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I sure did. Roughly half a meg a second up stream 24/7 for a couple years on Furthur. P2P can't exist without seeders, and as caps are instated that upstream bandwidth is going to become more and more scarce.

for bands that are looking for exposure, not profits.

I aggree that a cheap-per-song service is needed, but until then, I support lowpro bands via....... its been mentioned before, i'll mention it again: CD Baby, baby.

not at $.25 or $.50 but inexpensive, and in the spirit of the artist.

I have no affiliation with the site, but they do good things for the artists, and have sent me "extra" CDs with tunes from other obscure artists that fit the genres of the CDs I ordered.

another great way to support bands, and to support good use of P2P apps, is Furthur Network I have used this for years, and love it (killer Talking Heads shows!). It only trades live music, and with bands that have given Furthur Net approval to do so. Most of the stuff I trade is lossless, as is most of the music in the network, either FLAC or .shn (Shorten) lossless codecs.

If they don't have it archive try bt.etree.org, The Traders Den or FurthurNET. You may even get to talk to some cool chicks or hoopy froods... :-)

Jimi Hendrix is a bad example. As of 2002, Jimi's estate has agreed to allow any as-yet-unreleased recordings of Jimi's music to be freely traded (well, non-commercially, which the FSF would call "semi-free", but good enough for most people).

The Furthurnet Permission Email.

"Apple has unlawfully bundled, tied, and/or leveraged its monopoly in the market for the sale of legal online digital music recordings to thwart competition in the separate market for portable hard drive digital music players, and vice-versa," the lawsuit said.

Mr Slattery called himself an iTunes customer who "was also forced to purchase an Apple iPod" if he wanted to take his music with him to listen to.

While I cannot comment on the legality of them bundling and tying the device to their store I can certainly say that the less tech savvy are forced to use an iPod if they would like to listen to their iTunes music on the go.

The second you download your first album and you realize that you can't play it on a portable device other than a CD player you wonder if you shouldn't just go out and get that iPod so that you can continue to get your music legally... Most people would think it really sucks to pay $10 for an album and then not be able to listen on the go without burning to a CD and then re-ripping to WAV>MP3.

It's not that I didn't expect this to happen with Apple though. They have always promoted lock-in. For now it is working as a benefit. Will they continue to be the leaders in the market though? Only time will tell if people begin to shy away from being forced into using their formats and their hardware. Sadly, in this day and age I have little faith in the consumer and their knowledge and desire to have freedom of choice.

I know it is bad form to go against Apple on Slashdot (especially with the editors apparently being paid off to put iPod on the front page at least once a day) but why can't we all be against them promoting a format that locks you into their hardware? Aren't we all for open standards that works across multiple platforms? Just because their device is sleek, sexy, and "the in thing" we should all just stop and pay homage? Maybe once MSFT opens the DOC format or switches it over to XML then Apple can open up AAC and we can all be happy?

Me? I'm going to stick to downloading and listening to my *free* and *legal* music from etree, FurthurNET, etc, and convert it over to MP3 to listen on the go. I just wish that everyone else would too. At least I know I am not supporting *multiple* monopolies when I listen to the freely distributable music that I do.

YMMV.

Sharing.

(Legal of course; there is an increasing amount of music distributed in FLAC that the artists allow you to redistribute (etree, furthurnet, Net Labels, Open Source Audio, etc.)

Thought I would plug these guys. http://furthurnet.org/ Great place, especially if you're into jambands-- but it's all live music from bands with taper-friendly policies. They're very anal about making sure no copyright violating material goes out on the network.

these lawsuits do nothing more than publicize the fact that you can download music illegally from the internet. It's kinda funny in an ironic way.

That said, Live, Legal P2P and Live, Legal Bittorrent Downloads.

Monopoly indeed. Look at some of the press articles from the DiscLive site. CC and DL have been going to toe to toe for a while with this. Of course, from this one article, it is clear that CC clearly has the upper hand: "But who will have final say over these recordings? Simon says, "As the promoter/venue owner we do not need special permission from the promoter/venue owner to record shows."

I can see CC refusing mechanical licenses to to DL as they are the 'owners' of most of the venues.

Note that DiscLive has applied for a patent too:
"DiscLive has developed a patent pending proprietary technology that enables the mass-production of CDs and DVDs within minutes of the end of a concert."

As a frequent gatherer of legal live recordings, I think the prior art is with the fans, as they are the ones who have been plugging into soundboards and passing out free CDs immediately after a show that allows live recording, since the day laptops came with burners in them. One just need to look at a site like FurthurNet to see the hundreds of legal recordings available for download (their software and registration required to download), many of which were issued immediatley after the show.

But all the people owning guns don't start firing in public

Of all the people who own P2P software, not all duplicate copyrighted data. Take a look at FurtherNet for an example. A Google search will turn up others.

Since not all people who own P2P software use it for illegal purposes, your statement doesn't logically fit. Perhaps if your statement is modified to read "many of the people owning guns don't fire in public" then that is true in America today. You may look at other countries/cultures for counter examples. One is in many cultures it is socially acceptable in public places to fire automatic weapons for celebatory purposes. You may also look at the recent history of America especially in the frontiers for other examples.

The same holds true with P2P -- different cultures and people in different times use it differently.

> > Why are concert recordings illegal? Is it like taping a movie at the theater?

> Yes.

No.

The artist performing the concert can choose to allow or disallow recording the concert, just as the creator of a movie can choose to allow/disallow bootlegs. Many artists (FurthurNet has a list of 900+) have specifically chosen to allow the recording and distribution of their concerts.

Despite the fact that American copyright law is a bit overzealous and grants full copyright to the creators of applicable media automatically, creators can choose to override that copyright in any way they see fit.

I think you mean www.furthurnet.org?

if you want legal, free, live music-go to archive.org (the music section) or furthurnet.org to get SHNs and MP3's via p2p or ftp. good luck

I don't remember what song my first MP3 was but it was sometime in 1998. But I do remember thinking, man this sounds like somebody threw a wet towel over the speakers.

So I thought it must be lousy PC speakers.. tried a few different speakers, and many different downloads, some studio, some live, but nothing sounded right. And I don't mean 'right' as in 'decent', I mean right as in I don't want it to sound like I have a head cold. 2 years later I finally burned a small David Byrne concert to CD and listened in my car. STILL had the "wet towel over the speakers" effect. Or maybe more like "speakers in the bottom of a plastic bucket" effect.

It wasn't until someone here at /. posted a link to FurthurNET and I discovered lossless compression that things started sounding good. I downloaded the exact same David Byrne show in shorten(.shn) format and it blew the other one away. There was simply no comparison. (FYI There is a shorten plugin for Winamps 3 and earlier.)

Now, after having countless MP3's played for me, I have no interest at all in them. When I read this Ask Slashdot I wanted to post this without being trollish. So here's an honest non-troll question set:

Did most people give up on lossless? Do you try to find a lossless recording before resorting to MP3?
Now that we can carry days worth of MP3's in our breast pocket does anyone think a popular mainstream lossless compression format is on the horizon?

I know as soon as they come out with a portable lossless player and start pumping out lossless downloads to go with it, I'll own one. The shorten format sure gets my vote. I'm not a nitpicky person, or anything close to an 'audiophile', but listening to an MP3 version of a terrific piece of music [to me] is like cooking sushi, or putting cheap BBQ sauce on a filet mignon. Just for kicks awhile back I wrapped my pc speakers up in plastic wrap and turned the volume up to compensate for the wrap. Whoala! Instant real-time conversion from .shn to .mp3. The likeness was amazing.

The worrisome part to me is that the lossy MP3 format is a relatively old stepping-stone technology. Built for a time when space and bandwidth were more limited. The problem is, as technology improves, I don't see many folks asking for a better format. Instead they want 9 thousand hours of downloads in a square inch. Quantity is great. But what about quality? Seriously?

There are plenty of sites and p2p network programs available that are devoted solely to downloading legally tradeable music (copyrighted but free for non-commercial downloading and trading). Examples include bt.etree.org (the etree.org community bittorent tracker site) and the Further Network. There are also ftp sites like gdlive that accept both uploads and downloads. All of this is perfectly legal and endorsed by the bands involved. This is actually a good business model for bands that tend towards improvisational music: every concert is different, fans trade shows, thus generating increased interest, and the bands derive income from live performances and related sales at their concerts. Such music genres include jazz, bluegrass and newgrass, and jam-band rock-n-roll.

A high upload to download ratio is not at all proof of any illegal activity. Personally, I listen almost exclusively to freely tradeable music.

Do they ban all p2p apps or do they allow exceptions? For example, something like Furthur is a completely legal P2P network for trading live shows for bands like Phish, the Grateful Dead, Howie Day, etc, all bands who support the trading of their live shows.

There's no library that can be assembled like the one that we assemble when we all put all our books together on the same set of shelves.

I Rest my Case

that said, i agree that etree is not a p2p model, instead point your browser here. It's Still beta, but its works damn well.

-D

Advice? Watch how you configure your firewall, or you won't be able to use certain P2P systems, such as Furthur, a great network for collecting live concerts.

Although your point is completely off topic, you should know that you are not in touch at all. I would say that 99% of the people at those shows would disagree with you as well. Maybe I'm 1/15 or you just don't have any taste in good music. It's true that there are drugs at these shows, but honestly, have you been to a single concert that draws a "party" crowd that doesn't? Try this link if you feel like reconsidering your opinion of modern rock. I would bet that Rolling Stone didn't know what they were talking about when they said that the top 5 guitarists of all time are Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Robert Johnson. I bet nobody did drugs at their shows or went just for a party though...

Now if they could make it record to mp3 or wav files like the Nomade Jukebox3, I'd certainly be willing to buy an iPod. It would make recording shows to put on furthurnet less cumbersome.

I record bands that play in the venues around town and in places within driving distance. If I'm interested in a group, I'll find out their taping policy and ask them at the show if it's ok if I record them. Lots of other people have been doing this for years. It can be a lot of fun and you get to meet some interesting people.

All the bands I listen to allow free tapeing of their shows. Anyone who's into the jamband scene knows where you can go to get free live legal music: Furthur and that its possible to go to awesome concerts without paying a tax to TicketBastard or ClearChannel: Bonnaroo

Now if only some other genres started doing the same things...

furthurnet

live legal music.

(I'm sure CowboyNeal can find a nice version of "The Other One")

In addition to etree, check out furthurnet which is basically the P2P version of etree. Etree is a list where people advertise their (non-professional) FTP servers in order to share live music recordings. (Only legal, band sanctioned live recordings). Furthurnet is an extremely well done java based P2P client exclusively for sharing these legal, live recordings. Etree has high standards for audio quality, and supports SHN and FLAC. Furthurnet supports SHN, FLAC, and MP3.

I can think of two notable exceptions to the mantra that they only use being made of p2p is for pirating. Furthurnet is a p2p network which grew out of the tape trading community which takes copyright and the artists wishes very seriously.

The other example Transmission Films is distributing high quality movies protected by DRM via Overnet.

The Internet Archive has terabytes of share friendly information, they are evalutating several p2p platforms for helping to keep their bandwidth bills down. I've downloaded Redhat ISO's from edonkey, when they first come out the primary distro point and mirrors are swamped for at least a week.

There is a peer to peer network (in beta) for only bands like Phish and the Dead that allow taping. It's called furthurnet.org. There is a java client that works fairly well in Linux, too. I've grabbed tons of cool stuff from there - Hendrix, Neil Young, Built to Spill, Phish - there's a huge list of bands. And they have .shn and .mp3s currently, eventually there will be video too.

Furthur is a P2P file sharing network with 100% legimimate content. Currently the network's content (over 4TB) consits of music recordings that have been specifically authorized for free distribution by the artists.

This is the only P2P network I know of where the software's authors are accountable for all the network's contents. Users who share copyrighted works without authorization will be banned.

Furthur is a P2P file sharing network with 100% legimimate content. Currently the network's content (over 4TB) consits of music recordings that have been specifically authorized for free distribution by the artists.

This is the only P2P network I know of where the software's authors are accountable for all the network's contents. Users who share copyrighted works without authorization will be banned.

The bill specifically states that the safe harbor does not allow a copyright owner to delete or alter any file or data on the computer of a file trader. Thus, a copyright owner can't send a virus to a P2P pirate. Nor can it remove any files on the pirate's computer. Nor can it even remove files that include the pirated works. All it can do is impair the illegal distribution or reproduction of those works through a public P2P network.

While it may help to stop people from destroying your local computer's files it will NOT stop them from DoS attacking you?

They need to be held accountable for ANY and ALL financial damage that they do to the computer that was being attacked AND the computers around the original that were also being hindered by their attack.

While I agree that P2P have little use outside of illegal activities (outside of FurthurNET and the like) I don't think that these laws are the way to put a stop to it.

Nor do I believe that infesting the P2P networks w/poor files does it either.

I know that ATTBI was disabling users that were leaving movies in their shared folders (yes, ATTBI users be careful). I believe that going through the ISP may be the only method. If the ISP doesn't cooperate, uhh, sorry.

I use WinMX and some other Gnutellas to grab Out Of Print stuff (and Further for getting Dead shows), but I am at the mercy of the computers that I connect through. I'd gladly give $0.25 to fully DL a file and not have it disconnected/corrupted on me. flogger