New File Sharing Networks

An anonymous reader sends in: "Most readers of slashdot have been following the exploits of the RIAA and their attempts to shut down Napster, KaZaA, Morpheus, etc. In response, it appears some live music fans have taken things into their own hands and started new file sharing networks made exclusively for trading live recordings of bands that allow that sort of thing. The main player, RNL has reached version 1.0, features a distributed architecture, supports linux, and is even GPLed. Another peice of interesting software is Furthur. Though still only in beta, Furthur has cool features like allowing a user to piggy-back another user's download to reduce the load of the uploader."

Comments

WinMX rules!

[Archie Steel]

Don't know it's not better known...Check it out here.

How Long

[Em Emalb]

Before files start getting traded that the artists DIDN'T want released as free? Someone will crack it and ruin what these honest people seem to be doing, OR, they won't be able to keep up with cleaning out the non-free, copyrighted material.

Honestly, is it even worth doign anymore? Have a pure idea, watch it get cracked, then fade slowly to the background like the rest of the companies trying to do this. A sad world we live in today.

Or, maybe I am just jaded on these types of things.

*sigh*

Wonder if this scares RIAA?

[f00zbll]

Even though it's not for copyrighted material, I can't help but wonder what RIAA's reaction is going to be. Will they use the same argument "you can't ensure it is only used for non-copyrighted material?" or will they start pushing stadiums to do a body search for tape recorders. In either case, I doubt they will sit back and do nothing.

Hrmmm....

[$0 31337]

... the more people sending you data, the quicker your download will be!

Really? Even on my blazingly fast 56k dialup connection? If I had 1 person sending me data I could get an amazing 4.5kps while if I had 10 people sending me data I would get .45kps... not so good... Oh well.. I suppose they mean well

Good old capitolism

[ajs]

This is what capitolism and a free market are all about.

The music sharing phenomenon is too big to be a fluke. There's a serious market here, and that's what really has the RIAA scared. They know that, at some point, a market will flurish which breaks their members' business model.

Now, I have no exposure to this new network, so I don't even know if it's commercial, but I can assure you that with a demand this large, there will be thousands upon thousands of people trying to figure out a way to turn it to their economic advantage, and I say more power to them! The first key is the fact that there are already bands that want their music recorded live (Phish comes to mind). Next, there are new bands who have nothing to lose by sharing their music.

Given these, I think you could build a base of bands that promote their music (more specifically, their concerts) via a file sharing network. Then, you just have to find a way to brand yourself so that you remove the geeky stigma of file sharing (make it easier to use, get some high-profile musicians to mention that they use it, give it away with low-cost student computers, etc).

This is going to be a really fund decade. I suspect that this particular business will not descend into the kind of deccadence of the current music industry for at least another 5 years or so, but then, perhahps I'm just an optimist.

Re:Er...how do we control this

[Bonker]

If the src is GPL'd, as it is in the one project, then they *don't* control it. Even if the maintainers religously police their particular network of connections, there's absolutely nothing to stop Joe Q. Hacker from downloading the code, changing a few variables or constants, and releasing 'Gnuster'.

Re:Er...how do we control this

[Perrin-GoldenEyes]

Which, unfortunately, means that these are no diferent from the previous crop of file trading utilities. They're just as vulnerable to RIAA legal bludgeoning as everybody else. It's a pretty cool idea to keep it strictly legit and legal (ie no trading of copyrighted content), but they'll just turn into another incarnation of the file trading services that are being systematically dismantled by the RIAA.

Re:Er...how do we control this

[CaseyB]

Exactly my thought. What on earth does the type of content have to do with a particular technology? It's like creating an image viewer specifically for pictures of boats.

Where is the RIAA and distributers?

[ImaLamer]

At this point, the question needs to be asked:

Why doesn't the RIAA come out with their own damn P2P?

It could be fully under their control. They would be able to block certain songs, and maybe only let certain 'hot' singles out. Most of all, this would give them stronger legal basis when fighting current P2P companies and networks. They can point to their own network saying they own all rights to distribute their music, and thus other programs are violating their own legal market. Their refusal to distribute music electronically has hurt them more than anything else. We 'steal' music online, because there isn't one good for-pay network out there.

But, of course we still don't buy into the fact that P2P has hurt music sales. I believe one problem is the fact that a average CD costs $15! When I was still paying for music a CD usually cost $12.99 - if it was $15 I wouldn't buy it. I was shocked to see "SALE!" signs over CD's at Media Play reading in the upwards of 15-16 bucks.

But by their own account P2P saves the Recording Industry money. They haven't admitted this out loud, but read this from their website: [speaking on why the price on a CD isn't 30 cents]

Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn't just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.

Huh? Makes sense... kinda'. But when I search for an artist I find all sorts of new songs. Many of which are great, but never make it to the radio.

If the RIAA adapted the Fast Track technology [and of course make other than Windows clients] they could promote their own music on that main page. They could even tag certain songs as "hot" or "new".

I mean, they can iron out the details, but considering they've got loads of cash. They've got the marketing minds that brough us O-Town and the like. Why can't they put this together?

Why are we hard at work marketing their songs? Why are we using our bandwidth and time? Why are we donating our computers to distribute music? Why are we bothering with P2P?

Simple: It works. We've found a better way. It's not free music. It's because they refuse to step into the year we live in.

Wake up RIAA, you can't fight it any longer. Go after the guy pressing thousands of CD's and making money off of your work. Leave us alone, we aren't making a thing. It's wrong to be making cash on their works. It's not wrong to refuse to go back to an old system that is dying quickly.

Every computer today is sold with a CD-RW. Let us do it.

Re:Where is the RIAA and distributers?

[maddman75]

But by their own account P2P saves the Recording Industry money. They haven't admitted this out loud, but read this from their website: [speaking on why the price on a CD isn't 30 cents]

Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today. They include increasingly expensive video clips, public relations, tour support, marketing campaigns, and promotion to get the songs played on the radio. For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn't just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.

Its not about money, its never been about the money. Think the stars are being starved because of P2P? Watch MTV Cribs sometime, they don't seem to be doing too bad.

Its about control. It isn't that you might hear something new you like off the net and buy the CD, that's irrelevent. You might hear something other than what they want you to hear. They control every aspect of music - when it is played, how often, what songs are singles, and who gets the next shot at stardom. Most telling IMO is that the record studios time the release of new singles and albums based on when the artists last song drops off of the "TRL" program on MTV. If people can simply go out willy-nilly listening to whatever they want, the perpetual butt-raping of artists might have to end.

See, if everyone keeps listening to the same great artists instead of picking up the next diva or boyband that comes down the pipe the record company isn't dealing with wide eyed new stars that they can lock into a contract and squeeze for an insane amounnt of money. They are dealing with artists who've been around the block and won't sign anything just to avoid the risk of being turned away.

Forever

[pyite69]

I have been using etree.org for 3 years now and it is just
as good as ever. The member stick to only using
taper-friendly bands (phish, grateful dead, allman bros,
etc) and use standard protocols: ftp, email, and irc.

It is a much looser connection than something like napster;
it is really just a mailing list with a bunch of individual
ftp servers. If someone puts non-trader-friendly music,
they are banned from the mailing list for life by the list
nazi.

Yes, it is RIAA-proof.

The only real problem is that there is never enough
bandwidth!

not a good battle to fight

[pyite69]

Then the RIAA would lobby for, and receive, the ability to
have ISP's cut you off. Great.

What is more important is to have bands who allow legal
trading of their live music be more successful than bands
who don't. If you measure success by concert ticket
revenue, bands who allow trading: Phish, the Dead, Metallica, and U2 were among the most successful bands
of the 90's - Phish and the Dead didn't have a single
radio hit and weren't exactly big on MTV.

There is a lot of good legally tradable music available; try
it out.

Re:Not doomed at all

[gazbo]

I don't care if it meets your personal criteria for a "decent" number of users

OK, I've been slapped and rightly so. What I meant was that it will never reach even a fraction of the popularity of Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Morpheus etc. If it has what you want, then great - don't get me wrong, I think that it's a good idea.

What I was implying is that the hype surrounding the networks I mentioned above was due to their huge size and popularity; this hype is irrelevant for this network, as it caters for a (relatively) niche market.

I'm sure there's a point in there somewhere...

Jibe and Onion Networks

[Orasis]

Jibe has a wonderful product for enterprise file and data sharing and I think is making some good progress and will be quite successful.

My employer, Onion Networks, is focused on building enterprise content delivery solutions using P2P. 2002 is off to a great start for us as companies are immediately seeing the value of P2P for cutting costs and increasing reliability within their networks.

--
Justin Chapweske, Onion Networks

Re:How do they distinguish...

[zzyzx]

The people in charge of it do. Believe me, the fans of bands that allow taping can be more agressive than the MPAA in stopping illegal trading of stuff that shouldn't be. There's a record store that sells Phish bootlegs. Whenever the owner posts about anything on rec.music.phish, about 10 people gang up on him to tell him to go away until he stops selling them.

linux p2p Issues

[WyldOne]

After dabbling in p2p for a bit. I found PHEXworked for some large files. However I found all the p2p client/servers had a few things problematic about them.

• While they all could search, none could find matching files by hash code(be it rc5 or whatever it uses).
• Of the ones that did multi-home download, none ever kept trying to find sources for the files in progress (enhancment/feature?).
• My biggest beef with all of them is that none could continue a d/l that had stopped. So every time it re-started it would start at the beginning.
• Only a few of them could resume searching/downloading if the client died(or I killed it) (gtk-gnutella could save the d/l requests)
• Spammage - you could do a exact title serch, and get hacking info, or porno or ... well you know what I mean. Heavans forbid if any commercial company really got serious about it.

'Piggy-backing' would be nice, but reliabe would be better. In the end it has a ways to go. Large files are the biggest problem.