Kazaa: Happy In the Global Legal Briarpatch 262
Steve0987 writes "The Washington Post has an article on the entertainment industry's atempts to close down the file-sharing system Kazaa. I agree that copyrighted material shouldn't be freely distributed from an ethical standpoint. However, the entertainment industry has been acting in an arbitrary manner trying to impede anything remotely impinging on their industry. Go Kazaa."
Wow, I'm actually one of the first 20 posters... (Score:1, Insightful)
Anyone know?
I agree (Score:2, Insightful)
Suspicion (Score:1, Insightful)
File sharing is suspicious. CD copying is suspicious. What follows next? Internet is suspicious. Just allow the people to use officially approved sites, officially approved software, since we now best what they can do.
The industry needs a sanity check (Score:3, Insightful)
What is happening is that the industry is bludgeoning the public with their short-sightedness, forcing everyone to realize that far too much money gets page to music publishers, far too little rights actually belong to the artists themselves, and the big sell-outs like Metallica (s/big/has-been/) who jump on the "STOP THIEF!" bandwagon even damage and (prematurely?) end their own careers due to the PR fiasco.
Its time the recording industry focused on making music and less on making headlines.
cliche: information wants to & eventually will (Score:4, Insightful)
So they shut down Kazaa. The Consumer available models of file trading are all gone? No, more effort put into efforts like freenet, or Edonkey, or much more sophisticated methods that are decentralized, encrypted, and much more difficult to shut down?
No, witness DC++, which is 99% warez, and no efforts to shut that down.
What they don't realize is people want this, they can get it, and their efforts truly are being wasted. At least the Motion Picture industry is attempting to head them off at the pass with their own service ramp-up.
For music? It's too late, they have lost the battle for distribution. And to think, if they had their own distribution model in 1998, we would likely all be paying for it, and be happy!
Your ethics are backwards. Heres why (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres two options.
Option A, people who make something always own what they make forever.
Option B, people who make things share what they make with all of humanity.
The same arguement which claims we should have software be open source because it benifits the whole instead of one part of the whole is the same arguement we use with file sharing.
More people benifit from file sharing than those who dont, the purpose of technology is to benifit the people.
When deciding what is more ethical, I look at patents as something mythical in my world, I do not know anyone who owns a patent in anything. I know musicians like my mother or my father who both make music but never made any money.
I make music but I never make any money. I know artists who when they make art because they have to begin to not like drawing anymore. Some things are meant to be an art, and some things are meant to be a business.
Its not very logical to try to turn bits of information into a product, it doenst benifit the majority of the people in this world. People in africa cannot buy medicinee because of this. People in afganastan cannot get educated because of patents on books. People in the USA cannot learn programming or be productive in todays society because of patents.
Why do we need patents? So a few hundred people can make billions of dollars? How does this help me? IT doesnt, I benifit more from Open Source than I do from closed source because I have no money.
I benifit more from file sharing because if there were no napsters and gnutellas of the world I simply wouldnt have the money to listen to music AT ALL, PERIOD.
But what happens when they change penalties... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regarding your speed limit argument, something to keep in mind in many states is that there is a 'resonable and prudent' clause, where certain speeds above the posted speed limit are acceptable. In Arizona, one can go up to fifteen miles per hour over the posted speed limit and not have broken the law, assuming that one can demonstrate how that was reasonable and prudent (ie, everyone was going that fast, or there was no one on the road for a mile in each direction). Those that do exceed the reasonable and prudent grey area, however, are now subject to criminal traffic citation, rather than the civil citation that normal speeding, red light running, failure to stop, etc, would qualify for.
The only way that I could see such civil disobedience working is if it's in conjunction with pressure on lawmakers to change laws, so that when massive penalties are dealt upon parties involved, there can be a public outcry that lawmakers might feel they have to follow, else their continuing jobs will be threatened. Even then, though, I don't know if the modern system of campaign contributions, favours, kickbacks, and the like will allow for such.
Re:Civil Desobedience (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Civil Desobedience (Score:5, Insightful)
This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.
Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.
The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!
That's how it should work, passive resistence.
While civil disobedience is fine, that is far from what this is. Kazaa (and most other P2P systems) are built on the concept of being anonymous. That means the current P2P technology is built around not being caught and not being punished, which is anything but civil disobedience. If you want to use P2P as civil disobedience, you have to make sure the law knows who you are and what you are doing. Try using your real name as your user name. Share not only MP3s, but a file with your name and address that says you know what you are doing is illegal, and if the RIAA wants to come after you, here is where they can find you. Unfortunately, 99.999% of the people using P2P have no interest in civil disobedience, they are only interested in getting stuff for free. P2P isn't about anything but getting free shit for most people.
Re:Civil Desobedience (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, you will get sued.
The probability of being caught is much lower because there are so many others who are also doing something wrong. You may be lucky and get away with it, but over time your chances of getting caught will approach 1.
Re:I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
While we're at it, let's ban Colt semi-automatic pistols, Saab cars, and Hitachi VCR's, because they're all specific examples of technology that can be used for bad things. That'll set an example, and everyone will stop making and using that technology and we can put the genie back in the bottle, right?
Alternatively, we could live in the real world. Remember Napster? When that was destroyed, people moved to Kazaa. Destroy Kazaa, and people will move to Morpheus. Destroy Morpheus, and they will move to (e.g.) Gnutella. Destroy Gnutella (how?) and they'll move to Freenet. Destroy Freenet and, well at that point we've destroyed the internet in its current form. Let's give ourselves Ashcroftian superpowers and pretend we can do it. Do that, and people will go to BBS's or to Neighbourhood Area Networks. Do what you like, people will keep sharing.
Are you getting it yet? We can't put the genie back in the bottle. So go ahead and destroy Kazaa if it makes you feel good. The War on Sharing is about as winnable as the War on Drugs or War on Terror. They all have the same purpose anyway: making the hard-of-thinking feel safe and happy and protected. So you enjoy your cozy little fantasy world. Send us a postcard!
Re:Civil Desobedience (Score:4, Insightful)
Civil disobedience simply means peacefully disobeying the laws. That's what people of Kazaa are doing. Why shouldn't they be anonymous? Anonymosity is a good thing: it protects our privacy. Getting a law to be changed due to massive non-compliance with that law does not require publicly disclosing who's disobeying that law. Ref. prohibition. But, oh wait, according to you, all the people who drank during prohibition were wrong b/c they didn't do so openly and "accept the consequences". Of course, that's absurd: the law was unconstitutional and should never have existed in the first place. There is nothing good or noble about allowing one's self to be punished by an unjust law.
Are they really that stupid? (Score:3, Insightful)
Distribution always wrong? I think not. (Score:4, Insightful)
If that's the way we're talking, then the RIAA have already won. There are plenty of legitimate circumstances to distribute a lot copyrighted material -- and that's not even getting into fair use yet. Consider examples in software [gnu.org], or other types of media [creativecommons.org].
It's not an issue of copyright per se, it's an issue of what's permitted by the license.
Ethics and pirating (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course I wholeheartedly beleive that artists deserve something for their work, and certainly deserve a decent living (don't we all?) The fact that they either have to use their art to make money or get an unrelated job that impinges on their artistic efforts is simply a symptom of our ever-present scarcity economics. Wouldn't it be nice if artists (and programmers, and others) could live without economic insecurity, simply giving to the community as is their basic impulse to do so? This would make the need to make an income from their work irrelevant, because most of these people do not do it for the money (at least not as the primary motivation). I'm sure many of the people here, more than most places, understand this. This would solve issues like Napster and Kazaa, since the free flow of information (and sharing of files, whether they be art, music, or software) could proceed without any harm to anyone. If an author doen't want his work shared, he simply need only keep it, or give it to people he trusts. Perhaps there could even be a copywrite law that gives the artist/whoever the power to decide how "free" his/her work is, but there would still be no need to do so to earn a living, i.e. artificial scarcity.
So how could this be done? Scarcity, we are told, is forever with us, an unsolvable problem. But is it really? People like Jeremy Rifkin (The End of Work [amazon.com]) have shown us that work as we know it is obsolete. Machines and automation can do most if not all of the tedious tasks that make life dull, freeing up human society for more creative persuits. So scarcity no longer exists, except that we continue to impose it on ourselves because we know of no other way of doing things. And this creates its own set of problems, believe me!
The only thing missing now is a workable system of economic distribution that does not employ scarcity, and its tools like money and debt. If this could be done, all crime due to poverty would vanish. There would be no point to stealing something you could very easily afford yourself (pathology aside). Millions of property and litigation laws would also become obsolete, releiving the justice system of a huge infrastructure. Banks, stocks, all business related to money need no longer exist, and what results is a huge outpouring of people to now share what little work need be done. Thus, with secured incomes, people need not work more than a few hours each week, and could have a standard of living that far exceeds what we have now.
It's too bad more people aren't trying to think of ways of doing this, because it is possible. It would be a world were programs like Linux would be the norm, and no one could make shoddy MS-like products (or they could, but no one would have to use them). So far the only serious research group with any credibility that has devised such a non-scarcity economic system is Technocracy [technocracy.org]. They've been working on this idea since the 1920's, so they have a pretty detailed and workable plan. I hope we one day switch to a society they they propose.
Re:Just in case... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sweet jeebus, you could flash-fry a server in 30 seconds with that kind of setup.
I think it would do more harm than good, think about the wastefulness of thousands and thousands of nearly-instantaneous hits for the sites linked. Sure, it would be useful in that when you get around to reading slashdot you'd have your own local mirror ready, and if not you could get one easily. But not everyone reads every story, etc, etc. There would have to be some way for the clients to coordinate before hitting the linked site. That way they could arrange for an initial handfull of well-connected clients to get the content and then pass it on down a tree structure, kinda like the old concept of the "phone tree" that schools and church groups use. The whole point is to not hit up the server, but rather use the peer network as soon as its available.
Copyright (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't know about you, but I don't agree with large corporations making money off artists 90 years after they died.
Re:Your ethics are backwards. Heres why (Score:4, Insightful)
Well there is something called a radio.
Fuck the RIAA and all that, but don't act like your downloading music is some sort of humanitarian benefit to society. People download because A) they could care less about copyright B) they're tired of overpaying for CD's or C) they think its some form of protest against the record companies and/or copyright. The no money arguement is bogus. If you have no money, do without. Music isn't included in the basic Food, Clothing, and Shelter need we all have.
Morally I could care less about downloading music and I would never hold anything against someone who does. I simply don't care enough. But file sharing is no big benefit to society, its a convenience pure and simple for those who fit in one of the categories I described above.
Re:Civil Desobedience (Score:3, Insightful)
I never said the people using P2P were wrong, just that it wasn't civil disobedience. Civil disobedience wasn't why people drank during prohibition. They drank because they wanted alcohol. There is a world of difference between doing something for a "noble cause" like getting an unfair law changed, and doing something because you're cheap and want something for free. People using P2P aren't noble, their cheap. Wrapping yourself in the holy cloth of civil disobedience is an insult to those people who are actually working to change to change the law.
Re:Your ethics are backwards. Heres why (Score:3, Insightful)
Patents are not the problem. Patents are a good thing that encourages innovation. Unlimited patents are what is the bad thing. People need a reason to spend their money on developing new things, and patents provide them that reason. But after a reasonable amount of time, their inventions should go back into the public domain to encourage further work.
Re:I agree (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't agree with that. I think it's fair enough to consider something bad, even worth banning, if the vast majority of its uses are illegal. Hence I want to see guns made illegal (and they are generally here). Cars and VCRs are generally not used more than 90% of the time for illegal things. Cars can kill people but they aren't meant for that and are hardly ever used for that. VCRs can pirate videos, but because of the complexities involved and loss of quality, they're mostly used for timeshifting TV programs and renting videos.
Kazaa on the other hand is practically all college students swapping gigs of ripped MP3s, games, warez, porn etc. If anybody here thinks Kazaa is mostly used for anything else, they're insane. Although it could be used for say load balancing of large downloads, it practically never is, so in this case yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing it banned. The load reduction on the backbone and speedup for the rest of us would certainly make it worthwhile.
These guys don't even have the excuse of it being a good cause like the Freenet guys do. They just want pop music, hit games, and expensive pro level software for nothing.
The War on Sharing is about as winnable as the War on Drugs or War on Terror. They all have the same purpose anyway: making the hard-of-thinking feel safe and happy and protected.
Unwinnable perhaps, but definately worth it. I'd rather see us fight an unwinnable war against drugs if it means there are fewer crack dealers on the street, even if it isn't possible to eliminate them entirely.
Re:I agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Lately i've seen this commercial run alot lately. Is this what you mean by Ashcroftian Superpowers?
[Ashcroft comes in stage left]
[Ashcroft]Hi i'm josh ashcroft, head of Homeland security, a newly formed branch of the goverment dedicated to fight the threats we face today.
[wipe to ground zero 9/11]
We're looking for patriotic americans who want to help their country protect its citizens from these threats. There are many exciting oppertunities for those americans
[wipe to 4 panel picture showing congress building, american flag, an astronaut, and some field of wheat]
We're offering training to qualified individuals to pursue these careers
[fade to two dumb looking rent a pigs with shit eating grins on their faces]
-----end commercial-------
I saw that commercial and I was sooo pissed. Here i've been eating ramen for the last 2 years, and the best GWB has to offer us now is a rent a pig job?? I mean fuck, cmon people wake up.
9/11 was bad, very bad. Nothing good at all could have ever come from it. It just feels a little too weird and paranoid right now though. Police departments everywhere are hiring, security guard companies are hiring, the Army gave a 35 yro tow truck driver buddy of mine a 18k enlistment bonus to drive gas tankers. The writing is on the wall folks, I think for the first time in a long time, america is going to war.
The thought of a draft is very scarey to me. All of the slashdot employees are of draft age, they should think about it too. The times ahead are nothing I want to be heading into. The turmoil of this paranoia vortex will rip this country to shreds.
It's bad times right now.