Slashdot Mirror
The New World of Gnutella
Frater 219 writes "The censorship-resistant systems Gnutella and Freenet got some reasonably positive editorial coverage in the Sacramento Bee and Nando Times today. Here's the article. It's rather good stuff: 'Echoes of the old hacker manifesto begin to ring loudly once again: Information wants to be free.'" Good piece, go read it.
I'm yet to be convinced that Information has any opinion whatsoever on the matter.
After that find a way to get radio airplay for your artists. The majors all have local reps who call and visit stations constantly to keep their product on the air. Bring plenty of CD's and concert tickets. Buy lunch. Then all you have to do is convince the national chains to buy your product. Since the majors own the existing distribution channels , it might be tough. Then consider what to do when the majors counter your success by pressuring them to drop you. It won't be above the table of course, but it will happen. Buy you or buy Sony. Hmmm, looks like things are getting tougher. Then of course, if despite the distribution roadblocks your company makes headway, keep a plan in mind for when the majors show up at the door with truckloads of cash to buy you out and make it part of the family. Or steal your artists and starve you.
The music software/hardware industry is a cartel, with maybe 3-4 mother corporations controlling everything. A garage startup has little to no chance of challenging them. That's just a fact. Telling a critic of the music industry to 'start their own' is really no better than telling them to screw themselves, both physical impossibilities.
The Sony plant I toured five years ago was completely vertically integrated. They could, if desired, record, master, manufacturer and create the artwork for a release without leaving the building. At that time the total cost of manufacture was less than $2 for a product that retailed for $20. Who are the supposed middle men causing the order of magnitude markup? Is markup typical of any other industry outside of Columbia?
I'm sorry, but I have to regard this as very nieve. Your arguing semantics, not the way that things work in real life.
In a situation where a large corporation can afford to keep an army of lawyers on call to keep a case tied up in court until a less wealthy opponent goes broke, that is censorship pure and simple, regardless of the nicities of legal definition.
I'm totally right on with everything you say, but thought it worthwhile to point out that emmett wasn't the author of the text you're taking issue with, that was Frater219. The only parts emmett wrote was "Frater219 writes" and "Good piece, go read it."
--
>So I need a license that says "you are free to distrubute this content unchanged for
>non-commercial use" while withholding both ultimate ownership and right to profit for the
>copyright holder (I'd say artist, but that's not the reality). Which is where copyright law comes
>in.
And what makes you think there won't be a grillion folks out there saying "some rules NEED to be smashed" and breaking your license right and left for their own profit, just like you're doing to the existing schemes? And what do you do if they do? Threaten them with legal action? Try to get a restraining order on whatever hypothetical share-for-profit Open-Source analog to Gnutella comes along?
Not to say you're not on the right track, but all of a sudden doing a bitflip and saying that copyright law will be your friend after alleging "some laws need to be smashed so hard their teeth fall out," or whatever... sits weird. It kind of reaffirms my opinion that this whole Slashdot crowd hypocritically rallies behind copyright only when it supports their ends....
>If you've got the VC I'm ready to go.
This also sits funny with me. If what we're on about is getting paid from the end user directly to the artist in some strange math, what startup do we need? Shouldn't some free MP3 encoding tools and cheap webspace work, analagous to Metallica becoming the #1 metal band in America strictly based on tape-to-tape cassette copies being handed around the scene freely? Why can't you be doing this already out of wahcentral.net? If you think we need VC to do this, you're already thinking like that which you claim to despise.
I know I'm being a bit of an antagonistic asshole, but I'm not 100% sure that you've thought completely through these good seeds of ideas you have.
--
> Debatable: 'Protecting one's copyrights' is censorship.
No, because censorship can only be performed by a governing body, definitionally(*). A private party (including a massive corporation) using the body of law to protect its interest again another private party is not censorship. It might be objectionable and annoying, the laws might be wrongheaded and stupid, but it's not censorship.
(*) At least as far as the US legal definition goes. YMMV.
--
This is an important point, and the worst part of Napster's horrific interface:
Now, admittedly, the biggest reason for the outgoing is most likely the fact that Napster doesn't close when you click the "X" in the upper right of the window.
It took me several days to figure this out. When I kill a program, it's supposed to die. Plain and simple. It baffled me that, even though it was supposedly dead, something was still slamming my bandwidth.
The numbnutzim behind Napster musta been born with a big Kick Me sign on their backs -- they had a sorta good idea, then implemented it incredibly badly. But not badly enough for it to fail immediately.
Gnutella at least is an improvement (though as an active musician, I have serious qualms about its use).
WARNING: I'm playing Devil's Advocate in the first paragraph; I don't believe there's a reason for anyone to own, say, a nuclear missile. However, I do believe the banning of certain types of handguns and such is going too far.
Are you so certain? It is indeed true that these weapons did not exist when the Constitution was written. However, consider that at the time it was written, a citizen had full access to anything the military did. There was a reason for this. The Framers had just (well, not just, it had been several years) gotten away from a corrupt government. They saw how governments could get. The Second Amendment was another step in the "checks and balances" system, this one being that an armed citizenry and a military check each other. The Amendment guaranteed that the government would not have an easy time becoming oppressive, should it ever try to take that road, because the people had the means to defend themselves.
This is quite possibly the one thing the American government has of which it can really and truly be proud. Not the Second Amendment in particular, but the whole Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. Look over its wording. It doesn't say what the government can do; it says what the government is forbidden from doing. The Bill of Rights doesn't grant people their Constitutional rights; it guarantees them (there is a vast difference from saying "you have this right" and "no one can take this right away from you"; this is why I still assert that at least thus far the US is the only nation which guarantees such things as free speech). It's an elegant document indeed; it has been in force for over two hundred years and has been amended surprisingly few times, and one of those amendments was written only to undo a previous one (Prohibition).
I do wish the government would follow it more closely these days, though...
To reinterate here, MP3's are relatively new! Although the format may have existed previously, they didn't become largely distributed until late summer of 1996 by a group called CDA (Compress'n da Audio) of which RNS and a few other groups split off of, and pretty much all of them but RNS died in 1997. But, the point is, MP3's are still young, so don't blame Napster for causing the itch, it's just starting to catch on that its important. The only thing I would blame napster for is bandwidth loss.
Napster and Gnutella are just for people who don't know how to se up FTP servers. Should we ban FTP because it can be used to download "illegal" MP3s?
...richie - It is a good day to code.
You mean Clarke wrt communications satellites. But there's certainly no lack of stuff that has come from Einstein's work either. Bagels for instance ;)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
I'm not sharing mp3s at all, but 30-90 second video clips. Uhh, I guess I am really going against the spirit of gnutella, huh? But people are uploading like nuts. And I'm happy with that.
Sometime here I'll add my download directory to the gnutella path with my ill-gotten mp3s. Gotta do my part. But I'm not going to link whole albums. Singles. So what.
Search for carrey, carvey or xmen and get some cool vids!
kabloie
I'm serving 100 Meg of legal videos. I guess I am not doing this thing right?
.mov, .avi, or .mpg. It's easy now.
If some dork wants a 50 second clip of the Superfriends saying WASSUP!, he/she can search yahoo, for a link to someone's page, with a broken link to a nonexistent FTP server.
OR they can type superfriends wassup into the Gnutella search engine and pick
It's really cool, man. Why don't you get it and try it yourself instead of pontificating? Then you can download all the legal material you can find, which will be quite a bit.
kabloie
Trolling wee will go!
kabloie
While in it's infancy, I hope to get it moving soon. I'm hoping that I some of you can take a look at what I have thus far and hopefully send me some input on how I can better the protocol. It is online at: http://logan.datacurrent.com/dftp.html
You know, despite your total idiocy, you may have a point. Our current copywrite laws can't last much longer.
Speaking of idiocy, the word is copyright. As in the right to copy. Not as in writing a copy.
Sheesh.
That's part of the reason they picked it. Not very much chance of accidentally infringing on some unknown trademark this way.
Search first, ask questions later.
The "white hats" are well aware of this bandwidth problem and are looking at the signature of gnutella.
One thing that will happen is that the increase in network traffic from "weird" external sites will cause some consernation for network admins.
However, all the university has to do is block all packets that their routers can't decipher. Kind of extreme, but this may be something that may happen in the future. Of course, the routers will have to be able to handle this. Universities will not like the increase cost of upgrading their routers.
The short-term solution is to enact draconian measures. Another thing would be to just ban Napster, Gnutella, etc... from the campus internet connection. Get the student to sign an decipherable legal document that says yada yada yada, NO! The network admins monitor network traffic. They know what is going on. However, the school admins usually don't want to rock the boat unless some bigger fish (like RIAA) jumps into the boat.
There is nothing you can do to stop this! :)
.... sha, right! just try it. if certian routers stop routing packets with 'gnutella' in the packet, then 'gnutella' will be taken out of the packets and warez will keep on flowin.... woohoo!
;)
;)
Im having a great time reading all the replies here with people saying 'napster is a problem' and 'gnutella WILL be stopped.'
Its actually kind of funny watching all these administrators getting pissed they cant stop whats going on... If you REALLY want to stop this, put EVERY connection on your network on a switch, and limit the bandwidth of each port, one at a time. Linux can do bandwidth limiting as well... put a linux router in place and limit bandwidth to each ip, and quit whining that your users are using too much bandwidth. You gave them the bandwidth in the first place, didnt u?
I personally, LOVE gnutella. I was wondering when something like this would come out... I used to pirate warez on bbss, did it for years, and i used to think, 'i wonder what "they" would do if everyone had a warez bbs' , heheh dream come true i guess
Cybie! aka Ralph Bonnell
If information were alive what would it want ?
If information were a tree, what kind of tree would it be?
Sorry. I just had to say it.
oh wait, you mean like it is now?
If they really do, as was claimed, have a business plan that enables them to distribute more efficiently, then they certainly do have a chance.
As for "getting national chains to buy your product", well these "national chains" are part of the problem -- they are another middleman who takes another percentage markup, inflating prices. To come up with a better business plan than the status-quo, you obviously need to do something different.
They could, if desired, record, master, manufacturer and create the artwork for a release without leaving the building.
Yeah, but they can't distribute it without leaving the building. If they sell the CDs to a middleman for $3- each, and the middleman marks it up 100%, then the retailer marks it up another 100%, the consumer gets the CDs for $12- a pop.
My girlfriend works with a software wholesaler that buys software in volume, and their buy prices are ridiculously low.
This "$2" CD of yours is not directly marked up to $20. What happens is this -- first, the artist wants some royalties. If the artist gets $1-, then the CD costs the label $2- to produce. The label also have other costs like recording, marketting etc. I'm not clear on whether or not you're counting that in your "$2-" figure. By the time the record company are done paying salaries, and recovering their costs, they want to sell the CDs for say , $4-. By the time this goes through a distributer and a record store, it sees a lot of markup. Since you say that CDs cost $20- , I take it you aren't in the US. So there's a good chance everything you buy is subject to import duty ( more percentage markup ) and/or an importers markup.
Anyway, in summary, my main point is -- before you whine about the "big evil record companies", do some research and find out how much it costs for the next middleman to buy a CD. Without any figures, you are just blowing smoke, and your accusation is groundless.
If they own all the "middlemen" , they still incur the costs of those middlemen. The point is that distribution is expensive because it involves several layers of middlemen, and each middleman biz needs to add a markup to stay alive.
If you really do have a business plan that can better compensate the artists, while providing better consumer prices, then you can laugh all the way to the bank at the expense of the record companies. Otherwise, you are just blowing smoke, and your claim of "high prices" is baseless. No one is forcing the artists to sign anything, they are free to build their own record labels, and in fact they often do, but this rarely results in substantially more money for the artists or better prices for consumers.
IMO, this "big evil record companies" argument is just a poor excuse pushed by the freeloaders who are after a means to circumvent compensating the artists.
By distributing the music they made it available in the first place. They performed a service, namely distribution, and have a legitimate claim to compensation.
If I download an mp3 from somewhere, the person I downloaded it from still has it so that was hardly stealing, was it?
You've just cheated the artist out of his paycheck.
Also I know that the cost of producing the thing is way less (and I mean *obscenely* less) than the cost they want to charge me for it.
THe same is true for clothing. It costs $2- or so to make a pair of jeans in a Thailand sweatshop. But that hardly justifies stealing jeans. The middlemen perform a useful service, namely getting the product from (a) to (b).
Is it immoral?
At best, it's rude and disrespectful to the artist.
No, automatic weapons are not illegal, at least not under federal law, your state's laws may differ.
With the appropriate BATF paperwork you can legally purchase an automatic weapon. It is expensive and the paperwork is a major pain in the ass, including fingerprints, a criminal background investigation and the signature of your local law enforcement official.
There has been only one legally purchased automatic weapon used in a crime, and that crime was committed by a police officer.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Assault rifles are useful for killing fascists and thugs, state sponsored or not, seems like a legitimate purpose to me.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Charging them for bandwidth is the best solution. The downside is that Universities seldom have the willpower to focus a revenue stream on improving the source of the revenue stream (athletics excepted). So while Joe Download is busy paying an extra $200/semester for unlimited downloads, the University won't be spending that money upgrading its data network, it'll go to the Lesbian Cultural Center so they can put on an exhibit about why men are bad instead, and the University network will still be constrained.
The solution to the solution is to aggregate the University residential facilities into a common campus WAN, seperate from the University LAN, and allow private internet providers in the same way that many LECs allow private ISPs to use their DSL facilities. This way Joe Student could decide if he wanted free, University-only network access or if he wanted to pay for unrestricted internet access. The students would also learn an excellent lesson in business economics.
What's amsuing about all these Napster fans complaining about "losing their access" is that many of them are students getting a free ride from the University. And yes, it is a free ride - don't think for a MINUTE that tuition covers a Universities operating expenses. My tax dollars make up the difference.
I get 768k DSL for $69/month, and my provider doesn't care how many MP3s or ISOs I download OR serve. Any student complaining about not being able to use Napster should remember that they are more than free to move off campus and buy internet access on their own.
In fact, it would probably be an excellent business opportunity. Convert an old frat or other medium-sized multi-unit dwelling into an "Internet Cooperative" and provide internet access to everyone that lives there. Spin it as a student project and you'd probably get the University to subsidize a direct link to the University.
When I start hearing ideas like this instead of bitching about lost access, I'll know I'm dealing with adults and not kiddies who lost their MP3s.
And yet we cry out every time we find yet another program that "frees" personal information from our personal computers back to the companies that created the realplayers and webbrowsers and office suites, etc, etc...
The LAST thing America needs right now is an all powerful police state.
Too late.
most MP3s that people have are indeed illegal.
I must be abnormal then. The overwhelmingly vast majority of my collection is still self-ripped.
Because I am not free to fix, see, or even request the info doubleclick had gathered.
I don't mind my clicktrails being recorded, if what happens with them is open, available for my perusal.
All info should be free. What people are doing with information should be open to public view.
What happens now is information that is really free (what I do with my time, etc) is being comodified and sold, behind closed doors. And that is wrong.
Those who are watched must be able to see just as much about their observers.
All of the information you mention, short of the porno (which I'm sure, could be found out), is already available for a price. And you don't know, and have no way to find out, who's buying it. Doesn't that worry you? Shouldn't the companies dealing with such information have to fully disclose what they do with it?
doubleckick.net said they were going to do one thing with the information they were gathering, and then did something else, anonimity was promised and then revoked. I object to that. Not the basic fact of personal information heing gathered.
m.
CIA Industries - Running the world for fun and profit
Actually, I use pine through SSH for my email.
LinuxStart is my throwaway email address. ie: the address I give to places that I don't care about the spam, etc that might come from it. That includes any web bulletin boards, ecommerce sites, and anything else that requires an email address. I check it about once every month or two.
So basically, your argument is pointless.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
$5000/mo for 10mbit? Damn! You university is getting fucked in the ass... I have a 2.5mbit adsl connection for only cdn$65/mo. Your university should move up to Canada, get some DSL lines and save some bucks.
So now that napster is gone, 70% of your outgoing and 50% of your incoming bandwidth is not being used and going to waste.
A binary tree ofcourse :-)
It is the simple fact that an armed populace is the best defense against tyranny.
I would argue that an informed and concerned population is the best defense against tyranny. Giving everyone in the U.S. a gun won't stop the subtle and persistent erosion of our rights by corporate-backed government stooges.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
so are child porn and bomb making files "information" or not? it seems that they would want to be free as well.
:( bomb making texts might actually be useful if you have a government you want to overthrow, though.
:)
i don't think either of the above will ever totally disappear.. just like mp3's. maybe that's unfortunate. child porn is certainly rather sick and perverted.
if we lock up all the books and information so you can only access them for "need-based purposes", then soon we'll be living in a harsh dictatorship where they make me listen to N'Sync all day long.
-----
this morning on the front page of the business section was this article, detailing how Napster and GNUtella are outstripping the music and movie industries' abilities to stop people from sharing content. It also talks about diVX (not the defunct DVD player) which appears to encode a VCD from the contents of a DVD.
Nope, I'm with you, except I love the idea, I just hate what it did to my dorm's netthroughput. My uni didn't ban Napster, the upstream provider did, and man! did the net speed up! It puts me in the position of using the fat pipe at work to get my MP3's, but hey....
There's another huge reason why you wouldn't want to download anything other than illegal stuff via gnaptella -- downloading precompiled drivers, programs, etc. from other than the manufacturer or other established sites is just begging to have your computer hit with a trojan or virus.
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
somehow I don't see how protecting a copyright for 75 years after the death of the original creator does much to stimulate new discoveries.
--
+&x
Your analogy is flawed. It would be more like after you program for your employer, and he owns your work, you are no longer allowed to build that program again, or one similar to it. Programmers get paid for their present and future potential, artists get paid for the work they've already created. Do you see the difference? If I'm Britney Spears and I write a song for hire, after they kick by 19(?) year old ass back on the street, I can't even sing my own songs without permission. If I'm Roy Taylor (and I am) and I write programs for hire (and I do) then after they kick my 25 year old ass on the street, I can do (basically) the exact same thing for someone else, I don't have to "forget" everything I've done (minus non-competes, IP agreements)
This is the difference between creating Art and Building stuff. This fundamental difference is why your agreement with the RIAA's lobbying efforts is misplaced, IMHO.
--
+&x
if this is such a "GREAT" model for revenue, then why are all the artists against it?????
first off, it's not all, second off, because the artists don't own the copyrights, third off, most people are scared of what they don't understand, the vast majority of music artists I know are barely familar with the Internet, half of them even have AOL accounts....
Did you read this?.
--
+&x
Now, I like your scenario of everyone doing music for the love of it, and popular artists somehow getting paid just for being popular (although the math is kind of vague in there).
;) If you've got the VC I'm ready to go. The most important thing is creating the license. For it to work I think we need to change copyright law to reflect the fact that sharing digital music is not a crime. However, profiting directly from another's work, without permission should be. There do need to be protections, but not the strangling ones of today. So I need a license that says "you are free to distrubute this content unchanged for non-commercial use" while withholding both ultimate ownership and right to profit for the copyright holder (I'd say artist, but that's not the reality). Which is where copyright law comes in.
See also, Phish. The value comes from the effort put forth by the fans to spread the music. The artists don't have to pay promoters, and neither do we. I understand the math is vague, but the whole picture is cloudy at this point.
The reason most record companies can't and won't go with this model, is that it takes much longer to build up an act. Without millions of dollars of focused advertising and *questionable* (to say the least) tactics used to get on radio, it becomes quite difficult for records companies to make the kinds of profits that keep shareholders happy. Without the ability to strictly control access to music, the industry has no business model. That control used to be inherent in the system. Now it isn't. The business model needs to change.
You want this scheme to work, make it work: set up a record label that gives the music away free. Go on, do it. Get artists to sign up, come up with a business plan that gets people paid somehow for this, and I'll be the first one, really, the VERY FIRST ONE to sign up and help out.
Why do you think I spend so much time talking about this?
And scrambling to justify it with a lot of what-ifs and if-only's
I don't recall scrambling, or what if's and if only's. I'm quite confortable with my opinion, and the logic behind it. I see a problem that is causing other problems, and I see a solution to the original disease. I'm working toward that solution.
--
+&x
again, it's not the money, but the value. The same value that you are trading to the record companies in exchange for distrubution and promotion.
Given free promotion, while retaining the rights to your music (which VERY few artists have under our current system), $9 of that $15 CD would now go to the artists. And I don't think it'd be a couple extra tickets at gigs, but a couple extra gigs per city. This is given a good band, with rabid fans, and free distribution.
It's not like I can open-source my music and then go make money doing consulting on my songs?
Actually it is, if you replace "doing consulting" with "playing in front of a live audience". And that's a live audience who are all familar with your music. And it would have to be different than a regular OSS licence, you have to protect the right to sell.
I've posted way too much to this thread, g'night.
--
+&x
I think they are justified in wanting some compensation for their work, considering it's people's method of earning a living.
/. This is my method of earning a living. I'm justified, it's copyrighted, where's my damn check!
Well dangit, I want some compensation for my work of posting to
--
+&x
That's funny, I could have sworn I went to college and studied how media companies worked. Wow, I guess I really did waste that 100k. Chomp, chomp, troll-daddy.
But nobody agreed to pay you before you posted, dumbass.
Which is like, what, um, how about, anybody who does anything creative, maybe? But I thought artists had a *right* to profit? No, wait, I meant those companies that buy out artists...
--
+&x
Freenet has a inherent mechanism that allows frequently accessed data to move closer to you.
This should decrease external traffic for large campus networks as the data you want will probably be on a computer in your network. (if all goes well) =)
But if you do know whats on your harddrive you can theoretically be sued/prosecuted for it.
;)
Freenet solves this problem.
Sometimes it's better not to know
since the code isnt released and only exe's are available why hasnt gnutella died out yet ?
and anyway, what we really need is something like an eternity server - stuff you post up stays in their forever and theres no way of deleting it.
Software which is used to distribute illegal material is, in and of itself, not illegal. If I sell drugs out of the back of my Ranger, it is relatively clear that this does not reflect on the Ranger. The Ranger is not the source of illegal activity. Likewise, gnutella, napster, macster, rapster, etc and on and on are not responsible for the material transported over them. In the end, people are responsible for their actions. The illegal acts are the posting of copyrighted material and the download of copyrighted material, whether done through old standards like ftp or gopher or new ones such as gnutella and napster.
If you wish to persecute illegal activity, you may do so. If you wish to censor software, you must find some justification for it. Since the software is not in violation of any laws of which I am aware, let's not pretend this is anything other than the censorship of source-code.
Assault rifles have a legitimate purpose: sport. There are laws banning certain types of firearms. These laws were passed by the Congress, and most have not been reviewed by the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court is the final authority on the legitimacy of these laws. I am sure, you will find, that these laws are subject to being overturned in due time.
I would like to see this case brought to the Supreme Court before I accept that this is justified censorship.
(If you analyze the ethics of distributing copyrighted mp3's, I can easily argue for the happiness of thousands versus the wealth of a single person. I do not believe in the inalienable right to make money.)
In all things,
Madranis
-- "If at all God's gaze upon us falls, it's with a mischevious grin--Look at Him." -Dave Matthews, Seek Up
No, "Information wants to be free" has been aronud since the 50's.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Let's take a hypothetical area of the country...oh, say, Upstate New York. Now, say there is precisely ONE upstream provider that universities in said area can use. Now, let's say this upstream provider peers with only one backbone...oh, let's call it Sprint. And this provider's hypothetical peering points are clogged to hell...on Sprint's side.
Not to mention that those networks are supposed to be used for educational research. That's why the universities can get the bandwidth they do at the rates they do. Pegging a T3 at 100% outgoing due to constant Napster data streaming out (most of which is illegal to serve up anyway) is hardly educational research.
No, it's available for legitimate uses. This isn't RC5 here.
Freenet is a bad name and should really choose another name. Freenet was already used by the public access internet systems.
Piracy is only one use for them.
Riiiiiight.
Your argument goes along the line of:
"Should I not be able to buy an axe to cut wood because it can also be used as a weapon?"
While this argument certainly applies to networks like IRC, it should read (at least in reference to napster/gnutella), like this:
"Should I not be able to buy a machine gun just because it's intended purpose is to kill people? It can be used for self-defense, too!"
Sorry, but arguing that napster/gnutella wasn't designed with the sole purpose of pirating music is bullshit.
The difference is really very simple. I as an artist will see absolutely no money from any of this. I might see a couple of extra tickets at a gig, but for the multi-state touring acts those are usually at a loss anyway, and done just to promote album sales.
Sure I don't get a large enough cut of the album sales, but since they made me pay to record and produce the record in the first place...
Maybe I don't need the money (although I actually do) but I sure deserve it for my work. It's not like I can open-source my music and then go make money doing consulting on my songs?
I have to agree with you, but.... /month
At our university we have 10 Mbit to public internet, which costs $5000
OC12 to research network. Government pays for that.
Thats cheap as shit. So why are all these schools up in arms? They don't want to upgrade there networks. It might be Napster today, but tommorrow it will be some other legal high bandwidth protocol and they will still bitch, because they don't want to upgrade.
Yes I know there is more to it then that, but thats basically what it boils down to. My 2 c.
I'm glad someone is starting to see that many Slashdotter's views are conflicting about the concept of free information. Personally, I feel oppositely from you; I feel that eventually all information will be free, and this vague concept of privacy that so many cherish will disappear. And I embrace it, primarily because of the laws of entropy.
Given the chaotic and entropic nature of information spread, it is silly to try to restrict this natural phenomenon with articifical restrictions placed upon its flow by society. Placing restraints on the natural entropy of abstract notions has and will continue to result in impressively obscene regulations. We've seen this in the past with the cyrptography-export rules, and it will continue to happen unless we face the truths will become more and more evident as time goes on.
He's obviously pointing to himself...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
This is like, the sixth article mentioning Gnutella specifically in the last two months.
Can somebody please explain to me why this product is so different than all the many napster clients available, especially considering its the source code isn't very accessible?
http://www.talknerdy.org
http://www.sacbee.com/voices/sac/weaver/weaver_200 00403.html
It does not cost schools all that much money to change firewall rules and the like
No, it dose not cost the schools much money to change teh firewalls to block or unblock a specific set based on a preset list of parameters like port, but when the firewall actaully need to start running a script to process the packets the firewall is fucked. I can make a Gnutella clone which piggybacks all traffic on an encrypted HTTP or SSH conenction with a key size which can not be cracked within a year.
Now you are about to say something stupid like "they can block HTTP access sicne students do not need to run webservers." No one said the client was opening the conenction and the server needed to be outside of a firewall. It's just as easy to route a "call me" request throug the existing network connections to the guy behind the firewall, i.e. what Gnutella dose to avoid firewalls execpt the network is piggybacked on HTTP or SSH. Now this breaks down when ALL collages implement firewalls which prevent students from running servers, but this seems unlikely.
These things are obvious to anyone who knows anything about encryption. The "threat model" for the firewall idea sucks. Now you can watch bandwidth consumtion, like I have said a hundered times, but that is a diffrent story.
With my previously mentioned perl script, which logs into the "distribution network" (whatever it may happen to be at the time), and reports the students at each offending institution, for any action the school wishes (e.g., automated network disconnect/firewall for offending student for a day), the costs are negligible. I could write it once for every instutition in a few minutes, and there is no forseeable way students can avoid this.
No, I explained that this could be prevented with a localized network topology and/or a node authentication and reputation system.
The localized network topology would limit the number of hosts ANYONE had access to. This would require the RIAA to have f(total network size) nodes on the network (f would probable be a logarithm or multiplication by a small constant). This would mean spending a crapload of money on computer systems and bandwidth. Now a localized network topology would limit your ability to find some rare songs, but when you look at detail of the problem it becomes clear, i.e. how many britney spears hits do you really need.
The authentication and reputation system would prevent the RIAA network nodes from gaining much knoledge of the network without actaully contributing something to the network.
The story remains: the RIAA is fucked. The only question is "how much work are they going to make the programmers do so that we can get our mp3s?"
And that java code must come from somewhere, each popular java code server could be firewalled or shutdown before students begin to use it.
I never said the code came from a centralized server! It's prety fucking obvious that it would travel throug the network. I mean it's a fucking file sharing network! There is low security risk because the authentication handles the security (it's easy to distribute the authentication keys too; pgp keyservers are one method). Actually, you could piggyback the Java authentication on the node authentication, i.e. send out "yeah, I looked at the source and it's clean messages". If the network did get shutdown then people would just forward the newest Java module arround via email.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
However, all the university has to do is block all packets that their routers can't decipher. Kind of extreme, but this may be something that may happen in the future. Of course, the routers will have to be able to handle this. Universities will not like the increase cost of upgrading their routers.
This would be ineffective since Gnutella could hid as HTML and would hurt the quality of the schools CS program.
The short-term solution is to enact draconian measures. Another thing would be to just ban Napster, Gnutella, etc... from the campus internet connection. Get the student to sign an decipherable legal document that says yada yada yada, NO!
There will *always* be a newer cooler Gnutella with avoids detection. It dose not matter what the students sign, once they start getting away with it the school will need to make examples out of a lot of people to stop it.
The only real solution is to help the students pirate via a caching server which reduces the outside internet traffic which you really pay for and/or to just charge students for extra bandwidth. I think it's pretty safe to say they will charge for bandwidth. It's loose money fighting Gnutella or make money from people using Gnutella.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
a) GNUtella is overrated. Have you actually USED it yourself to acquire things you are looking for? I have, it's more trouble than it's worth for me. While my standards may be higher than most, I can tell you it's not going to hold up for most college kids.
:) A better way to say this would be "It is possible that the pirates will just be too lazy to fight the RIAA with code."
b) It sucks now, and it has yet to face any real barriers.
c) My script would absolutely work against GNUtella.
I have not disagreed with these statments (Actually, I agree with them). I've frequently said "Gnutella clone" or "Gnutella like," but I don't really give a rats ass about the current Gnutella. Really, I'm only interested in the academic situation.. the "threat model."
There resistance you have seen to napster and company thus far is NOTHING, RIAA has yet to feel a significant pinch from this kind of piracy, but when and if they do, you can be sure heads will start rolling. In any case, time will tell.
Yes, people are capable of amazing things when they are loosing billions of dollars..
This is a psychological issue, not a mathematical or computer science one, so I do not really know how to answer it. I've argued for the hackers because I was impressed at how quickly Napster, Gnutella, and clones came out, but I made the mistake of letting my confidence about the academic side of the discussion bleed over into the psychological side. (Thanks for making me think about this importent point)
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
It would be easy to change Gnutella to avoid this problem. Gnutella could make the assumption that any conenction on a specific port was a gnutella connection and encrypt the packets with the assumption that the first packet gave the session key. There would be no way to detect this without attempting to decrypt every unknown conenction (or disallowing unknown connections), but the Gnutella server and the router have diffrent "threat models," i.e. the router gets far far far more packs then a gnutella server, so the gnutella server could just push the key size to a point where it would be impossible to decrypt everything.
Now the collage could just "spot check" for Gnutella packets and revoke network access, but Gnutella could counter with pseudo-perminant public key system, i.e. not justthe session key system I described above.
The fundamental threat models for *preventing* Gnutella traffic are REALLY stacked in Gnutella's favor. The Gnutella we see only dose a small fraction of the things it could do automatically to aviod detection, but the collages could always start billing for large bandwidth consumption.. this would solve the whole problem almost immediatly.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
This would be easy to fix, build an authentication system into gnutella which says "I've got good shit from this guy." A chain of trust would lead back to yourself, so you would know it was cool stuff.
Actually, it would make the Gnutella network stronger since you could use the authentication system to refuse to give shit to people who did not contribute anything. Leeches who do not run their servers 24/7 are the biggest problem with Gnutella today.
They can kill the Napster or Gnutella community, but there are software solutions to software attacks. This means the RIAA will lose an arms race since Gnutella has zero development cost. I hope they try.. I'd like to see them spend billions.. only to improve the file sharing software technology.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
even if they can't decipher gnutella from "legitimate" connections, they can filter all incoming HTTP connections to student machines. Only a select few students run servers, fewer really "need" or desire to, and they could always ennumerate those few incoming connections.
This hurts the schools CS program.. and runs countrary to the academic mission of the school. Also, this dose not help since Gnutella servers can currently get arround firewalls. Now all universities doing this would cause Gnutella a problem, but a user friendly IRC front end could avoid these problems too. Banning IRC would be really stupid for the school, but you can get arround that by using free hosting/email services. Yes, you could write a user friendly front end to opening accounts with these services.
Although there might always be a way to get around, that does not mean that most students will have an effective way to get around most of the time that is within their means.
The whole point is that most students do not need to get arround the protections. It only takes one guy to write a user friendly interface like Gnutella.. and this one student has the open source Gnutella clones as a starting point. Hell, you could even write a user friendly interface to downloading the latest user friendly solutions to the blocking.
I have yet to read the entire protocol, rather than trying to constantly find a signature of the latest and greatest software, I see no reason why the music industry, a university, or a coalition of them, can't write a script in perl (or whatever) to search WITHIN the entire database all day long, and just create a list every day of hosts (read: students) who serve files
The current systems are vulnerable to this attack, but the legal effort to stop the students is currently prohibitive. Also, the PR results for schools are very serious.
Plus, It is probable possible to design a "localized" network which requires the music industry to have a O(network size) connections to the network for serious monitoring. This would make monitoring the network prohibitivly expencive.
Actually, automated (user friendly) authentication system ("Yeah, I got good shit from this guy") would do a btter job at preventing network monitoring then localizing the network topology, but the network topology question is a sexy math problem.
Why would a school commit to this arms race when they can just bill the kids for the extra network usage?
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
It cost a lot of money to sue people, it pisses people off, and it makes people find stealther ways to share files. My friends and I were plotting an anonymous email based "statistically" anonymous system a year ago. We concluded that Gnutella/Napster's simplicity is nicer since it brings more people into the pirating community, but essentially anything the record companies do can be beaten by protocoll revisions. This means the record companies will lose an arms race since Gnutella clones have zero developement cost.
Lets pull some numbers our of our ass. Lets say it costs 20-100 million dollars to kill a Gnutella style network by suing people (US/international lawyers/lobiests, detectives, software development, managers, etc.). Lets say it takes 6 months for a kid to modify the protocoll to protect Gnutella's users. Lets say this happens every years for 5 years. This just cost our RIAA buddies 1-5 billion dollars, a lot of bad press, a lot of pissed off independent artists, etc.
Anywho, it dose not seem profitable for the RIAA to really commit to a serious fight with Gnutella. If they can get government to spend the money then they can fight, but not if they spend their own money.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
You do not really seem to under stand what I'm saing. I do not care about the specifics of the "tit for tat" between universities/RIAA and students. I'm arguing that the "threat model" favors the students, i.e. it coses the school a lot of money and the school reacts slow, but it costs the students very little (a few kids getting in trouble) and the students react very fast (just look at how old Gnutella is realitive to the collages attacking Napster).
Remember that napster is more than just software and a server, it is good because the barriers to entry (for newbies) are low and because it already has a certain "velocity"
This is an importent consideration, but as the arms race progresses the reaction time of students will decrease. Also, it did not take Napster long to get it's current network.
Example: I could write a Gnutella clone whose network engin was Java driven, thus allowing students to *automatically* upgrade their stealth and participate in new networks with fundamentally better topologies. These Java modules could do all sorts of crazy thing. Now no one will write this system unless the RIAA makes us, but once writen it would kill the RIAA's chances of a technological prevention like you have been discussing.
Note: The RIAA could use Java module trojans, but this would be more illegal then copyright infringlment and it would be simple to prevent the modules from doing most nasty things.. they only need network access! Now the trojen modules might still be able to report the machine to the RIAA, but you could have an authentication chain for the Java modules to prevent the automatic use of bad ones.
Actually, why we are on the subject of malisious software. You could write a virus installer for Gnutella which also fetched some mp3s for you. The existance of this virus would provide plausable deniablility to students who run Gnutella.
Anyway, if you really consider the general trends of the arms race you will see that the technology seems to converge to "the RIAA is fucked."
BTW> The schools are not necissarily exposing themselves to legal action by ignoring piracy. The IANAL's here seems to think that the school get common carrier protection when they do nothing, but might loose common carrier protection when they "proactivly" remove the information. I think they are stil lrequired to remove any illegal information people point out, but activly looking for copyright infringment may mean they are also required to look for child porn, defimation, national security information, etc.
Regardless, common carrier protection would probable prevent the RIAA from forcing schools to spend money looking for Gnutella.. just as it prevents the RIAA from suing the phone companies over mp3s on DSL machines.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Yes and no actually. It's fairly standard practice for bigger record companies to own at least part of any number of the distributors, retailers, shippers etc that all grab a piece of the cash action.
The classic abuse of this is the record company that advances an artist the cash to record an album, but then insists that the artist use a recording studio that the company just happens to own (at least in part). So the cash goes right back into the company coffers and the artist still has to pay it all back (with interest) out of future revenues ... etc.
Who says there's no creativity in the Record Companies? The crux of it all is, the artist invariably gets screwed in every imaginable orifice.
No sympathy here for the Record Biz. Not a bit.
"Energy fools the Magician."
The only "purpose" of Napster/Gnutella is to swap binary files. The intent of piracy is that of the users, not of the program. It's like saying the purpose of cookies is to violate peoples privacy. Many sites use them in this manner, but that is a problem with the site - not with cookies. By this argument, if it was suddenly found almost everyone with cable sold videotapes of pay per view to their neighbours, videotapes should be banned. There is nothing stopping people from using Napster/Gnutella in a legitimate way except their own criminal intent. The problem is the users and not the technology.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
The only "purpose" of Napster/Gnutella is to swap binary files. The intent of piracy is that of the users, not of the program. It's like saying the purpose of cookies is to violate peoples privacy. Many sites use them in this manner, but that is a problem with the site - not with cookies. There is nothing stopping people from using Napster/Gnutella in a lawful manner. If 99% of axe owners suddenly started using their axes as weapons, would you argue the problem was the axe, or the owner. There is nothing stopping people from using Napster/Gnutella in a legitimate way except their own criminal intent. The problem is the users and not the technology.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Is this combined effort that makes information appear as a living entity enough that it even reacts to stimulus like censorship demonstrate that a consciousness is perhaps slowly and subtly arising from the complex interaction of people's decisions on the internet? Lets say we all copy a particular file or all rush to a specific sight posted and slashdot it all to hell, arent we acting like a larger organism with group thought such as a school of fish or a coral reef? The question remains though is as technology becomes more complex will we begin to see EVEN MORE characteristics arise out of this? This could be the start of something very VERY big.
Information just wants to be free because its beginning to wake up.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
BEGIN RANT ---
i ng-Weirdos of society, who aren't computer users anyways!!!
Why the fuck do they always bring up "a network of pornographers" or smut or some such shit!!!
We're not adolescents jacking off in the school playground! Computer users, discounting youngster jackoffs in school, are mature adults with jobs.
Such as statement can only be oriented towards the Conservative-Neanderthal-Religious-Right-God-Fear
Been there done that, and if I haven't done it I've thought about it.
END RANT ---
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Which is why any successful implementation of a peer-to-peer distributed information storage system would have to include a distributed review and rating system as well. If it were done right, negative ratings by those with data-rating tastes the opposite of your own, would be interpreted positively by your system.
Actually, it would make the Gnutella network stronger since you could use the authentication system to refuse to give shit to people who did not contribute anything. Leeches who do not run their servers 24/7 are the biggest problem with Gnutella today.
Imagine that -- a community based on the desire to have all the music you want for free attracts people who want it...for free. If you're going to argue that you have the right to trade music, or software, or whatever, that other people have worked to make, don't get all snippy when other people try and take advantage of what you've done.
For those in the Napster mindset, people complain that a Gnutella program (currently edging out Daikatana for the Webster's definition of Vaporeware) would be used for warez, illegal MP3's, and pr0n. I hate to break it to you folks, but they are right. Whne I got to thinking of the idea, the first idea that came to mind is *MAYBE* I can finally find an ISO of Chessmaster 2 for the psx. However, that isn't a concern of ours.
...) could take place on a reasonably local segment, maybe even your own ISP's segment if you get lucky. Its just the next logical step for large scale, internet wide technology.
/.'ers out there, just remember, NT as a free distributed file system available for download from MS. No such beastie for Linux/*BSDs.
What it is used for shouldn't be. Most of IRC'ers chat, but some (dare I say most?) use it to hunt down the files they want; mp3, pr0n, warez. FTP is the same way. If I'm ftp'ing, and it ain't off of cdrom.com, its warez or romz, hands down. HTTP? Same thing. All of these are tools, tainted by the negligence (yes, even my own) of its users.
What needs to be coded is not a 'Warez-Pron-Roms-ISO's-ASF-search seek and leech' program. The description of what this should be, a 'Distributed File System', nails it perfectly. There are other, legitimate reasons for such a beastie. Large scale downloads (Episode 2 trailers, Quake 4 test,
Napsters days are numbered. As soon as a DFS becomes reality with the protocol well documented and well ported, no one will stick to Napster. People will want the ability to download a NIN bootleg track while hunting for a ASF of 'The Lost Highway'. And for the Luddite
So, heres the proposal needed:
The file system must be open to allow portabilty across OS's and open to avoid security weaknesses.
Must allow manual configuration of master 'browser' servers, both IPs and ports.
Must allow file type specific modules to be written, which can gain needed information from the file based on extension, and whos information can be used in the file search. *.MP3's can be sorted for bitrate and frequency and duration, JPGs can have thumbnails, ZIPs can search the internal files, and all files can have an MD5 hash to compare against. PGP signatures optional.
I would love to work on it, but I just don't have the network programming experience.
Toodles
Toodles D. Clown
Well, various implementations of IPsec allow opportunistic encryption, either host to host, router to router, or host to router. That is basically what your are describing, and the performance hit wouldn't necessarily be that bad, especially if you are willing to use router-to-router encryption only with hardware accelerated crypto...
>90% of anaonymous messaging I have seen have been > used for pirating, porn, flaming or just
/. how, exactly? ;)
> pointless drivel
This is different from
You know, it's rough. I want to, I really really really want to support the Free Music For Everybody thing, I really really really do. But there's something else I like to do, too. It's called eating.
Seriously.
Now, it's entirely possible for me to get another job where this isn't a problem. But then my art suffers.
Yes, I could sell T-Shirt and stuff when I'm on tour. Guess what. Doing that, musicians only break even. The tour is there to support the salve of CD's.
Of course there's the big companies and the restructuring of distrtibution channels. And if a few artists starve, well, omelet, eggs, you get the picture.
Right?
As an artist, part of my heart lies with them. Dealing with the companies isn't that bad when you look at the alternatives.
As an idealist, I don't even know why we have to pay for this kinda stuff.
I feel that this battle will be kinda reeled out in a lot of peoples heads (at least those who've thought out both sides of the arguments) for a long time.
Until such a time when physical things are free, music and other arts CANNOT be free.
Someone who can't believe he just wrote something pro-Communist(at least an ideal version thereof):
Dan
Yah, that's legitimate use in my books :) Its odd to see how many people try to suggest that songs shouldnt be copyrighted. thats crazy as far as im concerned. good post - id mod up, but i started this thread, and cant :)
I agree totally. Altho, the word censorship was used because napster could help to maintain the availability of such things as decss and the cyber patrol things; the legality of which is debatable. But I agree that the major use of napster/gnutella is mp3, and I imagine that it's going to move into teh warez arena sooner or later.
Isn't there a difference between free information (ie open source software and public info) and things that were meant to be payed for (such as music and games and such that you go buy)?
Just scanned tons of freenet/gnutella/eternity/cypherspace/* distributed file system pages I could find. The most advanced tech is not involved in the "information wants to be free" crap Negroponte spends his time on. Serious work involves encryption and ways to get around legal problems, ways to prevent malicious hacks, and ways to take this system full of media files and charge for them or mediate authorship/publishing rights. TANSTAAFL.
/dev/null, and watch prices drop through the floor. Then you can take out your anger on M$' successors, RIAA, and other big baddies and promote the musicians you like listening to.
A significant accomplishment that poses a significant threat to RIAA would be not a way to get free music, but a new copyright/payment/distribution mechanism that both subverts the current system and provides a viable alternative. Otherwise you will just get more sneaky consumer hardware and lawsuits.
Something actually useful might be a server which can inject payment and copyright information into a gnutella/napster file space and handle encryption if necessary. Micropayments. Xanadu transcopyright. etc. etc. See what happens when a wireless walkman carries *that* with a little flashrom!
It would be insanely great (and poetic justice) to use Visa Cash for example to subvert exorbitant media pricing schemes.
Peer to peer networking is a little old. It won't grow beyond piracy or get secure quickly enough to stand up to say Christian Scientists travelling around the world suing people (or the RIAA).. unless the movers and shakers (musicians, advertisers, and tv/radio stations) get a vested interest in something else they can use. Hack a better distribution channel, not a
If it becomes an economic powerhouse this system will take over China too no worries.
The neatest peer networking scheme I've seen is Ricochet's portable ta/routers. They encrypted spread spectrum using frequency hopping schemes designed (by an actress and musician) for torpedoes, similar to synchronizing piano rolls.
Information may be prolific but rich corporations are prophylactic.
In my entire life, I have not heard of anyone using an automatic weapon to commit a crime in the United States.
Do you think that the framers ddn't imagine a future where guns worked better? Keep in mind that the framers had seen the evolution of guns themselves, and the path was entirely predictable.
Switzerland has an automatic weapon for every man in the country.
No comment at this time
First of all , you can have my Napster, my deCSS, and my GNUtella after you kill me and pry them from my cold dead fingers. But, I'll use my constitutionally protected assault weapons to kill your jack-booted thugs first. That's why they are protected, see.
You show me a solid object, and I'll show you something that can break the law. I can do it with most liquids, some gasses, and certainly with plasma, too. Would you like to outlaw matter?
Furthermore, Napster could NOT be legally banned, because any law that violates the Constitution is illegal. Software is protected under the nineth and first amendments.
If you actually managed to completely outlaw Napster and GNUtella, I'd distribute my files by floppy, CD-ROM, Ethernet, ICQ, telegraph, telephone, or smoke signal.
There are no bans on most firearms, unless you live in the facist state of California. All you have to do to get an automatic weapon is pay a tax to the ATF and let them know every last detail of your life. And even that is unconstitutional.
No comment at this time
I don't know where you live, buddy, but "racist propaganda" and bomb making texts aren't illegal in the US. I guess that you must live in a facist country. God Bless the First Amendment.
No comment at this time
It's certainly true that the second amendment (like any other) does not define an absolute right, but there should be a high threshold met before a right asserted unequivocally in the Constitution is reduced. But many of the folks puching gun restrictions have no sense of this threshold, and cavalierly ignore the amendment. We should be just as angry at this as we would be at people who threaten freedom of the press or of association.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Do you even know what an "assalut rifle" is? It is a semi-automatic rifle that looks mean and sometimes holds a few extra bullets. How does this make the rifle illegitimate?
Maybe you live in a part of the country where people don't use firearms, like in a northern city, but trust me, there are tens of millions of Americans who own guns for sport or protection. Target practice with a handgun is fine, but it's pretty nice with a rifle, too, "assault" or otherwise.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
> eg, assault rifles, which have *no* legitimate purpose)
The question exists of whether an object itself can have any purpose -- as one may believe that purposes exist only in the mind. If humans suddenly disappeared, leaving their tools behind, it is possible to believe that the tools are entirely unchanged -- they had no inherent purpose while humans existed, rather, the humans had constructed their uses and dreamed their purposes. Perhaps you intended to say that you do not believe legitimate any purposes that humans can conceive for assault weapons, in which case you may be interested in Mr. Swiss's post. It is this point that I wish to take up with you.
I am not sure from what country you hail, but as a US citizen, I can assure you that in this country a legitimate purpose exists for assault rifles -- that of defense against a tyranical government. If you study the modern conflicts, from Afghanistan to Chechnya, you will see that rifles such as the AK-47 can be considered the modern analog to our revolutionaries' long-rifles, making at least one of the purposes for which humans intend them emminently legitimate.
Am I the only one who doesn't find these systems either totally cool or utterly evil? Unless I'm mistaken, the only new thing about them is anonymity. What's important is what the things are used for, not what they are.
So let's see, what people have done with the pseudo-anonymity the web currently gives them? With the notable exception of slashdot, 90% of anaonymous messaging I have seen have been used for pirating, porn, flaming or just pointless drivel.
So, while it may be cool to have a place to discuss dark-side hacking and get things like DeCSS and encryption tools, my pessimistic side believes that these mediums will be filled to the brim with utter trash before you can say "Hey look, I can do this and nobody can stop me".
If anyone has a good argument against this, it would sure lighten my day :-)
I think this is really sad - every time I hear about somone blindly believing media hype without out even considering it, it makes me think more seriously about starting my own religious cult. Sometimes I think the populace's average intelligence must be decreasing at a steady rate.
Sure, I'll explain the relationship. 1. What you call 'pirating' mp3s is actually the transmission of creative work over a certain medium.
2. In order to make the concept of 'free speech' meaningful in the post-Gutenberg world, 'speech' cannot simply mean literal speech, but the publication or transmission or dissemination or expression of concepts/ideas via any medium. Therefore, printed matter is considered (in theory, at least) as having the same protection that, for example, conversation has. On free speech grounds, at least, it's not acceptable to rule that someone can say something but not print it. This naturally applies to digital media also; if it did not, then the concept would be useless as it would not apply to a huge part of modern communication.
3. An mp3, presumably encoding a song, is nothing but the publication of that song in a specific medium, therefore a kind of speech, entitled to the same protection as other kinds in other media.
4. A song definitely constitutes the expression of an idea or ideas.
5. The downloading of an mp3 is therefore the communication of an idea. Placing restrictions on this evidently places constraints on the free and open exchange of ideas.
6. Depending on the mp3 in question, the laws in your region, and your own opinions, the downloading of this mp3 may also be theft. It is not only theft, but, again, may constitute theft in the views of some. This does not mean that it no longer has 'communication of idea' status.
7. The argument I'm replying to exhibits what seems to me a fairly common fallacy: that an idea once copyrighted is no longer an idea but rather someone's 'property', when it is in fact both. It's a lot easier, in fact, to rationalize it not being property than it somehow losing its 'idea' status once it is copyrighted. Also, the equation of 'copyright violation' with 'theft' is problematic in the extreme, since the human concept of theft is rooted in material things. Finally, the equation of the two ignores the elastic nature of copyright; see the end of my last post for details.
But when the people who created the stuff aren't around any more, I frankly fail to have any moral problems with copying the stuff. Nobody's giving me any free rides in this world, and I fail why I should be giving one to any large record company.
I have to agree with you here man. The LAST thing America needs right now is an all powerful police state.
Its already there Cute-MX by the Globalscape. Now where did those warez come from. An ftp no it came from Cute. MP3 for when the music store has the cd back ordered for years... nah never happens. Why would anyone listen to that. Most of the music I buy I heard on mp3. Any clue why proffessional products are expensive even for students. Piracy is factored into cost.
If money grew on trees it would be worthless. If computers grew on trees It still wouldn't make them simple to use.
You know, the instant I hit "submit", I saw that, and I thought to myself, "Crap, now some complete moron is going to tell me that I'm stupid because I made a spelling error." *sigh*
------
If information were alive what would it want ?
Why do people have to define everything relative to themselves ?
By your definitions artificial intellegence can never exist, an artificial intellegent machine would have artifical thoughts, artificial feelings, artifial desires.
My hard drive wants to be full of usefull data stored in an unfragmented state !
My CPU doesnt want to be worked by runnaway processes.
All information wants to be free.
The statement "information wants to be free" means the information itself wants to be free (if it could think).
The statement "Information wants to be free" has nothing to do with what the PERSON who *controls* information wants.
think about it
Offtopic, but I found this article in the sacramento bee about American men seeking brides in Russia fascinating: http://www.sacbee.com/news/ projects/brides/day2_01.html. A large number of the men work in the computer industry. Coincidence?
====
Imagine, for instance, a napsteresque newswire system, distributing new reports automatically and reliably... The argument that most people are using an instance of an idea to do alleged Bad Things, therefore the idea itself is a Bad Thing is pretty clearly bogus and I for one will watch the future of distributed filesystems of this sort with great interest.
Steff
If I had moderator points, I'd moderate you up.
People: Best post on copyright I've seen yet.
Btw, imho, corporations supressing people's speech is censorship, no matter the exact legal definitions - whether it's done by corporations, governments, parents, libraries, or yourself.
All my experience indicates that what information wants is to be badly formatted.
--
I moderate at +3, Highest Scores, and I always mod down.
If you don't like it, vote me off the island.
Because that doesn't at all take into account paying the people that created the music, the artists, the engineers, the producers, the graphic design folk that make the album covers and so forth.
Yes, just like when you listen to the music on the radio.
When you are listening to the music on the radio you are paying the electricity -- and you can count the money to buy the radio, too -- but not even a penny goes to all that people you just said.
But why does it work, if music if being freely distributed through the air? Because you listen to the music, you get to know the band, and you buy a CD or go to a show.
Yes, I know, MP3 have a better sound quality than radio, and you can listen to it whenever you want. But, personally, I have bought more CDs after I started to listen to mp3s -- and I have a cd recorder.
Why? Because it's better, and it supports the artist. Yes, I also know that tons of people who download MP3s don't have this conscience. But how many of these would buy CDs in first place if they weren't listening to MP3s?
The CD industry is not losing money with MP3.
The way music is distribted now doesn't work well.
Yes, but it's like democracy -- it's a shit, but it's the best we have.
But in fact I think it works fine: you download a MP3, and if you like it you buy the CD. If you don't have money, you don't buy and listen to the MP3. And perhaps 1% will have the money and won't buy the CD -- but how much money will the CD industry get by adopting this distribution model?
--
Everything I said is false.
This space left intentionally blank.
At the risks of sounding like a bloody anarchist, I have to disagree that this connection in any way "taints" the software. In fact, I view it as an ennobling trait of the software involved and any similar software which will be developed in the future.
Why? Because, the old music/intellectual property distribution system is flawed and in need of a thorough shaking-up. Why was copyright invented? To secure the inventor's ability to profit from his invention, so that innovation will be fostered. It wasn't invented so that multinational corporations can exclusively profit from those inventions long after the inventors are dead. Why am I still paying $$$ for music by people who've been dead fifty years???
Let me put it in strictly music terms, since you mentioned mp3s. In the present system, bands labor in local bars and college stages for years and years, partially supported by small-press CD sales and meager incomes, until someone discovers them. At that point, they sell their soul to the record company for a few cents per CD sold and whatever percentage of the concert take they're given. Most bands end up with very little money; only a lucky few become mid-range bands whom anyone's ever heard of, and only an infinitesimal percentage become big-name stars who can finally earn dollars on each CD sold, rather than cents. Not much incentive to innovate, to make music, now is it? In fact, I'd argue that the present system often stifles musical innovation--look at all the Britney Spears wannabes created by the studios to try to cash in on the current craze, and this happens all the time. The studios want one thing, money, and they stifle musical advancement whenever they can because the present system is centrally controlled by the studios, not the artists, and innovation would hurt the studios.
Imagine a system--one we're on the brink of--in which bands can play the local scene like they've always done, but can promote through the Internet and Net-based "recording companies." There was a time when local promoters were important, because they honed the talent and brought it to the attention of the national companies--imagine a return to that de-centralization, where the power no longer rests in the hands of Sony and the rest of the RIAA, but rests in the hands of many more smaller groups like it used to. Imagine a world in which all that the national and multi-national corporations do is promote national and international concert tours once a group becomes big, rather than signing bands when they're poor in order to put them into indentured servitude and stealing 95% of the profits. Heck, most bands would be thrilled to give the music away for a very small fee direct to the consumer since the record companies bilk them under the current system.
Gnutella, Napster, et al. are going to be catalysts for this change--record companies will have to change their ways, or else piracy will outstrip legitimate purchase by a long shot. This is the chance for a revolution brought on by software and the free software ideals. Regardless of propaganda, most if not all small bands are not hurt by piracy in the form of Napster/Gnutella, and almost all the album profits from name bands go to the multi-national corporations. Heck, I read at Yahoo that several record companies make bands sign away copyright/trademark on their names and domain names--that just isn't right, it's an abuse. I see this as a short-term bout of piracy which will end when the music industry returns to a more natural state and price structure. Ultimately, this will empower musicians, and foster innovation in the field. It'll be rocky and contentious at first, but it'll work out for the best for musicians--whom copyright law is supposed to protect (not studios).
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Writing, publishing, and reading "bomb making texts or racist propaganda" is not illegal and should never be. In order to have "good" free speech, where you can criticize governments, etc. you must allow "bad" free speech. Any restriction we allow on speech is arbitrary, and once we allow an arbitrary line to be drawn (except for the strict definitions of slander, libel, fire in crowded theater stuff) that line can be easily moved to limit the so called "good" free speech.
My personal opinion on this is that you are wrong. Music companies do not have a "right" to my money, they simply exist in an artificially created situation, which they are able to enforce by means of the law; that is, if I want to have access to a certain CD, then I have to pay them money for it.
In general, I tend to act as I see fit, and if this means breaking some law then, as long as the penalties for doing so are not too onerous, I will do so. I think most people act in more or less the same way.
Therefore, I refuse to believe that I am acting wrongly by using napster. What would happen if some music company lawyer came to me and said "Stop using napster or I'll sue your ass off". Would I stand up to him? Hell no! That's what "not too onerous means" I guess. That doesn't mean I think I am acting wrongly, I just realise that what I do is against the law. I do it because I think that the price for one of these companies to stop one piddly little student trading mp3's over his 56k modem connection.
"What about the artists" I hear you cry? Well shoot, what does that collection of 30 or 40 CD's against the wall tell you? I buy my CD's as and when I can afford them. If there was some way I could support the artists directly then I would do so, but on a student wage it's difficult to buy every CD you like so they are hardly losing out if I download a song or a CD that I couldn't afford.
Oh well that's my rant anyway I guess. If this philosophy looks similar to Jubal Harshaw's "Rational Anarchism", that's because it is I guess. If you don't know who Jubal Harshaw is then Where Have You Been? Get thyself to a used bookstore and buy a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.
Phear my l33t homepage.
Well doubleclick weren't exactly making that information freely available were they? In fact so far as we know they are quite likely to start charging whatever the market may bear for the information related to where you or I surf regularly and so on. This may seem like just a pun to you but think on this: what would happen if the information doubleclick has been collecting was made freely available to anyone? They would then be unable to cash in on that information so that would eliminate the profit motive. So really, doubleclick aren't making your information "free" at all (beer or speech) but rather, they want to keep it a secret as possible, so that they can make as much money off of you (or whoever they can sell it to) as possible.
You do make a reasonable point though. What about personal information? Does that want to be free as well? Everyone has their own little secrets that the world is probably better off not knowing. Where do you draw the line? How about this then, information that people are hiding because it gives them power over other people should be free. This means your swiss bank account is safe (as long as it doesn't contain the money you stole from your next door neighbours), your doctors visit info would be safe, on the other hand the plans you have in the secret locked safe under your bed should be released to the world.
I dunno if I'm even making any sense here. It's kinda late and I'm sick as a dog. Oh well.
Phear my l33t homepage.
Illegal is just a state of mind :). I download mp3's because I am unable to afford the CD's. Why am I unable to afford the CD's? Because the music companies jack the prices up to such ridiculously high levels. Why do they hike the prices? Because they can. They have the protection of the law. They are only interested in protecting the Artists copyright so long as it makes them money. Can you explain to me why a CD that costs something like $2 to produce needs to go on sale for around $30-$40?
Phear my l33t homepage.
>Recognition of any "property" is an "artificially :)). These people (I don't know who they are) want to sell me something. On the other hand if I go somewhere else and do something I can get the thing for free. Also I know that the cost of producing the thing is way less (and I mean *obscenely* less) than the cost they want to charge me for it. Is it illegal to download the song in that situation? Probably. Is it immoral? My head and heart tell me no.
>created situation". Look, the idea that
>you "own" your computer is artificial,
>but that in itself hardly gives me the
>right to steal it. I didn't say "The artist doesn't have a right to my money", I said "The Music Companies dont have a right to my money". The music companies didn't create the music. They didn't improve it or make it any better. All they did is market it. Why should I pay them? As for your comment about me owning my computer, I feel like I'm talking about two different things. If I download an mp3 from somewhere, the person I downloaded it from still has it so that was hardly stealing, was it? The only thing I "stole" was the fact that I didn't pay some person I don't even know for the right to listen to this music.
Let me try to put this in a different way (and then I'm going to bed, so if you wanna reply you better email me
Phear my l33t homepage.
That said, you're right in that *I* want certain information to be easily accessible, and certain corporations want the flow of information to stop, except to move as they direct it (which is what the saying "information wants to be free" alleges to be impossible), but the point is that we can examine the flow of information and say that information wants to flow freely the same way a gas wants to fill up its container.
Just trying to open someone's head! I mean "mind!" Open someone's mind, um, to the possibilities! With explosives!
You do realize that this argument has no merit. Imagine the same arguement pertaining to different goods.
Ok, so automobiles come along. Now I can go wherever I want, no more hitching up my horses. No: the automobile industry isn't loosing money from me stealing someone elses car - I wouldn't have bought a auto anyway and I don't let anyone else drive it. I don't see anything wrong with this whatsoever.
I'm as much for free information as the next guy, but even evil music conglomerates have rights.
Banning Napster? Have we not played this game of Whack-a-Mole one too many times already? Then again, intellectual property lawyers need employment too.
There is no doubt that Napster represents a vehicle for copyright infringement. Just in the same way a real vehicle is useful to a real criminal (drive-by shootings, bank robberies, etc.). Should we ban all vehicle because criminals use them? No. So why should we ban something which is strictly speaking peer-to-peer filesharing?
It's the message that's the problem, not the medium.
As for assault rifles having no purpose, have you not heard of parity? Considering how US Federal agents are so very considerate of the Constitution (1st Amendment, 4th Amendment, etc.), anything which makes them think twice before kicking down the door is a good thing.
After all, being able to turn gophers into a fine pink mist with a AR-15 is the de facto embodiment of the American Dream!
Don't let your interpretation be too literal. Information "wants" to be free the same way water "wants" to flow down hill.
Humans share information. It may be rumors, jokes, bedtime stories, music or movies. Using the word "want" is useful here, because the medium is the human mind.
It is scientifically correct to say "Humans want information to be free." But this is less descriptive. "Information wants to be free" describes the big picture, the macro effect of this aspect of human psychology. As in the case of a funny joke that zips across the country in a few days, information does seem to have a mind of its own.
I think they are justified in wanting some compensation for their work, considering it's people's method of earning a living. How would you like your employer to withold your paycheck because information should be "free"?
Of course artists want to get payed for their work. But record contracts are a rotten deal for musicians! You make a fraction of what the record company does and you lose the rights to your music (in most cases, especially with the big labels).
Sites like mp3.com are a sweet deal! The most important thing for a musician, above all else, is to get your stuff heard. Geez, there's bands in LA that PAY clubs to let them play there. That's sick. Alternatively, mp3s are cheap and great for exposure.
But you gotta earn a living. I've made like $12 from my music on the net in the past two years, but I actually have an audience as compared to trying to sell the disks at indie music stores and pleading with college radio to play my music. (Read: no audience.) Besides, it's really weird stuff and I can understand why normal people wouldn't pay money for it.
Anyway I'm also not on tour, which is where the cash is. Bands that encourage people to freely trade their tunes and then put on a good performance can make a decent living through concert ticket sales. (Can't bootleg an experience. Not yet anyway.) The grateful dead is a perfect example of this model.
The record industry makes a few musicians rich and the rest poor. Then sells the good songs to Burger King 20 years later. Talk about a shitty deal!
The record companies are getting FREE promotion of their music. They couldn't pay radio stations for the promotion they are receiving by having people download MP3s and trade them to others. They should be GRATEFUL!
Heh! It's true. I hate the corporate record industry, which is why I'm boycotting their products, whether I pay for them or not. People who think they're sticking it to the record labels by trading mp3s are actually helping them. The companies are just to stupid to realize it.
Besides, I think the legal indie tunes are a hell of a lot better then the spew that comes out of my radio.
check out Condemned and see for yourself. It's already extremely hard to regulate child pornography on the net. Also what about other illegal things like bomb making texts or racist propoganda. I think everyone is forgetting why there are internet laws ... it's not just about you publishing your internet mp3 collection.
Let's take a step back and look at the situation again...
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Americans are absolutely crazy.
People spent money to create this "information" (music,etc.). I think they are justified in wanting some compensation for their work, considering it's people's method of earning a living. How would you like your employer to withold your paycheck because information should be "free"? Information should only be free if the author(s) consent to this.
"Control the media, control the mind."-Cabal
Is it just me, or does GNuetella sound like a really nasty sexually transmitted disease?
Why are these programs suddenly causing such stirs even though MP3s have been around forever(ok, quite a while)? Ok, sure you can point out that Hard drives are increasing in size, faster internet connections more abundant, etc. The biggest reason, though, is because even Mr. Joe Smith can use it. He doesn't need to copy anything, all he has to do is click on a little button that says search, type the song he wants, and click find. Thats all. No trying to log on to IRC, figuring out all kinds of commands, and figuring out fservers. Why isn't mIRC being sued and Napster is? For the same reasons stated above. I have friends that didn't even know what an MP3 was a few months ago. Now you are a loozer if you don't have Napster on your computer and have at least 20 mp3s. Amazing, huh? The recording companies are scared now because EVERYONE is able to go download whatever they want whenever they want and they don't need to know anything about computers other than how to turn them on. It is this simplicity that scares them. Frankly, myself would, in a way, don't care if i see napster go down. I can always go to my favorite mp3 channels and get my mp3s there. Yeah, yeah, you are all saying...another bum who can't afford CD's...well, i admit it: I can. The thing is, I have never bought a CD in my life, NEVER (even before Mp3s), and I never intend to get one. Its not that I am not into music, its just that I can turn the radio on and listen to all I want without paying for a CD that only has 2 out of the 20 songs that I like. Ok, so MP3s come along. Now i can listen to my favorite songs whenever I want, no commercials. No: the recording companies aren't loosing money from me downloading mp3s - I wouldn't have bought any cds anyway and I don't distribute. I don't see anything wrong with this whatsoever.
Another idea for stopping it (which i read somewhere else...can't remember where) was for all these recording companies to each pitch in to buy a few servers each to just serve all kinds of the most popular songs at the time. The thing is, make all the songs sound like crap...garble them, add random high-pitched shreaking, etc. (or have a sound of a constipated old man). There would be no way (if they were smart) for anyone to find out what they were doing. Eventually, the gnutella community would fall apart with the lack of trust people would place on each other. Who wants to send other people mp3s when all you are getting is an old man moaning when you think you are really getting a real song you want?
But it _does_ have merit when pertaining to computer software. Yes, if you try to apply it to other things, it doesn't work. But computer software is easily duplicated. Cars take quite a few thousand dollars worth of steel, etc. Computer mp3s are only a bunch of 1s and 0s. All I have to do is type Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V and all of a sudden I have 2 _exact_ copies of the same mp3! Downloading it from someone on the internet is the same thing. I now have an exact copy of what they have. Besides internet cost, there was really no cost to me or the person on the other side. I didn't steal it like you would have to do with cars: I just duplicated the file.
That would be a very good idea. An eBayish rating system.
Actually, it would make the Gnutella network stronger since you could use the authentication system to refuse to give shit to people who did not contribute anything. Leeches who do not run their servers 24/7 are the biggest problem with Gnutella today.
Whoa there...ok-if you have cable this might apply, but obviously Mr. 56k down the block can't have it on All the time. Nor would I care if he were. Who wants to download at 56k anymore? Heck, even people at 28.8 try to download from cable, t1, t3 people...56k only gets gets a couple downloads every once and awhile: it wouldn't be worth it for the downloader or the server.
They can kill the Napster or Gnutella community, but there are software solutions to software attacks. This means the RIAA will lose an arms race since Gnutella has zero development cost. I hope they try.. I'd like to see them spend billions.. only to improve the file sharing software technology.
Exactly - there would be a huge battle. Someone, somewhere will eventually come up all kinds of checks for crap mp3s, etc. Heck, someone would probably find out the RIAA was doing it...
So tell me have you ever loaned a CD to someone to listen to? Have you ever done so with the knowledge that the person borrowing the CD may copy it? have you ever listened to a CD checked out from the local library? Have you ever copied a CD borrowed from the library? Well guess what? Now they do it via the internet!
:-)
There is another way to look at this also. The record companies are getting FREE promotion of their music. They couldn't pay radio stations for the promotion they are receiving by having people download MP3s and trade them to others. They should be GRATEFUL!
It should also be pointed out that carrying around MP3s is not very convenient or cheap. Have you seen the cost of Flash Memory?! CDs are more universal as a format for playing music. Not everyone owns a computer or MP3 player! Beleive it or not many people will buy the CD after listening to the MP3.
Most people still don't have DSL or eq connections, most people connect via 56k modems. No one wants to download an entire album over a 56k modem. They download a couple of songs usually.
The industries own figures show they made MORE money, not less.
The record industry should find ways to use the new medium of the internet instead of finding ways to thwart users. The internet provides a way for the industry to sell directly to uses EXACTLY the music they want. Custom music, delivered directly to the users computer. Music downloaded from the internet site should be CONSIDERABLY cheaper, because of all the savings by selling direct.
Guess what!? If you make music cheap enough people won't hassle with illegal copies. Lowering the price of CDs would also help.
The industry claims that people are ripping off artists, yet the industry pays musicians a paltry royalty for their music, most of the profits go to the record copmpanies.
Most artists would be better off giving away and selling music on MP3.com than signing with a record company. The real worrry of the music industry is being DISINTERMEDIATED! That's right the music industry fears that the internet will make them obsolete. Rather than embrace the internet and find new ways to make money, they want to sue everyone for even fair use of music. Just my $0.02 worth
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
OK, a coupla simple points.
It is true that right now artists do need to get paid. Whatever may evolve in the future is a separate issue.
But
(1) There is loads of music out there by, er, dead people. In some cases, long dead people. This stuff should be copyright free after a certain period. I don't feel bad about downloading Bach mp3s, or Hendrix, or even Nirvana.
(2) There are musicians still alive but who have plenty nuff cash already. I'm not weeping for Madonna or Blur or almost any major artist. They're doing fine. (I'm not taking the moral high ground here. I just amn't that bothered about stealing from the very rich.)
cheers
dave
Yeah, aren't they?
We got to talking about listening to MP3s and somehow got to the point where she actually said "I thought all MP3s were illegal." I think that actually summerizes the issue quite well - most MP3s that people have are indeed illegal.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Unlike the World Wide Web, where every available piece of information is stored on a particular machine (the owner of which can easily be determined), Freenet protects those who choose to donate some of their computer's resources to Freenet by making it extremely difficult to determine what information is being stored on a particular node (even by the owner of that node).
Sorry, but I prefer to know what's actually being stored on my system. I understand their reasons for this, but I don't like the idea of not knowing what is on my HD.
d I know damn well that Napster is used to download illegal mp3s more than anything else. Same with Gnutella.
Not so actually. If you run Gnutella, and watch what people search for, it's almost exclusively porn and warez. They're MUCH more popular the mp3s. You don't get quite the same "rise" out of of mp3s.
No sig is worth reading.
i'm wondering, if are able to share not only MP3s and other types of files, would you also be able to programs too?
in the grim world of hello kitty there is only war
So technology brings great things and possibilities but disrupts the current system. O.K ban the tech. well thats limited. Why doesn't the old system use the tech. to advance (more money too) Use thier (Goliath strength to at least foresee the obvious) ,well that would be worse then the crime.
More direct FUCK THEM for tring strangle us when all they had to do was adapt/progress using there money and power instead of keeping their safe little status quo. instead of moving forward with us or past us they snugly slept. "but there isn't a solution to copyrights violations except ban napster IRC Gnutella etc..." Can a book on creativity help people who make those comments. Not that Goliath sleeping makes bootlegging Alright but now he wakes and to do what, crush all
Consider this, to RIAA and others, a check
Power and responsablty Hand and hand
maybe now they'll move forward. Where? Hey I'm the one tring to break in the store not guard it
Am I the only one who noticed that an mp3 search&retrieve application was being hailed as a distributed anonymous information network? :-P ---
---
Where can the word be found, where can the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence.
"Where shall the word be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence." -T.S. Eliot
Freenet was covered in the last issue of Datateknik 3.0 too (one of the better magazines here in Sweden).
Have you heard a single musician or writer complaining about how the Internet is going to put him/her out of a job?
The difference is that the former is already free, and the latter still wants to achieve freedom.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
1st, you misunderstand what is meant by "wanting to be free". It is simply an idiomatic/metaphorical expression describing the natural progression of information. Look at it in the manner of the Turing test--the information shows all behaviors of wanting to be free, therefore it is indistinguishible functionally from wanting to be free. The only problem is that we humans typically refer to consciousness in such narrow terms.
I don't really care who knows about my "favourite porno movie." People should be able to handle these things in a mature manner--we are human beings, which are members of the animal kingdom, which have carnal desires, deal with it. I regularly have dead serious, completely frank conversations with my friends and even on occasion with complete strangers about things like masturbation, sex dreams, porno movies, ppl we find attractive, whatever in a completely non-titillating way. Now if I lose my job over something out of my last doctor visit, or somebody revealing I watch porno on occasion, well, fuck them. It's a battle I have to fight. People accuse me of being non-realistic. Well, they're the ones living in a dream world, because everything about who they are is fake. Yes my information wants to be free, and if people don't like what they see then deal with it.
As for the Swiss bank account thing, well I wouldn't tell anybody my passwords to my computer accounts, either. But that doesn't mean the information doesn't try to become free any way it can, by my tendency to forget and need to write them down, or ask to be remailed them. Saying it wants to be free and that we ought to help it are two entirely different things. The original saying that it wants to be free was not meant to imply that we ought to help it.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Yes I agree it is quite clear that Napster and other such utilities are used nearly exclusively to break the law (even most of the porn is copyrighted by someone). But this does not mean it is necesserily a bad thing. Being illegal does not make something wrong...all to often our governments have made things illegal which should in fact be legal. We create copyright laws to improve *our* quality of life not because the musician inherintly deserves the money. Eienstein has done the world more good (communication satellites etc..) then any rock band and yet his compensation, like most basic researchers, was no where near that of your average pop band. If you really believe that copying music is wrong because the artist deserves compensation you would send a check to eienstein's estate every time you made a cell phone call. Heck pay 1/2 of the CD cost and send the rest to his estate for his work on developing the theory behind lasers which allow you to play the CD. The claim that we have a moral responsibility to pay the record companies exactly what they ask for the music is absurd. Even given that they deserve compensation for their work it would be hard to accept that the amount of compensation they are due is exactly 14.95 per CD. Copyright is a monopoly. A legal one but still a monopoly. And unlike free markets a monopoly will not adjust its prices for the maximum benifit for the citizens but instead for its own profit. As such monopolies should be regulated for the public good. The government has shown no inclination to do this with copyright instead lengthening it because powerful lobbies make more money. At the same time distribution technoligies have flourished and the customer pool has expanded significantly. The amount of compensation that some copyright holders recieve is order of magnitudes larger then what is necessery to spur creative development. In fact free software development has shown people are willing to do some of this work without any compensation. Napster and Gnutella then function as self regulation. They provide thousands maybe millions with music and joy they wouldn't otherwise have and show no indication of stoping the production of new music. As such they seem a morally well justified pursuit.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Clearly the second ammendment was not intended to and should not be extended to weapons of mass destruction. People should NOT have the right to own nuclear weapons or biological weapons etc.. So we are left with the question of what arms should be allowed.
These weapons and assault weapons were not present at the writing of the declaration so we must interpret what the framers intent in the second ammendment is.
The INTENT of the second ammendment was to allow the citezenship to be armed enough that they could in principle defend themselves against governmental tyranny. I would imagine that a sizeable fraction of americans uprising even with semi-automatic weapons could overthrow the government (remember they are trying to control the populance not annihlate it so they can't use nukes or other indiscrimanate killing technologies).
Now the outlawing of automatic weapons is probably just a publicity plow (has anyone ever seen evididence that the presence of automatic weapons significantly increases the murder rate? People would probably just shoot more with semi-automatics) but from a constitutional perspective is not necesserily unreasonable.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Well, excuse me, but I can think of a couple of uses of Napster
For example let's say that I have a lot of old vinyl records. Let's say that my father was a collector and when he passed away I naturally inherited them. I also had bought some on my own,
back when this was possible (10-15 years ago).
Now I suppose I still have the right to listen to that music, right? At home, driving my car, wherever I choose. I also assume that everybody aggrees that if I have purchased a CD I can legitmately rip it to mp3 and listen to it from my hard drive, right? Well, "riping" a LP record is rather tough, time consuming, to say the least.
Now instead of going through the fuss of jacking my old vinyl player to my soundcard (assuming my vinyl player is still working, which could be improbable) and recording/encoding to mp3, I prefer to search for the song in Napster, Gnutella, mp3.lycos.com etc and have it downloaded in the background while I do other work.
Is this bad or illegimate ? I don't think so. The artist has already been compensated. Maybe the record company would be more happy if I just went out and bought the CD and pay them twice for the same thing (hell, some of those LPs do not even exist in CD format).
I am not saying that everybody that uses Napster does so in a legitimate way. Sure, there are people who are getting for free something they should have paid for (and you have to remember that high CD prices are also responsible for this phenomenon. There is no smoke without a fire).
My point is that there could be legitimate uses for Napster.
One is obvious: distribution of "legitimate" mp3s (non-copyright items or items where the copyright holder does not object to such distribution). Another one is my case. I am sure there may be more. Furthermore, Gnutella may have even wider applications since it's not limited to mp3.
(I believe that proving there are legitimate uses for Napster, even according to current US laws, could be a vital point for the Napster defence).
Just my thoughts on the subject
Report 1
Of course another report says that "up to 60% of campus traffic" was caused by Napster.
Report 2
I'm not sure which one I should believe, and after reading through the letter sent out to all the students telling them of the ban I got the feeling that bandwidth wasn't really the issue, but more of a nice scapegoat. The whole issue reeked of our General Council office and it smelled like they were afraid of being sued by the RIAA.
Of course life hasn't changed much since the ban. People just switched to different programs like iMesh or Spinfrenzy. Or they just went out and found a proxy server to run through. So far no one has been "busted" for using Napster even though I know of a number of people that still use it. All in all it does seem like information on the Net does want to be free. The old guard continues to fight to keep the old ways in place, and the younger generation keeps fighting to make changes. Sounds strangely familiar, like this has happened before. Just over different issues.
This is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about information wanting to be free: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one posseses the less because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions, then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
--
--
"Information wants to be free" and it wants somebody else to pay for the bandwidth.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Well... an informed and concerned population is the best defense against larval tyranny. If you oppose would-be dictators, and reveal them for what they are to people who care, you'll nip it in the bud.
But having a second line of defense is not a bad plan. Should tyrants assume enough power that morals and laws can't stop them, a greater price must be paid to set things right.
I think that we'd be best off if we'd prepare for what has to be done if we fail, and then do our damnest not to fail. For when we do, we'll no longer get to prepare.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Performance would be utterly dreadful, but it'd be quite cool to have an encrypted VPN on top of the normal internet, with loads of redundant connections which dropped in and out of existence. Ok, this isn't workable.
Recognition of any "property" is an "artificially created situation". Look, the idea that you "own" your computer is artificial, but that in itself hardly gives me the right to steal it.
At the end of the day though, IMO what it comes down to is this -- at the very least, it's rude and disrespectful to ignore the wishes of the artist who has released under a non-free license.
On the other hand, I really wouldn't hold it against a college student who temporarily freeloads until they can afford the CD. I used to do it (-;
Seriously, the reason why prices are what they are is that money is intercepted by several layers of middlemen, each who marks it up a percentage ( so the cost rises exponentially with the number of middlemen ). The record company is just one such layer.
As for paying money for music whose authors are dead, I believe usually such music costs less, but also there's the issue that copyright law is imperfect.
It does not cost schools all that much money to change firewall rules and the like. With my previously mentioned perl script, which logs into the "distribution network" (whatever it may happen to be at the time), and reports the students at each offending institution, for any action the school wishes (e.g., automated network disconnect/firewall for offending student for a day), the costs are negligible. I could write it once for every instutition in a few minutes, and there is no forseeable way students can avoid this.
To get to the point where more than just geeks and a handfull of others used this, was atleast a couple weeks. Furthermore, they've had the advantage of being the first and being highly centralized, whereas programs such as GNUtella lack this.
And that java code must come from somewhere, each popular java code server could be firewalled or shutdown before students begin to use it. (e.g., you may get it on AOL, but AOL likely won't allow it for long). Also, none of this prevents my perl script from reporting you...I think it is unwise to underestimate the persuasive powers of INSTANT punishment. It is far more effective than only catching 1 in 100 (or even 10) warez pups, and punishing them after 2 years of trading, for rather serious penalties. If virtually every time a student connects to a GNUtella network he losses his network privilages almost instantly for another 2 days, he is probably not going to keep it up. [Especially since those who use napster and company tend to use the internet heaviest otherwise too]
Internet service provider operations DO NOT enjoy common carrier protection. Because they're not required to provide anyone access (internet is viewed is a privilege still, and further, the law hardly recognizes internet privacy), they are not in the same boat as phone companies. Period. If anything they're closer to a distributor (e.g., Cubby vs Compuserve), because they do exercise some control in other areas (the existence of an AUP speaks volumes). But nothing is cut and dry here. The phone companies enjoy a long and well established legal precedent, ISPs enjoy no such protection.
The university's position is precarious, and because of that the liability risks cannot be ignored. The remaining portions of the CDA (USC 230(b))hold that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information by another information content provider". This is, in fact, what many people confuse with common carrier protection. Yet this law has primarily only been applied to libel cases, and really can't hold up here. Especially if they profit from each abuse by charging for b/w usage (e.g., vicarious liability)...
Furthermore, RIAA could actively inform these schools on a real time basis of who is offending what. Which would allow RIAA to say they institutions were not ignorant (completely knocking out the possibility of proving ignorance---which is necessary for a vicarious liability defense).
Again, they're not common carriers. Further, who says RIAA needs to "force" them? The schools are having their lines saturated because students pay a flat rate. So unless ALL students are either willing to pay more (or if they can find alternative sources of financing), they need to charge in a per byte basis. None of these options are all that appealing in the short run. Thus, this leaves them with cutting down on the warez/mp3 trade--which is why they'd cooperate with RIAA. In addition, who says RIAA can't incentivize the schools to enforce, or simply pay for their additional "enforcement" costs above and beyond what the schools would do to protect their bandwidth?
In closing, I think GNUtella is overhyped anyways. I was skeptical when I first heard of it, its design is quite impractical for anything sizable. Even the original creator at nullsoft thought it couldn't scale past 250 (approx.) users. Having used it, I can tell you empirically that the way it is implimented and/or "networked" now, it aint much better. One might be able to see, say, 2000 hosts on a good day, but the message propogation and the searches are poor. It's generally a pain in the ass to use, and I think less technical users are going to find it very difficult. Add to adaptive firewalls, decent enforcement, logging, and other such issues to the mix, and there is plenty of reason to doubt this being a significant threat to RIAA's interests. In other words, a small group of people may still spend a lot of time at this, but the vast majority of people will find it easier and more economical to get go out to the store and buy whatever they're looking for. 0 piracy isn't necessarily the objective. So long as RIAA (and other interests in line with them) can raise the bar high enough, they're quite safe.
This argument is getting academic, but I do have a couple points before I bolt.
a) GNUtella is overrated. Have you actually USED it yourself to acquire things you are looking for? I have, it's more trouble than it's worth for me. While my standards may be higher than most, I can tell you it's not going to hold up for most college kids.
b) It sucks now, and it has yet to face any real barriers.
c) My script would absolutely work against GNUtella.
d) Your idea is just theoretical. At the very least it is one extra level of complexity to something which hardly works now. So long as trading is point to point, I doubt its resistance to "attacks" operating within the system, like mine. You fail to remember that this is RIAA, they represent the IP owners, they own the damn music. They can trade as many mp3s as they damn well please to gain "trust."
e) There is a world of difference between building networks and punching holes in them. Ironically, the situations are reversed this time. The hax0rs are trying to create a network which can't be broken, and the admins are trying to break it. The difference is that the admins (and RIAA and company) hold all the keys, they are on the side of the law, and dare I say it on this forum, they are on the side of right.
In any case, you're too entrenched in this to listen to reason. Although I may not have hard "proof", I'm not the one claiming the walls are about to fall. There is simply too much at stake here. There resistance you have seen to napster and company thus far is NOTHING, RIAA has yet to feel a significant pinch from this kind of piracy, but when and if they do, you can be sure heads will start rolling. In any case, time will tell.
The mere fact that it gnutella downloads may utilize the HTTP protocol does not make them indecipherable from more legitimate connections. Furthermore, even if they can't decipher gnutella from "legitimate" connections, they can filter all incoming HTTP connections to student machines. Only a select few students run servers, fewer really "need" or desire to, and they could always ennumerate those few incoming connections. This would save their upstream connections at the very least. If every university were to do this (no uploads), this would have a dramatic effect on the number of available/operational file servers for download, thus reducing downloads too.
Although there might always be a way to get around, that does not mean that most students will have an effective way to get around most of the time that is within their means. In other words, if the universities take a real interest in stemming the trade of mp3s and other elicit files, they could adapt (block) to these new variations faster than most students can or will employ them. Likewise, there are network effects here. The fewer student servers (e.g., no more newbie students, only geeks), the fewer available downloads, the less desirable the "network"/software is, the smaller it gets. This is especially true with gnutella where that initial connection, for each respective client/server, is important.
Furthermore, although I have yet to read the entire protocol, rather than trying to constantly find a signature of the latest and greatest software, I see no reason why the music industry, a university, or a coalition of them, can't write a script in perl (or whatever) to search WITHIN the entire database all day long, and just create a list every day of hosts (read: students) who serve files. [I would think most universities will have a plenty sufficient reason if the pipes are saturated strictly as the result of piracy] Any offending hosts within the defined network(s) would simply get their network connections "cut" or firewalled out for a day or two, or worse... For a less draconian measure, they could attempt to do it in "real time" (really just shorter intervals). I could easily write such a script in perl to scan, find offending hosts, telnet into router (scripted), add firewall rule for offending host, logout. It would curb the "velocity" of student expectations of pirating quite effectively without having to resort to scare tactic.
Gnutella may be primarily used for copyright infringement, but where do you draw the line? IRC isn't all that different from Gnutella and it also makes it easy to exchange copyrighted data. What about FTP and web servers? Web browsers?
Another problem with your argument is that it leads to limitations on fair use. It is perfectly legitimate for me to convert my CDs into MP3s, carry them on my laptop or with a portable player. But the new legislation along the lines you propose already in place have restricted the utility of devices and stifled innovation. For example, many MP3 players would make nifty portable, USB-attached drives. But because of recently enacted laws, thsoe devices need to be hobbled so that they can only play back MP3s and not be used for data storage.
Software and software-based devices are very malleable. I think if you start banning software that, right now, looks like it might be used primarily for infringement, you end up infringing on the rights of legitimate licensees and you severly restrict innovation. And that is a David-vs.-Goliath issue, because the big, established companies dislike the new technologies, not because of copyright infringement, but because they break their long-standing business models. And that should be of concern to everybody.
The most important paradigm shift of the digital age is the transition from an information-scarce system to a services-scarce system. Gnutella and Freenet are the next step in that revolution.
What traditional media companies realize all too well is that once any piece of information is transferred to a digital format, it becomes impossible to limit its availablity. The best way to make money is to provide a service on top of it, so that people pay you for adding value. The information is abundant, its the collection, interpretation, and presentation that are limited.
Gnutella is another step toward free information. Companies like IBM will be winners, while the RIAA and the MPAA will be losers unless they start to justify their skimming off the top.
What would that difference be, exactly? Its all information, the only difference is that some of it has had arbitrary restrictions placed on it in an attempt make information creation more profitable. Both for individuals, and later corporations (copyrights now last 90 years after the creators death).
But, that doesn't change the fact that Human beings still have a natural inclination to share information with each other (witch is what 'information wants to be free' really means)
It's a bit like some Paris intellectual saying "All people are free," and then Thomas Jefferson saying "Yeh," and then still owning slaves.
Lets take the slavery analogy a bit farther. It was just as illegal to smuggle a slave up to the north, or Canada as it is to pirate an MP3, or some Microsoft software (well, the penalties were probably higher). And it was still stealing. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been done.
Just for the record, I do think piracy of Software and music and movies and such is 'wrong' just not 'wrong enough' for me to care. And certainly not wrong enough for me to loose civil rights.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The way you'd like to have it distributed won't work at all
yes, after 2 months and more lawsuits to stop it than I care to count, it's obvious this method is doomed to failure. I mean, why even try, after all The current model SUCKS at that; the artists get cheated and gypped.
You're missing a point somewhere, I made it a while back in a different thread. There is value in having attention paid to you. When that value is gained without any effort (on the part of the music artist in this case) then the excess value created through freely sharing digital music is left to be recouped by the artist. THIS is the right we need to protect, the ability to capitalize on the value. NOT the ability to control an infinite product.
--
+&x
And what makes you think there won't be a grillion folks out there saying "some rules NEED to be smashed" and breaking your license right and left for their own profit, just like you're doing to the existing schemes?
/. style submission and comment method to generate content. It's not doing much right now, that's where the VC comes in. (Oh and if you "steal" my idea, let me know, and you can hire me to tell you how to do it right). Here's another one that's come to my attention from these discussions. Someone DOING something. Try here if you want to help with a cool project. ('sup numb :-) Locally is the best way to start revolutions.
Maybe you could explain how they could? Given freely distributable music, where is the profit for pirates? Who, since they know the artists are making a leap of faith, would knowingly go through some other source, pay some other source, when they know they can buy it straight from an artist? And if we keep the insanely high prices of CDs standard, 1 sale from the artist whould give them as much revenue as roughly 20 sold under the yoke of an RIAA member company.
If what we're on about is getting paid from the end user directly to the artist in some strange math, what startup do we need?
Remember they are getting paid with the same value they get from radio play, free exposure to create rabid fans. What startup do we need? Why can't you be doing this already out of wahcentral.net? Glad you asked. And I am. It's a section called "Digital Caffeine" and hopes to use the
--
+&x
Joe's friends come over to his house. They all listen to his music.
Friend1: "Joe, that's a cool band, where'd you find 'em"
Joe: "Napster, then I (outlines the hour(s) long process of making his own CD)"
Friend2: "Hey, Friend1, I'll save you the trouble, go to their site and order it for $5. Saves time , frustration. Plus you get real CD quality music, cover art, and a cute jewel case"
Friend1:"Thanks guys, I can't wait to see them live. When are they coming to town?"
'cause the world ain't full of geeks.
--
+&x
Basic copyright laws? Are you aware how our economic system works wrt IP?
I think they need to be rewritten to some degree. They are not all bad, just like patents aren't all bad, but as I hope that links demonstrates, they are being taken too far. The rules as they are written today are NOT promoting the arts and sciences as well as they might. Too much selfishness has created an imbalance of rights. It's time to take the power back.
When you download songs off of Napster, the artist gets no money. No matter how much you pay for diskspace, bandwith, etc. When you buy a CD or legal mp3s, the artist gets money. How hard is that to understand?
It's not money, per se, but value. How much did it cost 20, 10, hell, even 2 years ago to give 100,000,000 million people access to your music? How much can it cost today? We need to protect the right to capitalize on that value, but to equate it anacronistically directly to money is flawed. That's why we need to rewrite the crufty copyright laws that we are now subject to.
--
+&x
However, illegally copying/stealing music is not the way to do it. That will simply encourage the government to pass stricter laws to stop you.
Exactly, and when our laws require that 25% of the 18-25 year-olds in this country go to jail for copyright infringement, it will be obvious to everyone (and not just the gifted souls who can pick points out an idiot's rantings) that our current IP laws are a pile of shit.
MP3.com is not bad. I prefer streaming music, since I have my own pipe and limited disk space. Try here and here for starters.
--
+&x
Blame the sys-admins, or better hug them now they fixed it.
Dont blame an innocent victim-of-its-success application. Seems stupid to me.
Greetz SlashDread
This is untrue. We need to demand free information. All revolutions start some where. People need to "Think Globally, Act Locally."
All revolutions start somewhere; all revolutions start small.
Open access to information will not come overnight.
This is totally the best part of the whole piece.
It promises us that we will always have a job.
We just need to choose which side of the border we stand on.
Hopefully we can stand firmly on the side that assures us freedom of information.
Knowledge, it is a very powerful tool!
I sometimes question the quality of online journalism... seems that some of them like nandotimes could be dime-a-dozen.
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) - AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
You know, despite your total idiocy, you may have a point. Our current copywrite laws can't last much longer. In a few years, information will simply not be marketable. At that point, we will have to re-work capitolism such that it is compatible with an information economy.
However, illegally copying/stealing music is not the way to do it. That will simply encourage the government to pass stricter laws to stop you. Instead, you should be supporting legally free music. That way, the free music scene will grow and possibly overtake the RIAA. You can start with mp3.com. They have some really good stuff there. It is pretty much all I listen to these days.
------
My school (U of MN) is a major internet hub with an incredible amount of badwidth. Several T3's at least. Napster was taking 58% of our bandwidth before it was banned.
------
OK so the article says that there is no way to bring down a distributed system but there is.
First, catch one of the pirates (preferably an 18+ YO pirate) by tracking his IP address through the IP service provider and then sue him for all he's got, make a poster child of the poor sap. Keep doing this and sue everyone you can. Sure you can't completely shut the thing down but you can knock the breath out of it.
Another approach would be to send that e-mail visur that causes your system to explode to every server you can find.
I think the former solution is the one that the media companies will do but they'd probably attempt the latter if they thought it would work.
I'm surprised that I havent heard of lawsuits against people running gnutella and napster yet. Why is that? Is there a legal loophole here?
no sig.
I would put up thousands of computers running Napster 24/7, and every mp3 file on them would have some really annoying error right in the middle of the song, and then cut off five seconds before the end. Oooooh I hate that!
Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing - Pythagoras
One wonders why it is that illegal stuff is the "primary" purpose of these systems (which I agree, it is). My theory: the demand for legal stuff is higher than anything else.
I mean, in a perfect world, I think it would be great if the latest patches for X software, or the latest Y documents were easily accessible, but for the most part, it's not necessary. You don't NEED gnutella to get the latest distro of you favorite flavor of OS. FTP searching generally will suffice, and odds are FTP's aren't going to be highly over-crowded. You don't NEED gnutella to get the latest issue of Info Weekly, it's easy enough to get it from their webserver.
Really, gnutella and napster arose out of the need to get illegal stuff. This is stuff that probably isn't going to live long if it had a well known central distribution center. This is stuff that is therefore hosted on smaller, overcrowded, hard to access FTP or HTTP sites. Work is still required. So then this new distributed idea is formed, it's basically the idea of the 'underground' taken a little further.. people trading mp3's with whomever they want.
You see, Napster and Gnutella and whatever else were made because it's still hard to get the illegal stuff. Like I said, getting the latest patches and magazines or what not has become amazingly easy lately. Yes, it should be hard to get the illegal stuff, but that's still not going to stop us from making it easier to get it (either warez people, or people who are interested in seeing how a distributed thing like this could work, which I respect)
So, really, the reason you find mostly illegal stuff on these guys is because that's all they're good for. If you have other, easy ways of getting legal stuff, why bother putting it up here? I think it's a shame, cause the convenience could be great and could maybe even in the future help slashdot effect-type scenarios. However, I fear that because of the aforementioned arguement, it will either take a while, or get shut down.
At least.. that's my take on it....
>Please explain to me how having 600,000 songs at my fingertips is wrong when I'm paying for
>bandwidth, diskspace, and promotion. (equivelent to reproduction, distrubution, and promotion in
>the old world)
Because that doesn't at all take into account paying the people that created the music, the artists, the engineers, the producers, the graphic design folk that make the album covers and so forth.
The current model SUCKS at that; the artists get cheated and gypped. I'm the first to say it. But your model sucks even more -- the artists don't see ANYTHING -- not a red cent.
You can pay for all the bandwidth, disk space, and promotion you want, but you're still just being a warez d00d, collecting other peoples' work without paying anyone, and there's no way do dance around it.
>How bright is this?
Brighter than a future where no art gets produced because y'all take away the sole source of artists income without offering anything in return or coming up with any alternatives... But, hey, information wants to be free, gimme gimme gimme.
The way music is distribted now doesn't work well.
The way you'd like to have it distributed won't work at all.
--
(Turning off my +1 because this looks like a long night....)
You're starting to get somewhere, but you're changing the subject. I'm just answering your question "if I have all the diskspace in the world, and I fill it up with stuff that I got free that's actually being charged for by the author, what's wrong with that?"
And it's rather self-evident. The authors and the artists and so forth have released this product with certain terms. You may or may not agree with them, but to violate them is to disrespect the artist's wishes. You're free to do that, but don't expect later arguments about supporting artists to hold any water. If the artists want to give it away free, they will. If their labels won't let them, they'll ditch the labels and do it their own way. If they don't do that, well, then, obviously the money is more important to them than the freedom, and therefore IT'S NOT YOURS TO TAKE FOR FREE.
Now, I like your scenario of everyone doing music for the love of it, and popular artists somehow getting paid just for being popular (although the math is kind of vague in there). I really do. But until and unless such a scheme exists, it's vaporware, and you're pointing to it and saying "SEEEEE, it COULD work!!!" and taking and taking and taking, and not giving back anything to these popular artists that are supposed to be getting paid for being popular.
You want this scheme to work, make it work: set up a record label that gives the music away free. Go on, do it. Get artists to sign up, come up with a business plan that gets people paid somehow for this, and I'll be the first one, really, the VERY FIRST ONE to sign up and help out. C'mon, let's do it, lets figure out free (in the GNU sense) music.
But until it's there, and it ain't there now, you're still just taking free (in the beer sense) music away from people who are trying to make a living selling it on a per-unit basis. And scrambling to justify it with a lot of what-ifs and if-only's.
--
Information does not want to be free. Information is a non-breathing, non-living entity with no feelings and no desires.
People want information to be free, and that's the crux of the problem. As soon as capitalism returns to its roots and begins giving people what they want (in order to make more money, of course), then we'll see a resolution to this problem.
I want my information free. Don't you?
Suppose that your disk is happily sharing with the rest of the world that your DNA has a gene that your employer thinks makes you unsuitable for your work, or anything else you don't want to be known about yourself.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Glad to see someone else has kept some perspective on this whole issue! The great thing about these tools isn't what they're being used for right now (largely "piracy"), but the potential they have to change the way things are done in the future. The legitimate uses far outweight the illegitimate here.
This is much more important than whether John Doe can get his mp3s easier. The distributed nature of things like Gnutella allows for a Net where the individual is *really* empowered, not just nominally so. With traditional avenues like the Web, you're still under the control of a large corporation, governments, etc. This inevitably leads to easy censorship by such groups. Now, however, one can distribute information much more freely.
It could be used by people in countries such as China, where incoming information is strictly censored, to get the information being denied to them by an oppressive regime, as just one example.
The distributed nature of these systems also helps contribute in a way to the robustness of the whole. If one source goes down, there are likely others to fill in. This is good regardless of the type of information being transferred.
And who knows what uses will be found for this in the coming years? When VCRs first came out, it was lobbied against furiously by those in power in the movie industry, fearing it would be just a piracy tool. Yet, while undoubtedly some use VCRs so, the VCR has become an important, legitimate tool for people. And it's created businesses unforeseen when it came out (such as video rental stores).
I think too many people have been looking merely at the first uses to which the technology has been put, rather than considering the potential it has to benefit us all. Criminals have often been the first to use new technology, this doesn't mean the technology is in any way less legitimate. Trying to ban the technology is not going to solve anything. The criminals will still use it, and the public will lose a useful tool.
I don't want the information about my last Doctor visit to be free. I don't want the information about where I live or my favoutite porno movie to be free for every John Q. Nobody to claim rights to and play with until his hearts content.
Of course not, but it wants to be, so you have to fight against it. The problem we have here (if you consider Napster a problem) is that it's not only the information that wants to be free, but an overwhelming number of people who also want it to be free. So while it might be easy for a bank to fight against the natural inclination of information to propogate, after all only an few try to steal money digitally (and it's easier with a gun anyway), it becomes quite a bit more difficult for the RIAA. Especially with information that already is everywhere (CDs), but now it can get everywhere else (Internet).
So it does want to be free. It just is, and just being is quite a good way to be free, if you can follow a sentence with three tenses of the same verb describing a word with multiple correct translations.
--
+&x
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"Information wants to be free."
I disagree in some cases.
At my workplace we're about to begin the ever tedious job of an ISO 9000 audit. I have much information that I thought wished to be free that is sitting on my desk. Sadly, it has not yet made that wish apparent by filling out the appropriate paperwork to become free. Of course I can not violate and ISO standards and just give such information to those who need it. After filling out the paper work it must be approved, dated, given some bizarre version number and distributed on the website.
Since it has yet to make it's wishes clear to me I believe that my information in fact does not wish to be free, regardless of it's usefulness to those who might appreciate it. I plan to soon impose my wishes on the information and fill out the paperwork on it's behalf during a midnight run to the copier. May God keep me save from the ISO storm troopers!
Come to think of it, my information has yet to make any requests to me. Has anyone else been able to communicate with their information? If so, what did it say?
Please. Why do people feel the need to gloss over the purpose of programs like Napster and Gnutella. I'm an Open Source Programmer, and I know damn well that Napster is used to download illegal mp3s more than anything else. Same with Gnutella.
Implying that it is "censorship" to protect one's copyrights is absurd. I know that this is an "advocacy" site, but keep in mind that this sort of doubletalk makes you guys look like the small children who, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, protest their innocence to the last. The fact that Slashdot implicitly condones such action reflects poorly on the Free Software Community. Not all Free Software Users wish to violate copyrights; for many uf us, that's the reason we switched to Free Software.
Sorry, I don't buy that this is the Linux-using David vs. the big, bad, coporate censor Goliath. People use Napster to break the laws. We have bans on certain types of guns which are used to break the law (eg, assault rifles, which have *no* legitimate purpose), likewise, Napster could be legally banned. Sure, maybe 1/100,000th of Napster users download only legit mp3s, but let's not paint to bright a picture of copyright violations, eh emmett?
Information does not want to be free. People want other people's information to be free. How can any reasonable /.er get up in arms about doubleclick.net gathering surfing information, and then claim that information wants to be free.
I certainly don't want the contents of swiss bank accounts to be free. I don't want the information about my last Doctor visit to be free. I don't want the information about where I live or my favoutite porno movie to be free for every John Q. Nobody to claim rights to and play with until his hearts content.
Napster/Gnutella was designed to facilitate the distribution of private mp3 collections. These will generally consist of copyrighted material. I think that its important that people not forget that, while the music companies are big and evil, they have rights too. That means that they have a legitimate gripe with the free distribution of material that they've paid to protect and that they want to sell. I know that napster can be used to distribute other non-copyrighted material, and that's great, but lets not forget the tainted ground on which the thing started. I'm a big free speech advocate, and I download mp3s too, but lets not be totally ignorant as to why napster was created.
The Hacker Manifesto was written back in the ancient eighties by a hacker named Mentor. Read it.......it may be about you.
Also of interest may be the Hacker's Ethic. Something of a code that should be lived by, particularly by those reading these pages. It's where the, "Informationwants/should be free", quote comes from.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
The people here who are defending copyright don't seem to get the point. Freenet isn't about violating copyright -- it's about giving people the power to share information anonymously and inviolably. Freenet can be used to trade MP3s the same way that a 1 GHz Pentium III box can be used to bash someone's brains out.
It's tempting to try to stamp out IP violations (not to mention terrorism and kidd1e pr0n) by regulating probable channels of distribution, but history shows that when the government has that kind of power, it's never used as it was intended. I'd rather have an internet with Freenet and illegally distributed music than an internet where copyright is sacrosanct but everyone who downloaded DeCSS or visited Peacefire.org or looked for harm-reduction information on ecstasy could be traced and have the law loosed against them.
Fantasy? You know the corporations and the government would do this if they could. We need hardcore privacy protection not to permit immoral acts but to preserve our freedom to act morally.
note: if you prefer, "unreasonable/reasonable," "unsustainable/sustainable," and "antisocial/prosocial," among others, can all be substituted into the above paragraph for the controversial m-word...
****
-----
Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
Am I the only person who hates Napster/Gnutella with a passion?
The network at my university has been maxed out at 98% outgoing or so, 80% incoming for quite some time due to Napster. How do I know? Because last Wednesday, they banned it, and this dropped to about 30% outgoing, 50% incoming.
The network here has been mostly unusable for months, and it has been because of Napster.
Now, admittedly, the biggest reason for the outgoing is most likely the fact that Napster doesn't close when you click the "X" in the upper right of the window. Instead, it backgrounds itself and goes into the system tray. This means that people who have no clue how to use a computer excepting to play mp3s and use a word processor get Napster on the advice of a more knowledgeable friend, and proceed to share out gigs of mp3s to the world 24/7. With Gnutella, this probably isn't as big of a problem.
Anyways, I can't be happier that it is banned, and I can hardly feel bad for people whining that they can't steal music with ease anymore. If you can't even take the time to browse IRC or the web for your pirated music, you're pretty pathetic. You're getting it free to begin with, so I have no sympathy for you just because you might have to actually do the smallest bit of work to get it.
My rant for now,
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
People use Napster to break the laws.
Some laws need to broken. Some need to be smashed so hard their teeth rattle. And please spare me the little kiddy not wantin' to pay for CDs spiel, I've heard it, it doesn't apply here. Please explain to me how having 600,000 songs at my fingertips is wrong when I'm paying for bandwidth, diskspace, and promotion. (equivelent to reproduction, distrubution, and promotion in the old world)
let's not paint to bright a picture of copyright violations, eh emmett?
How bright is this?
Keep the music flowing.
--
+&x
This is perceived as a threat to traditional publishing and recording industries just as radio was, and the mimeograph, and television, and the photocopier, and magnetic tape, and the compact disc, and the videocassette recorder, and many other technologies that made sharing information easier. Freenet doesn't do anything different from what can already be done with those technologies, it just does it more efficiently.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Just like to mention that an alternative to copyrights is the Street Performer Protocol by Bruce Schneier. He predicted the advent of systems like this and offers up a partial solution.
I haven't seen anyone really take a stab at setting it up yet though.
Debatable: 'Protecting one's copyrights' is censorship. It can be interpreted as warranted in the interest of promoting economic reward for creative endeavors (which is actually intended to encourage creative endeavors, not economic reward per se), but it is still the suppression of someone else's speech.
Non-debatable: 'Protecting one's copyrights' has certainly been used by organizations, normally large businesses, to censor the speech of others in the case of satire, parody and so forth. The key point here is how far copyrights extend. Parodies of Mickey Mouse (including all kinds of offensive parodies that 'most people' wouldn't like) are actually legally protected but despite this are impossible to defend from armies of lawyers. There are many other examples.
People tend to forget that copyright was created at a specific time with a specific purpose, and that as a legal creation is rather malleable (as has been shown by its constant extension...). /.ers should realize this, especially as it is being extended further and further by things like the DMCA.
There are two basic problems. One, as it becomes more ingrained and gathers more powerful interests behind it, copyright begins to seem a natural moral concept (not an economic incentive). This means that the idea of banning devices which could facilitate copyright violations becomes more palatable. Two, as the technology changes, violating copyright law becomes easier and easier.
All this really means is that it will be extremely difficult to maintain the status quo, and that's what we're seeing: large forces attempting to extend the reach of copyright so that it becomes totally ridiculous, and other forces (perhaps only intending to turn the tide a little, perhaps not) straining to render copyright utterly unenforceable.
A simple "for/against" standpoint doesn't really work anymore, especially since copyright is a legal concept and certain players are able to change the laws in their favour. This is a point that many, including the AC to whom I am replying, appear to miss. Is it 'censorship' to say that you cannot reproduce my work now? In 5 years? In 10? 100? 1000? When does my work (which inevitably drew upon public domain ideas) become part of the public domain? Similarly, is it censorship to say that you can't parody my work? Cite my work? Say bad things about my work? Mention my work?
It's a matter of degree. The key point is not really about copyright 'violations' but rather: what do we want copyright to be? What is the best middle ground between encouraging creativity and encouraging a free and open exchange of ideas? And how do we get there?