The best of 'Reader Comments': Napster KO'ed, virus warnings and Ellison's vision

The court decision against music sharing service Napster had readers rushing to have their say. And not everyone backed the upstart... (http://www.silicon.com/a42640 )

--A royalty pain...
From: Jon Freeman

Well, I feel so relieved that the record companies will finally get the royalties they deserve. Only the other day I got a cheque from one when I replaced an LP with a CD - the note said that as I had already paid the royalties for this music, they felt ashamed that they should charge me again!

--Seriously, anti-Napster
From: Mike Jones

Now that Napster is no longer able to carry on with its file-sharing policy, maybe some of the other music rip-off sites will sit up and take notice. Illegal MP3s are killing the record industry, and this sort of action should be implemented more often. Today is a good day for justice, the record industry and recording artists worldwide.

--Make, like, music, not war
From: Mark Harold

Just make your own tunes, man. Play them to your friends. Get a band together, or a crew or whatever. Just pick up an instrument and do it yourself. Then you can put it on a website, et voila, Napster or no Napster, you're not being ripped off any more. Buying a CD is like voting. Pointless.

--The suits shot themselves, again
From: Laurie Knight

Ha, I'm glad in a way that it went this way. Now Napster will shutdown and everyone will move over to P2P [peer-to-peer] technology which is the future. Then the Suits are screwed. I love it when a plan comes together!

Even if the primary Napster servers are shutdown, heard of Napigator? Do they not realise there are hundreds of Napster-compatible servers worldwide, the majority of which they have NO jurisdiction over? Honestly you would think lawyers would have more sense, wouldn't you?

--Go off shore
From: Robert Arendt

As for Napster, find a banana republic with greedy, eager politicians whose palms they can easily afford to grease, host off shore and split their profits accordingly.

--Stealing?
From: David Cox

OK, so it was great to be able to find virtually any track you wanted, on a whim, and download and listen to it without having to fork out a king's ransom for 15 other tracks on the CD you didn't want. But essentially, it was stealing! There's bound to be a middle way - a fair (nominal?) price, for what you need, easily found and in a format anyone can use. Let's face it, this will happen! Will Napster get in there first?

--Not about freedom of information
From: Neale Upstone

Yes, Napster allows peer-to-peer file sharing, and we can do that with our own information freely. But to say that it is an infringement of 'freedom of information' to not be able to digitally share MP3 versions of people's copyright is ludicrous. Napster has shown us that P2P is great. Thanks Napster. But now I think it's time for groove.net to do it properly. And that's by allowing us to securely share our data with people we know, not anonymously.

All I can say to the guys at Groove is 'I hope you've got sorted how you're going to deal with peer-to-peer of copyright information...!'

--Hypocritical record companies?
From: Andreas Duess

Killing the recording industry - what nonsense. The recording industry has been crying wolf every time a new technology came onto the market. Tapes, CDs, CD recorders and now Napster. The recording industry lives of other peoples talent and historically has not covered itself in glory when it came to the treatment of the artists who enable it to make its profits. Overpriced music is the main reason people pirate. Make music more affordable, give artists a better deal and Napster would lose its user base over night. I agree that copyrighted material should be protected from unauthorised use. I do not agree with the hypocrisy of the record companies.

--Hypocritical record companies?
From: Christopher Davies

Surely this infringes the rights of the individual to be able to share on a personal level to another person their own personal data. I think this judge has made a serious error over the rights of the person against the rights of some money-dripping organisation. People sharing ideas and information is not allowed.

--Wrong - not infringing...
From: Simon Axon

It's not your 'own personal data'. If you hold the copyright, then fine, share it all you like, but the majority of the stuff on Nap is copyrighted material, being 'shared' without the permission of the copyright holder. There is nothing wrong with people sharing ideas and information as long as they have permission. How would you feel if you told me a great business idea in confidence, and I thought it was so good I broadcast it everywhere?

And although this news hogged the headlines, the Kournikova virus (http://www.silicon.com/a42635 ) and comments by Oracle boss Larry Ellison (http://www.silicon.com/a42693 ) also prompted feedback...

--We're lemmings!
From: Chris Davies

This guy [the virus writer] is no idiot, and he should not be punished. No-one is forced to open an email attachment. The initial cause of infection was probably through someone wilfully, yet unknowingly downloading this JPG form a newsgroup server, and then spreading the virus over email. Therefore all charges should be dropped. No-one can say it that it is his fault, for someone else's ignorance. You do not blame a bridge engineer for someone's suicide on the bridge, do you? Lemmings, the lot of you.

--Wrong - not infringing...
From: Anon.

Although I agree no-one should be opening a file with an ending of .jpg.vbs (bit of a hint in the end), I think that writers of the viruses are the real misguided people. From what I can tell they seem to think they are rebellious dark men causing the corporations a bundle of problems - however these corporations have the means for protections and solutions. Do they realise the damage they are doing to home users and the small companies. They really are dumb, hurting everyday people. Are they failed hackers?

--Oracle's Ellison and his new software
From: Peter Huyton

Rough and ready? I think Larry Ellison has got it only half right, with regard to 11i, at least, which has a flakiness that a pastry chef would kill for. Rough? Certainly. Ready? Definitely not.

--The cost of integration
From: Ken Maxelon

Most people who have experience of large organisations will agree that introducing any change is hard. Systems, depend on systems, which depend on other systems. You spend more time making sure that all the bits work together than the bit of functionality that adds the business value. So, I don't like what Larry Ellison said. But, in a complex environment, complexity is your biggest enemy, and so I have to agree.