KaZaa Ignores Court Order to Shut Down

An anonymous reader submitted that "The Amsterdam district court ruled two weeks ago that the KaZaa P2P program is acting unlawfully by making software available that allows users to download music files and must shut down. The court gave the company 14 days to do this or face $40,000 US a day in fines. KaZaa has chosen to ignore the shutdown order."

Comments

WHy would it matter?

[monkeyfamily]

Even if the corp shut down, we'd all still be able to use the clients, right?

Re:WHy would it matter?

[Hal-9001]

How is the parent comment redundant? This is the fundamental argument as to why networks like Napster and KaZaA should not be shut down: that corporations are not (or at least, should not) be accountable for the illegal behavior of users on a copyright-neutral network (at least before the SSSCA: IANAL and honestly have no idea what current copyright law has been bought^H^H^H^H^H^Hpushed through by RIAA/MPAA). Furthermore, neither the posted or linked stories discuss the fact that KaZaA is just one client on the Fasttrack network so, unlike Napster, KaZaA has no control over whether or not the network is available to clients. That begs the question: how are you going to enforce, either as a company or as a government, the behavior of 27 million people? (especially after Judge Patel's ridiculous 100% compliance stipulation)

Furthermore, why isn't the court going after Microsoft since Internet Explorer is the underlying layer of both KaZaA and Morpheus? Microsoft has about as much control as KaZaA over the Fasttrack network, and is even more culpable because their software is behind both of the major Fasttrack clients. If they want to pursue a ridiculous interpretation of the law, they might as well apply it consistently and not just to convenient targets.

Re:WHy would it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fasttrack is the layer under Kazaa and Morpheus.
IE is just a gimmick.
They will continue to work without.

Re:WHy would it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fundamental problem is that program is used for little other than sharing of copywrited music. The company is making money from the illegal actions of its users. While i don't have a problem with people violating copywrite laws for their own personal use, the idea of people making money off of it is wrong.

Re:WHy would it matter?

[naChoZ]

It's probably just like xolox (also a fast track client).

They shut down a bit 'proactively' but if you simply block the client from accessing www.xolox.nl (or dig around a little bit for a slightly patched version someone made) it works just great.

Re:WHy would it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, xolox is not fasttrack based, but gnutella based.

-jasta

Re:WHy would it matter?

[jokell82]

Umm...no. XoloX was a gnutella client, NOT a fast track client. The reason it still works is because it didn't have to login to a central server to work, it just checked to see if there were updated versions available. Team XoloX were able to make the program shut down through this check. Therefore, if you keep your client from reaching the site, it doesn't check and it lets you access the gnutella network freely. In fact, it's still my favorite file sharing app.

Re:WHy would it matter?

[stu72]

Please demonstrate the court of /. one piece of evidence to back up your insinuation that kazza is profitable.

Another order....

[mikeage]

did they also ignore the court order to remove the spyware? What? There was no such order... well.. there damn well should've been... I want to use KaZaa!

Yes, this is a joke, I know they need to make money somehow.

Re:Another order....

[Yakko]

I dunno, because I've never installed KaZaA, but...

Run Ad-Aware after installing it!

Home of Ad-Aware which is being held hostage in failing nameservers. . .

Re:Another order....

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Mayhaps you should use the offical link then...

Just a thought.

Re:Another order....

[ncc74656]

did they also ignore the court order to remove the spyware? What? There was no such order... well.. there damn well should've been... I want to use KaZaa!

Get Morpheus...it accesses the same network, but doesn't include any shovelware/spyware.

Re:Another order....

[jkovach]

I installed Morpheus and without asking it installed some software from Brilliant Digital. Went to their website and it looks like it's a "enhanced" media player plugin a la Onflow that seems to exist to "enhance" our advertising experience. Sounds like shovelware to me...

I know the BD software isn't essential for Morpheus because I uninstalled it and Morpheus still works. The software probably doesn't spy on you, hence they can say "no spyware", but it still installs it without asking.

Re:Another order....

[ncc74656]

I installed Morpheus and without asking it installed some software from Brilliant Digital.

That must be something new, as I've never even heard of it. If it's shoveling more ads at you, odds are those ads come with third-party cookies that are left behind on your computer (unless you've taken other measures to block them)...so much for their claim of "no spyware."

One point in their favor is that they haven't nagged me to upgrade their client software. FreeAmp and Windows Media Player work well enough for me (the former for MP3s and the latter for everything else); I don't need an ad vehicle that pretends to be a media player.

Go KaZa!

[Anonymous Coward]

But, how are you going to ignore the seizure of assets?

Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

When the police show up to arrest the principals, all they have to do is flash a toothy grin and a packet of Mentos, the FreshMaker, and everything will be forgotten.

Hey, it works in Italy all the time.

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice idea. Just like KaZaa, Mentos is the product of a Dutch company.

Re:Easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that's funny. Why is it moderated as a troll?

Easier to download anthrax plans that way

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure glad they didn't shutdown. Cuz, this'll provoke the 'cyber treatys' across multiple nations to be used. Time for that thing to get thrown out of multiple courts. Or time to face up that we really do live in a facist Ashcroft world

Re:Easier to download anthrax plans that way

[Anonymous Coward]

We are living in a more restrictive world with each strangling treaty. Remember when the Red Chinese were the bad guys and the West were the good guys? Sentiment, from much of slashdot posts, follows the socialist philosophy that all inventions and performances belong the people and only the greedy enemies of the people act to restrict and profit from it (or something similar to that effect.)

The U.S. legal view of property is becoming the world view. Worse, business organizations such as RIAA and MPAA are driving these laws and treaties rather than the people the government allegedly represents.

Good

[ConsumedByTV]

I say ignore all unjust laws.

Re:Good

[FortKnox]

explain the "unjust-ness" of this law to me.

Take this out of the "Slashdot, info/music wants to be free" world and explain to me how this law is unjust.

If you made music, you'd want to get paid for your effort, too...

Free software/music is a good ideal to strive for, but its unpractical in practice. You gotta put food on the table.

Re:Good

[Paladin128]

"I say ignore all unjust laws."

And get your ass thrown into jail? There are plenty of unjust laws in almost every civilized country. If you ignore them, however, the penalty is stiff.

I guess you could ignore the imprisonment as well, and get shot trying to escape.

Re:Good

[telbij]

True dat...

But I don't particularly support music companies because they regularly screw over artists. This is not justification for stealing music, just an interesting fact that no one is suing the recording industry for the theft they've done...

As far as justifying the music I steal :), that is easy, downloading music has nothign to do with what music I buy. If anything, it allows me to hear a wider variety of music and probably influences me to buy more CDs (cuz I don't buy it unless I know it's good, except for zappa).

Re:Good

[anpe]

Politicians vote laws that the people who elected them deserve.

Re:Good

[ethereal]

I say ignore all unjust laws.

And get your ass thrown into jail?

Yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work - just ask any civil rights marchers from the Deep South, for instance. Once the government realizes that they can't throw everyone in jail, the laws get changed. Or sometimes you get a new government.

Really, you're taking a gamble that enough other people will join your civil disobedience that the government can't ignore you.

Re:Good

[j_skillz]

As true as that may be. Why should I pay the recording for nothing. The recording industry will get my money when they deliver me a product. If the recording industry somehow facilitated the music reaching me, I'd pay them, but for now. EAT SHIT RIAA!!!!

Re:Good

[dangermouse]

Sometimes, that's a gamble that just doesn't make sense. Nobody's going to stage a download-in, publically load up their laptops with pirated music, and then go to jail en masse.

For one thing, most people wouldn't consider it worthwhile. This isn't about basic human rights, it's about consumer rights, and that's a whole different-- and less urgent-- ballgame.

Re:Good

[PD]

Henry David Thoreau was put into jail for not paying his taxes. Thoreau was big on the idea of civil disobedience as a way to address injustice in society. His friend Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him in jail and asked him "Henry, what are you doing in jail?"

Henry replied, "What are you doing OUT of jail?"

(Of course, if you live in a $27 house, even if it's on lakefront property, having the government take everything you own isn't a big deal.)

Re:Good

[shepd]

>Take this out of the "Slashdot, info/music wants to be free" world and explain to me how this law is unjust.

Ok, lets also take KaZaa out of the IT world and put it IRL then.

KaZaa is a music sharing network that depends on its users to ensure they only distribute free music. KaZaa is no more at fault for your personal failure to use your own judgement than the city is at fault when people use city roads to traffic drugs.

Using a road to commit crimes is no harder (actually its easier -- notice how much easier it is to break the speed limits) than using KaZaa to break copyright. And, normally, the law punishes the guilty (copyright violators) and upholds the rights of the innocent (the people building the infrastructure who never broke the law doing it).

>If you made music, you'd want to get paid for your effort, too...

I agree. That's why we must go after the perpetrators (people using the KaZaa network illicitly) and not the builders.

There you go -- no slashdot mumbo jumbo. Just 100% clear laymans terms. You should be able to tell that to just about anyone on the street and they should understand. :)

Re:Good

[Paladin128]

• Really, you're taking a gamble that enough other people will join your civil disobedience that the government can't ignore you.

That's one hell of a gamble in this case. The governments of the world cannot throw all the users of Kazaa in jail because they are anonymous. They can, however, jail those who made Kazaa, and use them to set examples of other programmers who would make P2P technologies.

Unfortunately, most of the public would not march for them. Most people are truly apathetic.

When I find a law is unjust, I contribute in a way I can: go to non-violent protests, write letters, sign campaigns, give cash to the EFF, NRA, Libertarian party, or whoever I think has the best chance to help fight it. I would not be willing to break the law unless it was a major force of tyrranny that threatened the lives of the people in my nation.

Re:Good

[FortKnox]

Your analogy works great if we were refering to the internet, not KaZaa. In your analogy, KaZaa would be the "Drug Store" on the street. They sell legal and illegal drugs.

They claim that they shouldn't be shut down cause they sell "legal" drugs. The illegal drugs they can't control.....

What would a cop do?
Control it, or we'll shut ya down.

Re:Good

[ConsumedByTV]

If you could only trade music on this and you knew it was all copywritten, perhaps it could be justice for those folks.

However, I thumb my nose at this pittiful attempt at stealing rights. Why should they close down?

After all you can do the same thing with bash, a raw socket, grep and a flat text file.
It just so happens that when someone makes anything easy it comes to the attention of shit heads like the RIAA to protect something that isnt even theirs.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not real bright, are you?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so now we get into the real problem: Kazaa is unpoliceable.

If there were, for example, a road between Mexico and the US that had no checkpoints on it, it would be closed down. Similarly, Kazaa lets people exchange copyrighted material (a crime) and provides no means for police forces to catch them doing so. So it needs to be shut down.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

>If you made music, you'd want to get paid for your effort, too...

I agree. That's why we must go after the perpetrators (people using the KaZaa network illicitly) and not the builders.

Just to bring this back to the Slashdot level, let's not forget that if you're trying to remove the people responsible for the artists not getting paid, you're also going to have to go after the labels.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Downloading illegal music doesn't effect the artists at all. Who it does effect is the Recording industry, which already has more money than it knows what to do with. So it figures, hey.. having more money than all the third world contries combined isn't enough, let's start suing so we can make more, and see how easy it is to sway the judicial system.

Re:Good

[TheCarp]

Not a drug store...a flea market.

Kazaa is not providing anything but a space for people to "distribute" stuff.... muchg like a flea market. Anyone can come, pay the fee (if there is a fee...usually is) and setup a table and sell stuff.

Should the flea market be liable if you are caught selling illicit drugs at the flea? Its not like you came by and said "Hey, I want a stand at your flea market so I can sell drugs", you just came up and paid the fee and got a space.

Same on KaZaa...they have know way to know what it is your distributing. They are just providing you space.

Or how about this.... This isn't the drug store arguing they should stay open, its the owner of the property the drug store rents its space from saying they should be allowed to keep their building open and to rent it out to someone.

-Steve

Re:Good

[Dutchmaan]

Actually yes... If you own a flea market and someone is selling drugs there then you are indeed liable under the law as a property owner.

Re:Good

[TheRain]

"And, normally, the law punishes the guilty (copyright violators) and upholds the rights of the innocent (the people building the infrastructure who never broke the law doing it)."

except that, in this case, these people aren't building roads and sidewalks with the intent of making transportation easier... they are purposefully enabling users to engage in illegal activity. while the software has legal uses... more people will use it for illegal file transfer, and the company knows this. that was their intent. if you hired a hit man to kill your spouse who had lots of money that was willed to you... you would be doing something illegal. even though the end product you wanted was money and not a dead spouse. you knew the spouse would die. in the same way, users are paid with illegal files to transfer illegal files to gain the company a user base..... which is an oppurtunity for them. Then they tell autorities it's not their fault, it's the user base... and the majority of the user base rallies in their favor. does that sound stupid enough for you?

Re:Good

[Mike Schiraldi]

If you made music, you'd want to get paid for your effort

And if you were the entrepreneur who started Kazaa, you'd want to get paid for your effort, too.

What's that you say? Kazaa is making money by exploiting others? Welcome to the music industry.

Re:Good

[Yakko]

If you made music, you'd want to get paid for your effort, too...

This would be agreeable if that's the way it really worked. If you flip the percentages of the proceeds around (such that the Artist now gets what the RIAA is getting, and vice-versa), then you'd probably have a few more shameful heads around here.

While I have no facts to back my opinion up, it is my opinion that the artists are being stiffed anyway.

Re:Good

[foobar104]

I say ignore all unjust laws.

It is never appropriate to ignore a law. You can obey it, or you can lobby against it, or you can openly defy it, but you must never ignore it.

The strength of our society (by which I mean the modern judicial society in general, wherever in the world it is found) is based on the authority of the law. We consent to be bound by the authority of law, and in return we live in a prosperous, ordered society. If a law is unjust, you must fight-- within the system when possible-- to overturn it.

But ignoring a law, even an unjust law, trivializes The Law as a whole, which erodes the core pillar of our society.

Disagree or even disobey, but always respect and honor.

Re:Good

[TopFlite211]

>>>I say ignore all unjust laws.

>>And get your ass thrown into jail?

>Yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work

And there in lies part of the problem we continually face these days.

What's the difference between congress passing silly laws that have to wait to be fixed by the Supreme Court later and A large software company releasing a knowingly buggy product and fixing it later via patches?

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Check your history about the civil rights movement. While Dr. King led many protests and practiced civil disobedience, he always worked within the law. He NEVER defied a court order. That's a lesson that seems to get lost. While working to change law you work within the current law framework - you do not go outside of it. (that's not to say you don't get arrested, but you do not subvert the rule of law by dismissing court decisions)

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

>Actually yes... If you own a flea market and someone is selling drugs there then you are indeed liable under the law as a property owner.

Better hope that requires prior knowledge that the event is occurring or you'll have every hotel owner in Detroit shaking in their boots.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

>Similarly, Kazaa lets people exchange copyrighted material (a crime) and provides no means for police forces to catch them doing so. So it needs to be shut down.

Then let's shut down all the roads. You can't have police sitting along the vast stretches of roads in various countries (the Praries in my country come to mind) and expect a police officer to sit at every mile (most especially when there's 100 miles of road going through a 10 person town). Therefore these roads let drug runners move drugs without a means of police forces catching them. Therefore all roads outside of big cities need to be closed.

Re:Good

[Znork]

Um, considering the RIAA is behind the greatest push to remove any possibility of the artists getting paid for downloaded music (of course, the RIAA wants to get paid, but they want to be the only ones getting paid, the artists should get nothing), the choice isnt between the artist getting paid and not, it's between the the artist not getting paid and the artist not getting paid.

Since that is the case, to either through boycott or downloading, deprive the RIAA of its means to retain the stranglehold it has on the music industry isnt an ethical problem.

Once they dont have the clout to trick unsuspecting artists into enslavement and debt contracts, maybe a more healthy online distribution can be set up. Preferably where the artists and writers get the most of the money.
Personally I dont buy any CD's anymore unless from the band itself, and I dont even listen to RIAA crap if I can avoid it.

Re:Good

[ethereal]

I fail to see the distinction - civil disobedience is by definition disobeying a law because you disagree with it. Sitting at that lunch counter and being arrested was breaking the law and it was civil disobedience. Not sitting at the back of the bus was the same thing. Many Jim Crow laws were upheld in courts at some point, so breaking them was disobeying a court order.

I agree that you can't just dismiss court decisions, and in fact I didn't say that you should. I just said that you should stand up for your beliefs, plan to embrace the consequences of your actions, and think about whether the consequences are really worthwhile to you.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

:-D Good Point!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

>they are purposefully enabling users to engage in illegal activity

Unlike Napster, I don't recall any memos showing up from KaZaa saying anything like "We're having trouble making money -- lets market our service to pirates a little more".

>if you hired a hit man to kill your spouse

Well, if you hired the KaZaa team and told them to add in a special MP3 tag filter that only returned copyrighted mp3s so you could more easily download illegally shared music, and they agreed, well, yeah, the situation would be the same. Otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense.

>even though the end product you wanted was money and not a dead spouse. you knew the spouse would die.

Because you asked him to do that. I've never once emailed KaZaa saying "I am having trouble downloading illegal music with your service. Can you make it easier for me to download illegal music?". I doubt they'd even reply if I did.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense, and I clearly addressed this point in my post: if there were an unpoliced highway running from Mexico to the US, it would be shut down.

Also, if there are huge stretches of road in the middle of the country, there's nothing to stop the police patrolling them. They have all the requisite equipment and legal powers. However, there is no way to police Kazaa. Shut it down.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's only about the current and future structure of society - which is much more important long-term than any single human rights issue, since it will affect many human rights issues.

Re:Good

[frankrachel]

I say pay for the music people have put much time into creating.

But I'm sure you're all using KaZaa/etc. to download copies of things you already legally own..

Re:Good

[ryusen]

the problem i see with the civil disobedience argument is this:
sure it's unjust, sure the corperations are buying laws that are taking advantage of us, but... how many people are willing to go to jail over downloading music?
i know the issue is much bigger than that, but the music is the imediate reward and i don't think many people see beyond that. this is not about slavery or an oppresive governement (well not yet)
although it would be nice if those ftc charged price fixing violations were enforced too .)

Re:Good

[tssm0n0]

Yes, that's exactly how it's supposed to work - just ask any civil rights marchers from the Deep South, for instance. Once the government realizes that they can't throw everyone in jail, the laws get changed. Or sometimes you get a new government.

Not always. That's why our jails are jammed packed full of marijuana smokers with no chance of drug law reform in sight.

Re:Good

[TheRain]

I think you've got my analogy switched around. KaZaa is the one soliciting "hiring" a user base. The user base are the hit men.... KaZaa has made an environment for trading music and they know that it will be used for illegal purposes. They also know that they will have more users if they can transfer music illegally.. that's what these people want to do. How many people do you know using software like this for legal legitimate purposes? If you're like me and you lived on a college campus for a period of time, you can see the ratio.

"Unlike Napster, I don't recall any memos showing up from KaZaa saying anything like "We're having trouble making money -- lets market our service to pirates a little more"."

The concept of the software is inherantly marketed towards pirating. The fact that Napster wanted to market to pirates even more doesn't mean they weren't already marketing to pirates, much less that KaZaa has not been marketing to them all along.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and thanks to him today we have no taxes, right?

Re:Good

[ichimunki]

Record companies get sued all the time. Often by the very people they are ripping off.

As to "stealing" music... I don't condone shoplifting. Copying stuff without permission isn't "stealing" though. It's copying stuff.

Re:Good

[arkanes]

Thats a whole different unjust law that relates only to drugs, howver - the seizure of property that drug crimes take place on is a ridiculous measure. For example, if someone is growing pot on land you own (even without your knowledge or consent), YOUR land can be (and has been) confiscated.

Re:Good

[Kengineer]

Not a drug store...

So what! Drug laws are unenforced in Amsterdam!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, you!

How dare you suggest that kicking in the windows of McDonalds and Starbucks franchises is not considered civil disobience in the style of Gandhi and King?

Re:Good

[BrookHarty]

A local town just passed a local law about distracting drivers while driving. They went beyond cell phones and includes, drinking coffee, talking to passengers, smoking and changing the radio stations. These laws take the lowest common denominator and encompasses it into a law. And the American attitude is to comply with these laws.

America the land of criminals. Until proven innocent.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

How does that apply to government owned land?
It is well known to locals that there are large pot fields on Eglin AFB in Florida.

So where does that fit in?

Re:Good

[TheCarp]

Ok.... strike that and make it stolen goods.

Your right of course... I forgot that drug laws are "funny like that"

So is that your computer or one you stole? The Flea doesn't know. The whole flea wont get shut down because one vendor is caught with stolen goods.

-Steve

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Has KaZaa paid any users?

How about flea markets? Do they pay users?

I think that flea market analogy is a good one.
The Detroit hotel analogy is also good.

If KaZaa is paying folks to traffic illegal wares then they must have real deep pockets. If they aren't then that hitman analogy is real bad logic.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote earlier that the new take on the freeway analogy made it incomplete.

What about enforcing the hiring of a hitman over the phone? Is the phone company at fault?

Re:Good

[ethereal]

Not that I don't sympathize with those folks, and feel that there's no reason to imprison or penalize them, but even that isn't reaching to the level of civil disobedience that's needed. Maybe if every pot smoker in America (of which I am not one) would go downtown, light up in front of city hall, and dare the government to throw them in jail, there would be a change. It really takes a lot of people to affect change. So far the drug resistance has not met that critical mass nationally, although in some states it's probably there or pretty close.

Re:Good

[PD]

You've got a point, but only partially. While it is true that we can't smoke pot now despite the civil disobedience of millions of people, it is also true that anybody of any race can sit at the front of the bus and the lunch counter at Woolworth's.

Re:Good

[Zeinfeld]

I suspect I am not the only person finding the comparison to the civil rights protests disgusting. There is a big difference between getting arrested for drinking at a colored water fountain and getting arresting for ripping off the latest U2 or Dire Straits tracks.

If you want to listen to music then pay for the damn stuff.

If someone set up a site whose sole purpose was to facilitate trading of WareZ for profit nobody would be leaping to defend them. OK Elton John and Bono probably get paid more than the average slashdotter, but the average slashdotter gets paid a heck of a lot more than the average third tier band with a major label recording contract. In 1999 the number of slashdotters with eight figure bank accounts probably outnumbered the number of musicians with one (no longer though, thanks GWB!)

What I really have no time for are the various venture capital funded attempts to make money out of ripping off music. Napster was such a shitty concept. They build up a big user base by giving away other people's property for free then they turn round and 'monetise' the base - spamvertising, pop up ads, spyware and of course screwing up your DNS to point to the Idealab! creation of the week. So the deal is Napster gives away $10 worth of someone else's property then tries to buy them off with a 5% share of the 20 cents they make back off advertising - great business model.

Of course it must be said that the MPAA and the RIAA are hardly deserving of sympathy for their predicament. Perhaps if the MPAA had not introduced the DVD zone system so they can charge twice as much for DVDs in Europe as they do in the states I would have some sympathy. I might even have some respect for them ifd they did not insist on peddling their pathetic lie that the Zone system is there to enforce different release dates in different zones - if that is the excuse then why are back-catalogue releases zone encoded.

And don't get me started on the cluelessness of the RIAA and their SDMI scheme. In the DMCA the RIAA effectively stole the returned rights of many recording artists by bribing Congress to declare the recordings 'works for hire' and thus exempt from the returned rights provision. It was only when the whistle was blown that a hasty ammendment was introduced to another bill repeal the section of the previous act. Fortunately the computer industry can afford to buy far more congressmen than the RIAA can by a factor of ten so I don't worry too much about the Hollings proposal.

The KaZaa case is not being heard in a US court so the relevance of the Libertarian party and the NRA mentioned by another poster is not immediately apparent. Incidentally the Netherlands has pretty liberal IP laws compared to the US, we managed to get Karin Spaink and co. off when the $cientologists went after them.

The real issue is the extent to which KaZaa can exercise control over their network and the extent to which they have deliberately placed it beyond control. Funny thing about courts is that they are not too sympathetic when you tell them you cannot do something because you anticipated a legitimate legal action and deliberately acted to make it impossible for you to comply. In the case of KaZaa there are a fistfull of shell companies set up with the sole purpose of frustrating court action.

The offense of 'contempt of court' is not simply failling to obey a court order, it is challenging the authority of the courts. So KaZaa may be considered to have been in contempt by launching their scheme in the first place.

Re:Good

[filtersweep]

No way-

If I were to build a PRIVATE road on private land, and allow you all to sign a waiver so you can drive as fast as you want, the police would have NO jurisdiction to give you a speeding ticket (but arguably it could not directly connect to a public road without a checkpoint, etc..). However if you committed murder on the road, it would definitely be in the police's jurisdiction (ever heard of a speedway?).

I don't understand this mixed message that the internet is public and private property at the same time. On one hand, nobody forces ANYBODY to have internet in their homes. You don't want your kids surfing porn, don't get the internet (there are obviously other means for accomplishing these ends).

"Illegal file transfer" ?! I PAY money for anything of value to me. I only have a finite amount to spend. I will spend a relatively fixed amount on my entertainment. The price of that entertainment determines how much I receive. I would never PAY money for any of the Napster crap I ever downloaded... I downloaded because I COULD. People who use warez are not people who would ever have purchased the software in the first place. No company is LOSING money.

If labels are worried about LOSING MONEY, maybe they need to ADD VALUE to what they sell. Remember when album artwork meant something? Nowdays I throw a CD in my 100 disc changer and never look at the booklet. The fact that you can purchase a DVD for about the same price as a music CD is pathetic. A DVD is a great example of adding value to something- something many people might even already own as a video cassette.

At best, an "illegal copy" should be of inferior enough quality to prompt the purchase of the original (ie. who wants a badly compressed mp3 or grainy video file of a song or movie they really like?). People have yet to trade full .wav files. The industry really needs to regard file trading as a street-level promotional tool.

Re:Good

[ryanwright]

A local town just passed a local law about distracting drivers while driving.

That would be North Bend, Washington, just outside of Seattle. Hello fellow Washingtonian.

Re:Good

[HiThere]

...Disagree or even disobey, but always respect and honor...

Sorry. The laws being passed recently, and the motivations behind them, make respect and honor quite difficult. And it's not at all clear that it's worth the effort.

Unless you want to contend that Robin Hood respected the laws of King John (he was careful not to get caught, so an argument could be made).
.

Re:Good

[shepd]

>Nonsense, and I clearly addressed this point in my post: if there were an unpoliced highway running from Mexico to the US, it would be shut down.

There are unpoliced highways between Canada and America. Which is what I was talking about. And, strangely enough, more of your mary jane comes from us rather than Mexico.

No, these highways have not been shut down. Well, maybe now after 9/11, but before, never been a problem.

Re:Good

[kz45]

But I don't particularly support music companies because they regularly screw over artists. This is not justification for stealing music, just an interesting fact that no one is suing the recording industry for the theft they've done...

theft? THEFT? it's called BUSINESS. It happens ALL THE TIME. (that's why you get a lawyer to read through a contract, before signing it).

If you actually knew all companies were screwing "the little guy", you probably wouldn't buy very much in this world.

Re:Good

[kz45]

Okay, so now we get into the real problem: Kazaa is unpoliceable.

If there were, for example, a road between Mexico and the US that had no checkpoints on it, it would be closed down. Similarly, Kazaa lets people exchange copyrighted material (a crime) and provides no means for police forces to catch them doing so. So it needs to be shut down.

unfortunatly, kazaa's cacheservers/headquarters reside in the netherlands, which CAN be controlled.

Re:Good

[kz45]

Downloading illegal music doesn't effect the artists at all. Who it does effect is the Recording industry, which already has more money than it knows what to do with. So it figures, hey.. having more money than all the third world contries combined isn't enough, let's start suing so we can make more, and see how easy it is to

I've herd this argument time and time again. "they have enough money, they don't need any more". W

Re:Good

[foobar104]

Sorry. The laws being passed recently, and the motivations behind them, make respect and honor quite difficult. And it's not at all clear that it's worth the effort.

Unless you want to contend that Robin Hood respected the laws of King John (he was careful not to get caught, so an argument could be made).

First of all, Robin Hood is fiction, and besides that the story predates the modern legalistic society.

'Round about the time of the American and French revolutions a shift took place in world politics. The absolute authority of monarchs began to be replaced by the absolute authority of The Law. I don't mean any one law specifically, but rather the idea that The Law, as a body of rules, is the highest authority.

This isn't a new idea; it's embedded pretty firmly in Judeo-Christian cultures going all the way back to the time of the Hebrews. In the pre-Christian era, The Law was handed down by Yahweh himself and was considered to be infallible. The coming of the Christian church in the first century AD brought the era of the Popes, which led in part to the medieval idea of the divine right of kings. Suddenly The Law was no longer an entity of itself, but rather simply an extension of the will of kings and queens and Popes who had a divine mandate to rule.

Philosophical shifts in the 17th century led to yet another change in this paradigm. John Locke refuted the divine right of kings pretty thoroughly in Two Treatises On Government; in these writings Locke first put forth the idea of the legitimacy of government through the consent of the governed. Locke took some of the ideas of Thomas Hobbes-- notably the concept of man in a state of nature and of moral law-- and extended them, attempting to apply them to the real world in a practical sense. Locke contended that, in an ideal world, Hobbes's ideas would hold sway, but that the real world is one of scarcity, and as such it is necessary for man to willingly delegate some of his natural moral authority to society in the name of greater good for all.

Then came the American Revolution (among other changes in the world at the end of the 18th century) and with it a political system never before seen in the world: one based on the very Lockian idea of political legitimacy and the consent of the people.

Inherent in this idea is the notion that we, as citizens, must respect the law of our land, for man in the natural state and man as a citizen of the society are incompatible ideas. In order for a government to stand, all of its members must uphold their end of Locke's social contract.

A lack of respect for The Law leads to anarchy and chaos. Perhaps the anarchy may come in a small way, and be hardly noticable at first, but eventually it will erode our society and lead us back to barbarism.

So I stand by my original opinion. Disagree with laws. Disobey when your conscience tells you that you must. But if you fail to respect the law, the only source of authority that our society allows, then you're destroying our country and our society as surely as if you did it with guns and bombs.

Re:Good

[mr100percent]

Martin Luther King Junior, taking the advice of Ghandi, said that an unjust law is one that stunts human personality.
A copyright law may be written in the sprit of justice, but, is being applied in the wrong way. Therefore the law itself is just, it's just the police may be using the wrong law codes in this case.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

My quotation my senior year reflected your post.
"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Re:Good

[BrookHarty]

Ya, I didnt want to say the town, the mayor admitted he cant dial a phone and drive, he ended up in the wrong lane. (Even idiots can become mayor...)

I can play quake3 arena, watch a DVD and still manage to cut off drivers on I5. See no problem!

Re:Good

[phat_rat]

FUCK YOU,YOU STUPID LACKY. I bet your just another sheep who thinks that things cant be changed.I call for real action.A bombing or two,maybe a couple of CRIMINALS such as presidents get killed..you know..the usual..

Re:Good

[phat_rat]

Not about an OPPRESSIVE GOVERNMENT. Please name one government that is not oppressive. "Your ideas are making you dangerous, please report to the nearest re-educations centre promptly ~Bahh~(Sheep Style)"

Re:Good

[crucini]

I suspect I am not the only person finding the comparison to the civil rights protests disgusting. There is a big difference between getting arrested for drinking at a colored water fountain and getting arresting for ripping off the latest U2 or Dire Straits tracks.

The ramifications of the emerging "intellectual property" regime extend far beyond pop entertainment. Even within the realm of entertainment, I cannot accept the idea that our common culture is "owned" by whoever capitalized its creation. The popular songs of U2 and Dire Straits are, in fact, in the public domain. They are widely known cultural referents, and many musicians could play them from memory. Unfortunately, the law has not kept up with reality, and denies that these songs are in the public domain.

But how do you even know there were civil rights protests? You know because that information was free to retransmit and archive. The Olympic Committee bans any unauthorized coverage of the games - they consider the games their "intellectual property". Even the athletes are forbidden to keep diaries. What if a city hosting the next WTO summit sells the "media rights" to a corporation? Then it would be illegal to pass on news or images from the protests.

If you watch the development of IP, it's clear that there is a powerful drive to destroy information. Shut down the fan sites, delete the tributes and remixes, take the old books out of print, take the old records off the shelf. Your example of Scientology vs Spaink highlights this destructive, censoring aspect of "intellectual property". And corporations are allergic to history - they'd like consumers and stockholders to live in the eternal now. Ever dig up an old computer magazine and see how quaint the "high-tech" ads appear? Kind of takes the edge off of techno-lust. Now if you were the publisher of that magazine, wouldn't you like to exercise your "intellectual property rights" and magically make the old magazines disappear? Your advertisers would like that.

And besides, by destroying the old material "content providers" create a vacuum into which to sell the new material. Already we are seeing laws (building codes) that are copyrighted by private corporations and illegal to reproduce. How long until your day-to-day activities are governed by secret laws?

If you want to listen to music then pay for the damn stuff.

Why? That's like saying "If you want to breathe air then pay for the damn stuff." Sure, it could support a massive air industry. Sure, the nonexistent air industry is losing billions of dollars a year, but why should I care? Conversely, why are you posting to slashdot for free? Surely you "deserve to be payed" for making insightful comments? Doesn't it bother you that I'm "ripping off" the "comment industry"?

I agree with the second half of your post.

Re:Good

[foobar104]

FUCK YOU,YOU STUPID LACKY. I bet your just another sheep who thinks that things cant be changed.I call for real action.A bombing or two,maybe a couple of CRIMINALS such as presidents get killed..you know..the usual..

I disagree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to... wait, no, never mind. You're just an asshole.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil disobedience because of copyright law? I don't think so.

Re:Good

[ethereal]

I suspect I am not the only person finding the comparison to the civil rights protests disgusting. There is a big difference between getting arrested for drinking at a colored water fountain and getting arresting for ripping off the latest U2 or Dire Straits tracks.

If you want to listen to music then pay for the damn stuff.

Actually, I sort-of agree with that, since I'm a non-mp3-trading person who's computers would still be affected by the proposed SSSCA. If the folks who just don't believe in copyright would STFU, then the rest of us who give copyright some credence but still like to have fair use and control our own hardware might be in better shape today.

However, the original comment was "what, and go to jail for your beliefs?" to which I was pointing out that yes, that's exactly what's supposed to happen if you truly believe those things. The difficulty of standing up for what you believe in is first a mental and spiritual challenge; once you've decided that you will stay the course, the it doesn't matter if you're going to jail for mp3s or for drinking from the wrong water fountain.

Although I will be the first to admit that so far the civil rights fighters have suffered a lot more for their beliefs than the mp3 traders. Hopefully no one will have to die for their beliefs on the subject of copyright.

Re:Good

[Godwin O'Hitler]

The strength of our society (by which I mean the modern judicial society in general, wherever in the world it is found) is based on the authority of the law.

Maybe other people mean something else by "the strength of our society."

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

"This isn't about basic human rights"

You don't think so, I don't think so, but apparently ethereal thinks so. So she can rot in jail if she likes, that's how NVCD works.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Oops, s/ethereal/ConsumedByTV/

Sorry ethereal, for getting the wrong login.

While I'm here, I should probably expand the acronym, in case some of the kiddies don't know it. NVCD == Non-Violent Civil Disobedience.

Re:Good

[ryusen]

i'm not saying that governement is oppression free, but rather the perception of this issue by most is trivial... most people i know either know nothing about these issues or don't think they are important enough to do anything about them...
personally i see the opression as comming from the corperations through a weak/lame governement rather than a truly opressive govt...

Re:Good

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

Why are we applying United States laws to this anyway? Isn't this happening in Amsterdam? Different country. Hi. It's somewhere in that big other place called Europe.

Re:Good

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

• The Olympic Committee bans any unauthorized coverage of the games - they consider the games their "intellectual property". Even the athletes are forbidden to keep diaries.

A bit ot, but could you be kind enough to back that up with a link? It sounds just about insane enough to be true, but I'm having a hard time believing it. Would be much appreciated.

Re:Good

[crucini]

I guess the first part is common knowledge. As for the diaries, here's a link. Looks like I omitted the word "net" or "web". I guess that makes it somewhat less insane.

No centralized server.

[Godeke]

Sounds like they made a bad choice in having the technology to shut down the prior versions of the software... they could have been the first test of truely "uncontrolled" software vs a court order.

Personally, I hope Freenet or one if it's same minded ilk (redundent caching with encrypted content) builds the technology to scale out as large as these kinds of systems have.

Re:No centralized server.

[EllisDees]

Check out LimeWire.org. The next version of the software (2.0) will have an implementation of the concept of super peers - similar to what the FastTrack network does - but with no central servers at all.

Re:No centralized server.

[linzeal]

Limewire 2.0 is out already.

Umm...

[dagoalieman]

It seems to me this isn't the brightest of moves. They're trying to use it as negotiating power, yet ticking off a judge is a really bad idea- keep in mind the judge (at least in the US) gets the final approval on any deal that's worked out during a case.

Also, what do they think this will gain them? While I don't like the DMCAA et al, I think we can all agree there are flat out illegal pirates out there amongst the legal users. Because of this, they're an accomplist to theft/copyright infringement/whatever you want to call it. Plus whatever other legal teeth those provide for sinking into the owners of KaZaa.

Sigh. If the music industry would just quit fighting, start providing MP3 format cds with a couple of extra songs/what have you, I bet they'd find that their piracy issues would go down more than they expect. I won't even try to argue financial benefit, since it's no one really seems to know (RIAA: OH, we lost MONEY! Stores: NO, you sold more! People: Hey, we're getting f*cked!)

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're argument is riddled with holes. I won't even begin to show all the reasons why. And yes, I think the DMCA is a circumvention device itself to the original intent of copyright laws too.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

While I don't like the DMCAA et al, I think we can all agree there are flat out illegal pirates out there amongst the legal users. Because of this, they're an accomplist to theft/copyright infringement/whatever you want to call it

So, similarly, gun manufacturers must be liable for crimes committed with their products?

Vehicle manufacturers too?

I think not.

Re:Umm...

[dangermouse]

So, the relevance of this post to yours is hanging by a thread, but this is more or less on the subject of the RIAA fighting a good thing because they're idiots.

Yesterday morning, as I was sitting in traffic on 680 wishing I'd attached an outboard motor to my car, I got to hear an interview with Huey Lewis on a local radio talk show.

The interviewer asked Huey what he thought of the whole "downloading thing", and his answer was that it was "complicated", but that his son downloads stuff all the time (that's hearsay, you Feds, you leave Huey's kid alone!) and when he finds something he likes he buys the album. So Huey didn't really have a problem with it.

When the interviewer mentioned that he himself downloads a fair bit of music, but doesn't buy many CDs, Huey pointed out that people their age just never bought (or sold) much music anyway, relatively speaking... it's far and away a kids' market.

Re:Umm...

[visualight]

What the "industry" doesn't seem to realize is that working with services like kazaa is the only way they can survive. The day will come when even the cd's and dvd's that we buy in stores will be electronically distributed, with the stores stamping/burning and printing the downloaded files. With that kind of distribution who needs Warner Bros., etc.?

The artists are already organizing, it's only a matter of time before they just cut the corporations out of the picture.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, just because there are people trading copyrighted material doesn't mean the whole service should be shut down. It's my opinion (and my perception is certainly more accurate than any judges - to me) that since services like kazaa allow for unknowns to produce and distribute their own material, shutting them down is cause for a lawsuit by the users. I think some people tried that with napster, but I don't recall the outcome.

Re:Umm...

[jilles]

There have been a few recent major screw ups at the dutch OM (the dutch district attorney). Consequently, they'll be reluctant to take on a high profile case that has a good chance of blowing up in their face. Legally speaking, Kazaa is not doing anything wrong (at least, that would be hard to prove). The fact that the most useful application of their software is trading warez, divx and mp3 is irrelevant since they do not actually engage in the transactions themselves (unlike napster).

Basically what Kazaa said is that they have no way to comply with what the dutch judge told them to do (namely to put an end to the illegal exchange of the above mentioned stuff using Kazaa). It is simply not feasible since the transactions are fully peer to peer. The searches nor the downloads go through a central server.

In any case, Limewire 2.0 is available now and has some new features that should enhance scalability of the gnutella network greatly. Gnutella is open source and has no dependencies on a login server (unlike Kazaa) eliminating the last link to a central server. If Kazaa is going to lose their case it will be because of the logins.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because of this, they're an accomplist to theft/copyright infringement/whatever..."

So the telephone company is an accomplice since they provided the phone lines where millions of users trade illegal goods every day. And the ISP is an accomplice for not policing their network where the illegal goods are traded. And the computer manufacturers are an accomplice for providing the computers where the illegal goods are traded. And the news media is an accomplice for seeding the minds of impressionable traders of the illegal goods.

Why does this sound just like the argument that has been overruled time and time again that the gun manufacturer cannot be held liable for the actions of the user?

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a difference. KaZaa and Napster distribute a product that is specifically designed for illegal trading of copyrighted works, and by their own admission they encourage people to use it for music trading to give them some clout in negotiating with record companies. It's a freely acknowledged part of their business plan.

Last I checked, car and gun manufacturers don't design products specifically intended for breaking the law, and the vast majority of car & gun owners don't use their products to break the law (speed limits excepted). Also, car & gun manufacturers definately do not openly encourage illegal uses of their products, nor did they build their business plans around getting people to do it.

Re:Umm...

[sacrilicious]

While I don't like the DMCAA et al, I think we can all agree there are flat out illegal pirates out there amongst the legal users. Because of this, they're an accomplist to theft/copyright infringement/whatever you want to call it.

Any extent to which they can be deemed "accomplices" is only in the same way that VCR manufacturers are accomplices to whatever illegal uses are made of their products. The critical fact is that there are significant non-infringing uses of the technology, and that is what got VCRs past the supreme court in the betamax case.

Re:Umm...

[dagoalieman]

To correct my vague statement:

Because of the DMCAA, et al, KaZaa is an accomplist to the crime.

As I said, I do not necissarily agree with those laws, nor do I think that everyone on these systems are criminal. Only God knows if the people who wrote KaZaa intended it to be a "cool indie MP3 program" or a "file sharing program." (Grief, that was a pathetic attempt to distinguish if the writers wanted to trade legal, or illegal mp3s that they many not see as illegal.)

Hope this clears the point up some. IMHO, KaZaa isn't ethically guilty of being an accomplist unless they intended to trade files they knew they shouldn't. Legally, however, they're guilty and executable if an 8 year old finds Lords of Acid or 2 Live Crew... or a lawyer finds it. And that's the world we live in.

.

Re:Umm...

[_UnderTow_]

I think we can all agree there are flat out illegal pirates out there amongst the legal users.

I think what you meant to say was this:

I think we can all agree there are legal users out there amongst the flat out illegal pirates.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope this clears the point up some. IMHO, KaZaa isn't ethically guilty of being an accomplist unless they intended to trade files they knew they shouldn't.

I agree completely. But by this standard, KaZaa is ethically guilty because illegal music trading is exactly what they intended their software to be primarily used for.

Re:Umm...

[Grape Shasta]

Ya know, piracy is such a harsh way to put it... So there's like a million Kazaa users out there, moving these files back and forth, but really all they're doing is barrowing each other's CD's.

Think about it... on average I'd bet a Kazaa user owns at least 50 CD's. Some own less, but some own hundreds more. But how many songs can you listen to at once? One! But you own 500 songs, so why not let other people barrow the other songs you're not using? Barrowing the physical CD's would be too much hassle to be practical, so we just move some backups around instead.

So, those million Kazaa users are listening to a million songs, but together they own 500 million songs. And they own many more copies of any given song as compared to the number of copies being played at a given time. I don't see a problem.

Re:Umm...

[TeraCo]

The interviewer asked Huey what he thought of the whole "downloading thing", and his answer was that it was "complicated", but that his son downloads stuff all the time (that's hearsay, you Feds, you leave Huey's kid alone!) and when he finds something he likes he buys the album. So Huey didn't really have a problem with it.

That's a nice argument, but even though a small percentage of downloaders actually do this, they are definately in the minority. You can't really base a decision like this on what some people do, rather how it going to be used most of the time.

When the interviewer mentioned that he himself downloads a fair bit of music, but doesn't buy many CDs, Huey pointed out that people their age just never bought (or sold) much music anyway, relatively speaking... it's far and away a kids' market.

Applying this to software or research and development for any organisation: Does this make it ok for warez kiddies to steal software just because they weren't going to buy it? Does it make it ok for small companies to steal technical secrets from big companies, because they weren't going to research them anyway? [Hint: The answer is no.]

Re:Umm...

[dangermouse]

That's a nice argument, but even though a small percentage of downloaders actually do this, they are definately in the minority. You can't really base a decision like this on what some people do, rather how it going to be used most of the time.

Are they? That's not been my experience. A poll would be interesting. (Not a Slashdot poll, that would obviously be skewed to hell and back.)

Applying this to software or research and development for any organisation: Does this make it ok for warez kiddies to steal software just because they weren't going to buy it? Does it make it ok for small companies to steal technical secrets from big companies, because they weren't going to research them anyway? [Hint: The answer is no.]

Thanks for the hint. The condescension was both well-placed and well-executed. Wait, no it wasn't. You just missed the point.

I didn't cite Huey's kid by way of justification. The point, as I said in my first sentence, was that the RIAA is fighting an uphill battle against what really seems to be in its own best interest. Obviously they have the right to attempt to fight this thing, but it's really pretty stupid in light of the fact that downloadable music only seems to fuel record sales.

Have I bought every album containing a song I downloaded and liked? No, of course not. But I've bought more music overall because of my ability to first find and listen to it for free. There were interesting reports published in the last couple of years that showed record sales increasing relatively steadily, with a bump upward a little while after Napster became popular. You can treat that as rumor, since I don't have a link to said reports handy, but I think they did show up on Slashdot.

Re:Umm...

[Happy Monkey]

Does this make it ok for warez kiddies to steal software just because they weren't going to buy it?

No, but you also can't count them when calculating how much money piracy "costs" the industry.

Re:Umm...

[filbo]

I don't know where people have gotten this idea that the judge has to "approve" of a settlement. I guess its because you hear about judges approving settlements in some high profile cases, as there are some situations in which it happens (e.g., class actions, minors, cases involving consent decrees). But 80% of settlements in the US are not approved by a judge.

Re:Umm...

[mark_lybarger]

if only borrowing the song didn't involve copying the song. how about we all just put our songs on a global file share, and access/play them from there. oh but wait, the song is still being copied from the share, through my mp3 codec, on through the sound card, out the speaker and into the air. that's a hell of a lot of places that song gets copied to.

let's just end this now and make music, cd's, software, speakers, computers all illegal.

Re:Umm...

[haystor]

Have I bought every album containing a song I downloaded and liked? No, of course not. But I've bought more music overall because of my ability to first find and listen to it for free.

I think this is perhaps what the RIAA is fighting most of all. It is very important that you not be able to purchase your music accurately or else they will lose potential sales of most of their library.

I think what they fear the most is that people won't buy an album for one song any longer. I know I used to buy albums because I liked one song I heard on the radio and thought that band would be good if it sounded anything like that. I was definitely wrong.

There are definitely albums worth buying, but I'll no longer spend $18 on one song.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone could prove that the gun manufacturers were conspiring to undermine gun control laws, they would be in a world of hurt.

(By, say, dumping lots of product in Northern VA that they would have reasonable belief would be sold in DC)

Re:Umm...

[Tomcat666]

The interviewer asked Huey what he thought of the whole "downloading thing", and his answer was that it was "complicated", but that his son downloads stuff all the time (that's hearsay, you Feds, you leave Huey's kid alone!) and when he finds something he likes he buys the album.

Here we see it again... the record companies want the kids to buy stuff they don't like. It's all about the hype of having the CD... but not about owning something worth the money.

Re:Umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this make it ok for warez kiddies to steal software just because they weren't going to buy it?

Hint: the answer is yes. If you disagree, then you're using some standard of right and wrong that's based on arbitrary rules, rather than common sense: No harm, no foul. No lost profit, no theft.

Does it make it ok for small companies to steal technical secrets from big companies, because they weren't going to research them anyway?

Bogus analogy -- the whole point of copyrights and patents was, originally, to put an end to secrets and bring information out into the open. We've largely lost sight of that -- nowadays, some companies will even claim copyright AND trade secret (something which should enjoy no legal protection whatsoever, but does) on the same material.

If the "technical secrets" are patented, and the patents are reasonable (unlike a lot of them, these days), then the small company should pay royalties. If the secrets aren't patented, they should enjoy no other protection. If the patents are not reasonable, they should be overturned.

History repeats itself

[Squeezer]

This sort of reminds me when I believe it was Andrew Jackson was president and the Supreme Court made a ruling he didn't like, and he said something to the effect of "The Court has made their ruling, now let them enforce it". Because the Supreme Court only has judicial powers, all they can do is decide the outcome of the case, but they have no enforcement powers, and at the time, Andrew Jackson had the power and popularity to enforce his ideas instead of those of the court.

That sort of reminds me of what Kazaa is doing, to the effect of "The Dutch court made their decision, now lets see them try to enforce shutting us down."

Re:History repeats itself

[dangermouse]

Um, this is kinda sorta completely different in that KaZaa isn't the executive branch of a damned thing, and the court could most certainly have its order enforced on them.

KaZaa may be lucky enough to wiggle out of this one because of the prior court order. This is hardly them staring down The Man.

it's not about KaZaA

[prophecyvi]

There may be more to this than just the usual recording-industry-heavy-handedness. After all, KaZaA (or however it's capitalized) isn't nearly as big as Napster was - Napster was the one choice, most mp3-swapping was centralized around it. Now with WinMX, AudioGalaxy etc., not to mention the OpenNap servers, the fragmentation means no one service will dominate. That makes the pursuit of KaZaA suspicious to me. It seems the technology behind KaZaA, which also runs MusicCity, Morpheus etc. is what's under attack.

Bear in mind that Napster has targeted March as their return date, complete with pay-as-you-go music and under the boot of RIAA et al. Why would you go pay on Napster if you could jump on other networks and get it for free?

Re:it's not about KaZaA

[Anonymous Coward]

Kazaa or Musiccity, who cares? Its one network, which is much bigger than Napster ever was

Re:it's not about KaZaA

[ryanwright]

Why would you go pay on Napster if you could jump on other networks and get it for free?

Hell yeah. If the RIAA is backing it, you know the tracks are going to be high bitrate, all streamed from their servers at high speeds, inexpensive and portable.

Oh, wait. No they're not. They're going to be the same shit you find on Morpheus. For $3 a song, in WMA format, and completely fucking unusable for everything. Can't burn 'em to a CD, can't copy 'em to an MP3 player, hell, you can't even copy them to another PC! Oh, and the icing on the cake is that if you ever stop paying your monthly membership fees or upgrade your computer, every single song you've downloaded quits working. Forever.

Gee, where can I sign up?

Re:it's not about KaZaA

[Canar]

Eh... With increases in storage capacity and bandwidth, as well as both availability and ubiquity, I'd venture a guess that FastTrack is bigger than Napster was. WinMX seems pretty damn big too. Note that FastTrack also is host to a semi-burgeoning warez scene. It's not as big as IRC yet, and all the archives are self-extracting executables, but once the word gets out...

-=Canar=-

Does the client still work?

[XRayX]

As far as I know FastTrack is (in theory) completely decentralized, but with the last client version (1.33), they introduced keys, you need to download from a master server in order to search, download etc.. This makes the system as atackable as napster was. The Time of OpenFT is coming...
X

Refusing, but with a reason

[jspey]

The reason they aren't shutting down isn't just because they want to be rebels or something. While KaZaa does state that there's nothing they can do now that their software's out there and being used, they say they're not shutting down in order to comply with a different court order. In a different case with Buma/Stemra (the Dutch licensing body that's also suing them to shut down), KaZaa won an injunction forcing Buma/Stemra to continue to negotiate with them about a streaming-on-demand service. KaZaa says that if their current sevice isn't up and running, they can't negotiate well with Buma/Stemra.

I'm personally of the same opinion as the author of the article. I think that as soon as they get shut down, they go to a much weaker position to negotiate from. Why negotiate with KaZaa to make money fromthe music they're distributing when they aren't distributing music anymore?

Mr. Spey

Re:Refusing, but with a reason

[tcd004]

But the article notes that KaZaa has demonstrated in the past that they have the ability to disable thier own software remotely. Ooops.

tcd004

Re:Refusing, but with a reason

[jspey]

But the article notes that KaZaa has demonstrated in the past that they have the ability to disable thier own software remotely. Ooops.

This is why I think they're trying out a different argument. They can always fall back to, "we can't do it", but the other court case gives them a different option.

Mr. Spey

Not civil disobedience

[SumDeusExMachina]

As you can tell by reading the article, and as you certainly wouldn't be led to believe by reading CmdrTaco's summary, they are refusing to shut down in order to comply with a previous court order. This is more a case of conflicting orders in the judicial system than anything else.

Re:Not civil disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

Really that's just a convenient excuse. If they do shut down, they will be essentially dead in the water in their negotiations, and the company will go under. They had to make up some excuse not to shut down in order to buy some time to reach a settlement.

Re:Not civil disobedience

[Spy Hunter]

No, they ARE ignoring the court order, it's just that their lawyer has had to make up a reason for them to be doing it, so he made this up. They are looking for any excuse they can to stay open and this is just an excuse.

Damn the man!!

[Bonker]

Whoohoo!

One wonders what's going to happen when the legion of black-robed LEO ninjas descend en masse to phsyically shut down Kazaa, however.

Actually, all it would take is a court order and a guy with a pair of diagonal cutters at their backbone connection's origin.

Still, it's nice to see that even companies are beginning to realized how screwed and skewed copyright law is.

Re:Damn the man!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article dimwit. There is another conflicting court case that is preventing them from following the judge's order. They aren't just thumbing their nose at the court.

Re:Damn the man!!

[Sir Tandeth]

I wonder when the DMCA-enforcers will start doing to Kazaa users what they did to DrinkOrDie.

Re:Damn the man!!

[mrjive]

I wonder when the DMCA-enforcers will start doing to Kazaa users what they did to DrinkOrDie.

They won't....simply because DoD was a small handful of people working together in an organized fashion....whereas Kazaa is 27 million people running amuck.

If the justice department wanted to invest the money and manpower to track all those people for 14+ months...I think they would overspend their budget.

For the "too lazy to click links" crowd:

[Xzzy]

They're not really ignoring the order, as presented in the news post.

More like they're trying to squirm out of the deal by either claiming they can't shut it down (being de-centralized and all that), or that doing so would violate previous court orders. They're not ignoring by any means, they're attempting to squirm.

Redundant, probably, but it's posted with the intent of staving off some of the "woohoo stick it to the man!" posts.

Re:For the "too lazy to click links" crowd:

[alexjohns]

it's posted with the intent of staving off some of the "woohoo stick it to the man!" posts.

Woohoo!!! Stick it to the man!!

Whatever else you may think about why they're doing this, it still takes balls to ignore a court order. Imagine a cop walking up to you and telling you to get out of the car. You refuse on grounds that it's a free country and you aren't doing anything wrong. That takes balls. A little stupidity too, unless you're a really good lawyer, really rich, or both.

So yeah, stick it to the man. Don't you just love it when the underdog takes on the Man. Remember back, long ago, around 1995 or so, when Netscape could do no wrong? Man, those were some cool times. FTPing Mosaic. Then switching to Netscape. Laughing at IE 2.0. Those were the days.

What were we talking about? Can I get another hit?

Re:For the "too lazy to click links" crowd:

[Anonymous Coward]

The big difference is that this is a corporation. If the people running the company are acting under advice from a lawyer, the worst that's going to happen is that the company goes out of business. Something which is probably going to happen anyway if they do shut down.

Re:For the "too lazy to click links" crowd:

[jandrese]

Re: Netscape

You certainly lived in a different world than I did back then. Netscape of the time was buggy and slow (and a real memory pig by the standards of the day). It also had a bunch of not quite standard standards and dubious features (blink for instance).

Then IE came along and did exactly the same thing, except IE was free (even though nobody ever actually paid for Netscape) and got bundled with the OS to insure market success.

Re:For the "too lazy to click links" crowd:

[alexjohns]

Sure it was buggy and slow. But it really was the shiznit unless you liked the minimalist Lynx. What else was there? NetManage had some browser out. I can't think of anything else, although I'm sure there was something. I was a big Usenet-holic back then. I can remember there was a time when there were no negative posts about Netscape in general. Really. Maybe a post about something crashing, but that was in the Window 3.1 days and everything crashed back then.

Once Netscape announced their IPO, then the negative postings started to happen. Just like I remember a time before everyone was spam-proofing their email. Just like I can remember the original 'Green-Card' spam (may Canter and Siegel rot in hell, btw.)

I do remember the original flap over the 'blink' tag. But I swear there was a time when Usenet almost universally didn't have any negative comments about Netscape. I can't pinpoint it exactly, but I remember distinctly the first few times that I read Netscape flames. They kind of snowballed, just like spam-proofing did. If I had infinite time I'd read through groups on google to narrow it down, but I don't think I can be bothered. Maybe I have my rose-colored glasses on again, but I'd thought that Lasik had removed the need for them. :)

What are they thinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going to try to do the same thing as Napster, you can expect to receive the same fate as Napster. What, did they think no one would notice or care? The only logical choice for this situation is to go de-centralized, open-source like Gnutella and forget about trying to make money from providing piracy software.

There Is No Off Switch This Time!!!

[cybrpnk]

As noted in this editorial over at O'Reilley, how can you pull the plug on something that is decentralized? This is why people went to Kazaa and other P2P solutions after overly-centralized plump target Napster got emasculated. Long live P2P!!! Elvis has left the building!!!

Re:There Is No Off Switch This Time!!!

[kz45]

As noted in this [oreillynet.com] editorial over at O'Reilley, how can you pull the plug on something that is decentralized? This is why people went to Kazaa and other P2P solutions after overly-centralized plump target Napster got emasculated. Long live P2P!!! Elvis has left the building!!!

explain how kazaa/morpheus is decentralized. (the media likes to use this buzzword, kinda like P2P) It is only decentralized for searches (the main server has no knowledge of the actual names of the files being shared, preventing liability of the server owner.

bah

[Quasar1999]

Crap, pure crap! We have people in the US who openly admit to breaking the DMCA rules on national TV (Patrick Norton on TechTV), and nothing happens, yet they try and make an example of a foreign based company that is simply running a p2p network server, it's not their fault everyone uses it to pirate... Hell, I'm amazed they don't try and shutdown ISPs and the entire Internet, afterall the p2p networks use the net don't they? sheesh...

Re:bah

[Levine]

What's interesting about The Screen Savers is that almost on a daily basis, the entire cast of the show admits to/talks about breaking the DMCA. How the producers allow this to happen is beyond me, and how the government hasn't picked up on it yet is even further beyond me.

You'd think they would tone it down or something, considering that they are /national television/, but no:

"Why, Patrick, doesn't that violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act?"

"Yes, Leo, but I won't tell anyone if you won't!"

Cheers,
levine

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

they usually just make fun of the bad parts though. I cant recall when they actually pirated or broke into something...

Re:bah

[foobar104]

What's interesting about The Screen Savers is that almost on a daily basis, the entire cast of the show admits to/talks about breaking the DMCA.

It's important to understand that, in the US, statements made by an individual cannot be used as criminal evidence unless the individual has been duly arrested and informed of his Miranda rights, and been given the opportunity to seek the advice of legal counsel.

So the idea that a person might get up on television and say, "I have broken the law in such-and-such a way" and be arrested just for that is completely against everything our Bill of Rights stands for.

On the other hand, if you stood up and said, "I have murdered my next-door neighbor," a judge might consider that probable cause and issue a warrant to search your house. If the police find your neighbor's body, you're in for it.

But you couldn't be arrested-- or even detained beyond reason-- based solely on something you said on television.

Re:bah

[Destoo]

Quick question.. How many americans incarcerated/convicted under the DMCA?
Is there an online "scoreboard" somewhere?
Seriously.

Re:bah

[leeward]

I think an IANAL disclaimer was called for here. IANAL, but I am pretty sure statements made in public can be used against you in court. The prosecutor just has to be able to prove that you made the statements. Not too hard if made on television.

Re:bah

[biohazard99]

Quick question, I like TSS, I like Leo and Patrick, but how many people outside of the tech community actually watch anything but that little worm Pirillo's bastardized "call for help".

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

So far, I'm pretty sure no Americans (given any reasonable definition of "American") have been arrested, though civil suits and threats of civil suits have been thick and fast since DeCSS spread on the web.

When Dmitry Sklyarov, who is not American, was arrested under the criminal provisions of the DMCA it was widely reported that he was the first person to be so arrested.

Re:bah

[foobar104]

I am pretty sure statements made in public can be used against you in court.

Yes, anything you say can be used against you if the judge in the case believes it to be relevant. But you cannot be arrested on the weight of a statement alone.

Re:bah

[doooras]

That little troll is really irritating, isn't he? They should put Leo back on Call for help... or maybe even have the geek queen herself... Kate Botello.

Actually Surprising?

[eAndroid]

How seriously does the Amsterdam legal system treat violations like this? Without sounding completely ignorant I wonder because Amsterdam does have several other laws in place that are bent daily, openly in public.

Perhaps ignoring court orders is a common part of legal negotiations? I'm sure there are more than enough Amsterdam-based Slashdot readers that know.

And please forgive me if this is at all stupid - respond with comments, not moderation.

Re:Actually Surprising?

[cxvx]

There isn't such a thing as the "Amsterdam Legal system".

Amsterdam is just a city in the Netherlands (aka Holland).
There are city laws, but I doubt there's anything in there about P2P's :)

Re:Actually Surprising?

[Gorgonzola]

First of all I'd like to point out that Amsterdam is just a bloody city in the Netherlands, not a jurisdiction on its own. On the point of laws that are not enforced in the Netherlands, there is a distinction between public and private law in the so called civil law countries. Public law governs the relations between government and the citizens, private law governs the relations between citizens. Going after a citizen who has violated a regulation that is part of public law, for example the penal law on substances of abuse, is a typical governmental task. Here a peculiar principle kicks in. Penal laws that give the government the right to prosecute someone tend not to oblige the government to do so. Hence the government can decide to dedicate scarce law enforcement resources to prosecuting criminals they deem more harming to society, e.g. people mugging old ladies, than some pothead peacefully smoking his gear. Since copyright law is mostly private law, principles such as this do not apply at all. Basically copyright holders trying to get a court order in order to prevent their intellectual property from being infringed is an entirely different kettle of fish.

last decision by judge

[radja]

the judge has ordered BUMA/STEMRA (dutch equivalent to RIAA) to resume the talks that were broken off because of the RIAA lawsuit. Looks like they'll get a licence for streaming only at the moment, but while talks are ongoing, Kazaa does not have to close.

//rdj

Damn. Another one.

[Qwerpafw]

It really ticks me off every time courts crack down on music sharing. Heck, what some people use it for may be illegal (okay, most people) but the programs have legitamate uses.

I, for one, used a P2P program some time ago to get all my LP songs as MP3s... much much cheaper than buying a new turntable, software, etc...

The DMCA is just stupid. That a company (or a person, like Dmitri Skylakarov) can be sued because someone uses their product or research in illegal ways is just plain anal.

For an interesting comparison, take guns and cars. Guns are often used illegally, yet that is not their only use... nobody persecutes gun manufacturers ("Guns dont kill people... people do") Cars also kill people all the time or are used to ccommit crimes all the time. Yet we dont sue Ford for hit-and-run incidents.

Lets say someone bought a car... and a gun. Then they pulled up in front of a bank, and used these two pieces of equipment to ROB THE BANK!!!!! Would we sue Ford, inc, and Colt, inc?? No! we would go after the culprits, and let the manufacterers get away, because ITS NOT THEIR FAULT.

The DMCA is just stupid, because it takes the opposite approach.
True, their is a differecnce b/w cars and P2P software... you own your car. the manufacturer doesnt have to worry about you. with P2P software, you only own a licence... like if enterprise-rent-a-car owned the bank robbery vehicle. Since the company still owns the software, they can be obliged to makee sure that its not used in illegal ways... i just still think its unfair.

Bah. We all know, deep down, that the reason the DMCA et ect exists is because of lobbying $$ spent on the part of the RIAA and their equivalent for video...

Re:Damn. Another one.

[sulli]

The DMCA is just stupid.

It is, that's correct. However, this case is in Holland, and the DMCA is a US law, so your comment isn't as relevant as you think.

Re:Damn. Another one.

[senine]

You know, If I were to rob a bank with a rented car, the people STILL wouldnt shut down the rental company.

-Senine

Re:Damn. Another one.

[istartedi]

Guns are often used illegally, yet that is not their only use... nobody persecutes gun manufacturers

Where have you been? Brady bill, one month rule, waiting period, mandatory trigger lock, country-of-origin regulations on some components, many types totally outlawed, lawsuits brought by idiots and not thrown out by the judge, the list goes on...

Now, I'm not suggesting that we go back to the days of people walking into Virginia gun shops, buying 2 dozen cheap handguns and then driving them up 95 to be sold on the streets of NYC. However, the idea of a mandatory trigger lock is ridiculous. It's even more silly to sue the company because you were irresponsable enough to leave your gun lying around with your kids or because some other guy was evil enough to shoot you.

Re:Damn. Another one.

[Dikarika]

ahhhh....

but if more than 50% of all Rental users did, it may be different.
Its more than one person trading music here, it's many.

Re:Damn. Another one.

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA exempts circumvention devices that have "significant" non-infringing uses.

Now, is the primary usage of a car to commit crimes? No.

Is the primary usage of a gun to commit crimes? No.

Is the primary usage of KaZaa to commit crimes? Yes.

There is a difference between a product that is designed, distributed, and marketed for legal purposes but can be misused for illegal purposes, and a product that is designed, distributed, and marketed as a tool for illegal purposes that can also be used for legal purposes. IMHO, it's a matter of intent. The business model of KaZaa and Napster was based on getting as many people as they can to trade music illegally so they have some leverage to negotiate (read: blackmail) a deal with record companies.

Besides, there is no "technical measure" here protecting the copyrighted works that has been circumvented, so the DMCA doesn't apply. And even if there was circumvention, this case is in the Netherlands, so the DMCA wouldn't apply anyway.

Re:Damn. Another one.

[edwazere]

Ohhh and the US wouldn't try and impose it's laws on the rest of the world.

Like a certain Russian programmer...

Re:Damn. Another one.

[xTown]

Would we sue Ford, inc, and Colt, inc??

Yes.

This article talks a little bit about Colt's decision two years ago to stop making handguns for non-LEOs. Why? Because they were getting sued when their products were used criminally. Gun manufacturers are both persecuted and prosecuted when their products are used for criminal purposes.

Re:Damn. Another one.

[TheAwfulTruth]

Well maybe if Holland comes over for a visit and demonstrates currently illegal activity at a hackers convention, then we'll arrest it...

Re:and they don't like mozilla ;) !

[SoftwareJanitor]

It seems to work O.K. with Konqueror.

Well that's great, but...

[fm6]

Do you really need to ignore all of them? It seems silly to go to jail over, say, an "unjust" parking fine.

Re:Well that's great, but...

[ConsumedByTV]

Ride a bike.

Re:Well that's great, but...

[masoncooper]

That's why there's the phrase "Choose your battles wisely" You obviously use common sense when demonstrating civil disobedience. There are conformists who believe you just obey a law no matter how unfair it is, and eventually someone will do something about it and there are those who guard their own personal liberties with their life. If you don't think civil disobedience doesn't work, you might want to read your history books. When the majority has the law on their side, it doesn't necessarily mean they're right, it only means they passed a law. If you make enough of a scene(and break no laws except the ones you're protesting, Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized that), your voice will eventually be heard, It's not easy, you have everything to loose, your time, money, even personal freedom and life, but you lost it in a fight for something you believe in. Kazaa believes they had the right to contribute a free service to better the internet. It was abused in some cases and obviously(i.e. US Border Control, Napster...) blocking 100% of all illegal activity is impossible. Kazaa feels that if they're going down, they're going to fall fighting all the way and I don't blame them.

Evolving to a what?

[mESSDan]

With its back to the wall, KaZaa looks like it may evolve into a streaming music service.

Does this sound totally and incredibly NOT what KaZaa is now? I mean, now, you can share just about any kind of file you want, and I don't see where streaming comes into play at all. What the hell kind of business plan is this?

"We developed this great piece of P2P software, but now that we're being sued, fuck that and lets stream some music!"

Of course, I haven't been to sleep in a good while, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Re:Evolving to a what?

[ImaLamer]

Of course, I haven't been to sleep in a good while, so take what I say with a grain of salt.


I understand, it's 6 PM I just woke up.

You are right this isn't what Kazaa is now. But it kinda is? They have a streaming music plug-in for winamp. I believe Kazaa should block all mp3 downloads and then only let people share their mp3s and stream other people's mp3s to their computer.

This would let people play songs that they don't own, but not let them keep them. Gives us a reason to keep Kazaa up. I'd go for this service. Kazaa doesn't let you download quality mp3 songs anyways.

Kazaa in my mind, is the best solution to a fee based P2P network. It's technically better than most out there - just get rid of IE.

If they do turn into a streaming service, they should allow streaming of all types of media, MPEG, DivX, ogg!

Re:Evolving to a what?

[ryanwright]

I believe Kazaa should block all mp3 downloads and then only let people share their mp3s and stream other people's mp3s to their computer.

Yeah, that's gonna work great for the x million dialup users. Good luck streaming anything worth hearing over that...

Re:Evolving to a what?

[ImaLamer]

lol. when I had 56Gay it was fine for streaming [how do you think Real got so big?]

If these X million dialup users aren't happy, then what the fuck are they doing downloading media?

still talking (ZDNET)

[leuk_he]

from This dutch article In conclude the bumra-stemra and kazaa are still talking. This based there there is no effectuation of the fines

Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[darkov]

I think the important point to remember here is that the record companies are not playing fair. They do not want to licence their products for sale on the internet. Although it may not be illegal, or rather someone has not caught them out according to the law yet, they are basically trying to control the market.

It's up to us to put pressure on them to licence their music. A good way to do that is to swap MP3s. You might call it theft, but many of these companies are not exactly saints and in any David vs Goliath battles, dirty tricks are to go. in there arrogance, record companies forget that they only exist becuase of us, the consumers. By acting together we remind them of that fact.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[sheldon]

"They do not want to licence their products for sale on the internet."

No, they just don't want to give their product away for free. They're perfectly willing to sell on the internet, but they don't want to be in a position where they only see 1 sale for every 1,000 people listening.

"It's up to us to put pressure on them to licence their music. "

But they want to license their music.

"A good way to do that is to swap MP3s. "

A good way to convince BMW to sell cars for $100 is to steal them?

Your post is what we in the industry call clueless.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[visualight]

"They do not want to licence their products for sale on the internet."

No, they just don't want to give their product away for free. They're perfectly willing to sell on the internet, but they don't want to be in a position where they only see 1 sale for every 1,000 people listening.

Without quoting your entire troll, let me respond to the whole thing.

The CHC (copyright holding corporations) do not want to license anything. They want to be the only ones to provide onlines sales of music and movies. Your parent thinks this is wrong and if it is, then it is up to "us" to put on the pressure or accept it.

And as far as BMW's go, if I found out that it cost BMW about 50 bucks to deliver a car to the dealer but was selling it for 45,000 dollars, I would feel justified in stealing it.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

"And as far as BMW's go, if I found out that it cost BMW about 50 bucks to deliver a car to the dealer but was selling it for 45,000 dollars, I would feel justified in stealing it." But it still costs BMW $50. Why do you think you are entitled to something if you do not pay for it? You should not feel justified in stealing anything - YOU DIDN'T EARN IT! regardless of how much it costs. I'd look at it like this - Let's say it only costs you $6 to travel to work. Hey, I employ you and will pay you nothing, because I do not feel you justify me spending $xx,xxx on your salary.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[poot_rootbeer]

I think the important point to remember here is
that the record companies are not playing fair.
They do not want to licence their products for
sale on the internet.

So what? Their products are theirs, they can license them however they want. They're under no obligation to license their content for use on the internet, not even if you really think they should.

How is this not playing fair?

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[EllisDees]

A good way to convince BMW to sell cars for $100 is to steal them?

If you could walk up to your friend who owns a BMW and copy it for free, wouldn't you be insane to go out and buy one?

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Znork]

What, exactly, do you read into those 'initiatives' that the RIAA corps have made?

The pricing model and licensing setup is made to make damn certain that they dont sell any significant amount that way.

They want you to pay for at least a CD's worth per month, and then pay for the rest of your life or what you've paid for stops working.

Even the most dense consumer will realize they're being ripped off completely, since it's not far from your average friendly neighborhood protection scheme. That is not a buisness plan that someone who wants to sell a product would make.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[darkov]

Copyright law is there for a purpose: to benefit the consumer. We give people and companies so they have a motivation to make good music and distribute it. What they are doing is hording it to make money, except they don't have the vision to realise it'll lose them money.

Lets say I am a bitter old billionaire. Say I buy up all the record companies and stop distributing the music and disallow anyone playing the music. Is that fair? The record companies are trying to dictate how we buy and enjoy music and is wrong in the same sense as this example.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[grytpype]

Agreed, also, it is total bullshit that the web pirates want the music companies to sell or license music on the web. What they want is free music, however they can get it.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[jalefkowit]

Your post is what we in the industry call clueless.

And this is why "you in the industry" are in the process of running your insanely profitable businesses into the ground. What you're feeling tightening around your neck is not Napster or Kazaa or Gnutella or whatever -- it's Adam Smith's famous "invisible hand"! Look, it's very simple. When all of your customers feel that you are charging too much for your product, or that your terms of use are too restrictive, or whatever, a black market is going to spring up. Simple as that. It's as true for bread as it is for music -- if every bakery in the US banded together and raised the price universally to $100/loaf, college students would be breaking into grocery stores and selling grey market Wonder Bread out of their dorm rooms. It's the magic of the free market at work.

Now, you say that's dirty pool because people used to think sixteen bucks a CD was a fair price, so they should continue to feel that way. But you've missed the ground shifting underneath your feet. New technologies have devalued your product in the eyes of the public. You need to either reprice it or accept that there's gonna be a certain amount of loss. You can throw out tepid, restrictive alternatives all you want, but why should people buy it? What's your value proposition for the consumer? (That's what businesses are supposed to do, you know -- serve consumers.)

Is grey-market music illegal? Sure. But grey-market bread would be too. Laws that attempt to impose morality on human nature are doomed to failure. Better to figure out how to profit off human nature by providing something useful at a price your audience thinks is fair than to try to ram outdated products and outmoded laws down our throats.

-- Jason Lefkowitz

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Yakko]

Their products are theirs, they can license them however they want.

And my dollars are mine, I can spend them however I want.

It's very simple, in my eyes: If they're not selling their content in the format that I want it, I have no obligation to buy it and then buy some more stuff to play it.

Also, and possibly related: If I can't do what I want with the content within the confines of my own house, I'm also under no obligation to put up with it. "Copy-protected CDs?" They're defects, as far as I'm concerned.

(REMEMBER: _Within the confines of my own house_. This does not mean I can just make all the stuff I bought available on my web site.)

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[sheldon]

"And this is why "you in the industry" are in the process of running your insanely profitable businesses into the ground. "

Afraid not sonny.

While certain sectors of the tech market have had a downturn this past year, the area I work in is doing gangbusters.

It's bizarre that you assumed I worked in the music industry.

Now back to your regularly scheduled illogical argument...

*YOU* have a choice.

You can either pay for the music and listen to it.

Or you can not listen to the music.

Since recorded music is a luxury item and not a subsistence item, you do not have any inherent moral right to steal it because it is being denied to you.

Thus ends today's lesson on morality.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Anonymous Coward]

Since recorded music is a luxury item and not a subsistence item, you do not have any inherent moral right to steal it because it is being denied to you.

So if it was a subsistence item, we'd have the moral right to steal it? Cool, let's all start stealing all our food, and buy CD's with the money we save.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Computer!]

It's bizarre that you assumed I worked in the music industry.

Well, didn't someone say "we in the industry" during a conversation on the music industry? I know I thought music was the industry you were talking about.

Anyway, you are probably wrong.

You can either pay for the music and listen to it.

Or, better yet, we can download it for free, and become so angry at the record industry that we cease even buying what we already do.

The music industry has been gouging both consumers and artists for as long as their essentially uneccessary asses have been dragging dirt. We have put up with $16 CDs because there was previously no alternative*. Now there is one, and suprise! People are flocking to it. Even as evil as the US government can be, it is more than the threat of an audit that keeps most Americans from cheating on their taxes. It is the belief that at its core, our government is providing us with valuable services that we should pay for. It is the understanding that if we don't do our share, others will suffer. Record labels provide none of this, and rake in profit the whole time. The music industry has used its monopoly on popular music recordings to rip off anyone within arm's reach. If "stealing"** music is not an option, then why are there dozens of availible ways to do it? Why don't the practitioners of this "theft" seem like criminals? Because they're not. IP is a new concept, and the effort of people like you to apply RP (real property) ideas to IP materials have failed. You and your ilk are like dinosaurs, and there are 1000 hungry mammals (indie record labels) ready to dance on the chalky ground in which you turn to coal.

*There have always been alternatives, like LPs or 7ins, which can still be had for $10 and $3, respectively. Fugazi CDs are always availible for $10 mail-order. Unfortunately, since the industry marketing machine controls the airwaves, no artists not overpromoted can even breathe.

**Bullshit. Illegally copying music is not depriving the original owners of property, and can even have a number of fair uses, often rendering it legal again.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[ImaLamer]

Exactly right.

$21.99 is too much for the double CD when we know that it only cost about 10 cents more for the second CD.

I know these companies need to pay for recording cost, promotion fees, what they paid Carson Daily, what they paid your local radio station, what they paid your local senator and so forth. But it's obvious that no matter how cheap it is for the 'industry' the price of CD's are not going down.

It's called price fixing.

Recording artist sometimes record at home, don't have any of their songs played on the radio, and could care less what Carson Daily thought of them. Their CD still costs $12-21.

Some artists are living poor, while others are so good damn rich it should be illegal. The consumers on the other hand are getting raped by $20 CDs and a sweeping control of their desktop computers.

My prediction: We see a business model by 2003 where we can buy music online. It will cost MORE, and we won't have control over one thing that goes on with our computers. Thanks Bush! Thanks RIAA. Thanks MS [.net]

If we are the criminals, why don't we feel like it while they fit the part so well.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Suidae]

Pardon my swearing and abusive tone below, I'm not really ranting, I'm just trying to achieve an effect, no offense intended.

You can either pay for the music and listen to it. Or you can not listen to the music.

Or I can practice a form of civil disobediance and actively violate any law which I feel is ethically unsound. For all you know, I have an ethical REQUIREMENT to 'pirate' music.

Since recorded music is a luxury item and not a subsistence item, you do not have any inherent moral right to steal it because it is being denied to you.

Get a clue. You have no inherent rights, period. Moral or otherwise. Any 'right' that you have is granted to you by the collective will (more or less) of the society you live in.

Thus ends today's lesson on morality.

Morality really doesn't have shit to do with it. If my ethical system says I should take whatever the fuck I can get away with, then listening to music I didn't pay for is moral. Maybe not by YOUR standards, but I don't give a rats ass about your standards.

This is about the rule of law, and the rights granted to consumers and corporations (and to some extent the content creators, but they are mostly just getting screwed by the rights the corporations have purchased for themselves).

The music industry has secured for itself, through various and sundry means, many rights which do not reflect the will of the consumers, but with their huge resources, they are simply able to beat down most anyone who objects. There are very few people with the time and money to make any kind of serious objection to the current state of the law, particularly since a huge chunk of the consumer base is young and without many resources. Flouting the law and establishing and supporting an effective trading network is about the only way the consumers can have an appriciable impact without dedicating their lives and resources to the effort.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Snaller]

>A good way to convince BMW to sell cars for $100 is to steal them?

Stealing is the act of physically removing something. Copying an mp3 might be copyright infringement, but its not stealing.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[jalefkowit]

It's bizarre that you assumed I worked in the music industry.

Yes, it sure is bizarre to assume that when someone on a thread regarding the music industry says "your post is what we in the industry call clueless", he/she/it is referring to the music industry. You must have been referring to the cluelessness industry instead. My apologies.

*YOU* have a choice... You can either pay for the music and listen to it. Or you can not listen to the music. Since recorded music is a luxury item and not a subsistence item, you do not have any inherent moral right to steal it because it is being denied to you.

Pay very close attention to what I am about to say, "sonny". I have an Archos Jukebox that has 6GB of MP3s on it. Each and every one of those was ripped from a CD that I forked over hard-earned money for.

I believe doing this is my privilege under the principle of fair use. The music industry disagrees. Is this "theft"? How is it different from copying a CD to a tape? What is the magic element that putting it on a hard drive mixes in?

Remember, I am NOT DISTRIBUTING this music! (Not all MP3s are dumped into Kazaa, y'know.)

And yet, even this is too much for the RIAA. They want NO copies. They want NO fair use. In other words, they want to take a legal privilege that I had in the analog world, and revoke it unilaterally, just because the hardware in question has changed -- and because they see an opportunity to force me to buy additional copies of all those CDs, at prices set by their cozy cartel.

In other words, for their private profit, they want to take my rights away. So think about that next time you consider who's a thief.

-- Jason Lefkowitz

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[BCoates]

*YOU* have a choice.

You can either pay for the music and listen to it.

Or you can not listen to the music.

Since recorded music is a luxury item and not a subsistence item, you do not have any inherent moral right to steal it because it is being denied to you.

Thus ends today's lesson on morality.

Let's ignore for a moment the fact that copying music is neither stealing nor immoral:

This is business, which has nothing at all to do with morality. If people find it easier to get your product by stealing it than by buying it, they will steal it. You can either cry and say that it's not fair, or make it easier to get from you, or make it harder to steal.

It's currently easier for someone like me (even if you ignore the price factor) to get music by finding somewhere to copy it from than to buy it, and all this content protection crap is likely to do in the near future is prevent it from getting even easier.

What is the music industry going to do to make buying music from them competitive with copying it?

--
Benjamin Coates

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Canar]

Even as evil as the US government can be, it is more than the threat of an audit that keeps most Americans from cheating on their taxes. It is the belief that at its core, our government is providing us with valuable services that we should pay for. It is the understanding that if we don't do our share, others will suffer.

Maybe all Americans are far more left-wing than Canadians, but I know that here in Canada, it is the threat of Revenue Canada and only the threat of Revenue Canada that keeps businesses paying taxes. I know several people in a bizarre legal loophole called "Common Status", wherein the government can't extract income tax from you. They flock to this status without reservation.

-=Canar=-

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Godwin O'Hitler]

They're perfectly willing to sell on the internet, but they don't want to be in a position where they only see 1 sale for every 1,000 people listening.

Your equation lacks a few parameters but let's assume you mean that for every 1000 people that hear an album, one person will buy it. One hit in 1000 sounds like an excellent advertising plan to me. The record companies should be going for it.

On the other hand, if you mean that there are 26 million listeners and the sum total of purchases across all titles is 26,000 units over the whole of eternity, then the record makers had better get a clue and give users a pretty good reason for preferring to buy: Kazaa aren't the only ones around, and the worst is yet to come 'coz we haven't finished inventing ways of sharing pleasure yet.

Re:Consumer vs Corporate Morality

[Computer!]

but I know that here in Canada, it is the threat of Revenue Canada and only the threat of Revenue Canada that keeps businesses paying taxes.

Emphasis mine.

I know several people in a bizarre legal loophole called "Common Status", wherein the government can't extract income tax from you.

That might have something to do with the incredibly high income tax rate in Canada (>50%?).

Let's get things straight

[fm6]

KaZaa isn't really what it claims to be. They're superficially like Napster or Freenet, but that's just pretense. Or if it's not pretense, then the people running it are unbelievably stupid.

A system like this only works if all the users keep their P2P agents running 24/7, so that others can access their shared files. But when the agent is running, you get a stream of annoying popups. So people only run they agent when there's something to download. So they boast a huge database of stuff that's mostly unavailable.

Re:Let's get things straight

[Reziac]

If you read the Kazaa bug reports forum even semi-regularly, it will become clear that this guy doesn't give a flip how bad his software or service are, so long as he makes money at it. So regardless of the ethical or legal issues, his current position doesn't surprise me.

Re:Let's get things straight

[guanxi]

A system like this only works if all the users keep their P2P agents running 24/7, so that others can access their shared files.

I don't get it -- why does Kazaa only work if *my* shared files are available 24/7? So what if you can't access my files; millions of others will be available.

they boast a huge database of stuff that's mostly unavailable.

Not in my experience. Almost everything I try to download is available.

And for the record, I download, almost exculsively, unreleased live recordings. P2P services put bootleggers out of business.

Napster and Kazaa are cultural treasures. I couldn't, in a lifetime, find the gems I can find on a p2p service in a few hours.

Re:Let's get things straight

[Hal-9001]

But when the agent is running, you get a stream of annoying popups. So people only run they agent when there's something to download.

It's really a trivial thing to disable the popups in KaZaA. All of the popups are routed through a single domain (twistedhumor.com, IIRC, which is the same domain used by several other P2P clients for their popups), so it's very easy to lock out that domain, for example, by adding it to your "Restricted Sites" in Internet Explorer and disabling everything (ActiveX, Java, Javascript, etc.).

Re:Let's get things straight

[Anonymous Coward]

..not to mention running KaZaAaAaAAAaAAAaaAaAa crashes my computer after about 10 minutes. It's such a shitty client, but there don't seem to be any other p2p clients as popular.

Re:Let's get things straight

[Anonymous Coward]

It also demands an Administrator account on W2K for absolutely no reason. No spyware? I wouldn't be so sure..

Re:Let's get things straight

[mikey13]

Most users don't even know KaZaA is running. They just see an icon in the taskbar on startup, and think its supposed to be there. They get annoyed at random popup windows, but have no idea where they are coming from.

Re:Let's get things straight

[Elwood P Dowd]

On Kazaa, queries go through supernodes, right? Supernodes keep track of who is connected to them. If someone stops responding after a minute or so, the supernode removes their files from the database. This is both the way they say it works, and it is also the way it seems to work in practice. When I disconnect manually, my files are immediately gone, and when the kazaa client crashes, they are gone after a short period of time.

So, where are you getting your information? I have never seen any information to support your clame.

And if you're trolling, I guess you caught me.

Re:KaZaa -- what's in a name?

[rebug]

Like Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a cigar is a phallus, and sometimes you want to bonk your mother.

Freud was a pretty messed up guy.

NO...

[DAldredge]

No, the client has to connect to a central server to login to the network..

Re:NO...

[zeno_2]

No, the client doesn't actually. They could take their servers down, and we could still trade files. I think the servers that they have up only give you the news on the front page when you start the program up. The actual searching of files uses supernodes (if you have broadband, kazaa, morpheus, etc will enable your machine as a supernode, pretty much indexes what people have shared, and my computer will be one of the machines that does the search when someone searches for something).

Re:NO...

[zeno_2]

It could be bullshit, you dont work for kazaa, and I dont work for kazaa. I doubt you have looked at the system enough to give a definate answer, and I know that I have not. This is what I have read about the system, and from what Kazaa told the courts, they can't shut the system down.

Do you have any links to support your theory? If you do please share. I am not saying your wrong, as I really dont know for a fact, so it might be your way, or the way kazaa states. I know that in the article that I read, kazaa stated that they couldn't bring the system down. Where can I find info about that otherwise?

By the way, if your going to call bullshit, back it up =)

Zeno

Re:NO...

[kz45]

no, I just have knowledge of how the IP system works.

(unless kazaa has a secret cache server somnewhere), there is no way to know when a user will be around for routing. Otherwise, why use a centralized cache server at all?

It may work without the centralized server, but the average user (which makes up 99.9% of the 500,000 users connected ant any one given time) will not be able to do it. They will just move on to something with a type of "centralized" server. Such as gnutella,filenavigator,AG satellite, or Winmx.

Once all these type of services are gone, so is the vast amount of different files that you can find.

Re:NO...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you are wrong. Starting three months ago, they have relied on central servers. KaZaA/Morpheus/Grokster no longer works without them, and hence giFT, an open version of FastTrack does not work.

If you want more details, goto #giFT on irc.openprojects.org, ask for jasta.

-jasta
lead developer giFT, openFT, gnapster

Re:NO...

[zeno_2]

Now here is someone I can trust when they say this. I am a bit suprised as to why kazaa stated that they couldn't bring the servers down, if they could be. What happened 3 months ago to warrant the change?

Their stance right now is that it is too late. XX Million people have downloaded it, and they can run it with no central servers. Quotes from the article:

"Our software can't disappear, it is already out there" said KaZaa's lawyer Christiaan Alberdingk Thijm.

That statement is not totally true, though, as KaZaa has shown that it has the power to disable older versions of its software remotely. But the company is using another tactic that they hope will allow them to remain open.

Now from that, it looks like they can disable older versions of the client. (this leads me to believe that they do have some sort of check that can be done when someone logs into kazaa) The other tactic they talk about is a legal tactic, and about how they have to comply with some older order that was placed on them.

Now, my biggest confusion comes from the section above:

The company told the court two weeks ago that since the software did not rely on centralized servers, the service could not be shut down. Users had downloaded over 27 million copies of the program and they would be able to continue to trade even if the company folded.

Wouldn't they be getting themselves into A LOT more trouble if they told the courts that they could not shut the system down, when in fact they could?

Like I said before, I don't know this stuff, im only going from what I read about it. Also, has anyone (RIAA) contacted audio galaxy yet? I find that to be a much better service then napster was, im wondering if they have been hassled yet. Thanks for the reply though.

Zeno

Re:NO...

[greenrd]

Uh, how do you know the IP addresses of the supernodes? Central servers, maybe??

Re:NO...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was done in an update to break the giFT project, which had reversed-engineered the protocol used by KaZaA, Morpheus, and Grokster. They did this mainly because they wanted total control of the network.

The former gIFT developers, including myself, are making a new completely decentralized network called openFT, which is based upon KaZaA. However, it will not require central servers like KaZaA.

We've also made ShadowFT, which lets you have a gateway between FastTrack, with it's millions of users, and openFT/giFT.

-jasta

Re:NO...

[mr100percent]

Interesting, but why try to wrestle control? Why not just connect and let FastTrack and Kazaa pay for servers and bandwidth?

It's like I'm using Gaim, but I don't need anything other than the AIM network.

Re:NO...

[rjch]

As I remember, one of the "security updates" to their software (to kill the open source version which they would not support) made the software dependant on "checking in" with their servers periodically. Unless this requirement was removed, then a shutdown of the parent company would be *quite* sufficient to kill file sharing using their client.

WHAT??

[theluckman]

I choose to ignore this /. story.

If you're smart, you'll choose to ignore this post.

Why not just move?

[ackthpt]

Why not just move to Sealand?

Re:Why not just move?

[hether]

Can anyone really move to Sealand??? OH, you just meant the service. :) Believe it or not, they house all their servers in those huge concrete tubes.

Perfect timing...

[Linuxthess]

For the introduction of Limewire 2.0. This new version of the popular Gnutella client has the same feature which made the FastTrack network awesome- "Swarm downloading" which allows you to utilize your bandwidth better, and download a file from multiple users at once.

What next?

[icemind]

"The Amsterdam district court ruled two weeks ago that the KaZaa P2P program is acting unlawfully by making software available that allows users to download music files and must shut down."

So next up are they going to order Washington University to shut down for making wu-ftpd available? That's software that lets people download music files too.

- icemind

Re:What next?

[rickthewizkid]

So next up are they going to order Washington University to shut down for making wu-ftpd available? That's software that lets people download music files too

No, what will happen is they are going to order Verizon, MSN, AOL, etc to shut down becuase they allow people to download music files over their networks.
RickTheWizkid
..."Wow! That lightning was really clo$#%^$# NO CARRIER"

Re:What next?

[stoney27]

I think you are on to something, let's use Archie to search the ftp archives for MP3 files and use the ftp protocal to down load them.

The infrastructure is already there all we need to do now is to have everyone set up anonymous ftp sites.

-S

What? Why?

[Pyrosz]

Why is some software targeted when other software is not? Take for example KaZaa, they make a program that allows you to share information and files. Is this not the same as having a web server and a browser? Or something like ICQ or any messanger service that lets you send/recv files? Wouldn't using an Internet browser to download the KaZaa software be illegal if the KaZaa software is deamed illegal? Therefore all Internet browsers are the cause of all piracy on the internet? So many questions, so much bs.

Re:What? Why?

[TACD]

You're taking things a bit too far. Why KazAa? Well, why not? I suspect they know about Morpheus, Gnutella and the rest, but they have to start somewhere, and KazaA is probably the easiest and biggest target.

Also, ICQ / IE etc are not made for sending/receiving files. Thye have other main purposes; and besides, it is taking things too many steps down the chain to make sense (especially with IE). You might as well say that MP3 players allow people to listen to this 'illegal' music, or that Pentium chips power the computers that make this illegal transfer possible.

Re:What? Why?

[greenrd]

Also, ICQ / IE etc are not made for sending/receiving files.

What? Think before you speak! Obviously IE is made for sending and receiving files. That's exactly what it's made for! (Files are sent in e.g. HTTP uploads, so that's more minor, but definitely receiving files is a core feature).

As another poster said, the key difference is that Kazaa makes sharing and finding music and video files easier. It's often a lot easier to find the mp3 you want on Kazaa than Google, and for a variety of reasons a lot of people prefer to use Kazaa rather than FTP/Usenet/IRC/J-Random-Filesharing-App to share files. But you can in principle share and find music files just using IE and Apache, say. Indeed I have sometimes found good music straight off the web - it's not impossible. (obviously I'm missing out Google, the Internet, Cisco, etc., but it just shows how silly it gets when you get down to that level.)

(I refuse to use the word "piracy" to describe sharing. It's a propaganda word. Using it is tantamount to supporting the oligopolists.)

Re:What? Why?

[TACD]

But you can in principle share and find music files just using IE and Apache, say.

My point is that sending/receiving MP3s et al is not their sole, express purpose. But with Napster / KaZaA, it *is* their express purpose. If you were intending to download some MP3s, you would more liekly download KaZaA than Apache.

IE may receive HTML as files, but that is just splitting hairs.

Usenet anyone?

[dimer0]

Is usenet that unusable that people rely on services like this? I'm just curious why there's a need for all these P2P applications to trade files, when the biggest file-trading network has been in existance for a very long time..

Oh crap! Maybe I shouldn't have posted this! I've let the secret out. (Locks doors, bars windows..)

Re:Usenet anyone?

[WildBeast]

P2P is easier for newbies, it's more familiar. But not to worry, even newbies will do whatever is needed to get what they want. MP3's are everywhere and their's nothing that can stop it.

Once the toothpaste is out, it's hard to get it back in.

Re:Usenet anyone?

[Cid Highwind]

Yes, usenet is that unusable to most of us, at least for music downloading. A lot (probably most, by now) of the large ISPs do not carry the alt.binaries.* groups. If you want access to those groups you have to either pay for access to a commercial nntp server (something your average mp3 swapper isn't about to do) or live on campus at a large university. (even more expensive than commercial usenet service, and the food sucks, too).

So the secret isn't out yet, you haven't told us where to find a broadband provider with free, unfiltered newsfeeds.

Re:Usenet anyone?

[Drakin]

For most people, Usenet is that unuseable, due, at least for me, extreamly poor retention in the alt.binaries.* heirarchy.

Now that said... another (popular) alternative is IRC, I'd say it's almost as east as any P2P setup...

Re:Usenet anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would consider myself a novice. While Usenet is decent I run ito that same problem, my ISP does not carry all the alt.binaries. That being said I do like Kazaa in some respects more. I think both have their functionality. If I'm looking for something very specific, I look to Kazaa. "Ohhhh Britney Spears latest song." But when I'm looking just for the sake of looking: "Gee, I wonder what people have recently posted on Usenet?" I look towards Usenet.
I haven't had much expierence with IRC. It's sorta a bitch to use. Does anyone have any good newbie faq's on it. I'm sorry, my life is way too f'n busy to read anything more than 5 pages of doc.

Re:Usenet anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welp, the cats out of the bag. RoadRunner has full alt.binaries.* feeds as far as i can tell ( satx.rr.com, the news server seems to be the same one for all of texas though).

It is enjoyable downloading (il)legal software at 300kbs. Only problem is its a mess to find all the parts to a large file.

The reason they do this, I imagine, is because people are going to get their warez from somewhere. They can pay (random guess) $50,000 for setting up a full newsserver instead of paying $150,000 in bandwith charges a month from people getting their files from elsewhere. Seems very logical from an ISPs point of view - people will get their warez one way or another. Why not host it locally so the bandwith isn't so expensive.

Re:Usenet anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

RCN Cable Modem carries a full complement of newsgroups. Retention on the high traffic binaries groups is a couple of days. Completeness is pretty darn good but by no means perfect. Speed is between about 2.5 and 6 megabits per second for large archives.

I must say, though, KaZaa/Fasttrack is pretty damn good in terms of transfer speed and reliability. A lot better than Napster, Gnutella, Direct Connect, ED2K, and public IRC fservs ever were. Usenet is getting a run for its money on the piracy front. I'm using Usenet mostly at home but when I'm assisting someone else, KaZaa is one of the first things to go onto the system.

My Defense of Kazaa

[TeleoMan]

Alright, I'm tired of hearing the same old arguement over and over again, so here's the reasons I use Kazaa now instead of buying CDs (I own several hundred CDs btw).

First, I'm into trance, a form of eletronic music, that I can't seem to buy ANYWHERE, not even online. Sure I can find some albums every once and awhile, but most of the time the stores have never heard of what I'm looking for, can't get it, or it will take weeks to get, etc...

Second, in the electronic music spectrum, there's alot of stuff I don't like. I used to try buying CDs, then find out they were junk. Waste of money. Sure, I'd buy CDs of artists I liked that I could actually get ahold of, but I'm listening to alot of bootlegs and things from Europe that can't be purchased, at least in the USA...

Third, I'm poor. Now more than ever, it's difficult being a college student. I couldn't buy albums at all (maybe a couple a year) if I even wanted to. I'm sure alot of other people feel the same way. Most of the people who are pirating on Kazaa (including me) I bet would not buy the album of the person they were pirating anyway, either because they don't like it that much, it's just something novelty they wanted, or they're too poor to go out and actually buy it. You can argue then that the person should not have that recording, but the artist still is not losing money anyways and perhaps smaller ones gain from sharing their music to people who would have never heard it otherwise.

Fourth, everywhere I look, record sales are booming. They're having no problems pushing CDs, even though they're generally $3 - $5 more than 5 - 10 years ago when I was in my teen popular artist CD buying phase.

The only thing I can find in my local record stores are asshole employees, limited selection (plenty of the MTV crap), and high prices. I could buy online, but it's more of the same except the salesperson is taken out and replaced by phony reviews.

I'm glad Kazaa exists, it has opened me up to music I would not have found otherwise and allows me to get my hands on things I wouldn't be able to get my hands on.

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[de_boer_man]

Yes, I stole that man's shoes, but here's the reasons that I did so: (I own several other pairs of shoes, by the way)

First, I really love Nike Air Jordan shoes. Not the new ones, I'm talking the original red and black ones. But you can't buy those ANYWHERE these days. Not even on the internet.

Second, I have tried a lot of different shoes. A lot of the shoes I've tried fall apart soon after I buy them. So maybe I was just borrowing his shoes to see how long they would last before they wore out.

Third, I'm poor. I don't think I could afford more than a couple pairs of PAYLESS shoes a year. Can you believe my hardship! I'm probably the only poor college student in the world. Like I said, I have other pairs of shoes, but I wanted THOSE AIR JORDAN shoes that the other guy was wearing. I don't think I would actually go out and buy Air Jordan shoes though, even if they were for sale.

Fourth, everywhere I look, shoe sales are booming. And shoes cost even more now that when I was a teenager. Even more than when I could actually buy the original air jordan. Shoe companies sell PLENTY of shoes, probably even more because the guy I stole them from probably had to go buy another pair!

The only thing I can find in my local shoe stores are idiot employees, limited selection (plenty of Sketchers crap), and high prices. I could buy online, but it's more of the same except the salesperson is taken out and replaced by crappy customer service.

I'm glad this guy was there. I was able to get the shoes I wanted that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to find.

Seriously though, I know that shoes and digital music are not the same. Not at all. However, all of the reasons above are justifications for behavior that TeleoMan himself admits is wrong. (Unless he has a different interpretation of the word "pirating.") Every lawbreaker has their reasons, their justifications, but that doesn't make the action legal or moral.

For now, sharing digital music in certain ways has been ruled illegal. It might not always be. I hope it won't always be. But none of the reasons listed above would keep you out of trouble would the .mp3 police come knocking on your door. (I don't even want to go there! Imagine... .mp3 police!)

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[EllisDees]

Yes, I stole that man's shoes, but here's the reasons that I did so: (I own several other pairs of shoes, by the way)

Funny how the man still has the exact same pair of shoes, even after you 'stole' them!

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I stole that man's shoes...

I'm with you. When will these people learn? Music "theft" only leads to tragedies like this.

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think I would call that stealing. I would call that copying. I think they had a term for that when I was growing up.

"COPY CAT"

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[Anonymous Coward]

i find it very hard to believe that you can't find the trance you're looking for anywhere online.

ive been able to find most of the goa/psy trance that i've wanted to purchase. im sure its even easier to find progressive or nrg stuff. you must not be looking very hard.

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[zelyan]

Interesting how you only call it illegal. I would like to quote from a variety of sources, but I can't find all the quotes right now, and I'm in the middle of packing, so I'm going to give you a general idea of what I'm thinking:

1) In the beginning, our government was founded on the idea of liberty from governmental persecution. I wonder if companies large enough to create laws could be, in philosophical terms, at least, considered to have the power (and therefore need the restraints) of government.

2) Stupid laws have been passed before, and later repealed. McCarthyism effectively made it illegal to be a communist--did that make it right, the fact that the law was against it? No. And people's lives were ruined when they refused to lie back and do what they were told. But you know something? Those people did what was right.

Prohibition is another example. I paraphrase from one of the best books I've read recently, A Drinking Life, by Pete Hamill: Prohibition made it illegal to drink, and the only appropriate response to that was to go out and get roaring drunk.

Just because it's illegal doesn't make it "wrong." Dangerous, perhaps, but not wrong. That doesn't mean we should go and do whatever we want, it means sometimes the government prohibits things when it has no right to.

And if they catch me doing dope, I will argue that before any judge I get sent to.

(with all that, I'm still not decided as to whether KaZaA, or at least its usage, is morally or ethically right.)

Jeff

Re:My Defense of Kazaa

[BobRainGod]

Third, I'm poor. Now more than ever, it's difficult being a college student. I couldn't buy albums at all (maybe a couple a year) if I even wanted to.

"Man, I just bought this nice ass car, but now I'm straight broke! WaitASec!!!! I'll just steal all that other crap I wanted!"

Look, that's the worst excuse ever. It was your decision to go to college. One of the consequences of this is that you don't have much spending money. Does that mean you can go steal those other things? Nope.

I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

I say let's take all this good GPL software floating around and use it however the hell we want. It sure would save my company a lot of money and me a lot of time if I could just roll some code from a couple of GPL projects into the product I'm currently working on. It's unjust that people should be able to hold a copyright on the code they distribute and set terms on how I can use and distribute it.

What really happened...

[bluenirve]

KaZaa "We can not shut down because our product because people cannect to each other, not a server."
Reporter "You have shut down earlier clients..."
KaZaa "But in the newest client, it is impossible to do so..."
Reporter "If it is run by clients connecting to clients, why do you need to be around."
KaZaa "Because the software won't work otherwise."
Reporter "For some reason, this seems like what Microsoft would do..."

Re:What really happened...

[bluenirve]

KaZZa "And plus, we won't be able to give out our ad-ware and pop-ups anymore"

Fair Use of Kazaa

[TeleoMan]

OK, for once and for all: The fair use law says that I can make copies of a Metallica CD I buy for my own personal use. An example being I copy onto a tape because I only have a tape player in my car. This is legal. Along the same lines, do you think it's wrong for me to download that same Metallica CD that I have purchased, using Kazaa to my MP3 player so I can take it to class? It's true that if I were technically savy, I could convert all of the CD myself to MP3's, but logically is this not a legal use of Kazaa, so that 100,000 people don't have to waste time and effort doing this conversion when it's already been done?

- I like pudding.

Let's sue everybody that shares files

[Webmoth]

Hmm. They are suing KaZaa because they make software that allows file sharing over the internet.

Are RIAA/MPAA et al going to sue Microsoft, too? After all, Microsoft makes software that allows file sharing over the internet with no content control.

Shoot, even WITHOUT all the unintended security holes, it's pretty easy to set up a web server with all your mp3's and get a search engine to list them all.

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[zmooc]

Shoot, even WITHOUT all the unintended security holes, it's pretty easy to set up a web server with all your mp3's and get a search engine to list them all.

But then you'd have your ISP on your back within a few days. For some reason they don't seem to care about KaZaa and alikes while HTTP sharing of copyrighted material seems to be a major issue. But technically they (KaZaa) are not allowed with most ISP's; their Acceptable Use Policies don't allow copyright infringement. Once ISP's start to care about this, the days of free file sharing may be over soon...

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[fliplap]

Problem with that, is that you're easy to track when you setup a webserver.

They know your hostname, so they know your IP, so they know who owns your IP, so they know who to call to get your acct removed.

The nice thing about most file sharing services is that you can't see the IP of users, you have no idea who they are or where they're from. Sure, it's not that hard to find it out, but it's a bigger pain in the ass than nslookup

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[greenrd]

It's in fact extremely easy - just start downloading from someone and then run tcpdump to find out their IP address!

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[acceleriter]

Once ISP's start to care about that, the days of ISP's may be over soon! What's the draw for broadband without a bit of free stuff, at least now and then? RIAA/MPAA/IDSA/BSA/SPA blessed "content" that you're charged US$0.005 per kilobyte to view?

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[zmooc]

That's not true; they can only go after files you share publicly. There are numerous other ways of sharing files.

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[acceleriter]

But that vastly limits the potential audience, and thus the potential pool of files. If I just want to share files with people I already know, I'll burn them to CDR and transfer them in person, or encrypted via the US Mail--and I won't have to pay the cable company $50/month to do it.

Re:Let's sue everybody that shares files

[zmooc]

Well...I don't think all "broadband" users would cancel their subscription if they couldn't publicly share mp3s, movies etc. anymore. Maybe that's true for you (I doubt it), but this most certainly wouldn't mean the end of ISP's. I never use Kazaa or gnutella or whatever but I still have my cablemodem.

Morpheus?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm aware that the file-share protocol is shared by both Kazaa users and Morpheus users.

How does this court order affect Morpheus peoples?

Re:Morpheus?

[andyapple]

dude, Morpheus and KaZaA are like exactly the same programs. same networks and everything. they just have different colour icons, thats pretty much the only differences. both are affected equally yes it is pretty stupid

Sharing is not a violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharing is not a violation under the terms of Fair Use previously decided. It seems to me that the vilation of the law is in the DMCA itself, and not in the use of software. Napster promised to fight, woke up and saw what appeared to be a reality that would not allow them to continue until they sold out. I expect KaZaa to do the same. It's not about anyone selling a license, it's about our RIGHT to communicate and share information (of all types).

"The World Corperate Government would exterminate us all in the blink of an eye, if it could make a profit from it" --- Daniel Loon

Kazaa: It's all been said before

[Anonymous Coward]

"Many artists enjoy the publicity the recieve by having their songs traded on Kazaa."

Many artists are also suing Kazaa and anyone else who either trades, or facilitates the trading of illegal mp3s.

"CDs cost too much! Why should I pay them $12-$18 when CDs are so cheap?"

If you think CDs are too expensive, don't buy them and don't listen to the music. Find cheap local labels, or get music from independent sources like mp3.com Don't download the music for free then complain that it's "too expensive".

"If the artists are in it for the art, they should welcome mp3 trading."

Try living off of "art". Walk into a supermarket and try to trade your mp3 collection for a loaf of bread. Art is nice, but money is a necessity. And do you really think that Metallica or [insert current teenage pop star] are doing music for "art"?

"All intellectual property should be free"

If this were true, most music wouldn't exist. Despite what your favorite left-wing writers might think, financial rewards still have an attraction for most people.

"Anti-Kazaa 'advocates' want to destroy free music!"

No, many just think that the attitude of many Kazaa users is hypocritical and wrong. You don't deserve everything for free, no matter what Momma Slashdot says.

"Kazaa introduces a whole new paradigm of free information exchange which artists need to understand."

Perhaps *you* need to "understand" the current paradigm better. Most artists don't offer mp3s for sale. That is no excuse to download them illegaly. You can live without the new Britney Spears album. Trust me.

"You must work for the RIAA!"

Good parrot. Have a cracker.

Re:Kazaa: It's all been said before

[Anonymous Coward]

Facist

Re:Kazaa: It's all been said before

[rootforskully]

Yea, and Napster and Kazaa are just 2 straws in the bail. What about the news group servers? This whole thing about mp3 sharing will be crushed about as fast as the US crushes international terrorism. I makes no difference to me either way..........

Re:Kazaa: It's all been said before

[rela]

This whole thing about mp3 sharing will be crushed about as fast as the US crushes international terrorism.

I hope you mean that sarcastically? When exactly has the US ever 'crushed international terrorism'? Or even put a dent in it?

if you're interested

[CptnHarlock]

Kazaa is an old word for cat. It's in some ancient european/german language. I can't find the reference but some good KH can surely make a nice google search. I guess they were reffering to napster in a way. Also Kazaa was formely Opennap for those of you who didn't know. Hmm.. or was it music city, I don't remeber anymore. anyway they begun as a part of the opennap network and when napster died - they florished. Whan they die someone else will take over ad infinitum.. or at least untill the RIAA gives up or we all are dead.. whichever comes first.. sorry for the fuzzyness I'm tired.. :) ..

my oh my....

[SGDarkKnight]

I can see myself getting flammed for this but ah well...this is going to be napster all over again, I'm guessing we will be seeing the news about it on /. for the next year or so easy. I can't wait for the lawyers to go after IRC channels next, after all, that is the best place to find anything and everything you ever wanted. Wether it be music, programs, postage stamps or plutonium.

I still say they should simply move or sell thier service to a company in some other country where the DMCAA or the RIAA have no legal handholds on the way music is distributed. Then what would they do, cry and complain that they should conform to the way north america and europe handle these situations. *end rant*

Re:my oh my....

[Iguanaphobic]

I still say they should simply move or sell thier service to a company in some other country where the DMCAA or the RIAA have no legal handholds on the way music is distributed. Then what would they do, cry and complain that they should conform to the way north america and europe handle these situations.

No, the RIAA would simply do what big oil has done for years. Hire the US Marines (via Presidential, Senate and Congressional campaign contributions) to go in and smoke the country. During the rebuilding process, make sure you install a RIAA friendly government and voila, problem solved.

About spyware

[CptnHarlock]

As you and others have said KaZaA does include spyware. In older versions it was optionable, but in the latest so called "security fix" it's mandatory.

However. There are alternatives and one of the less known ones is Grokster. This is also an official client to the fasttrack network and it does also include spyware but you can disable it. Actually it's disabled by default! I've been using it and when I've checked with AdAware it's green. So go get it!

Meanwhile. What happened to giFT/OpenFT?? I'm still waiting.. :)

Re:About spyware

[Hal-9001]

Grokster's spyware is not disable by default. I just installed it today to see what it was, and I had to uncheck a checkbox so that Gator (known spyware) would not install.

Re:About spyware

[ryusen]

hmm if grokster is not mandated with spyware, can it be remotely shutoff like kazaa can? anyone know?

Re:About spyware

[Decimal]

Others include: Limewire & Bearshare. They're both spyware / adware, but Limewire works great for me. It's at version 2.0, though last I checked the webpage they had reverted to the "Newest Version: 1.8c" logo for some reason...

Re:About spyware

[droberge]

I use Morpheus and it, though ad-enabled (yuck), doesn't appear to contain spyware. Ad-aware doesn't notice it as spyware and the start page of the program has a prominent 'NO SPYWARE' icon.

Of course, they could just be lying. Who knows?

Re:About spyware

[mr100percent]

What the heck does the .sig mean?

Re:About spyware

[Decimal]

What the heck does the .sig mean?

Quothe myself. =)

It means that there is no real choice in the typical election. When people go to the polls they generally vote against a candidate rather than for a candidate. (I.E. Joe votes for Bush Jr. because he hates Gore, and Jane votes for Gore because she hates Bush Jr. -- Neither really likes the candidate they voted for.) That is essentially manipulating the voting system but it's doing so in a perfectly acceptable way. Unfortunately, since almost everybody does this, a third party candidate has virtually no chance of becoming a strong contender. And third parties get a bad wrap because they "siphon" off votes from a particular candidate. (Note that the number of people who voted for Perot wasn't enough to ruin the election for Dole, but the number of people who voted for Nader certainly would have been enough to put Gore over the top.) In theory, voting should be a system where everybody votes for the candidate they want to elect. Then again, theory is a perfect realm. Thus the Republicrats remain in control. This hardly does an adequate job of representing what the populace really wants! One solution to this problem is to have runoff elections, which is better, but this doesn't go very far in helping third party candidates who the people really want. Another solution would be to give each person more than one vote. There are those who promote a ranking system, but personally I favor one where each person gets two equal votes. One for who they really want to win, and one for who they think has the best chance of winning against the candidate that they don't want to win. If I think two candidates are equally slimy, I don't want to have to rank one over the other. =)

(I didn't vote for either Republicrat in the last election.)

Freenet

[arodland]

I just took a look at a recent freenet .4 snapshot this morning, and between the software actually working and the web of freesites that's growing, it looks like it's approaching usability.

That was always my gripe with freenet, that it's been too damn hard to use... Keep up the improvements, guys, for everyone's sake.

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding was that freenet was for vanned items like DeCSS code and so on, and wasn't really designed for swapping gigs of MP3s and DivX Pornos. If so, it's not really competition for FastTrack, etc.

Re:KaZaa -- what's in a name?

[datawar]

In russian kaza (or kazaa) means goat. (Look it up in a dictionary, it has nothing to do w/ goatse.cx)

Reverse Class Action

[ryouki]

Why don't the record companies just sue everyone in a kind of reverse class action suit? If thousands of smokers can sue 1 company, Why can't 1 company sue thousands of copyright infrengers? That way everone can owe the record labels millions in damages. Then everyone can go bankrupt together. Afther that the CEO's of the record lables can jump ship enron style before the music industry goes out of buisness for lack of demand as all the consumers are without money.

Re:and they don't like mozilla ;) !

[gwood]

Requiring visitors to have any particular browser before allowing them to see anything is really, really, a broken philosophy (just as bad as MS requiring to have MSIE to view their sites). But, sadly, it seems to be an increasing trend. What can we do?

Re:Why not just move? [Sealand/HavenCo]

[ackthpt]

HavenCo is the business arm of Sealand, which handles hosting of such services. Seemingly hosting KaZaa's business there would grant owners and developers anonymity and protection. Though now that they've got their shorts in the wringer in Dutch courts it's probably too late for that maneuver.

I'm actually curious why noone seems to have started one of these P2P enterprises there, yet. Fear that the RIAA will buy up old warships and attack them? Hmm, now there's a concept. Piracy to prevent piracy... P2PP

BTW, to whomever modded the original post, get a fsking clue, this is hardly offtopic.

Fair use "law" is no more.

[eclectric]

First of all, it's a "clause" in the Copyright Law, not a law in itself. The DMCA removed much of the rights you have to fair use, which is why academics don't like the DMCA either.

BUMA / STEMRA

[terrymr]

Ok now I'm confused .....

If BUMA / STEMRA represent the record industry's interests in the netherlands (much like PRS & PPL in England) why is there a separate suit by the RIAA ? Will we see BUMA / STEMRA / PRS / PPL / the canadian one / etc.. bringing cases against people licensed by the RIAA when they start selling songs to people outside the USA ?

manipulate the legal system?

[emil]

It seems to me that Kazaa, Napster, mp3.com et al have taken relatively orthodox approaches to their legal defense.

Bearing in mind that IANAL, how can one of these companies adopt a legal defense strategy that is the worst nightmare of the RIAA/MPAA and/or the government(s)?

What if Kazaa were to form five more corporations and cross-license its technology with them, then declare bankrupcy in an effort to keep the technology alive?

How could Kazaa involve the largest number of jurisdictions in an effort to dramatically increase the difficulty of prosecution?

What about involving Sealand?

These companies are going to continue to fall to the grim reaper until one of them does with the legal system what the technology has done with the distribution channel.

The next company should insure that it will cost over $1 billion to successfully shut them down.

Re:manipulate the legal system?

[Thatman311]

How about $36 billion (US). What if MS came up with a program like that? Do you think the government could shut it down? Would you actually use it or would you just bitch that it is a MS product and never use?

No! Don't test it in the courts!

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Sounds like they made a bad choice in having the technology to shut down the prior versions of the software... they could have been the first test of truely "uncontrolled" software vs a court order.

You really don't want them to do that test in a court. If a court finds that people are producing things that are invulnerable to court orders, you can bet that within days legislation will be passed preventing any such software from being produced again. Mandatory government-accessible backdoors might well become a legal requirement, and writing or using software without them might become a criminal offence with ludicrous penalties. Remember, governments are quite capable of passing such draconian legislation: RIP in the UK, DMCA in the US, etc.

The thing is, you couldn't really blame the government for introducing such measures, at least not with any justification, because those who object would have brought it upon themselves. With freedom comes responsibility. If you abuse freedoms -- and the likes of Napster, Kazaa and co have allowed people to abuse freedom on a massive scale -- then you're going to be held responsible, and those freedoms are going to be compromised.

Re:No! Don't test it in the courts!

[Computer!]

If a court finds that people are producing things that are invulnerable to court orders, you can bet that within days legislation will be passed preventing any such software from being produced again.

No way, that's impossible! The government would never pass laws that are unpopular, uneccessary, and unenforcable. I mean, except for the war on drugs. Oh, wait...

International Law - Locations and Ramifications?

[nyquist_theorem]

First of all, for all of you asking "why Kazaa?", in case its not obvious yes, Kazaa is Dutch, not American. So logically it would be a court in the Netherlands that has to go after it. Napster, as most know, is as American as long stick bombing and apple pie. So it was pursued in an American court.

What is interesting in all of this is the international ramifications. What's to stop a file-swapping service from setting up in a small, easily-influenced island nation with lax laws on such things? Antigua and Barbuda, in the Caribbean, comes to mind (mostly because im in it at the moment) - low/non-existant taxes, a dedicated free trade zone, a FAT pipe back to the US and Europe, (the much-loved Casino-On-Net is here, for example), and a judicial system that is, well, not particularly likely to push through complex technology-based cases anytime soon. With enough other "legitimate" US-linked technology companies here (such as the casinos), any threat to simply unplug the island would be met with serious lobbying and financial pressure... And thus such companies as Kazaa would be in a more solid position to "sell out" - as is the logical outcome for these services: get big, get threatened, then sell out to a record company (Napster, MP3.com, et al).

As an interesting note, Antigua is building a call center that will house 800+ employees, with the express purpose of delivering outgoing telemarketing to the US and Canada. It's billed here as a wonderful project to provide "high tech" employment (really), with no thought given to how telemarketing is seen by Americans/Canadians. It will be very interesting to see how US telemarketing laws are applied to incoming international calls.

Are these file sharing services just going to hopscotch around the globe, then?

Music sharing finds me the stuff I've never heard

[LM741N]

One thing I really hate about radio is the constant repetition. I have this theory that listening to the same old songs over and over again causes degeneration of the brain. What I really love is to listen to music I've never heard before- rap, Cuban jazz, techno, anything- it stimulates the brain. Gnutella and streaming radio are my favorites for finding this stuff. But just go and try and find some of this obscure music in a record store. If you live in a big city, you probably can, but Joe Schmoe in North Dakota may find file sharing, etc his only link with new music. Thats a shame.

Amsterdam is not just a city

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying "Amsterdam is just a city," in the Netherlands is like saying the Mona Lisa (perhaps, the Night Watch is more apt) is just a painting. Some people.

Not really...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because KaZaa is located within the Judge's jurisdiction, and the Dutch executive branch will enforce the order if asked to.
This isn't like the Yahoo! vs. France issue, just ignoring a judges order.

Bzzzzt! Wrong answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA (and international equivalents) aren't going to shut down the producers of FTP software any time soon. That's because there is a fundamental difference between Napster-like services and FTP servers: the music search engines collect all of the songs available on everyone's client. Basically, each client advertises its warez to millions of people. FTP servers only display the files available on the computer system it runs on. The difference is similar to the difference in, say, emailing a friend an MP3 and telling the world about an MP3, especially if you don't have the rights to distribute it. And don't tell me you only download legal MP3s. That's bull shit.

Because it's too easy...

[Random Feature]

From all of my research on this subject the reason why RIAA is determined to go after P2P networks is that it makes downloading of copyrighted material "too easy".

In other words, any dolt with a computer can figure out how to download via KaZaa,Napster, etc... but if they were required to not only find a server and connect via FTP that it would be deemed too difficult for the masses and is therefore not a threat.

The same goes for IRC, etc... Transferring files via most applications is too intellectually challenging and what KaZaa and Napster are being nailed for is being innovative enough to make file transfer via the Internet "easy".

Of course, my personal take on it is also that these companies have little cash with which to fight back. Microsoft's peer to peer has been available for many years and is just easy to use - but it doesn't offer automated searching of hosts. You need to actually understand how to find a host and connect. Same with browsers.
The companies behind these technologies have lots of cache and lawyers. Napster and KaZaa don't.

This is the real issue the RIAA has with P2P and their current implementation. It's too easy.

Water Under Bridge

[Wintermancer]

I've often said that the RIAA/MPAA/LMNOP are working up a great sweat playing the P2P Whack-A-Mole game. Someone, somewhere, should explain to them what NP means in mathematical terms ;-)

I'll go off on a slight tangent, but bear with me. When you need water, you just go to the tap and turn it on (at least in North America, that is). You get what you what when you need it.

What you don't hear is the Water, Gas and Power company screaming about how their rights are being destroyed by people being able to bottle the water and give it freely to a friend or neighbour. (Or derivative uses thereof, such as cooking, flushing, etcetera).

Why? It's commoditized. It's too damn cheap to bother with repackaging or giving it away. It's there. You get charged by the aggregate volume that you use in a month. You want to give a hectaliter to Joe Farmer down the street? Go right ahead, we'll bill you for your use. But why bother? Joe Farmer can get it for himself.

This is what the music industries need to realize. The cat is out of the bag, the genie is out of the lamp and Elvis has left the building. The days of charging $20/cd are gone for good.

This does not have to be a bad thing.

Commoditize the damn thing so that it's too damn cheap to bother with trading music (other than, "Listen to this cool track I downloaded"). Give people high bit-rate, guaranteed quality, do-what-you-want-with it music for pennies on the song, and you'll make more money than you can dream of. And judging by these guys expense accounts, that's a lot of dinero.

Otherwise, die like the dinosaurs did.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[james_pb]

When you want water in North America (at least the bits I've lived in), you go through years and years of vicious political and legal battles (and in the not-to-distant past, you used live ammunition) to get that water. Maybe there are parts of the world where that's not true, but I've never lived in a place where water rights and use weren't some of the absolute hottest, most contentious issues around. And you certainly can't transfer meaningful quantities of the stuff without even more battles, since different users are charged different rates and have different access rights. Just because something is a commodity doesn't mean it's conflict-free.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[mr.albino]

that is the best idea i've heard in a long time, regarding this RIAA vs. everyone crap.

one problem though, it would be a real pain to have to go from universal's site to sony's site etc. to get the songs you want. put them together, and you create a monopoly.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[saikou]

The problem would be an unwillingness to go down to 20% profitability instead of 300% :) I mean if you're used to selling CD for $20 and it only costs $2.5 to print and $2 for artist/studio/percentage payoffs with everything above that going into "Profit Bin" why would you want to move your finger to change the situation?

When suing companies will take more money rather than lowering price down to $7.00 (and allowing therefore selling single download with burning rights for 50c) they lower price and make everyone happy. Until then lawsuits is cheaper solution for them.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[greenrd]

I think the concept you are fumbling for is search engine. Google is not a monopoly, even though it's possibly the best search engine on the planet.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[kz45]

The problem would be an unwillingness to go down to 20% profitability instead of 300% :) I mean if you're used to selling CD for $20 and it only costs $2.5 to print and $2 for artist/studio/percentage payoffs with everything above that going into "Profit Bin" why would you want to move your finger to change the situation?

you seemed to have left out the millions of dollars it costs for promotion. Maybe that should be split among the consumers of that CD.

Re:Water Under Bridge

[Mr.Spaz]

Well, if the music could carry itself and not have to rely on promotion, then perhaps they could knock those budgets down a bit. But instead they pour billions into the craft of manufacturing Britney Spearses so that they can have a predictable stream of music that they can sell to a predictably manipulated market. If you simply buy CDs from the same label, you're helping to feed the machine. So instead, STEAL it. I'm all for it, and I'm normally a lawful, free-market kind of guy. In this case though, they cannot fudge the numbers enough to even come close to looking like they aren't gouging you when you buy a CD. Production costs of a CD ARE dirt cheap, in relation to sales. I have a friend who is a video editing technician at a company that does some work for some very big record labels. The record companies have enough spare cash just laying around that they can pay for her airfare, hotel, admission, and entertainment to attend industry conventions. They do this for no solid reason, other than she's loosely associated with the label and they usually end up using some of her footage in their displays. That's it. All of that for a technician. All that money down the shitter, and then they turn around and whine about how their $16-$20 CDs aren't bringing in enough profit. These people aren't in the business of selling music; they're in the business of wasting money on incredible scales, and they have no sympathy from me.

Where is the Open Source community on this?

[EQ]

Now is when the open source community should be working hard - to be ready to quickly launch an "open kazaa" type system, with the supernodes p2p searching and indexing, etc. The old protocol has already been reverse engineered. Its a proven protocol, and it works well enough. Just use that protocol and the old giFT client as a starting point.

All that is needed is a "keyless" client and a solid "Windows" version of the client. Why Windows platforms first? To paraphase the alleged Willie Sutton quote, "because thats where the files are". Remember, its the mass of users and files that make this work, so a technically solid and professional looking Windows client must come first, for maximum user gain. This is in additon to the usual and inevitable multiple Linux versions. The replacement client must be made to install and use the files and directories that already exist on the windows users' computers, and to use a similar user interface - so it is instant changeover, apparently seamless and painless - and it will look as if they never "left" the old p2p service except for the centralized login.

Finally, the forgotten element in the Open Source community, "publicity", must be revved up to get this client into the hands of a lot of people so it can be switched to as soon as Kazaaa/Morpheus et al are shut down. Linux users will take care of themselves, but the Windows herd usually needs to be led, at least initially. A question for the Slahsdot crowd,

How do you "publicize" things to the non-geek Windows crowd without a budget ?

Ok, nows the time to step up to the plate - this is a golden opportunity to put into place a open p2p net that cannot be stopped at a central source, that can permanently rip control out of the hands of central authorities for file-sharing, that will quickly adapt to overcome countermeasures, and a system that will make moot the DMCA and other US-centric bad laws. The question in front of the community now is:

Can Open Source people do things pre-emptively - plan and act in advance to scatch an itch we know is coming, instead of waiting for the itch to appear?

This is certainly a good test case to see if the Open Source community is what we enthusiasts always claim that it can be.

Re:Where is the Open Source community on this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, Freenet?

P.S. Stupid slashdot time limits suck.

Re:KaZaa -- what's in a name?

[Spazholio]

"Kozel" is russian for goat, not "kazaa". Kazaa isn't the diminutive form either, I checked...

I don't think that story got it quite right

[filbo]

The article, and many slashdotters, are claiming that KaZaa is refusing to "shut down" to comply with a previous court order. That does not appear to be true. First of all, it appears that the court that ruled in favor of KaZaa is the same court that issued the injunction to shut down. The shut down order supersedes any prior order. KaZaa would only find itself in a conundrum if a different court explicitly ordered them not to shut down and then this court ordered them to do so. That isn't what happened. Furthermore, it does not look the prior ruling had anything to do with KaZaa's right to continue operating. It looks like they are coming up with mostly BS excuses for their decision. Of course, it could be that there is an inconsistency in the two rulings, and that they think they can get away with what they have chosen to do, but that's a different story.

That was then, this is now

[fm6]

The case you're thinking of involved Jackson's forced removal of the Cherokee Nation from its homeland in Georgia to its current home in Oklahoma. I believe something like half the Cherokee perished on the trip. That kind of genocidal action was common in the 1830s. But nowadays political leaders who pull that stuff end up in a cell in the Hague -- or at the end of a rope in Spandau.

What Jackson actually said was, "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it now if he can." Please note that name. Marshall was the first jurist to argue that the Supreme Court could review the actions of other branches of government. In 1830 this concept was still controversial. Now it's universally accepted. Recent presidents ignore the Court at their peril. Eisenhower enforced court orders he empahtically disagreed with. Nixon was forced to obey an order that cost him the Presidency. FDR, probably the most popular President in history, couldn't even get away with adding friendly judges to the court.

Re:That was then, this is now

[Anonymous Coward]

That kind of genocidal action was common in the 1830s. But nowadays political leaders who pull that stuff end up in a cell in the Hague [bbc.co.uk] -- or at the end of a rope in Spandau [mtsu.edu].

Unfortunately, they only suffer those fates if they don't have the power to back it up.

Re:That was then, this is now

[Anonymous Coward]

FDR could have packed the court, but he didn't need to. After his initial threats, the court backed down and did the shit he was asking them to.

Re:Reverse Class Action

[druiid]

If that was sarcasm, which I believe it was.... hahaha... if not, that's a dumb idea.

What to do?

[way0utwest]

This reminds me of the cable boxes that are available in the back pages of Popular Science. For US$300 you can get a box that descrambles the signal from the cable company and lets you view all their content for free.

Should these guys be arrested/shut down/sued?

My argument would be no. They are selling a product that allows you to transform a signal of information. If the cable company broadcasts this signal into your house (their choice) then you should be able to own that signal and do with it what you wish. If the cable company really wants to stop this, they need to stop transmitting it into your house. And the argument its too expensive to send a tech to stop the signal, then that's their issue. Not yours. Personally I don't see a problem with them (though I've never purchased one).

Is this the same as KaaZa?

Not really.

The difference here is that KaaZa is assisting you in re-broadcasting the signal from some content provider to others. Now most content includes a warning that you cannot redistribute the content in a commercial environment, and it is intended for private use. So is it legal to share this with your friends?

You might get some argument from the content providers, but I doubt anyone would enforce this. So are the KaaZa users your friends? I doubt this would stand up in any legal sense because the KaaZa program shares your content with people You do not know.

Another point. Is KaaZa "inciting a riot"? In the sense they are promoting an illegal activity? I'm not sure and I'm sure there are plenty of arguments both ways. I do think, however, that if their servers are being used, then they have some amount of liability and could be compelled to release user information (web logs, emails, etc.). Should they? I'm not sure. I'm on the fence with this one.

A few things that I think you should keep in mind. Redistributing content from a CD, a DVD, or some other source it illegal. There is no fair use argument here. You are plainly stealing content. Now backing it up on your computer, burning a CD and listening to it, etc. is not. That is your right to reuse the content. If you alter the content, perhaps sample the music and add something (vocals, guitar, etC) to differentiate it from the original, then you can redistribute it. However, you have to make the effort to truly differetiate you content from the original. Adding an introduction to the beginning of a song is NOT differentiating it.

So what's the solution?

Who knows? This is a tough question. Personally I lean more towards prosecuting the offenders (users of KaaZa) than the product provider (KaaZa).

Re:What to do?

[Anonymous Coward]

"A few things that I think you should keep in mind. Redistributing content from a CD, a DVD, or some other source it illegal. There is no fair use argument here. You are plainly stealing content."

You had better go re-read the fair use decision, have every judge and lawyer that has an opion like yours do the same. Fair Use allows for non-commercial use... Cripes if a piece of garbage gets repeated often enough people really do believe it.

There is no corporate morality

[Karl Cocknozzle]

"They do not want to licence their products for sale on the internet."

No, they just don't want to give their product away for free. They're perfectly willing to sell on the internet, but they don't want to be in a position where they only see 1 sale for every 1,000 people listening.

You're both wrong. They're asking for the right to charge twice: Once for the CD, and again if you want it as a file for your portable MP3 box (or wherever you store it.)

"A good way to do that is to swap MP3s. "

A good way to convince BMW to sell cars for $100 is to steal them?"

A download from Kazaa is not the same as stealing a BMW, no matter what your employers might think. In your ludicrous "$100 BMW" example, BMW would lose about $45k per unit because they have large production costs associated with creating a BMW. Relative to the record industry, BMWs profit margins are very thin: The car sells for, at extremes, twice what it cost to produce. Compare with the recording industry, where a CD sells for 18-25 times what it cost to produce. While there is no way BMW could stay in business selling $100-540i sedans, music publishers could easily come up with a subscription style license and divvy up the royalties collected among the artists based on their percentage of downloads.

You make the same assumption that the recording industry does in looking at the issue: You assume every download from Kazaa is theft. While some undoubtedly are, if I download something I already own (on cassette, vinyl, or CD) that certainly can't be considered theft: I've paid for the right to have that music in my collection. Based on the Audio Home Recording Act I have the right to record a copy for my own personal use, so what's the difference if I rig up my turntable to create an MP3 or download from Kazaa? What's the difference if I rip my own MP3 from my CD, or get a copy from a friend (or Kazaa)? Again, I already own that CD/LP.

Also, if I download something then buy the CD because I liked it so much, is the download still theft? You can't say "because RIAA wants it to be illegal, so shall it be" and expect us all to just follow along blindly. In America, when a device can be used for a crime, but also has common, legitimate uses, it is tolerated.

Consider the gun, the car, and the baseball bat, all examples of things that CAN be used to commit a crime, just as Kazaa could be used to commit a crime. But it could also be used to share photographs of Bobby with grandma, to share music that I created with the world, or to share corporate videos with overseas divisions cheaply.

Your post is what we in the industry call clueless

Your post is what I'd call very condescending. Do you have stock in the recording industry, per chance? Or are you on the payroll?

Anonymity

[chihowa]

You analogy is good except for one piece. KaZaA provides anonymity for its users.

This would be comparable to a stretch of highway where it's OK to drive without license plates or a drivers license. There is no way to "go after the perpetrators" in this system, and it was designed with that in mind.

They know that adding user tracking systems would make their service less desirable, but the obvious (and ultimately disturbing) argument is that a legitimate, legal user shouldn't care because they're doing nothing wrong.

If a road was being used to traffic drugs, it is not as bad to not enforce the law on that road as it is to design the road so that the law is unenforcable on that road.

Re:Anonymity

[FleshWound]

KaZaA provides anonymity for its users.

Hardly. When you download files from someone on KaZaA, your computer is made aware of the other computer's IP address, and vice versa. It wouldn't be very difficult for law enforcement to download files from KaZaA, log IP addresses, and contact the users' ISP's to find out who was using those IP addresses at any given time.

Sure, some changes might have to be made to the way ISP's operate, and in some instances, court orders would need to be issued for the ISP's to release that information, but it could be done...that is, if the RIAA/MPAA were TRULY interested in punishing the guilty.

The fact of the matter is, they have no interest in doing so. Why? Because "the guilty" == "the customers." Start going after the customers, and you start alienating customers. Alienated customers are no longer customers...or, more specifically, no longer a source of revenue.

I honestly don't know what the RIAA and MPAA hope to accomplish with all this silliness. They should realize that they can't stop piracy, and they're obviously not willing to go after the pirates. It seems to me like a half-assed "show of force"...and the only purposes it's serving at this point is to alienate customers, and put honest, hard-working people out of work...all for nothing. It's truly sad.

Re:Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

>If a road was being used to traffic drugs, it is not as bad to not enforce the law on that road as it is to design the road so that the law is unenforcable on that road.

Haven't drive on many Rural Routes lately, have you?

Re:Anonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote a reply to a post higher where I said that the freeway analogy was a good one.

I think this observation makes it an incomplete analogy.

I propose we change the analogy to that of a telephone service. In the case of phone usage you are anonymous until you are tapped. Which is the same in the case of an anonymous network.

Again, how would the phone company be at fault for phone solicitation to a hitman?

Let's work with that one.

You bet your *** I'd use it.

[emil]

The very moment that Microsoft gets on the side of the consumer, I will be their loyal customer.

Microsoft could do any or all of these things to cause me to immediately rethink my (currently very dismissive) attitude towards them:

• Use mozilla/gecko in IE7 (it's faster anyway)
• Take on the RIIA/MPAA and their legislation
• Open-source technically significant portions of their OS and application software

Microsoft management has not yet become bored with greed. I would like to see what happens when they do.

Re:You bet your *** I'd use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Apple's stance.

Their whole DRM protection consists of a sticker on each iMac saying "Don't Steal Music".

The Net Hood...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should sue Microsoft...Network Neighborhood is a means to share illegal files....

Do they have the right to shut down?

[Henry V .009]

If a court orders Maytag refrigerators illegal, (Anthrax storage enablers) does that give Maytag the right to go into your house and smash them? Or to punch the self-destruct button they have hidden in their office? Is software a good that is bought, or a service that can be discontinued?

Respect? Honor?

[Decimal]

but always respect and honor.

Er... no.

Re:Respect? Honor?

[jonnythan]

At least spell "candidate" correctly.

Re:Respect? Honor?

[Decimal]

At least spell "candidate" correctly.

Thank you.

Stealing music?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth do you steal music?! Is it similar to the way the evil Leprechaun in my closet steals the sunshine from me every morning? Or is it more like the way I stole the ability to speak from my grade school teachers? Or is there a new program that downloads CDs from store shelves and prints them out on my printer?

And your point?

[Breakfast Pants]

"I'm sure you're all using KaZaa" Whats your point? I also use internet explorer to get movies and songs. Does this mean microsoft should be sued? FUCK NO. So please give your point, this is a network where people can send files back and forth, nothing more than that. The only people criminally using the system are the users, not the creators.

I hope they can survive by saying "NO !"

[Tha_Zanthrax]

IMHO they are doing a great job being ignoring a court-order that insane, but let's hope the judge thinks so too. (last time I made a BIG mistake with that one.)
Napster had their central server taken down, Kazaa won't be much different. But I sure hope that P2P-clients (like Morpheus or anything using GNutella) will survive.

The article is _WRONG_

[toadnine]

*Sigh*

The mp3newswire.net story is complete bollocks... they probably thought: 'hey, more than two weeks pasts, KaZaA hasn't shut down, they're probably ignoring the verdict...'. The quotes in the article are even based on things said weeks ago!

What's the _real_ story?

Is was already posted a week ago on a Dutch site

The most (and only) interesting part of the article: (translated)

A spokesman from KaZaA's main office in Sweden explains they don't need to [shut down] yet. "Since we're negociating with Buma/Stemra right now, we are not forced to shut down"

Tsssk... if only more people could read Dutch :-p

Re:International Law - Locations and Ramifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Grokster, LTD. is an international software company engaged in the business of providing cutting edge person to person software. Grokster is privately held and headquartered in Nevis, West Indies.

http://www.grokster.com

This is another fasttrack client that uses the
exact same infrastructure as kazaa (fasttrack).

Kazaa and FastTrack

[nabucco]

The FastTrack network (Kazaa, Morpheus and Grokster) is an authoritarian network. With version 1.3.3, network control was centralized by requiring authentication by company servers - all power in the network was concentrated in the hands of a few. Thus, since it is an authoritarian system, a more powerful authoritarian system, US entertainment corporations, can make the MPAA make the Dutch courts shut down the FastTrack network.

The Gnutella network on the other hand, is a more anarchic network. All power on the network is distributed equally among the users of the network. Thus, although it has been around longer than FastTrack, there is no central authority the MPAA can force to submit, so it is not as easy for the MPAA to shut it down as Napster and FastTrack are.

Beyond Gnutella there are publishing networks like Freenet and Mojonation. These networks would be even more difficult for some authority to attack than Gnutella. Publishing is free, and content is split up and distributed. Add to this encryption and reverse proxying, and it becomes difficult for people to know what data they store, and where data they request comes from. This type of network is even more resistant to authority's attempts to shut it down. The design of publishing networks is more complex and less utilitarian than that of Gnutella however. Thus design and usage of publishing networks is not up to the level of that of the Gnutella network yet.

Define "Dependencies"

[The Spie]

It has one dependency: spyware. BonziBuddy, ClickTilUWin, a couple others, plus the standard Gator/Office Companion, specifically. No choice on whether or not to install it other than Gator and Office Companion. And the crap isn't uninstalled when LimeWire is either. I don't mind companies looking for revenue streams, but I'll be damned if a program's going to leave stuff on my machine when uninstalled that it put there in the first place. At least BearShare puts all of its spyware in the "choice" category. Screw LimeWire, and thank God for AdAware. It got rid of whatever I didn't pick up.

Re:Define "Dependencies"

[Anonymous Coward]

Limewire may have dependencies on central services -- I don't know, I don't use it -- but Gnutella, the overall system, does not. That's what jilles was saying.

I use the free, open-source Gnutella client "gnut", which of course includes no spyware or other cruft. Until the recent change in the FastTrack (KaZaA/Morpheus/etc.) system, which now requires login, I also used the free, open-souce (but limited) client "giFT" with that service. Now I use a closed-source, but still ad- and spyware-free, KaZaA client for Linux.

Re:Define "Dependencies"

[jilles]

It's open source (GPL) so you can build yourself a version without that stuff. In addition there's options to not install the spyware when you install limewire and finally there's a java only installer that doesn't have the spyware at all.

Plenty of options to use an excellent, free product without being nagged and spied upon. Bearshare is nice too, but from where I'm standing, most of the innovative features come from the limewire people. That's why I use limewire.

Re:My Defense of Kazaa: its good for beats

[SHiFTY1000]

yeah i agree, its almost impossible to find decent dance music in shops, and it always seems to be more expensive when you do find it... i think the nature of dance music- with its obscure bedroom producers releasing white labels of one astounding track and then disappearing, makes it impossible for the mainstream record industry, which is more geared towards bands and albums. Ive downloaded some absolutely stomping tracks, some of which have been ripped from vinyl! If morpheus/kazaa gets shut down it will be a damn shame, but the RIAA is a dinosaur which will soon be extinct.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT SPYWARE

[Anonymous Coward]

ive read here in this discussion about how kazaa has debatable spyware in it and to use other clients like grokster, well i have bad news for you people. grokster has spyware, and it seems to be a lot worse than kazaas, altho i have no details of what it does. first of all i noticed today i had both an explorer.exe running and an Explorer.exe running (notice the capital E), it was located in c:\windows\explorer\Explorer.exe and i reviewed the last few things i installed lately. and found it was grokster that installed it. at first it sets up a program called c:\windows\dlder.exe to run at next boot. and it sets up this new Explorer.exe the time after you reboot. my virus software does not think any of these files are bad. and ad-aware doesnt either. but this Explorer.exe runs THE WHOLE TIME YOUR COMPUTER IS ON. and does who knows what. please. if you install grokster as a "safe" alternative to kazaa please remove these files from your startup (use msconfig to remove them). also let me note that i said no to install any other software when i ran the grokster installer.

Mod Parent Up!

[greenrd]

That's one of the most insightful posts I've seen this week.

Re:International Law - Locations and Ramifications

[Sigh Phi]

Can you say "Afghanistan"?
Can you say "daisy cutter"?

Setting up shop in a country with lax laws would seem to be profitable only in the short term. If the RIAA decides that file sharing constitutes terrorism of sorts, then you can guarantee that (figurative) bombs will drop in Antigua, Barbados, and other "fringe" domains.

Except you can't copy water

[Snaller]

nt

If they do shut Kazaa down...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it will be the fault of the millions of users who were too lazy to do anything. 27 million people have to count for something. 27 million people mean more to politicians than any corporate assocations, or at least they should.

LOL

[man_ls]

As long as the company is based outside of that court's jurisdiction (like in another country) they can legally laugh it off. And rightfully they should.

Just like Yahoo should have done to France.

Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mirrors are devices for rebroadcasting potentially copyrighted works with no 'substantial non-infringing _commercial_ use'.

I'm waiting for the mirror factories to get raided.

why stop there?

[tourettes]

If the courts are given the power to shut down a piece of software that allows the exchange of software, then where are the limits? Kazaa is one example, how about mIRC? Do they start to target all forms of the IRC client? Do they make it illegal to even use the protocol because it allows for file sharing? How about ICQ? The latest windows ICQ client i have used allows for file sharing, so we would have to do away with the ICQ protocol. Let's see, what else? FTP...the very nature of that protocol's name is for file transfers, so whoever came up with that must be sued as well. And our operating systems allows us to run these programs, so the makers of those need to be sued, as well as our internet providers for giving us the medium to transfer upon. There is no end to it, the only real answer to end it all is to make it illegal to use the internet at all, and be not allowed to speak to anyone who may have software they could "lend" you.

Mirrors.

[Anonymous Coward]

Still waiting for someone to raid a mirror factory. They meet the DMCA's criteria... 'Can be used to rebroadcast potentially copyright works...'

Sigh.

Re:OMG

[phat_rat]

Listen to me,

The world is full of unjust laws.The US (my fucking gay stupid homeland) is loaded with them.I WILL NOT SAY that you should sit back and except the world as it be.I WILL SAY *FUCK AUTHORITY*.Some say laws are there for a reason,to protect.I say they are there for another reason,to FUCKING IMPOSE.

In this country and others,WE NEED TO FUCKING RISE!!WE NEED TO TAKE A STAND FOR LIBERTY ON EVERY FRONT!!NO MORE PITTERING AROUND AND BEING SCARED OF AUTHORITY!!WE NEED TO MIND FUCK THE AUTHORITY AS THEY HAVE DONE TO US SO MANY TIMES.

Never back down.Never shut up.When they tell you to shut up you know that you are getting to them.Never shut up.When they say things like that they are scared of swaying your way.Freedom is worth any cost.

ANY COST.TRUE FREEDOM CAN ONLY BE ATTAINED BY A BLOODY REVOLUTION,I DONT KNOW ABOUT ANYONE ELSE,BUT IM WILLING TO FIGHT FOR IT.THEY CALL ME CRAZY.

I CALL ME PREPARED.IM SERIOUS,WE CANT SIT BACK AND ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.

If you want freedom then you have to fight for it or die..

"Live free or die"

Done.

Huh? oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that read "Katz Ignores Court Order to Shut Down

ignore!?

[acrolein]

hrmm wouldn't it be "disregard" instead of ignore, since they acknowledged the court order?

eDonkey

[SergioB]

Better use eDonkey! :)
It theoretically can not be shuted down :)

Re:International Law - Locations and Ramifications

[BCoates]

As an interesting note, Antigua is building a call center that will house 800+ employees, with the express purpose of delivering outgoing telemarketing to the US and Canada. It's billed here as a wonderful project to provide "high tech" employment (really), with no thought given to how telemarketing is seen by Americans/Canadians. It will be very interesting to see how US telemarketing laws are applied to incoming international calls.

----

Can you say "Afghanistan"?
Can you say "daisy cutter"?

Sounds like a plan to me...

--
Ben Coates

What I learned!

[Spl0it]

Well, it's 6:04am, and I've been reading these posts for the last few hours..and I must say there are some really good points here.

I learned that eventually some kid, some business, some offshore company, SOMEONE.. will find a way to beat these rule pushing money pinching bastards, and everyone will cheer! :)

Until that day, I'll continue with my "boycott" of cd's, which has now hit year 6.. and to be honest I never download anything, radio only for me, except occasionally (two or three times a year) I will get a bunch of mp3 dance/trance or just a few "good ones" I heard on the radio from a friend.

Anyone else realize how narrow minded some of these organizations are?

Christmas gift
$24 + tax for friken 11songs, what a joke... I bet 10 of them suck anyways.. btw how much does the artist get out of the $24 dollars? do they even get $0.50cents?

we also have "copyright control"

[freaker_TuC]

In Holland there is STEMRA, in Belgium it is SABAM ... they are all alike the RIAA in the US.

They can still try to sue KAZAA...

If I remember well then Kazaa was sued by the dutch copyright control and not the RIAA.

just to blockout a 3rd party clients

[DABANSHEE]

If they don't mind 3rd party clients loging into the network, they can change it back so that even if they shutdown the Kazar apps on all our PCs will still work.

Look at Xolox, they shutdown, but just by loading a patch so the app doesn't have to logon on to the Xolox site to check for an update 1st (a requirement of the original app) the Xolox P2P apps still work.

Just go to to zeropiad.con, they have the Xolox no-update patch.

That why the FT people changed things

[DABANSHEE]

They made it so FT clients/transparent servers had to logon 1st, to block out 3rd party clients, but if they want they could change the FT service back to the no logon 1st setup (so it will still work even if the FT companies shutdown) anytime they choose to.

Maybe Kazar's just taken this course.

I wanna kill KaZaa users disturbing my network!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

KaZaa users are annoying. See all those KaZaa users probing if TCP port 1214 is open in my system???
---
WAN Type: DSL Network
Display time: Mon Dec 24 14:51:04 2001
Mon Dec 24 01:21:57 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:1383 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:22:00 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:1383 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:22:06 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:1383 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:22:18 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:1383 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:52:15 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:2341 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:52:18 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:2341 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:52:24 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:2341 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 01:52:36 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:2341 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:22:38 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3142 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:22:41 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3142 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:22:47 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3142 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:22:59 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3142 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:52:45 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3409 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:52:48 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3409 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:52:54 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3409 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 02:53:06 2001 Unrecognized access from 172.182.124.10:3409 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:29:00 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3732 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:29:04 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3732 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:29:09 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3732 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:30:03 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:62665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:30:06 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:62665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:30:12 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:62665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:07 2001 Unrecognized access from 66.57.71.211:1138 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:12 2001 Unrecognized access from 66.57.71.211:1138 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:16 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3804 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:16 2001 Unrecognized access from 66.57.71.211:1138 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:19 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3804 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:31:25 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:3804 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:35:50 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:63434 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:35:53 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:63434 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:35:59 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:63434 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:38:53 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.224.1.50:4042 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:38:56 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.224.1.50:4042 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:39:02 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.224.1.50:4042 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:41:34 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:64131 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:41:37 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:64131 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:41:43 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.89.100.30:64131 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:46:26 2001 Unrecognized access from 213.65.53.201:1097 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:46:29 2001 Unrecognized access from 213.65.53.201:1097 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:46:35 2001 Unrecognized access from 213.65.53.201:1097 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:49:55 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3661 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:49:58 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3661 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:50:04 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3661 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:58:54 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4025 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:58:57 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4025 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 13:59:03 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4025 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:00:04 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1056 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:00:07 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1056 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:00:13 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1056 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:01:27 2001 Unrecognized access from 64.112.199.84:3765 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:01:30 2001 Unrecognized access from 64.112.199.84:3765 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:01:36 2001 Unrecognized access from 64.112.199.84:3765 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:02:36 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.44.75.146:4043 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:02:39 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.44.75.146:4043 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:02:45 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.44.75.146:4043 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:02:57 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.44.75.146:4043 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:06:47 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4233 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:06:50 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4233 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:06:56 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4233 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:16:46 2001 Unrecognized access from 217.228.241.85:2518 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:16:49 2001 Unrecognized access from 217.228.241.85:2518 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:16:55 2001 Unrecognized access from 217.228.241.85:2518 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:17:07 2001 Unrecognized access from 217.228.241.85:2518 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:17:28 2001 Unrecognized access from 208.38.78.224:1465 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:17:34 2001 Unrecognized access from 208.38.78.224:1465 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:17:46 2001 Unrecognized access from 208.38.78.224:1465 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:29:06 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:29:09 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:29:15 2001 Unrecognized access from 200.56.160.137:4665 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:33:54 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1299 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:33:56 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1299 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:34:02 2001 Unrecognized access from 63.22.231.102:1299 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:35:29 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3456 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:35:32 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3456 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:35:38 2001 Unrecognized access from 62.226.103.2:3456 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:48:58 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61303 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:49:01 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61303 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:49:07 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61303 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:49:19 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61303 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:50:31 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61539 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:50:35 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61539 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:50:40 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61539 to TCP port 1214
Mon Dec 24 14:50:52 2001 Unrecognized access from 145.254.144.175:61539 to TCP port 1214

Suing Record Co...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words:
Courtney Love