Spoofing P2P Networks as Marketing Plot 457
prostoalex writes "Salon's technology section talks about major music labels spoofing the peer-to-peer networks. The users of AudioGalaxy, Gnutella or KaZaa have probably seen a surge of fake MP3 files when conducting a search on a popular title. The MP3 looks legit, but contains a 20 second clip played over and over. Such promotional tracks were especially popular with newest releases, such as Eminem and No Doubt, as pointed out in the article. Who posted the fake tracks to the p2p networks? Could it be, as Salon suggests, a suburban mom, who does not agree with controversial lyrics, or would it be the label, trying to prevent piracy and promote the new album at the same time?"
Re:Repeating Tracks (Score:2, Informative)
I just want to find a copy of the phantom edit to burn to a VCD.
Re:Searching... (Score:3, Informative)
I know I do, as quickly as I find it, but sometimes I'm downloading something through the night, and may miss a file for 10 hours or so.
So the multi-source thing doesn't work that well.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2, Informative)
LimeWire's just as open source as gtk-gnutella. It uses the gnutella network and has a decent amount of volunteers adding/editting the code. If you don't like some of the things LimeWire does (such as displaying banner ads), download the source and edit them out. It's fairly well-designed Java code.
Re:Movies, too? (Score:5, Informative)
as a side note: almost all regular DVD players (you know, the ones for your TV) will play VCDs, some will play SVCDs (which are VCDs but with MPEG2 instead of MPEG1, and a bit more advanced menus possible). Some will play them off of CDRs, some not so much. visit http://www.vcdhelp.com [vcdhelp.com] for more information on players and how to make VCDs.
And for the record, centropy tends to release pretty damn fine quality screeners. It's true that many suck, and they do make me want to wait for theater (or just until the DVD comes out, and then get a DVD rip
That is all, thank you for your time.
OT: Bring The Noise 2000 (Score:2, Informative)
A few years ago, Public Enemy came up with a remix album, Bring The Noise 2000. 27 tracks, moslty remixes, but a couple new ones to keep it interesting. They wanted to release it, their record label Def Jam, said no. OK, we've got these tracks, and we want folks to hear em. So they converted to MP3 and released them on the net. I was lucky enough to get them all, not a bad album.
Once Def Jam found out, they told PE to stop. Basically, their contract says Def Jam has the rights to all their songs. Kind of weird, yeah, they technically own (in an IP sense) the tracks, but they don't want to do anything with them. PE didn't deprive them of revenue, because they didn't want to sell them. This rift cemented PE dropping the label and they released a single called Swindler's Lust, which contained the chorus If you don't own the masters/the Masters own you. They went to AtomicPop, and released one album There's A Poison Going On with the previously released as MP3 Swindler's Lust track before Atomic Pop kinda imploded. The album was for $8 dowloaded, $10 for a physical one with Chuck D's autograph (which I bought). I later saw the album for $17.99 at Virgin Megastore.
OK, so whats the point?
1) record labels are kind of slimey. They sign you, give you a huge advance against your sales, and that locks you in. Odd that they talk about "artists rights" in P2P talks when they generally squash artists rights themselves. See: Prince and that whole T.A.F.K.A.P. crap, that was due to a fight with Warner about him using his born name.
2) the entire industry is ripping us off on CDs. I get an autographed copy sent to my house for $10, meanwhile I have to spend $14-$18 for anything at a store. CD's are cheap as hell to burn, no moving parts. A cassette needs oxide layers on plastic, glued to two leaders, on a two part spool, with a case, fasteners, and the little sponge thingy to ensure contact with the read head. But CDs are still $3-4 more? Hows this happen, how does every label still charge $18? No one got the bright idea that their costs have dropped in the last 10 years so lets see if we can cut the price some?
3) Related to #2, CDs cost too much. Labels worry about dropping sales, make the cost reachable to folks. $10 is a good price point, and if a small label thinks that's profitable (maybe not Atomic Pop did go under, but it may be to other factors) a multi-national conglomerate can make money at that point. I have 200 CDs or so, just bought some last week, but they cost too much.
I'm not justifying piracy, you play by the rules. It's just in this case, the decks stacked a lot to the house, and I'm not too surprised there are folks who cheat also.
There are ways to avoid this (Score:1, Informative)
I've also noticed LimeWire interweaving different files into one frankenstein file, possibly because of a bad source file or the download was continued from a different source. Anyway, future SHA-1 checking in LimeWire should solve this problem and allow for swarmed downloading. I think they call it the HUGE code. Forgot what it stands for.
wesley willis spoofing (Score:2, Informative)
Turns out those were actually songs by another artist named Wesley Willis. I highly recommend "Rock and Roll McDonalds".