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.'"
Who uses eDonkey anyway? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who uses eDonkey anyway? (Score:2)
eMule is the best one on the Donkey network but there's no company for the *AA cartels to sue.
Re:Who uses eDonkey anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Who uses eDonkey anyway? (Score:5, Informative)
Upload/Download to/from eDonkey has been less than 5% for years.
Re:Who uses eDonkey anyway? (Score:2)
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.
Companies just don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Companies just don't get it (Score:2)
Re:Companies just don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it's either start downloading now at the cost of some of your bandwidth, OR wait 3 hourse in the fileplanet queue. No, I'm serious.
I often go to Filerush.com because I know I won't have to wait in line.
Re:Companies just don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
Self service gas stations have always been cheaper than full service and most of the time I don't require the full service. Frankly, I"ll take the discount.
on the other hand, I get nothing out of giving away my upload bandwidth. I don't necesarilly get faster transfers
More Proof (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism is not the enemy of justice here. Capitalism has been bypassed here.
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. This is a wonderful example of the right wing using activist courts to promote their economic adjenda.
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
"Capitalism has been bypassed here.
Precisely. This is a wonderful example of the right wing using activist courts to promote their economic adjenda."
...is just so correct. It's not a joke. are you missing the big picture? Promoting the cartels is not capitalism. Anyone promoting the runaway expression-monopoly industry is promoting an agenda that is Corporatist but not Capitalist. I'll believe our current crop of Republicans are serious about capitalism the day they pass a bill (and attendant treaty re-writes) to push U.S. copyrights back to 14-years plus fee-based extension. It wouldn't hurt to see the corporate-welfare tax-holes legislated out either.
I don't see how any capitalist or libertarian could be in favor of State-Granted lifetime Monopolies. It boggles the mind. State-Granted Monopolies! Wedding the Corporate to the State, the Military-Industrial complex. It reeks of anything but capitalism (and not to poison this post, it does reek of fascism).
So in closing, where's the joke?
Re:Welcome (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to invoke Godwin's Law here, but this last phrase is very important and right on. I think it was Harry Truman who defended antitrust law because he said that corporate monopolies could become stronger than the federal government and pose a clear danger to American Democracy. He also used the term 'fascism' to describe the result of corporate monopolies.
Re:Welcome (Score:3, Funny)
Precisely, and I agree.
But it's also unconstitutional; since it's clear the U.S. government worships money, this is a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state.
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Informative)
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, Informative)
To get you started:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expend.asp?strID=
You can look up the rest at the same site. Basically, all companies give money to support their vest interests. The expression-monopolizers want more copyright extensions, so they'll support anyone that will give it to them. U.S. car companies want the most profitable vehicles, so they'll make sure they support anyone that won't raise milage standards, etc.
So - while "they" don't feel indebted to Hollywood for Legally Blonde, they might feel indebted to them for their favorable contributions. http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/category.asp?txt=
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
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.
Re:Welcome (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahh, the wisdom of the anonymous coward making ad hominem attacks. OK, here are the facts, go ahead and tell me which one you dispute. The U.S. is a very capitalist nation. Corporations are the product of capitalism, being for profit legal bodies created by and for capitalists to promote their capitalism. Large corporations change the legal system using large contributions to politicians in exchange for laws favorable to them being created/passed. Corporations use the existing laws to stop smaller companies
Re:Welcome (Score:3, Insightful)
What you see att work with the RIAA etc is not capitalism, it's almost the exact opposite. It's unions and large cartels stifling capitalism, combined with a legal system that allowes this.
You don't seem to know what capitalism is. It's simple, capitalism is defined as trade and industry controlled by individuals and not by the state. Imposing laws to stop cartels and unions is not capitalism, it is in fact opposed to capitalism. Of course capitalism does not work by itself which is why pretty much ever
Re:Welcome (Score:5, Insightful)
The Evilest, biggest corporation known to Slashdotdom, Microsoft, was barely a blip on the radar 20 years ago.
First, this is the really real world. Second MS is still a relatively small corporation compared to the really big ones. Third, MS is owned by shareholders. How many MS shareholders were not rich before they invested in MS? Last time I looked at the figures something like 400 people in the top 1% of the wealthiest people in the U.S. were not born with a parent in the top 1%. Of those, none of them did not have parents in the top 5%. The U.S. still has more upward mobility than most of the world and the vast majority of the wealth in this country is owned by a small minority. Real upward mobility, is just a pipe dream. the top .5% controls about 25% of the wealth. The top 5% controls well over 50% of the wealth. Those numbers are increasing, not decreasing every year. The bottom 80%, that is 8 out of every 10 people are left to split less than 20% of the wealth. If you total up all the wealth owned by the bottom 40% of the households in the country you get a net total of nothing. Thats right, nothing, almost half the people are maybe a little bit ahead, or a little bit in debt but as a whole are completely broke. All this is from census data as compiled by Berkley University.
It's time to wake up and realize that the U.S. is not a land of opportunity for the vast majority of people and the poor are constantly getting poorer. The middle class is steadily disappearing. The people running the corporations and who own most of the shares in them are wealthy and were born that way. Pretty much all of our politicians are wealthy and were born that way. The legal system, political system, and economic system is all heavily weighted against the poor. If you are not aware of that, then you have been living with your head in the sand. In a capitalist economy wealth consolidates, until there are a few very rich people and a lot of very poor people. Every respectable economic model shows that. We need some serious reform if we want to change that. That means electoral reform, economic reform, inheritance reform, and some serious government changes. The government is supposed to be for the people, but it really isn't much anymore. Every 4 years you can vote for one rich guy who will screw you over or a different rich guy who will screw you over. Until we fix that, there is no hope for change. The danger, of course, is that when the poor get too poor they revolt and the wealth and power get redistributed, but anyone who thinks we'll end up with a fair democracy from that is a optimist of the highest order. More likely we will end up with war and death and oppression for many years. It is better, in my opinion, to salvage what we can of our existing government, and try to give the people a vote again. I'd like to see mandatory, binding referendums. If I can get 10,000 votes my issue should be on the ballot and voted on directly by the people. This representative democracy is just not working out as it should anymore.
Capitalism writes laws, because money is power. We need to remake the laws to insure the people have the power, since most of the money is in the hands of a very small minority.
Re:Fundamental assumption backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you figure?
Here's how: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient [wikipedia.org]
Oh look at the section titled "Development of Gini coefficients in the US over time":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Deve lopment_of_Gini_coefficients_in_the_US_over_time [wikipedia.org]
* 1970: 0.394
* 1980: 0.403
* 1990: 0.428
* 2000: 0.462
This is a FACT, it is BUSY HAPPENING, not some arbitrary abstract tinfoil-hat notion that might theoretically happen. A run-away Gini Coefficient is NOT sustainable.
History has prooven time and again that money is rather like water - if you try and dam it up it will eventually flow elsewhere or be unleashed in a torrent.
No, it hasn't, and it doesn't. If you try to "dam money up", what happens is that it becomes worthless - it loses it's value and the economy collapses. Money is a reflection of the amount of value, or "production" being generated by an economic system, and when production ceases (because the means of production are consolidated and regulated into a disproportionately tiny percentage of hands), that money no longer generates corresponding "stuff" that gives it meaning - everyone is just poor. For references, see, well, pretty much hundreds of countries at all times in history including today. You can print money, but you can't create money. You can only create "stuff". The bottom falls out of an economy when too many people are poor and too few people are producing - e.g. see the Great Depression - and when everyone is poor, it is not easy to get out of it, even if someone came along and gave you a few million dollars, there would be nothing you could do because nobody would be able to buy the products you'd try to produce with that.
Re:Cooking your books (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, the population base is growing so there are many more people adding in at the low end.
So because more people are born to poor parents it is ok that they are even less wealthy than their parents? I thought the idea that circumstances are a just entitlement went out with feudalism. Just because one person is born to a wealth parent and another to a poor parent does not make their disparity fair by any means.
Secondly the amount of money is increasing over time so even if a small number of p
Re:Cooking your books (Score:3, Insightful)
And I guess you are only concerned that some people start out with more money than other people.
Fair means everyone should be given an equal opportunity, or as nearly equal as it is practical to create.
I would agree with this statement.
Fair means one person should not be born into a situation where they never have to work, or think, can buy anything they can think of, are free t
Re:Cooking your books (Score:3, Insightful)
Time to jump in. This is a really interesting back-and forth, but I think you both missed a couple of germane points. Neither of you will dispute that life is hell for a whole lot of Americans, right? I'm talking about the people who live in dirty strip motels, pay more in rent than I do because they don't have enough for a security deposit and don't have a credit rating, and work for minimum wage if that.
Corruption is the global standard (Score:2)
Just wait until they form a cartel and start working more closely together.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Welcome (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Welcome (Score:3, Insightful)
Capitalism and the mind-controlling parasites (Score:5, Insightful)
No, my friend. That would be workers.
Capitalism's Big Lie is that it is responsible for production. Once upon a time, this was true: capitalism freed productive forces from the grave inefficiencies and baseless impediments of the feudal system. But now it merely does a better and better job of siphoning profits to those who own, and contributes no productivity. It serves the interests of the parasites.
Re:Capitalism and the mind-controlling parasites (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah another Modernist....
Modernism's big lie is that we are always socially progressing to something better. This is the foundation of Marxism a
Re:Capitalism and the mind-controlling parasites (Score:3, Interesting)
How short-sighted!
You forget that "those who own" and those who "don't own" are not permanent conditions. At one time in my life, I was a worker bee. Now I own a business. I advanced because I had the incentive to do so, and there is no doubt that I am contributing more to the economy of my town than I was before. I employ people. Without capitalism and it's incentives, I would not
Re:Capitalism and the mind-controlling parasites (Score:3, Interesting)
Profiteer!
About incentive, I'm sure you're industrious, but do you think the poor are poor because they're lazy?
Re:Welcome (Score:2)
Re:Welcome (Score:2)
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!
Why not just offshore? (Score:5, Insightful)
That might not help for long (Score:3, Interesting)
Going offshore isn't much protection if the US gets their way:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651 , 39220179,00.htm [zdnet.co.uk]
Microsoft, *IAA, etc. know they can't win against offshore firms and open source under the current global legal system. They're pushing hard to have US laws (and presumably the US patent/copyright databases) applied globally.
mp3 in the post-columbine era (Score:5, Funny)
To which Congress said... (Score:3, Funny)
Do you feel owned yet? You will.
Losing lawsuits due to lack of money?? (Score:2, Funny)
i'm shocked!
(yes, this is sarcasm)
Re:Losing lawsuits due to lack of money?? (Score:2)
Does Grokster only apply in the US? (Score:2)
Re:Does Grokster only apply in the US? (Score:5, Insightful)
This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_Victory [wikipedia.org]
Stamina (Score:2, Interesting)
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
ANYTHING can be used to commit a crime (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:ANYTHING can be used to commit a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:ANYTHING can be used to commit a crime (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
The EndSolution (Score:2)
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
Re:Stamina (Score:2)
Um, music sharing software != P2P
Re:Stamina (Score:2)
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
not enough money? (Score:2, Funny)
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.
They just need to move to Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They just need to move to Canada (Score:2)
They would be better off going to the Caymen Islands, or the other places that run the online casinos.
Re:They just need to move to Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:They just need to move to Canada (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:They just need to move to Canada (Score:2, Funny)
Hooray... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Thanks God they allowed digital... (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if (Score:4, Interesting)
The Game Is Nearly Over (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:The Game Is Nearly Over (Score:3, Insightful)
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
This reinforces the scary big-bully attitude (Score:4, Insightful)
Sad.
Why congress might care. (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Why congress might care. (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Most Important Point/Take Home Message (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
And in other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Point (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:The Point (Score:3, Interesting)
Liability (Score:5, Insightful)
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
looks like the system is working after all (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:I never liked forced uploading (Score:2)
Mod parent down offtopic
Re:I never liked forced uploading (Score:2)
Nice try though.
Re:Yay!!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Actually... (Score:3, Insightful)
And with eDonkey out of the way, where do you think that content will move, hmmmmmmmmmm?
Re:Yay!!!! (Score:2)
Or to rephrase: I couldn't ever download anything from eDonkey so, who cares? I'm glad we got rid of such an awful "service".
Oh, I first thought you were referring to eDonkey's lack of credit system, which eMule has.
Who cares? I do (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:that why I use eMule (Score:2, Insightful)
p2p programs should be created by groups that love to code them, not by companies. nothing good will come of it (adware, pay per download, etc..) if a company runs the service.
make it completely peer to peer, free download, and it will be good. any hint of money, no one will use it.
if there is money involved, it better be a slick service with fast reliable downloads, it better suggest what I mig
Re:that why I use eMule (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, there are a lot of ed2k servers out there operated by third parties. Those will still be around.
Re:that why I use eMule (Score:5, Interesting)
eMule also has it own kademlia network for distributed content indexing but it requires a server to fetch some clients to bootstrap off of - very much like Gnutella. If you do not mind hunting down a bootstrap IP:Port yourself and entering it manually, then you can use Kad without eD2k servers.
Re:that why I use eMule (Score:3, Funny)
They already do that [lugdunum2k.free.fr]... for as long as I use eMule. eMule downloads a server list and connects to servers hosted by indivuduals, mostly. God, do people moderate at random to get rid of those extra mod points?
Re:And why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I disagree. Plenty of reasonable people could claim otherwise. What may seem obvious to you (and a lot of us other
Second, it doesn't matter if he facilitates illegal file-sharing. What matters is if he expressly promotes illegal filesharing, or takes other affirmative steps to foster infringement.
Justice Souter, from the Grokster decision:"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.""
Whether or not his business plans hinged on ease of infringement to gain popularity -- if he didn't promote it, and if he didn't distribute eDonkey with the expressed intent of promoting illegal filesharing, then he would not lose the case.
Re:And why not? (Score:2)
J
Re:And why not? (Score:2)
No, but he would have to fight it all the way through, which he can't afford. Before the grokster case he could hope for a summary judgement, because all he would have to do is show his program had substantial legitimate use.
Re:And why not? (Score:2)
Business plans aren't always obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose a for-profit hospital sets up a clinic in a high-crime area, despite the difficulty of operating a business there. Their business plan calls for them to make money from the crimes of their customer base. They report the evidence of crimes they find, but they can't police the neighborhood.
A pawn shop in that same neighborhood sells guns and ammo, despite the difficulty of operating a business there. Their business plan calls for them to make money from the crimes of their customer base. They report the evidence of crimes they find, but they can't police the neighborhood.
What do both of those businesses have in common? They both make crime more convenient. One sells the supplies, the other wipes up the mess (so you are less likely to die if your victim fights back). Both businesses serve the perps and the victims, and both discriminate as best they can between them.
What do they have in common with EDonkey? Either they all need to be shut down for capitalizing on human frailty, or none of them do.
Re:Business plans aren't always obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether or not the businesses profit from illegal activity is irrelevant to this case. What matters is if they promote illegal activity.
Re:Business plans aren't always obvious (Score:2)
Similarly, people won't feel more likely to stroll down the street in the high crime area advertising their possessions because "well, there's that nice hospital close by to save my life in case I get shot."
I'm sorry - even if the hospital is out to make a buck
Re:And why not? (Score:2, Funny)
I put forth that you are now qualified to be a SCOTUS Justice.
Re:And why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Bzzt! Depends on context."
"If he assisted, he's complicitous. The pawn broker who assists the thief in selling stolen merchandise is an accomplice. "
Bzzt! Irrelevant to the case and the current interpretation of the law ex parte Grokster. Providing the means for illegal P2P filesharing (which is what we mean by facilitating, in this context) is not illegal. Promoting the use of your P2P system to illegally fileshare, however, is il
Re:And why not? (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps because the cost of litigation in this country is so high and so prevelant that it actually is part of the barrier to entry into a market? I'm sorry, that isn't Capitalism.
No reasonable person can claim anything except that his plan to achieve popularity with eDonkey was through facilitating illegal file-sharing.
Way to completely ignor the entire legal concept of burden of proof which this entire country and all of our freedoms are based on.
Re:And why not? (Score:2)
While normal search engines facilitates the promotion of crack, hack and serialz sites/downloads. It's all about who's lining your pockets with liberal amounts of cash versus who.
Re:And why not? (Score:5, Funny)
If the file don't transmit,
You must acquit.
Re:And why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
I shortened "doesn't" to "don't" because "don't" is better for comedic flow, and because I wanted to drop a syllable to make up for the extra syllable in "transmit."
Re:Another Setback for US Technology (Score:2)
I don't think "communism" means what you think it means.
Regardless, there are thousands of small companies started every year. Most fail, usually because of poor management, overly optimisitic forecasts, and undercapitalization. But all sorts of small companies start, grow, and thrive in this country. Some end up buying out older compani
Re:The P2P Revolution (Score:4, Funny)
The internet of 1997 with the connection speeds of 2005? Sign me up!
Obligatory responses to this include multiple variations of:
Me too!!1!