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

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*

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'.

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.

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.