Snapster - file sharing problem solved

[chrisms]

The idea of Snapster

Anyone have $2 million?

 

[Snapster]

Stop using my name!

Actually I tried to register the domain a few years ago, but it was already taken up by napster's owners.

 

[KingNothing]

There was an article on slashdot about this, the conclusion by the members was that it won't work. They're probably not lawyers though, so who knows.

 

[NogginBoink]

I sincerely doubt that any attempt to pass this off as fair use would be upheld by any court in the nation.

 

[chrisms]

I think it would work. Looking at the basic concept, millions of people go in a group to buy 100,000 CDs. Now they can all legally use them.

 

[TommyVercetti]

So if I start a company and buy software, anyone in the company can use it? I don't think so. I guess software and music work different ways.

 

[chrisms]

Software is different because I believe there are laws which prohibit it from being installed on more than one computer.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: chrisms
Software is different because I believe there are laws which prohibit it from being installed on more than one computer.

Not laws per se, but it's written into the license agreement that comes with most software.

 

[Legendary]

So to break this (in the RIAA's POV) is to include an "EULA" for CDs that prevents "fair use"?

 

[chrisms]

If the company is set up before that happens, it can buy CDs without a license agreement.

 

[Spac3d]

Interesting read. It doesn't sound possible to me.

 

[Gunslinger08]

Sounds perfectly legal to me. When you buy stock in a company, you in fact own a little portion of every asset that company has.

Should work out in time.. going to have some legal battles with the RIAA, but if the pockets are deep enough, they can keep it going.

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

Wow...lol. That's a hell of an idea.

 

[Martin]

technically and legally it would be ok IMO. The problem is, that it doesn't solve the artists' problems. If everyone who listens to music buys a share, then artists can only really sell 1 CD. They'd have to make their money entirely from tours and royalties from radio stations...and I don't think that'll be enough for most of them..

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

It'd be pretty simple to pay the artists with this scheme, just raise the prices to, say, $1.00 per album and $0.15 per song. Pay the artist $0.50 per album, $0.10 per song, and call it good. If, as he says, there are 60 million users downloading 10 cds each, that's 30 million dollars right there. Sure it works out to about a few thousand per artist, but they probably don't get a lot more from the record companies as it. (seriously though I have no idea if this is legal or not, much less how to run it)

 

[Gunslinger08]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
technically and legally it would be ok IMO. The problem is, that it doesn't solve the artists' problems. If everyone who listens to music buys a share, then artists can only really sell 1 CD. They'd have to make their money entirely from tours and royalties from radio stations...and I don't think that'll be enough for most of them..

A majority of artists also make most of their money from concerts and merchandising. They might make $1 for 5 million albums, but then $30 x 1,000,000 fans at concerts.

 

[stev0]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
technically and legally it would be ok IMO. The problem is, that it doesn't solve the artists' problems. If everyone who listens to music buys a share, then artists can only really sell 1 CD. They'd have to make their money entirely from tours and royalties from radio stations...and I don't think that'll be enough for most of them..

thinking about what you said, how bands would have to make their money from tours and royalties, wouldn't that be a good thing? I mean it would create more business for venue owners, bands would be forced to go to smaller towns that they normally wouldn't, spreading fan base.. there would always be a good show to see, since most bands would be on tour.

and how much would record sales really drop? i mean sure there will be a many people that would buy into this, but wouldn't most of them be people that are already 'stealing' music instead of buying cd's. and there will always be the hardcore fans out there that will support a band and buy their cd's even though they have access to DL their music for free/very little fee.

 

[Spencer278]

A simpler method would be just to make it so that the file sharing program deletes the file there for no copy is made and the program is legal and you can't go after the sharer or the person downloading the file. The client should be open source so that it could be faked that the file was deleted.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Problem is, unless someone does it quickly, the RIAA will ask for a new law that prohibits it.

 

[jjones]

Actually, there is a way to do this that completely circumvents the RIAA and all the possible lawsuits. Again, it takes a few million and someone with background in the music industry.

Do exactly what he said, perhaps a slightly different business model because there would not be the need for shareowners in order to have access to music. Make an online music distribution business but get new music from artists. That's it. There's no big mystique about it. Word of mouth would spead the business in no time and more artists would want to sell their music this way, especially if they get a bigger piece of the pie.

Also, the average artist would sell more music. If a song only cost 25 cents, and if it doesn't completely suck, you would likely have millions of people buying the song instead of a few hundred thousand at a higher price. How much more music would you buy if it was only just 25 cents? Instead of paying $10.00 for 10 songs ($1.00 per song like Apple) you'd get 40 songs. The not so popular songs would sell more because people would buy them just for the hell of it if they liked it even a little; they wouldn't be so picky about being sure to choose only songs they really like if all songs were only 25 cents.

 

[Maleficus]

I like the idea and think its actually quite feasible if someone had the balls to try it

 

[BeauJangles]

worst. idea. ever. simply not feasable.

 

[SammyBoy]

Yea, you'd think this guy would be not such a retard if he was a part of the original napster.


Tell me, what if this idea works...And after a year or so he has say...1/2 market share. That means that 1/2 of all CD's and songs purchased are done through Snapster. The real record companies will obviously be taking a pounding, and they aren't just gonna sit there and take it.

They'll say fine, if we cant get by selling our albums in stores, EVERYONE can buy Britney Spears' new album from Snapster, that's fine. Only problem is, Snapster isn't gonna get it unless they give us 10 million dollars. There's nothing they can do, and eventually the only new music being produced and released would be no name stuff that no one wants to hear anyways.

This moron fails to realize that big part of the music industry is production of new music and marketting for that music, sales is only part of it. If Snapster stole all the business away from the record companies, who's gonna sign deals with these new artists, and who's gonna promote them? After a while, privacy policies just like those in software would start popping up in CD's, and snapster would be stagnant and only allowed to sell old music.

Plus the idea of owning .0001% of a CD and still being allowed to download songs off it doesn't seem legal to me at all, but i'm no lawyer, just not a retard like this guy.