Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

scriptingNews outline for 7/14/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:7/14/2000; 5:25:09 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 7/14/2000
Msg #:18597
Prev/Next:18596 / 18598

Another anthem 

Clay Shirky: Freedom, one song at a time.

"Napster, the wildly popular software that allows users to trade music over the Internet, could be shut down later this month if the Recording Industry Association of America gets an injunction it is seeking in federal court in California."

"The most important freedom Napster has spread across the music world is not freedom from cost, but freedom of choice."

Excellent piece! He explains why Napster is so powerful. It's serendipity. A search engine. One song at a time.

Earlier this evening, I spoke with my attorney, and 20-year friend, Jack Russo, who has tried copyright cases in front of the judge in the Napster case.

Jack is sure she will shut them down later this month.

I want to go to the hearing. How do I do that? Jack says I'll need press credentials.

So anyone who can give me creds for this, I'll write you a killer story, for free.

(I have to keep my amateur status after all.)

";->"

Yo Lars! 

Browsing the WinAmp site, I checked out the Search page. Looked for Joan Osborne. Found several songs. Clicked on one of them. It downloaded and opened in Windows Media Player. Save As. 2clicked the file. Yeah! I'm listening to What if God Was One of Us?

Hey wait a minute. Isn't that what Napster does? Ummm, one more thing. AOL owns Time-Warner, and they're part of RIAA. Now something doesn't work here. Does that mean AOL is going to sue itself? (AOL owns WinAmp.)

Hey Lars! Check this out. They have Metallica. Go get em!

The pipes are getting bigger 

When Dan Bricklin released the antique VisiCalc, he noted that its 27K size was about the same as a GIF in a Web page. It's worth noting that Frontier 6.2, at 3.3MB, is slightly larger than Respect, and about 1/3 the size of Hey Jude.

Who's right? 

Matt Johnson of TheThe, goes electronic. "New technology, both in cheap, high quality recording equipment and the tremendous potential of the Internet, mean that it's possible for musicians to fund their own recordings, own their own copyrights, distribute their own music and control their own careers. The audience will begin to deal with the artist direct and the middle men will be cut down to size."

Tom Ehrenfeld: "The digital distribution of songs won't change the fundamentals of the business. It might accelerate the core qualities of the music business, but in the digital marketplace, consumers will still turn to record labels for guidance."

New toys 

Screen shot of the next product I'm going to learn.

Another freshly installed app.

I noticed that Gnutella plays its MP3s using WinAmp. Does it have a COM interface? How do they communicate?

Pointers 

Motley Fool: Yahoo plays, AOL gets Real. "The Microsoft-Netscape browser war, rather than having been definitively won or lost, has merely moved to a different battlefield, a different platform."

Dan Gillmor: "What, I asked, if Coca-Cola decides to prevent anyone else from creating a Coke-related domain using one of the new TLDs by registering the obvious ones itself?"

NetDyslexia. "The Maximo Lider Fidel Castro will visit Germany this month. It will be the first time for a visit of the cuban leader in Westgermany. It was a hard work for NetDylexia to promote Castro in Germany. But we did it!" Bravo!   

John VanDyk is working on sub-templates and multiple templates for Manila sites.

Did you notice the header on Google today? Smart.

Boston Globe: McGuinn sees promise of digital music.

Brad Pettit explains the differences between Napster and MP3.Com.

ZDNet: Undocumented Napster Secrets.

Comments about a weird column by ZDNet's Charles Cooper.

What's the strange device on top of this car?

Microsoft 

AP: Microsoft teams up with EMI. "Unlike the popular MP3 digital audio format, the Windows Media format generally has higher quality playback while taking up less storage memory. Also, Microsoft's copyright-management software has made points with record labels."

News.Com: "One new feature in Exchange, called Web Store, culls semi-structured data, such as Web pages, Word document files, and voice and email data, in a new file system tuned for easy searching. The system, called EXIFS, runs on Windows 2000."

XML.Com: Visual Basic and SOAP.

Today's song 

Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.



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