posted on October 3, 2000 01:27:15 AM new
A message to eBay Inc.
To whom it may concern:
I've been on the boards of Napster's Website, and various websites, and should the RIAA get it's way in the lawsuit aganst Napster, you'd be looking at two different situations...
One is that disgrunted fans will either pack up and sell their stuff on eBay, increasing your profit margin...
Or, your gonna lose a few powersellers of CD's when everyone begins to massively boycott anyone selling Music PERIOD (excluding Used CD's, where the labels and Artists don't make any profit cuz the item is sold and someone elses property, the person who currently owns it). And your gonna lose alot of fees!!
eBay probably had a small spike when Metallica a while back, slapped the faces of 300,000 Napster users, and one user who got canned was written in Newsweek that he put up his only legit Metallica CD on eBay.
eBay, watch the sky carefully and act accordingly...
:\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
posted on October 3, 2000 02:07:30 AM new
I saw an article on cnn.com yesterday that summed up the Napster situation rather well. I liked a couple comments in particular:
"If they think Napster's bad, I can tell you there's a lot worse coming," said the guitarist, whose real name is Dave Evans. "...The software that is untraceable is just around the corner."
I loved how the reporter explained the situation.
"The genie, in other words, isn't in the bottle anymore."
I wanted some songs by Ella Mae Morse. They weren't available on eBay, but on Napster I found all of them I wanted. Once you wet the appetite with something like Napster those cravings don't go away easy.
posted on October 3, 2000 03:53:24 AM new
Is Napster just a venue? How can they be held accountable for any filesharing two people do? Maybe they are trading vacation photos that are named funny. I thought eBay had established this venue stuff well enough to cover that.
posted on October 3, 2000 10:37:22 AM new
napster is a "venue" for storing file names sent in by individual users. The file names are the files of MP3 music files. Presently, Napster is almost exclusively MP3 music files. But other file transfer services like SCOUR have a protocol that permits the transfer of many different type files, including movies.
The way the milenium copyright act works is that ISP or venues like eBay are immune from vicarious copyright infringement liability if once notified they take down the offending item. Tha's what happened to the 300,000 Napster users- Metalica et al turned the users in for offering Metalica music files and they were booted off the service. But all they had to do was get a hotmail or other email address and join anew.
But the RIAA knows it can not police 28 million users in this manner, so they are suing to shut down the offending service Napster.
Thr RIAA should be successful in their suit, or copyright for all intents and purposes becomes unenforceable.
There are however several types of software available that do not have a "company" or central servers to shut down or sue. One is Gnutella. It allows people from around the world to find and share files form each others PC's with no middlemen. You designate a folder or folders that users around the world can access the contents. Your PC then operates just like a server at eBay or anywhere else.
What may become very interesting in the future is if software like Gnutella was used to sell items just as we do on eBay. You could offer for sale items right from a folder on your PC, including pictires and everything. By using a payment clearinghouse like PayPal, the transaction could be just as secure as any other auction venue. And best of all, Gnutella is free.
[ edited by Reamond on Oct 3, 2000 10:54 AM ]
[ edited by Reamond on Oct 3, 2000 10:55 AM ]
posted on October 3, 2000 10:54:04 AM new"What may become very interesting in the future is if software like Gnutella was used to sell items just as we do on eBay. You could offer for sale items right from a folder on your PC, including pictires and everything."
It will happen, everyone with a garage will have a list of items on their computer. Basically you'll be looking at ICQ on steroids.
posted on October 3, 2000 12:41:34 PM new
I know there is a powerseller of CD's here on the board...where are they? I wanna know their views on the current situation and if they have prepared for the inevitable.
:\\\"Crystalline Sliver cannot be the target of spells or abilities.
