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Spoofing P2P Networks as Marketing Plot
prostoalex writes "Salon's technology section talks about major music labels spoofing the peer-to-peer networks. The users of AudioGalaxy, Gnutella or KaZaa have probably seen a surge of fake MP3 files when conducting a search on a popular title. The MP3 looks legit, but contains a 20 second clip played over and over. Such promotional tracks were especially popular with newest releases, such as Eminem and No Doubt, as pointed out in the article. Who posted the fake tracks to the p2p networks? Could it be, as Salon suggests, a suburban mom, who does not agree with controversial lyrics, or would it be the label, trying to prevent piracy and promote the new album at the same time?"
Why do people keep these song shared? I've found one or two of them and deleted them immediately. Maybe we should all do our part and message anyone who shares these songs asking them to delete the track and stop wasting everyone's resources.
It's not as bad as the renaming of some old movie to look like a brand new movie release, but both are annoying.
I remember this happening on napster. They also had songs that at the end or beginning said "If you enjoy this song please buy our cd from our website, etc..." I remember a specific Econoline Crush song that was like this and widely distributed on Napster.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
If you make the analogy between file sharing and free speech, I guess this would be the labels taking the "more speech is the best solution to bad speech" tact.
I'd much rather see this than action through the courts.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I have about 1/2 a gig of what I call 1/2mp3's that I got from people cancelling me out in the middle of a download. Yes they are shared, no i'm not doing it to screw with you. It's just that i'm too lazy to go through my share folder to clean them out.
I'd find it even more clever if they put subliminal messages in the repeated tracks. Way to use technology against people to do your evil bidding ;-)
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
This is actually really good news. It's a sign that the music labels are going to try to deal with the P2P phenomenon on its own terms, not in the courts.
Fortunately, we will likely see a surge of new features in the more popular P2P clients that permit easy filtering of such "bad" files (e.g., an easy "delete and remember checksum" button). But as long as its a technological battle as opposed to a legal one, than it can be won.
On the other hand, the music labels may be shooting themselves in the foot in some cases. If I was trying to get the hot new "electronica" single, and ended up with "a 20 second clip looped over and over" I might not notice the difference!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Look, if it is the RIAA distributing these tracks the solution is simple. All we have to do is download the track, copyright it, then sue the RIAA under their own legal documents for illegal distribution of our own intellectual property... In all seriousness, this could be more than a minor annoyance on the RIAA supported P2P software. Imagine spending $1.00 for a download and it was merely a repeating promotional clip. "I'm sorry, you can only have 299 songs this month as of this download! But of course we do have some reccomendation as to which songs you may wish to acquire..."
Hey, this is better than putting up malicious content disguised as MP3 files and hoping it gets launched by the client or user. Haven't you seen those redirects that pop up when you let a gnutella search run for a while?
I think this is a fine idea by the record labels, if they want to do it, go ahead.
I would REALLY love the ability to moderate people though. I've downloaded my share of BAD quality stuff, and sometimes from the same user, so it would be nice to moderate someone out to nothing-ness status, as well as say "Only download from high moderation point users first" etc.
On the other hand, the Eminem files or whatever that are GOOD will eventually spread out, making your chances of finding the right file better with time.
It's nothing to be worried about, as long as people do a good job of stealing and organizing their music (tongue in cheek).
Berto
We have been thinking about this problem for some time. Our solution is a mechanism called "subspaces", where users can effectively vouch for the authenticity of data, even though that data might be anonymously inserted into the network. Even those vouching for data can remain anonymous, they will be motivated to stay honest to maintain the reputation of their anonymous identity. You can learn more about subspaces here.
Ya gotta love barenaked ladies... (and the band by that name too)... A few weeks prior to the release of their last album, all the tracks appeared on Morpheus... leaked by themselves! sorta... During a few points in each song various band members chimed in with wisecracks about file trading, computer stuff, etc... The tracks served both to promote the songs as well as give the fans something unique, yet different from the studio releases... It was great! I burned a copy of this version and purchased the actual album when it was released... both are classics... I'm all for this practice, though i can't imagine such creativity coming from most other RIAA contract holders (I doubt that RIAA approved of BNL's antics, for that mattter...)
Doesn't work:
Reason 1) Most p2p clients return the most popular files, so if someone downloads a fake, they will delete. Unless RIAA or whetever is running a p2p farm.
Reason 2) Someone said something about CRC. A lot of clients do what is called we usually call hashing, with SHA1, Tiger (even bitprint), etc... But it's widely used to compare versions of the same file, regardless of the title. No Gnutella client currently supports search by hash, but Edonkey does (also urls like edonkey://HASHNUMBER)
Anyway, fakes are usually useless. And all they do is incite the user to go to sites like ShareReactor and read the new and the forums. So the user begins to meet with other people, form a community, learn more and more how to do p2p the right way.
Oh, btw, Morpheus 1.9 will be out soon. Probaly a crap release like the first Preview Edition, which is a Gnucleus clone.
Also, search by hash and download of segments (unfinished parts of a file from other computers) are expected soon to be deployed on Gnutella. I just hope the damn GDF decides this fast, since it's really the next step that should be taken (IMHO).
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
That's how PGP's Web of Trust works. It is fully applicable here. A hierarchy of trusted signers would vouch for the authenticity; each signer can be anonymous, and signer's trust can be added or revoked. All you need to add is the ability to download the signature separately (or before) the song.
P.S. If you can't even get the chapter of US code right, you have already lost your legal argument.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Just think, the cost incurred by the RIAA in hosting all that crap music. The number of systems needed to saturate the P2P systems, the storage of the files, the bandwidth needed to make their nodes get hit more often than ones with 'valid' content, the cost of making the files, the administration of the project..
All of that costs money. And what does that result in?
RIAA: "Due to the cost of combating digital piracy, profits are down again, Mr. Senator. Frankly, we'd rather that money went to a more worthy cause. *wink* *wink* Won't you help us out?"
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
If they were really smart they would generate files with the same name and of exactly the same size as those on the network. Then, as a result of the kazaa multiple download system peopel woudl end up with pieces of garbage interspersed with their movie. The next person who downloads ends up with garbage in different places and so on... the whole system is screwed. How easy would it be to make a piece of software to look for titles, generate random bit streams with those titles and then post them on the p2p network?