that Yz just doesn't agree that this is wrong. That’s why we have laws, so that he will comply even if he doesn't agree with the general population about matters of copy protection. Of course, as he correctly pointed out, we have no way of policing this particular law breaking, so the laws don't really help very much. This is the reason (well this and complete ignorance and stupidity) that the record companies are trying to "take the law into their own hands" and keep people from illegally copying their music.

-Jeff

Exactly, FerretBoy. I don't think it's wrong. You see, inorder to steal something, you have to actually take it away from someone else. "But you're taking away their business!!" Well I suppose Burger King is taking away McDonald's business. You buy a cd. That cd, along with everything on it, is yours. You buy a computer. That computer is yours to use as you wish. Put your two belongings together and bam, you have an mp3. Stealing? I don't think so. If you bought two rabbits from a rabbit shop, let 'em do what they gotta do, and then you wind up with more little baby rabbits. Are you stealing from the rabbit shop? Or are the new little bunnies rightfully yours?

I'm not a thief and I don't cheat. But I'm not gonna let some record company try to cheat me. After all, they don't have to sell any cd's. It's the trade they've chosen. Once our transaction is made, I believe that I have the right to do as I please with MY cd, just as they have the right to spend their money as they see fit. Now don't get me wrong. I think they have every right to implement any kind of copy-protection contraptions into their products before I buy them. (Afterall, the rabbit shop can neuter their rabbits before they offer to sell them.) But once I own it, the government shouldn't be able to tell me how I can and can't use it. That's not right.

And to clarify things, copy-protection is a gray area as far as legality goes. I don't think anyone's ever been prosecuted for this type of thing in the US.

PaulH, is there any way you can implement a killfile on the BBS, please?

wfaulk, why is it that you can't tolerate anyone having an opinion other than your own?

Along with the right to free speech comes the right not to listen.

Rob

<ignoring invalid comparisons>


I'm not a thief and I don't cheat. But I'm not gonna let some record company try to cheat me. After all, they don't have to sell any cd's. It's the trade they've chosen. Once our transaction is made, I believe that I have the right to do as I please with MY cd, just as they have the right to spend their money as they see fit. Now don't get me wrong. I think they have every right to implement any kind of copy-protection contraptions into their products before I buy them. (Afterall, the rabbit shop can neuter their rabbits before they offer to sell them.) But once I own it, the government shouldn't be able to tell me how I can and can't use it. That's not right.


This is inconsistent. Copy protection *would* be cheating you out of your right to create a backup copy.

You're right about the 'stealing' legality, although I fail to see where anybody here mentioned 'stealing'...so where did that come from?

I think the point is that most people recognise that if everybody copied music that no-one would buy it and then there would be no new music. Therefore the stance that we take has to be a moral one as the legal position does not protect the copyright holders anymore.

Unfortunately, the proposed remedies to this situation, be they legal or technological, screw the consumer out of their existing rights. And continued wholesale abuse of the 'right to make a copy' provision of the copyright laws only add to the RIAA/MPAA's motivation to chase these remedies.

There is another tangent to the original subject of this thread. A court could easily take the position that the price paid for the player included monies for the music content - and that would be copyright infringement.

I'm still cracking up about the bunnies...

"I think the point is that most people recognise that if everybody copied music that no-one would buy it "

If everybody changed their own oil, JiffyLube would be out of business.

JiffyLube provides a service. Music is a product (and I'm not talking about the physical medium on which it is delivered). Anyone with enough training can identically reproduce JiffyLube's service without relying on the initial condition that JiffyLube provided the service. You cannot reproduce any piece of music without relying on the fact that it has already been produced. This argument also applies to your equally idiotic Burger King/McDonald's argument, as well as any other similar non sequiturs you might espouse.

It is not your opinion that bothers me. Well, it does a little, but that's not why I want the ability to ignore you. It's your ridiculous troll-like zeal combined with your use of totally asinine arguments. And my lack of fluency in the arts of debate doesn't help, either. (I may actually go study some in my spare time because of your ridiculous statements, and for that impetus I thank you.)

On this board, before you came along, we were able to have interesting debates about things, because we tended to be able to control our outrageousness and actually have a debate about the issues involved. Now that you're here, everything turns into an argument based on the fact that your viewpoint is supreme. Every counter-argument is responded to with ad hominem attacks or tangential non sequiturs. And everyone else, to whom I'd actually be interested in listening, gets disgusted and just leaves, leaving the debate hanging and unfinished.

You're a conversation killer, and it is for that reason that I want you to go away. I'd be happy to provide you help with your empeg, and I'd be delighted to see you provide help to someone else. I no longer have the patience to watch you turn into someone who can rationally state and defend his opinion. I'm now not sure you're capable of it.

If everybody changed their own oil, JiffyLube would be out of business.

Duh....yes. Patently obvious. And your point would be what exactly?

Hi.

If everybody changed their own oil, JiffyLube would be out of business.

Even though I do not know JiffyLube, I suppose it is some sort of service that changes oil on vehicles. This is the problem:
Music is a sort of product that you are unable to produce yourself, you are only able to copy it. Even if I might see a point in saying that you simply provide the service of copying the music, and thus you don't harm the musicians directly, that still doesn't give you the right to do that. For two reasons:
First, law (at least in Germany, and I assume law in the US is similar) only allows copying for _your_ private use. According to german law, this means that you might copy someone elses (sic!) music, and keep that copy. You might also copy your music for your own purposes (including your family members using of the copy). Copying your music and giving the copy to a friend is already in the grey area. Strictly spoken, it is illegal, but there is a way around that: You are allowed to lend your music to a friend, and you are also allowed to help a friend copy your music for him, so you could say "here, I lend this CD to you. Now give it to me, asking me to copy it for you, and I can legally do so." BUT: You are not allowed to make a copy of a copy, except for your own personal use (which does not include your family in this case). Due to common law interpretations (by judges), Up to three or four copies is almost always legal, making more than 6-7 copies most certainly is illegal.
There is a good reason behind this: You are not only harming the music industry, but also the musicians that get a lot of their payment through that very industry, let alone their marketing services etc.
I wouldn't mind if you just harmed the industry (Warner, Sony Music etc.), but I DO mind that you harm the musicians. Sure, most of them have more money than they need, but they earned that money by providing enjoyable music to all of us. That is the main point: If most people where sharing your opinion on copying, noone would become a musician anymore, because it simply wouldn't pay.

In buying the music, you (or the friend you copied it from) agreed on the rules under which the music was sold, and those rules are set by law, like it or not. If you don't like it: Don't buy. If you buy, follow the rules. That also applies to whoever buys some music: You buy, so you have follow the rules.

And regarding copy protection:
It is my honest opinion that no software (which, in a wider sense includes music, literature etc.) should be copy protected (well, it should actually be called "copy disabled" or something), and that any media that is suitable for copying and any machine used for copying (CD-Writers, Printers, Copy machines,...) should be sold with some additional tax applied, which is distributed among the programmers/artists based on original value, number of copies sold etc. And that any user should have the right to make backup copies of the software he owns, and should also have the right to copy any software he lends from someone else. Still, whoever made the original version should have the right to deny any of those copying rights, except the rights to make personal backup copies and copies needed for the intended use (like making a "copy" of software in the RAM of a computer is needed to run that software). Intended use means the use the author/artist had in mind, because the owner of a software might have intended copying it, while the author wanted it to be run on a computer.

Enough of that, I think I made my opinion clear.

cu,
sven

You see, inorder to steal something, you have to actually take it away from someone else

If you enjoy the fruits of someone's labor without compensating him for that labor, you are stealing.

I would like to see your reaction if someday you were to, say, write a book, get it published -- and then find out that it only sold one copy because the first purchaser liked it so much he posted it on the internet so everybody else could read it for free.

Would you be upset? Would you ever write another book?

tanstaafl.

why is it that you can't tolerate anyone having an opinion other than your own?

Yz... You are a bright kid (I'm three times your age so I am entitled to call you a kid!). I know this because of PMs we have exchanged, and a few of your posts have been insightful and funny.

But have you noticed... of the 1,994 currently registered bbs users, only TWO have ever incited the overall, general hostility that you have, and of those two, the unhappiness you have generated is greater by at least an order of magnitude.

So think about this. I am not trying to be cute or flip here, I really want you to think about this: Are you the only one of the 1,994 of us who is on the right track? You're right, and the rest of us are wrong? (And that "us" is without question the smartest, most articulate, and best informed group with whom it has ever been my privilege to associate!)

tanstaafl.

I'm not saying anybody's wrong. And maybe I'm wrong. But I'm just telling you what I think. Just like you're telling me what you think.

We have that poster up in the office

Rob

Hi.

Hmm, I like communism. It's a pitty it doesn't work on a large scale.
The real problem isn't communism, the real problem is any kind of dictatorship, be it by a single person (like in some countries on the african or south american continent) or by a group of people (like the communist party in China). REAL communism (which I didn't ever see in any country) is far more democratic then the "free" western countries. And because real communism doesn't need any money at all, the RIAA would surely be outta luck.
There is always the same problem though: As good as communism works in theory, mankind is simply to damn lazy to make it work in practice. I mean: Most people wouldn't want to work if they didn't need to do so, right? And with everything belonging to everyone (well, mostly), noone would _need_ to work, and the only thing you could gain from working is some appreciation.
(Sidenote: I just looked up "Anerkennung" in an online dictionary (dict.leo.org), to find synonyms for appreciation. Did you know that "phwah!" is supposed to be an exclamation of appreciation for a sexually attractive member of the opposite sex?)
Anyway, back to that poster: Even though I do not like people downloading all the music they want and mostly not buying a single CD, I must say that that poster seems like an invitation to do so to me. I mean, should it really be discouraging the downloading of music from the net?
It's simply funny what the RIAA thinks could make the users abide by their rules.

cu,
sven

Umm.. the poster is a parody. The RIAA haven't quite reached that level of communication yet.

Rob

Yup, got that one on my wall in the office, too.

Anyone notice the guy in the picture is using an iMac?

Rob, Tony, any pointer as to where one might aquire a copy of the poster? http://modernhumorist.com/ has T's, bags etc, but I can't find the poster... Maybe out of stock/print?

/Michael

Aww, just use the .jpg and print your own. -=smirk=-

Actually, the JPEG posted here in the thread is a very low quality.

You can tell by looking at the picture that it was originally made in a vector-illustration package and could theoretically be enlarged to very big sizes with no pixellation. I would like to locate a vector version of the original to print at a large size, that would be cool. I'd make a 4-foot high poster out of it or something, that would rock.

I hate to be nit-picky here, but can anyone articulate the difference between pirating an mp3 and printing this poster (copyrighted by Modern Humorist) from an image off the internet?

I believe you've hit the center of the ``-=smirk=-''.

But, to get back to what initially brought this up, there's a huge difference in my mind between printing that out for personal use (or trading mp3s for personal use) and selling a product that includes copyrighted music without recompense to the copyright owner.

There's always the possibility of sharing being the motive in free distribution (whether it's technically illegal or not), but when you start selling products you don't have the right to sell, that's where the line is definitely crossed for me. (And I realize that in this hypothetical situation, it would be more akin to sharing than selling, but it's cutting it way too close for me.)

I think this dilemma (pirating music, and pirating intellectual property in general) is particularly interesting. Not only does one have to differentiate the moral boundaries between sellling another's property (in the case of this loaded empeg player) and sharing between unknown friends (Napster), but there is a much more practical issue at stake. Copying music has always occurred, and it wasn't the issue that it is now. It is an issue now because of the quality and ease of distribution of the copies - which means that it seriously undermines an industry. In the case of the poster, the quality won't be that great, so it isn't much of a threat to Modern Humorist. If I could walk into a poster store with a digital camera and then make great digital copies, share them with friends on the net, and have everyone be able to make great printouts on their printers at home, then it might become an issue. But I can't, so it's not.
I have a feeling that some of the moral objections to the issue of pirating music are accentuated and motivated by an underlying practical issue - the fact that in its reaction to the problem, the music industry will limit the uses of the technology we love.

Yes, an mp3 is just a reproduction of a song, and so is playing the song on a guitar in your home. Both are reproductions of copyrighted material using your own personal equipment and expertise. The only difference is the mp3 is more accurate to the original. Should playing copyrighted music on your guitar be outlawed, if it could even be regulated?

You. Are. Wrong.

I guess that's a decent comparison, but I think you missed the point. Nobody is talking about "outlawing" mp3s or guitar playing. If you play your guitar in your room - that's fine. If you play with a bunch of friends, that's fine. If you play at a a gathering where you charge money and don't get permission from the artist, that is not necessarily fine. The same sorts of comparisons can be made with mp3s. Comparing different types and contexts of reproduction of intellectual property will get you somewhere, but only if they are on par with each other. So, taking the extreme on one end (getting compensated for another's property or distributing without compensating the artist) and comparing it with the other extreme (private use) doesn't make any sense. I think I might be talking to a wall though.

Ummm do you not actually sit back and think about these arguments you throw out before submitting them? Most people who would play the song on their guitar first off would own the music on CD. Second when you want to hear a song you cant just play it on the guitar and get the same effect. This brings us to the issue of cover bands. While playing music on your guitar in your home is one thing going out and playing for a crowd and charging them money is another and I really am not familiar with the laws governing this. I just wanted to point out how ridiculous your arguments are.

I'm not talking about making profit off of it. Nobody was making money off Napster.

"Most people who would play the song on their guitar first off would own the music on CD."

Most people who make mp3's own the cd. What's your point?

"Second when you want to hear a song you cant just play it on the guitar and get the same effect."

Did you actually the read the post you are replying to? Both examples (guitar, mp3) are reproductions of copyrighted material; just one more accurate than the other. If you're going to outlaw/tax/denounce/whatever one than why not other? I only made the analogy to show how ridiculous banning guitar playing of copyrighted music would be.

"This brings us to the issue of cover bands. While playing music on your guitar in your home is one thing going out and playing for a crowd and charging them money is another and I really am not familiar with the laws governing this."

Bands do this every weekend all over the country, yet nobody minds. Yet when you share an mp3 with someone, of which nobody makes any profit, it suddenly becomes a filthy sin. It's true, mp3 sharing probably hurts people in the music business. But perhaps cd's aren't worth as much as they used to be.

By the way, I'm in the process of writing the book of The. The only word in it is 'the'. It will soon be copyrighted, and anyone who wishes to use my intellectual property will have to compensate me for it.

I hate to be nit-picky here, but can anyone articulate the difference between pirating an mp3 and printing this poster (copyrighted by Modern Humorist) from an image off the internet?


Now consider the fact that downloading this page created an unauthori[s|z]ed copy of said copyrighted works in your computer's cache! You are guilty as charged

But since you asked: (And I preface this with IANAL)


In context of this subject - printing this poster for your own personal use would be illegal, unless you had already paid for a copy somehow. No doubts about that.

However, selling an empeg with 96GB of music on it would not strictly speaking be illegal - as long as the following held:
1) No percentage of the sale price could be attributed to the music. ie the seller sold the empeg and not the music.
2) The seller had the legal right to create the backup copy on the empeg in the first place (ie owned the CD or tape)
3) The seller did not put the music on the empeg just for the purpose of selling the empeg.
4) The seller did not know that the buyer had a specific intent to obtain the copyrighted material without paying royalties. (Actually I'm not sure if this one really matters or not..)

or
1) The seller was also including the original CDs/tapes in the sale.

AFAIK, there is no legal *requirement* for a storage medium to be cleansed of copyrighted material when it is sold - and as the buyer did not create the copy in the first place, he could not be held liable either. [edit: typo - I forgot the 'not']

But morally, and ethically, the situation is far different. I don't think that Modern Humorist are really going to care much about you or I printing a low-res image of a single image, just as I don't think that the RIAA really care about people downloading a single MP3. And I think that the public would agree with that sentiment. But printing hundreds of posters to sell, or knowingly providing someone with 96GB of copyrighted material that you suspect that they keep and use, is both morally and ethically wrong. And I think that the general public would agree there too. (Well, those who are out of their teens anyway).

And since this poster appears to be out of print, ie non-attainable from the copyright owners, I would have no moral or ethical qualms about printing it. And I feel the same way about music too - if an album is out of print, and I have made a good faith effort to obtain a legally licensed new copy, then it's open season as far as I'm concerned. Why??

The oringinal intention of copyright law was to increase the public wealth of knowledge and art. Not to enrichen artists. To encourage the creators to publish their works, the state granted a limited monopoly on their works in which time the copyright owner was compensated for each copy made. But the whole purpose was to make the works available.

What we see today is a complete travesty - the 'limited' monopoly is so long as to be farcical, and availability seems to be at the whim of the publisher - "Buy Disney's <insert title here> on video NOW before it gets locked away in the vault for another 10 years..." ("Cinderella" IIRC). This was not the intention of the founders of copyright law, and as far as I'm concerned is morally and ethically disgraceful.

And the music industry is no better with their back catalog either. With their resources, they should have been able to make the vast majority of their out of print music easily available to consumers - either as mp3 downloads or by 'burn-in-store', or 'burn-to-mail-order' technology, but they haven't.

Instead they have pointlessly invested in lawyers to try and kill the technology, in marketing propaganda to convince us that using our empegs is somehow bad, in political donations to try and make our empegs and any other computing device without DRM illegal, and in download services where you lose the right to listen to music you've downloaded unless you keep a subscription current. So I'm really not going to lose too much sleep about obtaining an unlicensed copy of something that they can't be bothered to keep available.

Hmm..I ranted a bit. Time to breathe.

By the way, I'm in the process of writing the book of The. The only word in it is 'the'. It will soon be copyrighted, and anyone who wishes to use my intellectual property will have to compensate me for it.


Fine by me. Copyright pertains to the work as a whole, not of it's constituent parts. So if I were to copy the exceedlingly boring book "The", by author Yz33d, then I would be infringing his copyright. However, I would be quite at liberty to quote portions of the book. But then again, I'd probably quote a portion of The Oxford English Dictionary instead, as it's a more interesting read. Maybe I'll quote the first word of their definition of magic.

Yet when you share an mp3 with someone, of which nobody makes any profit, it suddenly becomes a filthy sin.

Under certain circumstances, this is actually illegal even for the people that own the copyrights. It's called dumping and it's a well-established illegal monopolistic practice. The idea is that if company A has a product that company B wants to perform poorly, company B can produce a similar product and sell it under cost or give it away. If company B has more gold in the coffers than company A does, company A could be put out of business. It's essentially a war of attrition, and it's illegal most places I'm aware of, because it allows company B to exert its influence in one area in another unrelated area, which is pretty much the definition of illegal monopolistic practice.

And just because it's not one particular company that dumping doesn't make it less wrong. And, in this case, you're not even dumping a similar product. It's the exact same product.

Bands do this every weekend all over the country, yet nobody minds.

ASCAP collects fees for live performances as well as for recorded performances. BMI does the same. These fees are usually extracted from the venue proprietor rather than the performer, since it is the proprietor that is gaining revenue from the performance, which is why you don't often hear about it.

I'm not defending ASCAP or BMI; their distribution of said funds borders on the criminal, in my opinion. But you should do your research before stating things as fact.

Thank you for clearing this up I know when I was in a small local band we never did tours at public concerts where we got paid. Yes we did do a couple during practice or some free shows, but never when we got paid.
Was playing a cover for fun where we made no profit illegal? Im not sure. Was is morally wrong. To me HELL NO we did it for fun not to get free music we didnt copy exactly we added our own twist and we had fun doing it did it stop someone from buying a CD from the artist who originally wrote it NO, actually I bought a number of CDs to help learn a particular song.

As I was listening to the radio today I heard a commercial for Gateway. What was interesting was that they were pushing a certain model of their computer for the music lover, that it came with all the software needed for encoding and burning and free high speed internet access so you could download and share music easier and faster. Maybe they don't know the laws?

When I say ``free'' in this context, I actually mean totally without charge. And, more specifically, it's an issue of losing money on the transaction. If a company can underprice and still make money on it, that's just good business. The thing is that Gateway is selling those services. They're just hiding the charges in the cost of the rest of the product and using the word ``free'' as a marketing gimmick.

Now, there is another illegal monopolistic practice known as ```bundling'' or ``tying''. This is where a company sells a monopolized product only under the condition that the customer also buy another non-monopolized product. (This is what Microsoft was accused of by integrating IE with Windows.) That doesn't apply in your Gateway case because there's no monopoly involved anywhere. But if Gateway had a monopoly on peecees, then it could be considered as such.

No, I just meant that it sounded like they are encouraging people to download music and share it around with others. If a company like Gateway is doing that, the average internet user will see nothing wrong with it.

And I'm not going to get into the wrongness or rightness of it.

And I'm not going to get into the wrongness or rightness of it


Chicken!

Yep

Actually, it's not illegal for someone to encourage you to do illegal things. The precedent is referred to as the ``Brandenburg Test'' (from Brandenburg v. Ohio) and says that "the advocacy of the use of force or law violation" cannot be forbidden or punished unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." (cite)

Which is not to say that it's not, at the very least, odd that Gateway would sponsor that sort of activity.

Edit: BTW, about all of this stuff, IANAL.

Hmm, I definitely have a copy of the poster from their website as .pdf - a vector pdf and not a low-res bitmap rendering. If anyone wants it, it's ~410k. I suspect they they don't mind people printing up their own posters - why would they have provided a .pdf otherwise? (especially if they don't sell them anymore, though I bought a few)

Hugo

Not strictly true; people working there were being paid and considering that reports indicate BMG might buy out the rest of napster for something like $90m (this is from memory, but it was multiple millions) I would say that *they were* being paid - they knew that they were building a brand which would be worth something to them in the future.

Yes, noone was making money out of the actual swapping, but they were out of the service.

Hugo

"Both are reproductions of copyrighted material using your own personal equipment and expertise."

When an artist does an album for a record label, it is more than just the artists equipment and expertise that goes into the record. The studio has paid good money to get an unreproducible sound out of expensive studio equipment, producers, sound engineers, etc. When you buy the right to enjoy this recording put together by all of these people who have invested themselves into making this record, you are buying the fruits of their labor. When you freely distribute this unreproducible recording without paying for it, you are taking money away from all that these people that have worked so hard.

Its true that mostly you are hurting the record company directly, but this will eventually hurt the artist and others involved; if you can't see that you are short sighted. If albums stop selling, studios stop getting used and soon go out of business. Producers stop being in demand and can no longer bring their expertise to help musicians refine their sound.

You can say all day that playing on your guitar is a reproduction of a recording, but unless you have the right effects, a personal coach telling you how to play the song perfectly, someone with equipment and expertise to mix your sound perfectly, you cannot reproduce what you are listening to. Even if you could, you would be standing on the shoulders of the producer and writer who arranged and wrote the music in the first place.

Your opinion is yours, and I am glad we live in a country that allows you to speak freely. That having been said, I am glad that same country also values the intellectual work of musicians, programmers, etc. You see, otherwise there wouldn't be professional musicians, professional programmers, or professional anything having to do with creating value by thinking. You can say that this value is artificial, but existents none the less (which a good thing). There are other countries where intellect is not valued and they do not have the things we do.

I am a musician who is working on an album (privately funded) and when I am finished I will probably release mp3's available for free download because music is a labor of love for me. This, however, is my right to determine as the person funding the CD. If I decided to charge for the music (which I will do at local shows and for people that just want to support me), that is easily justifiable because of the time and effort I put in. It is sad that you would think so little of my efforts that you would say that all of my hard work and time I spent creating my album is worthless (which is exactly what you say by acquiring it and distributing it without paying for it if you don't have the funder's permission) because you could reproduce it in some way.

I respect those who have talents I do not posses and place great value their work. I appreciate the talent it takes to paint a picture, to act in a movie, or design a building. No matter how good photography gets, I would never walk into a museum (or poster store for that matter) and start taking pictures of someone else’s creation without paying for it, even if I could reproduce it electronically in a way that you couldn't tell the difference from the original.

I wish you could see how disrespectful your attitude is toward those who create music and how much you belittle their talent. I know I can't change your mind, but I just had to vent a little. I think I've gotten it all off my chest .

-Jeff

Hey Hugo, I'd love to get that .pdf from you. If you'd like I'll also put it up for download for a while so you don't have to keep mailing it out.

Thanks.

misterbeefhead@hotmail.com

I agree that the owners of the intellectual property need to be compensated, and that when you buy a CD you don't "own" the music in the CD, but rather the right to listen to it as you please. However, I bet that most of us in this forum have been ripped off by the record companies because we end up paying up to three or four times for the right to the same thing, just because of change in medium.

Let me explain, I have a factory recorded tape collection of about 100 tapes, a collection of about 200 vinyl albums, and about 250 CDs. All three of the above collections overlapp. So, there's roughly 80 creative works (albums) that I have had to purchase three separate times to obtain a single right. Similarly about 50 of them that I've had to purchase twice. I still have tons of tapes and vinyl albums that I would like on CD and eventually will re-purchase. If actual manufacture of a CD is worth less than a buck, then I should be able to turn in my vinyl plus a buck and get a CD in return. Otherwise, I'm being ripped off! So, a little trading of ripped music for non-comercial purposes is harmless, and definitely does not make me feel guilty. I'm still at a loss since only about 10% of the music I have in mp3 format comes from stuff I did not purchase. The other 90% I have purchase an average of 2.3 times!.

No matter how good photography gets, I would never walk into a museum (or poster store for that matter) and start taking pictures of someone else’s creation without paying for it,

Y'know, that raises an interesting point.

Would it be ethical or legal for me to visit a museum and photograph a one-of-a-kind picture (like "Mona Lisa") with the intent of making an 8x10 or maybe a 16x20 print from it and hanging it up in my bedroom? Obviously I cannot purchase the original even if I wanted to and had the means to do so. And just as obviously my reproduction of it is only somewhat like the original -- a different size, printed on photo paper and not oil-on-canvas, the character of the reproduction is quite different from the original, but nonetheless similar enough to be enjoyaable.

When you consider that there are probably literally thousands (if not millions) of different reproductions of that painting already floating around, what are the ethics of my taking my own photograph of the original?

tanstaafl.

ethics aside, the legal situation is that the images are copyrighted and owned my the museum. they would have a legal right to sue for damages if you were to use unlicensed copies of their images.

like a xerox copy of a book, it may not be the same quality of the original, but it's clearly a copyright violation.

--dan.

> ethics aside, the legal situation is that the images are copyrighted and owned my the museum.

Copyrights have a time limit; 70 years after the death of the creator. The Mona Lisa has no copyrights anymore.

Many museums forbid photography equipment, at least in New York and San Francisco. They allow drawing instruments and paper pad however.

Calvin

I wouldn't mind a copy. Can you post this up somewhere or provide a link?

Calvin

Here's the vector pdf of the poster. Thank you Hugo!

I think this is acutally because flahes will cause damage to the paintings over time, not because they don't want you to photograph the paintings.

Here's a poster that was in response to the first one.

And the PDF

The flashes also cause considerable annoyance to other people viewing the artwork. You would probably get away with a digital camera without flash.

Rob

Hi.

This brings us to the issue of cover bands. While playing music on your guitar in your home is one thing going out and playing for a crowd and charging them money is another and I really am not familiar with the laws governing this.

Bands do this every weekend all over the country, yet nobody minds.

This isn't exactly true. Those cover bands (or the clubs they play at) are paying roylaties to the original artist (or some organization that pays the artists/copyright holders).

By the way, I'm in the process of writing the book of The. The only word in it is 'the'. It will soon be copyrighted, and anyone who wishes to use my intellectual property will have to compensate me for it.

This is a non-argument: You can't copyright a basic word of any language (but you can get a trademark for it under certain circumstances). To copyright something, it has to be non-trivial and either scientific or artistic. First, "the" is trivial. Second, "the" is neither scientific nor artistic. You might be able to copyright a specific, artistic representation of the word, like a calligraphic writing of it. If you did that, nobody would be allowed to use exactly that representation without your permission (that's how certain typefaces got copyrighted). Nobody could stop another "artist" to do a different painting of that word though.

cu,
sven

Hehe, first of all, When I mentioned printing the picture, it WAS a joke. (Simply due to the REALLY inadequate resolution, I'd LOVE to see that one printed as a 3'x4' poster - centimeter tall sqares of color).
However, printing it on your own IS illegal. (As long as you don't have permission from the author). In fact, when the www first became popular, there was much anxiety among graphic designers that their artwork would be "stolen" and used on other websites that did not pay them for it's use. And it happened quite a lot. Ever what the Digimark plugin in Photoshop was used for? After time, it was just given up on, as it was easy to defeat, and kinda pointless anyway. As to music, my personal view is that as long as I own the original, I'll do with it as I damn well please. As long as it's just for ME. I don't share my music really, and I typically rip my own MP3's, with the exception of a select few (I'm not perfect). However, there are many times when I've use somebody else's copy of an MP3 because mine was crap (cd was scratched and full of pops when ripped). Do I feel bad about that? Not in the least. Do I feel bad about the tracks I have that I DON'T actually own? I probably should, but again, nope. Metallica would have a hard time making me believe they're really feeling the pinch moneywise.

But on the other hand, see the attachment. (Courtesy of Despair.com)

In reply to:

---

You would probably get away with a digital camera without flash.

---

Theoretically, but if you try to sneak a quick pic without a flash of the original "Star Spangled Banner" flag, and the 117 year old guard slips out of his coma for just long enough to see it, and you try to explain to him that non flash photography cannot possibly damage anything, and in your anger at his failure to listen even a little bit or to stop reaching for your camera you mumble for him to go F himself and walk away, you will be most unceremoniously ejected from the Smithsonian.

Not that I'm bitter.

you try to explain to him that non flash photography cannot possibly damage anything

Ah, but you could have stolen the flag's soul..

Rob