MIT's New Music Sharing Network 214
tessaiga writes "The New York Times has an article about a new project at MIT to replace music file sharing over P2P with sharing over cable TV (reg free link). The Library Access To Music Project relies on the more relaxed copyright restrictions on analog transmission formats like cable. From the article: "M.I.T. students, faculty and staff can choose from 16 channels of music and can schedule 80-minute blocks of time to control a channel. The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel. Mr. Winstein and Mr. Mandel created the collection of CD's after polling students." The article goes on to point out that this is (hopefully) legal under current laws because MIT already has a blanket license to broadcast music over analog media, and recording songs played over this system "would be no different from recording songs from conventional FM broadcasts"."
the sue cycle (Score:1, Interesting)
Microsoft Funded (Score:5, Interesting)
LAMP is funded by the iCampus Alliance (MIT/Microsoft Research)
http://lamp.mit.edu [mit.edu]
Okay, slashdot... does Microsoft get any props here?
(oh, sh!t, there goes my Karma.)
Davak
they'll use it (Score:2, Interesting)
I would use it to record all the songs I didn't already have on mp3. And for all the songs I couldn't get through this system, I would still hit the p2p. I don't supposed they have Super Eurobeat [avexnet.or.jp] or garage bands [cdbaby.com] music do they? No? The store doesn't either? Downloads for me.
Re:This Time Next Week... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wouldn't bank on it. It sounds like they have simply given end-user control to the same type of cable-tv music channels that practically every digital cable package includes. In essence, they have created a new and improved "Listener Request Show" on said cable music channels.
I'd think that any law against what MIT is doing would either prohibit broadcast of analog music (fat chance), listeners making requests for songs to play (fat chance), or be so acutely targeted at this LAMP system that it would beg to be tried in court.
My lesson for today is that ingenuity trumps legislation. The RIAA would be better off if they tried more things like 50 Cent putting golden tickets [cnn.com] in retail CD cases. Not that this is the only or best solution, but at least the guy is doing something new and untried to get his album platinum and discourage piracy.
So it's a free version of this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's all nice and well (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of these are the kinds of restrictions that are being imposed on licensed webcasters, including e.g. webcast from a college radio station
Broadcast radio has no such restrictions except as self-imposed by bad corporate radio
Re:Yes, way to go. (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Playing more than 3 songs from a specific album in an hour.
2. Playing more than 4 songs by a specific artist in an hour.
2. Announcing their playlist to the public in advance.
3. Playing entire songs without voiceover/overlap
These rules are to prevent the exact scenario you are proposing.
Re:Why you people just dont get it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Would you say it is then misguided for 50 Cent to put golden tickets for diamonds in 4 of his first million CD cases for his latest album? Johnny Cash's "American 4" included a DVD of a single video for the same price as a top name CD (and Cash certainly fits that bill.) These are plans to redefine the value of CD purchase to include something that fans cannot (easily) get by file sharing and seem to acknowledge that society tolerates this admitted widescale copyright infringement.
I'm not disagreeing, but curious how you would resolve these major label acts that are attempting to give fans a legitimate incentive to purchase the CD rather than download. As far as I'm concerned, it isn't a complete failure. "American 4" was the first CD I've bought in several years and specifically because I wanted the DVD with the video. If not for that, I would have likely downloaded the content regardless of a quasi-legal system like MIT's or stricter laws on outright file sharing.
Re:Way to go. Not. (Score:5, Interesting)
If in twelve months time, 10, 15 or even 20 percent (to use arbitrary figures off the top of my head) of the music being bought by 10-25 year-olds is through online buy-just-what-you-want stores, then that'll be a very big wake-up call to RIAA and the major labels.
In that scenario (which most probably happen eventually), the big boys will have to re-evaluate how they package, present and sell music on a wider scale. Right now, they probably look at iTunes as in interesting exercise, just as IBM once looked at PC clones in the same way. But sooner or later, just like IBM and those clones, RIAA et al will have to embrace a future that's not entirely of their making.
And the less involvement that RIAA has in the music industry of the future, the better for us all, regardless of where we live and/or our musical tastes.
you are a slave. (Score:3, Interesting)
Brilliant. This is why a system of laws that was supposed to enlarge the public domain with excellent works now serves the intersts of the worlds large publishers. We have gone from 28 year copyrights to perpetual copyrights in less than 100 years. If you think things are right, you are a slave and will take any old shit shoveled your way.
The result is that big publishers have all the power. They don't have pay artists, authors, scientists or anyone. That's because they control the channels of distribution and can force any old junk they feel like. Is it reasonable to you that 30 year old music dominates the airwaves of this country? Is it reasonable to you that scientist do all the editorial work for magazines without compensation and then pay to have their work published? Is it reasonable to you that those scientific publications are so expensive that even major universities can't aford them? The extrapolation to digital media is even worse.
The students at MIT can share 3,500 RIAA records, great fucking big deal. They are shafted because the world is much larger than those few songs or even the RIAA. Good luck trying to get original work onto that network, it's not going to happen. The students of MIT will only get more RIAA dog food out of this new network.
What you don't get is that the whole basis of copyright law is broken. When the founding fathers of this country made 14 year copyrights, they did so because publishing was expensive and they felt it needed to be encouraged in the vast wilderness that was the US at the time. These conditions are obviously untrue today. Publishing is cheap and the protections needed are proportionatly lower. The public domain can and will grow better if copyright law is scrapped alltogether.
It's over already, really. Scientists have gone out of their way to publish their own peer reviewed journals because it's cheaper to them. Others will follow and leave the RIAA and other rapists like that in the same dustbin that Edison's Phonograph patents are sitting.
The God given truth is that information sharing is good and moraly correct. Things that get in the way are evil. Greed heads like the RIAA are a particularly evil bunch of pimps.
Re:That's all nice and well (Score:5, Interesting)
However, this may pose a political problem. RIAA's argument is that they are not trying to retract existing privileges, such as recording music off the radio. Rather, they argue, the ability of digital technology to make "perfect" copies is a unique threat that must be combatted with restrictions specifically directed to the digital format. So to go after MIT, they basically have to admit that this argument is basically a load of crap, and that they are trying to impose new restrictions on what people can do with broadcast music. Of course, the reality is that nobody but a minority of audiophiles cares about "perfect" copies, and they aren't interested in trading compressed formats like mp3, anyway. The MIT initiative offers what the average student really wants--the ability to select the music they want.
Re:Already in place, silly. (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine a radio station that allowed one listener at a time to log into the radio stations website and control the play list for the next 80 minutes. A cool idea, but not anything revolutionary. They just multiply this basic idea by 16 channels and broadcast over cable instead of FM. Why would the RIAA care? Until every user has control over their own playlist, what's the big deal?
I doubt this threatens the RIAA, and I'd be surprised if the number of Kazaa downloads from the MIT network decreased as a result.
Now give EVERY user control over their own channel and you've got an interesting system. That's when the RIAA sends in the lawyers.
Cheers
Re:Scratch ? (Score:2, Interesting)
No, But, never fear, someone else at MIT built this robotic DJ that can: DJ I Robot [mit.edu]
DJ I ROBOT uses a PC, several micro-controllers, and an advanced "motion control" system to automatically mix, scratch, and search a pair of custom vinyl records on the robotic phonographs.
am I missing something??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:God help them! (Score:2, Interesting)
--dave, actual LAMP user
How is this a good thing? (Score:2, Interesting)
And this is supposed to be a good thing?
No wonder Microsoft is funding the research... creating "innovations" that make people's lives worse instead of better seems to be their specialty.
The only "benefit" I can see from the MIT system over P2P file sharing is that the MIT system allows the RIAA executives to continue to harvest extreme wealth from the creativity of underpaid artists and the greed of contribution-hungry politician.
Instead of creating technical kludges that make our lives worse instead of better, would it not be better to junk the DMCA and other obsolete copyright laws bought and paid for by the RIAA and friends?