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P2P Piracy? Piffle!
jjohn writes: "Boston.com has an op-ed piece on peer-to-peer software like Napster. It concludes, not surprisingly, that
p2p software is in its infancy and isn't likely to credibly challenge
traditional distribution streams of copyrighted material any time soon."
I'm aware that the software is "in beta" (as it has been for months already), but would somebody please tell me whether or not the project has lived up to any of its hype since it first came out? Are there any Freenet developers here who might be able to shed some light on what its current status is? Is there a concrete timeline where it will move from Beta into some semblance of production? Is there any attempt at creating a global list of keys or a search function (for those keys whose authors want them to be public)? The idea itself is incredibly interesting, but I'd like some assurance that for all the hype, we're not looking at another example of vaporware.
First, Freenet is _not_ "in beta". While I know the terms are abused completely, AFAIK "beta" generally means something that is close to being finished / feature complete. Freenet is still in the experimental stage, and likely to stay there for some time. As far as the hype goes, it has certainly lived up to everything that I have hyped it as (an interesting idea with a long way to go). In many ways, the amount of interest in the project amongst the press and geek circles has led to a hyping that has happened completely without the assistance of the actual developers - I don't know how many times I have a crinched after reading "Freenet will save the world" posts here on Slashdot. Of course Freenet is not a panacea, nothing ever is.
And no, there is no timeline for "some semblance of production". It is a free software project, and we are going to continue working on it on the rate we are able and can afford, and hopefully/maybe the day will come when it starts being truely useful. If I were to venture an optimistic guess I would say come back in a year, but don't quote me on that.
Is Freenet vaporware? There have certainly been days when I have been depressed enough by amount of work remains to feel that it actually is. Nothing is for sure in life, and nobody can be sure that Freenet will work as well we would like or even at all. So no, I can't give assurance to contrary, only say that we are working as hard as we can on glimmer of hope that we are really on to something. What more should I be doing for you?
As with most things in life, a balance must be struck or else abuse will run rampant. As I recall vaguely, last year some consumer advocacy (sp?) groups won (or I thought they won) a case against the big record companies, proving that they were overpricing CD's.
From my understanding it cost just pennies to produce a CD, and a few bucks to market it (say, $4-$5 total) Most markup is 50-70% above that so a CD should cost anywhere between $6-$9. Few CD's cost $9, most are in the $15-19 price range. (there are exceptions I know)
I have not seen a significant reduction in the price of CD's, has anyone else?
On to making my point. Until now there has been no counterweight to the high cost of purchasing CD's. Now there is. Just hook up to Napster and get your music for free. Normally you don't download the whole CD, just one or two songs. Napster is the first counterweight to the old business model.
The new economy isn't about technology so much as it's about a companies ability to be dynamic and USE technology to further increse profits. The recording industry, instead of finding new solutions is going back to old tactics (lawyers & courtrooms)
See Free Haven for resources on real P2P development.
When a Court orders the shutting off of Napster, it shuts off the server(s) and the system is gone. The judge doesn't have to enter your home to shut down the whole system.
On correct implementations of P2P the court would have to shut down at least N-1 nodes of an N-node network (or break links so that no 2 nodes can talk to each other).
This article pretty much gets the facts right. Unfortunately, it really doesn't matter. The Big Media companies don't want to hear this. They want people to believe that piracy is absolutely rampant on the Internet, that they're losing billions in sales of CDs and DVDs, that record stores are going out of business because of MP3 trading. Because if they can successfully make that case, they can get legislation passed -- like the DMCA -- that gives them more and more control over content and distribution on the internet.
Companies like Bertelsmann and Warner and the rest of the MPAA/RIAA crowd want to turn the internet into yet another passive, advertisement-filled medium. They don't want people - users, consumers, eyeballs - to decide what to send across the net and what is available for viewing or hearing. They want to decide that for you, and make you have to pay for all of it.
And the best way they can do that is to demonize the freedom of the internet, to show that really the consumer is better off if they run everything. So they don't want to believe that Gnutella doesn't work very well, and that Napster isn't hurting sales.
And they don't want you to believe that either.
(cirka 1994)
The Internet works -- just not all that well. And that's good news for BBS and online services like Compuserv and Prodigy.
Mind you, the concept retains its geeky appeal. It's not just the prospect of communicating with anybody you want, phone companies be damned. There's also the techy coolness of the idea -- direct linkages between millions of computers, without the clumsy mediation of some central BBS service. A slick idea, but devilishly hard to execute.
[...]
Keep in mind that the Internet is still under development and bound to get better. But as long as it remains a pure network system, with no central service or company to keep tabs on the network, the Internet will probably never be as slick and efficient as AOL. Which is why Internet style communication may not be quite such an apocalyptic peril after all.
> Napster is not peer-to-peer, it is client-server architecture.
If it's wrong to call Napster p2p, it's equally wrong to call it client-server. Napster is a mix.
Traditional Client-server would be something like FTP - one server, lots of direct connections with clients. Star shaped topology.
Pure p2p is gnutella - god awful topology, connections all over the place, all nodes are "equal".
Napster is a bit of both - client-server for queries and direct communication for transfers. This is an important point, because if Napster was purely client-server, they would be hosting content, and thus clearly would have been shut down a long time ago for holding all those mp3s.
> Free Net and Mojo Nation are P2P.
Doesn't Mojo nation have a central broker for handling Mojo's (ie a bank)? It's just like napster in that sense.
Mike
Tales from behind the Lagom Curtain