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AOL Snuffs Napster-Workalike Gnutella
K2 (and many others -- Thanks!) wrote with news about Gnutella: "Just when open-sourcing was becoming mainstream, they pull the plug on it. I just read this on Wired: Open-Source 'Napster' Shut Down. If anybody got the download yesterday, could you make it available somewhere? (That must be legal based on the licensing it was given away under.) Thanks." According to this article, Gnutella was "an unauthorized freelance project and the Web site that allowed access to the software has been taken down." Note also the media companies linked to AOL (Warner and EMI).Update: 03/16 03:01 by H :Check out our original story about it.
Excuse me. You are just as bad as the people at the record labels and RIAA that bash on the format MP3 it self. No one said anything about downloading pirated mp3s. And if you think thats all Napster and Gnutella can be used for, you are simply wrong. Thats like blaming CuteFTP for all the warez downloading going on, because they provide an ftp client. Dont blame the format or the tools.
Jeff Knox
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Erskin
geek.
If everyone did as you suggested, not only would the execs not understand what was going on, they would just hire new people who know less at a lower salary. Then they would pat themselves on the back for a good cost cutting measure.
That's all well and good -- right up until the point where something breaks...! When you're the world's largest ISP, and one of your key systems goes down, you trust that you have a sysadmin who can "take care of it." When the most skilled sysadmin you have left is the kid you hired away from a tech support gig at Brent's Internet Service and Tree-Trimming of Dothan, Alabama, then all of a sudden that $50,000 a year less you were paying him than his predecessor begins to look like chump change, and he'll be as overwhelmed as a Radio Flyer on the receiving end of a front-end loader.
Personally, I wouldn't work in any situation where my free-time-dev rights were restricted either -- and because of that, I slammed the door in the face of one of the nation's largest consulting firms last summer when they tried to get me to sign one. Anyone who doesn't understand why needs to visit Evan Brown's website. But in this case, I suspect that in return for the 10^7 or so dollars they paid him, Justin probably did sign away a lot of his rights; assuming a large chunk of it was in stock, he has a strong interest in "protecting" Time-Warner's IP as well -- in fact if he is in fact a "corporate officer" of AOL/TW, then he has a fiduciary responsibility to AOL/TW's shareholders which he is already theoretically in breach of for having released gnutella in the first place! Ouch!
This is my opinion and my opinion only. Incidentally, IANAL.
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
..eh, but who's surprised.
"Justin and Tom work for Nullsoft, makers of Winamp and Shoutcast. See? AOL *CAN* bring you good things!," the Gnutella site said yesterday.
MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
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ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
+&x
Number of CDs Wah has bought over the last year because of legally sanctioned radio air-play : 0
Number of CDs Wah has bought over the last year because of "illegally" shared MP3s : 5
Who's benefitting now? Your brain needs another washing, that first one left quite a bit of debris.
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ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
ba-bu-ba-ba-baaa, da-da-dum. Re-boot the ser-ver.
+&x
AOL and Time Warner lobbied so hard for the DCMA even before they were bed fellows I figured that gNutella wouldn't last long. Guess Justin is learning his lesson for sleeping with such monolopy. I bet he is pissed, but he should have seen it coming.
Wonder what AOL will do with him now, I do not know the contractural aggrements made when Nullsoft was acquired by AOL, but I bet the relationship between the Giant and the gnat is getting kindof strained.
www.mp3.com/Undocumented
Quite a lot of rights, actually. As a student at a university, I have had to sign away my rights to any software I might develop, whether using my own equipment at home, or the computers in uni. This means that if I were to write (say) a napster clone, and start distributing it without using any of their resources, they would still be within their rights to tell me to withdraw it. (Incidentally, this particular uni doesn't block Napster, butit could...). I'm guessing that it would be rather silly for AOL not to impose the same restrictions on its employees- what if they developed a new MP3 player that was better than WinAmp? AOL's market in that particular sector could take quite a tumble.
In short, it's probably perfectly legal, even if it is wrong.
--
Said it couldn't last, said it wouldn't last... This is the last stand against tomorrow's world.
Those links have been superceded by this page, which seems to be a combined news and FAQ page. Note that the newest version of Gnutella, .491, has problems, so using .49 or .48 is a good idea (I'm using .48 at the moment). The page also shows some IP addresses to connect to to get you started, now that the main server is down.
Gnutella also has a very active EFNet channel (#gnutella, surprisingly enough). Come on over :).
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
That's an easy enough position to take, but progress can't be halted.
The fact is, electronic communication is making the commoditization of information obsolete. It will become very difficult to make money in the future on the distribution of creative work...as the distribution of information is no longer a value-added process; instead, it is an AUTOMATIC process.
The only way to keep information out of someone's hands will be to keep it a secret, which would negate the point of the creative work.
This can be a boon, and it can be a problem, but it WILL happen; given the direction of computer internetworking, it is inevitible.
New business models for musicians and other artists creating informational work will have to be formed.
Musicians, for instance, will be able to use the self-publishing capabilities of the net to increase their visibility without having to go through the interference of the record companies. Instead of making money from recordings, musicians will make their money from touring and promotions.
The hundreds of companies making money by leeching funds from creative artists for the service of distribution of the artists' work will go out of business, unless they get their heads out of the sand, and change their business model to perform a real service for both consumer and artist.
In short: Non-secret information will be free, and you might as well get used to the idea, because the consequences are vast.
--"You can lead a man to knowledge, but you can't make him think."
http://www.allskin.com/gnutella/ ...it simply moved. I think AOL's going to get snippety with Nullsoft pretty soon. Let's get Justin Frankel lined up for a /. interview! We could all gain some insight there.
Synergy is your friend
I've made the program available here: http://zonedefense.dhs.org/gnutuilla_dl. html
No sig is worth reading.