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KaZaa Suspends Downloads
chill writes: "'Download Temporarily Suspended -- Download of the KaZaA Media Desktop software is temporarily and voluntarily suspended pending Dutch court decision on January 31. We apologise for the inconvenience. Please check back at www.kazaa.com for more information.'
--- Both the Linux and Windows client downloads are offline. I wonder what the judge thinks this will do to the tens, if not hundreds of thousands who already have the software?"
I have written both normal and troll posts, 1st posts, etc., both logged in and anonymously, and I have found these rather shocking results:
Statistics based only on your posts are definitely not enough. For starters, maybe you experienced more modding down because you don't post anything interesting, even when you mean to. Your assumption that there are concrete objective categories for modding is without merit. The distinction between troll and normal posts is a judgment call, if it were not the moderation system would not be needed.
even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post [slashdot.org]. There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4.
Again, this is a judgement call, apparently it was interesting to enough people to get it modded up.
Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll [slashdot.org], which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
I didn't even bother to check the results of this poll, anyone who points to a web poll as statistical evidence should have all of his conclusions immediately called into question, even if they appear to be solid, which your do not. Trying to prove anything by an easily stuffable poll is ridiculous. But for arguments sake let's say that each vote represents the opinion of one and only one person. Still the poll's accuracy is highly questionable. In fact if I were to predict the outcome of such a poll ahead of time I would have guessed that the greatest number would vote against the moderation system. Why? Because those that post anonymously or having nothing to say would have more reason to vote (negatively) since they are the ones constantly being modded down.
Of course as off topic as your post and my resultant response (damn I'll take two karma hits in one day) were I do commend you for trying.
As one final thought let me leave you with this, I disagree with the action of modding (not the fact that it exists) for the most part. But you need to remember that most likely the majority of the readers of slashdot are the young and the internet, that's a natural result of popularity and a sure reason to expect the lowest common denominator.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
It would have been good to provide some specifics (how many posts, of which type, etc.)
That's because it's a lot easier and quicker to spot trolls, firsts posts, links to goatse and assorted other crap, so more of them will get moderated. No big surprise there. Time may be a factor (see below)
That's an interesting one, probably a case of (unconscious?) karma whoring on the part of moderators. This may be an area where tweaking with the point system may prevent this herd mentality, so I hope Taco or whomever is reading this thread.
I don't think there's any conspiracy against ACs or individual posters. This probably happens because moderators often may browse at 1 instead of -1, instructions to the contrary notwithstanding. That means you won't see the ACs at all; no conspiracy theory necessary to explain this, just that the moderator can't or won't browse at 0 or -1.
For some reason my turn to moderate has come up an unusually large number of times in the past two months or so. I tend to do moderation at work but not during work hours (first thing in the morning, or in the late afternoon). If I happen to be having a busy day at work (which is most of the time) I may decide to browse at a higher level to be done more quickly, on the theory that it's better to do some moderation than none at all.
For the same reason (lack of time, the mod points about to expire, etc.) it takes a lot less time to moderate down a first post, troll, etc. than to wade through 300+ messages looking for some good ones. So if you're busy (or tired of reading junk) it's the most expedient thing to do.
See above.
Meta-moderation is supposed to help on this, but the feedback loop probably takes too long and furthermore you are right that overall there tend to be clear biases in the Slashdot population.
That's not an argument for not having a moderation system, though.
Rather, I think that the moderation system should perhaps distinguish moderations done to opposing or unpopular viewpoints (the odd pro-MS or anti-Linux post that's not a flamebait), and up the rewards for the moderators who do them.
So, of the two things I agree with you, they could be translated into proposals such as:
One interesting (encouragning?) thing is that your message got modded up. Good thing, IMHO.
Whenever a new version of Slashcode is made available, there are lots of suggestions for ways to improve moderation options, but I don't recall ever seeing any substantive discussion of the topic with participation of the real powers behind /.
In short, the poll does not have to be accurate to be significant. What it signifies is subject to interpretation.
National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation
Ah - more karma to burn. Do I care? Not really.
Anyway, much to my surprise, the moderation is not robomoderation. Some human being is, almost unbelievably, doing these by hand. What a sad person - hi there Mr Sad! (waves).
The question that we should be asking is "Who is Mr Sad?".
For the first time in my life I understand the trolls.
Some human being is, almost unbelievably, doing these by hand. What a sad person - hi there Mr Sad! (waves).
1 410
Mr. Sad's name is Jamie McCarthy, and he calls modslapping threads "grunt work" in this post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24252&cid=264
For the first time in my life I understand the trolls.
Welcome to our frustrated, pissed off, disenfranchised little world. We can teach you more about Slashcode and how the system really works than anyone else; but at a price. Prepare to be bitchslapped, modslapped, IP banned, $rtbl'd, and lose all your moderation priveleges. We offer knowledge at a cost.
Blue or red?
I don't believe that Oracle's software is necessarily immune to bugs. The advertising does make it sound like that but it no software can ever be completely error free. The very fact that a security problems with oracle make news indicates that it must be pretty good. Also think about the sheer number of people using Oracle's products. The more people use a product the more likely it is for problems to be found. Oracle perhaps is not mistaken in saying that their database is reliable. The mistake is of course saying that the system is completely secure. As stated many times before there is no such thing as absolute security.
Great. In one 24 hour period we have had stories on Universal's general screwing of it's customers, the network's reluctance to let us record shows in any shape or fashion, and now Kazaa shutting down pending litigation.
What a happy joyous world I live in. How in the FUCK did we get to this point?
-------------------------------------------------
The fear of this happening is spreading. I recently had a few people come to me to ask about encrypting their hard drive contents. This will help for now, but I'm expecting the US to pass an equivalent law to the UK RIP Act, which requires people to turn over passwords if the government asks for them.
This country used to be about freedom for the people. What have we let happen?
True file sharing technology should not sneak Gator onto your hard drive or try to sell you CDs you don't want
The future of P2P belongs to technologies like GNUtella, which can be used to set up truly decentralized file-sharing networks that CANNOT be struck down by tyrants disguised in business suits
Yes, GNUtella is harder to use, klunkier, and tends to access smaller listings of files, but given time and work, these problems will be alleviated as greed-driven fake P2P systems like Napster and Kazaa are crushed by the moneyed interests controlling the legal system.
Anyway, True Freedom belongs to those willing to work for it. Strong, free geeks will always find a way to overcome the forces of oppression. Forget Kazaa. P2P4Profit is a deservedly dead end.
Copywrite laws existed to protect the artist and not the corporations that bought the artists out.
Music is intellectual property, not physical property. When are people going to figure this out?
I remember the days when music copywrite was simply so that someone couldn't blatantly rip off some artist and then claim it as their own work. For instance, if The Verve decided to blaringly take a riff from a Rolling Stones tune without permission, the Rolling Stones should be given all the money that The Verve makes on said song, or at least a portion thereof.
Now all of a sudden intellectual property means The Ability To Listen To said song.
Since when do Music corporations have a right to limit how far the music is reached? Doesn't this compromise the artist's intent in itself? Honestly, what this is doing is once again putting more power in the hands of those with the money and reinforcing Murphy's Golden Rule (whoever has the etc.).
Morons. All of them. Especially since they don't realize the awesome power (wow, this sounds like a speech from Masters of the Universe or something) of Filesharing, and that the existence of mp3s/Divx/mpgs/exes/whatevers is going to negate any attempt to control flow of music/information. napster got shut down. Everybody said it was over. Out sprung a dozen clones. Now Kazaa gets shut down. If Morpheous, Audiogalaxy et al follow suit, I personally guarantee this number reaching out in the fifties. And eventually genre-driven ones and all that kind of stuff.... It'll be glorious.
Wow. That was cheesy. I'm gonna stop before it gets worse.
Karma: Non-Heinous
It's worth noting, again, that giFT, the open-source FastTrack clone, is now undergoing network testing. Slashdot over to there, get their client, try it and see if you can't help them out. giFT, if it takes off, shouldn't have any of the advertising, authenticating, or other such problems of the commercial FT clients, right?
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I find it odd that, even though KaZaA has suspended downloads, their download counter (at the top of the page at http://www.kazaa.com/en/defend.htm, for example) is still going up. This might be automatic (it's going up very smoothly and uniformly), but even so it's amusing. In addition to Morpheus, there's also Grokster, which likewise licenses the FastTrack technology. Is file sharing really dead? I don't think so. I mean, the way courts generally work, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA would have to sue every file sharing program making company separately. In addition to the legal fees, the industries are lagging behind by a year or at least several months... Programs are around for a while before any suit gets filed, and then the suits take time. True, it's hardly optimal that file sharing programs rise and fall every so often, but a bit of a shakeup is good now and then. Besides, they're growing faster than people can try to get them shut down. Direct Connect is quite good for some things. Gnutella, although it sucks, cannot be eradicated. And if something like Freenet ever gets somewhat usable and efficient, they won't really have anyone left to sue. Maybe then they'll concentrate on making movies and music and software good enough that we want to buy it, instead of producing crap on a stick, trying to limit what we can do with it, and suing everyone in sight. Marketing can only do so much to sell a bad product (although M$ has done an entirely too good job of it...).
Actually there is a central server for both Kazaa and Morpheus, but what separates it from Napster is that there isn't any file index on the server, only user authentification. Will the courts be able to get at that server? It's a harder case to argue, that's for sure...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
How? Easy, just tell the writers at all those magazines that target the population at large to write an article about a 'useful' ;) tool or service (eg. DVD Genie in the January 15th PCWorld newsletter). The general public downloads the program, use it, and the worst part is flaunt it. "Look ma, I can play these DVD's that are cheaper from other countries." Soon after, everyone and their grandma knows about it. D'oh, attention from the authorities and soon followed by a lawsuit from a company.
It's easy. If the track you want is not available from Emusic what are you going to do?
:)
I want new Vangelis. EMusic has a whopping TWO albums of "Best songs" from 1984. Sweet. Oh wait... I already have those, bought for less than $5 each. Now I am supposed to pay 9.99 per month for right to download those two albums. I don't think it's a good deal.
As for other new services where you can pay for download -- you either can't burn downloaded copies or you have to pay a full price (that exceeds the cost of a "regular" CD album) with a limit of songs. Until it gets to the level of Tivo where for 9.95 a month I can record and play and do whatever I want with the tv shows without limits it won't be a good deal and big guys will be giving out interviews screaming that "those bastards don't want to use our legal system!". Hope they'll get smart one day
Hyperom.com
Personally, I'd like to see Kazaa, Grokster & Morpheus taken down. Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid Grokker, but every time a popular P2P service gets taken down, a newer and better one rises to the top.
When people wanted more than Napster, Scour appeared. When they both stopped, Kazaa etc.. hit the scene.
It's only a matter of time before Kazaa etc.. are stopped completely and I look forward to the "next big thing". Although annoying, this leads to progress and I hope it'll end up with a P2P network that you *can't* kill and that's better than Gnutella.
My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.
It does not matter what kind of spyware crap gets installed on your system, getting rid of it is much easier. A nice way to tell them up yours with Gator and the rest. Lavasoft ad-ware will remove these beasts (and others) from your computer. It even has a reference library that is updated by people who hate spyware as much as we do. Install, scan, select, and remove. Send Gator and its spyware alike where it belongs, in the garbage. Download ad-ware from here: http://www.lavasoft.de
Does this give you ideas for other sources of revenue? Make everything literally free (to download) on the internet. With, maybe, a royalty on home-user (IE, non-business) bandwidth, with statistical sampling to determine how much of that royalty should go to which entertainment industries for mass-market entertainment. Maybe add in hard drives or cd blanks. Basically, make something similar to the Audio-CDR mechanism.
What a scary thought. This would make artists even more subject to patronage than they are under the current system. Remember, at least now you can come up with your own money and release what you want independently, and it may find a market. If business can effectively control the means of delivery, you won't be able to do that without cutting deals... and those deals will be excruciating for the little guy.
Of course I am being a bit extreme here; independent producers could find alternate methods of delivery. But still... look back to the roots of artistic patronage, when museums and "salons" were solely showcases for the baubles of the rich. Great things came out of counter-movements to that paradigm - but lots of good and important artists and ideas starved while it was still dominant. Or look more recently at MTV (since the whole recording industry is too byzantine to summarize here). When it first came out, it had a monopoly on playing music videos, and could directly control what millions of teens saw - and so not only commanded billions from advertisers, but also from record companies... not to mention asserting "creative control" in other ways as well. (Who do you think made the "a" in "alternative" a capital letter? The same people who now sell you pre-rumpled plaid shirts and jeans for more than "dress" clothes. ) Even now, the "discoveries" or "underground" bands that get airtime go through rigorous vetting and are brought in primarily for novelty and market share.
We must remain vigilant when new technologies get introduced, that there are no hidden strings attached. By the way, the best way to see that alternative and free technologies get chosen by the masses over what industry will offer them is to make it available to them in ways they can use - that means making your super-cool new codecs and software available for MS-Windows and Mac, not just for *nix and BSD, because otherwise, for most of them, it's still no choice at all.
Get off my launchpad!