Kazaa to be shut down? 419
darkpriest writes "According to this article on The Register, the file sharing software KazaA has been ordered to cease copyright infringment. They have two weeks to comply with the Judges ruling or face a penalty of $40,000 a day." CD: We've gotten a number of submissions about this, I had no idea Kazaa was this popular (must be all those a's in their name). I bet anyday that the RIAA will sue cisco for making routers that could be used to infringe.
Popularity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Popularity (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty clear that it's a big part of the reason they're being targetted by the BSA, RIAA, etc. currently... I can only hope that University research into these things doesn't fuel the corporate interests backing the anti-P2P movement.
Some background on the FT network (Score:5, Informative)
The KaZaa/Morpheus servers handle logging in and refer the node to a supernode, where the node sends its list of files it wants to share. These super-nodes store these lists, and search queries are forwarded to the supernodes.
A supernode also gives the lists of some of the clients its connected to, so if the supernode disappears nodes can talk to other nodes about supernodes without getting kicked off the network.
So, effectively the network is controlled by the supernodes, which can be just ordinary PCs with reasonable bandwidth. The KaZaa servers only handle the logging in pretty much, so I doubt the FastTrack network could ever technically be shut down. Unfortunately the FastTrack protocol is very proprietary, and uses some closed-source algorithms. It would be good to see someone create an open-source 'equivalent' of the p2p protocol with the excellent features of FastTrack.
Anyway that's just my understanding of the FastTrack network, correct me if I'm wrong.
OpenFT is what you seek! (Score:5, Informative)
Try OpenFT / giFT [sourceforge.net].
Re:Some background on the FT network (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironically this modification of the gnutella protocol was introduced about a year ago by Clip2 when they introduced their Reflector. FastTrack made the observation that this sort of enhancement should be an organizing principle for the entire network rather than a marginal enhancement. It helps to minimize network traffic while extending network visibility horizon by orders of magnitude (by the ratio of nodes : supernodes).
Even as these events transpire the various gnutella clients are in the process of implementing the two layer structure in a very public presentation and review of the needed protocol modifications. Simultaneously we are in the process of adding full file hash values in order to improve the quality of files that can be found and downloaded over gnutella. When hash information has been successfully deployed on the gnutella network we will also be able to implement swarm downloads.
It is a slower process to have a public protocol evolve to respond to empirical results for a variety of clients. But in the end it might be a more robust method.
How the FastTrack P2P stack works (with pictures) (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Popularity (Here's How) (Score:3, Informative)
Last, remember that Kazaa and their ilk are *not* truly p2p networks - the software they run *does* require that the program check in with Kazaa occasionally. Sure, Joe Hacker can bypass that, but good luck running this p2p network when 98 of every 100 people are off of it because they aren't hackers.
Until we get universal television stations... (Score:5, Insightful)
This will just keep happening.
Ok, maybe people will always want something for free, but the Internet file-sharing phenomenon is the single best argument for having simultaneous worldwide release of as many products as possible.
Now, to you North Americans, this isn't such a big issue, and you've probably never given it much thought. But to a native New Zealander and resident Australian like myself, who knows the pain of waiting a year or two to see episodes of Buffy (etc, etc, etc) that you could easily download for free, it is of paramount importance!
And another thing: a buddy of mine is a technical director on LOTR, and it's supposed to be a simultaneous worldwide release on December 19th. How is it then, that in Austalia, it's being released on December 26th? Was he wrong, or is the Australian Motion Picture League of Bastards screwing us again??
Re:Until we get universal television stations... (Score:5, Funny)
That sucks! By the time you get to see it on the 26th, you'll have been exposed to a week's worth of spoilers from the internet, so you'll already know that Sauron Did It.
Re:Until we get universal television stations... (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.
Re:Until we get universal television stations... (Score:4, Interesting)
What you are effectivly arging for would be a consumer/retailer "globalisation". Which would also do away with the concept of "grey imports", things such as DVD region coding and other ways in which large multinationals attempt to divide up the market (when it suits them.)
Now, to you North Americans, this isn't such a big issue, and you've probably never given it much thought. But to a native New Zealander and resident Australian like myself, who knows the pain of waiting a year or two to see episodes of Buffy (etc, etc, etc) that you could easily download for free, it is of paramount importance!
There appear to be two issues here. The first is an apparent requirement for the first showing to be in North America in many cases (more often the US than Canada dispite a lot of programme production taking place in Canada.) The other is that series are shown in an utterly strange sequence in North America. Such that if every series started showing at the same time worldwide it would be people from the US and Canada who would be clammering to download episodes they wouldn't get to see for a while on TV. Or youd have the rest of the world being showr series North American style which viewers in the rest of the world simply will not accept.
Effectivly we have a case of trying to make new technology emulate the limitations of the old way of doing things. Because the industry does not want to reconsider their business models.
Re:Until we get universal television stations... (Score:2)
There are NO programs or movies that appear in the US first then Canada, we ALWAYS get everything at the same time. We USED to get movies like a week or two later but that was like 20 years ago.
-Shieldwolf
Re:Until we get universal television stations... (Score:2)
Release dates. [imdb.com] Starting on Mexico on 7th December, UK on the 10th, the bulk on the 19th, 20th and 21st, then Australia on the 26th and the rest up to the 18th of January 2002, with Japan bringing up the read in March 2002.
Yes, that still blows chunks, but it's getting better. Much better. I recall SW:E1:TPM was supposed to be a worldwide release, but the US distributors nixed that to protect their markets (theatre, video sales and rentals) from pirate imports. It was futile, as VCD's (hard copies and down DSL and cable lines) of Phantom Menace came in from the far east almost immediately after launch. As this is a much tighter schedule, I wonder if maybe, just maybe, it's an admission that the concept of staggered releases is now pointless, and we're in a truly global market.
eyepatch department? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not according to my dictionary. (Score:5, Funny)
PIRACY, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:5, Insightful)
In this one specific area, I definitely agree with Richard Stallman. Piracy is a marketing word, with many connotations. I wish the community would use terms more like "unauthorized copying" or "illegal copies". Even plagiarism sounds better than piracy, semantically. The english language can in its current form duplicate many of the worst features of doublespeak.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2, Informative)
Plagarism is totally different than "piracy". Plagarism is when you pass off someone else's work as your own. It is possible, then, to commit plagarism (which is not, AFAIK, illegal, at least in general) on a Free work, if you claim that, e.g., you wrote Emacs. This doesn't take away from the fact that you are entirely within your rights to distribute Emacs. However, it is illegal to distribute copies of MS Word, even if you acknowledge that MS wrote it.
I think the point (Score:2)
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you won't be able to, the RIAA doesn't want to give us that much convenience.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2)
Unfortunately for your prediction, they sell very few mp3s - the free sample mp3s are the only popular section of their site, and people download the rest from filesharing services.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:3, Flamebait)
If you're going to pirate something, at least admit to yourself that you're ripping off someone, not a victimized consumer standing up his rights.
Gimme a break.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:4, Insightful)
And there's the problem. To you, it's utterly clear that this is "ripping off", by which I assume you mean theft, that I am depriving someone of something which they have or to which you think they are absolutely entitled. You believe that I should see it this way, and that I am merely fooling myself, or pretending to fool myself otherwise.
The problem is, you're wrong on all counts. You're wrong that I'm fooling myself, and you're wrong that it's theft. I'll just assert that latter one, because that's all you did. It's clearly obvious to me that if the copyright owner (a music company, not an artist) failed to persuade me to pay the amount that they demand for access to the work on their terms, then they've already lost the sale, and so there's nothing left for me to deprive them of.
So you can sit there wagging your finger sternly and saying "This is right, this is wrong, that's the way it's always been, that's the way it always will be" while a new generation of music listeners sniggers quietly behind their hands - or laughs out loud at you - and gets on with doing what people have really always done, which is to redefine both morality and legality by the weight of their actions and opinions.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real issue here is, how should authors of creative works be compensated ? The advocates of Napster appear to believe that they are entitled to free entertainment, and that no-one is morally obliged to compensate authors whose works they benefit from. Authors, they believe, should work without compensation. However, most of these leeches would fiercely object if their employer decided that they shouldn't be compensated for their labor.
The problem is, you're wrong on all counts. You're wrong that I'm fooling myself, and you're wrong that it's theft. I'll just assert that latter one, because that's all you did.
No he didn't. You asserted it on his behalf.
while a new generation of music listeners sniggers quietly behind their hands - or laughs out loud at you - and gets on with doing what people have really always done, which is to redefine both morality and legality by the weight of their actions and opinions.
No, they are defining "morality" by retroactively inventing half-assed rationalisations for immoral actions, and they're not the first people to do it.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:3, Informative)
No. The real issue is "how should the owners of creative works be compensated?". Music nowadays (at least for the big labels) is "work for hire". The musicians have no ownership rights to the music. Anything that goes to the creators is a matter of contract negotiations, and, I suspect, creative accounting. (The average musician is no more an accountant than the average accountant is a musician.)
None of the money that you pay for a CD goes directly to the musicians. (Unless, of course, you listen to indie bands, like sensible people.) It goes to the label, who determines how much the band gets.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, I'll take the bait.
People don't want easy accessible music; they want free music.
Of course we do. Who wouldn't want free stuff?
But there's more to it than that. A lot more.
First of all, we want to be able to hear the music in the first place. Have you tried listening to commercial radio lately? For how long? The simple fact is that if we want to hear something that's been mentioned by a friend (either in "real life" or online), we can't get it from the radio. Radio doesn't play anything that anyone would ever recommend to anyone else. It's simply a marketing arm of the record companies trying to increase sales of the Pop-Star-of-The-Month.
Let's say I tell you how much I loved Tori Amos [thedent.com]'s third album Boys For Pele. Are you going to rush to the store and buy it based on that recommendation? Probably not. You'll at least want to hear it for yourself first.
So what choices does that give you?
Which of these have the greatest likelihood of letting you hear the music? Probably the last two. Which have the greatest likelihood of leading to a monetary transaction between you and the artist? Well, none of them, so let me rephrase. Which of them have the greatest chance of getting you to send money to the record company who, in theory, passes money on to the artist? Probably #5: if you buy a CD from the store, all you have to do to "make a purchase" is keep it instead of returning it. But #6 is also good: if you like that Ogg file you downloaded, you might decide to buy a CD.
You sure as hell aren't going to be enriching the artist or the record company if you follow any of the first 3 models. And #4 is potluck, and your odds have gotten worse over time. #7 will depend on whether you got a cassette copy from your friend, or a burned CD, or whether you just borrowed his CD with the intention of returning it. If you got a burned CD copy, you may just keep that instead of buying your own.
So by my reckoning, downloading "pirate" music is at least the second-best money-making promotional model there is (or possibly the best) for the type of music that isn't played on commercial radio and MTV.
And that's at least 99% of all the music in the world.
If you're going to pirate something, at least admit to yourself that you're ripping off someone, not a victimized consumer standing up his rights.
If you're going to troll slashdot users, at least admit to yourself that you're a tool of the record companies and their hired public relations psychologists. And that you're helping them rip off 99% of the musicians in the world by systematically destroying all but the 1% who achieve "Star" status and therefore simply die poor instead of flat broke.
If you'd rather help artists, then donate money directly to them [fairtunes.com], or buy CDs straight from the artists instead of through the record companies (for the artists who are able to do that).
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2)
The point is that they have a good deal of artists who are fairly popular (i.e. regularly have platinum-selling albums). And they still sell virtually no mp3s. Why? Because people download them for free.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2)
As for selling the CD, what you want then is simply what cheap-cds.com does - a CD store that lets you access mp3s online (for most albums) after you purchase them. They haven't reported any significant increase in sales after starting the service though.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2)
It's a fairly well-known site in the punk community, as it's run by Epitaph Records (Offspring, Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, Guttermouth, etc.), and sells mp3s of all the Epitaph bands (plus some others). I was just bringing it up as an example of one record label that has tried what you suggest (and an RIAA-member label, no less).
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2)
Sure they do. They just wanna find a way to mark your copy with your permanent signature. Then they'll sell you anything you want.
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:2, Insightful)
Publishers often refer to prohibited copying as "piracy." In this way, they imply that illegal copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnaping and murdering the people on them.
If you don't believe that illegal copying is just like kidnaping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word "piracy" to describe it...
Quoted from [gnu.org]
Re:eyepatch department? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
more info... (Score:4, Informative)
There is a little bit more information about it on cnet:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8022666.html? tag=mn_hd [cnet.com]
although it does not contain too many facts beyond the actual case and the judgement.
Distributors aren't responsible for content, no?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the difference is that music is protected speech, but from a logical standpoint, it's a pretty
-djere
"Where subtlety fails us, we must simply resort to cream pies."
Xolox also down (Score:2, Redundant)
Dear XoloX-user,
Taking into account the latest law suits against p2p clients based on Fasttrack-technology (such as Kazaa), we
have decided to discontinue XoloX. As of the 1st of december, XoloX will be shut down and removed from
distribution sites. We hope everybody has enjoyed XoloX as long as it has been around and we want to use this
opportunity to thank everybody who made a contribution to its development. These last few days will give you
some time to finish your downloads and we advise you not to start new transfers. If you want to migrate to
another p2p client we advise you to visit the Zeropaid website (www.zeropaid.com) for orientation.
Thanks again and goodbye!
--Team XoloX--
Comments or suggestions? Please use info@xolox.nl
Re:Xolox also down (Score:2)
On a wider note, the history of P2P file sharing seems to indicate that centralized systems will always be faster than something like Gnutella, but conversely easier for the big people to shut down. Freenet and Mojonation were two great white hopes a couple of years ago, but they currently seem to be mired in development hell, without a significant new release for a very long time. The only system that's going on stronger than ever is Gnutella.
Xolox still works though (Score:2)
You can still search/upload/download fine.
That's the great thing about P2P,
If it wasn't for fastrack altering their software to make one logon, to block out the open source reversed engineered Fastrack client, GIFT (which btw also does transparent 'supernode' serving on clients with good bandwidth & storage, just like the legit Fastrack apps themselves), then those fastrack apps would be immune from being made dysfunctional by having their corporate creators shutdown
I't s a Dutch court making the order.. (Score:5, Informative)
More to the point, Kazaa (the file sharing system) and FastTrack (the network (and libraries for accessing it)) are one and the same, so this should also affect Morpehus and Grokster (not to mention the buggy linux Kazaa client) !
This is bad bad news. Quick to the Kazaa before it goes away !
Re:I't s a Dutch court making the order.. (Score:3, Informative)
...and the good news is, that it will take at least two weeks. Also the court has ordered the IFPI (the Dutch RIAA companion) to hold talks with "Consumer Empowerment" (the company that developed FastTrack protocol on which all clients rely) about the formation of a legal music-distribution service.
So there might be a lot of water flowing down the Rhine before something happens. And then again, it is a Durch court. They are not really known to be a corporate whores. Hell, they smoke pot in that country so you might as well expect a sensible outcome from this...
Re:I't s a Dutch court making the order.. (Score:2)
Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is very careful to only pick on groups that can't afford better lawyers than they can. I wish they would sue; Cisco might well succeed in creating some sort of binding precedent that would put a stop to all this nonsense. The RIAA will never do that, of course...
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:3, Insightful)
What crap! The law makes the distinction all the time between things whose main use is illegal and things that incidentally can be used for breaking the law. Laws against selling burglary tools have not been used to prosecute Ace Hardware.
All the cases Slashdot has covered--DeCSS, Napster, Sklyarov, KazaA, the one in Korea--are programs designed primarily to enable mass copyright infringement, even though they also have non-infringing uses. Get over this straw man argument that next they'll be coming after Cisco and FTP. It's nonsense.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Note that these are not necessarily non-infringing uses either - many of these "underground" or "garage" bands are virulently anti-piracy and anti-mp3 as well, often arguing that mp3s hurt them even more than they hurt the RIAA, because "Metallica can afford to lose 1000 album sales; we can't."
And also, if you take a look at search statistics on these networks, the vast majority of people are looking for the latest Britney Spears single, not for garage bands.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Some of the "legit uses" are more frightening to the likes of the RIAA than any form of "piracy". But they can't go to a judge and say "we are in fear of becoming obsolete"...
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:5, Informative)
DeCSS? Explicitly developed to enable playing DVDs on Open Source computers with DVD drives. It's hardly practical to share full-length movies over networks or even to store them locally on hard drives -- although you should note that the latter use is not infringing. I for one can't think of a single use for DeCSS that's infringing under the traditional doctrine of fair use, given the current practical technological limitations. It may well be in violation of the DMCA, but that's a seriously broken law that undermines rights that consumers of intellectual property have enjoyed for a very long time. The DMCA isn't Norweigian law, anyway.
Skylarov? His product is entirely legal in the country where he wrote it. In fact, without his company's product it's Adobe's software that's illegal. It's against the law to erect technological barriers to fair use in Russia, but that's what Adobe's so-called encryption does. It's his company that ought to have been held accountable for marketing the product in the US where it was illegal; Skylarov himself as an employee had nothing to do with that. If he's guilty of anything, it's of demonstrating that Adobe's claims about the security of their encryption scheme was a total crock. Embarrassing corporations isn't illegal -- yet.
Peer-to-peer networks? All of them run on top of the Internet, which, in the event you haven't noticed, is one vast peer-to-peer network designed for freely sharing information. None of the other indexing schemes for available information, such as Gopher or even some web pages, are not fundamentally different from networks like Gnutella.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Apparently you haven't been informed about filesharing within the past year or so. There are entire networks and piracy groups dedicated solely to ripping and sharing movies, and such sharing is one of the major bandwidth uses on university campuses. Sharing of full-length movies is also one of the most popular activities on the FastTrack network (Kazaa/Morpheus). It's not particularly impractical - most people find a DivX-compressed DVD to be "good enough," and typically use bitrates such that the final file size is around the size of a CD-R (~700 MB). And with the size of hard drives these days, it's not impractical to have 15-20 of these sitting around; what's more, most people burn them to CD-R's, and I know quite a few people with CD-R spindles of 100 full-length movies.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
DeCSS? Explicitly developed to enable playing DVDs on Open Source computers with DVD drives. It's hardly practical to share full-length movies over networks or even to store them locally on hard drives
DeCSS was explicitly developed to get access to the contents of DVD in a form that could be reprocessed and shared. Yes, I know this, I'm not guessing.
ReMPEG2 - re-encoded an mpeg2 stream to a lower bitrate etc suitable for SVCDs. This was before the popularity of DivX
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
And yet strangely you don't feel any need to provide a single reference to back that up.
We're listening. But you can't change our minds just by making an assertion and then slinking back to the shadows.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Hah! Nonsense is the papier-mache broad-bladed sword of the ignorant! Fear its power and quick judgement based on inaccurate information!
When weilded correctly the Nonsense Sword can bog your enemies down in such useless follies as proving your mindless drivel wrong! It slices through factoids like butter through a knife!
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Are you aware of the Sony Decision? That the Supremes decided that the "main use" of VCR's is illegal, but that even the possibility of non-infringing uses meant that the VCR itself could not be banned.
This was a clear precedent which is now being ignored by ignorant revisionist judges who are apparently being swayed by the completely extra-legal argument of "corporate/national interest". We have judges now who are not just misinterpreting the law, but are blatantly adding whole new clauses to it in an attempt to outdo each other in seeing the Big Picture and bring themselves to the attention of their masters in Congress (50% of whom are members of the American Bar Association, and who decide on promotion to the Supreme Court, so separation of powers my huge hairy ass).
Please go and do some basic research before you shoot your mouth off here.
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
Re:Cisco is too big for the bully (Score:2)
That word doesn't mean what I think you think it means.
there are some 'S's to go with your 'A' (Score:2, Funny)
Thats 'ass' in print folks....its Official!
Yawn. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yawn. (Score:2)
gIFT is Not the Best (Score:2)
eDonkey is quite stable. All it needs to really succeed is shorter connection timeouts and some automatic retry functionality... in particular, you have to manually expand a search, and it takes some time.
Vote eDonkey for P2P president!
RIAA's Next Target (Score:2)
However, I have no doubt that either gIFT or another open source alternative file sharing network will duplicate or surpass the functionality Kazaa currently provides. This will be especially true if FastTrack is shut down. Just look at download.com's Macintosh section [cnet.com]. Because Kazaa has not been ported to the Macintosh, two versions of the open source gnutella clone are ranked one and two.
Clearly, there is a huge appetite for file sharing software that will no doubt be met by talented open source programmer perhaps even operating anonymously. While it may seem like this would provide cover from RIAA and other organization lawsuits, I believe it won't. gnutella, gIFT and all other file sharing tools rely on centralized servers for at least the distribution of their software. The RIAA could easily threaten suits against Limeware, sourceforge.net, and any other entity hosting file sharing tools or even linking to them. The latest deCSS court decisions banning [cnet.com] linking prove this to be the case.
Re:Yawn. (Score:2)
Can you please elaborate? How is this so?
FYI: They are NOT decentralized (Score:2, Redundant)
They were when they started (Morpheous and Kazaa both use the FastTrack network). But they moved to a system where you must log on to a central server before you can join the network. Take a look at the giFT project for more info (they were an open source client before the network closed).
giFT Project [slashdot.org]
They are also working on a new version of the network they call OpenFT.
Not decentralized... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not decentralized... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting that you should mention this specific list, because every single one of these functions can be coded into an irc client/script !!
For best results this client would have to rely on irc servers have a built in file server and have a carefully designed gui as well as hopefully running on many platforms.
Maybe it's time to reinvent mIRC and X-chat using a common tooolkit (qt?) and dumbed down simplified gui. Is there any reason why this wouldn't work ?
Re:Not decentralized... (Score:2)
2 am, it's time for a rambly ranting. (Score:2, Insightful)
What a couple of us (anonymous geeky types trying to read what's left of the First Admendment through the brown stains (ref: Brian Dalton, Ohio)) have been tossing around is a p2p system that would be totally encrypted, and provide a one stop place for all your networking needs. ::smirks widely:: Right, AOL. ::shudders::
But, seriously. A good majority of people online
are soccer moms who don't know why they should use encryption, don't think they're doing anything wrong (and thus have nothing to hide),
and can barely navigate. (IE is "the web").
A nice gui (multi-platform, of course, and done
in qt or wxwindows) that does the encryption
behind the scenes for their chatting and instant messaging would be a *huge* hit. I just removed
Earthlink from a neighbours system. Their software is HIDEOUS! She put it on there because
she wanted things "all in one place". (As an aside, I called Earthlink's tech support while I was there, and asked why the smtp server address they gave her wasn't working. After I was told that smtp stood for "send mail to people", I rather quickly hung up. Turned out that they'd
bought out the ISP she was using, but that
she needed to use the old isps hostnames, as
earthlink hadn't gotten around to providing customers from her area with access. She lives
5 miles away but it's long distance for me
to call her. Rah!)
Where was I? Oh, right. Soccer moms. Anyway, the key to any p2p system surviving is *normal* users. Despite the numbers, all existing file share systems seem to be people with lots of time on their hands, or very technically inclined. The people who log in for a couple hours to chat with grandma, or little neice Susie, or check the latest news bulletins AREN'T using them. And if they're not using them, when the systems are shut down, you aren't getting the mainstream mass media outcry. This again goes to legitimacy. It can't be tacked on to IRC, because IRC already has enough kludges added and needs to be respectfully laid to rest. You *cannot* have a "content publishing system" that's true p2p and have it *be useable* without the industry clowns attacking it. (Look at Freenet, and tell me how long it takes you to find a key of something interesting, much less to download it. The fact that I'm actually going to have to buy the O'Reilly book on p2p should say something. Wait, I buy all the O'Reilly books. But if I didn't... :-) )
I think the best solution is to build (sigh, yet ANOTHER) protocol (open) based on the best aspects of the open protocols that exist, and
make a single client/server multiplatform application that everyone can use, and the government can tear its hair out over because
it's not as easy as harrassing an ISP to read what everyone's saying.
This isn't as grandiose as you might think, and people far smarter than me have even done some parts of it. No one, though, has put it all together. I won't keep rambling on details, but, check out Mojonation: For the file sharing end, it addresses a lot of issues that haven't been before (mojo/leech consequences, ratings, etc). However, it's an utter piece of shit --- requires a web browser (expects IE? Yech!), is abysmally slow to publish, and, in my experience, impossible to download on. And, again, just file sharing.
This is probably longer than it needed to be, but, as you might have guessed, something I'm really interested in. I have no idea how it would be possible to have a p2p without central servers (elitist hubs in IRC talk) and yet provide reliable delivery. Even a quasi-p2p network with NO commercial entities involved, and as much anonymity thrown in as possible would be better than what's going on now.
Again, reiterating my first post, if a million people are all chatting encrypted, and there's no way to see who's doing what, there's just no way to shut it down. Maybe I'm still naive, but I don't think we're past the point where we can grasp unto what freedoms we have left and hold on tight...
Re:2 am, it's time for a rambly ranting. (Score:3)
- By default, it should find and share all mp3's, vcd's, etc on the disk. Napster took off because it shared the downloads by default. It's reasonable to take this a step further, now that there's such a high chance that the user previously ran a different sharing program.
- The program should take the user by the hand, like an installation wizard. On first starting, it should ask the user to pick two favorite genres of music. Then it should show the most popular downloads within those genres. If the user doesn't choose anything, and the connection is not being used heavily, the program should randomly pick and start downloading one of the most popular files in the genre. And this should be made visibly obvious to the user in a way that invites intervention.
- We need a Tivo-like associative rating, where you can give things a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, causing other files to appear in the suggestion list (and possibly get downloaded automatically). This would be backed by a cryptographic network of trust, so the originators of the network would anonymously endorse users who have good associative judgement, who would in turn endorse more users.
- We need an abuse-resistant mechanism to propogate relevant news items, complete with hyperlinks, within the program. So if congressman Greedo introduces legislation against p2p, an appropriate hyperlink to this story will pop up on each user's program. This will help polarize the "soccer moms" against the cartels.
- We need a system that progressively restricts the IP addresses permitted to connect as the number of nodes grows. This makes it difficult to 'sweep' a network from one IP address and identify all the nodes. In other words, the number of nodes available to me should grow as the square root of the number of nodes in the network.
And now some problems:Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Centralized Servers == Bad (Score:2, Informative)
Vicarious liability arises when the defendant "has the right and ability to supervise the infringing activity and also has a direct financial interest in such activities." Napster, 239 F.3d at 1022.
Also, there's still the good competitive analysis of kazaa, etc. from the RIAA (where we also find the codification of liability):
http://www.dotcomscoop.com/riaamemo.html [dotcomscoop.com]
Re:Centralized Servers == Bad (Score:2)
The RIAA knows they don't have as strong a case as they did against napster, but they still have a case.
My favorite part is that kazaa is partially encrypted, so any attempts by the RIAA to reverse engineer it are illegal under the DMCA
-gleam
Re:Centralized Servers == Bad (Score:4, Interesting)
I find publishing networks like Freenet and Mojo Nation interesting as well. They are not as functional as Gnutella or FastTrack networks currently, but they are very interesting. Freenet gets a lot of press, but in my opinion Mojo Nation is much more functional currently, and has had more development put into it. If you are interested in P2P networks, you should download Mojo Nation to see how much crazy stuff they have already put into it. Mojo Nation is the most functional publishing network I've seen thus far, and it's quite interesting. It's more for techies interested in the possibilities of P2P however, for functionality, stick with Gnutella.
WinMX (Score:5, Informative)
And by the way, for those that are modding this... I do not work for WinMX in any capacity, nor do I have any financial or personal stake in it. I'm just trying to help the people that looked at this article and thought, "Well, damn. What's left for me to go to now that doesn't suck?".
Already shut down for me and others (Score:2)
Re: Already shut down for me and others (Score:2)
An open proxy server is vulnerable to attack simply because of some administrator's incompetence, ignorance, laziness, or all three. A potential rape victim is vulnerable to attack simply because this world is full of some sick fucks, and nothing more.
I'm certainly not saying just because something is vulnerable to attack that it is OK to attack it. I'm simply saying that the two situations are so completely different that it makes absolutely no sense to try and relate them in an analogy.
RIAA Lawsuit Spree... (Score:2, Funny)
In other news, the RIAA has filed lawsuits against Intel, AMD, and Motorola, alleging that processors produced by the aforementioned companies are being used to decode illegal pirated music.
openFT an alternative? (Score:5, Interesting)
note that a few days after kazaa blocked giFT, they were sued by the RIAA. this was because they switched to a partially centralized network from a network that had previously only used central servers for authentication (which giFT had never used).
Re:openFT an alternative? (Score:2)
Good riddance to spyware (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they got it right. (Score:2, Funny)
The RIAA and MPAA sure are asses!
Not translated quite correctly (Score:2, Informative)
Basically - KaZaA is ordered itself to stop infringing on arfists their right withing two weeks. It is not said that they are actually doing so - but if they are - they better not do it two weeks from now.
But at the same time - the dutch version of the RIAA (well not quite comparable - the legal framing is way different) is ordered to sit down with KaZaA withing two days to reach agreement as to how to legally offer music.
So the sword cuts two ways. While it is by no means clear yet -if- kazaa actually has stepped on the artist rights in any way.
Also note that Buma/Stemra is quite in a different leage that the RIAA, has a lot more legal shackles and govt. oversight - and typically chargers very reasonable fees - for end users in the fractions of dollars per song. And is very cognant of fair use. The netherlands is rift with things like public libraries which rent out popular music.
Multiple A Logic (Score:3, Funny)
"I had no idea Kazaa was this popular (must be all those a's in their name)."
Proof That A's Don't Determine Popularity
Kazaa = 3 A's.
RIAA + MPAA = 4 A's.
Still, Kazaa is more popular than RIAA and MPAA together.
This post is XHTML 1.0 compliant!
OLD VERSIONS? (Score:2)
SO WHO HAS OLD VERSIONS OF THE SOFTWARE?
Decentralizing etc.. (Score:2, Informative)
One thing I never did figure out was why K, M & G all look the same (bar different icons). What's up with that?? As far as I'm concerned, the RIAA can kill as many clients as they like. There will always be more (and better) P2P apps cropping up. Kinda like natural selection.
Anyhoo, here are some old Slashdot posts on the subject:
RIAA Looks To Stop KaZaA, Morpheus & Grokster [slashdot.org]
File Sharing: Decentralizing, Open-Source Fasttrack [slashdot.org]
-TheCrunch
.sig .freud
Slashdot editors live under rocks? (Score:3, Informative)
It's good to see Slashdot editors keep up with technology. FWIW, the FastTrack network (through the Kazaa and Morpheus clients) has consistently been the single largest bandwidth user amongst colleges and universities for the past few months.
webwereld.nl (Score:5, Informative)
Rechter: KaZaA over twee weken dicht
judge:Kaza must close in 2 weeks
This is the remarkable outcome of a "kort geding" (court where outcome is in a short time) between kazaA and music right organisation "Buma/Stemra". If kazaa does not comply they must pay 100.00 guildens (~45.000 euro) a day with a max of 2 Million guildens. This outcome can end the Kazaa, that is one of the biggest music exchane services since the departure of napster.
The judge also dertermined that BUMA/stemra must meet with Kazaa to negotiate a contract where Kaaza can legaly offer misc via the internet. Accoridng to kazaa there was already a oral agreement with the buma/stemra the they canceled the engotioations.
Loyer Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm sees the judgement as a vicotry , in spite of the closing threat. "it is fantastic that they have to negotioate with us again. That means we still have enough time to make an agreement."
...
about the passage in the verdict about the "auteursrecht" [copy right? ] he is less to speak. "in the verdict is that kazaa breachtes the copyright. This is nonsense. The users are responsible for this. With the same argument one could close the suppliers of video recorders"
. . . appeal. . .
according to Alberdingk Thijm the verdict only has consequense for the software. This means that the network where also morpheur and grokster make use of stay 'open'. Poeple who already have installed kazaa soule be able to continue with using the network.
.
.
.
Buma/stemra did not react. "we do that when we studied the verdict"
[sorry for speliing errors and parts left out]
Better(?) translation of original webwereld.nl art (Score:3, Informative)
A more complete and better(?) translation of the webwereld.nl article [webwereld.nl].
Judge: KaZaA must close in two weeks
Thursday, 29 November 2001 - KaZaA must stop making copyright infringements of music artists in two weeks with, a judge decided today.
That's the remarkable outcome of summary proceedings between KaZaA and Buma/Stemra [Dutch RIAA]. If KaZaA ignores the decision they are forced to pay 100,000 Dutch guilders per day, with a maximum of 2 million guilders [1 NLG = about 0.40 USD]. The verdict can mean the end of KaZaA, the largest peer to peer network after Napster.
The judge also decided Buma/Stemra must negotiate with KaZaA within two days about a treaty that will allow KaZaA to legally 'distribute' music. According to KaZaA there already was an oral agreement with Buma/Stemra when Buma/Stemra canceled negotiations at the last moment.
VictoryKaZaA's lawyer, Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm sees the verdict as a victory, despite the threat of KaZaA being forced to close. "It's of course really nice that Buma/Stemra has to negotiate with us again. That means we still have enough time to make an agreement.
Whether Buma/Stemra and KaZaA will be able to make an agreement within two weeks, Alberdingk Thijm can't say. "I find it difficult to estimate"
But Alberdingk Thijm isn't happy about the passage in the verdict about copyright infringement. "The passage says that KaZaA itself makes copyright infrigments. That's of course nonsense. The users of KaZaA are responsible for that. You could also close down companies that make VCR's with that argument."
Appeal"You can only have a point when you say KaZaA gives users the possibility to break copyrights, the same argument used against Napster. I have the feeling the judge bungled that part of the verdict", says Alberdingk Thijm.
Thus KaZaA is thinking to appeal against that part of the verdict. "But before we make a decision we'll have to study the verdict again, calmly."
According to Alberdingk Thijm the verdict only has consequences for KaZaA's software. That means the network the company uses [FastTrack], which is also used by Morpheus (MusicCity) and Grokster, will stay 'open'.
People who already installed KaZaA on their computer, would still be able to use the network. KaZaA doesn't use central servers [they do! but it's still 'optional'] as Napster did, so stopping the service is difficult.
Buma/Stemra doesn't want to comment the verdict yet. "We will do that after wes tudied the verdict thoroughly", as George Knops of Buma/Stemra says.
Copyright (c) 2001 - WebWereld / Maarten Reijnders
Translation by Eelco Lempsink
It's no big deal ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The RIAA (well, in this case their Dutch counterparts BUMA/STEMRA, actually) are fighting a losing battle, as they probably know very well. At least, they should know this from looking at recent events surrounding napster.
First, there's a thing called GNUtella. Doesn't work very well, but it works, but, well, it doesn't work very well. Then, for a while (how long did Napster actually last? A few months or so?) something comes along that does the same as GNUtella, but it's much easier to use. So everyone switches over, because, well, freedom and decentralization are nice ideas and all, but ease of use is nice too. For a few months, everyone uses the ultra friendly Napster thing 'till the RIAA takes note and sues Napster. Exit Napster. Tons of internet (l)users have, however, by now learnt of the joys of P2P filesharing, so they go to GNUtella, which may suck, but it's still better than nothing.
Along comes FastTrack (KaZaa/Morpheus/Grokster). It's really easy to use, so everyone and their mom installs it. For a few months, users are happy. Then the RIAA takes note, orders FastTrack shutdown
This will keep happening until the RIAA finally gives up. Since that's rather unlikely, the cycle "sucky Gnutella -> nice GUI app -> nice GUI app shut down -> sucky Gnutella" will continue forever.
Kazaa/Morpheus port throttling by universities (Score:2)
I think they went to the throttling method to make people say "Oh, it's just slow today." This keeps them from looking from alternatives-when napster got blocked, everyone just switched to gnutella. Colin Winters
Re:Kazaa/Morpheus port throttling by universities (Score:2)
ARRRRRRRR (Score:3, Funny)
Where is their case?? (Score:2, Interesting)
But since the network protocol behind FastTrack is encrypted, how are they going to prove that anything illegal is actually happening without breaking the DMCA?
At most, they have evidence, but no proof.
IANAL. Obviously it can't be that simple, so please enlighten me.
Its what you get for supporting a closed network.. (Score:3, Interesting)
use IRC =) (Score:3, Informative)
Good alternative
Re:Not decentralized? (Score:3, Insightful)
yeh, apparently these apps arn't server dependent (Score:3, Informative)
Also Xolox uses the Gnutella network, so each client behaves like a transparent server.
Because of that, you log on right now & even though Xolox says that they have shutdown because of the legal situation, the app still searches/downloads/uploads files perfectly well via the Gnutella network.
So as far as my take on this is concerned, all these law suites can do is stop new revisions of these apps - they can't stop people using these apps even if the licensies/distributers of those apps shutdown.
Re:Not decentralized? (Score:2, Informative)
it's the dutch RIAA (Score:2, Interesting)
On a sidenote, local news has it that Kazaa is more than willing to transform itself into a subscription service (as in non-free) but not that eager to be the first to do it (causing everybody to flock to gnutella I guess.)
cheers
pyz
Re:Too bad (Score:2)
Your ignorant view of fair use is exactly why we have corporations and lawyers attacking it everyday. It's an established legal precedent in the US:
If a device has non-infringing uses and is marketed as such, the fact that it may have infringing uses is completely irrelevant.
See: BetaMax, Diamond RIO.
Sure, there are people out there that will use this legitimate sharing software to illegaly trade files, be it music or photos or movies. But there are people out there that make 10 copies of every movie they buy and give em away to friends. Same idea. You cannot prosecute the legitimate tools; you must prosecute the individuals making illegitimate use of the tools.
See: Metallica, Dr Dre identify individual Napster users violating copyright.
Re:Too bad (Score:2)
I think in these cases of the RIAA and MPAA going after *for-profit* companies whose primary business is copyright infringement, RIAA and MPAA are in the right. It is in cases like DeCSS that I think MPAA and the RIAA are in the wrong (very wrong).
Re:Time to unholster the clue stick (Score:3, Informative)
Yup, unfortunately. It depends on where the jurisdiction of the law is, but it requires some court (usually the Supreme Court) to overturn it before its actually invalid.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
they were their own worst enamies then? (Score:2)
Anyway if GIFT works the same way as fast track; then, I assume, if enough people download/install/run GIFT then all those GIFT running systems will creat their own fastrack like P2P network.
Really as long as the GIFT people can get a good user base then they don't need to log into the fastrack network anyway.
So what's the problem? We should all start using Gift, does gift have to log into to Fastrack to work? can GIFTers form their own network?