The Porn - MP3 Connection 168
quadra writes "New Musical Express has a strange
article based on a report by the British Phonographic Industry. According to them, sites are using MP3s in order to 'force' users to watch porn. " For those who aren't familar, the BPI is the British-equivalent of the RIAA [?] . Wow. I can't even imagine the thought process that leads people to say things like that.
Re:Actually a reasonable thought process (Score:2)
-- iCEBaLM
"Movies" really animated gifs? (Score:1)
Ironic (Score:1)
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Re:Junkbuster is more effective. (Score:2)
I'm kind of bummed about this, because I had several posts that ended up as AC that got moderated up to 4 and 5. It's on my list of things to figure out, but I just haven't got around to it.
firefly (Score:1)
i wonder what happened to firefly.. did it die before the amazon associates came into existance? or did amazon's own "based on the books you bought.." thing displace it?
Re:Horny teens, MP3s and the BPI (Score:2)
What's so bad about prOn? Let's face it, people do it and people watch it (specially music CEO's). Surfers are attracted to it because it's "politically incorrect" and because it tells them the naked truth (ok, well most of the time). Everything else just evades all the important questions about life (...). It is also a clear reaction to the totalitarian ways of feminists who, with their anax retentiveness, will just not accept anything that is not done by-the-book (i.e: male pornography is ok, we are more mature).
Hence the link between MP3's and SEX - in order to get either we'd have to go thru this process of figuring out what's right and what's wrong. All of this knowing you have no input in the process. As an example you might think a gal or a guy has a nice butt however you'd never say it - "You just can't do this sort of thing". But the natural thing to do is being honest...
I'd even go further. By linking MP3's and SEX the industry is telling people that beyond it's interpretation of facts, there lies nothing else. I guess that's completely predictable, but it still sends chills down my spine: not content with controling bank accounts, consuming habits and social behaviour, both the industry and the feminist movement try to control what people think.
My girlfriend won't even listen to a bloody MP3 even though I bought the album. What is the world coming to?
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
Naa. There are plenty of sites out there. Many that make you click on porn sites actually have a lot of albums -- as well, there are tons of ratio sites on cable modems and university links. If you have a fast link yourself you can amass a gigantic collection within a couple of weeks. I sat down one day and downloaded over 60 punk albums. All I needed was www.audiogalaxy.com and an ok uplink to upload to ratio sites. I've found a few with over 70 full albums each and ratios like 1:100 (most are 1:3 or 1:4); so theres plenty out there
BTW, you can also get mp3 releases of cd's that are due to come out as far as a month away via irc. *cough* I won't tell anywone here where though.
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Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
dd if=/dev/zero of=fake.mp3 bs=1024 count=3000
Upload the resulting file using your cablemodem. Now, due to the miracles of compression what would normally go up at 2k/s goes at about 30k/s. Gotta love ratio sites, eh?
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Help! (Score:1)
Obviously I went blind long ago. Hell, I have been on the 'net since 1990. I was going blind in ASCII with 2600 baud modems. Now I am writing this with my IWhack hooked into a Dragon Speak and Spell.
The only horrific versions of teenage sex I have ever had to witness was watching two drunk friends of mine go at it when they thought I was passed out. The site of them both did make me wrtech and pass out soon after.
If MP3's could only be gotten off of porn sites, we'd all have the soundtrack to Debbie Does Dallas and Deep Throat {heard both}.
Think I'll set my braille lynx reader for the Hustler site. I heard that they have really goog commentaries on Jerry Falwell.
Grasping at Straws (Score:2)
Emma Fanning of the BPI said: "It has always been the case that piracy has links with pornographers and organised crime..."
My response is "It has always been the case that the music industry has links with illegal drugs and satanic cults."
These two statements are about equal in their truthfulness. Actually I've far fewer doubts about the "piracy industry's" wholesomeness compared to the Music Industry. Which one is constantly portrayed as being the slimyest dirtyest industry in the business, somewhere between crack dealers and pimps? It isn't the piracy industry...
Personally, most of the illegal MP3 trading that I've seen has taken place on IRC. The people doing the trading usually refer to FTP sites (I don't think I've seen one HTTP site mentioned in relation to MP3 files.) Why should they bother setting up a web interface for what FTP does so well? I have never seen an MP3 site "force" you to watch pornography.
MP3's will eventually kill groups such as the the RIAA and the BPI, and good riddance.
Re:Actually a reasonable thought process (Score:2)
This is NOT what the article was saying. It was saying that users are forced into looking at "horrific teenage sex" in order to get mp3s. This is not the same thing - if it was just banners, then they should have said something.
Think about it-what's their motivation for making a statement like that? It was in their interests to keep the statement vague and general - not mentioning porn sites at all, or commerce, but rather just choosing to say that people were forced into seeing porn as if all people who distribute mp3s are people who are consciously trying to corrupt the people looking for mp3s.
It's a crock of shit.
Recording Industry vs. Artists (Score:1)
Re:simple solution (Score:1)
Many people in the online porn industry seem to be assholes who just don't give a damn about anything but making money (and annoying web users in the process).
Of course Javascript is the tool of Satan anyway, but a few sites I visit regularly require it so I have to leave it enabled most of the time.
I can imagine (Score:1)
Linking MP3 to pr0n is attempt to hurt MP3 format. (Score:1)
It's JPEG all over again. The first widespread use of the image format was for pr0n. Thus it was tainted and unsupported by mainstream software for a looong time. Heck, it wasn't until fscking Windows 98 that the out of the box MS OS groked .jpg. Yeesh.
Re:To many, it's all the same... (Score:1)
I'm one of those "war3z d00ds"... actively in #macfilez and run my own hotline server.
and truth be told, I have a hot-@ss girlfriend who gets me to leave my computer and let some l00zr that I gave an account to admin the damn thing in my absense.
and it makes me enough money that I can buy my woman some incredible lingerie and go out to fancy restaraunts.
but you are right about Lightwave... I'd had that for about 6 months before I actually found a reason for it... but even then it wasn't worth it. But what the hell, it's only hard drive space, right?
No sex please, we are Brittish... (Score:1)
I wish they had posted links!!! (Score:2)
How... interesting. (Score:3)
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
Heck, I've even been kicked off sites after uploading 300 megs of stuff the guy wanted
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Re:I feel a bit better about living in the US now (Score:1)
Thank god for common sense! (Score:4)
No basis in reality (Score:2)
simple solution (Score:1)
Are they taking about the forced banner clicking? (Score:5)
To get into my site, use the Username "w4r3z". To get the password, go to http://blah.blah/blah and click on the banners. The password is the third word on the first banner page plus the fifth word on the second banner page. Naturally, 90% of the banners are porn banners...
Is this what they really meant?
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Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
Ha! (Score:5)
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Re:Actually a reasonable thought process (Score:1)
I think what they are refering to.... (Score:1)
Re:Horny teens, MP3s and the BPI (Score:1)
Nothing is bad about p0rn. pr0n is good. People tend not to attack things that are bad (say Coliflower or banging your foot against the threshhold) but rather things that are good. Its not our fault, its how God wants it.
Your girlfriend needs a serious reality check. Can she explain her reasoning here? To people who accuse me of hurting creativity by pirating music I usually say "But I sent one dollar to the artist, thats more than it saw of your fifteen". That usually shuts them up.
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Re:There's a bit of truth to it... (Score:1)
Actually that might not be such a bad idea... ;-)
I'm going to the wrong mp3 sites (Score:5)
I especially liked the part about horrifying teenage sex, what exactly is that? Drinking a six pack, getting queasy, fumbling for a thick, old Trojan in your wallet and then prematurely ejaculating while her mom walks in on you? And then hurling on the floor?
Pretty horrifying to me.
George
huh? (Score:3)
My 0.000002 cents worth (Score:2)
The MP3's themselves:
Personally, I see no great point in prawnographic sites. You can see shelled shrimp any time, for a lot less. And would -you- hand over your credit card, over a (typically) insecure line, to a complete stranger who has no interest in keeping the number safe? In fact, is probably in a country you couldn't even prosecute them in, even if they did run your card up to the limit the next day.
Sure, you say, but people would go elsewhere. How, exactly? Over half the sites aren't registered and go by IP address alone. Easy enough to change that. Virtually all use redirection, making it impossible to tell where you're connected to. And all of them are multihomed, so the name is useless to telling where you are.
Unless you fancy tracerouting to every single site you ever connect to, but still insist on viewing prawnography, you're not going to avoid fraud. It can't be done, because you've no means of ensuring trust, and it's not in the other person's interests to be trustworthy.
Aren't we forgetting something (Score:2)
The unfathomable depths of depravity that a person undoubtedly has to sink to in order to want to download such blatantly illegal material procludes the possibility of self control. How could such perversions of humanity, so low that they would want to rip off poor starving companies with their underpaid CEOs possibly have the self restraint needed to resist the evils of horrifying teenage sex? How can they be expected to stray away from the evils offered by the snake with the ripe, luscious red fruit of lasciviousness and towards the light of corporate holiness and honor? Those who do not know the corporate pledge of allegiance, ("Buy, possess, own, consume, rent, lease, buy, possess, own, consume, rent, lease, buy...") couldn't possibly have the restraint needed to click the back button.
(Warning-this was a joke. If you though I was serious with the above article, then you need a good LART.)
Re:I'm going to the wrong mp3 sites (Score:1)
The truth is in the report itself ! (Score:1)
Well they sure have acted.. by propagating such stupid allegations. I have been colleting a lot of MP3 and so have my friiends, but man this is news to us. How come we missed such good package deals
There are MP3 FTP site where u have to trade MP3s to get MP3s.. some with ridiculous download_to_upload ratio of 1:5, but NEVER has there been any case as mentioned in this article.
By any chance are they referring to the banners that are on some of these site ?? If that is the case then they donno how Internet works. No one is forcing u to click on that "Booby" chick hanging out there on that corner of the page that has a list of MP3 that can be downloaded.
My advice to Ms.Sarah Robertson.. " This is not the way to act".
If only the guys who had written such baseless allegations had asked their children how to donwload MP3 and enjoy them !!
Manifest
www.puremp3.org (Score:2)
Re:No sex please, we are Brittish... (Score:2)
When companies put out press releases and such, you would assume that because of the diversity in opinions of the public as well as for other reasons, they would want their announcements/press releases to contain factual information. But instead you get emotionally charged garbage that it meant solely to further their agenda. Of course companies are going to try to further their agenda, but it shouldn't be by trying to manipulate the passions and biases of what they doubtlessly assume are the "ignorant unwashed masses"
Re:Actually a reasonable thought process (Score:5)
(the revenues from your music video, sir,)
Bottom line (Score:1)
Re:Horny teens, MP3s and the BPI (Score:1)
Re:MP3 Distro . .the death of the Rock Stars (Score:1)
There are many valiant pursuits in the world. These admirable profeshions should be rewarded handsomely in order to attract more of the best to the field. Being a "Rock Star" isn't one of them, and it's time they artists stop being payed obseen amounts of money. Don't get me wrong, do artists deserve to be rewarded? compensated? you bet! They should be able to make a living from the fruits of there passion. But they shouldn't be overly compensated.
I'm talking about puke like Vince Neal from Montley Crue. So rich he could aford a fast car. So rich, he could aford the best drugs. And when he got riped and killed to other motorists in a horific accident, we put him on "Behind the music" to hear wonderfull quotes like: "Whaaaooo, like, wow, those people are dead, Whaaaooo."
The world is full of these talentless and over compensated musicians. I think the internet is a fantastic tool for flatening out the finacial model currently driving the music industry.
Imagine if you will, hundreds of thousands of independant sites, rating and selling the music they love, independently! A little money (10-20%) would go back to the artists directly, and not a dime to the record/distro companies. The rest of the fees belong to the hundreds of thousands of independant sites promoting that musician.
Re:Junkbuster is more effective. (Score:1)
Re:Examply of horrifying teenage sex site (Score:1)
Re:Ha! (Score:1)
Consider the source (Score:3)
In my experience, teen sex was pretty damn great! Even with a partner (doh!).. Tastes and experiences differ, and tantric love-making is certainly not the same as fornicating with the stab-wounds of the departed, but I digress.
We can infer a lot about the psychological repression of the author(s), just by observing their language as it's used in the article. That, coupled with the remnants of a repressive society what would have jailed Alan Turing for being gay rather than having him assist in the deciphering of the Enigma engine, had he 'come out' publicly during his career. Silly islanders.
One can only hope that saner minds will prevail and this gets exposed as the ignorant sensationalism that it is. And that this never crosses the pond, since in the U.S. saner minds are shouted down by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Tipper Gore.
'Paying-off Karma at an accelerated rate' - Susan Ivanova
"Bite me. Call me. bCandid" Wow, Rob! What an appropriate banner ad...
voices inside my..... computer (Score:1)
I feel a bit better about living in the US now (Score:2)
It's too bad they didn't use the word pedophelia instead of teenage sex...or maybe that would make it too obvious that this is pure FUD. The "pedophelia" or "pedophile" keyword is a favorite among politicians when they want to take away personal freedoms in favor of government regulation to "protect your children." Unfortunatly it's a just a way for them to protect their power base in the face of a changing world. It's obviously the same thing for the BPI. They're trying to protect their profit margins and distribution channels.
I've seen this same porn argument so many times over the past 3 years or so now that it's really funny and really sad at the same time. It's been applied to almost everything involving the internet. The BPI will be linking the words "pedophilia" and "child porn" to mp3's soon enough, since thats what really gets the public going. They're just lagging behind the US propeganda machine a bit, since America is the undispuded leader in propeganda, FUD, and P.R. bullshit. We've got all the cutting edge tactics over here. Lucky us.
But on the upside, when companies or organizations are resorting to pure FUD tactics, they're already losing the battle.
In a related story... (Score:1)
The Real Sex - Rock Concert Connection (Score:1)
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hee-hee, I wish I could moderate you up (Score:2)
George
mp3 download experience (Score:3)
The majority seem to have an incredibly good range of music, but are extremely difficult to get into. Let me explain
Firstly, the hosts have their site listed in an mp3 FTP search engines (such as audiogalaxy.com [audiogalaxy.com]). Once their site is displayed (showing the username and password), I login via FTP. The first message displayed, is usually one saying that this is a 'looking only' account, and for 'leech access', one has to go to their website www.blah.whatever.etc.etc.
Once at the website, there are banners at the top of the page, and a message at the bottom. The message says to "click on the top banner, and the fourth word on the page is the login, then click on the second banner, and the second last word on the page is the password." Both of these banners (of course) are porn sites. The host obviously gets paid a few cents every time someone clicks on them.
Next, having finally got the 'leech' username and password, FTP to the server can be attempted. Now comes the fun part
This doesn't happen once or twice, it happens 90% of the time.
What I don't understand, is why the porn site keep paying them.
What a bizarre article. (Score:1)
A quick observation... (Score:1)
-Neux
Re:Put adfu.blockstackers.com 127.0.0.1 in /etc/ho (Score:1)
I've clicked a few banner ads from time to time, but they were clicked out of self-interest and not because I feel it's my duty to give money to Slashdot. I bought a /. t-shirt from Copyleft, not because I wanted to help /. get money, but because it looked cool.
You should never feel you're obligated to click banner ads. Bypassing adfu.blockstackers.com is akin to pressing fast-forward on your VCR. Whoever stopped to watch ads because they felt the show deserved support?
What advertising firms are interested in is the demographics and number of people who come to /.; if they don't get many clicks, they'll just review their strategy. It won't put /. out of existence.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
I want my fair share of the take NOW!!!
P
Pope
Which is a damn good reason to disable javascript (Score:1)
There needs to be a way to enable java, javascript and cookies on a site-by-site basis (Hotjava used to do this and it was a cool feature.)
Save the children.... (Score:1)
I dl mp3s all the time, and don't see a lick of pr0n unless I'm looking for it. Once again, THE NET IS NOT THE WEB. If you want filez stay away from the web. It's all about $$$. If you want the good mp3s stick to FTP and don't support the pr0n pushers (BTW they usually have shit on their site if you can even log in after earning them a penny or two).
Last BTW: It's the web people, you see something you don't like SHUT DOWN THE BROWSER.
The truly scary thing... (Score:2)
You seem to have misspelled "pr0n" (Score:1)
Lame... (Score:1)
1) Block ads. The internet junkbuster is a wonderful thing.
2) Use a text-based web browser like w3m or lynx. Or better yet, ftp!
3) Disable image loading. (okay, sometimes that isn't as easy to do these days, but graphical browsers used to support it better before...)
4) If you don't like it, turn off the computer.
5) Listen to the radio?
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
BPI Good Judge of Porn (Score:2)
Apparently, they were complaining about the lack of quality and poor photography at their teen porn sites. They must believe that there should be much better teen sex out there than what these horiffic pictures show.
Maybe we should all send them the URL's to some high quality teen sex sites so the BPI won't be forced to view the horiffic ones.
Just a thought.
Some validity to this. (Score:1)
That explains it... (Score:1)
Although, maybe the link between music and pr0n explains the existance of porno-bass music.
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:2)
This should be a pretty easy problem to fix. Just use a browser or plugin that supports external comments (e.g. Third Voice, and I think Mosaic had something like this too?). Then just one person looks up the password and posts it for everyone. Nothin' the MP3/w4r3z d00d can do about it.
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bad bad bad (Score:1)
If you log into a site to download mp3s and you find yourself faced with the words "go to http://blabla and click on the banner for the password" ummm.. thats not exactly forcing you to watch porn... if you want in that site bad enough... you'll go click on the sex banner on the web but it's not as if someones forcing you to watch an hour long mpg as this article makes it sound like.
theres a real problem of people writing articles on internet related issues that don't know anything outside their Outlook Express.
The article says sites are using mp3s to force users to watch porn... that is juat all wrong
the article should say... sites are using porn to make a couple bucks off people that want their mp3s by using banners. Now theres an article that I would have a little respect for the author for writing.
this is just terrible
Re:I feel a bit better about living in the US now (Score:1)
Yes indeed, Pedophiles are one of the horsemen of the infocalypse. I remember Pedophiles and Terrorists. Anyone recall the other two? Organized crime maybe? Anyway...
They're not going to stop anyone; the genie's out of the bottle. They best they can hope for now is to delay it until they can figure out how to make money off of it (Or get the hardware manufacturers in line with devices that don't allow recording, such as the shit referenced here. [edtn.com])
LOL (Score:1)
Hah Hah Hah Hah Hah!!!!!!
About as excited as one gets for a root canal.
It's all one organized crimianl conspiracy.. (Score:1)
"Piracy" is not an organized activity. Individual "Piracy" organizations may merge with other outfits, take advantage of synergistic relationships, and engage in strategic partnerships, but that does not mean that your local supplier of bootleg MP3s is somehow involved in some international drugs conspiracy.
As for pornography, I doubt that Playboy Enterprises is "mobbed up." There are many perfectly legitimate organizations distributing MP3's, and equally legitimate enterprises distributing pictures of naked people.
Why is the BPI trying to make us believe that MP3.com is somehow a front organization for the Mafia? There's very little profit in it. If I was a Mob figure, I might intead target a conventional record company. After all, record companies already know how to get an artist to sign contracts they can't refuse.
Ignore NME (Score:1)
Napster (Score:1)
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
Quick Thinking (Score:2)
It sounds to me like someone at BPI got caught looking at porn, and had to think fast. "The MP3s made me do it!" And then things got out of hand when the boss took him seriously.
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This is true (Score:1)
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The most bizarre thing of all in this article (Score:1)
where do they get off? (Score:1)
Sex is a BEAUTIFUL thing between two very loving individuals. Sex is not a "horrible" action, but one of love, sacrifice, and mutual enjoyment. Pictures of such an act should be held in the highest esteem and broadcasted throughout the land...
And sex between teenagers is nothing but the purest of sex... that where individuals haven't been corrupted by money and power, and having their backs broken by middle management... okay, if it was between two UGLY teenagers having sex... maybe... but even then the ability for two grotesque individuals to find someone to share their special feelings with is a very very special occasion and also one which should be celebrated.
And if you'd like to start a web site to celebrate ugly teenagers having sex, www.uglyteensex.com [networksolutions.com] is not yet registered!
So everyone, go out and visit your favorite site that supports the freedom of expression and passes along these beautiful images of sex and allows you to take them home with you and possibly even print them out (if you have a color printer [epson.com]).
ciao!
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com) [mrjoy.com]
DAMMIT!! (Score:1)
What's so horrific about teen sex anyway ?
They must be doing it all wrong....
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
I ran this server on a macintosh for a variety of reasons.
It seems that hotline server for linux and windowz machines is very very very easy to hack, whereas since you don't get a command line for the mac, it's not even worth a cracker's time.
just warning some of you out there incase you're thinking of setting up your own server. Do it on a mac and don't think twice about it. Considering the people that these server's attract, you're thank me.
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:1)
the entire process takes approximately 5 minutes and you're up and ready to go with all of your users and groups working.
Re:Put adfu.blockstackers.com 127.0.0.1 in /etc/ho (Score:1)
Yes... (Score:1)
If the above poster is telling the truth about making $8000 doing this, I'm quite surprised, usually I hear stories of people getting maybe a few hundred dollars out of it. Mostly young prople who have little other source of income and are willing to take a little risk.
Re:Ignore NME (Score:1)
There's a bit of truth to it... (Score:5)
Porn sites got wise to this, though. People would click through the banners, get the word they wanted, and leave. This wasn't making the porn vendors happy, so they switched to a new tactic; only giving their referrers money for people whop actually signed up for the service. Because of this now, you actually have to join many porn sites to access certain servers, and come back with information about a "Members Only" page.
I don't know. I'd consider that forcing a user to view porn to get MP3's. You're just as forced to join the sites as many people are to use Windows; let's put it that way.
Luckily, a few people still provide MP3's without banners. But there's some truth, at least, to that statement. Granted, you're not held at gunpoint and forced to relentlessly navigate these sites, but you think you're forced, and that's just as bad.
The Problem with MP3's (Score:3)
current state of the music industry. The music
industry as a whole is proving that they cannot
keep up with technology.
One of the main reasons that illegal mp3's are
so popular is that buying legal copies of most
music is prohibitively expensive for many people.
This is especially true of teenagers. Heck, I work
in Computer Software and have to be careful about
how many CD's I buy.
Since the crux of the problem lies in money, that
is the first place to look for a solution.
#1 The only real problem is that that the artist
doesn't get paid for illegal copies of their work.
In order to fight the illegal mp3's, we need to
make legal sources of music more affordable. One
way to do this would be to provide cheap mp3's
through valid distribution channels.
Calculate the amount of money that the artist
gets when a copy of their music is sold, add on
a small distribution fee for the internet site
and wala you can charge $2 for a CD worth of
music and still make a profit.
There is no more risk to the artist than with
conventional distribution channels. Anyone
these days can copy a CD or make a tape off
of a CD or tape, so the "mp3's are easy to
pirate" argument doesn't hold water. Once music
is affordable again, illegal mp3's will be much
less of a problem. (Once you drop the amount of
money saved by illegal activity, it becomes far
less attractive.)
The one remaining problem is coming up with a
way for people who don't have a credit card to
use these theoretical music sites. I leave that
to others, but what does need to happen is that
the music companies need to realise that if they
don't make a presense for themselves on the net,
they will swiftly become dinosaurs and soon thereafter, become extinct.
One nitpick (Score:2)
um, hullo? Computers have become tremendously more widespread in the last few years, graybeard. And comp. savvy has followed suit. They're not that tough to use with a few years experience. The one demographic that has shown the largest drop in CD purchases is 13-18. Wonder why that is? Music execs are scared for a very good reason.
That being said, I found this amazing lobster prawn site, full tails and all.
...and this is driving people AWAY?? (Score:1)
As every sane person knows, threatening teenagers with scenes of "horrific teen sex" is sure to drive them away from your site. Yep, BPI has cottoned on to the no. 1 fear of teenagers everywhere: disgustingly explicit pornographic images!
And why isn't this article appearing on Time, or CNN? Surely that's where it should be so that parents can see it?? But, no, it's on a site frequented probably 95% of the time by the aformentioned teenagers. What does this tell you?
Tells me that someone high up in the BPI has a stake in some internet porn business, and is trying to drum up support for his site(s)...You mean like a banner site? (Score:2)
What the... (Score:3)
Horrific teenage sex? Have any of these people EVER visited a porn site? If the pictures are that "horrific", it's probably something you'd have to pay an arm and a leg for given some of the strange "tastes" that are out there. Can anybody think of a single good reason why a site would want to FORCE you to look at porn before you could get MP3s? The only thing I can think of is banner ads that are a bit lewd, and I'm sure we've all seen a lot of seedy banner ads, but never ones that had "horrific teenage sex".
Is this just a ploy on the part of recording companies to convince parents that if their child has any mp3s on his drive that he must be becoming a morally depraved pervert? Jeez, if that were true, I would have been blind LONG ago.
I guess though, if you can't attack the consumers of the material your against, (i.e. the kids downloading MP3s) then you can attack those who have control over the consumers.
It's this type of misinformation and ignorance mixed with a healthy dose of dishonesty and selfish corporate interest that gives some large corporations the appearance of being chicken shit money grubbing scumfucks.
Now, I'd love to rant on for 10 pages about how diffusion of responsibility and passing the buck leads to unethical business decisions and press releases, but I guess I'm just content to take the 50 point karma hit that I'm already in for.
Actually a reasonable thought process (Score:4)
I can't even imagine the thought process that leads people to say things like that.
Actually, having to click on banner ads before entering MP3 sites is quite common.
Try looking up a popular song on Palavista [palavista.com] and see how many of the listed sites let you in immediately. Very often the user name and password required for downloading files are chosen from the text of sites linked through banner ads; so you have to visit the sites (and usually click through to their sign-up page) before logging on. Very often these banners are pornographic, perhaps because such firms are not as picky as to who they permit to advertize them.
In this way illicit MP3 sites finance themselves, since simply displaying a banner ad often generates no banner revenue. Apparently the biggest difficulty in running such a site is trying to avoid 100% click-through ratios, as they tend to attract the attention and suspicion of banner advertizement firms.
Tabloid sensationalism (Score:2)
The British Phonographic Industry then did a few hits of acid and through some unmentioned convolution of logic blames music piracy on organized crime.
The commentary by the BPI is sensationalistic, its designed to influence Joe Luddite consumer into buying into their party line. Its trying to convince them that piracy isn't just illegal, its backed by evil groups.
They'd have been better off using a different angle: Illegally distributing copies of our music is illegal, but not only are these people doing that they're also making money off of it.
It's common practice actually (Score:2)
Pick up some mp3 trackers for hotline, search 'mp3', and you get a big list of hotline servers. Usually they're run by some guy in a college dorm. Log onto Joe's server, and you'll get a message that says something to the effect of "You are logged in as a guest. To download files, you need a password. To get the password, visit my homepage at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ip address and click on the second banner. The tenth word on the resulting page is the password."
So they get income that way. And then the user downloads a bunch of music and moves on to the next one.
--
grappler
So what're they gonna do about it? (Score:2)
That would be interesting...
--
grappler
BPI is correct, but the point is missed... (Score:2)
The internet/Internet (the first being a network of computers, the second being a society) has unleashed upon us a billion new ideas and things that have been unimagined in real life. Such as profitable porn banners. Or, the idea that you must respond to an advertisement so that the person displaying the advertisement gets the money for displaying it. (Hey, imagine that you leased out a billboard on Highway X to you local ABC affiliate but that you got paid only when people who drove on Highway X actually tuned into ABC later that night). Or, that the porn industry would blindly provide funding for any legal or illegal activity, as if what they already did wasn't seen as the devil's work by half this country...
Anyway, as it works out it's true that many mp3 distributors make you hit some porn banners in order to get access to the files. It's highly annoying anyway, since it doesn't work all the time and since you have to work hard to get rid of all the residual pop-ups. This is true of any warez, and the deal works out quite nicely for many people especially since mp3's and porn are both friends of many here on the 'net.
However, some things that are failed to be recognized by the "mp3's-cause-porn" concept:
- the connection is merely a coincidence. If cigarette vendors had pay-per-click banners on the net, we'd be saying that mp3's cause smoking too.
- there are also ways to get mp3's without any one-handed typing. Napster, for instance.
- Porn is extremely popular and profitable. Mp3's are also extremely poplular and profitable. The record companies don't like mp3s because they think that even if they used them, they couldn't make any money off of them. Hence, the record companies are figting a silly losing battle.
- People are willing to go through a lot of trouble with the porn banners to get to mp3's. Any company not jumping on this bandwagon is extremely stupid. The potential for both advertisers and mp3's are extraordinary. It should be grasping the attention of both Motown and Madison Ave.
- Law enforcement is too slow and two disinterested to stop this. This is what Al Capone would be doing today if he were alive.
- People today are totally disinterested in ethics and justice. They don't care who's getting ripped off, they don't care how young the girls or boys are, and they don't care that society doesn't approve. People are used to getting ripped off, fucked early, and being hated by society. Nothing to lose, folks, just like those kids in Colorado (Or those gunmen in Armenia, or that guy in Atlanta, or those guys at the post office, or whoever's on the news tonight)...
- The media will gladly repeat any juicy lie or idiot opinion that they are handed. Mp3's encourage porn. Coppermine's better than Athlon. Windows NT is a much better choice than Linux/Unix. Britney Spears has breast implants. Lauryn Hill said she doesn't want white people buying her albums. Harvey Keitel did a bad thing in Nicole Kidman's hair. [fucker.com]
- Oh, finally, maybe it's a good new portal strategy. I like having my porn and mp3's in the same place...
Turn Off Images to Avoid the Porn. (Score:2)
One thing about the article
"It has always been the case that piracy has links with pornographers and organised crime."
Are they kidding with this one?
I haven't seen any links to http://www.mafia.spb.ru/.
has anyone else?
The article is not the problem... (Score:2)
By the looks of the comments here, it seems the readers of slashdot are as quick to post a flaming critism of the article as the BPI is to denounce MP3s.
THE ARTICLE IS NOT THE PROBLEM!!!!
The article is not the problem!! The views or organization like the BPI and the RIAA. Theis article, is only reporting on them. And if you read the article, you'lll realize they are also reporting on BECAUSE they too think it is alittle absurd. I mean, just look at the title:
DOWNLOADING MP3S WILL
MAKE YOU GO BLIND, WARN BPI
And their talk-back link:
"Is this the big labels running scared and looking for a scapegoat? Have you ever been forced to witness "horrific scenes of teenage sex" while downloading Mp3 files? Was it good for you?"
Well then... (Score:2)
Horny teens, MP3s and the BPI (Score:5)
Clearly they want to hunt down illegal MP3 sites, and since they can't get people to agree it's a dangerous activity, they're using a bit of collateral damage. It's the same argument being used against, for instance, pot and prostitution. (Disclaimer: I'm not defending nor promoting either, just observing.)
Whereas many people say pot is not bad for your health and not intrinsictly dangerous, the main argument used by the police to crack down on pot is that it leads to other criminal activities. You're smoking pot? Well, you'll probably snort cocaine in the long run. And you're encouraging criminal groups that commit worse crimes because of it.
Never mind that it's a bit of circular logic.
Anyway... It's true. If you're looking for a few "illegal" MP3 and enter "MP3z" in any good search engine, you'll run into sites (sorry, sitez) who also have a lot of warez, and plenty of "passwordz" for porn sites. You'll also get so many sex banners you may as well go blind.
It's really just incidental. What it shows is that people willing to distribute copyrighted MP3s are the same crowd that distribute pr0n passwordz and cracked software. Come on, admit it. I'm not generalising, but on the whole, it happens a lot.
So... We're back to the whole collateral damage argument. It's hard to argue that free music is damaging in itself, so the BPI has to find another easy target. So they latch unto a well-known enemy likely to cause public outrage. Pornography.
And voila. Looking for MP3s makes you see a lot of porn.
Nice FUD, eh?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Don't count it out yet... (Score:2)
Personally, I'm more appalled by sites that 'force' you to join pyramid money-making schemes like AllAdvantage or GoToWorld (or both, in some cases!) Apparently people are obsessed with making five bucks a month off of every sucker who wants MP3's. More power to 'em, but count me out of this. (Besides, in my typical nonconformist style, most ad-viewing proggies are Windows-only, and I can't run them.)
Re:Are they taking about the forced banner clickin (Score:3)
I used to run a hotline server (yes, I was one of those that give us all a bad name).
Anyway, I set up an account with a company named Safe-Audit [safe-audit.com] which would let you set up banner accounts that pay up to $1 and $2 per successful registration... most of them paid out an average of $15 per 1000 page views.
What I would do is let people log into my hotline server anonymously and look around, but they weren't able to download anything unless they got the username and password. These could only be acquired by going to a page that I designated (anonymous web hosting of course), clicking through the banner, and then signing up for a free contest or something, and then on the confirmation page, there would be two words that would be the username and password.
of course, the people never really had to input the correct information, they just had to sign up. If I found that too many people were getting in by passing around the username and password, I'd change them once a week which would require everyone that had already signed up to do it again.
I made about $8k in 3 months with about 1.5 gigs of prOn movies, some beta software releases, and a few mp3's.
And yes, the company paid out until they started questioning why hundreds of people were going to my stupid homepage and the amounts of click-thrus were almost identical to the # of page visits...
but yes, it was a nice, successful little scam, and unlike that poor guy in coloroda, I made money and wasn't jailed for it.