Slashdot Mirror
P2P Internet Radio
fdsa writes "O'Reilly's openp2p.com has
an article
describing two programs for peer-to-peer audio streaming, Streamer and PeerCast. Streamer is currently Windows-only but GPLed, and desperately searching
for somebody to port it to Linux. PeerCast was on slashdot before, but now runs on Linux and supports Ogg Vorbis. There's an impressive list of channels already. Planned features include video streaming and a "tip jar" system for paying artists. Setting up your own station is as simple as installing the oddcast
winamp plugin or liveice for xmms."
Yet in that same article, they admit that the system is a way to get around webcasting royalties. This is just silly, as an artist who wants their work to be heard far and wide can offer it up for royalty-free webcasting. Similarly, there are quite a few artists who have placed free, legal mp3s of some of their songs up on the web.
I really wish people wouldn't try and hide behind the rhetoric of trying to help the artists, when some of the artists don't want their copyrights forcibly violated. Personally, I support P2P as a means of circumventing bandwidth limitations, but not as a means of hiding liability when infringing copyright.
(And while I'm up on the soap box, I also disagree with trying to directly compensate the artist for intellectual property that they've sold the rights to. I support more equitable recording contracts, but I also support the right of an artist to contractually sell his/her ownership of song rights in exchange for money. By insisting on tipping the artist at the same time as infringing on copyright, you're eroding the artists' ability to sell that copyright, regardless of whether or not it was a fair deal.)
I'm one of the people who's supposed to be concerned about this kind of thing. I'm a musician. I produce sounds as art, and I write songs which are copyright to me. You'd think I'd be like 'whoa, slow down' with this stuff, the p2p.
Here's why I'm not.
Music has long been an avenue for social commentary. From 'What's Going On' to 'For What It's Worth' and 'Ohio', not to mention stuff like Tom Lehrer's 'So Long, Mom' and 'Who's Next?', it's been a way to put across a perspective using art. It doesn't have to be really detailed- in fact, art that's really specific that way tends to suck, polemical to the extent that it's haranguing you. Some of the best art with political importance has been, like 'For What It's Worth', relatively vague. It paints a compelling picture in little words, the details can be filled in by real dialogue. It's about using music to open someone's mind to the POSSIBILITY of dialogue.
Now currently in the USA, we literally have the authorities shutting down communications on the grounds of 'supporting terrorist activities'. These are the same people who spent government money to drape a statue tit- they are not oblivious to art, they are just determined to make it behave. We're now looking at a situation where it is a real concern- it wouldn't be much of a jump to see these guys categorize dissident art and music as 'aid to terrorists', and to see them methodically expunge it from the Internet wherever they find it.
That's where it starts to get on my turf. I'm an American- 34, grew up middle class, normally you would think I would get to produce whatever art or music I wanted. Maybe. But the spectacle of a manufactured war with Iraq so appalls me (hell, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff are against it too, I don't think I'm alone there) that I can't sit around experimenting with instrumental music anymore.
Like I said in an earlier post, I've cut a recent song, "Blood on the Sand", directly about the Iraq situation. I wrote it hardcore and kept it as simple as I could, I played it hardcore until I had blisters on my fingers, I mixed it and put it out, and now by Bush's own rules I'm aiding the terrorists- because if it's gotta be 'us vs. them' and 'us' means what he's doing, NO WAY am I getting behind that, and that makes me 'them' and yeah, I'm trying to support the point of view against this Iraq overthrow.
How does that relate to streaming p2p? I would think it was obvious but the point can't be made too often. We are in a situation RAPIDLY approaching suppression of political dissidents. Already the government is shutting down web sites on political grounds- you cannot so openly express your support for those the government considers active enemies. How far away is the next step, suppressing stuff that doesn't actively support the government? That's where the rising tide begins to drown me- I don't specifically support anyone the government considers terrorists, but I can't condemn them as blindly as I'm asked to. I grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts, considered the birthplace of American Revolution, and now I have to wonder whether the desperation shown by those New England patriots is now echoed somewhere in the Middle East- and even to think such thoughts is less and less permitted.
I am unfamiliar with firing a gun, and I am unfamiliar with hand to hand combat. In a war, in a revolution, I'm not that much use to some things. But I'm an artist- and when I can no longer hide and entertain myself with purposeless artistic stuff, my art becomes my weapon, and the harder I work the better a weapon it becomes. It's my only recourse.
So, I view all forms of p2p as samizdat- on the one hand, organizations like the RIAA consider they have ownership of a lot of art and their grounds for suppressing its communication is on the grounds that it's their property. It's important to remember that the government can consider art's content as grounds for suppressing it- we're 90% there already. At that point, p2p (including streaming) can be the only method for suppressed ideas to get a hearing. Doesn't mean the ideas will all be good or worthy- but to somebody expressing ideas in danger of being suppressed, p2p is hugely important.
Like me. And I could go farther- and may have to if my conscience so demands, and it comes around with a song that needs to be heard.
So, more p2p, please! :D
Chris Johnson