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OptimumOnline Bans uploads to P2P networks
An anonymous reader writes "In disturbing news this week Cablevision's high speed broadband unit OptimumOnline has sent letters to subscribers warning that uploading to P2P networks will no longer be tolerated. Obviously bowing to record and movie industry pressure the letter includes a link to a page that gives directions on how to disable file trading on 18 P2P services from KaZaa to Xolox. If you don't comply, they will cut the cord. I remember not to long ago where OptimumOnline ran TV ads touting the ability to grab music from the Net. The story on this can also be read here."
It doesn't matter if your right, it doesn't matter if you've done nothing illegal, what matters is who has the better attorneys. The logic used here is the same that is used with gun control. Punish the innocent and the people capable of potentially commiting a crime. Assume they are guilty first, ask questions later.
The cable company capitulated because the legal expenses to fight the threat of legal action is more than sending out a letter to each user. It's really that simple. If this isn't a SURE sign our legal system needs a review, then I don't know what is.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
This may seem heavy-handed, but most of the stuff they're uploading is probably copyrighted, and hence illegal to share. So, really all the ISP is doing is banning people from breakng the law. Just because you don't agree with a law doesn't make it ok to break it with impunity - if that was the case, nobody would drive the speed limit.
I remember not to long ago where OptimumOnline ran TV ads touting the ability to grab music from the Net
Right... cutting off the upstream means you can't UPLOAD music... you can still download all you want.
From what I can tell, they're only trying stop to uploads, not downloads, so you're ability to download music from the net isn't affected.
:)
So basically, everyone on that ISP is forced to be a leech. Given that most people on P2P networks are already leeches, this won't be much of an effect.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
At my present job, we recieve DMCA violation tickets sent to us, which include the ip address of the customer that was sharing files. We then track down the customer based on the ARP logs and issue them a letter notifying them that they are in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy which prohibits the usage of servers on a residential service, as well as our clauses that allow us to terminate a customers service. If we recieve 3 DCMA tickets from a particular customer we permanetly terminate their service. On a side note, due to the asynchrous nature of most cable modem service, as well as the fact that a node is essentially a LAN, I can certainly understand the concern about people constantly uploading files. Saturating the forward path can cause problems with download traffic as TCP requires ACK packets to be sent stating that a packet has reached it's destination, if the ACK packet is not recieved the packet needs to be re-transmited. So the next time you think your not causing any problems for anyone when you spent the last 2 weeks on Kazaa allowing people to leech files think again.
If they would have said "some files", or even just "files", then that would have been more truthful. "the files" means the same as "all files".
Sex - Find It
Optimum Online doesn't seem to have a good method of tracking or enforcing these rules. I've been running servers off my home OOL cable connection for over a year, and they've never said a thing, though I've contacted technical support for other unrelated issues.
Anyone else have any problems with running servers on Optimum Online? I'm running POP/SMTP/HTTPS/SSH services for my own use.
I'd be interesting to hear stories from people who have been told to shut down servers or reduce their bandwidth usage.
I'll leave setting up the P2P-like program for encrypted packets as an exercise for the student (It's been done at least a couple of times thus far...)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Or maybe theyre just tired of people irresponsibly leaving Kazaa and other like programs open after they get what they want, wasting everyone else's bandwidth.
Good information can also be found here , here and here.
Basically, their excuse is security related, which is crap since more security problems occur with Internet Explorer, IIS and Windows itself than with P2P software...
As mentioned at DSL Reports, the upload is being capped at 128kb/s, NOT banned... Here's a quote from one of the links above (by HaveOOLnow)
No, it affects all uploads. If you upload at a certain rate for more than a certain amount of time, you automatically get capped [at 128kps]. But all you have to do is call them to get uncapped. The system is just designed to make people aware of the fact that they might have P2P apps running in the background.
The cap seems to be about 6 hours in length. Quite horrendous, but we all saw this coming, right? To be honest, I'd rather this and have unlimited download/uploads, than both... *shrug* Or, maybe if it only happens when the server is being heavily used (evenings and such).
You are saying it would be ok for Ford and GM to put monitors on all of our cars so that if we exceed the speed limit they can come take the car back? How about we get smart money going to make sure we pay every cent of our taxes and never use it to buy anything illegal? Condoms should come with monitors too? Wouldn't want to let us go sticking them into prostitutes, animals, or other men where it's illegal.
It doesn't SEEM heavy handed, it IS heavy handed. Not everyone is ready to bend over like you and accept being treated like a criminal for refusing to be disneyfied lumps of consumerism.
If bandwith consumption is their issue, then they can always go the capping/rate increase route.
Aparently OptimumOnline has done a rick analysis in which they concluded the rick of an RIAA lawsuit is greater than the rick of loss of business due to restricting the customer's online experience.
It is our job as customers to prove not only that the customer is always right, but that the loss of business (and revenue) due to failure to cater to customer, rather than the legally questionable demands of an organization borne of greed and nepotism, which seeks to control not only products of it's members but all music and other entertainment materials, over which it has no legal standing whatsoever.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Obviously bowing to record and movie industry pressure
How do you figure? Perhaps they've simply noticed that their network isn't capable of handling as much upstream as they've been getting lately (cable is asymmetric), and they determined that P2P was the reason.
NO CARRIER
It may seem kind of hash, but this is probably the only way to keep P2P networks from degrading due to stunts like this. P2P needs clients that upload to be useful, otherwise the clients that do allow uploads will receive an unfair amount of load.
Having individual clients that don't share is one thing, having entire networks that don't is much bigger problem.
I think it's time P2P clients start including easy ways to ban entire IP blocks.
This would also provide OptimumOnline customers another reason to (i) complain to OptimumOnline about the policy and/or (ii) change providers.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
Peer-to-peer isn't the problem, the Internet has been peer-to-peer since day one.
It's the fact that "P2P" has begun to stand for more than a network technology where information is transfered from computer to computer without another server in between, but also taken on the idea of obsfucation of the originator's identity so that those who wish to enforce copyright laws have a harder time doing so.
The ban is against servers. Most ISPs ban this for residential accounts. When surfing on the web you are a client to the various web servers. You sent them an HTTP Request for the web page(A URL essentially) and they send you an HTTP reply which includes the web page. So that is not in violation of the no server ban. Now running your own web server, that is in violation.
Technically many service providers can ban the use P2P applications on this condition. Although rarely do ISPS enforce this rule. But for a cable customer, the bandwith is shared and the upstream is really easy to congest. One valid argument agaisnt peer to peer networking services is that users from all over the world in downloading files from users of the service clog up the upstream bandwith for valid users of the service.
Now why should you be mad at Optimum Online? Because they didn't enforce their rule on no servers to BAN P2P networks a long time ago. In fact their advertising implicitly specified that P2P networks were one reason for signing up with their service. Maybe if they banned them from the beginning as violating their server rules they wouldn't be such hyppocrites.
I admit I haven't done more research so I do not know if they sent it out to all users of their service or just the residential cable users. Commercial accounts of most services do NOT have a restriction against using servers. Because most commercial users of high bandwith service want to run web servers or other things for their businesses. Therefore there is no basis for using the no server rule to ban P2P networks since there isn't a no server rule. Additionally invoking a no server rule against commercial customers would be extremely ineffective since most sign up to run servers.
Im sorry but this article is completely inaccurate. Im an OOL customer and I actively participate in the OOL discussions on broadbandreports. The discretionary cap was put into place because users were clogging upstream channels with p2p uploads. It got so bad that DHCP requests on some nodes (mine in particular) could not be recieved within even a 17 second ack window. It does NOT have to do with pressure from the RIAA.
Here's why: The cap is not a new portblock (they already block 80 to discourage webhosting), but simply a different cable modem config file with a lower upstream maximum. The ordinary config for OOL is 10 megabits down and 1 megabit up. the altered config file is 10 megabits down and only 150 kilobits up.
Obviously this is a solution that was implemented to control bandwidth, not specific applications. If OOL were to start battling p2p apps, it would come in the form of a portblock or traffic shaper - NOT an upload throttle.
To the author of the story, please do your homework. You can start in the OOL forums on BBR:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/cable,opt
Clearly not all shared content is illegal (although there is little doubt that most of it is). Small artists have been able to use it legally for self-promotion, a perfectly legal use that the RIAA is also glad to put a stop to, as it might slightly impeed their ability to steal from artists.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It sounds like they're blocking the ports these programs use for upstream...
"We want you to stay online and stay protected while enjoying the best performance of Optimum Online high-speed Internet access"
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't "Internet access" pertain to full use of all ports? Wouldn't they have to be selling "Web, e-mail, and IRC" access or something to block ports?
Banaaaana!
OK. I feel sorry for you... ^_^
7513 Colshire Drive
McLean, VA 22102-7508
Bring contraceptives.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Too bad they didn't block downloads too. Now leachers will have their way.
While I think this was read into too deeply, and they are NOT banning p2p (just slowing down?), I feel for their users.
They are basically being held guilty by default. What a crock of shit.
Enjoy. But if you don't like it, dump the service please, and stop supporting them.
(standard "but $X is only service in my area" whinings need not apply)
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
The problem is that there is no other ISP in the NY metro area that comes close to Optimum's upload bandwith while being relatively close in price. Optimum threatened to terminate my account if I continued to upload. They are tracking bandwith statistics, so switching ports will do nothing to solve this.
Of course they can and will do what they're threatening. There's a reason why it pays to have your provider be classified a common carrier, and not some entity that will block your connections at whim... If you didn't see this coming you need to be hit upside the head with a cluestick...
So pay the higher prices.
OO is offering a consumer-class service that comes with huge download bandwidth and little upload bandwidth. If you want huge upload bandwidth, you have to pay for it.
Luckily, leechers like yourself will start to have real trouble on the FastTrack (Kazaa) network. The latest incarnation rates users based on how much they upload. The more you upload, the faster/better your downloads. The less you upload, the slower/fewer downloads you get.
Hell of a troll, if I do say so myself.
I mean, the whole redhat/mp3 playing thing... that is just brilliant. Young troll-lings take note: See how he blends the reader's naivete about linux, with the average users frustrations at having to learn how to use an OS, or install software. See how he makes it look as if there weren't any number of mp3 players, both for X and the command line... several of which are probably default installs (Wouldn't know myself, and all you redhat weenies can bite me, I use Slack!). Think about this, "mpg123 filename" is as simple as it gets, but this master troll banks on the likely assumption that most windows lamers here at slashdot won't have a clue. It all plays into the FUD that we hear every day about linux, and yet maintains some air of plausibility... I mean, if you knew nothing of linux, except the gossip that it's difficult to use, you could believe him yourself!
But then, that's just the beginning, he follows up with a true masterpiece, including a subtle, yet direct contradiction. Does the PC in the dining room not have "crappy computer speakers" ? Can a cheap Big Lots CD alarm clock have anything much better than those? And for the piece de resistance, when has Walmart, or any retailer for that matter, ever in the history of the compact disc, sold a new album by any performer (dare I call Bon Jovi an artist?) for $8.00 ? It just does not get any better than this, folks. Those with less expertise might never even notice that they've been trolled.
*Applause*
SteweyGriffin, please, marvel us with some more of your brilliant trollery, it's hard to remember that it truly is an artform, some days.
You can still download stuff with the p2p protocols. You can even accept file requests ( and acknowledge them ) with a p2p protocol. And you can still use SMTP to send files, even ones that the RIAA doesn't like, to other people (peers). It would serve OptimumOnline right if someone applied this concept to deliver any file now transfered from their users over p2p through their mail servers instead.
Sometimes doing what people tell you that you are allowed to do can be the best revenge.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
>> ...it is legal to share something with someone who already has it.
That's banal sophistry, I'd have to say. Why would you have a reason to "share" something with someone who already has it?
Suppose I grabbed tomorrow's New York Times off their satellite feed to a regional printing plant. Then, I print up a zillion duplicate copies, wait until the real paper hits the streets and proceed to distribute it all over New York City, to people wo already have a copy. Think that'd be called fair use? Think the Times' wouldn't have a field day with me in court? The only difference between that and dumping music on the P2P networks is the use of a different distribution media. And that means zip to the law.
People who upload copywritten material are placing it on a globally accessible network. They have no idea who is going to download it. "Sharing" the entirety of a copywritten work with the entire globe is not fair use.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who argues that kind of activity is legal is either deliberately ill-informed or convinced that his own sense of morality takes precedence over the legal system.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Then I remembered that I'm getting mad bandwith/$ (link: fastest ISP's). I've measured 6 Mbps to an OOL server and 3.8 Mbps to the other coast. For $30/month. DSL would be 700 kpbs (about 1/10th) for $50/month.
Also, it's their business and they've had a "no servers" policy since before I subscribed. I wouldn't want anyone telling me how to define my business. If we don't like it we can vote with our wallets. But this compromise is easy for me.
That said, I am an occasional P2P user, and I think sharing is appropriate to the model. I'll be looking into how much usage it takes to draw any attention and if the penalties are temporary caps (vs. being booted). But at this rate and price, I don't want to get booted!
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
You say the default config for OOL is 10 megabits down and an ENTIRE MEGABIT upstream?
Sounds like the idiots that run the place have no fucking clue how the cable system works. Upstream bandwidth is severely limited because it runs on lower frequencies (5-42 MHz) with fewer channels to work with. Assigning every user an entire megabit of upstream data when each node is only capable of handling about 10 megabits is a recipe for disaster -- put a few heavy P2P users on the line and you'll be saturated in no time.
Cox Communications and Time Warner both cap upstream bandwidth at anywhere between 128-384k, and nothing more. They have successfully managed their bandwidth from the start and hence don't have to backpedal in a panic, pissing off thousands (millions?) of subscribers.
This is OOL's fault -- not P2P, not the end users.
It's obvious that 'security' isn't their motive in this move. If you look at the products listed, it's obvious that they're trying to block p2p applications which, among other things, distribute music files. If 'protecting people from themselves' (that their 'security' really means) is what they're after, they would also have included Freenet and GNUnet.
You've demonstrated that you know little about the DMCA. The accused doesn't have to win in court, all they need to do is send you a counter-notification letter and you are required to turn their service back on.
I'm getting a little tired of this talk about "bandwidth stealing". It's hype, and they should be called on it. If the ISP's have the capacity, then it doesn't cost them an extra nickle when you use it. If they don't have the capacity, then they shouldn't be contracting it to you in the first place.
Now, if the access providers want to put a cap on the amount of bandwidth you use, and tell you this up front, then I have no problem. But, if they want to change the terms of your contract, and if they want to decide which "approved" service you can connect with, then I have a big problem. You should too! It's your resource, you paid for it. Use it.
LOL and you posted as 'anonymous coward'.
Unfortunately, there are very few ISPs that have reliable Usenet servers. Usually you will have to pay for a dedicated nntp service. My ISP's news server almost always drops somewhere between 1 and 5 parts of a ~50 part rar set.
Since I began downloading audio/video from the internet, My purchaces of same have:
comment directly in my journal
The OOL terms and conditions clearly list servers as unaccaptable use, and always have. In addition OOL has not been 'pulling the plug' on P2P users - they have been throttling the upload bandwidth by decreasing the bandwidth cap on the upload channel from 1 Mbps to 150Kbps.
Despite speculation that this action is due to pressure from the movie/music industry, nobody has any hard evidence this is the case.
What is definitely true is that the nature of network use is changing - when the original cable protocol (DOCSIS 1.0) was designed bandwith utilization was 30:1 down to up, so DOCSIS 1.0 was designed for this sort of asymmetric load. This was before the days of VPN, sending digital photos to grandma, videoconferencing, etc. Unshaped traffic right now is running more like 2-3:1. With some optimization it's possible to get a DOCSIS 1.0 network to efficiently handle 10:1, but that's still a long way fron 2:1.
The result is that there is a big strain on upload channels in cable networks right now. Even OOL, which has the best bandwidth/customer right now is feeling the pinch.
DOCSIS 2.0 equipment, which is just starting to roll out is capable off symmetric operation - cable operators really want this for a variety of applications, however they also have an equipment plant with relatively new 1.0 hardware and generally a huge amount of debt. It's hard to predict how fast 2.0 will be rolled out.
..let me tell you the service level has dropped off so much it is ridiculous.
First they have been running "brown-outs" in Brookhaven township (Suffolk County, NY.)
Second the Helpless Desk has been telling people to turn of and especially DISCONNECT their routers when they call for outages. They do not explain themselves they simply tell people to disconnect the equipment. Then when the problem is not resolved they tell the customer to leave the Router out of the mix and wait a while. "Do not hook the router back up.," they implore.
Third, and this is just heinous, the cable technicians have been "chopping the lines" of customers they suspect have either extra cable runs, or (God forbid) who have Satellite Dishes. I live in Farmingville and not only has this happened to 6 (SIX) of my neighbors but one of those fukkers was in my yard when they were supposed to be working across the street. My wife confronted the guy and he told her that satellites were unreliable and "anyting" can happen to them and that she should consider going back to cable. I came out and exlained that if he didn;t get off my property I'd bury him in it. I took his plate number and Van number and Cablevision has denied he was even in the neighborhood. We are pressing charges along with our neighbor's who's Sat Dish lines he cut. I doubt we have a rogue installer.
As soon as DSL is on this block we're switching.
This
Furthur is a P2P distrobution system that allows for easy trading of live shows... It has developed(evolved) from FTP sites, and snail mail trades. Etree.org has the names of people you can send blank media to have them record and send back for your listening pleasure.
I can think of two notable exceptions to the mantra that they only use being made of p2p is for pirating. Furthurnet is a p2p network which grew out of the tape trading community which takes copyright and the artists wishes very seriously.
The other example Transmission Films is distributing high quality movies protected by DRM via Overnet.
The Internet Archive has terabytes of share friendly information, they are evalutating several p2p platforms for helping to keep their bandwidth bills down. I've downloaded Redhat ISO's from edonkey, when they first come out the primary distro point and mirrors are swamped for at least a week.
"Legitimate."
I love that word; it's so...
subjective.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
prevents p2p networks from just switching ports?
Uh... perhaps because the author of the story doesn't know what the hell they are talking about. OOL is NOT blocking p2p networks, they are decreasing the upload cap on users that have high upload traffic to multiple ip ports for long periods of time.
I can see it being a useful tool for working around censorship, for example.
The best tool for working around censorship is the photocopier. We had this argument in the context of Freenet a few months ago. The conclusion was that there is no non-trivial legitimate use of this sort of decentralized technology. In an oppressed country where speaking one's mind can lead to imprisonment or worse, the audience to which you want to send your message certainly does not have computers. Technology like this is useless for circumventing unjust censorship. But running off a thousand copies of something and passing them around clandestinely will work as well today as it did in the 1700's.
I write in my journal
I love that word; it's so... subjective.
Huh?
Legitimate \Le*git"i*mate\ a. 1. Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful.
I write in my journal
Are you being sarcastic? I do not believe these two are related in any way shape or form but I'll bite anyway.
Guns have tons of legitimate uses that cannot be carried out with any other tool: hunting, sport shooting, defense.
You mean no other tool if you want to sit on your lazy ass up in a tree stand and hope something comes within 100 yards of you. I have nothing against hunting with a gun, just trying to show a different viewpoint.
Yes, obviously sport shooting as that does require a gun but the others are bull. You can hunt with many tools like arrows, traps, spears, rod and reel, sling shot, knife, stun gun etc... Might be a little harder from a distance but people have been using these for thousands of years and still do, well not the stun gun.
P2P networks have no legitimate uses at all that cannot be (better!) carried out with another tool.
Just because a tool might seem better for what you are doing does not make it better for everyone. I have downloaded and upload gigs worth of car pictures, street racing videos, local track racing videos, and amature videos (not porn either) from P2P, all non MPAA/RIAA and free to distibute. Where else can I find a repostitory of these things? Where else can I post and share my material with others and NOT have to go through a third party commercial entity that charges per GB or can hold a few GB's of material for as cheap as P2P can do from my home PC? Add that it be non centralized and searchable for everyone to use freely and participate. Sure I can search around with Google and find stuff on web pages here and there, some on usenet and very little on IRC but all of these combined are many orders below what I can find on P2P.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
I have Roadrunner and you'd think it would be subscribers to an AOL/Time Warner service would be getting letters about sharing media over the internet.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
FastTrack already has a mechanism in place for this. KazaaLite v 2+ has a "participation level" that's determined by number of files uploaded and quality. Supposedly those with higher participation levels will also be able to download faster and more files (people with high participation levels can download from other people with high participation levels). It doesn't seem to be working, though. I've got a very high participation level on one computer, and I still have people with zero participation downloading from me. Maybe it's not activated yet... I dunno... but it's definitely there. If it gets switched on, then all of those people who can't upload will be left swapping files with each other (ie: no files to swap).
You can hunt with many tools like arrows, traps, spears, rod and reel, sling shot, knife, stun gun etc...
Try to bring down an elk or a reindeer with a spear. Go right ahead. When you make it back-- if you make it back-- you can tell me how it went.
But more importantly, you forgot the most important legitimate use of a gun: defense.
I have downloaded and upload gigs worth of blah blah from P2P, all non MPAA/RIAA and free to distibute.
Fine. But you could have done it better with other tools, tools that have non-trivial legitimate uses.
Where else can I post and share my material with others and NOT have to go through a third party commercial entity that charges per GB or can hold a few GB's of material for as cheap as P2P can do from my home PC?
If you can do it with Kazaa or whatthehellever, you can do it with an anonymous FTP server. Unless your ISP prohibits it, of course, in which case the answer is "you can't do that."
Add that it be non centralized and searchable for everyone to use freely and participate.
Yup. Remember archie?
I write in my journal
I have a promotional vinyl copy of Tommy Shaw's Girls With Guns. A catchy and pretty ammusing song. I didn't have a car stereo that did tape, so I asked a guy who had it on one of his play lists to send it to me. I had a copy I was free to duplicate, someone saved me the huge pain in the ass of doing so.
One of the few songs I've gotten off the internet, the others are from bands like The Minibosses, They Might Be Giants, Daft Punk et al that offer songs for download.
Interestingly enough my introduction to TMBG, BNL, and Alpha Team were from bootlegged tapes. It took quite a while to locate Go Speed Go, but music stores around here are a little better now. In the case of the first two, they've done well enough by me, that I imagine they're ok that the first time I heard them it wasn't exactly "legal." When I finally track down the last couple of missing albums Long Tall Weekend, and the singles I might not know exist, I'll be making the ultimate TMBG compilation cd. An mp3 disc so utterly sweet that I'll be able to glue my face plate on, as I'll never need to change a cd again. I would bet the Johns would be fine with that, their business managers on the other hand....
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I've been reading Lawrence Lessig's _The Future of Ideas_ and he talked about this and made it clear why it would happen and the inevitability of it. Cable is the closed network of our time. There are far too many controls on it. I wonder how it is that the network providers are so short-sighted that they believe that this model is the way to go.
As for peer-to-peer and that it trades only illegal stuff, well that's hogwash. Yes, p2p is being used for a lot of file sharing right now and most of it is still protected by (an outrageous system of) copyrights. But p2p is an infant and there is no way to tell what it will be used for in even one year's time. I bet that p2p users will outwit the cable companies, bypass them and, unless they open their networks, make them irrelevant.
What will come in the place of cable. Hell, I don't know, but the cable industries stands of today feel a lot like aol's work of yesterday. Aol's dying. Cable will be next. Something else will take its place.
Until then, if you've got access to dsl and you value openness, call Verizon or whoever. The phone companies are the only ones who have to leave things open. Though, that might change. Things are getting creepy under the Generalisimo Bush. Egad.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I got SSH running, I'd be very pissed if they felt the need to disable that. I've had trouble with port 80 tho...
I'd like to start a freenet node, do they mention anything about that?
-- taking over the world, we are.
First of all, I'm all for buying the music, etc. that you use. I have an ogg collection, but I also own the CDs that they were ripped from. However, the music industry is wanting too much control and power, and I think people need to fight against that.
Having said that...
There is an easy consumer countermeasure to this corporate pressure. Everybody needs to upload and download from P2P constantly from now on. The cable company will not disconnect ALL of their customers, and if they do, so what. Use a different service.
Of course, most people don't have it in them fight for anything anymore.
I'm getting about 800-900kbps ADSL at a distance I've been told is somewhere between 12000 and 16000 feet, depending on who measured it (I think it's really about 12-14000 feet but bad wiring...). A few years ago, I had 384kbps SDSL here, but 768kbps SDSL didn't work.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I was commenting on your all encompassing statement that a gun was the ONLY tool that could be used.
Never said that. I said that there are non-trivial, legitimate uses that cannot be as well served with anything other than a gun. In other words, there's a need for a gun. It serves a purpose.
P2P software serves no legitimate purpose. On the other hand, it does a great deal of harm. So abolish it. Q.E.D.
How in the hell are you going to find these ftp servers and search through there contents for what your looking for?
Ever heard of archie? It may well be before your time, but it worked very, very well for just this purpose. Getting archie back up and running would be a trivial task compared to the energy that went into writing all these horribly unstable, spyware-laden P2P programs.
What happens when those anonymous FTP servers also have MP3's on it, does that now make FTP illegal?
No, because (see if you can follow along here) there are non-trivial, legitimate uses that cannot be as well served with anything other than an FTP server. See the logic now?
Besides, abolishing all this P2P crap and getting back to FTP will put the focus of this problem back where it belongs: on the users who are breaking the law, rather than on subversive and illegitimate software tools that should never have been created in the first place.
I write in my journal
Guns have tons of legitimate uses that cannot be carried out with any other tool
:o) defense!?!?!?! Against what?
Do you really believe this, or are you just trolling?
There is only one thing that you can do with a gun that you cannot do with any other tool: shooting things.
hunting
Yes, because everybody knows that human beings didn't become hunters until the gun was invented, right?
And all those lions, polar bears, wolves, hyenas, cheetash, tigers, etc.. all use guns, right?
sport shooting
Using guns for the sake of using guns. Brilliant.
defense
This one kills me (no pun intended
Guns.
A knife or a bat are useful for defense too, and unlike a gun, they have more than one use.
It's interesting that everything you adamantly state cannot be done without a gun can be done without one - except "shooting a gun".
P2P networks have no legitimate uses at all that cannot be (better!) carried out with another tool.
A P2P network, is useful for the distribution of information - better, in fact, than any other method, because you're not limited to a single distribution point. Redundancy is built into the system, which makes it better suited for wide distribution of files.
I love that word; it's so... subjective.
Huh?
Legitimate \Le*git"i*mate\ a. 1. Accordant with law or with established legal forms and requirements; lawful.
I think he was talking about the way the word is so often used. For example: "there's no legitimate reason for allowing P2P apps, therefore it should be banned". This statement uses the word in a very subjective way, since clearly if P2P isn't banned, then it is by definition "legitimate". No, sadly, the word has come to be used to mean something like "reasonable, in my opinion". It has drifted in meaning from "codified in law" to "worthy of codifying in law".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
P2P networks have no legitimate uses at all that cannot be (better!) carried out with another tool.
How's that? The Internet Archive has terabytes of information that they want people to download for free. They have a big bandwidth bill so they want to use p2p networks to help scale. Is this not a legitimate use or is there a better way to do this?
This would apply to any number of uses, from Debian ISOs to public access television shows.
Even commercial enterprises could realize benefits, Transmission Films is funding development of Overnet so that they can distribute high quality DRM'd movies. 'member the Victoria's Secret webcast? Or the BMW car commercials? Not everyone can afford to pay Akamai.
They are also stifling legal uses such as freely distributable bootlegs, indy music from bands that want everyone to download a copy etc.
Then how does an independent band pay the songwriter, who gets eight cents per track by US law? If members of the band write the songs that the band plays, how do they verify that they didn't unconsciously plagiarize another song?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I really hope to see this. It would prevent a lot of leeching and it would raise such an uproar or change of service from OOL's customers.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I mean, how else is the guy gonna know that "metallica-enter_sandman.mp3" is copyrighted!?
The cake is a pie
Since this is the relevant part of your post, I thought I'd stop you right here. You are, unfortunately mistaken. Take a look at why ISP's do not have common carrier status (in pdf). (for those of you who hate adobe, google-cached here in html).
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Here is what you said:
;-)
Oh, goddammit. I bet you think you're pretty smart using my own words against me like that.
Okay, I said that, but I shouldn't have. I was being careless. What I meant to say was the more verbose version I gave you last time. My bad, mea culpa, foot-in-mouth, and so on.
Initally you were trying to imply a black and white point that a gun is the ONLY thing that could be used therfore its existance is justified and P2P had no purpose as other tools could be used.
That's what I mean. That was not, and is not my assertion. My point is that guns should continue to be legal because they have non-trivial legitimate uses. By "legitimate uses" I mean that, as I said, there are significant legal and appropriate tasks for which a gun is the best option. I should not have said the thing about how a gun is the only tool; I was being careless.
P2P, on the other hand, has no non-trivial legitimate uses, by which I mean that there are no significant legal and appropriate tasks for which P2P is the best option. And P2P is most widely used for illegal purposes. So it should be gotten rid of.
I choose to use a P2P in my examples because it is convienent, quick, does the job well and efficiently over other methods.
Even if that were true-- it's not; FTP is better-- it ignores the fact that more people use P2P technology for copyright infringement than for all other uses combined. You're basically saying that biological weapons should be allowed because weaponized anthrax makes a kick-ass gopher repellant. You're saying that P2P should continue to be allowed because a tiny percentage of its users claim to use it for something that they really ought to be using something else for. Dumb argument; doesn't hold water.
P2P took off because it combined many tools into one and added many others that were not available.
Are you challenged? P2P took off because college kids used Napster to download music without paying for it. When Napster came under fire for having absolutely no non-trivial legitimate use, people tried to generalize the idea into things like Kazaa and Gnutella and whatnot so they could still get their free goodies but hide behind a veil of legitimacy. It's all crap, and a sensible person can see right through it.
What the media conglomerates are trying to do is shut it ALL down and pretend that the non infringing uses don't exist.
No. What they're trying to do is to put a stop to widespread piracy by opposing the use of-- if not the mere existence of-- tools and technologies that exist for no purpose other than to facilitate it.
I write in my journal
That has nothing at all to do with peer-to-peer. Let's get this clear right now: P2P != distributed, nor vice versa. As you pointed out yourself, Akamai is the canonical example of a distributed content network, and there's nothing remotely P2P-like about it.
I write in my journal
Please... don't start a gun argument. You don't "get" guns... plenty of people think that you are retarded for typing shit into a computer all day -- and they are no less ignorant than you.
You claim to not share commercial material via P2P. Let's assume that anyone here believes you. The fact remains that 95% of the traffic moving across P2P networks are pirated music, movies, porn clips and software.
The point here should not criticizing Optimum Online for following the law -- that is reasonable and responsible. The point is that the law is unenforcable and the business models of the companies is untenable.
The unfortunate outcome of all of this piracy will be DRM. In 2-3 years you'll be unable to copy movies, music and software.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
P2P is very useful and many companies are deploying enterprise apps to take advantage of it.
Kazza is not such a program. Kazza or Morpheus or any of the other P2P apps make no effort whatsoever to even identify material as copyrighted. Slashdotters are whining and bitching about losing access to live music, amateur videos, etc. The reality is people do not want to lose a source of free stuff.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Although Napster was grown on illegality, it could have thrived on legality. The reason it was killed was because a short sighted music industry didn't grab ahold of it, and expoit it for what it was: A God Send. They could have had a monopoly on the next VCR, the next DVD!
They still don't *get* it.
There will never be a software version mass produced that controls copyrighted material, unless the network is RUN by the people profiting from the interests of the copyright holders. Anything else will have a hack that makes copyrighted stuff free for the taking. If the music industry runs the network, THEN and only THEN will they have my support in stopping piracy.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
They're just tired of having bandwidth wasted?
Wasted on what? What the consumer bought "unlimited internet" for?
So your saying that the 10 to 15 GB of amature racing videos and my physche iso's that people are always downloading from me are not legitimate use of P2P? What % of non infringing/infringing matierial do you find acceptable to be considered legitimate? What makes your % any more right then my % or a judges %? Don't you think the media companies are going to have a higher % then all of us? Should we shut down alt.binaries? What % would make them not legitimate anymore? What about IM file xfers? What about MS file and print sharing or Samba? What about cdr's? Each has illegal and non illegal uses, fractions of what it is used for will vary greatly depending on what else is around. If P2P goes away I am losing my right to my 100% legal use of it.
You are no longer trying to prove your point from a technical perspective, you are now using your opinion. That is exactly what I was refering to in my previous post about you falling under (3) for personal reasons.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Perhaps I'm not understanding how you are defining your terms but I didn't see anything in your post that addressed how the legitimate uses of p2p networks I gave could be better accomplished.
Let's say I've got a CD's worth of (legitimate) information that's pretty popular, and I can only pay for a small amount of bandwidth. Why would I not want to use a p2p network?
Out of curiousity, when did anything mention they were bowing to the RIAA's demands?
What they're addressing is that some users leave a large p2p repository available, 24/7. That results in vastly disproportionate upstream usage compared to the average non-comercial user as users from all over the net are requesting files all of the time.
A typical home user accesses the web, primarily for downloads, for several hours a day. A typical web server provide relatively large bandwidth uploads all day, every day, even when the user is out of the house. Which does a popular p2p repository function more like? The web server.
Non-comercial home users sign contracts that say they're not going to run a server, that they're not going to expect same day engineer service etc. If you want a full service web host, you pay a very different amount. What OO are saying is that if you run a set up that is [effectively] a server, they may stop you.
To their credit, they're not even saying they will stop you, they're saying they might. They're still going to turn a blind eye to those users whose machines do a small amount of uploading because they're not abusing anything - it's the ones who're using a masively disproportionate amount who're going to get capped to bring them back in to line.
Out of curiousity, how's this any different to a water company selling $x/month service to residential users but threatening to cap people who're running a car wash service from their home? It's a business saying it'll stop abusive users.
So, the letter actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the RIAA or OO bowing to them. It had everything to do with them stopping some users from abusing a business model. Still, it's always good to jump to accusing the "bad" guys, even when they're not involved.
Except when the communications companies have common carrier status, which, frankly the ISPs -should- but don't have.
bizzare
Let's say I've got a CD's worth of (legitimate) information that's pretty popular, and I can only pay for a small amount of bandwidth. Why would I not want to use a p2p network?
The question is, why would you want to use P2P? If you share your CD full of stuff via a P2P network, people who want to download copies still have to hit your computer to do it. You're assuming that those people will, in turn, share their copies on the P2P network, making it possible for people to download the files from them rather than from you. That's a bit of a leap-- there's no inherent aspect of the system that guarantees that this will happen-- but I'll stipulate it for sake of argument.
Now, you would have been better off if you'd either set up an FTP server or a web page on your computer with the files, along with blanket permission to mirror those files. Anybody who wants to can download the files from your computer, and anybody who wants to has express permission to mirror the files. See? Nice and simple.
And-- this is the most important thing-- if it turns out that you're breaking the law by offering the files, then you, personally, can be tracked down and stopped. That way we don't have to have an argument about whether FTP is a legitimate technology, see?
Basically the argument that P2P is legitimate because it can be used for distributed distribution (heh) is full of shit. If it were true, you'd be downloading software updates from Kazaa instead of from an FTP mirror or an Akamai content server.
I write in my journal
So your saying that the 10 to 15 GB of amature racing videos and my physche iso's that people are always downloading from me are not legitimate use of P2P?
I'm saying that that use, if it is legitimate, is not non-trivial. One guy who may or may not use P2P for legal purposes does not outweigh the millions-- literally!-- of people who use it solely for illegal purposes.
What % of non infringing/infringing matierial do you find acceptable to be considered legitimate?
Let's start with 50/50 and work our way up from there. If you figure out a way to get the ratio to 50/50, let me know.
Should we shut down alt.binaries?
Since you asked, perhaps. I haven't used Usenet since the late 80's, so I have no idea what the ratio of legal to illegal content is on that set of groups. If more than half of the content is illegal, then yes, it should be shut down.
What about IM file xfers?
Same thing. If it's used for illegal purposes more than for legal purposes, it should go.
What about MS file and print sharing or Samba?
Yup.
What about cdr's?
Yup.
Each has illegal and non illegal uses, fractions of what it is used for will vary greatly depending on what else is around.
Yes, that's true. But if something is used primarily for illegal purposes, that something shouldn't be around.
If P2P goes away I am losing my right to my 100% legal use of it.
You don't have a right to use P2P, any more than I have a right to a free lunch and sex with supermodels. You have a right to do certain broad things, like the right to express yourself and the right to assemble peacefully and such, but the specific details of precisely how you are and are not allowed to do those things are left as an exercise, as long as you are allowed to do them.
You are no longer trying to prove your point from a technical perspective, you are now using your opinion.
Jesus Christ, dude, at what point was I not expressing my opinion? This whole thing started when I said I would abolish P2P if I were king of the world! That's about as "opinion" as you can get!
I write in my journal
The question is, why would you want to use P2P?
Because neither of the options you suggest, pay Akamai or setup an FTP mirroring system, are available to most people.
You're assuming that those people will, in turn, share their copies on the P2P network
Given that at any one time on Kazaa alone there are 3.5 million people sharing 4 petabytes of information I feel comfortable with making that assumption.
And-- this is the most important thing-- if it turns out that you're breaking the law by offering the files, then you, personally, can be tracked down and stopped. That way we don't have to have an argument about whether FTP is a legitimate technology, see?
Actually the US's legal tradition disagrees with you that that is the most important thing. Prior restraint of speech for which there are noninfringing uses is a no no. You are suggesting that a useful method of distribution for noninfringing information be scrapped altogether because it can also be used for infringing uses. Should we get rid of photocopiers, telephones, etc?
It is illegal to make copyrighted material available on a p2p network w/o permission. The copyright industry has successfully lobbied for stronger laws and is using them to pursue those that do so. The laws should be enforced rather than a whole medium of communication banned.
Basically the argument that P2P is legitimate because it can be used for distributed distribution (heh) is full of shit.
This is a very distasteful way of expressing yourself.
If it were true, you'd be downloading software updates from Kazaa instead of from an FTP mirror or an Akamai content server.
I think its more likely the case that its because p2p is new on a large scale and the technology is new and very much in flux. I have downloaded Linux ISOs off of edonkey when I became frustrated with trying mirror site after mirror site and I provided some examples of current projects that are making use of p2p networks. There is every indication that we will see more projects maing use of them.
Many of you obviously have no idea what it's like to run an ISP or administer a network. P2P uploads absolutely kill bandwidth. Responsible use, like jumping on do download something specific and upload in the process isn't a bad thing, but many dolts run uploads 24/7. It doesn't matter what the download speed is when you can't get your responses out because the up-pipe is logjammed. A local ISP with 6 T1s has had their up-pipe maxed for literally months, when they blocked P2P uploads, the outgoing traffic went from an average of 98% to 25% and the download rates once again became normal.
If you really want to know what P2P is all about, sit and talk with a technician from your local ISP. It has very little to do with RIAA, and everything to do with customer satisfaction.
>>"Obviously bowing to record and movie industry pressure"
I can't figure that out. Where do they mention record and movie industry involvement? It isn't obvious otherwise. Cable ISPs tend to have relatively limited capacity shared upstream channels in the "last mile", and saturating the upstream capacity quickly degrades performance even for Joe web user.
I'm not sure how limiting the upstream capacity your p2p client uses is a "ban". Could you elaborate?
We recieve a list of copyright materials that were sucessfully downloaded from the individual.
That's kind of surprising, because that could be illegal, for whoever's doing the downloading. But I wouldn't put it past anyone...
As the law currently stands, we have to uphold the request of the copyright holder, and if we don't do this then we can have legal action brought against us.
ROFL. You don't have to uphold the request in this case. (And you can have legal action brought against you either way; the DMCA can't prevent that.) I think you're confused about the infringement liability exemptions. You might want to take a look at this.
But to summarize:
Yes, an ISP only has DMCA immunity from liability for infringement of copyright involving content stored on their servers if they designate an agent, comply with notice & counter-notice time limits, etc. That's probably what you're thinking of. See USC 17 Ch. 5 S 512(c).
But that's irrelevant, because we're not talking about content stored on the ISP's servers.
The ISP has blanket immunity for content that passes through their network but isn't stored there more than transiently. This is covered a couple of paragraphs up in S 512(a). (Notices could be involved, but only if a proxy is maintaining content that has been removed at the source; and we're not likely to find an inward transparent proxy on a network with an AUP that prohibits servers. =)
If you don't like the law, I would suggest contacting your senator.
Heh. And if my ISP constantly tries to cover their ass at my expense (but can't even get that right, since they don't seem to know where their ass it), then who do I contact? Their shareholders? =)
On the first hand, we are talking 2 different issues, one is a COMPANY that has decided that you cant do something with their resources..
On the other hand, its a GOVERNMENT that s trying to take away a god given right. And its wrong to even *suggest* they should.
That a given, the government didnt step in and ban the P2P.. Which would also have been wrong.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You can't (illegally) send ppl files over P2P.
wrong. you can. and many people do so.
I bet a huge % of you's, already have the "disable sharing" feature on.
not only do i share 50gb of files, i *like* sharing, and so do all my online friends. many of the better p2p apps, such as emule and direct connect, you can't not share and still participate.
And I also bet, that if you seen what % of bandwidth your ISP is using (and how much they have to pay for this), to support your file swapping, you'd do the same thing.
wrong again. if i were an isp, i would come up with a reasonable pricing schecdule that passes on costs to consumer, such as $x/month + $y/gigabyte, instead of $x/month. this would be much better than imposing arbitrary restrictions as to what kind of apps people can run on their own systems.
I think it's time P2P clients start including easy ways to ban entire IP blocks.
shareaza has an excellent security manager. there is also a periodic release of 'shareaza security updates' which include individual ips or ranges of ip blocks to exclude, such as those belonging to spammers, the riaa and friends, etc.
Sure, I steal music/movies.
no. you infringe copyright. stealing has to do with physical property. the riaa may call it stealing to make it sound more serious than it is, but that has nothing to do with the truth.
In essence a contract boils down to "consumer pays money, vendor provides a service". It matters not whether the "service" is a plate of food, cable TV, perfume, underwear, gasoline, etc.
You buy food, the vendor is obligated to provide something edible. You buy gasoline, the gas station is obligated to provide a substance that your vehicle can convert into motion.
In this case, people are paying for ISP services. If the ISP Terms of Service say "thou shalt not run a server", then the consumers doing so are breaking the rules.
But in the end, the bottom line is this: just as a restaurant can refuse to serve you if you're not wearing shirt and shoes, the ISP is not obligated to take your money and provide the service in return. Never mind whether your TOS says 'servers are OK', or 'MP3 sharing is OK', or even 'here's how to share pirated movies'. If they don't like you for any reason, they can cut you off and maybe even issue a partial refund based on how much of the current month you lose. End of story, you're history... Suck it up and stop whining.
Or host your uploads on an offshore server...
Because neither of the options you suggest, pay Akamai or setup an FTP mirroring system, are available to most people.
What? Is Akamai turning away paying customers now? Or did you mean that most people are too poor or too cheap to pay to have their content distributed? That may be true. But if that's the case, then they certainly don't need their content distributed, do they?
And as for FTP mirroring, all you have to do is say, "Hey, mirror my content, please!" It's that easy. Free, too, for you cheapskates out there.
Given that at any one time on Kazaa alone there are 3.5 million people sharing 4 petabytes of information I feel comfortable with making that assumption.
Don't you mean that there are 3.49 million pirates sharing 3.99 petabytes of pirated material? Be that as it may, those people are sharing content of their own choosing. It's not like your files will get automatically mirrored on somebody else's system. Somebody has to do it deliberately, just like an FTP mirror. The important distinction is that with a P2P system nobody can tell the legal stuff from the illegal stuff. If you used an FTP server instead, you'd have a convenient little "read me" describing the copyright status of your content, granting explicit permission to download and mirror your content.
The only reason to use P2P is if you want to hide from the authorities.
Actually the US's legal tradition disagrees with you that that is the most important thing. Prior restraint of speech for which there are noninfringing uses is a no no.
What the hell do I care? "King of the world," remember? I'm telling you how things would be if I were in charge.
You are suggesting that a useful method of distribution for noninfringing information be scrapped altogether because it can also be used for infringing uses. Should we get rid of photocopiers, telephones, etc?
Why do you keep trying to distort the argument? If a tool is used primarily for illegal purposes, that tool shouldn't be around. Are photocopiers used primarily for illegal purposes? Of course not. How about phones? Of course not. But P2P? Yes, definitely.
There's one simple way to change my opinion on this subject. Get the college kids and whomever to stop using P2P for widespread, large-scale piracy. At the very least, get the ratio of legal to illegal users up to 50/50. If you can do that, I'll accept that P2P is legitimate technology. But until then, it's not, and people who make and distribute it are aiding and abetting the pirates, and should be held accountable.
The laws should be enforced rather than a whole medium of communication banned.
No, the laws should be enforced and the medium banned. The medium makes it possible for your average anybody to anonymously and safely distribute copyrighted material. It is not possible, then, to enforce the laws as long as P2P exists. Furthermore, these tools are clearly being marketed toward children and other innocent people who have no idea that using them to share music and movies and other media will turn them into pirates. That's irresponsible in the extreme, and should be stopped.
This is a very distasteful way of expressing yourself.
So is ignoring the plague of lawlessness and piracy that Napster and its successors brought about. Turns my stomach, it does.
There is every indication that we will see more projects maing use of them.
Like I said, if you can get the ratio up to 50/50, we'll talk. Until then, P2P networks are dens of lawlessness and piracy, and will be shut down just as soon as I get through taking over the world. Could be any time now.
I write in my journal
I'm making two separate replies to this comment because it appears that we have raised two separate issues that would best be discussed separately so as not to confuse anybody.
What reason would the Government of the United States of America have to get involved with something stupid like this. Not only paying songwriters, but setting a specific price by law? WTF? In 50 years when inflation makes that worth even less than it is now, will congress change the law to 20 cents?
CARP does that regularly. See 17 USC section 115, chapter 8, and a history of mechanical license royalty rates. The law seems to specify that CARP keep royalties roughly in step with the Consumer Price Index.
That doesn't mean that a songwriter has to get paid at all. It just says that 8 cents is the most he or she can charge.
I apologize for writing my comment in such a misleading way. Yes, 8c/copy is only a cap on what copyright owners can demand. However, professional songwriters who regularly license musical works to recording studios typically demand the full eight cents per copy.
Does my shitty indy band have to contact Somerville & company, or pay up to $0.08 for every song pressed?
To obtain rights to perform and publish a cover recording of a television show theme song, yes, you have to contact the copyright owner some time in advance (section 115 makes an exception for copyright owners whose contact information in the copyright registration is outdated) and pay royalties (either at the 8c/copy cap or at a negotiated rate) for every phonorecord distributed, whether on CD or even in OGG format, whether for free or for pay.
unlike a radio broadcast (to which this statute does not apply) when you share via MP3, a new, permanent copy is made. But how is this different from me tape recording the song off of the radio (which is legal, I believe because of time shifting rulings, please correct me if I'm wrong)? Does a songwriter technically have to get a royalty off of that too?
The differences: For one thing, when the "performance" is on demand, it's not a "broadcast" and therefore not a "public performance" of the musical work. For another thing, the sound recording copyright owner has an additional right to control "public performances" through a digital transmission.
Will I retire or break 10K?
As to how one verifies that I didn't unconsciously plagiarize another song, that's stupid too. In this case, the burden of proof is on any accuser.
Unless the allegedly infringing songwriter does not have the income to afford a legal defense.
Besides, the contracts that bands sign with independent music promotion services such as mp3.com tend to require the band to guarantee that both the sound recording and the underlying musical work are original. How can I meet this requirement? Does there exist a form of copyright liability insurance for songwriters, designed for such a situation?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Maybe you should just scroll down the dictionary a bit more:
3. Based on logical reasoning; reasonable: a legitimate solution to the problem.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
And for the record, man does bag a hell of a lot more since guns were involved in hunting... don't believe me?
I believe you, but the question remains, what kind of idiot still uses a GUN to hunt? We have cattle herds nowadays, they can be herded into a slaughterhouse, you don't need an uzi to take out your next meal.
The reason people still use guns, of course, is purely for 'fun' hunting. But isn't half the 'fun' of hunting having a challenge? If it's far easier to 'bag' lots of animals with a gun, a lot of the challenge of hunting is removed.
I was raised a country boy who realizes how useful a gun can be. I'm willing to bet that you were raised in a) a city, or b) a city surburb.
I bet there are a hell of a lot more guns in any city suburb than the 'country'.
You may want to control guns, but don't let the government handle that job... you'll get controlled alright... ask England.
The long culture of gun control and non-availability in England has resulted in far fewer deaths from crime than in America. It is likely much more of a cultural thing though, because some other countried where guns are legal (eg. Switzerland) also have low crime rates.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
But running off a thousand copies of something and passing them around clandestinely will work as well today as it did in the 1700's.
But the 1700's weren't a particularly nice time to live in. Lots of wars, deaths, plauges, etc. The power was in the hands of the few, and the many were poor and led pretty miserable lives. You could be executed for not being a christian. 'Passing around bits of paper' wasn't a particularly good tactic for widespread exchange of information then, and it still isn't now. Word of mouth was probably the most effective means, but if they'd had something like TV or radio then, it would have been more effective IMHO.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
P2P does not risk life and limb when it is used illegally. Many things are regulated in society with success: Cars, drugs...guns
Guns are no less dangerous than a car, when put in the wrong hands. They deserve no fewer restrictions. As the Canadian gun registry has shown, we shouldn't register individual guns like we do for cars, but the gun owners should be registered.
P2P doesn't need that kind of registration system, but ISPs should have the right to protect themselves by shaping the packets. It isn't right or fair to their legal customers, but if they want to put themselves out of business [by losing people offended by the policy], that is their business. For ISPs like Sympatico where there is no alternative to 1000s of people though, any kind of upload restriction just stinks [not that it matters much for dialup].
Of course people determined will find another way, but if the most popular music sharing net is run BY the music industry then they can pick off violators easily, and make money hand over fist.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
'Passing around bits of paper' wasn't a particularly good tactic for widespread exchange of information then, and it still isn't now.
Yeah, the Federalist didn't make a lasting impression at all, did it?
I write in my journal
One Slashdot reader wrote; ... On a side note, due to the asynchrous nature of most cable modem service, as well as the fact that a node is essentially a LAN, I can certainly understand the concern about people constantly uploading files. Saturating the forward path can cause problems with download traffic as TCP requires ACK packets to be sent stating that a packet has reached it's destination, if the ACK packet is not recieved the packet needs to be re-transmited. So the next time you think your not causing any problems for anyone when you spent the last 2 weeks on Kazaa allowing people to leech files think again.
... The discretionary cap was put into place because users were clogging upstream channels with p2p uploads. It got so bad that DHCP requests on some nodes (mine in particular) could not be recieved within even a 17 second ack window. It does NOT have to do with pressure from the RIAA.
--
Another Slashdot reader wrote;
Here's why: The cap is not a new portblock (they already block 80 to discourage webhosting), but simply a different cable modem config file with a lower upstream maximum. The ordinary config for OOL is 10 megabits down and 1 megabit up. the altered config file is 10 megabits down and only 150 kilobits up.
Obviously this is a solution that was implemented to control bandwidth, not specific applications. If OOL were to start battling p2p apps, it would come in the form of a portblock or traffic shaper - NOT an upload throttle.
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Suggesting that upload or download saturation is a problem which users are responsible for is, in my professional opinion, of questionable judgement.
If the network operations of this organization does not control their own network transit traffic, then there is no hope for them at all. Why are they limiting the upstream on cable bridges? (please don't call it a router unless it complies with RFC1812, or a modem because it is neither) The answer is, because the local layer 2 medium (the neighborhood cable) allocated spectrum is saturated. It is saturated because they have failed to segment the layer 2 network -- this is Optimum Online's failure, not it's users. This is how it was done in the old days of Ethernet and Token Ring when you had a long RG-8 cable and many users. You had to buy a bridge (a switch is a multiport bridge). Optimum Online does not want to buy new equipment, so you get to pay the price for their profit.
It is terrible (should be illegal) that Optimum Online Cablevision prohibits users from using any kind of server (Terms of Service part 21(a)). Most other cable Internet service providers have the same terms of use. Many DSL Internet service providers allow servers either implicitly or explicitly in their service terms.
In my professional opinion, all cable Internet service providers provide nothing more than read-only Internet access, which is not Internet access at all. You should not be able to post on Slashdot to complain at all. You may have already experienced this 'issue' as caused by your cable Internet service provider's upstream bandwidth issues.
Don't complain about being on a Cable teleInternet provider's network. Just switch to a different medium.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Or did you mean that most people are too poor or too cheap to pay to have their content distributed? That may be true. But if that's the case, then they certainly don't need their content distributed, do they?
That's an amazing statement. Do you really believe the only people that should be able to distribute information widely are those that can afford to pay for high end services?
Arranging an ftp mirroring system is not scalable or accessible to any significant number of people.
Why do you keep trying to distort the argument? If a tool is used primarily for illegal purposes, that tool shouldn't be around.
I'll repeat, the law does not agree with you with respect to prior restraint of speech for which there is possible noninfringing uses.
The introduction of every new technology which can copy has seen cries to strangle it, photocopiers, VCRs, even the printing press. This is no distortion.
It's not like your files will get automatically mirrored on somebody else's system. Somebody has to do it deliberately, just like an FTP mirror.
Most p2p systems by default share what has been downloaded. Its reasonable to think that a significant number of people will share what they have downloaded whether its pirated or not. There are networks that have the idea of karma which lets you download in proportion to how much you share.
If you used an FTP server instead, you'd have a convenient little "read me" describing the copyright status of your content, granting explicit permission to download and mirror your content.
This is possible using digital signatures and catalogs like Bitzi and technologies for expressing licenses like the Creative Commons.
There's one simple way to change my opinion on this subject. Get the college kids and whomever to stop using P2P for widespread, large-scale piracy.
This is a matter for law enforcement. It is known that the copyright industry tracks IP addresses of those sharing on p2p networks and what is being shared, they can get court orders to make the ISP cooperate to go after end users. They are obviously biding their time, probably because its bad for business to sue your customers. But in Denmark end users have been pursued, so it is probably just a matter of time.
>This is a very distasteful way of expressing yourself.
So is ignoring the plague of lawlessness and piracy that Napster and its successors brought about. Turns my stomach, it does.
First I have not ignored "the plague of lawlessness", I very clearly stated that copyright laws should be enforced.
Second, I thought we were engaging in a civil discussion. You flamed ("full of shit") rather than address the ideas, I called you on it civilly while not returning your flames and continuing to engage your ideas. From this and your cracks about taking over the world I can see I was mistaken to do so.
Psst, you're typing in the wrong tab. This is Slashdot, not Kuro5hin. The hint was that the article is an inaccurate unedited troll to begin with.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Do you really believe the only people that should be able to distribute information widely are those that can afford to pay for high end services?
I believe that the list of things to which people are entitled is very, very short. If something is offered as a service and you are unable to pay for it, then you don't get it. If somebody comes up with a free implementation of what Akamai currently charges money for, I'm all for it, but until then it's pay-to-play.
Arranging an ftp mirroring system is not scalable or accessible to any significant number of people.
Works fine for distributing things like Linux, doesn't it?
I'll repeat, the law does not agree with you with respect to prior restraint of speech for which there is possible noninfringing uses.
I'll repeat, I could not care less what the law says on this matter. I am telling you my opinion, and if the law disagrees with me then it is my opinion that the law could be improved a bit.
The introduction of every new technology which can copy has seen cries to strangle it, photocopiers, VCRs, even the printing press.
Ah, excellent. I'm glad you brought up VCRs. Do you know why they're legal? Because the Supreme Court found that there are significant legitimate uses for them. Not merely possible, but significant. If the case against P2P were brought up today, do you seriously think that the court, faced with the epidemic of piracy taking place through these networks, would make a similar finding?
Most p2p systems by default share what has been downloaded.
Wonderful, more fuel for the fire. Imagine John Doe, who in a moment of weakness signs on to Kazaa and illegally downloads the latest Britney Spears single. Thanks to Kazaa's automatic sharing feature, John is no not only a recipient of an illegal copy, but is actively participating in piracy himself by offering up his illegal copy for others to download.
This is great stuff. Keep it coming.
Second, I thought we were engaging in a civil discussion.
By Slashdot standards, this is a love-in. Trust me, nobody is taking this personally. Don't get offended by my flippant remarks.
I write in my journal
If you are that closed minded, then why bother even responding.
Have a nice day, hope you dont have to protect your family anytime soon.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Call it whatever you will -- but it is still illegal.
The constructive solution is to put people in government who recognize that the anti-trust laws are insufficient and that organized cartels of music, movie, software, oil and food companies represent a threat to all of us.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The problem is the cost of reproducing media is nil.
The only way for the music industry to survive is to find other services to sell, implement draconic DRM solutions or push a large number of regional acts rather than a small number of national acts.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Capping your *download* speeds to 128kbps would get your attention, though :-) Some cable companies, who are either "ahead of the curve" or "even more terminally clueless than most about why people buy broadband", have monthly download quotas of a couple of GB and drop your bandwidth to 56kbps or so once you exceed them. That's fine for regular web viewing, probably marginal for average Napster use, and totally useless if you want to download the latest Linux release. (On the other hand, some cable companies start surcharging you by the GB if you exceed the limit, so you can end up with megabuck charges if you weren't paying attention; I'd rather get slowed down than risk that.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
for the record, man does bag a hell of a lot more since guns were involved in hunting
I still fail to see exactly how you can rationally claim that a gun is the only tool that can be used for hunting.
You're contradicting yourself.
If you've ever tried sport shooting, it's very difficult.
Yes, I have tried sport shooting, and yes, it's difficult. But it's still using guns for the sake of using guns. Being difficult doesn't change that.
How about assholes who try to steal some shit from your house in the dead of night? You really want to get close enough in to use a bat or a knife?
Again, how (exactly) does this mean that a gun is the ONLY tool that can be used?
I'm willing to bet that you were raised in a) a city, or b) a city surburb.
You may be willing to bet it, and you'd be wrong.
I grew up in a rural town (population less than 800). I took gun safety, and hunting in school.
And I still believe that most people don't need them.