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There is nothing wrong with making money, but be honest. Whether a label gets the money, or performer, or the drug dealer, ultimately gets the money makes no difference. They are all after the same thing, maximizing profits. The label deserves significant profit because they are the ones promoting the performer and providing the upfront capital. The sell out performer, or 'artist', deserves some profit because they provide the raw material. The drug dealer deserves some profit because they provide a necessary product.

In any case, once yo sell yourself I don't see much room for moral arguments about art. I respect honest people, like the late Robert Heinlein, who provided excellent entertainment, but never pretended his work was anything else than it was. He wrote to make money, he wrote for a market, and if one publisher would not buy his work, he would move to another. He did not cry like a whiny child that he had to work to make his money. No one is putting a gun to these 'artists' heads making the accept the offers from the labels. They could just go out and be artists, if they would give up the money. I buy all sorts of music like that, for instance if that's entertainment

[FULL DISCLOSURE: I am the President/CEO of Digital Bazaar, we created Bitmunk - a legal P2P music trading network that uses watermarking to protect both artists and customers].

This isn't a new concept, Bitmunk has been doing it for three years. We have over 1 million songs on our network - it's something that works for both the artists and the music fans. We're one of the only companies on the net that have empirical evidence that artists are willing to sign up to this setup. We believe it's a fair balance between the two approaches... there is a very long debate that I and Bill Rosenblatt had on this issue over 2 years ago:

http://wiki.digitalbazaar.com/en/Manu_Sporny_vs._Bill_Rosenblatt_DRM_Debate

It is a shame that we have been pushing this concept ever since our company was founded and it is just now reaching the mainstream...

Not only has this already been done, but it's also been worked into a P2P infrastructure (including payment methods, I believe).

http://bitmunk.com/

Share just about any digital media you want, make money for sharing it, and the artist(s) and copyright holder(s) get paid as well. Bitmunk is a great system that's been around for a while, so it's good to finally see the big guys catch on and get on board.

Bitmunk is already doing this, just on PCs instead of handheld devices. But it takes a lot of $$$ to grease the wheels. If you look at Bitmunk, you'll notice that what's missing is most of the content from the big labels. It takes serious cash just to get distributor access to their catalogs.

Maybe Microsoft's patent has something new in it (user lockout after 3 days) but allowing peer distribution where intermediaries get paid is prior art.

Full Disclosure: I am one of the authors for the Starfish file system.

Lustre is open-source and it has been production ready for years. The open source notice is on their website - GPL. You don't get much more open source than GPL. Lustre provides support to commercial enterprises.

As for Starfish, we eat our own dog food at our company. The newest version of Starfish will be taking over full-time for all of our HA storage systems in one months time. The website that runs on top of it is Bitmunk, our bread and butter. The license allows anybody to setup a small HA cluster for free. This is going to help a great deal of small websites and research institutions. If they want us to fix bugs that they find, we'll be more than happy to oblige. However, depending on your customers to find your bugs is not only a horrible business practice, it is reckless. We put ourselves at risk far before we make a release - if there is a bug, we're usually the first people to find it.

Sigh yet another example of big businesses keeping their treasured consumer's best interests in mind. Next thing you'll find out that Clear Channel plays what the RIAA wants not what the consumer wants... Better music marketing strategies exist and are poised to fill in the gap. http://www.bitmunk.com/ just launched their beta 2 and have almost all of CD Baby's content for sale in a place where demand and the artist dictates the prices of music not the RIAA.

There is a service out there called Bitmunk that already does this - and it compensates the artist, the distributor, the label and it lets you choose not to buy DRMed files. Prices are also a great deal cheaper than most of the online music stores out there.

Bitmunk P2P Music Network

DICLAIMER: I am the CEO of Digital Bazaar, the company behind the Bitmunk P2P network. Take what I have to say with a grain of salt if you must, but go and check out the site and decide for yourself.

We're really trying to help everybody out here - non-DRMed, high quality MP3 files, fair prices determined by market forces (not suits in a boardroom) and best of all - the artist gets to set their prices, licensing options, distribution countries, etc. The fans can re-distribute the artists content legally, and charge a small fee (for bandwidth, etc) if they so desire.

Or to indie artists in general.

We listen to indie artists: Bitmunk

Especially indie artists that want to spread their stuff via P2P under their terms (artists get to set prices, distribution formats, countries, descriptions, and licenses). We even have Creative Commons licensing options that the artists may use.

I just want to make this clear - I'm not astro-turfing - I'm the CEO of Digital Bazaar, the company that created the Bitmunk P2P music network - so don't take my word for it, check it out and come to your own conclusions.

In short, we're a non-DRM, P2P network that pays the artist up to 84% of the sale price regardless of who downloads/uploads their stuff on the network, the artist gets paid. All songs on the network are high quality 192kbps-320kbps VBR MP3s (which will play in any MP3 player). Additionally, you may then turn around and sell the artists work on the network and add your own small fee (which you can then use to buy more music on the network - or withdraw to your bank account).

The network launched this past Monday:

http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=709

We've been covered by Slashdot before:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/13/183324 5&tid=95&tid=98

I'm one of the primary architects behind this system, we've poured all of our energy into this system in an attempt to find a balance between all the conflicted parties (DRM vs. P2P)... this isn't FUD, it is a very concentrated attempt to create a system that works for everybody. Please, read on...

Their system doesn't "guarantee" it either -- for example even "copyright aware" tech can't know if Linux is covered by SCO copyrights without help.

Sorry, but you're dead wrong - our system does guarantee legal file trades. You're making the false assumption that we use some sort of file detection software to figure out if something is copyrighted or not - which is not the case (you might want to read over our website before making statements like this).

We clear each and every creative work on the network. When you select a creative work (such as The Beatles, Penny Lane) and associate it with a file (such as an MP3) - that creative work has been cleared for sale on the network by the artist.

Absurd. Personally, I wouldn't want to give them a license to distribute all my copyrighted works.

Which is perfectly fine, the only people that really should be interested in registering their creative work with us, are those artists that want to make a living doing what they love. If you want to give your stuff away, put it up on a website or another P2P network. We're trying to help artists make a living doing what they are driven to do.

Similarly, lots of stuff from the public domain will be registered on our network. We will be charging money for them because it is worth $2 to somebody to aquire quality recordings of old Appalachian folk music, or classical music, or a TV show in the public domain. Those that don't want to pay $2 for 20 songs can go to any of the P2P services and spend countless hours trying to find a good recording.

For more information on how this whole process works, you might want to take a look at our website:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &term=bitmunk_introduction

Here is how it works for buyers, sellers and artists:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &term=bitmunk_introduction

You only share with other people that already own the software or music?

Instead of sharing, think buying and selling. If you legally own a copy of the copyrighted work (ie: you own the CD) - you can rip the CD to MP3 and sell it on the network legally - the artist gets their royalty and you get a bit of cash for helping to distribute the file - which you can use to buy more stuff on the network, or just withdraw to your bank account.

The rest of your questions are answered on the website:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &category=seller

Here is how it works for buyers, sellers and artists:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &term=bitmunk_introduction

You only share with other people that already own the software or music?

Instead of sharing, think buying and selling. If you legally own a copy of the copyrighted work (ie: you own the CD) - you can rip the CD to MP3 and sell it on the network legally - the artist gets their royalty and you get a bit of cash for helping to distribute the file - which you can use to buy more stuff on the network, or just withdraw to your bank account.

The rest of your questions are answered on the website:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &category=seller

In addition to a per-transaction fee (a sample one is given as $0.15 on a song perchase), there is this paragraph at the very end of the How It Works Seller document:

You can use the money you earn on Bitmunk to buy digital files that you want, or you can transfer the money in your Bitmunk financial account to a banking institution of your choice. It can take anywhere from two days (if you're a highly trusted seller) to one month (if you're new, are selling newly registered creative works, or have complaints logged against you) to withdraw your money to a banking institution.

So Bitmunk also makes money on interest. Not unreasonable in principle. For example, it defeats the purpose of micropayments if someone's credit card is hit on each purchase. On the other hand, 2 days to 1 month sounds long to outrageously long for a modern system. And much like a brokerage account, one might additionally expect interest for funds held there over some length of time.

• What happens to all the creations in the public domain? Are those unable to be traded on Bitmunk?
• Can a person who has copyright over a work register while asking for no royalty?
• What happens when the Bitmunk database is overburdened with requests? Will there be another database, or is this a false P2P?

• What happens to all the creations in the public domain? Are those unable to be traded on Bitmunk?
• Can a person who has copyright over a work register while asking for no royalty?
• What happens when the Bitmunk database is overburdened with requests? Will there be another database, or is this a false P2P?

• What happens to all the creations in the public domain? Are those unable to be traded on Bitmunk?
• Can a person who has copyright over a work register while asking for no royalty?
• What happens when the Bitmunk database is overburdened with requests? Will there be another database, or is this a false P2P?

http://www.bitmunk.com/images/tutorial/payment.png <-- That sums if all up right there.

Note the /. geek in the bottom right-corner, left out. =(

But the one of the main reasons why they aren't seeing the big picture is because a legal, copyright-aware P2P network hasn't hit the public eye yet. My company has created what we think is going to solve this problem, get consumers their fair use rights, and get independent artists paid what they deserve. If you want to help make that happen, please visit our website, and let some others know about it as well:

Bitmunk, the first Legal, Copyright-aware P2P Network

As you can see, this topic directly effects us and we want to see everyone come out of this positively -- instead of someone ending up getting screwed (i.e. the consumer or artist). It doesn't have to be that way, and I think we've finally got the solution that people have been looking for. Let me know what you think.

While you're right, at the same time no average consumer has ever been given the chance to easily obtain distribution rights to the music they purchase. There's no reason that a P2P network can't make this possible -- in fact, its now been done by my company. We're hopeful that we can turn illegal file sharers into legal ones by giving them the opportunity to legally redistribute music -- and get paid while doing it, feel free to check it out:

Bitmunk

Hey, but guess what - you're not going to be the one deciding if P2P gets to live- its going to be the attorney generals.

Their mis-guided letter is a side-effect of "they just don't get it" syndrome. Face it, they think the worst part about P2P is that it can give you a virus! Did you see them outline the legitimate uses of P2P in the letter? No... they just did some hand waving saying "We know there are legitimate uses for communication and technology and business!". They don't know what the legitimate uses of P2P are... YOU need to educate them by writing your representative and letting them know.

If you need an example, use us:

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &term=bitmunk_introduction

or find any other P2P service that is trying to make a positive difference in the world. Freenet - allowing democracy to survive in non-democratic countries.

I agree... P2P has a ton of legitimate uses and as a technology is probably one of the most powerful publishing tools available to small/unknown artists. The big problem with technology and artists is that they rarely tend to mix unless the technology is dirt simple to use (which is one of the reasons iTunes is so successful).

We could go back to the monks/scribes vs. the printing press argument. This is completely in parallel with the cd duplication/distribution vs. the P2P distribution model. One of them is incredibly inefficient, damaging to the environment, unfair to small artists, and highly risky. The other (P2P) is incredibly low-cost and efficient. The big problem the companies are having right now, however, is getting past the whole "How do we protect our content?" hurdle. Everyone on Slashdot knows that DRM isn't the solution - but most artists want to feel protected - they want a guarantee of food on the table.

P2P companies need to get their act together and stop throwing up their hands and going "Its just the nature of P2P... it can't be controlled!".

In reality - it IS possible to control the content on a P2P network - not by filtering, or force (which is the current tactic being employed), but by giving people a reason to support a legitimate P2P network.

Some get reward for supporting the artist (by redistributing), some get it from letting their friends know about the artist, and some just want to see some cash come their way if they help out.

It is possible to create a truly legitimate, non-DRM, P2P network that works for everybody... I'm not just rambling on aimlessly - we started a company to do just this (legitimize P2P). Here is the proof:

Disclaimer: I work for this company -

http://www.bitmunk.com/help.php?action=fulldisplay &term=bitmunk_introduction

As far as I can tell people will always be file sharing, so why don't we come up with a responsible network that gives some incentive to the sharers to be responsible. Why is P2P so good? Simply put, high availability. Beyond that low cost to the owners of the material since they don't have to own a lot of servers and whatnot. So we need a network that can track sharers trades and charge them a nominal fee (read much less than current costs). I haven't seen much in the way of this but I did google across a relatively young and in the works network called bitmunk. It's still in beta and whatnot, but they seem pretty serious about all this, I even talked to to a programmer there and bothered him for some technical questions and he seemed pretty receptive to my comments.

They seem to have the right idea, no DRM but they do have watermarks so they can track you down and cancel your account if you start sharing elsewhere. Maybe this doesnt' solve sharing among friends but, that's probably not a solvable problem, iTunes doesn't even solve this.

Of course all this means we have to return the copyrights to the artists or someone more responsible to the RIAA.

My 2 cents: check out the network give them ideas, they seem pretty bright and eager to please.

Patrik