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RoadRunner Blocking Use of Kazaa
An anonymous reader submits: "You should know that RoadRunner is quietly blocking the use of Kazaa in
certain markets. Particularly in Texas, they have some sort of port scanner
in place which scans for Kazaa activity and then disables use of that port,
rendering the program completely useless. Grokster, iMesh, and all other
FastTrack programs are similarly affected. Yet RoadRunner is not disclosing
the practice in any way. Not only that, I'm troubled by the possibility of
them arbitrarily choosing to block other programs in the future. If this
becomes more widespread, they will have many angry (and former) customers." The poster provides these four links to forum postings with more information: one;
two;
three;
four.
I can't download any files through "Save target as..." in Internet Explorer for the past half a day. Even attempting to right-click links to save web pages that load normally results in a 7-second wait followed by "Internet Explorer was unable to open this internet site..." I was wondering what was happening.
Ironically, I CAN still use Kazaa Light - it's working perfectly. I've been able to download several techno songs mentioned in a recent slashdot article. Incidently, happy hardcore is a fun little sub-genre, though I still prefer video game remixes - which I can't download now from overclocked!
I'm located in central Florida. Perhaps the local Time Warner folks are just experimenting now. I'll call tech support monday if nothing resolves itself.
It appears that another peice of evidence that ISP's can't police intellectual properties and still be expected to provide a stable service, if that's what they are doing in my case.
Ryan Fenton
After shutting down Gnutella, speed went back up. I think there was far too little actual network traffic resulting from Gnutella to cause this. It made me wonder if Earthlink / Charter Pipeline was acting punitively.
Incidentally, while that doesn't affect me much, here is a possibly related experience: I handle a number of servers at work. I noticed that if I did a portscan on one of our own servers - presto, no more cable connection. Gotta unplug the modem and reboot. Now I just ssh into a server at work and scan from there, but it kind of pissed me off for awhile. Sometimes I want to know what our network looks like from the outside, too.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic. The really annoying part though, is that I'm too close to the mark, in how these ISP's think...
Actually, I don't think you are. KaZaa is a baltant tool for copyright infringement--a reasonable man could very well find it to be so, and that means a Judge could as well.
An ISP is required to stop copyright infringement that it's formally warned about. Road Runner could be quietly blocking KaZaa as a preventive measure--they're trying to figure out if the "lost sales" from subscribers leaving will overrule the legal costs of not blocking them.
And, of course, the fact that Road Runner is owned by AOL Time Warner means that all it takes is an inter-company memo from the media group to the 'net group to start figuring out a way to kill KaZaa. Trust me--they'd much rather change based on internal stimulus than external lawsuits.
As for the TOS--your service is exactly what you agreed to with them, nothing more and nothing less. It's up to them to find the happy medium between the white hats that want to have unfettered access and the scared newbies that just don't want their boxes owned; once they find that happy medium, they maximize their profits and they're happy.
Don't like the way they work? Start your own ISP. Upstream bandwidth can't be that much once you reach critical mass, and you might even be able to use RR's cable networks to boot.
But what if you don't really have an OPTION as to whether or not you accept the EULA? Let's say (hypothetically, of course) that a certain business used unfair, predatory, even CRIMINAL tactics to drive its software to a position of 95% dominance on all desktops...what then? If the software company (a convicted felon, in this case) is doing illegal things to force you into using their software, is it still so illegal and immoral to warez their products?
what you are saying is NOT TRUE. It is a convenient lie we tell ourselves to rationalize the current situation. Without copyright, people would still make music. they would make plays and movies and all the other forms of entertainment we all love. If you are about to disagree, THINK. people have been entertaining themselves for many many generations before we had copyright, the vivendi group, and 800 million dollar blockbusters.
And they were doing it in one of two ways, musically speaking:
* Badly done performances by whomever happened to live nearby
* Live performances on the rare occasion that a good musician was in town.
The modern world is *vastly* different than the old world, and the differences pretty much all boil down to easier copying.
Copyright was invented, not for music, not for software, but for the written word. It was a legal construct so someone who writes something--be it a novel or newspaswer clip--would have legal recourse when the publisher / newspaper printed it, made oodles of money, and didn't give the author one red cent.
Copyright has been expanded to cover other creative acts, as media for conveying those acts has become convenient and copyable. Since it's a extant legal construct, it's what's used by the people who hold the rights to creative works (be they software or music) as a way to exert control over how their creations are used by going to court and suing people for "copying without permission." The courts decided that sometimes the argument of the other guy was a good idea to let stand, and so Fair Use came about.
the reality is that content producers work for businesses. businesses are designed to take money from the population. copyright in its current form keeps these businesses profiting very very well.
"interesting. Wrong, but interesting." (*grin*)
I'll agree that "Content producers" work for businesses--anyone who calls themselves that doesn't deserve even a distant relation with *art*. But businesses use copyright rather effectively--they sell a copy (or in software, a specific permission to make copies) and get money for it. A lot of money.
But that's how money works. Businesses (or just plain ordinary people) make something that other people want, and then get money for it so they can get what *they* want. Businesses exist, in a social view, to provide a valued service or good to the community. In a capital view, they exist to exchange a valued service or good for money, which the owner(s) of that business then exchange for the things that they want/need/lust after.
Personally, I think copyright's just find as it is--asdie from that software bit, but even that can be dealt with. Stephen King's still got the copyright notice on his book, and I can be confident that whenever I buy something with his name on it (or the name of any other author), he's getting his $.50 for the bundle of paper he didn't pay anything to print, but which he made worth printing.
# just because people with lots of money can get laws passed, it doesn't make it 'the right way to live' -- you are cringing behind an absurd and unthinking stance of "it's the law"
;) I mean, not doing so would just be obeying a silly law, right?)
Hardly absurd. It *is* the law. We believe in rule of law here on Planet Earth, and that means that we obey the laws until such time as those laws are changed.
Copyright, in all its glory, was passed not by people with lots of money, but by people who wanted to read books. And it was extended to cover movies, music, and software by judges who probably didn't have a lot of money.
(If you feel like living without rule of law, then by all means show up at my door so I can beat the @$$# out of you.
# these people running the large businesses are being dicks. they are squeezing people every chance they can TO TAKE MORE MONEY. its all about the money, and the ingrained definition of business to take as much as possible while pushing the envelope of human decency. Their dicks, so I'm a dick. fsck 'em I serve 800Kb/s 24/7 of all I can.
Actually, the ingrained, legal purpose of a business is *to make the most money*, and that's it. Rarely is the best way to make money pissing the majority off.
Hence, AOLTW's Road Runner business test-markets its blockage of KaZaa, to see how it can make the most money--by blocking it and avoiding the fines and legal fees it would have to pay, or by not blocking it and keeping the % of subscribers that would unsubscribe with KaZaa blocked.
at its heart, the REAL ISSUE with copyright is that it DOES NOT MAKE SENSE to OWN information. if you look carefully, without the screwed up context of "business promotion" in which we currently live, then the whole idea of allowing excusivity of information is COMPLETELY ABSURD and
UNENFORCEABLE. The only reason big money buys/sets up laws to allow copyright now it to promote businesses (NOTE: not content creators any more) into taking more money than they otherwise could without it.
I am a "content creator", though I prefer the terms "writer" or "author." I currently have a manuscript out there looking for a publisher. Copyright law is the *only* thing that keeps a random publishing house from saying "I want to see it all" and then publishing it without my consent.
Copyright law is the only thing that keeps a random recording company from walking into an indi band's free show, buying one copy of their lovingly-mixed CD, then mass producing it and selling it for billions of dollars and not giving the band one red cent.
We live in a capitalistic society, drDugan. People do things because they can make money doing them. I would not have spent nearly as much time writing as I did if I did not think that I could make money by finishing the story. I would still have written, but unless I could make money by writing the story, it would not have been worth my time to do it as anything more than a recreational activity.
Personally, I'm grateful that we live in a society were the creation of new stories and songs and movies is as valued as the creation of a bunch of other things that *don't* bring any happiness to us all. I gadly pay $18 to go see a movie with my wife; that's about what we pay if we just go out to eat, but we enjoy the movie a lot more than we enjoy the dinner.
# technology will bring down copyright. maybe not eliminate it, but certainly reign in the ABSURD notion of life +70 years or whatever unbelievable state we have now. These companies "suffering" from copyright infringement are FSCKING DINOSAURS and deserve to be raped by the sting of new technology. I wanted to puke when hollings bitches about our precious multi-billion dollar content industry that is just a short toss from a mass indoctrination engine. tell me one thing Sony pictures or universal pictures has done to innovate, to create something of value for our society. to make their product better. NOTHING. (well, maybe extra scenes on DVDs) The create content/crap. its information with no value other than the artificially created market of scarcity that is now GONE because of technology.
Sony Pictures, specifically, created Final Fantasy (which I enjoyed seeing, even if it was a disappointment), and I can guarantee that they wouldn't have done that if they couldn't have made money on it.
Sony, Universal, and a whole bunch of other companies sell their movies on DVDs and VHS, which means I can buy a copy and watch them whenever I want to. If America didn't give them the legal tools to reduce copying of those DVDs down to the point where they profit, I assure you that we'd never see another DVD again--or at the very least, that the price would skyrocket up to the new market's profitability point.
Before you complain about how cheap a DVD or CD is to make, I want you to think about something. Do you have a better idea? Not just for you. Not just for me. For everyone, everywhere, who likes movies and wants to see more movies and music and software and books and stuff made. Do you have a plan to implement this idea, a way to change the world so we *can* get everything "for free," and everyone who worked to make these things as they are still gets to eat and be happy and be encouraged on a basic level to make some more.
Linux and most OSS suffers from a very real, basic problem, a problem that I'm suffering from right now as I realize that I was supposed to start writing four hours ago. It's not the day job. This great, creative effort that others will enjoy and love and makes the world a really better place (in a way that answering phones and sending letters doesn't), DOES NOT PAY THE BILLS.
Until these great things *do* pay the bills, it's irresponsible to devote the bulk of one's time to them. The bills have to be paid. The rent has to be met. Food has to get onto the table, and gas needs to get into the car. Once all of that's done, THEN me and the OSS hackers and every other creative person who hasn't won the creativity lottery gets to do what we love to do, and spend even a little bit of time making something that will enrich the world.
Now, if I can state a practical case to *someday soon* make some money from my Art, I can justify putting more time into it. I can stay up late. I can sacrafice things that I need to do to stay healthier and get promoted on the bet that I will make some money from doing this thing that I love.
If you take away copyright, you kill that long practical bet. I'd be limited to the generosity of others. I'd be limited to only the recreational time I can spend on the work. I and hundreds of thousands of others like me would lose even the slim chance of getting appreciated--really, basically, fiscally appreciated--for what we do.
If you've read this far, I do have one last point to make. Copyright does need to be reformed. It should not apply to engineered software. It should not last for 70 years past the author's death. It should not be able to be held by corporations.
Ideally, were I to re-write the law, traditional copyright would apply only to works of art--things that are *not* practical necessities. It would last for the life of the author or his spouse, and then for two years after their deaths to pay off the final bills. Nothing at all could be authored by a corporation, and only those with a substantial creative input (as defined by the time-honored reasonable man standard) could be co-authors.
Software innovations could be covered by patents, with hard-coded RAND rates for patents. Breaking news and technical journals and compiled software programs would not be covered by copyrihgt, but by a "personage" right. Make it a crime to attribute something to Microsoft or Dan Rather or whomever without their permission, and you let them set their own market worth through marketing.