Rosen, Valenti Warn Colleges About P2P 371
fini writes "The RIAA and MPAA just sent a letter to 2,300 colleges or so, asking to crack down on P2P. Juicy nugget: 'Not only is piracy of copyrighted works illegal, it can take up a significant percentage of a university's costly bandwidth.' Also mentioned, some quasi-FUD on security issues. Six higher-ed honchos also sent a concurring letter. From the RIAA website, here's the story and the letters (PDF only). Mentioned as examples of model policies: Drake University, UNC Chapel Hill and University of Michigan . Interestingly enough, there is no threatening 'or else' stuff in those letters. Not yet..."
2300 letters (Score:5, Funny)
Re:2300 letters (Score:2, Interesting)
Is there a definition of spam or a guideline that classifies something as spam?
When my Universities President sends an email it goes to 81,000 students, most the time it's something we don't care about. I guess that could be spam. I always think of it as spam.
Re:2300 letters (Score:2)
Soko
P.S. - Please pardon the SPAM in the link denegrating the SPAMmers. SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAM...
not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not yet (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm just tired of the 1:1 correlation Valenti et al put between P2P and piracy. There's plenty of public domain stuff out there. Last time I used a P2P app it was to collect some Christmas music for a party my wife threw. None of it was copyrighted to my knowledge.
Re:not yet (Score:5, Informative)
While I completely agree that p2p piracy (last time I used it was to get some music by a friend who distributes that way) it is, alas, more than likely that those songs were indeed under copyright. The musicial composition itself is most probably public domain but the particular recordings might not have been. Remember, if it was recorded after the early 20s it is still under copyright unless it either lapsed through neglect or was intentionally placed into the public domain by the author/artist.
Re:"Lapsing Through Neglect?" What's That? (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not again, but yes, there used to be. Original provisions of copyright called for a 14 year term when you registered a copyright (neglect to register == no copyright) and renewable once (neglect to renew == no more copyright). As I said in my previous reply there, this sort of system was still in place until fairly recently. Automagic copyrighting of anything and everything anyone does is not how it has always been.
The excuses for theft conjured up by music pirates are just as venal and self-serving as the RIAA's excuses for using copyright to enforce a middleman's monopoly.
If you want to fight the concept of copyright itself, come out of the closet. If all you really want is free music, stay in the closet and keep your mouth shut.
A) I am not a music Pirate. I am, or was, one of the RIAAs better customers. Between my wife and I we own nearly a thousand CDs.
B) I do not wish to fight the concept of copyright itself. As Lessig, and most other modern minds interested in this debate, I feel that at it's heart copyright is a good idea. Allowing an author/inventor/artist to benefit directly from their creations is good for society. However as our copyright law has been written by big business interests and rubber stamped by congress the balance between the creator and society has gone far, far away from what it should be. So I am, and have been, coming out of the closet in that regard for years.
If that music was recorded in the last 90 yrs..... (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if you are getting that music off a defunct "K-Tell" record from "Disco-77" you bet it's copyrighted....and Jack still says you gotta pay "K-Tell" for the right to use it....even if K-Tell isn't around anymore, you gotta pay him and his cousin Vinny.
Think it's hard now....think down the DRM road where the access is controlled "per-play" rather than "I have the album"....as soon as the consumer looses the right to "hold the album/rights to listen".....it's all over....
Think about it, that's where EULA's have been going with "revokable liscense agreements" and the rest of it. You no longer have the ability to keep using something that you bought, even if you still have the media.....time expired!
Re:not yet (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:not yet (Score:4)
Plus, they can use this as an excuse to cut back on bandwith purchases and save a few bucks. They'll get way fewer complaints than if they cut back on perks for the football team.
Re:not yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Alternatley, the RIAA could never sue 2300 schools simultaneously. And could never afford to be sued by that many entities. Im sure they couldn't afford to be sued by 10% of the schools.
The RIAA can't beat 2300 colleges at anything. Their absolutle only hope is to pick on a single poor but well known college and beat them in court to set precident. Which is exactly what I expect to see soon.
Perfect People To Tell... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Perfect People To Tell... (Score:5, Interesting)
Outside of college, I haven't found a whole lot of people who think, or really know the details of any orthodoxy. For the first time in my scholastic career, I had a history class that went beyond "We had a revolutionary war in 1776. We had a civil war in 1860. Abraham Lincoln was president. The good guys won both wars." and actually asked you to think about stuff. I've talked to people both on the far right and the far left and everywhere in between. Most people at high school didn't care enough to be right or left, beyond the "Republicans good; Democrats bad!" level. Yes, I've heard stories of political correctness being forced on people at universities, but it's not at every one, and even at those universities, you'll find an amazing diversity of opinion if you actually talk to the students and teachers.
Re: Perfect People To Tell... (Score:3, Informative)
> For the first time in my scholastic career, I had a history class that went beyond "We had a revolutionary war in 1776. We had a civil war in 1860.
Yeah, a good class would get the dates [historyplace.com] right [loc.gov].
> Yes, I've heard stories of political correctness being forced on people at universities, but it's not at every one, and even at those universities, you'll find an amazing diversity of opinion if you actually talk to the students and teachers.
Teasing aside, the main point of your post is certainly correct.
ppft ... -spray- (Score:5, Funny)
Outside of college, I haven't found a whole lot of people who think, or really know the details of any orthodoxy.
Um, I live in a college town. I burst out with a guffaw every time I hear someone make a connection between being a college student, and thinking or being intelligent. I can't help it.
Just make sure I don't have a mouthful of soda if you're going to say something like that :)
Re:Perfect People To Tell... (Score:3, Funny)
To before you had TV,
No hockey night in Canada,
There was no CBC (Oh, my God!).
In 1812, Madison was mad,
He was the president, you know
Well, he thought he'd tell the British where they ought to go
He thought he'd invade Canada,
He thought that he was tough
Instead we went to Washington....
And burned down all his stuff!
And the White House burned, burned, burned,
And we're the one's that did it!
It burned, burned, burned,
While the president ran and cried.
It burned, burned, burned,
And things were very historical.
And the Americans ran and cried like a bunch of little babies
Waa waa waah!
In the War of 1812!
Now some hillbillies from Kentucky,
Dressed in green and red,
Left home to fight in Canada,
But they returned home dead
It's the only war the Yankees lost, except for Vietnam
And also the Alamo... and the Bay of... ham.
The loser was America,
The winner was ourselves,
So join right in and gloat about the War of 1812
--- The Arogant Worms
Re:Perfect People To Tell... (Score:2, Informative)
I don't get what you're saying here. College is where I learned to think for myself instead of letting the Republican party and other associated nazis make my mind up for me.
New info for Colleges... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds more like they are sending letters to colleges as a message to somebody else. Not the administrations, not the students, that's for sure.
Re:New info for Colleges... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cease and Desist? (Score:2, Insightful)
But how could they add an 'or else' statement? The colleges haven't been doing anything. There's no way you can serve someone with a cease and desist or anything like that without THEM breaking laws. If anyone's breaking a law, it's the students!
Re:Cease and Desist? (Score:2, Interesting)
They sent the letter to the wrong people.
Re:Cease and Desist? (Score:2)
With the tack the ??AAs have been taking already in their court cases is it really any stretch to see them try and get colleges for contributory? I mean, a college in this capacity is really just acting as an ISP. The DMCA is fairly clear on the role of an ISP here.. if the ??AAs say "Hey, these people are pirating" they have to take action or are liable.
Flamingly stupid, but that's the law right now, more or less.
Where are our refunds??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where are our refunds??? (Score:4, Interesting)
No doubt charged to the artists (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh.... (Score:4, Informative)
P2P is the next killer app. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now there is a major server-side bandwidth shortage. It's expensive to run a major web site. There is a client-side bandwidth glut. It's cheap to browse the internet.
The server-side bandwidth cost means is very hard to host significant content for low cost, especially if you start to get popular. This hurts web content for everyone.
The solution? P2P-type networks. Move that client-side bandwidth over to the server side. Why should someone download a web page or file from a single server when they could download it from the last ten people who viewed that same page or file? Sending every web page you visit on to another person (or 5 people) does not incur a significant rise in the cost of you connection. Sending a web page to a million people a month from one server does.
And when P2P starts to open up the web for everyone, there are going to be a lot of people who are going to be pretty sorry that they were so narrow-minded that they made it easy for colleges, cable companies, and phone companies to restrict bandwidth for P2P networks just to save a few dollars.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Then again, perhaps there is one other possiblity, if the actual dynamic state information is small enough, the main server could send the user-specific information, while the general page is sent out P2P. Then the client computer could assemble everything. For example, the slashdot server would send out your username, while the P2P net sends the general main page. On the client computer, your username is inserted at the top, and the main page would look like it does now.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Multiply by all the web sites in the world that don't want to pay so much for what they serve.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
But really, I wouldn't bother with blacklisting or what not, it doesn't matter if a small number of users don't play the game. As long as the majority of clueless IE users follow the herd like sheep, then it won't hurt the overall system.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, now P2P to solve multi-cast routing of streaming live content like movies and audio broadcasts so if 50 people on a single ISP are watching a football game broadcast over the internet live efficiently that's cool. Web pages are trivial. ISP's, businesses, colleges, have all solved this problem for the end consumer. Shit, you can't go to www.yahoo.com anymore without hitting an Akaima server. All cable modem providers in my area use transparent squid proxies to speed up web browsing.
If P2P's big goal is to solve a trivial problem solved by the HTTP 1.1 spec, in conjunction with a couple of Open Source products, plus a couple of large business, I'd say P2P is about 3 years behind the times....
That said, P2P has some cool applications and will solve some cool problems, I don't think Web pages is one of them.
Kirby
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
Akamai doesn't do anything about bandwidth. It just stores information in its network closer to the end user.
How do either one of these make it cheaper to host a web site?
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:5, Informative)
Squid solves the problem either by setting the brower up to use it as a proxy, or by setting up the a router to your upstream provider to transparently re-direct traffic to port 80 to a local squid server. So if anyone on your downside link attempts to hit the same page twice, you'll have no traffic leaves the network. Now your upstream ISP does the same thing. Now the upstream provider to them can do the same thing. The upstream provider from them can do the same thing, all the way to the backbone providers. So essentially, you pass thru various levels of proxying servers to get the content you want. Ummm, this sounds like a lot of Web Servers clusters passing around pages from other servers near them so you don't have to go to directly to the site. Which I'll bet money is paraphrasing your ideal P2P setup for web page delivery. Deployment of squid servers located on every Tier 1,2, and 3 bandwidth providers would look precisely like your P2P solution unless I miss my guess. This would mean when you asked for content, you'd only go upstream to the place it has been close to previously.
It's identical the caching layers in a CPU. First you look in the L1 cache, then you look in the L2 cache, then you go L3 cache. Now you look in RAM, if it isn't there you look on disk. If you've got HSM (heirarchical storage management), you look on tape.
How does this make a site cheaper... Well Akaima is cheaper then enough bandwidth to serve the pages yourself (if your big enough). It's cheaper, because you don't need nearly the bandwith, and Akaima already is huge, thus having economy of scale so they turn a profit on it, while saving you money.
Assuming everyone runs a Squid Cache at the various levels as described above, you'll only get 1 hit per page on your website ever until the cached copy expires on your backbone providers Squid Cache. You have the 11 backbone providers talk directly to each others squid caches. When provider A wants a page from provider B it asks the squid cache of provider B, the squid cache goes to your site gets the page and caches it. From now one, anyone who wants your page will get it from the backbone provider who routes you onto the internet at large. Stop and think about it, you could be getting viewed by ever slashdotter in the world, and see a single hit.
As long as the core caches have enough disk, so you don't get flushed out, you only need enough bandwith to do just that. That's it. You only need enough bandwidth to ensure that your pages can get to the core squid cache quickly enough for the first view not to die of bordom, and that's it.
Of course you run a pretty dull site, beings that you only have a static site. It doesn't work for dynamic content that depends on user level information, but then again neither would P2P.
Actually, I'm not enough of a squid expert to say that for certain. You might get 11 hits per page, one for each backbone provider now that I think about it. Still not an overwhelming amount of traffic.
Now it's time to talk reality... The backbone providers don't want to do that.... It'll save you money, and cost them money because you pay them. However, there is nothing to stop a group of people running clusters of Squid caching servers to do this for themselves. So it's doubtful it'll ever get deployed. It however is a solved problem.
As an aside, bandwidth is expensive because it's expensive. Running a website will *ALWAYS* be expensive. The core providers will always charge a premium price for it because they are providing a rare service you can't get from very many people. They charge a premium price because you'll pay it,and nobody will offer it to you for less. It's that simple... Build all the tools you want, and running a site will still cost the same amount.
Kirby
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
I suggested exactly this sort of architecture before a group of high-level civilians who were in charge of modernizing the Air Force Combat Ammunition System--mostly because it would ensure the connectivity of most, if not all, of the system at a given time; and because it would decentralize the network, making it much harder for an enemy to take down the entire system by targeting a single server.
I doubt they went with it, though: for one, there was some question as to whether it could be made secure enough to transmit sensitive (though unclassified) data. Second, I was an E3 at the time; and of course the junior enlisted ranks are meant to be seen, not heard.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
There isn't a server-side bandwidth shortage; it just costs money. No matter who provides the content, if there is no cache at the point of upstream connection, bandwidth is wasted.
What I fail to understand is why more content isn't cached by ISPs.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
It really sucks.
If a site doesn't explicitly set the Cache-Control header, the proxy assumes "cache freely". I usually have to hit reload between 2 and 4 times to get a page to actually refresh on the proxy. If this proxy served all of Charter, then i wouldn't complain. It makes Good Fiscal Sense (and they ream me out enough as it is, no need to give them excuses to charge more). But it's only for my area, and it looks to be for a subset of my area. So why is it used? i don't know.
it's also annoying in that you Must use a FQDN or IP address in your URI (if using http/1.1), otherwise the proxy can't work its magic and gives you a 502 error.
Not that i'm bitter.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:2)
But here is what I meant by glut. Most people's connections (with exceptions), broadband or dial-up, are silent most of the time. They don't pay any more whether they use that bandwidth or not. In fact, if upstream is too limited, you can chop individual web pages up, just like you would presumably do with large downloads. For small web pages, the number of users that would be currently downloading the page at any one time would be far smaller than the number of users who had visited the web page recently, and were not using their connection at the moment. Sure, I might look at 5 web pages in a short period. But the amount of time I spend browsing those pages would generally be far greater than the amount of time it would take to send them all on up the pipe.
Re:P2P is the next killer app. (Score:5, Insightful)
ISP's oversell capacity. Last I heard it was something like 5-10 to 1 on high quality ISP's. They over sell capacity by a lot. This over selling is why they can sell it to you cheap, because your only paying for 1/5 to 1/10th of the cost of the bandwidth. That's why getting a cable modem is cheap, and getting a server hooked up at 1/10th the speed is more expensive.
So I'll say it this way... If you're trying to use spare bandwidth from users to serve pages to other users, especially if they are off your local ISP, you will ruin the good thing we have going. We get bandwidth cheaper then we should as a consumer precisely because the content providers pay so much, because an average end user doesn't use that much bandwidth. If you break that up, you realize you'll get to pay server prices for your bandwidth right?
If your structuring your P2P that way, it'll be a killer app. It'll kill the pricing scheme of consumer bandwidth.
Kirby
my college (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:my college (Score:5, Insightful)
This is by far the most sensible policy. The net admins have better things to do than monitor the network all the time, and the administration has no desire to turn over its students to entertainment lawyers. All they care about is keeping a well-ordered network, where students don't clog the T3 and don't get lawyergrams sent to the President's office. Students have in fact been thrown off the residential network for violations, but I don't think anyone's been in trouble with outside authorities.
umm...so (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO, having a university do this is more moral than an ISP (since ISPs are providers of a payed service) being asked or forced to police its customers. it is also more moral by far that legislating a solution.
besides, 99% of the information that is downloaded to universities from p2p is illegal in either copyright law or university rules( downloading test answers or term papers etc.)
Re:umm...so (Score:2, Insightful)
A university is a business just like any other. It has employees and provides sevices (and goods: food, textbooks, board, etc.) to those willing to pay. Internet access is just another one of those services. I know on my tuition bill there's a very clear "$135: internet access."
So what makes a University any different from an ISP?
Also: I'd love to see where you got the statistic that "99% of the information that is downloaded to universities from p2p is illegal in either copyright law or university rules."
That seems like an absurdly high number. At least in my circle of friends, p2p is frequently used for trading GPL software, and programs that students have written themselves. I'm not going to pretend I've never DLed a movie or some Mp3s, but God knows that's not 99% of my p2p usage.
And it's quite simple to limit bandwidth usage for p2p programs. My university has done so, and it's quite evident that download speeds are affected. It takes several days sometimes to download a Debian ISO, but streaming web content screams at blazing speeds...It's pretty clear that the university is discouraging p2p use, and doing so without harming more "legal" or "ethical" uses of the iternet. As far as I know, many ISPs do the same thing...it sounds like these letters are directed at the schools that have not implemented such limitations. I wouldn't be surprised to see similar suggestions made by the industry to ISPs. I don't see anything at all immoral or amoral about saying "hey...some of your customers are doing illegal things...You should discorage that" to an ISP, or to a University.
Re:umm...so (Score:2)
IM clients have file trading aspects, and it is much more efficent to blast a file or files over to a buddie on you List than it is to have it sitting out on a p2p, tell your buddy what the file name is, then have your buddy go out and fine the file on a p2p service.
then, if you want a no effort way to distribute your files, you can make an ftp server and let your friends have accounts or if you are realy lazy, anonymous FTP.
but realy, IM file sharing should be low impact enough.
Re:umm...so (Score:2)
I usually do this when I need to send something to someone. It does however have one strong drawback - proactivity. You have to be sitting at your computer and he has to be sitting at his both ready to go. With a p2p network you can be sitting in class and say "Hey, yeah.. grab that program I wrote for CS3601 and tell me if it runs for you. It's call MyProj3.com" and he can then grab it anytime.
We will throw the letter out... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm a student at UNC (Score:5, Interesting)
No one was for it after we were told that by one of the CS teachers, and the protest was dissolved.
It was just like when Bush went to Ohio State [wsws.org], except it was for a rich corporate billionaire, not just post 9/11 presidential security!
Re:I'm a student at UNC (Score:2, Insightful)
Because you are in the US does that mean the 1st amendment (IANAL) "Right to peacable assemble" play?
And couldn't you (I dunno this is getting really OT) file for assult charges(or something, I just know that if a person threatens to hit you it is assault, if they hit you it is battery, and in someplaces if they prevent you from leaving on your own free will for no reason (say not letting you leave a party because they don't like you) it is kidnapping) because you were being threatened? Or was it just to keep you locked away for the durration of the persons visit? (Wrongful arrest comes to mind...)
Opposite (Score:5, Interesting)
The first week, we had take an online class where we learned that if we got caught sharing, we would have community service and stuff.
Then last week, they basically send an e-mail saying that they didn't care if we downloaded stuff, as long as we didn't upload stuff. I'm too lazy to go and check the e-mail, but I believe it gave directions on how to turn off uploads in KaZaA. Weird.
"Juicy nugget"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Juicy? It *can* take up a significant percentage of bandwidth. Bandwidth *is* costly. The copying of copyrighted works, according to current concensus, *is* illegal. Even if you don't agree with the illegality of it, how is the fact that the RIAA believes copying is illegal surprising or revealing?
Re:"Juicy nugget"? (Score:2)
Isn't all software automatically copyrighted, and isn't like ALL GPL software accompanied by Copyright notices? So its not the mere copyright status of the files, but the license. You can't shut down P2P merely because copyrighted works are being shared. That's not good enough for me.
And I almost reacted to your sig since you don't have an RFC-compliant sig separator. Not that you're required to have one, but it helps make comments like yours stand out.
Re:"Juicy nugget"? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is about flipping time that they sent a letter! (Score:2)
I even heard that some students were "called into the principal's office" over file sharing, and had their wrists slapped.
This year, the bandwidth in one residence has been awful. It takes up to 30 seconds to load a webpage at peak hours! I complained to the helpdesk, because I'm paying for HIGH speed LAN, not 14.4 dialup! I haven't even been sharing files this year, although last year I'd upload about 4 GB a day. I figure now that I've got most of the mp3s I need, the UofR should install a packet shaper [thetartan.com] so I'll be the first to respond to
Did anyone else notice the dark, erie website design that the RIAA uses? Kinda makes you wonder who is pulling their strings... the Devil?
ancient chinese proverb (Score:4, Funny)
Phynd (Score:5, Informative)
Before this was implemented, P2P programs tied up HUGE amounts of bandwitdth. UConn was forced to administer a bandwidth quota per student, but fortunately that's only for off campus traffic, not local traffic.
But the best thing about it is that the students solved the problem all by themselves. And UConn loves it because it's saving them vast amounts of money.
Re:Phynd (Score:3, Informative)
I'm also at UConn, and I've seen the problems with Phynd... people leech like crazy and don't share. This leads to heavily loaded servers (especially when ten people think it's a good idea to try to directly play AVIs off of a remote machine) who say "fuck it" and stop sharing.
A localized P2P tool (properly configured GnucleusLAN, for instance) wouldn't run into these problems. I'm trying to set up an on-campus gnutella network. Drop me an email if you're interested.
--grendel drago
Moral and Legal responsibilities (Score:2)
Universities *can't* do this! Why? The skewed views regarding morality and the law which exist on college campuses today.
I can see it now.....a panel of "trained" students and administrators who find a student "responsible" for questionable uses of the computer network because he was running LimeWire. For this, he will be "educated" by having to take "educational experiences" where he's asked to share his feelings on the subject, and recite whatever it is that the University decides it wants him to believe that day.
This is all B.S. It sounds nice and clean, but these things are also accompanied with C+D letters from record company attorneys. They basically say that the university will be a party to the lawsuit if they don't stamp out P2P. I've personally seen it happen.
And if there's one thing that University administrators can't stand, it's the possibility that they could have to go to court.
University Policy (Score:4, Informative)
Now, since the government of my state has not placed a ban on p2p networks of any type, we are in no position to deny our users the right to use them. We are, however, allowed to throttle their traffic so that more of our bandwidth goes to university-related causes. Really, our department tries as much as possible to turn a blind eye to the p2p situation. We don't want to impede on our students abilities to use the internet in the way they see fit. The university will not, however, back a student who has been busted by the RIAA for illegally possessing copyrighted material.
A little case study (Score:4, Interesting)
If my university prohibited Napster, as some othes Scandinavian schools did, the collection would probably have never started.
Worse than that, I would never know first-hand what P2P is. This is about academic freedom: you should be allowed to test whatever darn new thing is out there, for whatever reason, otherwise the school lags behind. What you use it for, is your responsibility, of course.
Oh yes, I'm first-hand aware of the associated headaches (cleaning up the lab computers from those pesky money-generating add-ons that pop up an ad at the timing-critical phase of your data acquisition :-).
You're downloading COMMUNISM! (Score:2, Funny)
My Alma Mater told RIAA to shove it (Score:5, Interesting)
Deep down, the RIAA knows that it has absolutely no hope of forcing this upon universities, which is why these letters are absent any cease and desist language. They're just going to run it up the flagpole and see who looks.
The final word should be here that it is the job of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to enforce Federal law. No other entity, whether state or local, has the jurisdiction nor obligation to enforce the CFR. If distributing copyrighted material is a federal crime, then it's the justice deparment, and no one else, who has the power to indict. Civilly, I find it hard to believe that the RIAA would be able to prove that distributing a song cost them any money. What downloader is going to take the stand and testify that he/she would have bought the CD had they not been able to download it? I sure wouldn't. In fact, I would testify that the ability to "try before you buy" has led to my purchasing several CDs that I normally would not have even known about, let alone bought.
Every single Borders bookstore allows you to listen to a CD, in CD quality, and in its entirety, without any inhibitions, before you buy it. Does that not constitute illegal distribution, i.e. allowing someone to listed to copyrighted music without paying? Why isn't Borders being served? How is this different than P2P, save the portability of the music?
Who was your alma mater? (Score:2)
Re:My Alma Mater told RIAA to shove it (Score:4, Insightful)
Even the most ambitious web surfer who plays online games will be hard-pressed to average more than 250kb/s over a 24-hour average. A typical end user, browsing popular sites and sending emails, will be far lower. Networks are built on these assumptions.
P2P kills this. A modest, unattended workstation suddenly can burn up 2-3mb of bandwidth, around the clock. A typical school with 2,000 students will normally get an OC3, probably billed on the basis of an average of 60-70mb/s. Cost of that will be roughly $20k a month.
Now, 10% of the students discover P2P. Even with some of that traffic staying on-net, they will still be looking at spending an extra $40,000 a month to support the MP3 habits of a couple hundred students.
Yep, the RIAA is heavy-handed, and would be more than happy to see anything with more storage than a 3.5" floppy banned. They're not going to get their way.
But the people who run the networks -- colleges, businesses, and cable companies -- look at the alternatives:
1. Buy $650,000 of new networking gear plus $300,000/month in bandwidth, and implement monitoring to comply with occasional court orders.
2. Ban any computing platform capable of P2P (i.e. linux) from network connections unless the user is willing to pay for usage.
Faced with a quote from Cisco for a 300-pound router on one side of the desk, and a petition demanding continued access to pirated software, I would rather tell the kids to go buy a CD than explain my capital budget request to the board.
Think about why the RIAA did this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Colleges shape the way generations think. If they simply sit back and allow millions of students get accostomed to d/ling MP3s, then they have an uphill battle to fight later. They are scared to death of a new generation thinking there is nothing wrong with this.
Most of us here on the boards fit in the 20 to 50 year old category. We at least remember what it was like to have to *buy* a cd! Think about the impact of those below us who will grow up in a culture where, if you want an album, you download it and burn it yourself.
From the RIAA's point of view, it's easier to send a watered down "cease and desist" letter rather than rethinking ways to relate to this new demographic.
To make more money? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Think about why the RIAA did this... (Score:2, Insightful)
If I don't download music, then I will have to buy a CD. That's what the music industry wants you to believe. The truth is that you have another option: Don't listen at all. Nobody I know in college listens to current music--nobody can get it.
The solution is to vote with your dollars and your minds. Don't pay for CDs and don't pay attention to MTV. Sure, I still listen to music, but it's never the mainstream Justin-Timberlake-Britney-Spears-Hoobastank to which the Industry wants me to listen.
You're right on the money (Score:2)
You're right about the current crap out there anyway. Think about how you heard abou all the great (underground) bands--your friends. You didn't hear them on the radio, you didn't see them on MTV, and you certainly didn't see them prominently displayed in the front of stores.
Now...think about what the P2P model does. It brings this "friends recommendation" thing to a whole new level. If I want to find more MP3s like a certain band, I find other P2P people who have those MP3s.
You'd think that they're realize the HUGE potential of this. You've got tons of people trading music...that's tons of data on people's music preferences waiting to be analyzed (and capitalized) every which way.
Their current approach is very short sited. They want to retain what they think is lost revenue. But to do that, they're treating consumers like shit!
Re:Think about why the RIAA did this... (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdot lame reply response (TM) almost kicked in here. I was about to say "Hey, I still buy CD's. In fact, I've bought CD's of bands I've found through P2P networks!", but then I realized, No. No I haven't. The last CD I bought was Reel Big Fish - Cheer Up!, which came out late last summer. I buy about a CD every 6 months.
Yeah, I don't buy CD's anymore, unless they're from a band at a show - Now that's something I have done - gone to a show of a band I found on P2P. But, you know, fuck the RIAA.
~Will
Re:Think about why the RIAA did this... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Of course, P2P technology is exciting and holds great promise as a means of legitimately distributing works --it is the misuse of this technology by entities such as KaZaa, Grokster and Morpheus that causes problems for digital networks."
Sure P2P holds great promise - as long as it's reserved for them to make $$ and no one else. If they would have only permitted Napster to license their catalog they could have worked toward a solid legitimate use of P2P. To take an opportunity to communicate constructively then use it to bash the 'Evil P2P companies' is a bit much. The KaZaa's do nothing more than provide a service; it's the end-users who may misuse the technology.
I have always believed that the way to deal with P2P successfully is through a solid education and understanding of the technology and discuss solid cases of how it can be used for legitimate and non-legit uses. What better place to do this but at University? Yet nowhere do these letters discuss educating the students. They focus instead on seeking out the evil doers and ignorant fools who would create an 'insecure' network .
Colleges Working Together... (Score:2, Interesting)
Let's see which ones have backbones and which ones do not, this may get interesting.
Peer to peer is evil (network wise) (Score:2)
For one webpage and N visits, you need N transfers.
If you add M caching proxies on strategic places, you end up with with not-really but close to N/M transfers. This will result in more local traffic and less non-local traffic.
This principle has been practised on the Internet a lot in the past. Take for example USENET. Instead of sending all messages to all people, they were collected on central servers and people could access them locally via there. This resulted in more local traffic and less non-local traffic.
Same with multicast radio. instead of sending N streams from one central server, they can send one stream which is distributed over the internet and forked at routers on which the traffic splits. Result: only one stream per channel.
So, if people started to make "peer-to-peer-caches" on strategic places, you could get all your music from there instead of having it to fetch from a far-away-country. Result: more local traffic, less non-local traffic.
If we only could map the law on this network-design, life would be so difficult and the internet would be so much faster for the data which can't be cached.
Re:Peer to peer is evil (network wise) (Score:2)
Life wouldn't be that is. (doh)
oh great... (Score:2, Funny)
Early Electrical Grids (Score:5, Insightful)
Eventually when the technology improves, the system will have to move to a "pay what you weigh" billing scheme just like all of our other utilities.
I mean, let's face it. Internet access is becoming a utility, just like electricity, water gas, etc. Why then should it not be billed by the gallon, kW or whatever just like any other utility?
I know it sounds aweful to the all-you-can-eat salad bar culture, but it's probably inevitable.
-Chris
My experience with suspected "copyright violation" (Score:5, Interesting)
Early in my college stint, one of my Red Hat machines was hacked literally minutes after I ifup'ed eth0. Needless to say, I took an immense amount of heat because that computer was subsequently used as a waypoint to launch a DoS. What a turning point. Those who've interacted with me since have known me to be extremely critical of standard security procedures at universities; I've been very outspoken in pushing the use of strict ssh2, strong passwords, forced password expiration, keeping current with application and service updates, reading and generally being security-conscious, and other what I consider security essentials from an administrator's viewpoint. I say this because most students don't care about the difference between ssh2 and telnet; they just want to check their email and download mp3s.
Which brings me to my second point. During my junior year, I was part of one of the first large OpenNap networks. Although the particular server I operated had the enable_share parameter disabled, the nature of the network setup allowed information transfer over the entire network and thus anyone--even on a host with sharing disabled, like mine--could retrieve search results for a song search. The RIAA wasn't too happy (I don't doubt this was discovered through napigator), and in the end I had to sign a number of documents promising I would never infringe copyrights again, use excessive network resources, etc. This is despite the fact that I was operating a completely legal OpenNap server--my boss at ResNet affirmed that I wasn't sharing.
What this goes to show is that universities with _competent_ security and copyright-aware folks will throw up a safety net for you _if you're doing the right thing_. The EULA for ResNet at UNC and various links already cited in the posting above make explicit the methodology of dealing with suspected copyright violation. While I wasn't happy at the time, I have to acknowledge that UNC gave me a lot of support for which I'm grateful. The basic point is "don't do any stupid, and you won't regret it." If however, the RIAA decides to chase you down as they did me, as long as you're within your proper use, you should be ok.
I've heard separate stories about mistreatments on separate protests, but those are unfortunately not things for which I can vouch.
When I went to college... (Score:4, Funny)
When I went to college the really high-tech people were running 1200 baud dial-up to BBSes.
Ahh, for a Commodore 64, a 1670 modem, and nibbleterm. Those were the days, my friends. Now every college weenie has KaZaA and thinks they're hot stuff. I don't think I paid for any software ever for the C-64, and most of it was swiped at 300 baud or at file sharing parties - we called them GT's (Get Togethers). I don't think I got the 1671 until 1986.
And we used to Phreak MCI and Sprint by hand.
Of course there was the day that the FBI came knocking at my door...
Music sharing? Albums recorded to cassette tape.
Kids today just don't get the finer points of stealing. It's all about instant gratification now. I say, cut the cord and take away their high-speed internet. Let 'em P2P at 300 baud over POTS like we use to.
Some colleges like it (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as they're concerned, it's one of the costs of doing business as a college these days.
think a little (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, there is no threatening 'or else' stuff in those letters
Duh. If a college employee hasn't yet learned to read between the lines, they're not long for their job. College, as a business, have more intrigue and politics than a junior-high school girls' clique.
VALENTI!!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
kind of self respecting Sicilian threatens others with the law?
Valenti, come out of the closet and start busting some balls man. These freckled white kids
need to see what descipline is suposed to be. Show these motherfucking little bastards WHO is
the daddy.
The RIAA needs its own army of made men to do business.
I agree on bandwidth (Score:5, Informative)
~Chazzf
P2P has legal uses.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though I am capped at 128kbits upload, people have still managed to pull between 500MB to roughly 750MB a day from it. Only amature car/street racing videos and the psyche iso's. NO illegal material at all. The RIAA/MPAA can kiss my ass. P2P has a purpose and I am using it in that manner.
What about FTP, usenet, IRC, IM's? The list goes on and on. Maybe the RIAA/MPAA should skip the middleman and complain to the retailers that are selling computers to students. That would solve the copyright and bandwidth problems.
5 step process for outdated business model, if you can't beat 'em:
Lobby lawmakers
Use PR money for FUD
Manipulate the numbers
Modify your business plan
Join them
They are running out of options!!
Re:First Post... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hilary Rosen, Jack Valenti (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hilary Rosen, Jack Valenti (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And this nugget is 'juicy' in what way exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And this nugget is 'juicy' in what way exactly? (Score:2)
The RIAA isn't saying anything revolutionary by stating that P2P costs schools. Most schools already know this, and a number of them have begun to restrict such programs in various ways (port blocking, traffic shaping, etc.).
Re:And this nugget is 'juicy' in what way exactly? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's EVERY STUDENT who's downloading MP3's. Thank god for that.
Fortunately, most college students are pro file-sharing. Since college students will shape the future, we can at least look forward to a less draconian future where everything isn't controlled by a few big paranoid information-nazi's like the MPAA and RIAA.
The next big thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The next big thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Cap all outgoing traffic from the dormitory networks, regardless of port or protocol. This would drastically cut down on out-of-campus users downloading from servers in the dorms (the largest part of the problem), while leaving non-dorm machines (cluster workstations, research labs, office computers, et al) untouched.
No. Ban all p2p (Score:3, Insightful)
Packet shapers are bad because they lower the priority of anything that is not http. Ftp is useless, shh is useless even email with large files can take awhile since only http is optimized. They also do not address the still legal problem of filesharing because no matter how slow the connection becomes, students will still pirate.
The only solution is to ban p2p. I am sorry and I no this sounds unfair but its not right that I can not use the college's ethernet access for legitimate purposes so someone can steal mp3's and porn. Its true that alot of public colleges with limited resources have ethernet connections that if you lucky will let you download at 5/k a sec! If you play quake3 today, you will notice all the guys with high pings are not really modem users anymore but rather college ethernet users. Its true. All thanks to p2p. You have packet shappers and kazaa to thank for your lousy performance.
Re:No. Ban all p2p (Score:2)
If your packet shaper is simply bumping up the priority of http packets than you have either a really crappy shaper or it is horribly configured, period.
They also do not address the still legal problem of filesharing because no matter how slow the connection becomes, students will still pirate.
This question has been addressed so many times I'm not gonna even really say much. Deal with the criminal, not the guy he bought the knife from.
Re:Bandwidth Costs (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Personally, I say: Ban P2P on Campus. (Score:2)
Re:Personally, I say: Ban P2P on Campus. (Score:2)
Yes, actually. Probably between 20 and 30 thousand dollars per year.
More than my old DSL bill, that's for damn sure.
So, would you like to help pay for your university's OC3 connection? It's probably costing them the amount of your tuition per month. Plus the salaries of the network administrators, cable monkeys, helpdesk drones, system admins, and secretaries in the IT departmetn, regardless of how underpaid they are in comparison to their peers working elsewhere, is probably a million or two per year. Plus the electricity to run the NOC is probably a million or two per year.
When you kick in a few more hundred dollars per year for a fatter pipe for your college so the rest of us who want to do some real fucking work (and no, this does not involve hand lotion) on the Internet can get it done, we'll talk about what's fair and what isn't.
- A.P.
Re:Personally, I say: Ban P2P on Campus. (Score:2)
Yes, that is exactly what I'm proposing. Having previously worked in the education system on the network end of things I'm well aware of the high prices bandwith like this demands. I would glady pay more in order to have more freedom and less regulation or capping of the bandwith.
Re:Personally, I say: Ban P2P on Campus. (Score:2)
Well, then, bring that up to your college, not to me. Remember to tell them what you plan on using your bandwidth for and the liability it opens them up for.
- A.P.