MacNewsWorld provides an interesting article about the increasing desire for consumers to discover music via streaming, subscriptions and social networks as opposed to iTunes.

In hindsight, Y2K made us look like fools.

Think about how trivial it all was.  We were afraid of a software mistake.  How trite in light of all that happened after it.

We survived Y2K and went along with our lives.  Music and film very much did the same, ignoring the coming storm that appeared in the guise of Napster.

Rap metal, post-grunge and teen pop were all the rage.  Justin Timberlake hadn’t yet proven that he was funny and talented.  Britney Spears wasn’t quite yet a train wreck.  For some reason, Fred Durst was still cool and Creed was selling millions of records ripping off Pearl Jam by way of pseudo-Christian grunge.

In film, the first glimpse of the coming onslaught of the superhero genre came with the first X-Men.  Tom Cruise continues his Mission:Impossible franchise, his career and behavior still on the rails, while his future director and savior Ben Stiller began his long slow crawl to mediocrity with Meet the Parents.

For both film and music, 2000 was a progression of the 90’s.  Whatever the new sound was going to be (and there were several sounds that would define the decade) it wouldn’t quite appear, though there were some rumblings in the underground.    But, for the time, there was no reason to change anything.

Times were good.

There wasn’t a President to rail against, a war to protest, or an economy to crush us.

We weren’t prepared at all for what was to come.

The idea of Illegal downloading (or Peer 2 Peer file sharing, commonly known as P2P) became widely accepted by the public when Napster was created in June of 1999 by 18-year old Shawn Fanning. Shawn was a young adult with no idea that what he had just created would change the way consumers feel about paying for music when they “don’t have to”, the way we think of Intellectual Property, and that it would spur one of the most controversial internet-related debates we have yet to experience.

It’s true that Napster was not the first program to contribute to copyright infringement by facilitating P2P file sharing. Other programs had existed before it such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, but these latter programs were not strictly music databases. They had many other uses like, search engines, newsgroups, and real-time internet text messaging; They were not a direct threat to the Music Industry like Napster was.

The reason Napster caused such a stir, at the very roots of the issue, was because it was allowing consumers to go to their computer, and download 4 or 5 songs off an album for free, that would typically cost you $15+ in a store. The program was easy access for anyone with a computer and internet connection, needing only to download the application, and have a shared directory on your computer containing the MP3’s. When in use, Napster would then search the database of shared directories from other Napster users all across the world, and come up with hundreds of pirated, copyright infringed files matching the title you entered in the search field.

In 2000, a copy of Metallica’s not yet released demo, “I Disappear” was found circulating through Napster, which then led to the song being put on rotation on many American radio stations. After investigations, it was brought to Metallilca’s attention that their entire back catalogue of studio material was available to the public through Napster, without any royalty payments going to the band, their engineers, producers, or record label. This resulted in the first lawsuit against Napster Inc. which was followed by  several others for the same or very similar reasons with Dr. Dre, Madonna, Jerry Lieber, Casanova Records, and the most prominant: A&M Records vs. Napster Inc. in 2001 for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement of copyright protection under the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Artists/Musicians Deserve, and have a legal right to be paid, monetarily, for their creative works and intellectual property. There is no denying the fact that these artists are being virtually robbed by the consumer by not paying for the songs they listen to.

Some artists may argue that having their music on P2P programs allows them higher levels of exposure. Ex. The movie ‘Global Metal’ shows interviews of people from Egypt and Saudi Arabia saying they would have literally zero access to certain music if it weren’t for P2P file sharing, because there’s no where else for them to get it.

The music industry has gotten smarter; Rather than suing every unsuspecting, otherwise innocent person for being in possession of pirated music they have started to sell individual songs at reasonable prices. But illegal downloading has not ceased. There are too many people that have gotten a taste of getting the music they want for free, rather than paying for a whole album for $15+ and not enjoying half of it.

Some artists that are not signed to a major record label, that do not have access to mass media promotion and production, may argue that downloading for free was good for them because it helped get exposed to the public, but the fact of the matter is, you cannot put food on the table or pay rent with exposure.

Um interessante artigo no Estadão tem o título “O momento Napster do cinema” e é de autoria de Bruno Galo, com o subtítulo “Afinal, a pirataria online ajuda ou atrapalha os filme? Na dúvida, Hollywood se adapta”:

Do surgimento do Napster, em 1999, que permitia a troca de músicas na rede, até 2009, as gravadoras viram o seu negócio encolher quase pela metade. Até agora, mesmo após o nascimento do formato torrent (que permite a troca de arquivos mais pesados, como filmes e games), a história não se repetiu com o cinema. Até agora.

Se em 2008, o filme mais baixado ilegalmente, com 7 milhões de downloads, foi também o mais assistido nos cinemas (Batman – O Cavalheiro das Trevas), o mesmo não acontece em 2009. Watchmen, com 17 milhões de downloads, não emplacou nas bilheterias. Ao mesmo tempo, a venda de DVDs, maior fonte de renda dos estúdios, despencou 13,5%, nos primeiros seis meses do ano.

Tudo leva a crer que o aumento da oferta de banda larga está diretamente ligado a maior procura por filmes na rede. Na Coreia do Sul, país em que a banda é a mais larga do mundo, o mercado de DVDs sucumbiu frente ao download ilegal.

Imagine então a surpresa dos estúdios quando o criador do filme independente Ink, Jamin Winans, afirmou na terça-feira (10) que a pirataria online é uma bênção. Graças a ela a procura pelo seu filme havia aumentado e a expectativa de recuperar o investimento feito parecia mais próxima da realidade. É bem difícil encontrar na indústria do cinema, alguém que veja com bons olhos a troca de arquivos na rede – algo, relativamente comum entre músicos, como o Radiohead, e, em menor grau, entre escritores, como Paulo Coelho.

Leia o artigo completo clicando aqui.

The launch of Wikipedia, emergence of the iPhone and the election of U.S. President Barack Obama were among the 10 most influential moments on the Internet in the past decade, according to the annual Webby awards. Other events singled out by the New York-based International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which has presented the annual Webby awards since 1996, were the Iranian election in 2009 when protests demonstrated the power of Twitter and other social network in reshaping democracy. Here is the Webby’s list of the 10 most influential Internet moments of the decade: 1. Craigslist, the free classifieds site, expands outside San Francisco in 2000, impacting newspaper publishers everywhere; 2. Google AdWords launched in 2000 allowing advertisers to target their customers with laser-sharp precision; 3. Wikipedia, the free open-source encyclopedia, launches in 2001 and today boasts more than 14 million articles in 271 different languages and bringing strangers together on projects; 4. Napster shutdown in 2001, opening the file-sharing floodgates; 5. Google’s IPO in 2004 put the search engine on the path to powering countless aspects of our everyday lives; 6. Online video revolution in 2006 that led to a boom in homemade and professional content on the Internet and helped reshape everything from pop culture to politics; 7. Facebook opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off in 2006; 8. The iPhone debuts in 2007 and smartphones go from a luxury item to a necessity with an app for just about every aspect of modern life; 9. U.S. presidential campaign in 2008 in which the Internet changed every facet of the way campaigns are run; 10. Iranian election protests in 2009 when Twitter proved vital in organizing demonstrations and as a protest too

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE5AI3O720091119

Dal sito francese Digital Music/Don’t Believe The Hype ecco le 10 tappe fondamentali che riassumono la rivoluzione del marketing musicale degli ultimi anni:

1.Myspace

2.CD Baby

3.Arctic Monkeys – Internet buzz

4.OK GO – Youtube

5.Napster

6.Radiohead – In Rainbows

7.Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts

8.Jill Sobule – fanziamento dai fan

9.David Byrne & Brian Eno – Top Spin

10.Amanda Palmer – marketing su Twitter

有「互聯網奧斯卡」之稱的Webby大獎，公布了近10年互聯網10大最具影響力時刻之事件，當中包括有:

2000年，Google啟動其AdWords廣告業務和於2004年Google正式上市。

2000年，分類廣告網站Craigslist突破三藩市，向全球性的發展。

2001年，檔案分享網站Napster之死。

2001年，維基百科 (Wikipedia) 的誕生。

2006年，YouTube的誕生 – “在線視頻(視頻)革命” (online video revolution)。

2006年，Facebook正式向非大學網絡用戶公開啟用兼Twitter正式誕生，社交網絡工具的暴增(Boom of Social Networking Tools)，亦代表社會媒體(Social Media)的正式誕生。

2007年，iPhone正式亮相。

2008年，互聯網在美國大選所扮演的角色 (e-Campaign) 改變美國過去 40 年電視主導的競選模式，網絡也動員大量義工、選民，網上競選經費募捐也打破紀錄。

2009年，互聯網在伊朗大選掀起了「Twitter 革命」。伊朗反對派透過 Twitter發動民眾示威，即使主流傳媒遭政府阻撓，網民仍能透過 Twitter發布示威圖片和視頻， Twitter成為主要的新聞傳播管道。

筆者相信香港的網民們對Napster和Craiglists的認識比較少，其他的不用多說了。筆者對Napster和Craiglists比較深刻，因為還記得Napster創造了眾人皆網上搜查的熱潮，最重要是Napster帶有廣告收入的原故。反而Craiglists幫了本人在大學畢業後搜尋工作的方便及不少賺取外快的收入。可惜Craiglists在香港不太流行。

Webby大獎(Webby Award)位於紐約的國際數碼藝術與科學學院，10大最具影響力事件是根據自 2000年以來獲得年度 Webby大獎的名單中選出。Webby大獎的執行董事大衛.米歇爾.戴維斯(David-Michel Davies)認為互聯網的誕生才是真正最具影響力的“十年大事”，因為互聯網的誕生經已改變了全球的商業，通訊，政治和流行文化。

Hace muy poco se entregó la lista oficial de los ganadores de los Webby 2000’s Top 10 que es algo así como un Oscar para los acontecimientos y hechos mas significativos que se han presentado en Internet en la primera década del 2000.  Así quedaron las cosas:

.Craigslist expands outside San Francisco (2000): La expansión de este portal de todo tipo de clasificados que pasó de operar en la ciudad de San Francisco a tener presencia en más de 500 ciudades alrededor del mundo y en 50 países,  marcó la base del funcionamiento de las Web como negocio y su potencial, demostrando y marcando un hito histórico en la digitalización de los medios impresos, ya que a partir de esta estructura de negocio, fueron miles de diarios y revistas los que se vieron motivados a ver la Internet como una oportunidad para ampliar y diversificar las fronteras de las empresas.

.Google AdWords launches (2000): En mi concepto uno de los logros mas excepcionales en el mundo de los medios de comunicación. Google AdWords abrió la posibilidad de hacer promoción de cualquier tipo de empresa y negocio logrando digitalizár la pauta publicitaria y trayendo consigo un modelo que trae una cantidad de ingresos que tiene hoy en día a Google como a una de las organizaciones mas poderosas del mundo. Con este practico, sencillo y útil sistema es posible elaborar campañas pulicitarias con un gran nivel de segmentación además de hacerles un seguimiento estadistico impecable, para poder medir el retorno de la inversión. 

.Google Wikipedia (2001): Gracias a dios nació Wikipedia la enciclopedia  mas completa que jamas haya existido y lo mejor gratuita y alimentada por nosotros mismos. Se socializo el conocimiento y es un excelente método de compartir, corregir y enriquecer la información por personas en todo el mundo.

.Napster Shut Down (2001): Desafortunada o afortunadamente (la verdad es depende del criterio de cada persona) se cerró este monstruo digital en donde podíamos obtener y compartir música de todo tipo. Solo era necesario hacer un clic para bajar el programa y en menos de nada ya teníamos listas interminables de canciones en nuestro ordenador. El inicio y final de este marcó un cambio en la industria de la música, se quebraron disqueras, los artistas tuvieron que cambiar su estructura de negocio ampliando sus giras y reduciendo la promoción de sus discos que cada vez los compraban menos y dejaban de ser rentables además de su principal base de ingresos.

.Google IPO (2004): El inicio de Google Maps, Android y la mayoría de las aplicaciones que Google nos ofrece para facilitarnos la vida y de las cuales muchos no podíamos prescindir, diversificando la empresa y argumentando el porque se considera a esta empresa como uno de los pilares de la innovación a nivel mundial. 

.Online video revolution (2006): Adobe’s Flash 9 video player se quedó atrás y se formó la revolución del video digital dando la oportunidad a todos los usuarios de Internet  de agilizar la reproducción de vídeos en Internet sin necesidad de descargarlos y es de allí en donde nace el monstruo YOUTUBE que no necesita de ningún tipo de presentación porque ya todos lo conocemos.

Facebook opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off (2006): existen personas que no pueden prescindir de esta red social, se pluralizo el Media Networking y millones de personas en el mundo comenzaron a compartir fotografías y comentarios a lo largo del mundo entero. Después fue adquirida por los creadores de Twitter y su creador se hizo uno de los jóvenes mas ricos del mundo.

The iPhone debuts (2007): Acá difiero y le daría este puesto a BING, pues si bien el I-Phone y Apple en general hacen constantemente un uso impecable de la plataforma de la Internet para la promoción de los productos, se podría premiar como estrategia publicitaria pero no como un acontecimiento al nivel de los antes mencionados. Me declaro fan del I-Phone y si tuviera que escoger entre los 10 productos más representativos de la historia éste desfilaría en mi lista junto a la Coca-Cola, el Ordenador, la TV y algunos otros pero no olvidemos que no estamos hablando solo de productos sino de los acontecimientos mas importantes en Internet de la primera década del 2000. 

U.S. Presidential Campaign (2008): Mensajes de texto, redes sociales, AdWords, Blogs, una Web de landing impecable fueron de gran ayuda para poder llevar a la Casa Blanca al hoy en día “Hombre más poderoso del mundo” según la lista Forbes.  Obama acumuló una votación sin precedentes en la historia de estados Unidos. Esta en particular resulta la mas inspiradora para mi, pues es en el área en donde trabajo y sustenta sin darle cabida a ningún argumento en contra, el porque todas las empresas deben contemplar entre sus planes de Marketing a la Internet.

Iranian election protests (2009): Twitter fue la plataforma en donde millones de Iranies plasmaron su decepción e inconformismo con los muy sospechosas elecciones de 2009 cautivando la atención de los medios y causando un revuelo a nivel mundial pidiendo a gritos el respeto de la democracia y la justicia.  

Ya veremos que nos trae la próxima década, tengo algunas predicciones de acontecimientos que darán mucho de que hablar sobre los cuales haré hincapié en mi siguiente articulo. 

Rafael Calle Umaña Marketing Digital 

www.rafaelcalle.com

Ecco i Webby Awards del decennio: 10 momenti fondamentali per il web degli ultimi 10 anni. Alcune delle quali sono strettamente correlate al mondo della musica.

- Craigslist expands outside San Francisco (2000)
- Google AdWords launches (2000)
- Wikipedia launches (2001)
- Napster Shut Down (2001)
- Google IPO (2004)
- Online video revolution (2006)
- Facebook opens to non-college students and Twitter takes off (2006)
- The iPhone debuts (2007)
- U.S. Presidential Campaign (2008)
- Iranian election protests (2009)

e se la prima del prossimi decennio fosse la Streaming revolution?

Los Webby Awards destacan cada año los proyectos de Internet con mejor diseño, creatividad, usabilidad y funcionalidad. Estos premios fueron creados en 1996 por la International Academy of Arts and Sciences, una organización con sede en Nueva York formada por mas de 600 líderes de la industria web, directivos, visionarios y creativos.

La próxima entrega de los Webby, que tendrá lugar en abril de 2010, quiere rendir un homenaje a la reciente historia de Internet, destacando su papel transformador en la vida ordinaria de millones de personas.

Para este reconocimiento, se ha recopilado una lista con los considerados como 10 eventos más influyentes de Internet en la última década:

• Craiglist, comienza a expandirse fuera de San Francisco (2000), empezando a comerse parte del lucrativo negocio de los anuncios clasificados de los periódicos. Hoy hay listas para más de 500 ciudades en 50 países.
• Google AdWords, es el método que utiliza Google para hacer publicidad patrocinada, cuenta con enormes cantidades de clientes con webs de todo tipo y de todas partes del mundo. Son anuncios que se muestran de forma relevante en los resultados de la búsqueda del usuario
• La Wikipedia abre, que a estas alturas contiene más de 14 millones de artículos en 271 lenguajes distintos, demostrando el poderío que puede tener un proyecto colaborativo en el que la gente crea, basado en una licencia GPL
• El cierre de Napster, el sitio que marcó la popularización del intercambio de archivos y que puso patas arriba la forma en la que obtenemos música y vídeo.
• Google entra en la Bolsa, una de las más exitosas de la historia y que puso a la empresa firmemente en el camino de convertirse en una de las más poderosas y dominantes de la década, sino en la que más.
• La revolución del vídeo streaming (2006) ayudado por la compra de YouTube por parte de Google y la ampliación del ancho de banda.
• La apertura de FaceBook a todo el mundo y la popularización de Twitter, que han cambiado el concepto de las antiguas Redes Sociales.
• La salida del primer iPhone, demostrando que la gente está más que dispuesta a utilizar un teléfono inteligente fácil de usar e inspirando el desarrollo de otras plataformas similares y de aplicaciones para casi cualquier cosa que uno pueda imaginar. Algunos estudios estiman que 1.000 millones de nuevos usuarios de Internet llegaran a esta por primera vez a través de algún
• La campaña presidencial de los Estados Unidos (2008), que demostró el poder de Internet para poner patas arriba la forma en la que se reúnen fondos o se moviliza a los votantes.
• Las protestas por las elecciones en Irán (2009) y la movilización que hizo la oposición para protestar por sus resultados a través de Twitter.

Vía| microsiervos Baquía

L’Accademia Internazionale di Scienze e Arti digitali di New York ha assegnato i Webby Awards 2009, premi per i dieci eventi che più hanno cambiato la vita digitale nell’ultimo decennio. La lista completa è visualizzabile sul sito ufficiale, tuttavia tra i vincitori ovvi ci sono Facebook (nato come sito di connessione tra studenti di college e poi ampliato a livello mondiale), la chiusura di Napster (che di fatto ha sancito una rivoluzione in fatto di file sharing e musica digitale), Wikipedia (notissima enciclopedia libera e aggiornabile da tutti) e Google AdWords (che permette agli inserzionisti di individuare clienti mirati verso i prodotti da pubblicizzare). Come è logico, comunque, in una lista di soli dieci posti per forza di cose bisogna omettere qualcuno. Io ci avrei buttato dentro l’iPod, ad esempio, anche se poi leggo che all’ottavo posto è presente l’iPhone (che in effetti, include anche la funzione iPod), e l’uso a livello mondiale del blog come forma di comunicazione fruibile da tutti (anche se si imputa la nascita dei diari on line all’anno 1997, il “verbo” to blog -bloggare- è nato nel 1999). Sono, probabilmente, liste che lasciano il tempo che trovano. In ogni caso questo tipo di premi servirà (spero) per migliorare quello che c’è stato e tirar fuori dal cilindro quello che ancora non c’è, magari segnando altri cambiamenti epocali. Spero di aver ragione ad aspettarmi nuove meraviglie. Ma magari ne riparliamo nel 2019…

“If you were a famous musician, singer or rapper, do you think downloading music is better than buying it in the stores? Is Kid Rock being serious?  Tell me why.”

Napster hat im Moment einen gratis promocode für neukunden der es ihnen erlaubt 3 monate kostenlos die Musik flatrate zu nutzen das heißt 3 Monate Musik non stop laden. Es muss allerdings in den 3 Monaten gekündigt werden was sich aber leicht direkt nach der Anmeldung erledigen lässt unter mein Konto>kontoinformationen. Der wird einfach oben rechts bei der Anmeldung eingegeben und lautet NAPA3AC

And the music labels thought that the seas of music are calmer these days? Hoping to re-napster themselves and capture licensed music in a bottle this time around, the very core of the labels music is leaking and the ship might never really leave the store. The vast majority of music revenue is generated from its catalog. It sells way more than the current fare released on itunes, etc. ENTER: The copyright monster.

E-Marketing or electronic marketing is the process of marketing a company’s brand products and services over the internet, such as through the use of search engines, digital video, banner advertisements, and many more in order to secure strong customer based relationships.

With iTunes being one of the biggest if not the biggest online digital music services provided over the internet, I imagine that when I user makes a music related search iTunes will be within the first page of the search results. In order for me to analyse the ease to which I can find the iTunes site using www.google.com, I will first search for iTunes to see exactly where it is placed within the natural search and will then carry out this process three consecutive times making different music related searches each time and will then analyse my results. The searches I will make are as follows;

• iTunes
• Music
• Buy Music Online
• Online Music

When searching ‘iTunes’ in Google, both the first and second results in the natural search, link to the www.apple.com/itunes, webpage as well as a sponsored link to the official iTunes Store down the right hand side of the search.

I then decided to make a random search simply with the word ‘music’ to see what the final results showed. iTunes appears twice in the results, it is listed 6th in the paid for results and 1st within the sponsored links section along the right hand side, however this link relates more to the iPod product side of things more than music itself. Also within this sponsored links column is a link to www.napster.co.uk which would be one of iTunes main competitors as it too provides a service whereby users can download and listen to music at a small month rate. Although iTunes is listed 6th in the natural search results it does not mean that customers will dismiss the link to the website, it just however means that potential customers may click through to other sites within the first five before hand, but on the other hand they may go straight to iTunes.

I made another search for ‘buy music online’ and again iTunes appeared 5th in the list of paid results along with others such as HMV, Amazon and Play where customers can purchase physical products such as CD’s and DVD’s that they will receive in the post shortly after payment has been made. In relation to online music players where music can be downloaded, www.mp3.com was listed within the natural results and Napster was again listed within the sponsored links area which may help to attract other music listeners if they are only willing to download and not physically purchase the music files.

Finally I searched ‘online music’ to see what results would appear relating to iTunes if any. Placed 3rd in the natural search list is one of iTunes rivals www.spotify.com which is another digital music service which gives users the access to millions of songs online, however further on down the list in 6th place is iTunes. Although Tunes is not placed higher up in the list it is important to note that users are still given the opportunity to click through to the site and use the service provided or at least see what iTunes has to offer rather than it not being placed in the list at all, as this means that iTunes are more than likely not to get a visitor hit is the option to click through is not available.

Following these searches I was curious just to see what words or phrases relating to purchasing or downloading music where iTunes may appear in the results, so I completed a few more searched and each time a link to iTunes was always available. I also made a number of searches relating to different iTunes products such as, Podcasts, Applications, Audiobooks and again a link to iTunes was always listed, proving that iTunes is an easily accessible website as a link is generally always found. Over the numerous searches I have made, iTunes is probably the most dominant digital music service as it appears over the majority of searches made providing a link to either the Apple or iTunes store, enabling immediate use.

Nel 1942 durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, la nave della marina reale inglese Fort Rough venne costruita in Inghilterra come uno dei Maunsell Sea Forts. Comprendeva una zattera galleggiante con una sovrastruttura di due torri unite da un ponte sul quale potevano essere aggiunte altre strutture. La zattera venne trainata fino al banco di sabbia Rough Sands dove venne intenzionalmente allagata così che lo scafo affondò in una posizione di riposo sul banco di sabbia. La struttura rimasta visibile sopra le onde era la sovrastruttura del vascello.

La struttura (a cui era stato dato il nome di Roughs Tower) venne occupata da 150-300 membri della marina reale per tutta la Seconda guerra mondiale; comunque dopo la guerra tutto il personale venne evacuato e l’HMS Fort Rough venne abbandonato.

Il 2 settembre 1967 il forte venne occupato da Paddy Roy Bates, un suddito britannico e pirata radio che espulse un gruppo di radio pirati concorrenti e proclamò la sovranità sulla base della sua interpretazione delle norme internazionali.

Nel 1968 Michael Bates (il figlio di Roy) venne convocato a giudizio a causa di un incidente durante il quale alcuni colpi vennero sparati da una fregata della marina inglese nella vicinanze di Sealand. Secondo alcuni rapporti gli occupanti del vascello intendevano espellere Bates dalla fortezza, mentre per altri stavano semplicemente tentando di riparare una vicina boa di navigazione. Il 25 novembre 1968 la corte affermò che, poiché l’incidente era avvenuto al di fuori delle acque territoriali inglesi, non aveva alcuna giurisdizione sull’avvenuto.

Nel 1978, mentre Roy Bates era assente, il “Primo Ministro” che aveva incaricato, il Professor Alexander G. Achenbach, e diversi cittadini dei Paesi Bassi organizzarono la cattura di Roughs Tower, trattenendo il figlio Michael come ostaggio, prima di rilasciarlo diversi giorni dopo nei Paesi Bassi.

Bates arruolò dei mercenari e con un elicottero d’assalto riprese la fortezza. Tenne quindi prigionieri gli invasori reclamandoli come prigionieri di guerra. I cittadini dei Paesi Bassi partecipanti all’invasione furono rimpatriati alla cessazione della “guerra”; in contrasto Achenbach, di cittadinanza tedesca venne accusato di “tradimento contro Sealand” ed imprigionato indefinitamente. I governi di Paesi Bassi e Germania avanzarono una petizione al governo britannico per il suo rilascio, ma la Gran Bretagna disconosce ogni responsabilità, citando la decisione della corte del 1968.

La Germania inviò allora un diplomatico a Roughs Tower per negoziare il rilascio di Achenbach e dopo diverse settimane Roy Bates cedette affermando successivamente che la visita diplomatica costituiva il riconoscimento de facto di Sealand da parte della Germania (la Germania non ha confermato questa interpretazione).

In seguito al suo rimpatrio il Professor Achenbach stabilì un “Governo in esilio” in Germania, in opposizione a quello di Roy Bates, assumendo il titolo di “Segretario del Concilio Privato”. Alle dimissioni di Achenbach per ragioni di salute nell’agosto 1989 il “Ministro per la Cooperazione Economica” del governo ribelle, Johannes Seiger, assunse il controllo con la posizione di “Primo Ministro e Segretario del Concilio Privato”. Seiger continua ad affermare di essere l’autorità legittima di governo di Sealand.

Per un certo periodo, Sealand produsse in massa finti passaporti e li vendette (principalmente nell’Europa dell’est) mediante un gruppo spagnolo ritenuto associato con il “governo in esilio” di Seiger. Questi passaporti che non erano stati autorizzati dalla famiglia Bates, furono coinvolti in molti crimini di alto profilo, incluso l’omicidio di Gianni Versace. A causa della quantità massiccia in circolazione (stimata in circa 150.000 unità), nel 1997 la famiglia Bates revocò tutti i passaporti di Sealand che avevano essi stessi “emesso” nei precedenti trenta anni.

Tra la fine del secondo millennio e gli inizi del terzo, Sealand si fece conoscere da molti appassionati di informatica, proponendosi dapprima di ospitare siti web ritenuti di dubbia legalità nei paesi di origine, poi offrendo asilo a Napster.

(http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principato_di_Sealand)

Es gibt wieder einen 90 Tage Napster-Gutschein.

Somit könnt ihr 3 Monate lang so viel Musik hören wie ihr möchtet.

Allerdings ist die Musik mit DRM-Schutz versehen.

Kündigen könnt ihr ganz einfach im Account : Einfach auf “Mein Konto kündigen” klicken – Fertig

1. Auf diese Webseite gehen
2. Den Gutscheincode
3. Musik genießen
4. Kündigen nicht vergessen!

Intellectual property can be defined as the legal ownership of human creations, wether it be literature, art, music, ideas, inventions, etc., typically through the protection of assets such as copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, and trade secrets. Without Intellectual Property, a creation could be stolen, reproduced, and profit someone who doesn’t deserve it. As a designer, I recognize how important intellectual property is, especially for those who create for a living, to ensure proper credit and earnings are received. But does it always ensure unauthorized use? The matter isn’t completely cut and dry;  there is a lot of gray area.

In 1999, after becoming frustrated at the difficulty of finding and downloading music on the internet, 18 year old Shawn Fanning developed a software that allowed users to share and swap files. Soon, many university students were using this program called Napster to obtain and share music files, and it was all free. The number of people using this peer-to-peer distribution system multiplied exponentially in a very short period of time. Not only did this damage the music industry, it transformed the way music would be distributed forever.

In 2000, heavy metal rock band Metallica sued Napster for copyright infringements, unlawful use of digital audio interface device, and Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) after they discovered their song “I Disappear” was being distributed across the server before it had even been released. Their consent had not been given for the duplication and distribution of their music. Several recording companies also sued Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringement. Napster argued that the Fair Use Act allows owners of cds to do what they want with them. Napster also said no royalties were owed because no profit was made off the software. Despite these defenses, Napster was ordered by court to block any material that would violate copyright. Because the scope of Napster had grown far too big, this could not be accomplished, so it was shut down in 2001. Bankruptcy was declared in 2002 and the company’s assets were sold.

Being a designer and knowing how I would feel if my designs were stolen, I value copyright and the other intangible assets that protect my innovations. Many people must survive financially off of their creations. Creators deserve the rights, recognition, and fortune of their hard work. The fact that Fanning devised Napster specifically to more easily find and download music is a bit damning; there was immediate intent of acquiring and sharing copyrighted material. As an avid thrift shopper, I was thinking about donated cds and other copyrighted material I see on Goodwill’s shelves. I have donated many cds that I had saved in my iTunes library and on my iPod. When someone buys that cd, no royalties are being received by the artist, so is it really that different? Like I said, artists deserve credit for the fruits of their labor, but I also feel like as a consumer, if I spend my money on something I should be able to do what I want with it as long as I am not making a profit, and Napster made no earnings. It is a fine line to walk. That being said, I can completely understand being upset as a musical artist, being unable to control my music.

IP is a very relevant issue in the graphic design world. In 2005, a major layout software used in graphic design called Quark unveiled a new logo. Immediately, critics started accusing Quark of theft because of its very close similarity to the Scottish Arts Council’s logo. Though Quark defended their design and stated they had no knowledge of the Scottish Arts Council or their design, they released another new logo in 2006 after much disapproval from the graphic design community.

This is an interesting article about Intellectual Property and “Why Napster is Right”:

Other Resources:

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35670

http://law.freeadvice.com/intellectual_property/copyright_law/napster.htm

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2001/0409kearns.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/10/04/napster_will_live_or_die/

http://www.creativepro.com/article/a-new-new-logo-quark

I like listening to music. But I would rather hear the neighbor on his porch belting out a tune for free than pay two cents to hear one of these overpriced feces pieces rehash one of their “hits”. There is some commercial on the radio talking about “stealing music”. WHAT? If this is the Dixie Chicks only contribution to society, no thank you. Send them back to the car wash where they can do some good.

Once I buy this crap it’s mine to do with as I please. If I want to copy it and give it to my friend, I will. That’s the nature of the business.They are over paid to begin with and then they take their ill-gotten gains and promote socialism. What the heck has Bono done to improve the world really? Napster, YouTube all of them are great.  When these clowns used to get two hundred dollars a show that was about right. They aren’t anything special in spite of what they think.

You look back at the Motown hits. Most of thase guys got a couple of hundred dollars and that was it. No royalties, no rights. Why do you think Chuck Berry is still touring? That’s the way it should be. These people are making little or no contribution to society. I don’t care what they tell you. We need to start paying them what they are worth.

The RIAA has never answered questions about the numbers it used to pervert the judicial process and file suits against individuals. This story, written by former colleague Erin James, still holds value today, even though the iTunes Music Store wasn’t launched until June, 2003.

Vedad Krehic on ‘intellectual property’ at LewRockwell.com (LRC): How copyright has turned the record labels, software writers and film studios against their own customers.

by Vedad Krehic

9 Nov 09 | LRC

The consumer entertainment industry lobbyists lie. They lie over, and over, and over. They lie to the media, they lie to the politicians, they lie to you. The lies in question are rarely looked upon critically by the media or the politicians, only by grassroots opposition. The main lies involved are all variations on the same theme; copying equals theft. That is to say, if you copy a piece of data – be it a software program, a song, a movie, a book, that makes you a thief. You’re depriving the producer of that work of money which they supposedly have a right to.

I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t “educated” well enough in government schools, but no matter how I twist and turn my logic, I still fail to see how this even remotely makes sense. If I walk into a store and leave with a jacket for which I have not paid then I have deprived the store’s owner of his or her justly acquired, tangible property. They have one less jacket. They are directly harmed by my action.

If a friend, however, lends me a music CD and if I then make a copy, so that I can listen to the music without having to borrow the disc again in the future, nobody is harmed. It is possible that I could, for example, have made an agreement or contract with him when I borrowed the disc stating that I cannot copy it. If I were to do it anyway, I’d be in violation of a private agreement. If not, who is harmed by my act of duplication? I used my own tangible property (CD drive, computer, and hard drive or blank CD) to fashion a duplicate of the data on the CD. The original CD is still my friend’s property. I return it to him, and while he is no better or worse off than he was before, I am now better off. The imprint of the music on my tangible property makes that property marginally worth more to me, as I can enjoy its use to a greater extent than previously.

Was anyone harmed at any point here?

Yes—if you choose to believe the consumer entertainment industry. They claim there was a third party here that was being harmed. Can you see the third party? There was me, and there was my friend. There was my property and that of my friend. I don’t see the third party anywhere in that process. I suppose my friend could have been in a contract with the person or organization he purchased the CD from not to copy it, but I wouldn’t have been bound by that contract. Either way, I did nothing wrong.

So who is this mysterious third party? At which point does he appear, and how is he harmed?

The third party is the copyright holder. Wait, the what-holder? What’s a copyright holder? Where does he come into play?

Well, let me explain. You see, there’s this notion advocated by some—primarily media lobbyists, objectivists and government officials—of an intellectual property (I.P.). What is an intellectual property, you may ask? Well, the gist of it is that if you do anything that requires a bit of work with the big, roundish object mounted on top of your neck, you have a time-limited monopoly on that action if you’re the first person to do it.

Not understandable? Let me enlighten you, dear reader, with some examples.

Let’s say you are the first to invent a new type of screwdriver. According to the theory of I.P., if you register it with a patent office, for all intents and purposes you now own that idea. You own it for a limited amount of time (20 years), after which the ownership magically vanishes. How can you own the idea, you might ask? Well, according to I.P., that means that nobody else can legally manufacture the same type of screwdriver for the duration of the ownership. Or, to put it in clearer terms, nobody has a right to compete with you. You have a monopoly. The same applies for all other sub-categories of I.P., including copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, and so on; but this article is intended to focus mainly on copyright. For an extended discourse and refutation of the other ones, as well as a more in-depth take on copyright, I recommend to the reader Stephan Kinsella’s brilliant essay, “Against Intellectual Property” [.pdf]

Copyright follows the same logic as the screwdriver inventor. It posits that the act of making a “creative” work—such as writing a book, composing a song, painting a picture, taking a photo and so on—creates a different type of property on top of the tangible property that already exists in that item. Follow me, dear readers, if you can, through the logic. Let’s use a painting as an example. The painting consists of a canvas and some paint. That’s the tangible property. That’s what the painting’s owner owns. But, according to the theory of I.P., there is (assuming the painting hasn’t been placed into the public domain or had its copyright expire) another owner, as well. The painter, or whomever he might have signed over the copyright to the painting.

You see, the owner of the painting can do anything he wants with it (within the bounds of the non-aggression axiom). He can throw rancid tomatoes at it, he can hang it upside down, he can embed a block of wood straight through the middle of it. It’s his or her right as the owner. He may not, however, legally duplicate the pattern of paint on the canvas. There is an existing moral prohibition against duplicating it and then selling those duplicates as the original—it’s called fraud. There is no such moral prohibition against merely duplicating it, or, for that matter, duplicating it with the intention of selling the duplicates (assuming one doesn’t claim they are original). The reason he may not duplicate it is that the “creator,” the copyright holder, doesn’t allow it. Granted, there are some exceptions, such Creative Commons or other copyleft licenses which explicitly grant the right to copy within the framework of copyright law. Nevertheless, unless otherwise stated by the copyright holder, the legal assumption is that unauthorized duplication is not permitted.

Can anyone please explain to me how someone can be a just owner of something, yet not be allowed to exercise his or her ownership rights over it? He can throw rancid tomatoes at the painting, but not duplicate the pattern that makes the painting a painting, rather than just canvas and paint? Or, to use a different type of copyrightable pattern, how can someone own their own brain yet not own the part of it containing a song they memorized?

The logical conclusion is that the natural right of property and the idea of copyright, and of intellectual property in general, are fundamentally incompatible and conflict sharply. You cannot own something and have someone else dictate to you what you can and cannot do with it, without that being an element voluntarily arrived at through contract. In absence of a contract, the dictating party is initiating aggression against the just owner of an item. Intellectual property is an assault on tangible property.

What we’re looking at is protectionism in disguise—government giving preferential treatment to one specific industry at the expense of the rest of society. Now, let’s go back to the copyright holder, the mysterious third party who was hurt by me copying the CD’s contents. What I’ve done by copying my friend’s CD is violate a government-imposed monopoly on copying the CD’s contents, the monopoly belonging to the copyright holder. Hence, according to the idea of intellectual property, I’m a thief. I’ve had the audacity to compete with the beneficiary of the monopoly. That is the sense in which I’ve supposedly hurt a third party.

Let’s take a quick look at the current “copyright wars” being waged, in light of the above description of copyright. The music industry in particular and the broader copyright-dependent entertainment industries in general are in decline. Their profit margins are going down, and they don’t like it. The consumers aren’t as pleased with their products as they once were. The seemingly rational course of action for the industry is to look into why consumers aren’t pleased with their products, see what they can do better, innovate, and drop their prices to increase demand. What do the industries (by which I mean the members of the IFPI and MPA) do, however?

None of the above.

In fact, not only are they unwilling to innovate, they have gone to the extreme of starting to sue their own potential and real customers—with the number of lawsuits now over being over 20,000. I’m not a business major, but I’m pretty damn sure that’s not a good way to gain favour with your customers. In their view, every copy made is a lost sale; each person who makes a copy—and a download from a file-sharing network is a copy—must equal a lost sale. Because I’m sure you’ve all gone and bought every single song or movie you’ve heard or seen at a friend’s place, on the radio, on TV, and so on. Let’s cut the crap, okay?

There are many theories on why the entertainment industries’ profits are going down the drain. My own personal favourites are as follows:

1. Lack of innovation and fear of technology. The industries have always been afraid of new technology. The radio, the player-piano, the phonograph, the VCR, cassette tapes etc. were seen as threats by the industry, which responded by attempting to restrict sales and ownership. They’re notoriously skeptical towards new technology, and will bend over backwards to prevent it from becoming commonplace. They’re unwilling to experiment and find new ways to fulfill customer demand. Apple practically had to force iTunes onto the market, the record labels weren’t willing to go along with it at first. They weren’t willing to only sell individual songs, they wanted whole albums sold.One glaring example of the entertainment industries’ fear of technology was ex-MPAA president Jack Valenti’s 1982 statement to a U.S. Congressional panel:

   “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”

   As we all know, VCRs went on to become one of the biggest profit sources for Hollywood in history, and now we have DVDs and Blu-Ray discs filling the VCR’s role.

2. Appealing to the lowest common denominator. This applies both to movies and music, but in my opinion, especially music. With their tight working relationship with radio and MTV-like TV channels, the IFPI members of the music industry have, until the last decade, had a virtual choke hold on customers. The radio and TV was the way new music was promoted and exposed to the customer. This is why a good portion of the popular music available today (which, of course, is a subjective opinion—but one many people would echo) is of dubious quality. Need I mention anything more than Britney Spears? The control they once had is now eroding. This is, I believe, one of the core reasons behind their stubborn unwillingness to embrace new technology, and especially the Internet: they give consumers more choice.Movies and news media, of course, aren’t exempt. Every year, Hollywood cranks out hundreds of movies, on which only a handful are truly worth spending one’s finite time. Who truly needs to see movies like Brüno? I mean, okay, it’s mildly humorous. But it’s far from intelligent.

   Here is an article by Michael Crichton discussing the quality of the media, with emphasis on news media in particular. While that isn’t directly what this article is discussing, its observations can be applied to that of the entertainment media as well.

3. Treating the customer like a criminal. You walk into a cinema, buy a ticket, sit down and wait for the movie to start. Then you see this.Doesn’t give you the impression that they like or trust their customers a whole lot, does it?

   But that’s just the beginning of it. The entertainment industries lobby politicians to strengthen and lengthen and broaden the scope of copyright laws. When last I checked, copyright in the U.S. lasts for life + 70 years. Who can claim that a musician should still have a monopoly on his or her works 70 years after they die?

   Furthermore, they lobby for laws like the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), which, among other things, further erodes property rights in that it makes reverse engineering DRM systems illegal. What’s DRM, you ask? DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. Restrictions might be a more apt term than rights. DRM is, in short, copy protection technology. It’s there on your DVDs, your Blu-Ray discs, your Audible audiobooks, and unfortunately many other places also. Sure, one could have DRM without copyright, but it wouldn’t make much sense to do so. DRM makes it difficult, but not impossible, to make copies of the contents of a medium such as a DVD. It’s a failed attempt by the copyright industries to use technology to prevent the use of other technology.

   The results of using DRM have been mainly preventing non-tech-savvy users from making backups of their own discs (as tech-savvy users can figure out ways to copy them anyway) and to introduce unnecessary inconvenience to the customer. Here are a few examples.

4. The entertainment industries’ crusade against file sharing. A truly stillborn, yet relentlessly continued policy. This harks back to #1 & #3, but deserves a mention of its own. File sharing, which is to say, people sharing media content in the form of digital files such as MP3s, has had a history dating back to the beginning of the digital computer age, but in its current, Internet based incarnation dates back only a decade. It started with Shawn Fanning releasing Napster in 1999. There were a few file-sharing networks prior to Napster, such as HotLine and Audiogalaxy, but Napster is the first one that got real traction. Millions of users copying music files from each other via the Internet. The music industry freaked.

They had Napster shut down. Due to its centralized nature, it was a simple case of shutting down the central coordinating server. Since then, file sharing has been a whack-a-mole game with the entertainment industries’ lawyers and paid politicians constantly trying to shut down various file-sharing networks, and new ones—more decentralized, anonymized and secure—popping up to fill their place. And with every blow, they make file sharing an even stronger movement. This isn’t just me being dramatic, it’s a simple fact. They give it publicity. For example, ThePirateBay, a Swedish BitTorrent (a popular file-sharing technology) tracker and search engine, was attempted to be shut down multiple times by various governments, as well as many national government attempting to ban Internet providers in their respective countries from allowing their users to access the site. Every single attempt has been met with ridicule, and ThePirateBay’s user base grew exponentially as a result of the publicity. The previous owners of ThePirateBay are now on trial for promoting copyright infringement. More on ThePirateBay’s legal saga.

All of these elements combine to form a highly unfavourable impression of the copyright industry in consumers’ eyes. Technology is making traditional entertainment industry business models obsolete. Instead of innovating, the industries are using the hammer of government to force their customers to comply with 1970s business models—and now those customers are rebelling. As a result, the measures applied by governments to coerce them just keep getting more and more draconian. The ACTA, or Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, an international copyright treaty which is being negotiated in secrecy, is just the latest in a series of totalitarian treaties promoted by the copyright-dependent entertainment industries.

That treaty, if passed, would mark the death of the Internet as we know it; pretty much every single website and service with user-uploaded content would be forced out of business by the sheer cost of compliance. Bye-bye YouTube, Flickr, Google Book Search, digg, Wikipedia, etc.

We can’t let this insanity go on any longer – eliminate imaginary property!

[Thanks for editorial help from John T.]

Vedad Krehic is a student studying digital media production in Norway. Send him mail.

RELATED:

• Intellectual Property — A Libertarian Critique
• Stephan Kinsella on ‘Intellectual Property’ and Libertarianism (mp3)
• Should You Give Away Your Precious IP?
• Copyright Communism?
• IP: It’s a Market Failure Argument
• The Mercantilism of Our Time
• Monopoly Kills Creativity