Grokster Shutting Down? 302
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Grokster is shutting down. In a settlement with Hollywood and the music industry Grokster will be permanently banned from 'participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software.'" A continuation on their deal with Mashboxx, or the end of grokster entirely?
Quite simply... (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Propaganda from the AP (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, wait, I thought file-sharing technology was used for a variety of things. Yeah, it's mostly file-swapping of copyrighted material, but hardly the only use. According to the AP, let's just ignore the legal uses entirely and pretend that the whole purpose of this technology was to steal.
Re:Quite simply... (Score:3, Insightful)
Temporary Victory (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a temporary victory only for the RIAA. They can't change the fact that their business model is becoming obsolete.
The tech community???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cue the almost unanimous outcry about how this guy is not speaking for us.
I'm curious... (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems you just can't fight corporate giants with billion dollar legal power...
no kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
It's one thing to shut them down. It's another thing entirely to require them to say something that sounds like a scolded child. I can't *prove* sounding like a scolded child was part of the deal, but i don't think i'm out of line assuming that that statement is less than 100% voluntary
Napster... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a big loss, really. (Score:5, Insightful)
Grokster is dead (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What'd they do to PJ??? (Score:3, Insightful)
But Grokster... I could take it or leave it. I've never used it. The only suspicious thing is not being able to distribute their software anymore. There are far more dangerous things that are still allowed to be sold
Re:no kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
Pretty much like having people spread stolen screeners of your not-yet-released film to thousands or millions of best friends they've never met know isn't exactly 100% voluntary for the filmaker, either. I think that's the whole point.
** Puts on his "Slippery Slope Guy" hat ** (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't think I like such vague wording. How close to the pirating does software need to be in order to be "indirectly participating". Lots of pirated movies are encoded with Divx, are they next? Some come packed in RAR archives, how about them?
Hell, why not go for the gusto? Maybe it can be proven that the majority of pirates who rip and encode copyrighted media do so on Dell machines with Intel components running Microsoft Windows and we can take out the whole triumvirate.
Re:Temporary Victory (Score:3, Insightful)
Their business model is only half of it. Freeloaders are the other half.
Uh-oh... bad wording choice there, Mr. AP (Score:5, Insightful)
Righteous anger its-not-theft-there's-no-deprivation-of-property flamewar to begin in 3... 2... 1...
Seriously, though, if you want a certain company's product, pay for it. If you wouldn't pay $0.01 for it, then why bother downloading it at all?
And just to forestall the inevitable, NO, I DON'T WORK FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY. I just believe that if you don';t think a product is worth the price offered, then you shouldn't buy the product... nor should you look to the black market for the product. Do without, it won;t kill you. And by not pirating the product, you won't help drive the *AA's assertions that they are losing a ton of cash to piracy.
Article Says BitTorrent is a Service (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this true? I thought it was a file transfer protocol.
Color me late (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course given the stupidity and greed of the **AAs it would not surprise me to see them attempt to crush BT either by going after Bram Cohen or by having their bought and paid for congresscritters write an exceptionally broad addendum to the DMCA that would ban any development or distribution of P2P software. Of course the inevitable consequences of such a ban will be disastrous, but they'll take several election cycles to materialize, which is far beyond the horizon of the aforementioned congresscritters.
Timeline: (Score:5, Insightful)
1995: We'll copy-protect audio CDs. Piracy "stopped."
1997: We'll copy-protect DVDs. Piracy "stopped."
2001: We'll shut Napster down. Piracy "stopped."
2002: We'll shut Kazaa down. Piracy "stopped."
2005: We'll shut Grokster down. Piracy...
Re:Propaganda from the AP (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, sounds stupid doesn't it? This is business with grokster is no different.
Re:should be in the clear then (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably the closest thing to that would be when a filmaker sends a screener, under the terms of a strict agreement with the recipient, to critic or other party for preview. The screener stays the property of the filmaker, and the guy that takes that filmaker's data (even if they eventually return the original media) and gives it out to a couple hundred thousand special "friends" over the 'net can pretty safely be said to have stolen that material. Certainly by any reasonable person's evaluation of the situation (say, while sitting on a jury), that's not so different than running off with any other trade secret or other proprietary information. That scenario, of course, is scarcely imaginary. We've seen it many times already.
Re:I'm curious... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Historical Precedent when Xerox was Outlawed (Score:5, Insightful)
Sarcasm is a more useful rhetorical device when the truth that it (directly or indirectly) points out resonates with the sarcastic statement being made. But since Xerox didn't ever position its products as a way to "get free stuff" or spread around copyrighted works by the millions, their equipment's use in copyright infringement was despite their corporate position and publicly proclaimed admonishments. The P2P services that have found themselves in trouble have been loudly supporting piracy since the get-go. Intent is the difference, and lack of it makes your example fall flat. Maybe more fun to allude to old-style forgeries, counterfeiters, or all those other classical (and already blatantly understood as illegal) methods to make your point. Um, except the point wouldn't mean as much.
Re:Propaganda from the AP (Score:1, Insightful)
The one giant exception here is Bittorrent, which is the most exciting P2P idea that's ever come out, in my opinion. BT by its very nature encourages the distribution of *legitamate* content because it a) allows the author to create and maintain a torrent that isn't connected to some vast network of crap, b) torrents can be "distributed" via websites, which is where you want your consumer to be, c) the consumer gets faster downloads, d) the author pays for less bandwidth. Bittorrent also, in my mind, kind of discourages the distribution of illegal content because torrent files themselves have to be hosted somewhere/somehow, thereby perhaps removing a layer of anonimity (at least the host could be held accountable).
Anyhow, while the original intent of the first P2P networks might not have been to distribute illegal content...it is certainly the primary task of such networks today (aside from bittorrent type networks).
Re:Besides Bittorrent and Usenet.... (Score:3, Insightful)
1. People are at best ignorant, at worst stupid.
2. The service might actually provide some value-add. Like news-servers, they offer search, retention, stability and download bandwidth without upload (very nice if you're on a very lopsided connection).
3. No matter how you twist it, bulk data is very cheap compared to the IP embodied in those data. You might as well ask "Why would one PAY for CD-Rs to share files?"
4. People are already paying for it. Many people have broadband connections faster than they otherwise would have for the prupose of illegally downloading something off the net.
5. To legitimize themselves. I've heard several people who were using Napster who quit when they were convicted. Everything up to then was like "unclear" even though the users in question were blatantly violating copyright.
Those are just the ones I can think off of the top of my head. If you want it summed up on one line: It's better to pay a little than to pay a lot.
Kjella
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a big loss, really. (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as pirates exist, P2P will exist.
This is not entirely correct... As long as pirates exist, they will utilize some form of technology to carry out their piracy, but it is incorrect to say, as your statement implies, that it has always been and will always be P2P. P2P is just one of the current common methods. Who knows what new forms it might take in the future.
Re:OSS piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Propaganda from the AP (Score:3, Insightful)
Grokster might have had an easier case if they had made at least a cursory effort to prevent illegal file sharing. As it is they made it clear that they expected and encouraged you to trade files illegally, and that was going to cause them headaches in court.
...what aboot... (Score:2, Insightful)
What about bands that put their music on P2P networks in order to get noticed? Or bands that are aware that their music is being shared and don't mind?
What about them? Believe it or not, 99% of the sharing on P2P networks is illegal, copyright-infringing content. In fact, that was the networks' primary purpose - the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. Also, that's why they lost their court case - even though the service has other uses, it is overwhelmingly used for piracy.
Compare this to a bong and to a VCR. A VCR has its legal uses - taping a show for personal viewing later harms no-one, and is in fact fair use. Though it can be used to pirate videos, that's not its usual use.
Now, compare it to a bong. Sure,a bong has other uses such as:
a bong's primary purpose is to get high. Hence, where getting high is illegal, bongs are generally illegal. (In fact, they're called "drug paraphenalia." Now, not to open a pandora's box of hippies and "legalize pot" posts, but back to my point:
Grokster was shut down for piracy. The network was created solely to host illegal content, and the vast majority of its traffic was little more than piracy. The few bands that actually used its service can always create/host their own torrents - much easier and better, IMO.
So, don't debate the effects of the "loss" of this "service" to a handful of bands - start debating something more meaningful, like the proper extent of Intellectual Property rights or the fairness of the recording industry's oligopoly.
<GetsOffSoapBox/>
Re:Propaganda from the AP (Score:2, Insightful)
{{BEGIN SARCASM}}
But I really do need to backup my X-Box games!! And I use P2P to share family photos with my grandma, isn't that what it was made for?
{{END SARCASM}}
I definitely agree with you on this one, P2P is by nature a file-sharing/content-stealing platform. If everyone just used Bittorrent for legit files (which they pretty much do) and didn't install P2P software then we'd pretty much be in a good place right now, but instead people still feel the weird desire to download the horrible crap that is RIAA labeled music without paying the band.
If a movie/song is worth stealing, then it is certainly worth buying. I mean, c'mon, just watch TV and listen to the radio if you are that dependent on the media. I used to download tons of crap, then I had something as simple as my taillights on my truck stolen, and realized how crappy it feels. I'd love for someone defending the downloading of movies and music to have something small stolen every day or two and see how they like it.
But yes, BitTorrent is P2P done right, and from my experience, it works much better than any P2P client ever has, and it is harder to download illegal content without someone getting into trouble. No wonder we don't hear as much about it in the news, other than to hear another moron got caught hosting torrents for someone else's intellectual property.
Re:It's not theft, it's murder...Murder!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't this a tad bit of a broad definition of stealing? Given the legal/free content out there, and the fact that you can legally get music CDs and other "usually pay for" content free from contests, promos, even from your friend giving it to you because he doesn't want/need it, or buying it from a used CD store.
Re:Propaganda from the AP (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember how awful it was when somebody stole my headlight. I was in the car out in the parking lot one cold night, just letting the engine warm up when some nasty thief came up and used my headlight to check something in his wallet. Damned thieves have no right to steal my light!