Shutting down Kazaa 531
An anonymous reader writes "There is an interesting wired.com article on the fight between the world's media corporations and Kazaa. The lengths Kazaa has gone to to keep itself immune from attack (incorporated variously in Vanuatu (where?), Estonia and Australia), seem to have largely paid off - until now."
Kazaa participation level (Score:3, Informative)
http://kazaahack.250x.com
Leechers Suck! (Score:5, Interesting)
I like the way that Overnet does things. Your max download speed is 4X your upload speed. This forces people to use their upstream bandwidth, even if they're not sharing anything (which is evil in itself) as the temp files are all also shared (so anything you're downloading can be downloaded by other people until it's completed).
Bootstrapping? (Score:5, Insightful)
even if they're not sharing anything (which is evil in itself)
If not sharing is considered evil, and a fellow new to movie trading has nothing to share, then for a fellow without a DVD-ROM drive or the video mastering expertise to make a good DivX rip, how is it possible to download one's first movie from Overnet without appearing "evil"?
Re:Bootstrapping? (Score:3, Insightful)
How about this: You go into a bank, rob it, and because of this, everyone everywhere can have all the material posessions that they want. This is of course, not possible. It is possible with digital media. Intellectual property and money are inherently not analogous.
As to your leeching argument... what? Does that make any sense to anyone else? (No, SuperDuG, please do not repeat it for me.) In the future, try using shorter sentences.
Re:Bootstrapping? (Score:4, Funny)
That comment was about as coherent as
1.Give bad analogy
2.????
3.Prove Point!
Re:Bootstrapping? (Score:5, Funny)
Please list some of the names of the poor, unfortunate souls that have died from intellectual property overdose, as well as the others that have died from being shot during a P2P file heist. I'm sure that with tens of millions of Kazaa users, those lists must be very, very long.
Re:Bootstrapping? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is irrelevant. It's still theft.
Re:Bootstrapping? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if I were to consider it theft, which I obviously do not [slashdot.org], theft != drug dealing or a bank heist. Both of those activities entail the risk of death and often the actual death of human beings, which is a far cry from "stealing" some pop music song on the internet. It is a false analogy created specifically to create a faulty link between file sharing and murderous activities which are, very rightly, considered to be completely different offenses with completely different penalties under the law.
Re:Kazaa participation level (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kazaa participation level (Score:5, Insightful)
However, introduce just one upload from my computer, and I suddenly find that my HTTP requests take forever to get to webservers, and even Google's front page takes longer to load.
Even so - I tend to allow uploads to continue. What I keep in my "shared" directory are mostly those hard-to-find files that take forever to download because there are a lack of people with that file. I can only hope that people who get those files from me are doing the same.
---
Re:Kazaa participation level (Score:5, Interesting)
That's due to a technical quirk of TCP/IP that is more prevailent with asymetric links.
Every received TCP packet must be acknowledged with an ACK packet. If you allow something to use 100% of your upload bandwidth, you'll find your ACK packets from your downloads get queued to get sent back in the upstream. This hammers your internet connection because the servers won't send you any more packets until you have ACK'ed the already sent ones.
The solution is to limit uploads to around 90 - 95 % of your total upload capacity. Unfortunatly, while Kazaa has an in-build bandwidth throttle that you can set, you can only change it in powers of two. I prefer WinMX, which allows you to set any value you want.
This web page [ntlworld.com] explains the problem and the solution in better detail than I have, with graphs etc.
If you are using a Linux NAT box or a good firewall, you may be able to set up traffic shaping to not allow p2p to max things out. This will also give priority to the ACK packets, and you can set it so that HTTP traffic also gets priority. It's pretty complex stuff though.
Complaining about Leeching on P2P... Funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Move along, nothing to see here.
That means... (Score:4, Funny)
Kazaa vs eMule (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:2, Informative)
giFT has too many roadblocks for Windows users (Score:2, Insightful)
It's mostly Linux users apparently
Last time I checked, it didn't even build on Windows. This has changed. I don't think many Windows users are willing to 1. download all of giFT's dependencies, which include SSH, CVS, Cygwin, Cygwin Xfree86, Perl, the Ogg libraries, and more; 2. learn how to use Cygwin; 3. configure the dependencies; and 4. compile giFT when they could just go on kazaalite.
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:2)
Sure, you could use KazaaLite or bypass Grokster's spyware manually but I would rather support a network that doesn't foist spyware on millions of clueless users.
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:4, Insightful)
So basically your saying your giving the moral highground to a service that is "better" for committing priacy and copyright infringement as opposed to one that fosters spyware?
Piracy and Copyright Infringement (Score:4, Insightful)
"...committing priacy and copyright..."
Both of these are violations of the law, but so what? Law is not the same as Right, and in fact, it has often been the opposite. It's possible to argue that music sharing amounts to civil disobedience, which all political theorists (who are not currently in power) will tell you is a Good Thing. Let's remember that a Good Thing is what's best for people in general, not what's best for the coorporations.
Here's how to make that argument:
Obviously, the system won't work if everyone gets their music for free. The recording companies won't make any profit, and people in general won't hear well-recorded music at all. This, however, does not by itself justify the bullshit that recording companies are putting us through. It is entirely possible for most people to get their music for free, and a few to pay for it.
People like CDs. They like the package, the booklet, the pictures. So, it's likely that of the people who download lots of free music, those of them who can afford to will buy the CDs they particularly like. Since about $17 of every $20 CD is pure profit for the record company, they really don't have to sell to a very high percentage of their audience. Some people say that this is the reason why record sales were at a peak before Napster died, and have dropped off since. I, personally, bought 5 of the 7 RIAA CDs I own because I heard the music first for free, illegally.
That would lead us to believe that we'd all be better off with filesharing/ piracy, even the giant rich companies everyone hates. Besides, making it illegal is like prohibition - now the only people who purvey shared files are themselves criminals, and can't be trusted. We all know what Kazaa tries to do to our computers.
<rant>
Another (moderatly less convincing) way to make this argument is to say that those &^%*& record companies shouldn't charge so much. Maybe if they charged a reasonable amount, like $7, for each CD, more peopel would buy. The reason this is less likely to convince is that free market capitalists will argue that the all-knowing public in this, our idealized capitalistic economy, would have counteracted any selfish moves of the businesses and prices will have already reached their equillibrium. The fact is that this just isn't true; the music industry, just like most others in America, is an oligopily, which functions just like a monopoly except that it avoids the letter of the law against monopolies.
</rant>
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:5, Informative)
Overnet tries to solve it, but it's just not there yet compared to KaZaA and even giFT/openFT. Hopefully it will be in the future, because I love ed2k and related services [sharereactor.com].
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:5, Informative)
Also for anybody who thinks the donkey network sucks, you have probably only tried the actual edonkey2000 client, don't use that one, it realy sucks, the author loaded it up with spyware and did a realy hack job on it (although he did a very decent job on the network protocol). Get eMule [emule-project.com] instead, it's GPL too.
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:5, Informative)
downloads:
* edonkey2000: http://www.edonkey2000.com/ (official client page. Has a almost working linux client to.. windows client is good)
* eMule: http://www.emule-project.net/ (considered the best windows client. Also open source)
* mldonkey: http://www.nongnu.org/mldonkey/ (linux client, with GIU, Web & telnet interfaces. Considered 'best' on linux. Open source)
* cdonkey: http://cdonkey.suche.org/ (some seem to like it, i don't want to touch it)
Good content sites:
* http://www.sharereactor.com (between its own listings, and the content in the forums, this is a unbeatable resource!)
* http://www.filenexus.com (sharereactor 'competitor', much smaller, but does music)
* http://www.sharedfolders.net (place where ppl can share their own 'releases' and faborites.. some good stuff can be found there, but takes a bit of work)
Enjoy, and welcome to the donkey file sharing world
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:3, Informative)
Shall we assume you meant second to none? If you really meant "next to none" then it's a wonder anyone uses it at all!
"Power users." (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kazaa vs eMule (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever (Score:5, Informative)
Why can't they win? (Score:5, Interesting)
Whack-a-mole Napster, Whack-a-mole Kazaa.
Who's next?
The other Ace in the hole that the RIAA has is going after users. Wait till they sue 500 or so of the most pernicious "sharers" at your local university. Would you step in to replace them?
Re:Why can't they win? (Score:5, Interesting)
No they don't. These networks are entirely self supporting, and could well be supported by free software projects.
As always, the free projects are taking longer to mature then the proprietary once, but they are coming along. Look at EMule [emule-project.net] and DC++ [sourceforge.net] for instance.
I think that they could possibly kill the "global" P2P systems if they managed to effectively attack and fine people who are sharing data. As it is, the worst thing that can happen if you share is that you get told to stop - if there was a substantial chance that sharing files meant a $100 ticket, they would dry out pretty fast.
(I wrote "global" because I think in such a case people would start trading in closed circles, relying on the six degrees of seperation for files to get around.)
Re:Why can't they win? (Score:2)
And more importantly, once the RIAA clearly turns the guns directly on its potential customers, will they miraculously start buying the music they're afraid to share? I seriously doubt it. Expect a rise of face-to-face trading.
Re:Why can't they win? (Score:5, Insightful)
90 million captive users watching your banner ads while they download? This is a golden business model of cat-and-mouse; by the time the courts shut them down, they will have made hundreds of millions, stashed away in private overseas accounts, and then they just declare bankruptcy to avoid paying anything out.
The reward is too great to discourage future Kazaa-wannabees, and all that is going to happen is that the rogue file swappers will perfect their business models based on all of the previous litigation and judgements. I suspect the RIAA will exhaust their legal war chest before they make a dent in online file swapping.
It just reinforces the fact that the music industry needs to offer a competitive product (not the token ones they are tossing us now). Start selling songs, from
Re:Whatever (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a thought for you, though: Next year there are zero movies and zero commercial music releases. Before you hurrah about how great that would be for the world as all of the independent acts with "much more talent" comes to the forefront, take a peek at your current collection of video and music files. I'll bet a pretty good coinage that it's all Dixie Chicks, Britney Spears and n'Sync. Such is the nature of the horribly hypocritical pro-P2P community: Giveme givem giveme, but can your failing business model. Good old tragedy of the commons playing out on the P2P networks.
Here's another thought for you -- When big music and big movies fail at thwarting P2P "at the top", they will, and this is a guarantee, start booting in doors and arresting/suing Joe Average for running Limewire and grabbing what appears to be a copyright movie or song. Before you rant about how technologically they couldn't do that, realize that they could with no trouble at all: Tracking down P2P users would be absolutely trivial. Contrary to the YRO sentiment believed on Slashdot, the majority of the general populace would support such actions if presented with big media's side of things.
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
When big music and big movies fail at thwarting P2P "at the top", they will, and this is a guarantee, start booting in doors and arresting/suing Joe Average for running Limewire and grabbing what appears to be a copyright movie or song.
Suing your customers is a somewhat questionable business model. I can't think of a single thing they could do that would kill them more quickly.
Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea is that they aren't your customers anymore than catching someone sneaking over the fence at the ballpark is prosecuting your "customer". Yeah some people strangely use P2P to grab copies of CDs that they own (a logic that is highly perplexing), but contrary to the "that's the majority" portrayal on Slashdot, overwhelmingly P2P is about people grabbing the latest hit song that they heard on the radio, or a divx of some movie (purportedly because they want a much lower quality version of the DVD they already own...)
Re:Whatever (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea is that they aren't your customers anymore than catching someone sneaking over the fence at the ballpark is prosecuting your "customer".
You're wrong.
The largest music-buying demographic is teenagers and college students, and they're also, as a whole, a group that frowns on "the establishment". In addition, even though they do buy a huge amount of music, in this demographic pretty much *everyone* downloads music, at least occasionally.
So, even if the RIAA only goes after the most hardcore P2Pers, the fact is that the group as a whole will see it as a personal attack by established corporate interests.
In short, the RIAA will seriously piss off a huge part of their customer base. It'll kill them.
As far as the ballpark analogy, consider that the ballparks just kick the kids out, they don't file trespassing charges against them. In the long run it's not even such a bad thing if the kids succeed in watching the occasional game -- just helps to ensure that they're going to be lifelong fans that will buy season tickets when they're adults and can afford it. In other words, the kids don't end up hating the baseball league, and that's important.
Yeah some people strangely use P2P to grab copies of CDs that they own (a logic that is highly perplexing)
Why is that perplexing? Personally, I'd rather rip and encode them myself (I like oggs with -q 6), but I can certainly see how it would be more convenient for some people to download them. I have helped my wife download copies of some music that she only has on vinyl (and can't buy on CD because it's never been published on CD). I have hooked my record player up to my computer, recorded the signal, post-processed it to clean it up and then compressed it, but it's a huge amount of work -- so I look to see if I can download it first. Also, I have downloaded copies of songs from to replace the ones I lost when my CDs got damaged.
Re:Whatever (Score:3, Insightful)
In short, the RIAA will seriously piss off a huge part of their customer base. It'll kill them.
I doubt it.
They'll whine and gnash their teeth and buy the CDs anyways. This is the same demographic that says "music group X has sold out!" and buys all of their stuff anyways, and who will watch TV for hours on end while complaining that there's nothing good on.
As for prosecution, the only people hit will be the suppliers with gigabytes of music or hundreds of movies. Most people won't be directly under attack, and so will barely notice. Remember pirate boards in BBS days? The boards, not the users, were the ones hit. It was actually even more selective than that; the boards specializing in credit card fraud and kiddie porn were hit, while the smaller fish were ignored. This is a natural consequence of the prosecuting organization's resources being limited. Joe User didn't really care; there were always more boards.
What happens for Joe User is that their favourite boards go down, it becomes harder for them to find what they want online, so they pester their parents to buy $item instead of spending hours looking for it.
Sharing can't be eliminated, but it can be made inconvenient, which is good enough. And people will still buy things no matter what.
The War Is On (Score:5, Interesting)
However, this thing we call piracy is nothing new. Closed circle casual piracy, like casual sex will always be around, however now we see a change that's been brewing since Napster came to power, we're now seeing MASS piracy, MASS amounts of people engaging in IP violations. This says something about the media conglomos themselves, this says something about how the consumer trend is changing, and this says something about IP/copyright laws in general.
The sides are polarizing, and what used to be a decent civilization of consumers and content creators has now de-evolved into a new "Wild West".
Let them come, Let the RIAA/MPAA start suing consumers who utilize p2p in their spare time. I don't think you fully understand what kind of shit storm that would rain down on the entertainment industry once this starts. Why do you think they've been trying to shutdown the sites instead of suing the users?? Not because they love us, but because of massively BAD PR. There are MILLIONS, and MILLIONS of p2p file swappers....Some old, some young, some with good paying jobs, some without.
Some with a grudge against the "man" and some who just want to actually get to know what they are buying before they buy it. And there are others in between.
Once you label all these diverse people as "criminals" or "thieves", or even imply that they are (people in the crossfire for example)they will ALL revolt.
And that's not all, there are people in the crossfire here that have nothing to do with p2p that will get hurt too. CD-R taxation, ISP being taxed and therefore the costs are past on to your grandma out in montana on dialup who googles only for cross stich patterns. And when they look at what's going on, they'll blame the person who's behind the jacking of the connection costs--The ISP, and once the ISP gets enough heat on them, then they bitch back at the RIAA/MPAA...then after the news media gets wind of all of this...MORE people try out p2p, and more people see how obnoxious the tactics of the MPAA/RIAA are, and the cycle continues to escalate.
The "general populace" you speak of *is* engaged in this activity.
Far too many people spend time on their polar sides to understand what is going on here. The RIAA is taking fair use away, the MPAA extending copyrights every time they're about to expire, price fixing of CDs, obnoxious bands on payola radio, overly restrictive DRM on CDs, the list goes on and on, but that's just to name a few.
Something has to give or this will fester at a exponetial rate. People will be hunted down and fined/jailed, the RIAA will be bleeding red ink, their will still be fabucated crap on the radio. There will be rallies in the streets and online, mass dissent among consumers, and most of all, new laws that will bring new restrictions on things that we thought were safe.
Look at it this way, the whole p2p idea sprung up out of practically no where, and jetted into the internet's mainstream practically overnight. Yet, the RIAA has been working the same business model for multiple decades. If you don't move fast enough and change enough, your consumers will either fuck you, or leave you. And p2p users who are and who used to be media consumers are doing them both. That tells me that something is wrong on the content holder's side. But that isn't to say they should heed to the "pirate's" wishes, all i'm saying is both sides have better start looking for compromises before it becomes to late.
Re:The War Is On (Score:3, Insightful)
No they won't - people mostly don't give a damn, and almost never get together about anything.
therefore the costs are past on to your grandma out in montana on dialup who googles only for cross stich patterns.
She can try this one: [stoik.com]
Interesting ads (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to condemn someone and still profit from their popularity.
Re:Interesting ads (Score:3, Informative)
Heh (Score:4, Funny)
First person: "Does anyone have a program that can downconvert MP3s to 128kbps?"
Second person: "Try Kazaa."
Where? (Score:5, Funny)
Please note the above comments about shady financial dealings, and ask yourself again why Kazaa is incorporated there.
For more information on vanuatu, see the CIA world Factbook.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ge
Re:Where? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Where? (Score:5, Funny)
"the country has no known petroleum deposits"
song = movie? (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article:
Record labels and movie studios want the services closed and fined $150,000 for each illegally traded song or movie.
The dollar figure itself is ridiculous, but I find it interesting that the proposed fine is the same for movies and songs. Let's say the average song is 3 minutes, and the average movie is 90 minutes - i.e. 30 times the length of a song. If the movie fine were $150,000, then the fine for a song should be $5,000 (using duration as the primary factor). If the fine for a song were $150,000, well...
Having said that, I don't believe the labels, et al will collect anything.
Statutory damages for copyright infringement (Score:2, Informative)
If the fine for a song were $150,000, well...
It is. Instead of taking actual damages, a prevailing copyright owner can elect to take statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work, as defined in Title 17, United States Code, section 504 [cornell.edu]. And for a sound recording, statutory damages can potentially reach $300,000 because copyrights on two separate works are infringed: the copyright on the melody (owned by the songwriter or by the songwriter's publisher) and the copyright on the sound recording (owned by the band or by the record label).
Hehe, let em try. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, trying to stop pirating is totally fruitless. Next in line is shadow networks where no one is tracable. To stop one of those is next to impossible. A filter at each ISP can do the trick but it would be an enourmous task to get that implemented in every country. When its filtered just send your packets in some other protocol like vpn or ssh etc. even if they succeed stopping pirating alltogheter over the internet people still will exchange cds and dvds like back in the 90s but with new types of media.
The cost of stopping pirating is just to big and they should spend that money on relations and better products instead of fitghting the windmills.
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:2)
They bust a random load of people and make an example out of them. Just fine them say £1000 or so. I know that I would ban kazaa from all my computers if I knew that they were randomly fining people.
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually enforcing such a scheme, even just for US netizens, would be a very difficult task.
Not only that, but Im fairly sure that tracking people (and consequently collecting information about them) would be an illegal act in itself.
No, the only way to combat music-sharing is to fight on the same turf. Setup a secure server; allow people to download tracks for a small(er) fee. Offer additional features, competitions, chances to win things etc. Give them a reason to pay for the music online, and maybe they will...
Just my $0.02...
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:5, Interesting)
Is anyone using HTTPS yet? That would be tough to block, because they'd be interfering with inter-state commerce, and if I recall correctly, that would run smack into the Constitution...
As for getting filters implemented in every country, that'll pretty soon take care of itself. When every PC in the US has the "Trusted Platform" chip built in, the Internet will fragment into two parts - the USA and Everyone Else. This will be due to the Trusted Platform equipment in the USA not letting itself talk to the non-Trusted Platform equipment in the European Union and elsewhere.
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:3, Insightful)
If, as the US government once argued, PGP is a munition, then a PC is a weapon.
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, I'm not sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing..
Re:Hehe, let em try. (Score:2, Funny)
BTW, I use Kaaza, just a joke
kazaa (Score:3, Informative)
Re:kazaa (Score:5, Informative)
.
Re:kazaa (Score:5, Informative)
Vanuatu (Score:5, Informative)
Read the article (Score:2)
Re:Read the article (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless the protocol is not broken, like it has been in the past (giFT 0.9.x). The main reason that the current protocol hasn't been broken yet is because 1). it's tough and time consuming to do, but not impossible 2). once it's done, the kazaa programmers could easily break it again, which they did in the past (KaZaA 1.3.3)
If the kazaa programmers were taken out of the picture, I'm pretty sure that groups like the "givers" who broke the protocol before, would do it again.
Beautiful...simply...beautiful... (Score:2)
Here's an interesting idea: Kazaa/Klite has many, many problems (the programming itself). Fix the problems(mirroring issues, corrupted downloads, etc), work full DVD (or encrypted divx) music videos in to the mix, then setup some sort of reasonable pay-for-play scheme, and hell, I'd buy music from the service...Maybe set up some sort of MTV-like html viewer integrated into the service program, and voila: you have a viable filesharing scheme.
Sigh, now if only the content industry would realize that the Internet can be their friend...lol...
What About Gnucleus? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What About Gnucleus? (Score:3, Insightful)
And, Gnutella has a diversity of clients. Not all of them implement or support the latest advances. Meanwhile almot everyone on Kazaa runs the most recent version.
So, Kazaa is a better network, with more users. In other words, more content that is easier to find.
Re:What About Gnucleus? (Score:3, Interesting)
With filesharing, you have to go where everyone else is to have any hope of finding anything specific that you're looking for. Sure, roaming someone else's shared files for something new can be fun, but it's time-consuming and often fruitless.
I used to agree with all the arguments you made about why Gnucleus is worthwhile, but I finally broke down and said: "Damnit, I just want to find what I'm looking for." And having Gnucleus spend 10 minutes trying to connect to SuperNode every time just so I can get zero results for a search doesn't impress me too much.
This might work... (Score:2)
If enough people do this the RIAA, MPAA, (insert two letters here)AA and whatever might get enough money for them to realise that filesharing isn't as bad as they think it is... And then they just might fuck off to where they belong!
Just a thought.
-Mark
Aern't they missing the point (Score:2, Interesting)
Um... Even from the article it doesn't look like kazaa will be "going down" any time soon. Sherma nset it up so that it would be pretty much impossible to take apart, wheather or not he was still involved with it. I really don't think the media industry has any idea what they are dealing with. They seem to think that now that they have him it will end. They can do eveything they want to him include kill him and kazaa will live on. They really have nothing but the man who started it. Kudoos to him tho ;)
Fighting the RIAA using their own tactics (Score:5, Interesting)
Creedence Clearwater Revival is the best example of this. They were foolish enough to heed the advice of a label accountant and agreed to shelter their royalties into an offshore corporation under the control of the label - and then stood helpless as they discovered to their horror that the corporation and their money vanished.
And of course the labels continue to refuse to open the accounting books for audits. These practices continue today, through contracts that severely restrict audit policies and reducing the royalty flow to artists to a trickle leaving them with no resources to hire the qualified legal counsel necessary to force the labels to open their books. If you thought Enron or WorldCom were bad...
I find it highly ironic and appropriate that the RIAA is chasing a target who is beating them by using their own tactics through offshore puppet corporations with ghost staff and through countries that do not acknowledge US law. In the end when the RIAA is pointing a finger at KaZaa in court, it should be emphasized that they have three fingers pointing back to them.
Re:Fighting the RIAA using their own tactics (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, wait..... never mind.
What is the point of shutting them down? (Score:4, Interesting)
So kazaa disappears, and everyone moves to the next.. Then the next.
Only way to stop it is to prevent all outgoing traffic from a workstation. And that of course would make internet useless.
Even bandwidth caps/charges wont stop it. Might slow it some, but it wont stop. Remember the days of direct dial curriers?
Perhaps if they spent all this time / energy / money on WHY its being done, they might really accomplish something.
amusing.. (Score:3, Insightful)
i've never used p2p services, but from a high level kazaa is like a directory service. maybe it does some caching, anonymizing and other kinds of negotiation, but on the whole it's major selling point is that it hooks up different classes of users: producers (well, maybe "data holders" would be better) and consumers.
and it's not all that fair to blame a directory for what its users do wrong. i do find kazaa's "corporate hacks" interesting. they've gone to great lengths to level the playing field on a corporate/legal level. i don't like their tech or their ethics in other areas but they have proved that there are ways for an underdog to fight large corporations.
Switch to OpenFT! (Score:2, Interesting)
They could only supply a windows gui and throw the ads and spyware on the users. They wouldn't be the driving force behind the protocol so the Music-Industry couldn't sue them for providing a filesharing platform. Am i wrong on this?
cu,
Lispy
Even if they lose... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even if they lose... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of Estonia, they may have some incentives. Incentives like "If you'd like a free trade agreement.." or "If you'd like to join NATO..."
The American idea of corporate everything (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting part of all of this seems to be an underlying belief that every human endeavor must be industrialized. I personally don't pay for shrink-wrapped music, and I never will. I gladly pay musicians by means of a tip charge, cover charge to get into a club, and by buying an occasional CD from the band if they are good. Record companies get nothing from me.
Music isn't an industry, any more than art is. At the moment industry backed music chokes out the independents, leaving you with either corporate music, or having to search for independent music. I would listen to independents more, but I shouldn't have to work that hard to find music. Record labels gained power by getting access to OUR public airwaves and then monopolizing them, and attempts are being made to do the same with the Internet.
I was a musician and lived in Hollywood for a few years. The current system turns music into prostitution, where the only way a band can ever be heard is to prostitute themselves to the labels. The Internet has to potential to return music to its traditional place as folk art, and that is what the labels are out to stop.
Once people realize that music has been with us since the dawn of man, and doesn't need a corporate headquarters to exist and be good, then record companies will finally (and are) lose their grip.
KaZaA is my hero (Score:4, Interesting)
KaZaA would do anything to make money. The founders will move to strange countries with strange names. The will look into selling "my" hard-drive space and to physically take control of my computer and display ads that they feel are appropriate. I won't use KaZaA.
The Music Industry would have me buy a cd that may or may not work everywhere that I would want to play it. Simply because they are so insecure about their product and the willingness of people to steal it. I have bought 3 cds in the past year and that was plenty for me to decide that I will never buy a cd again. Empower the user with your product... Don't reduce them down to nothing.
that strange country could be nuked tomorrow and I wouldn't mourn the loss of KaZaA. Good friends, newsgroups, and IRC are 10x better than KaZaA... and I don't even have to look at Ads.
Until Now? (Score:5, Informative)
KaZaa vs. RIAA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:KaZaa vs. RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
So lets say the overall cost of a CD including manufacturing, royalties, all the various channel costs, and promotion is about $5. CDs are now about $15, and I buy about 4 a month, with revenue of $60 and profit of $40. If CDs were $30, I'd probably buy one, revenue is $30, profit is $25, not a good move on the part of the label. Now, if CDs were $7, I'd probably buy a couple extra, but not alot extra because I just don't have time to listen to that many new ones and quite frankly, there are probably not enough good ones to satisfy that level of purchase. Now that the revenue is at $42 and the profit is at $12, someone at the label is going to get fired. Oh, and if it cost $7, you would either a) still say its too expensive or b) find a new reason to justify pirating, so they get nothing from you either way.
Also, if charging $15 is so evil, how come every band I see selling CDs at their shows charges $10-15? Do you yell at them for "exorbitant" markup?
Re:KaZaa vs. RIAA (Score:3, Informative)
Those bands usually sell a lot less CDs AND at the same time foot the bill for the production and duplication themselves.
Having said that, a CD that sells a million times shouldn't cost $15/piece, considering that thanks to mass production the profit is going up, no?
P2P Needs a More Secure Base (e.g. FreeNetProject) (Score:5, Interesting)
What is FreeNet?
Supposedly, being on the FreeNet provides total anonymity because the protocols are encrypted from the ground up. You can't know where stuff is coming from and where stuff is going. This prevents spying, even by rogue clients. The content on FreeNet is hosted by every computer that is connected to the FreeNet at the time. You have a data store on your computer when you are connected to the FreeNet, but it is encrypted so you can't know what content from the FreeNet is being hosted on your computer (which brings up other issues). Of course nobody else can supposedly tell either.Freenet is a large-scale peer-to-peer network which pools the power of member computers around the world to create a massive virtual information store open to anyone to freely publish or view information of all kinds. Freenet is:
* Highly survivable: All internal processes are completely anonymized and decentralized across the global network, making it virtually impossible for an attacker to destroy information or take control of the system.
* Private: Freenet makes it extremely difficult for anyone to spy on the information that you are viewing, publishing, or storing.
* Secure: Information stored in Freenet is protected by strong cryptography against malicious tampering or counterfeiting.
I don't know the implications, or even if it is a feasible task to port P2P to FreeNet, but I think something like this is a necessary step as time marches on and as the red tape and legal woes thicken. (Maybe the implicit anonymous nature of the FreeNet doesn't allow for the same P2P processes to work -- then again maybe it's ideal) .Right now FreeNet is very slow and the last time I used it (version 0.4) was buggy. However I haven't tried the latest 0.5 release.
Of course this won't necessarily prevent the companies that create and distrubute the P2P software from being prosectued. However it might provide the anonymity that these companies need to distribute their software and keep operating -- provided they don't make themselves known to the public. If they are not known, then nobody can find them. Which begs the question: Then how would these companies get advertising revenue if nobody knows about them? Well, they could advertise on a webpage on the FreeNet and accept credit card payments over the FreeNet, and then the advertiser's content would magically appear in the P2P application. This would take a lot of trust on behalf of the advertisers.
Just a thought. I'd like to hear a response from developers who are involved with the FreeNet project and/or P2P clients about the feasibility of all this.
Re:P2P Needs a More Secure Base (e.g. FreeNetProje (Score:3, Interesting)
There are some indexing services, but they need to grow and get a user community behind them (like FileNexus and ShareReactor for eDonkey/Overnet)
If they got that going, it'd be interesting... but then you would still be restricted to searching in what was in the releases index... which would not reflect everything that is available.
Cheers
An interesting thought.. (Score:5, Interesting)
If I hear a song on the radio, and I record it. That is okay. If I record something off the TV antenna, that is also ok.
Now consider companies like Clear Channel, whose only goal is to cover every square inch of the US's surface area with the same radio stations. Theoretically, 88.9 in Podunk, USA, is the same as 88.9 in San Francisco, Tacoma, Buffalo, etc. Now, I'm wandering around, going to work, etc. being bombarded with these radio stations, and these television broadcasts, so, if I were recording everything broadcast to me, I'd probably have copies of all the latest music and some popular television programs. Now suppose, through corporate machinery, prettymuch the same opportunity were available to each and every American Citizen. What copyright gripe could the media companies have?
I realize the nature of copyright is such that I cannot redistribute works that are copyrighted. I can't find it on findlaw, but it seems like someone was caught selling stuff that had been broadcast (the superbowl, I think) that he had recorded. If memory serves, the ruling was something like new audiences were being created for the copyrighted work, audiences the original copyright holder was entitled to. But what if at every corner of the US you can pick up Clear Channel?
Better yet--what if I start a TiVo type service. We make you sign lots of paper work and we verify where you live. We have a computer program and a schedule of all content on broadcasts you can receive. Our computer records it, and lets you download it from our website. I'd expect the FBI to haul me away and lock up the key--but I don't think it is (or should be) illegal. What exactly has happened here? The people we're serving have a right to the content, we've just automated the time-shift of when that content is delivered to them. We'll even include the commercials, though for single songs people might want, this won't work as a lot of radio stations have moved their commercials to about once per hour or once per half-hour.
As far as quality goes, I wonder if Sattelite radio is obscured behind some sort of "terms of service" agreement that you agree to listen in exchange for not recording at all.
It's all about the bandwidth anyway... (Score:3, Insightful)
Roughly 0% of those I know with dial-up download stuff, they ask those above for a burned CD, but often they don't like asking for hand-outs.
Why? Speed. It's not about whether Napster / KaZaA / WinMX or whatever is easy to use or anything. As more and more people get/want broadband the faster it goes. What RIAA is doing is like playing Whack-A-Mole on a game machine that keeps going faster and faster.
Pretty soon, you can have so much stuff that if you're caught, you're bankrupt. 200gb of mp3s to $2/song (about full retail price here
I'm pretty sure you can manage to do so already with books. Oh that's 200gb of e-books, only 1 kazillion dollars for you.
Kjella
Another Article from the Entertainment Biz (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote:
For the entire article, try this [labusinessjournal.com]
And the Internet Made an Enemy (Score:4, Insightful)
mail your stolen music back to the MPAA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Now something like Gnutella is going to be near impossible to kill.
[1]proprietary is in quotes here because the very concept of a proprietary network protocol is somewhat questionable. Suffice to say, it's not an openly revealed protocol.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, seriously, I bought three CDs in 2002. I would have bought zero without filesharing, because I'm not willing to spend that kind of money on music I don't know if I like.
I may well be in the minority here, but I don't think so. Sure, there are people that will never, ever buy a legitimate CD again, but those people will never go away. Those people bought bootleg cassettes long before Napster and its ilk. No amount of regulation is going to do anything about that.
A lot of people download songs so that 1) they can sample an album before laying down the coin for it, or 2) because they know only one single is any good and it's not worth buying the whole album for. The first option does no harm to the music industry because the album is bought anyway, and the second is the music industry's fault for trying to maximize profit at the cost of quality.
Re:Finally (Score:3)
Yes, all of these things have some effect, but the music industry has made it through other economic slowdowns without taking the hit it has this time. As for the "low quality" music, that is the same thing that has always been said by people who have been passed by by the popular music. If the music is so bad, why are there millions of people still paying for it? Just because you no longer like what is being put out doesn't mean it isn't good. People who liked rock said the same thing when disco was out. The people who liked disco said the same thing when new wave was out. The people who liked new wave said the same thing when hair metal was out. People who liked hair metal said the same thing when grunge was out. Repeat ad nauseum. Saying the current music is "bad" just means you don't like it, other apparently do and are willing to pay for it.
I mean, seriously, I bought three CDs in 2002. I would have bought zero without file sharing, because I'm not willing to spend that kind of money on music I don't know if I like.
And there are many ways to sample music without downloading it. Many music stores let you sample the CD before you buy it. Most music web sites (including the ones for the artists) have samples or whole songs from the CD. Saying you can't sample a CD before you buy it is a load of crap.
A lot of people download songs so that 1) they can sample an album before laying down the coin for it, or 2) because they know only one single is any good and it's not worth buying the whole album for. The first option does no harm to the music industry because the album is bought anyway, and the second is the music industry's fault for trying to maximize profit at the cost of quality.
The first option is no option at all, since there are many ways to sample a CD before buying it. The second option is the same thing as stealing. If I only want 1 Skittle, is it okay for me to just open the package at the store and take 1 without paying for it? I wouldn't have bought the whole thing, so this is fine, correct? Or maybe if you don't want the whole CD, you don't get any of it, because that is the way it is sold. Just because you don't like how something is packaged doesn't mean you can take part of it without paying anything for it.
I'm tired of people trying to justify their music theft by blaming the music industry. If you want to steal music, go ahead, that's your decision. But don't try and claim it's because you don't the whole CD or because the RIAA rips off artists. Downloading music you don't own is stealing (or for the anal retentive people, "copyright infringement"). It doesn't matter how you justify it to yourself or to
another reason I don't like buying music (Score:2, Insightful)
I bought a Nat King Cole collection, well mastered, but full of electronic whistles and beeps. Will you take it back if I return it (ha ha)? The second was a Beatles collection of singles. Very flat, much less lively than the 40 year old vinyl.
Now these two acts built Capitol, I had hoped, wrongly, that some effort would have been put into these releases.
I got the Carpenters Love Songs CD for Christmas, a beautifully done collection. Her voice soars, someone shows how good music can be with some effort.
I'm not buying music I can't first sample, and I sample it with these file sharing utilities. You sure don't hear anything on the Clear Channel radio. These labels deserve to be run out of business.
Re:Finally (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy is bad. Stealing music without paying the artists for their work, taking away the effective rights of distribution and ownership from the musicians--this is all utterly unconscionable.
Curiously, though. It's exactly what the major recording labels do.
Musicians get shafted by their own industry worse than any other workers in the western world. The bigger the contract, the deeper indentured they are.
Musicians deserve to be compensated fairly for their work. Piracy doesn't achieve this, but it DOES distribute their work far more effectively than the recording industry, and at the same time, it DOES undermine the previous system, which didn't compensate musicians OR distribute their work.
Also, let's not forget that the RI companies are lying sacks of shit. Last year their sales went down by something like 10%, WHILE THIER PRODUCTION WENT DOWN BY 25%! In other words, their total sales as a percentage of production went up! (Aside: Obviously an intelligent business decision, and I can't fault them for that) Of course, they point to the 10% loss figure and blame it on piracy, rather than reduced inventory.
As for your job, I'm working on the assumption that you're in the US. Well guess what--the US is in a RECESSION right now! ALL companies are laying off people in an attempt to cut costs, people aren't buying as much stuff of any sort, and the market is stagnating. Trying to blame music piracy for that is putting a LOT of power in the hands of geeks! (woo hoo!)
Let's face it. The RIAA is a power-hungry bloodsucker, and the member companies need to wrap their head around the fact that they've already lost. Time now to move into the 21st century.
DISCLAIMER: The only music I've downloaded has been from dead artists with no immediate family alive to support. My music purchases, however, come to over 600 albums.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
No, I cost you your job because I DON'T BUY RETAIL anymore. Thanks to Half.com and my local Safe as Milk records, I make sure that every CD I purchase is a resale. Sure, you made money on it once, but it clearly wasn't good enough for someone to keep. I don't have to have your latest release. If it's really any good, it will still be good in a year, at $1.99.
(man, I'm in a pissy mood today)
Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't buy music (just don't think it's worth $20), and I don't download it either. I borrow CDs from friends every so often.
I have a huge amount of disposable income, and I would spend... hrm... $500 for one year of access to a website with big pipes and all the music I ever desired.
Of course, all that music would probably cost me around $5000 at current prices, but here's the thing: I'M NOT BUYING IT. RIAA member companies don't get a dime from me. Wouldn't they be better off if they took my damn $500?
Dude you are sooo L33T. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:DC++ (Score:4, Informative)
Which is *very* easy to fake. I can grab dc_gui from here [tzo.com], install it, goto the user prefs tab, goto shares, change the size offset to 150.43 GB (or whatever you want), and add a virtual share directory of my current download directory.
If I really did want to share anything, I could change the QOS settings to low cost IN the client, or add a very small upload bandwidth limit (minimum 0.5 kb/s in it)
Re:Are there hubs for common folk? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are there hubs for common folk? (Score:2)
Re:Out of genuine curiosity... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Out of genuine curiosity... (Score:3, Funny)
The internet/postal service/phone companies facilitates ilegal sharing of copyrighted materials. It/they should have been shut down long ago.
NOW do you see why your post looks stupid?