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Downhillbattle.org Bounty For P2P Gaim Plug-in 296

Posted by timothy from the don't-cross-the-streams-of-bits dept.
thecombatwombat writes "Music activism site Downhillbattle.org has started a fund to pay a bounty on a peer-to-peer plugin for Gaim. With new laws threatening peer-to-peer, Downhill Battle thinks this is the future. Regardless, it's an interesting funding of open source."
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Downhillbattle.org Bounty For P2P Gaim Plug-in More

Downhillbattle.org Bounty For P2P Gaim Plug-in

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  • Take me with you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:35PM (#10816806) Homepage
    I hope it doesn't bring down GAIM.

    Once again, how people use a tool shouldn't affect the legitimacy of the said tool, but it's RIAA we're talking about here.

    BitTorrent is pretty concerned when more and more pirates are using it to illegally distribute software, not that BitTorrent is an illegal tool, but you just don't want the trouble of lawsuit, and not to mention you're not guaranteed innocence in court (if your bank account can last that long).

    So personally, I don't think changing the "method" is going to help anything.

    • It will, but because (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EvilSporkMan ( 648878 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:00PM (#10816946)
      the IM services (AOL, we're looking at you) will be coerced into more aggressive Gaim-blocking in fairly short order. This will result in your loser friends that you can't get to use GPG or gaim-encryption complaining that it doesn't work (they're too lazy to get the update the Gaim people put out within 3 hours of the block, remember) and forgetting the whole idea. Good idea in theory, but you have to convert your friends to Jabber at the same time.

    • Re:Take me with you (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:06PM (#10816975)
      I don't know if it will bring down Gaim. It could help make it more popular, but popular in a bad way. I think in order for lots of people to understand how well open source software can be, compared to what they're used to now, they have to be introduced to it slowly.

      Take Firefox, for example. This browser works on different platforms and it kicks IE's ass. It's starting to get popular. Then I think once people get the idea that open source is good, they'll look over to OpenOffice. However, that won't happen until there is near perfect .doc compatibility. So give that a little while and it's definitely possible. During the same time span, people could start using Gaim realizing it's better than AIM.

      All these programs show that OSS is "good stuff" to lots of people. But if Gaim gets a stigma of being another shady P2P client, then it could to hurt that image.

      And if people like just these three programs I mentioned, then the switch to Linux isn't much of a big deal since they can use the same programs.

    • Re:Take me with you (Score:5, Funny)

      by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:15PM (#10817027) Homepage
      Quick, let's make a P2P plug-in for IIS and Internet Explorer!

    • Re:Take me with you (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AstroDrabb ( 534369 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:16PM (#10817033)
      So personally, I don't think changing the "method" is going to help anything.
      Sure it will. With the GAIM encryption support, the RIAA/MPAA will have no means to tell what you are casually trading with your friends. I actually think this is the best way to go. Close friends sharing content vs. mass illegal distribution of content. Granted, you may not be able to just jump on a P2P and download what you want (which is illegal), but you will be able to share casually with your friends and not have anything to worry about. I think this is a _great_ idea.
      • the RIAA/MPAA will have no means to tell what you are casually trading with your friends.

        There's an easy RIAA solution to that, they'll just fight to make the whole program illegal. They can also get the companies running the chat servers (AOL, MSN, etc) to block Gaim, using boatloads of cash and potential lawsuits as a nice carrot and stick.

        No thanks, I'd rather keep Gaim as it is.
        • Does bittorent or other P2P services depend on AOL, MSN, etc? No. So Gaim could just as easily change to their own protocal that runs over the net without the need for AOL, MSN or Yahoo! messenger. If Gaim gained a large enough user base, it could just come out with a major upgrade that totally changes the protocal to not need AOL, MSN, etc.

          • Re:Take me with you (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Hanji ( 626246 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @11:06PM (#10817256)
            Gaim doesn't need AOL, MSN, etc. It works just fine with Jabber, an open, standards-based, extensible, and otherwise buzzword and hippie-compliant instant messaging protocol. There's only one problem: No one actually uses it!

            Gaim's user base, as a proportion of all IM users, is tiny, and is not likely to grow to the point where gaim by itself can make any significant difference in peoples' protocol of choice. As long as all your friends are on AIM, you're going to stay on AIM, even if means dropping gaim.

    • That's the idea (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wesley Felter ( 138342 ) <wesley@felter.org> on Sunday November 14, 2004 @11:32PM (#10817368) Homepage
      It's the "human shield" theory of software development. If P2P features are incorporated into lots of "innocent" software, then the INDUCE act becomes a sort of doomsday device -- it can only stop P2P by stopping the entire software industry.

    • Re:Take me with you (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MikeFM ( 12491 )
      I don't think this method will catch on is all. I had a program I wrote that worked with ICQ that did essentially all of this long before Napster and the P2P craze hit. It worked well but it required you to know the people you were trading with in some way and if they didn't have what you needed then you were just out of luck. That is evidently to much work for most people.

      I still think personal web servers is the way to go. Use something like XML-RPC for exchanging data about the files on your machine and
    • I hope it doesn't bring down GAIM.

      It already has RIAA bait in the article.

      request list - allow people to broadcast requested files to friends and friends of friends. A requested CD, for example, could be ripped and then shared.


      If it only mentioned personal home made content and not a rip of a possibly copyrighted work, they may have been able to use the "it's not a piracy tool" arguement. However mentioning in serious future upgrades, A requested CD, for example, could be ripped and then shared.

    • Re:Take me with you (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stinerman ( 812158 )
      I'm reminded of something I heard once ...

      "Napster is a filesharing program that has a chat feature. IRC is a chat program that has a filesharing feature."

      If they go after a GAIM plugin, then they had better go after IRC.

  • Strange, I was just looking into this today (Score:5, Informative)

    by complexmath ( 449417 ) * on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:35PM (#10816811)
    and ran across Grouper [grouper.com]. Only for Windows, but it does almost exactly what these folks want.

  • Bad Idea (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:39PM (#10816834)
    Raised as of Nov 13, 6:30am: $354
    Raised as of Nov 15, 6:30am: $359

    Cost of bandwidth usage after being Slashdotted: Priceless
  • Why would they want to do something that could possibly bring down gaim? its like painting a target on it...

    • Re:This seems overly stupid to me.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:06PM (#10816979)
      They are doing it because they want to illustrate exactly how stupid it is for the government and media companies to go after the software itself rather than the people abusing it. They want them to realize that if you wanted to stop file sharing from being possible, you'd have to shut down the entire Internet, because everything, including even Microsoft's software (e.g. IIS), could be used for copyright infringement.

      • Re:This seems overly stupid to me.. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:21PM (#10817053)
        I think the problem is that they already realize that ... and simply don't care. Why should they? The RIAA and the MPAA want to maintain control of content distribution at all costs and they don't care who they hurt in the process, so trying to raise their awareness is a futile effort. Never depend upon another man's better nature (he might not have one), and I think that those two groups have already amply demonstrated that they have no better nature. And so far as the government is concerned (and in this case, we really mean Congress since they are the ones considering creating new law) they don't concern themselves with justice or long-term effects or any real understanding of these issues because the Congresspersons involved in them have already been paid not to. I understand what these developers are trying to do but they're wasting their time. The proper (and the only even remotely effective) course of action is to raise the awareness of the voting public, and make this enough of an issue that the ??AA's can't totally rubberstamp it (as they did with the DMCA and the various copyright extension acts.) The problem there is the print and TV media have swallowed the RIAA/MPAA's line pretty much hook, line and sinker (or have had the proper palms greased) and are in the process of convincing the public that copyright infringement is some kind of heinous crime and that the public has no rights when it comes to copyrighted materials. Try explaining "fair use" to someone who has been accustomed to hearing the "the music industry is being decimated by rampant piracy" on the five o'clock news every day for the past couple of years. This goes beyond mere PR, it is a vast, orchstrated example of the "big lie" and it's working.

        • The problem there is the print and TV media have swallowed the RIAA/MPAA's line pretty much hook, line and sinker (or have had the proper palms greased) and are in the process of convincing the public that copyright infringement is some kind of heinous crime and that the public has no rights when it comes to copyrighted materials.

          Are you kidding? the print and TV media have just as much to gain from the public not understanding Fair Use as the *AA do! Why would they, of all things, need to be bribed?

          Any

          • Well, I don't know as they have as much to gain, but they certainly they are not the public's champion's in this matter. And they are supposed to be. Freedom of the press is a "right" that has very little precedent in history other than here in the United States, and the only reason they got that freedom was because they were intended to act as a check on an errant government by keeping the voting public informed. Really, they are doing the whole nation a phenomenal disservice by not doing their jobs. T

  • This strikes me as... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sH4RD ( 749216 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:44PM (#10816853) Homepage
    ...fairly stupid. Not only is this a mix of two seperate things, but why would making a plugin for GAIM do anything? It's the same thing for people who want to merge WASTE [sourceforge.net] with Miranda or GAIM. I do fine with my P2P seperate from my IM, and I don't WANT P2P with my AIM, etc. It's not going to help stop the RIAA either, they will just go after people using the plugin. I'll take mine seperate (and secure as in darknet) thank you.

    • Re:This strikes me as... (Score:5, Funny)

      by arodland ( 127775 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:47PM (#10816882)
      Hey! You got P2P in my IM!
      Hey! You got IM in my P2P!

      Two great technologies that go great together!
    • Most file sharing apps add instant messaging capabilities. So, why not add file sharing capabilities to an instant messanger? They are adding it as a plugin, meaning it would be optional.

    • Re:This strikes me as... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zardus ( 464755 ) <yans@yancomm.net> on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:58PM (#10816935) Homepage Journal
      RTFA. The software meant to be truly peer to peer, so it only talks to the other buddy you're sharing with. So, as long as I'm sure that my friend, who identifies himself with a key exchange, is not the RIAA, the RIAA won't know you're downloading (you can even encrypt the download itself if you don't mind the overhead). The framework already almost exists with the gaim-encryption plugin. I don't think it would be too hard to extend.

      Now, once you start sharing with random people, then yes, you have an untrusted network, but I don't think that that's what this project is aiming for.

    • Re:This strikes me as... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:14PM (#10817022) Homepage Journal
      Given that it is a plug-in, I really don't see what the threat is for a person that doesn't want the feature. Just don't install the plug-in.
    • IM, to me, is a one-on-one connection with another person on the net. I think that IM, or what IM should become, is a more boundless way for me and person X to share.

      It started as text sentences, but it shouldn't be limited to that. Audio, video, files, white boards, co-op file editting collaberation, call it a peer net, call it p2p, I don't care, i want Person A and Person B to be able to send that person a file, without it being an email attachment, just a file. I want to be able to connect to that other

  • porn porn porn (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:44PM (#10816860)
    do you realy want your friends (especially girls) browseing through your porn??? will they ever look at you the same way again. If you have a huge stash of bart and lisa cartoon porn?

  • Silly. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spankey51 ( 804888 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:45PM (#10816864)
    Not smart... Public statements like this will rile things up too much. They'll end up shooting themselves in the foot by pushing the government and the RIAA like that.
    It's like over-vaccinating diseases: While it solves a problem at hand, the disease evolves because of it, possibly into something really bad.

    Look at the DMCA: that is drastic, malevolent evolution if I could ever spot it.
    No, no... I think that the way it's been since Napster is just fine: Slow, steady activisim that pushes authority in the correct direction without unnecessary vigor.

    • Re:Silly. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:13PM (#10817015)
      They want to push the government to the point that they realize that anything connected to the Internet could be used for copyright infringment, so that they would either have to completely give up on stuff like the INDUCE act and the DMCA, or shut down the entire Internet. (And of course the hope is that the American public and the technology industry wouldn't tolerate a shutdown of the Internet)

      • Re:Silly. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:49AM (#10817919)

        " They want to push the government to the point that they realize that anything connected to the Internet could be used for copyright infringment, so that they would either have to completely give up on stuff like the INDUCE act and the DMCA, or shut down the entire Internet."

        I don't follow. Can you connect the dots here? It's a given that any electronic transport mechanism, such as the HTTP protocol or any other method of sending packets back and forth, can be used to transmit copyrighted material. You know this, I know this, the government knows this. Why would this cause problem for the DMCA or other legislation? These sorts of laws are an effort to deal with the people that misuse technology.

        It's happened time and time again that when a new technology has sprung forth, new laws eventually appear that govern the use of that technology. Think of cars and weapons as an example. There were no state vehicle codes in the 1850's (or if there were, perhaps they covered carriages). When cars appeared, shortly thereafter, the rules governing them followed, and now my state's vehicle code is an inch thick.

        Is it easy to keep laws up-to-date to cover the latest advances in automotive firearm, or communication technology? Hell no. But it generally does manage to happen, and society hasn't broken down.

  • Simpler than Waste (Score:3, Interesting)

    by idiotfromia ( 657688 ) <(chad) (at) (chadbrandos.com)> on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:45PM (#10816869) Homepage

    From the requirments part of the bounty article:

    Making a program that only geeks can use won't cut it. The goal, after all, is to keep people out of jail.

    They were probably talking about WASTE [sourceforge.net] when they mentioned this. My friends and I tried it for a while. It was too complex to set up and maintain. My friends need simpler point and click installation. Firewalls gave a lot of greif, too.

    I have, however, gotten several of my friends to switch to GAIM after they've realized how crappy and bloated MSN messenger is. I hope something useful can come out of this.

    • Re:Simpler than Waste (Score:4, Informative)

      by sH4RD ( 749216 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:51PM (#10816901) Homepage
      I (being the project admin) know where WASTE is going, and it's going to be a lot simpler for those users who want it to be. 1.0 was obviously quite unfinished when originally released by Nullsoft. When we hit 2.0 it will be much more like a 1.0 in terms of features and stability. One of our goals is to create a second interface which is simpler. The installer is already a lot more user friendly, and setup is getting smoother (read: less buggy and confusing due to errors - and firewalls/routers tend to work a lot better now, my new DSL router setup without a hitch, zero-configuration no less) all the time. I am afraid these folks have written off WASTE before it's truely "done". A GAIM plugin is not logical to me. Integration of two technologies always kills off both technologies in my experience.

  • Successor to Bit Torrent needed already? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:46PM (#10816873) Homepage Journal
    With Bit Torrent creating 35% of the Net's traffic, is it really time to declare it dying, and in need of a successor?

    The nice thing about Bit Torrent that Napster and Kazaa never had going for it, is that legitimate companies are already using it to distribute their product. Blizzard, Mandrake, and others with large applications that geeks primarily download.

    While adding P2P to Gaim may look important, Bit Torrent is the wave of the next few years.

    If someone is designing a Gaim P2P, make sure sharing a file with a contact is as simple as MSN where you drag the file to the chat window, but have it resume broken transfers, etc.
    • I could just state the obvious. Why doesnt somebody build a bitTorrent plugin for gaim.
      • I think an even better idea would be to build a BitTorrent extension for Firefox, since it's got a download manager already. Instead of having to click a hyperlink to download the .torrent and then open it again, you could just click the link and let Firefox read the .torrent and download the real file.

    • Re:Successor to Bit Torrent needed already? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) * on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:58PM (#10817227)
      With Bit Torrent creating 35% of the Net's traffic, is it really time to declare it dying, and in need of a successor?

      Yes, that would be about the right time. Remember Napster? Remember Kazaa? As soon as one of these P2P networks hits sufficiently mainstream use that large number of non-geek, non-early adopter people are using it, is about the time that it gets serious attention from the RIAA shutdown squad.

      Now BT is a bit different because it's just a protocol for P2P file transfer, not a directory or lookup mechanism itself, and BT is used by a large number of software companies as a cost effective way to distribute large, legitimate files - I've downloaded Mandrake and MEPIS ISOs, and several multi-hundred megabyte game patches and mods using BT.

      But suprnova.org, torrentreactor, and all the top directory sites of warez, movies and music are big, easy targets. The torrents and torrent directories give nice centralized locations to smack down with lawsuits. BT just isn't a legally resilient P2P technology in its current form.
      • Why don't we all just share .torrent files on Kazaa? ; )
      • "But suprnova.org, torrentreactor, and all the top directory sites of warez, movies and music are big, easy targets. The torrents and torrent directories give nice centralized locations to smack down with lawsuits. BT just isn't a legally resilient P2P technology in its current form."

        However, it's only the uses that're engaging in copyright infringement that aren't legally resilient. When suprnova and torrentreactor go down, we aren't going to lose other sites with just legal torrents of Linux ISOs, game

      • BT just isn't a legally resilient P2P technology in its current form.
        Quite the opposite, BT is very legally resilient in it's current form. The problem with Kazaa etc is that although it can be used legally, it's basically impossible to seperate the two uses, thus we (or rather the copyright police) throw the baby out with the bathwater.
        BT is not designed for sharing of "suspect" files. It doesn't have a browsing or directory feature precisely to discourage such use. The RIAA et al can attack suprnova et
        • Bittorrent is actually, quite unlike the other file networks out there, eminently tracable. The person who put up the torrent is well known, all of the people who download from that torrent is tracked... if there were any protocol that were "asking for it," it's bittorrent.

  • I'm sorry... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wbav ( 223901 ) <Guardian.Bob+Slashdot@gmail.com> on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:49PM (#10816889) Homepage Journal
    But for $500, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. I mean let us, for the moment, ignore the other arguments. Personally it's going to take more money than that to make me a target of the RIAA.
    • It wouldn't make you a target to write code, it is proven in the courts(esspecially with regards to p2p) that writing code does not make you responsible for HOW that code is written. Esspecially if the plugin was an auto-discovery, IM-p2p plugin emphasis with an oh-by-the-way file transfer/search funtionality.
      • writing code does not make you responsible for HOW that code is written.

        This fact alone allows hundreds of EMACS users to go free every day. Write your congressman!

  • If you're looking for a good chat client w/integrated file sharing goodness, look no further than BeShare. :)

  • This proposal is based on a bad assumption... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Max Nugget ( 581772 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @09:52PM (#10816909)
    How many of us actually TRUST everyone on our buddy lists? Hell, I keep my enemies on my buddy list.

    Also, this proposal doesn't answer that lingering question of what happens when a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend is an RIAA employee.
  • I have a feeling the guys at Downhill Battle may well break the $500 mark now that they've gotten slashdotted. Congrats to them and all that they're doing.

    However, I wanted to point out a way you can help the fight that's not just defensive, but offensive. Let's go after the people in congress who make this sort of thing necessary. Head on over to IPac [ipaction.org] and sign the petition. Donate [ipaction.org]. Help elect representatives and senators that understand our issues, and will fight on our side, not the side of the RIAA and MPAA.

  • Friends you can trust (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Secure filesharing for everyone
    Making a program that only geeks can use won't cut it. The goal, after all, is to keep people out of jail. What's great about integrating filesharing into an IM client is that the interface will be familiar and non-threatening to everyone. And the interface itself explains the security advantages of the program in simple terms: you share with friends.
    [my emphasis]

    The whole idea DownhillBattle proposes is predicated on the assumption that you can trust everyone on your frie

  • Good direction for filesharing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:12PM (#10817009) Homepage
    One of the things that bothers me about search based networks (bittorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella, Kazaa, napster, etc.) is that you already have to know what you're looking for before you find it. Anything that requires you to type a search query to find a music file is useless as a tool for serendipitous "surfing" that allows you to stumble on new music.

    This problem partially undercuts a major argument of file sharing proponents- that file sharing exposes people to music that they wouldn't have considered buying before.

    If I can have a "buddy list" of people whose music libraries you can casually browse through, I'll be much more likely to experiment with new music because there'll be less fear of encountering music that 5u><0r5. I understand there is already some filesharing software that offers this functionality, but bundling it with a IM application that people already use heavily and like to leave open as much as possible is a good way to build a user base fast. In fact, I can see Joe User types switching from AIM to GAIM once they find out it has secure file sharing capabilities.

    Also, if communities like AudioScrobbler [audioscrobbler.com] or MusicMobs [musicmobs.com] could be integrated into GAIM, it would extend its use to being a tool for finding people who have similar music interests that you can add to your buddy list.
    • This concept has already been developed and is thriving.. At my dorm, everyone that uses iTunes has their library shared over the network. This, accompanied w/ myTunes, allows for thousands of tracks to be browsed and downloaded. I like this plugin idea because it allows for the same concept to be practiced over the internet rather than a LAN. My bright idea of recent: promote a large 'iTunes party' where everyone can bring their laptops and share their libraries over a WLAN and suggest new music to each
    • Soulseek [slsknet.org] has features for "taste-matching" and such things, allowing you to get recommendations based on other with similar taste. I spend some time there.

      But I also quite often head over to Musicplasma [musicplasma.com] when I want to explore new music. There I can get some new interesting names based on bands I already know and then use a regular P2P service find it.

  • DirectConnect Anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by I kan Spl ( 614759 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:26PM (#10817084)
    Anyone here remember DirectConnect? I don't have a link handy but it is *exactly* what they are suggesting here. A small closed network of only "trusted" members. The problem with this, and why very few people still use DirectConnect is that the files are much easer to trace to people.

    Let's say I'm using bit torrent and I forget to turn on my IP blocker, If RIAA finds me downloading something they don't like then they have my IP address, which changes daily. They would have to go through all the legal troubles of filing a John Doe suit, and subpoena my DSL company for my information, assuming they even keep records of what customer has what IP at what time.

    If this were integrated into GAIM then anyone who knows how to check the "look at profile" thingy on gaim could see information about myself that I wouldn't really want then to find that easy. This is exactly what killed of DirectConnect back in the day.

    (This is of course assuming I ever download something other than anime over bit torrent)
    • and why very few people still use DirectConnect

      DC is quite popular. Check out I2Hub [i2hub.com], for example. Its just a DC hub over Internet2.

      I do agree, though, that's its extremely simple to track people with DC.

  • You Can Make Filesharing Legal (Score:5, Informative)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @10:36PM (#10817133) Homepage Journal
    It is within your power to make the sharing of files - any file - completely legal. While the Constitution permits Congress to enact copyright laws, it doesn't actually require it to do so. Copyright is not a constitutional right like free speech is.

    In Change the Law [goingware.com] I discuss the constitutional basis of copyright law in the US, and suggests a number of steps you can take to bring about much needed copyright reform. The steps range from speaking out to practicing civil disobedience.

    There are over sixty million people using p2p networks in the US. That's more than voted for George Bush in 2000. That's enough people to bring about change, if you can work together effectively.

    My article has been read by over six hundred thousand people so far [goingware.com] but I'd like to see all sixty million American p2p users read it by the time of the 2006 midterm elections. I'd like to see copyright reform become a hotbutton issue in the next election.

    If you're sad that Kerry lost November 2nd, consider that Kerry voted for the DMCA. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are on the side of the RIAA and MPAA. They're on the side of the big-money donors after all. That needs to change.

    There are very few elected officials who feel that the DMCA is any sort of problem. They think it's the solution. Our elected officials view people who share files as the problem.

    If you feel as I do that more people need to read my article, you can help by linking to it from your website, weblog or from message boards.

    • It is within your power to make the sharing of files - any file - completely legal
      Canadian cousins please visit digital-copyright forums [digital-copyright.ca] for the equivalent. In Canada, like in the US, all political parties support DMCA-like legislation restricting fair use of digital media. This is because the recording industry has co-opted our politicians, now let's take it back.

  • Gaim's Opinion? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dshaw858 ( 828072 )
    After reading through those links, I actually didn't see anything that stated that Gaim supports this idea. What do they think about this initiative?

    - dshaw

    PS: If I missed it, please point it out.
  • iRATE radio [irateradio.com] is a free (GPL) mp3 downloader and player. iRATE's central database stores the URLs of about 50,000 music tracks that are made freely available by their copyright holders. Many unsigned and independent artists make such music available as a way to promote themselves.

    When you download a track, you rate it according to your tastes. iRATE's server then compares your ratings to those of other people, and sends you music you're likely to enjoy, while avoiding music you will dislike. This proces

  • Inpossible/Impractical To Implement (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MCron ( 737313 ) on Sunday November 14, 2004 @11:08PM (#10817265) Homepage
    Putting all discussion of what this could do to GAIM aside, I'm not sure if downhillbattle.org really considered if this could be done. I run DoorManBot [doorman.info] on AIM, so I've run into many problems which will prevent them from being able to do this.

    The issue is that on a network such as AIM, clients talk only to the AIM servers, not to each other, leaving no room for behind-the-protocol interactions between clients.

    This means that the plug-in would need to be able to identify buddies also using the plug-in through something such as a tag in the user's profile; not the cleanest thing to do, though still doable.

    Now comes the biggest problem. How will the plug-in communicate with others to do searches? Inter-client communications can only be done via the basic IMs that are sent between users. This would mean a new IM popping up every time one of your buddies decides to search for a song. Even if the search was hidden inside invisible tags, the IM would still need to present itself. This alone, I believe, would drive off any potential users.

    Unfortunately, MSN and Yahoo! are just as bad as AIM in this respect, leaving any potential plug-in to work only with a different protocol. But with that, the user base is lost, destroying the purpose of the plug-in in the first place. A great idea, but sadly without hope.
    • Now comes the biggest problem. How will the plug-in communicate with others to do searches? Inter-client communications can only be done via the basic IMs that are sent between users.

      You're making it harder than it really is.

      All the software needs gaim for is to establish the initial connection.

      It just needs to send out one message that says:
      "Hi, I'm running the foobar application and my ip address is: 255.255.255.255"


      Of course, you don't want to send that Im to everyone on the list, so you wou
    • AIM already sends "capability" bits in buddy status notifications, and if a gaim plugin hijacked an unused one, it certainly wouldn't be the first. Once it does this, it should probably be possible to use the exact same hooks that AIM already uses to establish a direct connection for file transfer or IM, with a different "service type" or whatnot, and obviously without the dialog box asking if you want to make the connection, because of course the plugin assumes that if you installed and ran it, you want to
    • The questions you raise are already answers in the gaim encryption plugin [sourceforge.net]. It's slightly different, but it's doing nearly the same thing. Notifies and remembers that users use the plugin with a system of saying to either send it out, establish regardless, or various other settings for what to do.

      It's not the most elegant solution, but when you are piggybacking a large proprietary network for something like this, I think it's more than enough.
  • Reminds me of
    Nullsoft's WASTE which didn't interest me much back when it came out but I am becomming more and more curious as time goes on. I wonder if someone could integrate it with GAIM.
  • Here's my plug-in:

    >OMG do U have the new Brittney trax??!?!

    >YEAH!!!! It R0X0RS!!!! What's UR email? :)

    And then you email your buddy the MP3. The problem with file sharing as a method of mass-distributing illegally duplicated copyrighted content is the same problem pirate radio has: there's no particular technical challenge in generating a pirate signal; but everything that makes a radio signal particularly useful (stays in one spot on the band, is strong, runs on a regular schedule) makes it easy

    • Re:Can I have $500? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by stealth.c ( 724419 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:02AM (#10817752)
      Let me get this straight. Music sharing isn't actually hurting the music industry, maybe it's even helping them,[I think you're confusing the music "industry," the RIAA, with the music "profession," the artists.] but you should do as much of it as possible because it will bring down the evil music monopoly and then we'll be living in paradise, so don't buy a CD because it won't really help any artist, just download their copyrighted material for free so that you help end the evil empire of the RIAA after which we won't continue to just freely distribute whatever we want to through this massive network of unregulated, uncontrollable digital distribution we've created, instead somehow all the artists will be fairly compensated, I think by some kind of magical money fairy that flies right out of my ass...

      I don't know if it flew out of YOUR ass exactly, but that magical money fairy has been around for a long time. That fairy comes from the fans--who pay the artists for the shows they do through ticket sales and other merchandise. "Album Sales == Artist's Income" is the premise that's on crack. It seems to be a secondary income at best. It is the major source of the RIAA's income. The RIAA companies were in the business of promotion and distribution. Now that they've become so powerful, they need to be in the business of litigation, legislation, and popularity control* if they're going to keep their monopoly.

      The roles of promotion/distribution can now be filled very inexpensively and mostly by the fans. The RIAA is now only as relevant as their lawyers/marketroids are persuasive. I'm not saying they should be dissolved, but they sure as hell don't need or deserve all the power they have.

      *popularity control - the device used by The One True Record Label (RIAA) to control what is/isn't popular by promoting the hell out of whatever they need to sell next, regardless of its quality. That's how we get all that crappy music crammed down our throats.
  • We all know how well the "friends helping friends" mentality helped them out [pcworld.com] against the RIAA and "Greater Good" (tm)(r)(patent pending).
  • All the RIAA would need to do to bring this down is offer a bounty, say $20 or $50, for people to invite them to some of the larger rings. Boom, down it goes. It sounds like your goal here is that it will keep the RIAA out because no one is friends with the RIAA. However, a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

  • Could be good. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by karniv0re ( 746499 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @12:43AM (#10817669) Journal
    Right now, I would be oh so happy if Gaim just supported file transfers period. MSN Specifically. All my friends use MSN, and whenever they're like, "Hey, let me send you a picture!" I'm like, "Hey, let me switch Operating Systems!" Last I checked, Gaim did not support file transfers on MSN, but they said it is possible and would get around to it in the future. If this has changed, then I blame SuSE since their Gaim package is still stuck on version 0.75 and I am too lazy to compile my own.

  • Downhillbattle.org has posted a response (Score:3, Informative)

    by thecombatwombat ( 571826 ) on Monday November 15, 2004 @01:47AM (#10817912)
    A response [downhillbattle.org] has shown up on downhillbattle, it covers some of the points people have talked about in this thread.

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