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eDonkey Tells Congress It's Throwing in the Towel 392

An anonymous reader writes "Sam Yagen, President of eDonkey, testified at the Judiciary committee's hearing 'Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World'. It was there he told the committee that he is throwing in the towel. 'The Grokster standard requires divining a company's intent, the decision was essentially a call to litigate. This is critical because most startup companies just don't have very much money. Whereas I could have managed to pay for a summary judgment hearing under Betamax, I simply couldn't afford the protracted litigation needed to prove my case in court under Grokster. Without that financial ability, exiting the business was our only option despite my confidence that we never induced infringement and that we would have prevailed under the Grokster standard.'"
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eDonkey Tells Congress It's Throwing in the Towel

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  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:32AM (#13677103)
    I thought the open source and decentralized eMule was the tool of choice for the eDonkey network, with Shareaza and other tools following closely behind.

    • eMule is the best one on the Donkey network but there's no company for the *AA cartels to sue.
      • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:42AM (#13677205)
        > eMule is the best one on the Donkey network but there's no company for the *AA cartels to sue.

        In other news, eDonkey throws in the towel while testifying in front of eLephant congress.

        Users of both products disgusted; form eMule party, nominate Hari Seldon as Presidential candidate, running on a platform that victory is inevitable.

    • by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:44AM (#13677234) Journal
      Agreed, or to quote [emule-project.net] an eMule user having read that client's statistics:

      Upload/Download to/from eDonkey has been less than 5% for years.
      • Upload/Download to/from eDonkey has been less than 5% for years.

        I not really familiar with the eDonkey network, was eDonkey packed with spyware? It would explain a lot if it was. I know Kazaa was too which prompted someone to produce a Kazaa Lite with all the spyware, ads, cookies, trackers, affiliate links and everything else ripped out.

    • by Morgaine ( 4316 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:51AM (#13677322)
      The way to make money off P2P is not to offer P2P services (a direct invitation for lawyers and other scum to line their pockets), but to *use* P2P to distribute your own data for next to nothing.

      It's a terrific delivery mechanism with an enormous benefit/cost ratio, so why not make that the basis of your business by delivering your own material over it, or delivering content belonging to other less technical providers under contract? You would be legally in the clear, while benefitting from absolutely minimal networking costs.
      • I think it will work if there becomes some P2P standard like BitTorrent that becomes a part of web browsers.
  • More Proof (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Excen ( 686416 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:32AM (#13677107) Homepage Journal
    . . .that the U.S. government will bend over for the highest bidder.
  • Welcome (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:33AM (#13677110)
    Welcome to the capitalist world, where justice is something that you purchase by the hour, not something that you have an inalienable right to.
    • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:43AM (#13677226) Homepage Journal
      Welcome to the capitalist world, where justice is something that you purchase by the hour, not something that you have an inalienable right to.

      Capitalism is not the enemy of justice here. Capitalism has been bypassed here.

      • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)

        by greg_barton ( 5551 ) <greg_barton @ y a h o o.com> on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:10PM (#13677496) Homepage Journal
        Capitalism has been bypassed here.

        Precisely. This is a wonderful example of the right wing using activist courts to promote their economic adjenda.
        • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Funny)

          by Oligonicella ( 659917 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:30PM (#13677723)
          Whoever modded this insightful missed the joke.
          • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)

            by greg_barton ( 5551 ) <greg_barton @ y a h o o.com> on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:44PM (#13677837) Homepage Journal
            I wasn't joking.
          • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)

            by Arker ( 91948 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @02:26PM (#13678853) Homepage

            There is no joke.

            I'm assuming the 'joke' you perceive is the opposition of right-wing and capitalist.

            While it's true that the right-wing sometimes purports to be capitalist, it's debateable whether that's ever been the case. The claim seems to be cyclical, but the right-wing is just as often anti-capitalist, when capitalism is inconvenient for the ancien regime it is considered left-wing. The whole right-left political language goes back to the early days of the French assembly, when the conservative aristocracy sat on the right, and the liberal mercantile class of capitalists on the left, in fact.

            And the right wing party in America today is just as opposed to liberal capitalism as the left wing party, if not more so. Granted they like to claim the word, but watch their actions, not their words.

            No, that was no joke.

      • Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:16PM (#13677561)

        Capitalism is not the enemy of justice here. Capitalism has been bypassed here.

        Capitalism, when unregulated, leads to consolidation of money into fewer and fewer hands. Have you ever heard the phrase, "it takes money to make money" used? It is more or less true. It is the person who finances a company or idea (who has the money to do so to start with) that makes most of the money on successful enterprises. Money has always been power. Money has almost always been able to influence governments.

        Capitalism allowed for wealth to gather into relatively few hands in the U.S., starting from a much more level playing field than ever before. People could go out and claim a chunk of land, and make something of it. Now the land (like most other wealth) is owned disproportionately by the wealth elite and by corporations. Corporations are nothing more than a legal structure (laws passed using the influence of wealth) that protects the owners from responsibility for criminal actions undertaken to make them even more rich. They have also been used as ways to avoid taxes (which those who are not rich have to pay) and to legally bind individuals into doing unethical things in order to make more profit for the shareholders. It is these giant corporate beasts, the product of and nearly ultimate incarnation of capitalism that has consolidated such wealth and influence to make the legal system no longer work for anyone without the same wealth to challenge them. You are seeing capitalism at work, to stifle progress. We're only about 50-100 years away from the point where the poor rise up, kill the rich, and wealth gets redistributed somehow, and it is not going to be pretty, unless something changes.

        • Re:Welcome (Score:3, Insightful)

          by NotoriousQ ( 457789 )
          Capitalism vs. socialism is not the debate here. No matter where you look on the planet, the common person is excluded from decision making. People in power are the only ones that make decision. In a capitalist society money gets you power, in a socialist society connections/relations get you power.

          There has never been a time where the wealth got redistributed evenly. There is always corruption.

          In this case, capitalism is not what is causing the stifling, corruption does. If politicians were uninfluencable
        • Re:Welcome (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Arker ( 91948 )

          You've got it precisely backwards.

          It's the regulation that protects those who are already rich from competition, and guarantees that they continue to grow richer - not the lack of it.

      • It's what the US Congress, the Chinese Central Committee and the Russian Mafia have as their common link. Fortunately they currently see each other as rivals.
        Just wait until they form a cartel and start working more closely together.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:26PM (#13677680)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yes! We need to go to the old Soviet style gulag. They knew how to deal out justice without capitalism.
    • You mean "Welcome to USA, the country where corporations have more protection than the citizens"

      This is just another example of the corrupt legal and political system we have in this country. It's on par with any 3rd world country and it's a disgrace!
  • by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:33AM (#13677116)
    It's what everyone else is doing to get away from the expense and inconvenience of doing business in the US.

     
  • by VAXGeek ( 3443 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:34AM (#13677119) Homepage
    It's rather strange to load up an article which is talking about shutting down p2p with iPod nano ads all over the place. Now I don't know how to feel.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:35AM (#13677135)
    Feh. We don't really care if we put you out of business. You don't pay us!

    Do you feel owned yet? You will.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    now that's news!
    i'm shocked!

    (yes, this is sarcasm)
  • Given some of the Australian-US FTA requirements, I'd be surprised if they weren't trying to make it apply elsewhere. iTunes certainly isn't going anywhere here. WTF does the music industry think it's winning?
  • Stamina (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fragmentate ( 908035 ) *
    While many people don't use eDonkey (and the like) to pirate, the simple fact of the matter is that most do. Everyone suffers.

    It would take a company with an enormous amount of funding, and legal stamina to keep up with all of the litigation involved with something that can be abused so easily. The RIAA and MPAA (the most litigious groups) do have that stamina, funding, and will to carry out all of their pursuits.

    Hopefully artists will continue to open their music up to the masses. I think they sta
    • by ausoleil ( 322752 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:55AM (#13677358) Homepage
      By your example, Xerox would have never made it out of the garage.

      A pen can be used for copyright vioations, as can a camera. How much ink is invested in illegal copying every year is anyone's guess. Cameras, the same thing.

      Yes, I know that those are ridiculous examples. However, under the Grokster standard, either of the latter could be considered instruments for wanton copyright violation (despite the ridiculousness of it) and be banned...if they were new technologies.

      Most any tool, be it software or hardware, is capable of being used illegally. That people do so is not so much a reflection of most tools but instead a reflection on those people.
      • Most any tool, be it software or hardware, is capable of being used illegally

        True, but creating a piece of software and a network tool that, without question, is designed to find its primary audience among people that are seeking to pirate material... and to know that it wouldn't even be worth the bother to produce it otherwise... that's a lot different than making office copying machines, which have immediate, obvious, and overwhelmingly non-infringing uses.

        Mind you, I get involved in this sort of th
      • by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:33PM (#13677744) Homepage Journal
        Amen, brother. P2P software does not violate the law. Photocopies do not violate the law. Camera phones do not violate the law. Laws exist to mitigate between the conflicting desires of people. I want your lawnmower. You want to keep your lawnmower. Who wins? The law says you do. I want to own a gun. You're afraid of guns and think I shouldn't have one. Who wins? Well this one's not so straightforward, but having no criminal record or particular proclivity towards violence, I'd most likely get to have my gun.

        Things do not break laws. Corporations do not even break laws. Only people can. We have some errors in our legal system right now that hold things responsible for lawbreaking that cannot break laws. Corporations aren't things. They are federally-sanctioned legal entities that exist as legal fact on paper and in practical fact by a massive collective agreement that it is what we say it is. Corporations can't break laws any more than knitting circles can. But we allow people who break laws to hide behind them. Bad juju.

        And it's the same with file sharing. A computer network cannot violate a law. Nor can a network card, a hard disk, a mouse button, or anything else beyond the two people complicit in copyright infringement.

        Copyright infringement is like global warming. People are so goddamed polarized on the subject that having an honest intellectual debate is impossible. You've got the P2P advocates who all claim in unison they primarily use P2P for legitimate purposes when the majority of people who really that software are violating copyright. This is because the majority of users are not Slashdotters innocently swapping Linux distributions, they're high school and college kids with little disposable income and an insatiatble thirst for new music, missed TV shows, and movies they can't afford to go see.

        Then you've got the content cartels confusing us (on purpose) with flat out lies and mischaracterizations. Copyright infringement is not theft. There's another term that covers theft, and it's called... well... theft. Copyright infringement is a violation of somebody else's exclusive right to manage a particular piece of intellectual property in the manner they prefer, with some common sense exceptions called "Fair Use" that are defined on a case-by-case basis. And downloading songs isn't even a criminal offense unless you do a lot of it. No more than shoplifting a candy bar is.

        We need to stop blaming tools for the actions of people. It's not the drug's fault that you're stoned. It's that you decided to consume it. It's not the gun's fault that you murdered somebody. You decided to shoot it. This hellbent determination to excuse the actions of individuals by blaming their bad decision making on tools or circumstances has got to end at some point, or our tangled web of indulging and empathetic laws will result in a soup of legal abstractness that makes it impossible for anybody to ever do anything wrong. It will always go back to being the fault of some company that manufactured some product or tool that enabled a person to commit a crime, and since the corporation as a peopleless legal entity will be held responsible, we end up with a legal system in which individual people are never responsible for anything. That's going to suck.

    • "I've seen my neighbors kids come over with CD's of burned software that they got "for free" from Kazaa. They put me at risk that way. I don't want that crap installed on my computer so I can be their next target and example."

      You know what? Maybe you should snitch on those kids, and turn them over to the *IAA and police as the 'little criminals' they are! If you are sycophant enough, maybe you'll even get payed by the *IAA for snitching on your neighbours (and their kids). People in facist states have done
    • Will anyone miss P2P if it goes away? I won't even notice

      Um, music sharing software != P2P ... You won't even notice if BitTorrent disapears? Or many types of internet computer games?
    • While many people don't use eDonkey (and the like) to pirate, the simple fact of the matter is that most do. Everyone suffers.

      And you're ok with the innocent being punished for the crimes of the guilty? Anyone who does not intentionally violate copyrights, who is in any way harassed or punished is an innocent person being abused by the legal system. It is injustice and used to be something people cared about.

      I've seen my neighbors kids come over with CD's of burned software that they got "for free" f

  • Most startup companies just don't have very much money...

    That's funny, the spyware biz must be getting less profitable than Sam led us to believe.

    I suppose companies are no longer willing to pay to be the 500th popup ad server on a spyjacked box.

  • by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .reggoh.gip.> on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:48AM (#13677279) Journal
    They just need to move to Canada, where the Supreme Court decided that file sharing is legal. Voilà! Problem solved!
    • True, but then there are Canadian content rules, censorship laws, language laws, etc., that are also a big problem to deal with.

      They would be better off going to the Caymen Islands, or the other places that run the online casinos.
    • In Canada, using file sharing networks to share files that you have the right to share is legal (ie public domain or Creative Commons). Downloading music and movies (not software) is legal since you paid for it when you bought your blank CD, HDD, or MP3 player. Uploading music and movies you do not have the right to (ie Copyrighted and not Creative Commons) is illegal.

      Where are you supposed to download from if noone is allowed to upload? I don't know. You are allowed to lend a CD to a friend, and they're
      • by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) <vincent.jan.goh@NoSPam.gmail.com> on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:54PM (#13677919) Homepage
        NO. Downloading music and movies is legal because it is legal. The tariff is there as something extra, but it has never impacted the legality of downloading musing and movies. The tariff is a transparent money-grab by the recording industry, and the government has recently recognized it as such, which is why if you bought an iPod in 2003-2004, you can apply to get the levy back.

        Leave the levy out of this. Levies never give you the right to do anything - it would not be legal to shoot people if there were a levy on bullets trying to compensate victims' families. The levy is there because the industry is greedy and antiquated.
    • There's only one major problem with this idea: They'd have to move to Canada.
  • Hooray... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mc900ftjesus ( 671151 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:56AM (#13677364)
    Rich people win again!!! I like rich people because they're better than the rest of us. I think they should always get their way, because rich people are just better genetic material, it's true, ask them. The government knows it, it's just a matter of time before the rest of us catch on.

    There only needs to be one corporation: MicroHaliRIMPAADellAppleMartopoly. And it will pay regular people the same wages, but rich people will get more. And it will know what we're doing at all times (to thwart terrorists) and have total control of all media. Like real communism (not ideal communism). Kind of like what's happening now, but without hiding the fact that regular people are getting shit on.
  • by saigon_from_europe ( 741782 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @11:56AM (#13677372)
    When I see how eagerly RIAA tries to prevent unpreventable evolution (i.e. P2P networks) I wander, if RIAA was so active couple of decades ago, they would probably try to ban digital coding of information, since it is now their main source of problems. I could bet that they cry for those old times when vinil was one and only. There was no sub-50$ vinil-burner then.
  • I wonder if (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:09PM (#13677488) Journal
    this is just a case of proving that the *AA really are bullying? If you can't afford to fight them (or just claim it) isn't that bad press for the *AA? Isn't this proof that they are attempting to rule what innovations should be allowed and which shouldn't? Doesn't this demonstrate that you can have a business or technology as long as it doesn't harm anyone else? at least not those with 150 year copyrights (even if your business isnt't designed to ruin them). Wow, those poor folk that owned train businesses! And those bad people that built horse drawn wagons. They got put out of business... shouldn't we pay their families restitution? .... Seems to me that this is the pinnacle of why software patents, DRMing, and such are stiffling innovation, and using monopolistic business practices.
  • by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:12PM (#13677503) Homepage Journal
    As others have already posted, the p2p scene is only going to be pushed further underground now. Laws and lawsuits are not going to stop the swapping of copyright protected materials and of course the commercial pirates won't be stopped either. That being said, I think that p2p will disappear from the political landscape because anyone with a high profile service is going to be sued out of existence right away, leaving only the largely invisible underground.

    Out of sight is out of mind! *AA will declare victory since there's no point in chasing ghosts (as long as they keep quiet). And the politicians will also declare victory since there is no political hay to be made railing against something that's largely invisible and too technical for ordinary folks to care about. So if everyone is patient, the game will soon be over and those in the know can return to their regularly scheduled filesharing, legal and otherwise.
    • The game is nowhere near over.

      It'll be over when either of the two following scenarios come true.

      1. RI/MPAA tightens their control over the US politicians and more draconian laws get passed making potential IP violations federal felony offenses. The private prison industry experiences double-digit growth numbers year after year. Shareholders of content owners and private prison industries make a killing in the stock market.

      2. Massive civil disobedience finally changes the political landscape and US politici
  • by toofast ( 20646 ) * on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:13PM (#13677522)
    Small companies are bullied out of business because they can't afford to prove your point, although they haven't done anything wrong.

    Sad.
  • by phriedom ( 561200 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:38PM (#13677781)
    Exporting US culture is a pretty important part of the US economy and, less- tangibley, our politics. It is actually really important for the future of our country that Chinese and Indian people want to listen to Snoop-Dogg on their iPod and drink a Pepsi or a Coke and wear Levi's or Wrangler's or FUBU and Nike or Sketcher and watch Baywatch or The Dukes of Hazzard. And the Movies and Music are a really important part of that. It influences what the world thinks of the US.

    If the RIAA and/or MPAA are allowed to kill their competition in the US, they will drive the innovation off-shore, and possibly make themselves obsolete.

    We don't want the Chinese and Indians watching each other's movies and listening to each other's music. We want them craving all things American.
    • How long is this going to be the case, though?

      It used to be a great thing for the US that our companies were successful overseas. More sales means more pay for the workers back home, and more taxes for the government. Everyone benefits!

      Now, however, very little production is done in the US. only a small proportion of a multinational corporation's jobs are in this country. And with tax cuts and corporate welfare, they might be getting more from the government than they're getting.

      Currently, the biggest tie
  • by Bodysurf ( 645983 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:43PM (#13677819)

    "Another way to raise barriers is through expensive litigation. The cost of going to court is so high that it easily can sap away the assets a young company. This is why it is such an effective tool for large corporations with deep pockets. Suits, even under the most frivolous conditions, can foist debilitating legal expenses on any potential contender without a hundred million dollars in venture backing (and even then as the original MP3.com - who had $300 million in backing - found out before it went out of business)."

    The only way to combat the frivilous lawsuit is to be anonymous. Never let them find out who you are. Frivilous lawsuits can't really punish the person whose identity isn't known.

  • by Ingolfke ( 515826 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:45PM (#13677842) Journal
    a member of congress is overheard asking another congresswoman, "Who is this guy and how much did he contribute to my campaign?"
  • The Point (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Hershmire ( 41460 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @12:45PM (#13677843) Homepage
    I think most every poster has missed the point here. The eDonkey people are making this claim in front of Congress to show them how the new court ruling/laws stifle the free market* in a certain area sector. If you are unable to start a business because you can't afford the legal costs to prove that what your business does is not illegal, then something is seriously broken. eDonkey is using this opportunity to say exactly that.

    Innocent until proven what?

    *Tangent: Does it not seem obvious that the RIAA is trying to pass blanket laws to kill "unauthorised" content providers, even if they are legit, in order to continue their monopoly? Aside from iTunes, they are the only ones who can afford to prove that yet-nonexistant music service is legit.
  • Liability (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RoffleTheWaffle ( 916980 ) on Thursday September 29, 2005 @02:29PM (#13678870) Journal

    It's interesting that so many folks would bring up the issue of accountability, really. As with any crime committed with the aid of an instrument or piece of technology of some kind, the instrument itself can not be held accountable for the act it was used to perpetrate. Common sense tells us this. If only common sense were applicable to the Judicial Branch of the United States government, perhaps we would see a sharp decline in incidents such as this.

    If I remember correctly, the Supreme Court recently ruled that a gun manufacturer - Smith & Wesson, to be exact - can not be held accountable if their products are used to injure or kill innocent people. When I read of this, I thought to myself, "Finally, common sense prevails!" Did I think that because I want to defend gun manufacturers? No; I've never liked guns, and I've never liked the people who make them, either. I became fond of that ruling because it embodies an important underlying concept: A device, even if it is designed for the sole purpose of causing serious and immediate bodily harm, can not be inherently evil. Therefore, the person producing these devices can't be made to answer for someone else's crimes.

    Sure, if a company was producing a dangerous product that didn't have any real legitimate applications whatsoever, they could - and probably should - be dealt with. However, the point remains: Here we have a gun manufacturer, whose products may well kill hundreds every year here in the United States alone, but it's not their fault that people are using their guns to commit serious crimes. It is the motive of the buyer and how the product is actually used that truly matters, not the product itself and the person who made it available. (After all, firearms have other places in our lives. Home defense, hunting, sport, or simply collecting guns, for example.)

    You can probably see why I almost shit myself when I first heard about the Grokster ruling. The Grokster ruling is, in itself, a shining example of the ass-backwards logic that exists in the courts these days. A gun manufacturer can't be held accountable if their guns kill someone, but it's Grokster's fault if I pirate a poorly compressed copy of The Boondock Saints using their product. Excuse me? Of course, it also goes to show where the government's priorities really are: satisfying campaign contributors and special interest groups. I know I'm really going off on a tangent here, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. The NRA doesn't think gun manufacturers should be held accountable if their guns kill people, but the RIAA and MPAA think it's Grokster's fault if someone uses their products to pirate music and movies. Let's play a nice, fun game of 'Follow the Money', shall we? Wait. We don't have to. It's blatantly obvious.

    It's extremely unfortunate that any company can be made to buckle under this kind of pressure. Many new technologies are now endangered by the Grokster ruling, not because they can be eliminated outright, but because it takes so much time, money, and patience to deal with the courts that nobody in their right mind without a few million dollars and an army of lawyers would even try to defend their products.

    I just find it very strange that the Smith & Wesson ruling's logic doesn't apply elsewhere. Sure, if a product is defective, and that defect results in bodily harm or the destruction of property, that's the manufacturer's fault. However, if a product does not cause bodily harm or the destruction of property by its own volition, and must first be activated or otherwise utilized by a human being to present any kind of danger, it's the user's fault.

    Therefore, the proprietors of a filesharing network and the programmers who created the client software used to access said network can not be held accountable if other people utilize their network to engage in illegal activity. While I do believe that the network's owners should do what th

  • by alizard ( 107678 ) <alizard AT ecis DOT com> on Thursday September 29, 2005 @05:17PM (#13680349) Homepage
    RIAA 1, technology 0... so presumably, a bunch of congresscritters patted themselves on the back for doing what their *AA campaign contributors wanted. The idea of new technology creating new jobs is so 20th century. It's about protecting obsolete business models with lobbyists and money... if the buggy-whip manufacturers had had comparable influence at the turn of the 20th century, our traffic jams would be composed of horse-drawn wagons.

    If we actually want a Congress that's pro-technology, we are simply as a group going to have to raise enough money ourselves to become the highest bidder, nobody's going to do this for us.

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