Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Get the popcorn.
New blockchain-based music streaming service Audius is a copyright nightmare
New startup Audius says its blockchain-based music streaming service is the solution that finally pays attention to indie artists' needs. It's also full of pirated material.
Audius' website says "music platforms were at their best when they listened to what artists and fans wanted - not corporations or major labels" and that uploaded tracks can "never be censored or removed." TechCrunch called Audius' blockchain move its "secret sauce," while Yahoo finance said it is "adequately addressing the most pressing needs within the industry." But one of the most pressing problems in music right now is copyright. Audius contains infringing material — such as an unlicensed version of Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea's "Problem" — that, if its promotional materials are right, the company cannot remove.
[...] "They say 'We don't have the ability to deplatform you or censor you.' What I hear when I read that is, 'It's going to be real difficult for us to take down anything that you put up,'" says Kevin Casini, a professor of entertainment law at the Quinnipiac School of Law in Connecticut. "They're trying to speak as if they're talking to people who are afraid of this bogeyman intermediary. And they're also saying, 'Hey, this is a new spot where you can, at least for a brief amount of time, upload something, and we're not going to look at it and see what it is.' It seems that they know this is something that is going to happen quickly for them, and they're signaling and advertising to the people that actually know what they're saying, which is: 'You can come here and do it.'"
[...] But the problem is, all of the things Audius says it's solving with the blockchain — a more direct line between fans and artists, discovery, self-monetizing — can be done without the blockchain. In fact, this is being done without the blockchain on Bandcamp and Patreon, among others.
[...] "On the surface, a lot of people think, 'blockchain is perfect for this,'" says Jack Spallone, senior product manager at ConsenSys. "Not quite. If [the music industry] could use Excel really well, it might not even be an issue."
Audius is trying to avoid SoundCloud's copyright issues by not hosting the user-uploaded content itself. Its open-source protocol, built on blockchain, means that the responsibility of hosting and making uploaded content available is spread out among people who register as node operators. They say this method should protect them from liability and the claws of major labels. This is actually an open question. Copying and distribution initiated by the user but carried out by a system has insulated some companies in the past, but it has not been a sufficient argument for others.
[...] Whether this business model holds up in court or not, lawsuits from major publishers or labels could easily wipe out Audius' capital. And if you're buried with lawsuits, you have no money for anything else. It remains to be seen how labels and other rights holders will react to Audius, which has, in a short time, become saturated with infringing material.
[...] Even if Audius isn't directly liable for infringement, it can still be held secondarily liable if a court finds it promotes "its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement."
Experts are skeptical about whether being on the blockchain is enough to protect Audius from washing their hands of bad actors. Historically, services like Grokster used similar arguments. After all, Grokster didn't host any material; it only allowed the means for people to share files with each other. But it lost that fight in the Supreme Court, and it shut down in 2005. "That's what all the early peer to peer services said too and it didn't super work out for them," says John Bergmayer, legal director at Public Knowledge.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:34PM (7 children)
What they need is a quantum blockchain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:44PM (2 children)
What happens if you put a blockchain on a blockchain?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:49PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday October 14 2019, @01:32AM
Yo, dawg...
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:31PM
with entropy reversal demodulation protection mechanisms...
/s
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RamiK on Saturday October 12 2019, @06:00PM (2 children)
It's not just buzz. Just recently the guy running https://torrent-paradise.ml/ [torrent-paradise.ml] forgot to renew [github.com] their domain subscription or something but since the whole thing was on IPFS, it's still reachable via cloudflare's direct copy [cloudflare-ipfs.com] and those of us that pinned it via a cron job ( "ipfs pin add /ipns/12D3KooWB3GY1u6zMLqnf3MJ8zhX3SS1oBj7VXk3xp6sJJiFGZXp" ) can find it under http://localhost:8080/ipns/12D3KooWB3GY1u6zMLqnf3MJ8zhX3SS1oBj7VXk3xp6sJJiFGZXp/ [localhost] and it gets shared around as is until the guy with the key decides to update it.
To take it down, you'd need to take the whole network down - despite having many legitimate users - or start to whac-a-mole each IP with a takedown notice like with the bittorrent magnets it provides.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday October 14 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)
ipfs is awesome, but it is not blockchain... the term blockchain is truly a buzzword nowadays. Either the folks using it don't know what they're talking or does but shoe-horn it into a blockchain solution regardless just so they can ride the buzz.
A lot of the solution you see with blockchains can be solved by the various tech that it comprises of. A DHT have been used in BTs for a while now, but you don't see folks market it as BT because of the stigma, they just call it blockchain. Some folks starts with blockchain then go about turning off, or worse bastardize, the bits you don't need like proof-of-work or even the conceptual bits like a self incentivizing market place and call the end turd a blockchain.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday October 15 2019, @03:50PM
Well, sure there's no proof of work, but in this case where the whole agenda is to look for torrents... Right?
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:41PM (3 children)
moans.mp3
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:43PM (2 children)
trump.flac
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:27PM (1 child)
No log or checksum, and it's clearly a fake lossy upscaled transcode pretending to be lossless accordingly to the spectrals, so I'm trumping your trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:54PM
Once you go flac you never go back.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:26PM (2 children)
Let's just hope silently no one gets the idea about similar proliferation of some secret weapons construction schematics, designs of copyrighted CPUs, or, unspeakably horrible, some forbidden political books!
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:40AM (1 child)
Someone will upload thousands of rick-rolls...and they'll be there FOREVER!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zion-fueled on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:43AM
Someone will upload CP and the whole thing will come down.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:29PM (30 children)
An indelible internet. Most excellent. Make it unblockable, and watch the tyrants weep.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @07:44PM
no shit. fuck the "music industry"/parasites.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday October 12 2019, @07:50PM (28 children)
Either way you're out of business. Why? Because blockchain turned out to be your weak point - you can't alter previous records in the chain. Stupid is as stupid does. Just another business model based on buzzword bingo.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:08PM (6 children)
Site gets a court order to either take down the infringing content or the host will be ordered to close the entire site
Yeah, the problem is still the centralized nature of the business and the internet, makes the takedowns and lawsuits just too easy.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:09AM (5 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:22AM (3 children)
Where are you going to get your 128 GB of pirated files? A friend? Will the friend use P2P?
Is your advice for music or more broad? I guess someone could get a huge 100+ GB dump of music and not want any more for years. A little sooner if it's FLAC.
http://jango-raid.tk/ [jango-raid.tk]
It's possible to get loads of content these days without downloading it.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:40AM (2 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by zion-fueled on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:53AM (1 child)
The point of a big network is to get rare things as well. You don't get that with a one size fits all collection among a couple friends. Of course researchers with terabytes of boring data are going to ship it to each other. There's no taste involved.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:58AM
Untrue. Researchers like the taste of black holes. [vice.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:35AM
p2p still has problems
Well yeah, p2p is only p2p on an ad hoc network. It doesn't work in the current kludgy client/server setup.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:33PM (20 children)
The state can't just open (or in this case, burn) a whole mail room full of parcels if they can't find the one letter they got a warrant to open / destroy. Any one of the other users can sue for violating their freedom of speech or whatever and win easily.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:00AM (19 children)
There's no freedom of speech issues that when you are the conduit of illegal content.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:28AM (18 children)
Sure there are; it's just that our government ignores the "shall make no law" portion of the first amendment entirely.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:43AM (17 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by zion-fueled on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:55AM
Think "hate speech" is still good there and defamation/harassment have to be proved in court. Someone's copyrighted work is a much easier battle.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @01:20AM (1 child)
In utter defiance of the Constitution, mind you. The First Amendment only has such limitations in the eyes of the courts, which are the very same courts that approved of Japanese internment camps and other atrocities. They can be wrong, and here, they are wrong. "No law" means no law. It can't be more clear than that. If someone doesn't want that to be the case, the proper procedure is to amend the Constitution.
Even under the US's insane legal system, hate speech is not a thing.
That used to be the case, but we have the 14th amendment.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @01:04PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:30AM (2 children)
Speech is speech, content is irrelevant, being "wrong as a matter of law" is why we need technology to defeat the censors. Society is inadequate to protect our rights.
Anyway, any judge who intentionally misreads "no law" should be removed from the bench immediately.
*sigh* It's such a stupid thing to argue over. Hopefully somebody develops the technology the can render the issue moot and shut the tyrants down.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @01:01PM (1 child)
To people who live in a country where only the federal government can make criminal laws it seems strange, but that's the way it is in the USA.
Has nothing to do with judges misinterpreting anything - the system was set up that way. It's why individual states can pass gun control laws, have different rules for murder cases man slaughter vs criminal negligence , etc . It's also why lawyers need to be licensed separately in each state they practice law in - the laws very by state.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday October 13 2019, @04:50PM
The judges are not important to me on the matter of censorship. I can't do anything about their corruption. It makes all arguments about law absolutely meaningless. All they do is breed disrespect. Only technology (p2p, ad hoc mesh networks not tethered to the ISP, working encryption, etc) can overrule them and all others who believes that censorship is a good thing. We have to *terminate their command*
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @04:56AM (10 children)
However, The Fourteenth Amendment [wikipedia.org] says otherwise, and applies those restrictions to the states as well.
As such, it's you who is wrong as a matter of law.
N.B. IANAL
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:52PM (9 children)
Try making death threats and claiming that it's protected speech under the 1st amendment. Come on, we all need a good laugh once in a while. Or you can distribute kiddie porn and try to claim that is protected under the 1st amendment. I wonder why people go to jail for that if what you claim is true. Maybe you should be their lawyer?
Seriously, objective reality is a bitch, your arguments are wrong on their face, but feel free to educate all those prosecutors who brought cases against people making death threats, or distributing kiddie porn, of how wrong they are.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @10:10PM (8 children)
What things might those be? You have me confused with a different AC.
I said, in response to you post (quoted here for your convenience):
And by the way, where did you get your law degree?
https://employment.law.tulane.edu/articles/history-of-law-the-fourteenth-amendment [tulane.edu]
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3880&context=ndlr [nd.edu]
http://www.proadvocate.org/1st-and-14th-amendment-defined/ [proadvocate.org]
https://news.yahoo.com/10-huge-supreme-court-cases-14th-amendment-105017296.html [yahoo.com]
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-First-Amendment-apply-to-state-and-local-laws?share=1 [quora.com]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment [cornell.edu]
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @11:28PM (1 child)
BTW, I've argued and won criminal cases in real court (not lower level municipal court, which is the junior leagues) as wall as human rights tribunals, and will be gearing up for another human rights case in the coming months. What's your experience that anyone should believe your opinion is worth anything?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @12:00AM
Right, because child porn [wikipedia.org] is legal under Federal law. Yeah. Not so much.
First Amendment free-speech protections are not, and have *never* been, absolute.
From where did you get your law degree? You make these claims (I've relied on jurisprudence from the courts and documented them) but you haven't backed your claims up with some, you know, *evidence*. How about one recent court case that claims the 14th Amendment doesn't require state to respect individual constitutional rights.
Come now, oh experienced litigator, just one case. Pretty please.
That states have their own criminal codes isn't any kind of revelation to anyone (except you, perhaps?). Nor does it invalidate either the 14th Amendment or the supremacy clause [wikipedia.org].
Uhh...When did I make such a statement? Or even one that bears resemblance to such a statement. Oh wait. You can't.
What's more, I'm not sure what your point WRT child porn might be.
Are you advocating for the recorded abuse of children? And no, that's not a "think of the children" argument at all.
Whether it's child porn (children are unable to provide *legal* consent, so all child porn is, by definition, non-consensual) or non-consensual distribution (whether the initial recording was consensual or not) of *any* depictions of persons, child or adult are, in fact illegal in the United States.
Do you think those laws should be changed? If so, why and in what manner?
Given your apparent lack of understanding constitutional jurisprudence, I'd be leery of hiring you to do anything WRT any legal issues I might have.
I'd also be leery of hiring me, as I'm not a lawyer -- as I pointed out myself in my initial post.
So I'll ask one more time. From which law school do you have a degree? I thought so.
However, You're adorable! Do you do parties? It'd just be a small honorarium, but you could have as much food and drink as you wanted, while blathering your uninformed bullshit. Good times!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @11:33PM (5 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @12:28AM (4 children)
Which interpretation says that the 14th Amendment doesn't require states to respect individual rights protected by the Constitution? By whom?
As that's what I said. And nothing more. Please, take your time. I don't want you to feel rushed or anything.
Please provide specific cases. You know, like I did.
Here's one for you: Lawrence v. Texas [wikipedia.org]:
Or how about Texas v. Johnson [wikipedia.org]? There, the Supreme Court found:
Or perhaps W. Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette [wikipedia.org], where the Supreme Court (on First Amendment grounds, through the 14th Amendment) invalidated a state law requiring students to recite the "Pledge of Allegiance" [wikipedia.org] in class or risk expulsion.
So. Even though I had *already* supplied significant evidence that the 14th amendment requires states to respect constitutional protections, those are a few more for you.
I invite and encourage you to attempt to refute these arguments. I do, however, request that you provide some *actual evidence* for your argument, as I have.
I'll be here, whenever you would like to respond!
Ciao Bella!
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday October 14 2019, @12:37AM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @03:21AM
Who said that that it was? Certainly not me. The entirety of my point was:
The Fourteenth Amendment (via the due process clause [wikipedia.org]) requires the several states to respect the restrictions on government action enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Full Stop.
You then went off on some ridiculous rant that isn't supported by *any* jurisprudence.
Where *exactly* did I say that "the 1st amendment is a blanket protection of freedom of speech"? Read through the thread. You won't find it, because it isn't there.
As such, it seems like you're arguing with someone other than me. Which is odd, since you keep replying to *me*.
If you'd bothered to actually read what I wrote (and not just my last response, all of them, rather than making unfounded assumptions) you might have figured that out. Then again, perhaps you have some sort of comprehension issue?
Carry on. Reading your posts while you make a fool of yourself isn't as much fun as other things, but it is mildly amusing. Please, don't stop.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday October 14 2019, @12:40AM (1 child)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 14 2019, @03:28AM
Actually, it *was* part of the West Virginia criminal code (W. Va. Code § 1734 (1941)) [wikipedia.org], and:
You're grasping at straws here. It's really sad, but my tour [xkcd.com] is over. Good luck. You're gonna need it!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:02AM
Whitepapers seem to be expected for blockchain stuff. They seem to have one, sort of.
https://whitepaper.audius.co/AudiusWhitepaper.pdf [audius.co]
If you read the bitcoin whitepaper, you are left with a thought out understanding from soup to nuts. Pretty cool and a high bar.
If you read the audius whitepaper, it falls far short of the bitcoin bar, but at least one gets an idea of what they were trying to accomplish.
Page 13 begins a discussion of an arbitration process where one could rectify a problem with a claim of ownership.
It appears to create a process to resolve things inside the audius realm.
It does not appear to have a use case which recognizes that there might be other jurisdictions outside this realm.
That might be a wee bit of a problem, because unlike bitcoin, audius appears to have a set of stakeholders who did nothing to become so.
Should be an interesting show.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 13 2019, @12:04AM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.