Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.
http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

"John Payne" wrote ...
Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.
http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

Alas, most of us don't have blanket broadcast licenses from
ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, et.al. like MIT does. I even question
how many other universities have such licenses (except maybe
for their legit radio stations).

"John Payne" wrote in message
om...
Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.


Any other links that aren't subscription based?

jb

http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

"John Payne" wrote in message
om...
Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.


Any other links that aren't subscription based?

jb

http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

reddred wrote:

Any other links that aren't subscription based?

I'm not speaking for you, only myself, but I registered five years ago,
and it's relatively painless.

Meanwhile, this is the article:


Don




With Cable TV at M.I.T., Who Needs Napster?

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

wo students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have
developed a system for sharing music within their
campus community that they say can avoid the copyright battles
that have pitted the music industry against many
customers.

The students, Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel, drew the idea for their
campus-wide network from a blend of libraries and
from radio. Their effort, the Libraries Access to Music Project, which
is backed by M.I.T. and financed by research money
from the Microsoft Corporation, will provide music from some 3,500 CD's
through a novel source: the university's cable
television network.

The students say the system, which they plan to officially announce
today, falls within the time-honored licensing and
royalty system under which the music industry allows broadcasters and
others to play recordings for a public audience.
Major music industry groups are reserving comment, while some legal
experts say the M.I.T. system mainly demonstrates
how unwieldy copyright laws have become. A novel approach to serving up
music on demand from one of the nation's
leading technical institutions is only fitting, admirers of the project
say. The music industry's woes started on college
campuses, where fast Internet connections and a population of music
lovers with time on their hands sparked a file-sharing
revolution.

"It's kind of brilliant," said Mike Godwin, the senior technology
counsel at Public Knowledge, a policy group in
Washington that focuses on intellectual property issues. If the legal
theories hold up, he said, "they've sidestepped the
stonewall that the music companies have tried to put up between campus
users and music sharing."

Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science and engineering at M.I.T.,
called the system an imaginative approach that
reflected the problem-solving sensibility of engineering at the
university. "Everybody has gotten so wedged into entrenched
positions that listening to music has to have something to do with file
sharing," he said. The students' project shows "it
doesn't have to be that way at all."

Mr. Winstein, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer
science, described the result as "a new kind of
library." He said he hoped it would be a legal alternative to file
trading that infringes copyrights. "We certainly hope," he
said, "that by having access to all this music immediately, on demand,
any time you want, students would be less likely to
break the law.'"

While listening to music through a television might seem odd, it is
crucial to the M.I.T. plan. The quirk in the law that
makes the system legal, Mr. Winstein said, has much to do with the
difference between digital and analog technology. The
advent of the digital age, with the possibility of perfect copies spread
around the world with the click of a mouse, has
spurred the entertainment industry to push for stronger restrictions on
the distribution of digital works, and to be reluctant
to license their recording catalogues to permit the distribution of
music over the Internet.

So the M.I.T. system, using the analog campus cable system, simply
bypasses the Internet and digital distribution, and takes
advantage of the relatively less-restrictive licensing that the industry
makes available to radio stations and others for the
analog transmission.

The university, like many educational institutions, already has blanket
licenses for the seemingly old-fashioned analog
transmission of music from the organizations that represent the
performance rights, including the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers or Ascap, the Broadcast Music Inc. or
B.M.I., and Sesac, formerly the Society of
European Stage Authors and Composers.

If that back-to-the-future solution seems overly complicated, blame
copyright law and not M.I.T., said Jonathan Zittrain,
who teaches Internet law at Harvard and is a director of the
university's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The most
significant thing about the M.I.T. plan, he said, is just how
complicated it has to be to fit within the odd boundaries of
copyright law.

"It's almost an act of performance art," Mr. Zittrain said. Mr.
Winstein, he said, has "arrayed the gerbils under the hood so it
appears to meet the statutory requirement" - and has shown how badly the
system of copyright needs sensible revamping.

Representatives of the recording industry, including the Recording
Industry Association of America, Ascap and B.M.I.,
either declined to comment or did not return calls seeking comment.

Although the M.I.T. music could still be recorded by students and shared
on the Internet, Professor Abelson said that the
situation would be no different from recording songs from conventional
FM broadcasts. The system provides music quality
that listeners say is not quite as good as a CD on a home stereo but is
better than FM radio.

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.

Mr. Winstein said that the equipment cost about $10,000, and the music,
which was bought through a company that
provides music on hard drives for the radio industry, for about $25,000.
Mr. Winstein said they were making the software
available to other colleges.

Students have been using a test version for months, and Mr. Winstein
said the system was still evolving. The prototype, for
example, shows the name of the person who is programming whatever
80-minute block of music is playing. Mr. Winstein
said he once received an e-mail message from a fellow student
complimenting him on his choice of music (Antonin
Dvorak's Symphony No. 8) and telling him "I'd like to get to know you
better." She signed the note, "Sex depraved
freshman."

Mr. Winstein, who has a girlfriend, politely declined the offer, and
said he realized that he might need to add a feature that
would let users control the system anonymously.

reddred wrote:

Any other links that aren't subscription based?

I'm not speaking for you, only myself, but I registered five years ago,
and it's relatively painless.

Meanwhile, this is the article:


Don




With Cable TV at M.I.T., Who Needs Napster?

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

wo students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have
developed a system for sharing music within their
campus community that they say can avoid the copyright battles
that have pitted the music industry against many
customers.

The students, Keith Winstein and Josh Mandel, drew the idea for their
campus-wide network from a blend of libraries and
from radio. Their effort, the Libraries Access to Music Project, which
is backed by M.I.T. and financed by research money
from the Microsoft Corporation, will provide music from some 3,500 CD's
through a novel source: the university's cable
television network.

The students say the system, which they plan to officially announce
today, falls within the time-honored licensing and
royalty system under which the music industry allows broadcasters and
others to play recordings for a public audience.
Major music industry groups are reserving comment, while some legal
experts say the M.I.T. system mainly demonstrates
how unwieldy copyright laws have become. A novel approach to serving up
music on demand from one of the nation's
leading technical institutions is only fitting, admirers of the project
say. The music industry's woes started on college
campuses, where fast Internet connections and a population of music
lovers with time on their hands sparked a file-sharing
revolution.

"It's kind of brilliant," said Mike Godwin, the senior technology
counsel at Public Knowledge, a policy group in
Washington that focuses on intellectual property issues. If the legal
theories hold up, he said, "they've sidestepped the
stonewall that the music companies have tried to put up between campus
users and music sharing."

Hal Abelson, a professor of computer science and engineering at M.I.T.,
called the system an imaginative approach that
reflected the problem-solving sensibility of engineering at the
university. "Everybody has gotten so wedged into entrenched
positions that listening to music has to have something to do with file
sharing," he said. The students' project shows "it
doesn't have to be that way at all."

Mr. Winstein, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer
science, described the result as "a new kind of
library." He said he hoped it would be a legal alternative to file
trading that infringes copyrights. "We certainly hope," he
said, "that by having access to all this music immediately, on demand,
any time you want, students would be less likely to
break the law.'"

While listening to music through a television might seem odd, it is
crucial to the M.I.T. plan. The quirk in the law that
makes the system legal, Mr. Winstein said, has much to do with the
difference between digital and analog technology. The
advent of the digital age, with the possibility of perfect copies spread
around the world with the click of a mouse, has
spurred the entertainment industry to push for stronger restrictions on
the distribution of digital works, and to be reluctant
to license their recording catalogues to permit the distribution of
music over the Internet.

So the M.I.T. system, using the analog campus cable system, simply
bypasses the Internet and digital distribution, and takes
advantage of the relatively less-restrictive licensing that the industry
makes available to radio stations and others for the
analog transmission.

The university, like many educational institutions, already has blanket
licenses for the seemingly old-fashioned analog
transmission of music from the organizations that represent the
performance rights, including the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers or Ascap, the Broadcast Music Inc. or
B.M.I., and Sesac, formerly the Society of
European Stage Authors and Composers.

If that back-to-the-future solution seems overly complicated, blame
copyright law and not M.I.T., said Jonathan Zittrain,
who teaches Internet law at Harvard and is a director of the
university's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The most
significant thing about the M.I.T. plan, he said, is just how
complicated it has to be to fit within the odd boundaries of
copyright law.

"It's almost an act of performance art," Mr. Zittrain said. Mr.
Winstein, he said, has "arrayed the gerbils under the hood so it
appears to meet the statutory requirement" - and has shown how badly the
system of copyright needs sensible revamping.

Representatives of the recording industry, including the Recording
Industry Association of America, Ascap and B.M.I.,
either declined to comment or did not return calls seeking comment.

Although the M.I.T. music could still be recorded by students and shared
on the Internet, Professor Abelson said that the
situation would be no different from recording songs from conventional
FM broadcasts. The system provides music quality
that listeners say is not quite as good as a CD on a home stereo but is
better than FM radio.

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.

Mr. Winstein said that the equipment cost about $10,000, and the music,
which was bought through a company that
provides music on hard drives for the radio industry, for about $25,000.
Mr. Winstein said they were making the software
available to other colleges.

Students have been using a test version for months, and Mr. Winstein
said the system was still evolving. The prototype, for
example, shows the name of the person who is programming whatever
80-minute block of music is playing. Mr. Winstein
said he once received an e-mail message from a fellow student
complimenting him on his choice of music (Antonin
Dvorak's Symphony No. 8) and telling him "I'd like to get to know you
better." She signed the note, "Sex depraved
freshman."

Mr. Winstein, who has a girlfriend, politely declined the offer, and
said he realized that he might need to add a feature that
would let users control the system anonymously.

"Don Cooper" wrote in message
...



With Cable TV at M.I.T., Who Needs Napster?

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

wo students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have
developed a system for sharing music within their
campus community that they say can avoid the copyright battles
that have pitted the music industry against many
customers.


Good for them! But as was pointed out earlier, I'm not sure it would do well
in the marketplace - add up the universities and large companies and you do
have a limited market, but will it bite?

As for me, my guess is I'd still have trouble finding what I want to hear
with a mere 3500 releases in the system.

jb

"Don Cooper" wrote in message
...



With Cable TV at M.I.T., Who Needs Napster?

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

wo students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have
developed a system for sharing music within their
campus community that they say can avoid the copyright battles
that have pitted the music industry against many
customers.


Good for them! But as was pointed out earlier, I'm not sure it would do well
in the marketplace - add up the universities and large companies and you do
have a limited market, but will it bite?

As for me, my guess is I'd still have trouble finding what I want to hear
with a mere 3500 releases in the system.

jb

"reddred" wrote in message
...

Good for them! But as was pointed out earlier, I'm not sure it would do
well
in the marketplace - add up the universities and large companies and you
do
have a limited market, but will it bite?

As for me, my guess is I'd still have trouble finding what I want to hear
with a mere 3500 releases in the system.

I don't think it's meant for the mass market. It serves better as an
example of how convoluted the IP laws are, and why they need to be
rethought.

ryanm

"reddred" wrote in message
...

Good for them! But as was pointed out earlier, I'm not sure it would do
well
in the marketplace - add up the universities and large companies and you
do
have a limited market, but will it bite?

As for me, my guess is I'd still have trouble finding what I want to hear
with a mere 3500 releases in the system.

I don't think it's meant for the mass market. It serves better as an
example of how convoluted the IP laws are, and why they need to be
rethought.

ryanm

reddred wrote:

"John Payne" wrote

Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.

Any other links that aren't subscription based?

http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

Gives the ocassional popunder, but I've found the NYT site very kind.

--
ha

reddred wrote:

"John Payne" wrote

Ok I, along with many other here have been at it over the RIAA and
copyright stuff. At first glance this seems like the same old
arguments but through a new medium. Or perhaps it just doesn't make
sense. Music through your cable.

Any other links that aren't subscription based?

http://nytimes.com/2003/10/27/technology/27mit.html

Gives the ocassional popunder, but I've found the NYT site very kind.

--
ha