Ruling in Aimster Case 91
Circuit Breaker writes "A short history of Aimster: Got noticed by the RIAA, lost their domain name to AOL, changed their name to Madster. More recently, a preliminary injunction has been issued against them, according to BBC News and Associated Press. Who's next?" Aimster declared bankruptcy months ago, so this is really a formality: beating a dead horse.
Have to say it... (Score:3, Funny)
If not, they're not officially dead yet.
Re:Have to say it... (Score:1)
The Setup Program [madster.com].
-dk
aimster sucked. (Score:1)
Precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What did I miss? (Score:1)
After all, you wouldn't want him to come back from the dead to sue you for using the word AIM.
Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:3, Interesting)
Listen to the retarded business model they had:
Combine AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) with Gnutella client to build upon the existing user base of AOL customers (IM side) who would in turn chat and exchange files.
I tried to install it a year or so ago when there was this instant hype, but it was just horrible. The only p2p model that has a remote chance to survive in this hostile world of RIAA omnipotence is the Direct Connect (DC)
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2, Informative)
What about the GNUnet [ovmj.org] model?
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2, Insightful)
DC works across the board, from *nix to Windows.
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2)
if you think that, you fail to understand the idea behind opensource software.
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2)
Wait, what does that have to do with anything?
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2)
exactly.
Re:P2P (not Re:Promoting open source with p2p) (Score:1)
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:1)
I check the GNUnet homepage [gnu.org], and among the listed requirements are GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD.
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:1)
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:1)
Re:Flawed p2p app. Flawed business model. (Score:2)
IIRC, this was their way of avoiding the RIAA's anti-Napster hammer. You only shared with people you (theoretically) knew, and therefore, it was equivalent to burning a copy for your buddy, as opposed to opening a shop and saying "Free Rips Here For Anyone!"
Madster Homepage (Score:5, Funny)
Hey Everybody, It's That Same Great Service You've Known And Loved For So Long - Now With A Mad Cool New Name ...
They ought to add to the website:
...not only all that, you can make friends with all those music company bigwigs, and win a free long term holiday in a -4 star jail cell. It's absolutely fun fun fun! An the other funny thing people, we're dead!! Isn't that super!
Madster - we've got a new namester
...nope, another change needed... Deadster will do nicely.
Re:Madster Homepage (Score:2)
Not realy, they don't care if you broke any law or not, they only want to drive you out of business.
Me think you need to read this [avault.com]
raison d'etre (Score:2)
Obviously Aimster/Madster did not exactly follow the rules, but isn't it a bit harsh way of putting it to say that the reason for aimster's existence was facilitation of copyright infringement?
Re:raison d'etre (Score:1)
> say that the reason for aimster's existence was
> facilitation of copyright infringement?
Well, no. It's true.
Re:raison d'etre (Score:2)
No. We all know that. From a legal standpoint, the judge is declaring Madster guilty before the trial starts, though.
To be fair, guns' very raison d'etre appears to be the facilitation of and contribution to killing people on a massive scale. Except that big business makes them, too. Only a few crackpots try to claim that those companies are in any way responsible for your or my choice to commit a crime.
Oh, right- I had forgotten that the world of computers is somehow different. Then why isn't MS in trouble for all the spam that Outlook is used to send? Say it could be proven that the vast majority of spam was sent via Outlook. Then Outlook's very raison d'etre appears to be the facilitation of and contribution to spam on a massive scale, doesn't it? "No," MS would claim. "Our software is intended for peer to peer communication and we have no control over what is sent via it. The individual spammers are breaking the law, not us. Our software has a legitimate purpose." Except that because the big corp's. haven't figured out how to wring out enough profit from P2P to drop their old business models, they bought laws making it illegal. Not the infringement itself (which was already illegal), but the software that has a legitimate purpose but gets perverted buy self serving users. Wait- that sounds kind of like our Constitution, doesn't it?
Re:Good riddance (Score:2)
Aimster was a scavenger concept.
Chewing some meat off dead Napster.
Dead bones bleaching in the sun...
Something in a name... (Score:1)
Diffamation (Score:1)
How can they be so sure the others are that crappy ?
And, BTW, if we consider they use(d) GNUtella code for the p2p service, then GNUtella is spyware free 2... not to mention GNUnet...
A judge with an odd sense of humor? (Score:4, Insightful)
[Judge] Aspen gave the companies suing Madster until next week to propose language for a "narrowly tailored" injunction that would end copyright infringement "while allowing non-infringing uses of the Aimster system, if any, to continue."
Somebody hit this judge with a clue-stick please?
It would be a lot easier to try to end the use of Madster by left handed people while allowing right handed to continue using the system. *
* Foot note, ambidexterous people can only use the system on tuesdays, thursdays, saturdays, and before noon on sundays.
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Re:A judge with an odd sense of humor? (Score:2)
He does have a clue as to how to be an effective judge, and he also knows that Judge Patel ended up having problems with the Ninth Circuit for not trying hard enough to sort out the infringing from the non-infringing. He is trying to avoid those problems. It is up to the parties to draft the thing, not the Judge, precisely because he knows he doesn't know the technology. Both parties will come back with drafts, and reasons supporting the drafts. Mind you, Aimster won't be able to argue that shutting down infringements without non-infringements is impossible. If Aimster does that, he shuts it all down.
Even if that is the final result, he needed to put the drafting step in so that the Court of Appeals could see that Aimster failed to provide a sound technical basis for shutting one down but not the other when ordered to. That is done to keep Aimster from gratuitously changing positions on appeal. (Before Aspen saying: "Impossible", and then at the Court of Appeals saying: "Very easy.")
Re:A judge with an odd sense of humor? (Score:2)
I think you're not giving the judge enough credit. It's likely that he knows that. He's requiring the companies suing Madster to come up with a way to avoid harming innocent users before he takes any action. If they can't, he might make them demonstrate thoroughly that virtually no one uses the system in a legitimate way. If they can't do either, sucks for them.
P2P seeding companies (Score:2)
Aimster Info (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, when you decide to join a company that does not and cannot make money, a company which very obviously is stealing/riding the tradmark of one of the largest corporations in the US and then choose to stay with a company that regularly misses payrolls, you have to accept some of the fault.
I work with some folks whose offices are in the same building on State St. as AIMster was located. They all saw the writing on the wall.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the AIM trademark thing, I don't think anybody realized AOL had a trademark on AIM. After the initial ruling was handed down that ordered us to give over aimster.com to AOL, I suggested we change the name of the application. I thought something more generic, like imster, filetrader, or anything would be better than Aimster. John ignored this and decided to just fight the ruling, only to be shot down later on. He even suggested moving the Aimster service to www.aimeedeep.com/aimster/, yet another bit of evidence that his main goal with Aimster was to propel his daughter to stardom.
Regarding the previous missed payrolls, the most recent one before the Aug 10th one had been about 6 or 7 months before, so it wasn't like they were constant and I would have been expecting it.
While I was definitely partly to blame, it would never, in a million years, have occurred to me that anyone would do what Aimster did to me. Looking back now, I see that Aimster wasn't the only company to treat its employees as mere chattel, however I was naive enough to think that they would act honorably. As others have said, it was a hard, expensive lesson learned.
And to whomever said it: yes, my mother was right, and believe me, she lets me know it every time I see her.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2)
I can understand that. Fortunately ( or unfortunately) I worked for ascumbag employer when I was a teenager, which left me cynical enough not to blindly trust in a employer's ethics.
Life will go on I guess. Enjoy.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
Question (Score:2)
Re:Question (Score:1)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2)
I don't mean to sound like an asshole, but me and many of my friends left school for dot-coms and went through the same crash. I personally saved a little over $7,000, which was enough to move and start up school again. Everyone who thought that the boom would never end and was out buying $40,000 dollar cars is in deep shit.
Sorry Evro, but you made your own bed. You took a big risk and lost, you should have been prepared for that eventuality.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
rent: $1150
electric/gas: $150
car payment: $310
car insurance: $180
cable/internet: $80
Credit cards: $100
Student loans: $150
Telephone: $40
G/F smoking 2 packs/day: $300
Monthly expenses: $2460
Net income: $2800
That leaves $340 for the entire month, and on top of that, there's gas, incidentals, and... oh yeah... food. Sure, if my gf had stopped smoking that would have made a sizable dent, but that's a long story in and of itself. She has since quit. In any case, while it's true that I should have been saving, it was simply not possible.
Ok, so you lived in Manhattan. Were you living alone? Or were you supporting another person and 2 dogs? If not then the only similarity I can draw between your story and mine is that we both left school for jobs and we were both in New York state.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2)
Well, hell, there's your problem. You could have had an extra $300 if you told your G/F to get her own damn smokes!
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:2)
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
Sorry to hear all that shit went down with you. I'm even more sorry to hear that you left Dartmouth - I'm going into my sophomore year there, and it's pretty much my favorite place in the world. I'm not the biggest fan of theoretical computing stuff, but I can't imagine ever wanting to leave Dartmouth early for any kind of pie-in-the-sky job offer.
Well, perhaps you'll be in my Theory of Computation class in the winter if you come back this year - it's being taught by Jayanti, who is supposed to be one of the best profs in the school, so maybe he will get you interested in the subject.
Re:Aimster Info (Score:1)
Dartmouth is not at all accommodating when it comes to options for completing your education there. Basically the only option is to move to Hanover and attend class there. I think all of the other Ivies have some sort of distance learning program to accommodate people in situations such as mine, but not Dartmouth, and when I spoke with the dean she indicated that there were no plans for any such program, as Dartmouth likes being a residential college. I'll admit that it was part of the charm that drew me to the school in the first place, but at this point in my life it seems ridiculous.
I'll probably finish up at Columbia, which is much closer, offers distance learning, and has an entire school just for returning students. Despite the pressure from my mother, it would be completely irresponsible of me to quit my job (which I love) to go and finish school only to be sitting on my ass after graduation. Also, I've found that I hate computer science -- I'm currently working as a sysadmin, something for which a computer science curriculum really doesn't prepare you.
Anyhow, I'm glad you like Dartmouth, but in retrospect it was probably the worst choice I've ever made (worse than the Aimster fiasco). I was quite unhappy with most of my classes, and I found that the school seemed to put students last on the priority list -- anyone who's made the mile-long trek from the Choates to A-lot in 36 inches of snow when it's -20 degrees F because the college allows everyone except students to park near the dorms can probably see where I'm coming from in that regard.
Again, best of luck, but you probably won't be seeing me there anytime soon.
Two week lag (Score:2)
It seems very likely that Deep always intended to cheat you out of your last month's salary. That's why he hired a bunch of kids on their first salaried job, so they wouldn't know that his business practices weren't normal.
Is that legal? IANAL, but it wouldn't suprise me if it weren't. Boggles my mind how often shady employers do stupid, illegal stuff to shave a few pennies off their bottom line. If you have the cash for a retainer, you should talk to a lawyer who specializes in labor law.
And if you can verify any of the bookkeeping BS Deep is obviously pulling, you should contact the IRS. They pay commissions for that kind of info!
Re:Two week lag (Score:1)
My girlfriend works for a government agency now and has a similar latency between pay period and payroll issuance, so I don't think it's illegal -- I find it highly inconvenient, however. I think the theory is that when you're laid off, you'll still get 2 paychecks, assuming of course that the company's not run by a crook.
Thanks for the tips, I'll look into them.
One more suggestion (Score:2)
In New York state, the maximum you can sue for in Small Claims Court [tenant.net] is $3K. That's less than half of what you're owed. But in Small Claims, everybody represents themselves -- so there are no legal fees. You pay a fee to file and that's it.
Now, it's gonna do you no good to sue Madster or any of Deep's other shell entities. He'll just pull the "There's no money!" trick one more time. Instead, you should sue Deep himself. Claim that Deep acted deceitfully and never meant to give you your money. Document as much weirdness as you can -- the weird payroll cycle, the nonsense of one part of the business having hardware money when another didn't even have payroll money... There's probably more if you look for it.
At worst, the judge will just shoot down your legal theory, and you'll be out a filing fee and some time. But you'll still have the satisfaction of confronting Deep in person and documenting his dishonesty in a public forum.
Unless, of course, Deep chooses to ignore the proceedings. In which case you win by default!
excellent way to set case-law (Score:2)
And that freinds is how America has lost its ability to defend reason from Corporate America
Slashdot 1 Horses 0 (Score:4, Funny)
Ben
Click here to download (Score:2)
Speaking of internet radio... (Score:1)
They appear to no longer have a DNS entry.
This makes me sad.
Beat a dead horse (Score:2, Funny)
Thank god. (Score:1, Funny)
Thank you.