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

scriptingNews outline for 7/28/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:7/28/2000; 5:23:02 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 7/28/2000
Msg #:19232
Prev/Next:19231 / 19233

WE GET TO KEEP NAPSTER!!!



The Dead are so happy they just broke out in spontaneous music-making. I'm happy too. I'm going to have some cheesecake now to celebrate!

"cheesecake""cheesecake""cheesecake""cheesecake""cheesecake"

Reports 

News.Com, Reuters, AP, MSNBC, Inside.Com, Wired.

Other stuff 

DaveNet: A "buycott" for Napster.

Grateful Dead statement on MP3s: "No commercial gain may be sought by websites offering digital files of our music, whether through advertising, exploiting databases compiled from their traffic, or any other means. All participants in such digital exchange acknowledge and respect the copyrights of the performers, writers and publishers of the music. This notice should be clearly posted on all sites engaged in this activity. We reserve the ability to withdraw our sanction of noncommercial digital music should circumstances arise that compromise our ability to protect and steward the integrity of our work."

Finally, a newspaper correctly explains that Napster is an "Internet search engine that enables users to find and trade songs between computers." There's been so much incorrect reporting in the last few days. They should make the reporters take a freshman Computer Science class. They. Who are they? I don't know. Good night.

One more thing. AOL subsidiary WinAmp operates a search engine that does the same thing. AOL is merging with Time-Warner, which is part of the RIAA. So if they shut down Napster, we don't have to go to Gnutella to get the music, we can go to Time-Warner. How can they sue Napster for what they do themselves? Someone is ethically impaired here. This seems newsworthy. (I just checked, the search engine is still there, and I searched for Metallica, and got lots of MP3s, which I didn't download, but I could have.)

MacCentral: Apple could be sued over Cube design. It's great to see Cobalt take an interest in the Qube, which is a milestone product, heavily influenced our work at UserLand.

We're having fun with Radio UserLand. I wrote this page, entitled Mainframes are Computers Too, in case any mainframe people check it out.

For more fun, does anyone have a similar picture of an old style radio station?

Kevin Werbach: "What made Napster a threat to the record labels was its remarkable growth. That growth resulted from two things: Napster's user experience and its focus on music. The court decision strikes at the heart of the first of these reasons. It leaves the second intact, which is why, thanks to its massive user base, Napster has a bright future after all."

If you doubted the commercialization of music, read this account by a musician named Thundergod, of the Rockfest in Chicago, July 22.

Jason Levine gives Joel some passport trouble.

Public Citizen did a study of threats to radio stations. ";->"

Ready to ship? 

Shipping is hard work!

The Radio UserLand software is worth the work. The early demos are going great. People really like it.

We're going to open it up for an early beta round, Murphy-willing, later today, early tomorrow at the latest.

It's time to jump out the door, no parachute, ladies and gentlemen.

Here we go!

Radio UserLand mail list at eGroups 

We started a mail list for Radio UserLand at eGroups.

They do such a good job of running mail lists, they provide all the services we want, so what the heck, let's save some trouble and use their service.

Jim Armstrong is cool! 

A few days ago he posted a review of Radio UserLand, only to discover that it hadn't shipped yet. Enthusiasm is good!

I've known Jim for almost twenty years. So many people our age get cynical, thinking they've seen it all, but then bonk, something comes along, and all they see is bad news, but Jim sees something powerful, and power is exciting. As they used to say when we were young and they were old, "That's what keeps you young." Can you parse that sentence? ";->"

"Buycotting" the music industry 

Napster's buycott page. Excellent. One of my bands, the Grateful Dead, is on the list of Napster supporters. I already have every CD they've come out with, but I think I'll buy $100 worth of Grateful Dead CDs this weekend, at Tower Records. I will tell the clerk that I'm doing it to support Napster.

For those who too young to know, Jerry Garcia of the Dead, who himself died, almost five years ago, was a sweet bear of a man, who didn't take himself or any of this kind of michegas very seriously. Just look at the name they chose for their band for a clue. And click on Jerry's picture for a song.

Will Cate has a suggestion.

Unwanted bloatware 

When I clicked on Jerry's picture, after the song downloaded, this weird piece of software came up and flashed a bunch of messages about it saving my music somewhere, and then it popped up this screen. Nowhere does it say who made the software or how it got on my hard drive. I don't like this very much. Hello, how did it get there? (Is this part of W2K?)

Bob Crosley: "MusicMatch is pre-installed on all Dell's. It's a hideous piece of bloatware that takes over your associations for MP3, Windows Media and QuickTime."



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