Slashdot Mirror

Like more than a dozen people actually have 1000 hours of LEGAL music. That's like 1000 CDs. Or, about $15,000 worth of CDs. Apple joins the piracy tool supporters of the world.. right on! Fight for your "freedom!"

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn 'Johnny' Deep, you're a real piece of shit

Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn 'Johnny' Deep, you're a real piece of shit

Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn 'Johnny' Deep, you're a real piece of shit

Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn 'Johnny' Deep, you're a real piece of shit

Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn 'Johnny' Deep, you're a real piece of shit

Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail! Send him hate mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn Johnny Deep, you're a real piece of shit!

Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn Johnny Deep, you're a real piece of shit!

Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn Johnny Deep, you're a real piece of shit!

Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn Johnny Deep, you're a real piece of shit!

Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail!

Look, it's the Aimster Girl's head on somebody else's body! And love that fake T-shirt too! God damn Johnny Deep, you're a real piece of shit!

Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail! Send him mail!

First of all, the salary was lagged by 1 month, so when you get paid, you're not getting paid for the past 2 weeks, you're getting paid for the period 4 weeks ago to 2 weeks ago. Thus, when I didn't get paid one friday, I was owed two paychecks. Then the company didn't offer any explanation for another 2 weeks (during which time I did not work of course). I was already 10 days late on my rent at that point (I had had some financial difficulties prior to that involving medical expenses) and if the job had continued, I would have been in the black within 1.5 months. In any case, with no income and my rent already late, my landlord started eviction proceedings. So the next month or so was spent begging for money from my family so I could have enough to move out of the city where the job was and back closer to home. I had no time to begin the unemployment process. And I don't know where you're getting your (mis)information, but in New York state there is a cap on unemployment of $405/week, from which 10% is deducted for taxes = $365. I had no savings. I left school to take this job. And you wrongly inferred that I still have the cell phone and cable. My statement regarding these items was that I still have the bills, which had accrued for about 3 months due to the aforementioned financial difficulties I had encountered.

I assumed he was a con man when he decided to lie to both the investors and the public about the plans for the company. Around February it was apparent that he planned to use the company and its product simply as a vehicle to launch his daughter's modeling career (going so far as to claim she and he [neither of whom have ever written even a line of HTML, much less C++] wrote the entire application, both on the client and server side). However, at that time my options were extremely limited as I had only been working there for about 5 months, and my main reason for taking the job was to gain programming experience. 5 months of experience isn't very useful, especially when the project isn't even complete and you've got essentially nothing to show for those 5 months.

While I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the most financially responsible person on the block, I don't think any amount of planning could have prepared me for the level of underhandedness to which my employer sank.

Oh, if anybody is wondering, the company was Aimster, which has now gone so low as to try and profit off the WTC disaster. While the page now claims that 100% of the money generated will go to the Red Cross, it initially said that "a portion" of the money would go to Aimster's "fight for freedom". Then I guess they took a lot of flak for that, and changed it (copying the text nearly verbatim from PayPal's donation page) but I seriously doubt that the red cross will see a dime of any money generated from that page. And I'm pretty doubtful that the poster they're trying to sell even exists.

A lot of what I wrote above is irrelevant to this subject, but the depths to which Aimster's CEO will sink appalls me more with each passing day.

First of all, the salary was lagged by 1 month, so when you get paid, you're not getting paid for the past 2 weeks, you're getting paid for the period 4 weeks ago to 2 weeks ago. Thus, when I didn't get paid one friday, I was owed two paychecks. Then the company didn't offer any explanation for another 2 weeks (during which time I did not work of course). I was already 10 days late on my rent at that point (I had had some financial difficulties prior to that involving medical expenses) and if the job had continued, I would have been in the black within 1.5 months. In any case, with no income and my rent already late, my landlord started eviction proceedings. So the next month or so was spent begging for money from my family so I could have enough to move out of the city where the job was and back closer to home. I had no time to begin the unemployment process. And I don't know where you're getting your (mis)information, but in New York state there is a cap on unemployment of $405/week, from which 10% is deducted for taxes = $365. I had no savings. I left school to take this job. And you wrongly inferred that I still have the cell phone and cable. My statement regarding these items was that I still have the bills, which had accrued for about 3 months due to the aforementioned financial difficulties I had encountered.

I assumed he was a con man when he decided to lie to both the investors and the public about the plans for the company. Around February it was apparent that he planned to use the company and its product simply as a vehicle to launch his daughter's modeling career (going so far as to claim she and he [neither of whom have ever written even a line of HTML, much less C++] wrote the entire application, both on the client and server side). However, at that time my options were extremely limited as I had only been working there for about 5 months, and my main reason for taking the job was to gain programming experience. 5 months of experience isn't very useful, especially when the project isn't even complete and you've got essentially nothing to show for those 5 months.

While I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't the most financially responsible person on the block, I don't think any amount of planning could have prepared me for the level of underhandedness to which my employer sank.

Oh, if anybody is wondering, the company was Aimster, which has now gone so low as to try and profit off the WTC disaster. While the page now claims that 100% of the money generated will go to the Red Cross, it initially said that "a portion" of the money would go to Aimster's "fight for freedom". Then I guess they took a lot of flak for that, and changed it (copying the text nearly verbatim from PayPal's donation page) but I seriously doubt that the red cross will see a dime of any money generated from that page. And I'm pretty doubtful that the poster they're trying to sell even exists.

A lot of what I wrote above is irrelevant to this subject, but the depths to which Aimster's CEO will sink appalls me more with each passing day.

What is Aimster?
"Aimster allows you to Find New Buddies and Share With Buddies."
Now there's a mission statement worth leaving a great school like RPI to pursue. Still, if you hadn't done it, you would have missed the experience. It would be like missing out on Woodstock. It may have been muddy and crowded and inconvenient, and there was bad purple acid and stuff, but those who went could brag about it for the rest of their lives. Have fun in school and pay attention in economics class.

Beware of enterprises that require new software - Didn't Benjamin Franklin say that?

The DMCA is soooo silly.

Of course, we have to fight it and the EFF is right. Also, folks like Aimster are proving that the DMCA can just as effectively be used to defend piracy. They assume that the "software publishers" will necesarily be large corporations. Thankfully, subversives can also publish software and manipulate the BS that is the DMCA.

Of course, folks like RMS might argue that this is so they can then pass new legislation to stop subversives from publishing software, as he describes in The Right to Read. This is why it's still totally necesary to fight these restrictions to our rights. Still. The DMCA is sooooo silly.

Terms Of Service

Introduction / Acceptance of Terms

AbovePeer offers you the Aimster downloadable software ("Software"), which is hosted online by AbovePeer, as well as a wide variety of online products and services, including general and personalized content and communication tools and forums (the "Service") on the following terms. By using the Service in any way you are agreeing to comply with these terms, which we may update without notice and encourage you to check out here at any time. You must be at least 18 years old and competent to enter into a contract to use the Service. Unless we expressly note otherwise, these terms incorporate and supersede any other terms associated with the files and applications available on the domain www.aimster.com, its sub-domains, and any international counterparts and sub-domains, as well as affiliated domains and sub-domains operated by AbovePeer LLC., its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, shareholders, agents, employees, attorneys, representatives, successors and assigns. ("AbovePeer", "we", or "us").

Your Responsibility For Content & Conduct You are responsible for any content that you post or transmit on or through the Service.

______________________________

Read the report yourself because it is funny, but here is brief coverage in the Washington Post.

And for P2P pleasure...
Gnutella clients...
http://www.bearshare.com/
http://www.limewire.com/
Not based on Gnutella protocol...
http://www.aimster.com/
http://www.edonkey2000.com/
Or just go to CNET's downloads and select from many P2P flavors :)

Hey, in my day we used mp3 search engines and FTP,like Oth.net

______________________________

i give much respect to shawn and all of napster. i try to be a big supporter. if you think the government doesnt try to stop good ideas, you're in the wrong country. napster will sort it self out eventually. in the mean time, it has provided ideas to software programers worldwide. if you need music, get a job and buy it, or download Aimster.

Real tough. Look at what Aimster has going for itself:

The phrase "Can't touch this!" is prominently displayed on Aimster's home page. I don't know about you, but I doubt that the RIAA can counter such a profound statment.

"The servers are UP!" Ouch! Are the RIAA's servers up? If they are, they don't say they are!!

The woman on the website sure has some politcal clout right there. Take that RIAA!

It's the same situation as illegally copying mp3s or downloading movies off of gnutella. It's illegal, and it's robbing the ones who created it by allowing you to sit around and watch it without even looking at their ads--their one source of lifeblood. How would you like it if your source of income was subverted based solely on the cry "Information wants to be free!!!"?

It's time for this new piracy-happy mentality to die. Seriously.

Too bad it won't. Look man, no matter how loudly the sanctimonious lawyers for the MPAA, et al., scream the genie is out of the bottle. Digital is here, and if it's digital, it can be copied easily. Copyright protections only deter, they don't stop. And in the era of the Internet, it only takes one person to break the copyprotection for the entire world to have access. This cannot be stopped.

This is really starting to show striking similarities to the War on Drugs. Consider: The RIAA has for the most part neutered Napster. So what has happened? Aimster, Gnutella, Freenet, and good-ol IRC have seen increased use. And guess what? Every day more and more people become more and more educated about the back alleys of the net, and they're able to find stuff more and more easily. This, too, will not stop.

So here's the deal, man: Either a) we set our sites towards totalitarianism, or b) we rethink the way our current intellectual property system is set up. I think I prefer b).

Check out "What is Aimster?" from their website. Seems on first glance that it's an extension of the Instant Messanger (probably AOL instant messanger, hense 'AIM'ster) to permit incomming (you search others) transfers from other Aimster clients, Gnutella, Netmeeting, and outbound (others from you) only to the people on your buddy list. By this token, it is a highly selective propogation tool, and unlike Napster, the whole world cannot get it directly from you. It would have to navigate from buddy to buddy ... to get widespread (which, depending on the people involved, might not be very far). Hope that helps.

This is so weird and sad. Check the story about a 16 year old daughter of the Aimster founder: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,43441,00.ht ml

She's pretty hot http://aimster.com/fanclub/photos.html but she's being pimped by her dad to attract people so they use Aimster.

All I can say is: Keep your pimp arm strong, bro!

I don't know that it's legal to share files only with your buddies, per se, but it's certainly harder for the RIAA to track, for the reasons you cite. That's becoming increasingly important, too. Evidently, the MPAA has already started hiring companies to track individual Gnutella users' downloads and proceeded to "re-educate" them, even at places like Harvard, see here.

The RIAA can't be far behind. Bring on Aimster & Freenet!

It's just a matter of time before someone figures out an easy workaround to the naming/renaming scheme, then Napster will be right back up where it was before. In the meantime, there is always Aimster.

IMHO, Aimster made a nice pass at this, but screwed up. They needed to put a license on download so that it was only allowed for personal use. RIAA can simply use the program like anyone else and then search for the results like anyone else, download the file like anyone else, and then listen to it and confirm that it's a violation. If it were only licensed for personal use, this would not be possible.

I have to assume that you disabled animated gifs... for that is how Aimster brag about precisely such a license on their homepage. ("Can't Touch This! The Aimster Service is Private and Encrypted!") While I'm part way down the comments, it would seem that a great many people are missing Aimster's irony altogether... from the linked page:

"And please check out Aimster at www.aimster.com, if you have a chance. Aimster is the first file and messaging service to give you full encryption over all your messages and files"

Which is not to say that (having a central server) they are immune to the "loophole in the loophole" that you point out. Freenet, on the other hand...

However, my position is that word of mouth has always been among the most powerful means of advertising and the least compensated, monetarily. Accordingly, the legacy financial models of entertainment distribution seem to violate fundamental principles of economics. Those who are creating value in the form of word of mouth marketing and sales have not ever received their proper cut.

Enter Napster, creating vastly more perfect market information in this regard. I think that it should be incumbent upon the entertainment industry to keep up with the times and create new business models that spur technology rather than defending oligopolies and stifling innovation.

In the meantime, we the community must scatter in a number or random directions now that the feds have effectively shackled Napster.

I feel really bad for Shawn, but the only way to keep the spirit alive is to abaondon Napster altogether and go somewhere else ... and we must keep migrating and scattering like this until the feds get the hint that file sharing is not going away simply because the RIAA pays them to prop up their anachronistic institution.

Here are some starter ideas - LET A MILLION NAPSTERS BLOOM!

Hotline
Gnutella
Fidelio - Hotline for Linux
Gnucleus - Another Gnutella for windoze
BearShare - Another Gnutella for windoze
Aimster
And lots more on ZeroPaid

This is a nice try, but I think they've messed up on several counts.

• In the Aimster FAQ, the only mention of any particular type of file is this:

  Q: After I download a file, how do I play the music/see the video/etc.?

  This is not likely to be sufficient in itself to create a probable cause to search for illegal files, but combined with the things below, it may be.
• Their screenshots only show .mp3's as files being traded. This might be suspicious enough for a warrant, but maybe not.
• It's called "Aimster" -- a take of on Napster. Napster is in court for alleged illegal activity. Again, this be itself is not enought, but I imagine that most US judges would grant a warrant based on this and the above items.
• The "you may not open this file" clause. This is the clincher. Since there is no reason to download a file without opening it, this, along with the items listed above, creates immediate suspicion of illegal activity. Cops get a warrant. Encryption gets broken. RIAA gets their day in court. (Remember: you don't need proof to get a warrant, merely reasonable suspicion, and "reasonable" effectively means what the judge says it does.)

• Aimster's TOS describe their service as one where you agree to wall off a portion of your hard drive, and put a few files in there. Then you and other Aimster users merrily move files from one place to another inspecting the files for spam and viruses, and then sending them on to yet more people.

  Wonderful.

  Very useful.

  Highly suspicious.

  If Microsoft tried this we'd be all over them like ugly on Larry Ellison^H^H^H^H^H^H^H an ape.
  

  Then how could they do better? Simple!

  • Don't mention audio, video, or mp anything on the website.
  • Don't have obviously bogus terms of service. It will suffice to say "Aimster may not be used for any illegal purposes, including, but not limited to, the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. Aimster reserves the right to terminate your license to use the software and the service at any time."
  • Do provide examples and FAQs describing use of Aimster with all sorts of obviously non-offending files, like spreadsheets and word processing docs.
  
  

  But Aimster didn't do these things. Instead they set themselves up on a fence and started yelling "Yoohoo! RIAA! See if you can hit me with that shotgun from 10 feet!"

  rant_done = 1;
  return rant_done;
  

  Eris

Cool!