boycott-riaa.com - Article: Lar$ Urich and Dr. Dre at it Again

Lar$ Urich and Dr. Dre at it Again

Posted by Heidi Chambers on September 11, 2000 at 10:41 PM (printer friendly)

Our good friends Lar$ Ulrich and Dr. Dre are at it again. This time their latest anti-Napster attempts include appealing to colleges and universities to block student access to Napster. I guess it isn't enough for the two musicians that it was recently found by the Gartner Group that Napster has already been banned at 34% of the nation's colleges and universities.

Last week Metallica attorneys sent letters to eleven schools asking them to restrict students' access to Napster. Howard E. King, who represents both Metallica and Dr. Dre, asked the schools to respond with their decision on the matter by September 22.

In the letter King asks school administrators, "to promptly ban access by your community to Napster. Even without the threat of litigation from artists and other copyright owners, I believe that you can easily recognize the irony of encouraging your students to matriculate in the creative arts, while engaging in behavior which, if unchecked, will make it impossible for those students to earn an income from their future creative efforts."

Here is a list of some of the schools receiving letters from the ant-Napster camp: Stanford University, Boston University, Princeton University, the University Of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University Of California at Berkeley, the University Of California at Los Angeles, the University Of Virginia, and the Georgia Institute Of Technology.

User Comments (These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)


pressf8	Date: September 11, 2000 @ 10:54 PM This is so dumb--they're trying to intimidate schools because they know they don't want a law suit. Why don't they just sue AOL? They provide access to Napster too don't they? Oh wait--AOL has the money to bitch slap them for suggesting such a ridiculous thing. I like what one schools sysAdmin had to say about it after they turned Napster back on (I think at Indiana, don't remember)--he said that they have to keep in mind that students live here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the internet and everything that comes with it has become a big source of recreation for them and we don't want to deny them that. And I think this is a smart man. My school hasn't banned it, but you can be sure that if they do I'll be at the next technology commitee meeting reminding them that they're pansies. I don't even use napster any more, its just the principle of the thing... Brian http://www.screwmetallica.org

Anonymous	Date: September 12, 2000 @ 7:41 AM I don't understand how this lawsuit is going anywhere. Napster does not provide the music that is downloaded just a way to do it. This whole thing is ridiculous. I think this actually helps the music industry it gives people a chance to listen to the music beofre they go out and waste their money on some crappy Metalica album. As if they don't make enough money as it is now they want more form Napster, and they want to sue the school's I find it hard to believe this lawsuit has made it this far it is so unfounded. I think everyone should sue the damn people against it for all of the time and money they have wasted of the Governments paying people to listen to this damn case.

milladrive	Date: September 12, 2000 @ 1:50 PM First of all, isn't saying, "...without the threat of litigation...," a threat of litigation? Second, this is the closest either Lar$ Ultrari�h or Andre Young (I don't respect him enough to refer to him as he wishes) are ever gonna get to these schools, or any schools for that matter. Can you imagine these two scholars even writing letters without their edumacated mouthpieces? Hell, Andre probably changed his name to something simpler because he couldn't _spell_ his real name. Burton doesn't realize just how lucky he is. Thankfully, I've never cared for either of their work, but it's good to see that these guys have remained fiercely loyal to the communities they were talented and lucky enough to rise above, just so they could secure countless more sales from college students around the globe w/this little maneuver. 'Tsa proud, proud day. ;)

Anonymous	Date: September 12, 2000 @ 2:48 PM THIS IS A QUOTE FROM ANOTHER USER: Originally posted by azxcvbnm123: You people make me laugh because you're all hypocrites. Hell, I use Napster but at least I admit that I'm stealing.How are these artists supposed to make money if you just take and don't give back? And don't give me that bull that you'll buy the album once you get the free stuff from Napster. I don't know about you, but I'm not in the habit of buying something I already own. NOW some time for Reallity!!!!!! I don't know about you but everytime I replace one of my cassette tapes for a cd and spend $16 I think I am already buying something I Own. I never saw a warning label on the 1000 cassette tapes I have that says they will go to shit in 15 years. Where is the artist and music industry to support us now. Their answer is to go out and spend money to buy something we have already paid for. When I bought cassettes, I paid a $1 for the cassete and $10 for WHAT WAS ON IT. Since I already own what was is on it, why wont they sell me the cd $1. I own 100 cd's that I have upgraded from casettes because they went bad. That's $1600 spent. You never see the old stuff discounted in the store, right. Are any of the artists crying for us or are they calling their managers to get the same old stuff re-released on CD. Are the record lables giving back their cut to lower the price. No body is innocent. If you use the service so you don't have to buy the album you are stealing. If you use it to sample an album before buying, napster has done the artist a great service by promoting that product. If you use it to get better recordings of albums you already own who's to say. I guess it's up to who you ask. The person who spent $11 for the tape 10 years ago or the artist who wants to resell the same stuff in a different package.I got about 3 metallica tapes.

Anonymous	Date: September 12, 2000 @ 3:36 PM dude, why dont you give us YOUR thoughts, not somebody else's? and perhaps if that 123 guy had spent a little more for the cd in the first place, he wouldnt have had to replace those pesky storage units.

Chad	Date: September 12, 2000 @ 8:46 PM Hahaha.. AOL has the money to bitch slap them for suggesting such a ridiculous thing... hahahah. That made my day.

Greggg	Date: September 13, 2000 @ 9:09 AM I've wondered whether downloading MP3s of songs I already have on vinyl albums is "more legal" in the eyes of the industry. I own about 400 vinyl albums and also a ton of CDs and cassettes -- increasing all the time. I would really like to get all this stuff on MP3. Eventually I would like it stored all on one home MP3 player that I have yet to buy. (I haven't seen any product yet that has the features I need. The ReQuest product comes close, but it's $800.) Ripping stuff from vinyl and cleaning it up takes a lot of time. My albums are in really good shape, so not a whole lot of clean up would be necessary, but still, it's time consuming. To rip all of my 300 albums and 125 '45 singles would take forever. So would grabbing these songs (or at least most of them) from the Internet be acceptable in the eyes of the law? To argue the point: 1. I know that the MP3s found on Napster are generally ripped from CDs. But they are also generally in the 128-160 bitrate range. Is this better sound quality than my vinyl? I'm not sure. I think it's worse, actually. Vinyl, being analog, captures every nuance. Even CDs downgrade this a little, just by the nature of being digital. Sony MDs do it further, and MP3s downgrade even further than that. So I don't think the 128K bitrate MP3 I download is actually up to par with my vinyl. 2. If I rip the stuff myself, I can rip it at a 192, 256 or even 320 bitrate, for better quality. I can MAKE an MP3 that sounds a lot better than the ones I would download from Napster or whatever. The only factor that gets in the way is that the process is time-consuming, and I don't have a lot of time to spend on this. So, downloading the songs from the Net just ends up being a time saver. The recording industry would probably say that if I should buy all of my vinyl albums in CD format if I want better copies of them. But, like I said, I don't want to necessarily own better-quality recordings of my vinyl stuff. All I want to do is get them on MP3 so that I don't have to mess around with a bunch of bulky vinyl records. I can relegate all of them to the garage. So if I get them on MP3 (usually 128 or 160 bitrate), that sound quality is WORSE than both my original vinyl AND a CD. So, as far as the recording industry is concerned, I'm not sure what the problem would be here. I remember when Sony's MD (minidisc) first came out, and all of the criticism that was heaped on it because it crammed the same amount of music as a CD, on a little COMPRESSED disc. Since the music was compressed, the sound quality degraded, and the magazine reviewers were all panning that. Enter MP3s, which have an even MORE lossy compression scheme. And now, it seems that all the media is calling MP3s "CD-quality." I think the change comes in the fact that you can get the stuff for free. If you can get the songs for free, then MP3s become "close enough." People don't mind the compression anymore. What do you think the legal implications would be of someone doing what I described -- just downloading MP3s of stuff that is already owned, in order to have the music in a more convenient format than vinyl?

PaladinGord	Date: September 13, 2000 @ 2:11 PM Dr. Dre and thoes peeps make no sence. I like napster. I buy cd's. (no dre cd's, im a classic rock man) They go for the universities but what they don't realise is that is gonna take a hella long time and a lot of napster users don't go to university. If i were in university, i'd just say screw it and go to like a public library or something. Dre makes enough money... hell he may even be able to retire now! If not, he shure has the popularity to make enough money hella fast. Dre won't die at the hands of Napster, will he? I thought not. Hell, ain't that a bit greedy? $20 for a music CD? Don't tell me Dre is barely scraping by.

PaladinGord	Date: September 13, 2000 @ 2:15 PM Law says that if it makes me happy to give something away of mine, i can. Right? I give music to napster, and in the end its a barter (trade) for a bunch of other music. 5 Gig of my hard drive is shared with napster and i'v downloaded about 25 songs. I think i ain't ripping anyone off.

milladrive	Date: September 13, 2000 @ 2:47 PM I think if the industry had its druthers, they'd have you pay them for EVERY single copy you acquire, regardless of how many times you purchased the same recordings previously. You raise some very interesting quality issues concerning .mp3 vs vinyl. I think there are way too many factors involved to make a general statement of any kind. I have some vinyl tracks that sound better (warmer) than some 256kBit mp3's, and some 128kBit mp3's that sound way better than some old crickety grooves [I have about 3,000 lp's, 600 45's, 100 78's, a dozen cylanders, and 700 factory-pressed cd's; many of the cd's duplicate the vinyl]. For most people, I think that just getting rid of the pops and crackles is enough to consider .mp3 adequate. And you're right, the less expensive it is, the more acceptable the quality. :)

Anonymous	Date: September 20, 2000 @ 4:13 PM I have recently downloaded napster, and i must say that it has saved me a good $50 on crappy cd's. i haved previewed songs from several cd's i was thinking of purchasing, and thanks to napster, i didnt waste my money on some of the crappy cd's.

Anonymous	Date: October 10, 2000 @ 8:41 PM Fer God's sake, you people DON'T GET IT! You think that you're entitled to free music??? That's the savage BS. The artists may not NEED the money, but they did spend years of living penilessly to be able to bring the music to you. And now you're assuming that you don't owe them a little loyalty and courtesy- that they owe YOU free music?!? YOU are the sell-outs, people. You are the ones betraying the people you said you were there for!