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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?"
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?
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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!