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Kazaa: Happy In the Global Legal Briarpatch
Steve0987 writes "The Washington Post has an article on the entertainment industry's atempts to close down the file-sharing system Kazaa. I agree that copyrighted material shouldn't be freely distributed from an ethical standpoint. However, the entertainment industry has been acting in an arbitrary manner trying to impede anything remotely impinging on their industry. Go Kazaa."
Freenet link:e w/Main/ WebHome
http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/twiki/vi
Project goal is to be secure so that 3rd parties can't see what you're exchanging.
hmmm...P2P sharing of articles to defend against the slashdot effect. It's about time KaZaA got a legitimate use ;)
/. is so reluctant to set up a cache to protect the sites they link, how about a distributed /. client? Sits in your tray, checks slashdot for updates every couple minutes, and if it finds any new links on the front page, grabs them and stores them on your harddrive. Then some sort of link system on the sidebar of the mainpage ("view the cache at http://slashdot.org/p2pcache?articleID=whatever") that links us all together.
But seriously, since
do not read this line twice.
That the article makes casual mention that the programmers who wrote the original Kazaa are now working on a new program with built-in DRM, for a company called Altnet? Sound familiar? It seems this Washington Post correspondant didn't bother to investigate how Altnet is linked to Sharman Networks... Altnet is virtually Sharman Networks...
Is a way to protest against laws that you don't agree, usually associated with passive resistence.
This means keep doing whatever you have always done ignoring the law, and of course paying the consequences. It works as a colective form o protest.
Let's suppose that the speed limit becomes 20 mph at highways. If everybody ignore this limit then the police won't be able to fine everybody.
The same happens here, if a considerable number of citizens ignore the way copyright works today it will be impossible to sue everyone, and of course they won't sue none of us!
That's how it should work, passive resistence.
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I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
The music companies did win their case against Napster, and we all know that Napster is dead and buried because of this, but would we all have known about Kazaa if the Napster wrangle had never been made so public? I can remember using Napster in it's very early forms, and very few people back then had even heard of an MP3 file, let alone peer-to-peer or Napster. Now even my aunt and uncle who have only just recently bought their first ever PC have Kazaa nicely installed on their computer. Surely something like as high profile as this will surely turn out to be will just be another shot in the foot for the music and movie industries. Especially if they don't end up closing it down, just think how many more people will know about it.
On the last version of Kazaa that I installed I could actually choose whether or not to install some third party spyware apps. My firewall hasn't found anything strange trying to phone home so I don't think any hidden spyware is forced on you either.
Yeah, it's possible... you could use GnucDNA to make a browser plug-in that would request contents of a webpage not only to its server, but also by querying the p2p network for it.
I've tought about doing it several times, but couldn't find the time. It would not only help slashdotted websites, but anyone with large files (images, music or video).
And if you could setup a system where the server, while saving bandwidth, compensated an user who upload the content, it would be a success.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
PS: Anyone interested in a Star Wars Themed Mullet Hunting video(complete with rotoscoped duel) search KaZaA for Mullet Wars: Episode One the Phantom Mullet or star wars mullet or something of the likes, also feel free to e-mail me about it.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Like they are doing in Denmark (check previous Slashdot stories), the attorneys scan the Kazaa network, when they find Danish Ips they check what people are sharing. Get a court order, send them a letter which essentially says "we can see you have done violations which amount to x amount of money, if you pay now you won't have to go to court". Then the newspapers are filled with sad stories, like how a single mother suddenly gets slapped with a $5000 fine because her son, unbeknownst to her, had downloaded his favorite songs. They try to scare people to stop - and none of these P2P programs have much in the way of security, you can always see the IP number. And even if they do try, people can just use the netstat command (On Windoze) to see which machines you are currently connected to.
How long before they start doing something like this in the united states?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Why are there so few functional file sharing apps for Linux? AudioGalaxy blows chunks, Kazaa-Lite works only with Wine IF you have saintly patience and the spare dll's handy, and Limewire isn't a walk in the park either unless you have Java installed and the $PATH enviroment variable right - not to mention any needed dependencies. I'm not adverse to commandline (I prefer it for most administrative tasks) but I'm not going to run some bare bones text-based Gnutella client in a friggin terminal. I'm too spoiled for that.
I'm just surprised the Linux community hasn't made more noise about this... or is everyone dual booting?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
It will never happen. Most people only *need* to work about 5 hours a week to live according to living standards, say, 100 years ago and still survive. But the thing is that people always *want* bigger and better. There's always going to be competition. There's always going to be scarcity of the newest gizmo, driving up the price, thus forcing people to work more, etc. etc. As far as scarcity goes, there's very little true scarcity in the US today. You can grow & buy what you need for food for next to nothing. That and a tent and you're alive. No scarcity. But that isn't realistic. It'll never happen. Sure, Linux isn't scare. If you *need* an OS, you can get Linux for free. You can download it for free. But the point is that people *want* better. People are willing to work to earn money to *buy* a usable OS.
As is, over time, through this economic model, standards of living have continued to increase. You can have instant entertainment of any kind at home for many years for the cost of a few hours or work (TV). You can speak to anyone on the planet at any time from anywhere for the cost of a few hours' work (cellphone).
Standards of living continue to increase. Anyone who says that scarcity doesn't work is a fool.
One of the odd things I've seen about this is what the RIAA calls it and how they punish. If downloading songs is stealing and users are to be punished, then why punish them otherwise? By their logic, a user should be charged for theft of an item rather than copyright infringement. Maybe call it digital copy shoplifiting or whatever.
A user should pay for the materials downloaded. Rather than the $500,000 tag for copyright infringement, they should eat their words and charge users the way they say what the users are doing. If I download a song, I should pay list price for a song. DOwnload a DVD ripped movie and I should pay 21.99. People should be charged exactly for what they download. $500,000 for copyright infringement is bull crap.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
The article regarding Kazaa demonstrates that if our system of intellectual property law further ossifies, we are at serious risk of innovation going overseas.
True creativity is generally the result of the liberal borrowing and reworking of earlier ideas--and contemporary ones--in a new fashion.
Locking up mindshare may cost the US its intellectual leadership in the long run.
The problem is that our legislative leaders are driven by money and a lazy reliance on lobbyists, not principle. Howard Coble is a perfect example of this. I have to say I'm embarrassed that he represents my congressional district. How he became head of an important congressional committee on IP--when he represents a manufacturing district that is losing textile and tobacco jobs--is either an example of the Peter Principle in operation, or a testiment to the fact that those who have a vested interest in the continuing drive to own all information don't want anyone who really understands the issues overseeing legislation.
A Matter of Motive?
The defendants, which in addition to Kazaa include Grokster and Morpheus, contend they are doing nothing wrong. They said their role is analogous to photocopy-machine makers, who aren't responsible for people who copy entire books, or to computer makers, who aren't responsible for people who use their machines for hacking.
"If you can be held responsible for everything your end users do with it, it becomes very hard to build any technology," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents Morpheus creator StreamCast Networks Inc.
The entertainment industry argues that the Kazaa case is different because the key issue is motive. While some makers of technology truly aren't aware of or do not advertise the illegal aspects of what their technology can do, they say, the owners of these file-sharing systems do.
"Peer-to-peer services overwhelmingly are used for illegal copying and transmission of copyright material over the Internet, and actively encourage, assist and participate in this activity," said Allen N. Dixon, executive director of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents more than 1,500 music producers and distributors.
This was the part that I found really interesting. So, if this goes through, and the creators are responsible, does that mean that firearms manufacturers are in trouble? As we all know, a firearm has only one purpose, to shoot things. (Human, animal, or otherwise.) And what about those who manufacture the bullets?
Just food for thought.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]