Music Downloads ('off topic', a bit) - Beyond Tiki

H hanford_lemoore Tiki Socialite Tiki Central Joined: Mar 23, 2002 Posts: 1899	H hanford_lemoore Posted posted on Mon, Jul 8, 2002 2:29 PM On 2002-07-08 08:58, Swanky wrote: I don't say it as an ethical point, but as a business point. Assuming it's true, then it makes it impossible to build the business of MP3 swapping. File-swapping shouldn’t be a business. It makes no sense business-wise, because for it to be legit and fair, the copyright holders of every song on the service should (A) have given permission for it to be there and (B) get money when the song is swapped, if desired. So the system needs to correctly identify each song, who is the copyright holder, and determine whether or not the copyright holder has given permission to swap the song, and for how much in royalties. The only accurate way to do that is to exclude all mp3s except those that have been verified by a human being or a checksum process. It would basically exclude all the obscure, independent, and rare music. In other words, if MP3s of The Fishermen (a local SF band with no releases) are on my PC, these services should either (A) find a way to pay the fishermen when the file is shared (impossible on a mass scale) or (B) exclude it from being shared. ~Hanford

On 2002-07-08 08:58, Swanky wrote:
I don't say it as an ethical point, but as a business point. Assuming it's true, then it makes it impossible to build the business of MP3 swapping.

File-swapping shouldn’t be a business. It makes no sense business-wise, because for it to be legit and fair, the copyright holders of every song on the service should (A) have given permission for it to be there and (B) get money when the song is swapped, if desired.

So the system needs to correctly identify each song, who is the copyright holder, and determine whether or not the copyright holder has given permission to swap the song, and for how much in royalties.

The only accurate way to do that is to exclude all mp3s except those that have been verified by a human being or a checksum process. It would basically exclude all the obscure, independent, and rare music. In other words, if MP3s of The Fishermen (a local SF band with no releases) are on my PC, these services should either (A) find a way to pay the fishermen when the file is shared (impossible on a mass scale) or (B) exclude it from being shared.

~Hanford

Post #3445 by hanford_lemoore on Mon, Jul 8, 2002 2:29 PM