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Grokster's President Talks About Court Win
An anonymous reader writes "Now that the Morpheus/Grokster trial is over, the heads of the various P2P services are hoisting their glasses in triumph. Ciarán Tannam interviews Grokster President Wayne Rosso to get his two cents on the verdict. Xolox also applauded the ruling and posted this release. Of course, it aint over yet as the RIAA has vowed appeal."
When I saw "Vowed appeal" I was expecting to see "Vowed REVENGE!"
I think Grok is a frog. It sounds like a good name for a frog.
Grok! Grok!
Its good to hear some good news on the news at least sometimes.
Go calculate something
I have an Alpine CDA-7878 and an Alpine XM unit and a Panasonic Sirius unit, both with Terk antennas. The Alpine unit was connected to the head unit via an AiNet cable and the Sirius unit was connected with an auxiliary RCA adapter available from Alpine (KCA-121B). I had XM since it debuted and Sirius for a few months in the Pacific Northwest.
The bottom line, for those needing a quick answer, is Sirius is superior in sound quality, features(free streaming from their website!), and channel quality(better music, no commercials, better talk). XM has a few more channels that make very little difference to the end result (read on).
After careful review of both systems, Sirius came out the winnner, as I have said. The channels are laid out well, lack commercials, sound great, and are streamed on the internet. The only disadvantage of Sirius was its oft-sited lack of Nascar, which they seem to be trying to remedy. Also, XM has an extra comedy channel (it's boring, and features older, censored comedy), and a few more "experimental" music channels which most will find totally useless. Surfing XM for music is often like surfing the regular (terrestrial) radio in a large city-you get nothing but frustration. It's no wonder XM doesn't stream live on the net so that you can try before you buy. Also, XM's channel layout was unfriendly, in my opinion.
"What the Fsck do you think you are doing!?"
HA! HA!
I'm gonna go grok somebody to celibrate.
given that the labels are starting to play smart like the apple music service, i dont see this as lasting very long. expect a court to squash this decision soon.
face it people, the best justification for free mp3 sharing was that there was no alternative. people said they would pay if they could.. if it was reasonable.. well no it is and you can.
I expect the MPAA and RIAA to win this one
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Maybe Napster should come back and sue all these *ster names. Its like everywhere I go there is something.. for an example roogl--err i mean, feedster. What has happen to creativity..
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
But I figure this will end up like the MPAA vs. VCR. Fight the technology tooth and nail until you realize it's another way of getting fistfuls of cash shoved in your general direction.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
And it appears with their recent activity (which compromises a trial) they are going to start this on a larger scale.
;-)
I apologize for sounding selfish and I hope those who will bear the brunt of these lawsuits will forgive me. I must say that this is indeed a good thing. There will be an initial sacrifice on the part of The People in this case, but the long term result will be positive.
This eliminates the single point of failure we've seen with Napster. If these guys are forced to go after the users, it will take them a lot longer to accomplish their goals. Instead of taking a sledge hammer to a P2P network, they will be forced to chizel away, one scrape at a time. But there's still more.
The RIAA/MPAA/IP-Obsessed-Co. will spend bundles of money on these lawsuits. It is not cheap if you're the plaintiff. This increase in their costs will cause them to raise the prices of their product. Consumers will note this increase and more will resort to piracy. It's a feedback loop.
On top of that, the more frivilous lawsuits they engage in, the less favor they will hold with the courts. Like it or not, a judge's decision is influenced by his personal feelings. If you piss off the judge, expect him less likely to rule in your favor unless the letter of the law absolutely dictates it. Otherwise, many things are up to her interpretation. The more of a fuss the RI/MPAA make, they will be perceived more and more as a nuisance.
Of course, I could be totally wrong on this.
Join Tor today!
My god! That is the most insightful comment I have ever read. Mod this guy up!!! He cetainly deserves it!
And furthermore, why should I trust the calculations of someone stupid enough to actually PAY for slashdot?
I can tell the RIAA is on the side of the little guy. They're going out there and suing the tar out of those evil P2P guys.
'Cuz no little guy would ever use P2P to promote their art.
Not me, not Anything Box, and certainly not any other artist truly making new and original art. See... without the RIAA, nothing would ever get created. This is the true artistic genius of the world: Hillary Rosen and her copyright-legislation-writing hands.
fifth sigma, inc.
... to see a bully (RIAA) to get handed a defeat. While it is terrorizing College students @ MIT threatening them with multibillion dollar lawsuits, I am glad to see it lose a court case that it might have had a chance at winning (even morally).
Secondary to that I am also happy to see my favorite networks stay alive and running.
Mac os X, Beautiful, elegant, Unix. Need I say more?
This ruling goes against the spirit of the DMCA, NET act, and other laws which where enacted to curtail illegal activities. Unregulated "P2P" is used primarily for criminal purposes and needs to be promptly outlawed.
The government needs to send a strong message to college students and kids who use these criminal tools. They need to do hard time in prison for at least ten years for posessing these criminal enabling tools.
The same reasoning holds true for banning guns. The government has the job of governing as it sees fit and the people who are governed have no right to resist. If they do then they are criminals and terrorists. This is why Waco, TX and Ruby Ridge are justifiable and morally proper.
More laws and greater police powers are needed immediately.
The RIAA should focus their attention on concerts and other activities where they present their artists. The recording industry is going to dimish much much more before it stabilizes. There's too much opprotunity for people and hackers to circumvent what ever technology they throw at us. But if they concentrated on doing very well done public events, they could smash whatever level of income they made before with records. As it is now, concerts are no where near the potential they hold. And wouldn't it be nice of them to release onto P2P networks songs so they could advertise their artist in the public forum? Even if they release 96kps ripped songs, I think it would do more to spread their coverage than it is to attack the networks. The last time I was on Kazaa, there were 4.4 million people on! That kind of potential audience can only be rivalled by television (and soon it will even eclipse that). All they have done is hurt their image time and time again. I have NO sympathy for them at all. Fat Cats looking to become fatter.
grok /grok/, var. /grohk/ vt. [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word meaning literally `to drink' and metaphorically `to be one with'] The emphatic form is `grok in fullness'. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. Contrast zen, which is similar supernal understanding experienced as a single brief flash. See also glark. 2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient understanding. "Almost all C compilers grok the void type these days."
http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/g/grok.html
By Ciarán Tannam 4/30/03
Last week marked an historic step in the record industries battle against P2P with the summary judgement issued by Judge Wilson in favour of Grokster Ltd and Streamcast Networks. Slyck has spoken exclusively to Wayne Rosso the outspoken President of Grokster Ltd about the summary judgement and other issues...
The iRiver iFP-195T is a 512MB Flash unit and is available on Amazon
Slyck Ciarán: Firstly, tell us your reaction to the extremely important summary judgement.
Grokster: We at Grokster are obviously very happy with the Judge's decision. The Court recognized that our file-sharing software has numerous legal and beneficial uses. This opinion lifts the cloud the plaintiffs have attempted to cast over innovation and investment. It makes clear that innovators will not be held liable for creating or investing in new technologies. This ruling also means that the labels and studios cannot ban 21st-century technology in defence of their inefficient and outmoded 20th-century distribution models
Slyck Ciarán: What is the next step in the lawsuit for you?
Grokster: The plaintiffs have commented publicly that they intended to appeal the ruling, so we assume they will and we will, of course, fight the appeal.
Slyck Ciarán: Janus Friis recently told Slyck that "Grokster is an older customized version of KMD/FT" and that older versions "supernode server to fetch seed IP addresses when not available locally". The verdict seemed to clear Gokster Ltd of operating any supernode server. Can you categorically say that Grokster does not need a supernode server and if not how does it fetch the location of supernodes when not availably locally?
Grokster: Grokster does not operate a Supernode server or a server with IP addresses or any type of server that interfaces in any way with the operation of Grokster or FastTrack with the exception of ad serving via the Start page. Grokster does not need a Supernode server to operate.
Slyck Ciarán: A side note in the summary judgement said that Sharman/Kazaa BV operates one such superode server/root supernode. Do you believe this statement to be accurate?
Grokster: We have no information as to whether they do or do not.
Slyck Ciarán: What is your understanding of how Morpheus was removed from the FastTrack network. Could the same not be done to Grokster?
Grokster: Some time after this occurred we found out that Kazaa and Grokster were issued upgrades to the communication encryption protocols and Morpheus was not, so the Morpheus clients could no longer communicate with the other programs
Slyck Ciarán: How is your relationship with those who own the FastTrack protocol. Why have they not supplied you with updates to the FT software in recent months? Were they annoyed by your postings of "we do not have an brilliant digital software" on your homepage as they have a direct interest in Altnet.
Grokster: fine (!)
Slyck Ciarán: A lot was made in the media about you speech at the Financial Times new media conference recently. You used the opportunity to attack the recoding industry for not licensing their music to P2P companies like yourself. Tell us more about why you think they should licence music to Grokster?
Grokster: It's not so much that they should license to Grokster, it's more a call for blanket compulsory licensing of some kind. At the moment content licensing negotiations are a one-way street. And what has happened is that record companies have used their content to slow the growth of ecommerce and the Internet until they can figure out how to co-opt the technology. Simply put, they want to own or control the technology themselves.
Slyck Ciarán: Anything else you would like to say to Slyck readers?
Grokster: Yes. Thanks for your support during this long court battle and we hope that you continue to use
*shower*
...people should be donating to Freenet right now - it is the only P2P application that provides protection for its users.
I predict that filing lawsuits against individuals will:
1. Not significantly increase music sales or reduce the number of people violating copyright law, their primary goals
2. Make customers think the record companies are greedier than ever, make customers hate them even more than they already do, and possibly cause even more people to stop buying music and start downloading from P2P networks or copying their friends' music
3. Drive file trading underground to private networks that will be much harder to detect and stop
4. Accelerate the death of the big labels and music store chains which will end with their music being sold off to the highest bidders, hopefully to companies that are smarter and more consumer-friendly
The collective P2P community is letting out a silent, but very noticable "neer, neer!" to the RIAA.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
I've been analyzing the situation for some time now myself. I've come to the conclusion that what's good for the stockholders is not necessarily what's good for the company.
Which is why I think that AMD might really beat Intel after all. I've used Intel processors in the past, because they were available in my area before Athlons. However having tried both I really prefer to stick with AMD at this point.
In other words, what the fuck did your comment have to do with Grokster??
Wrong topic, buddy.
Should've told them "mene mene tekel [u]parsin" instead, but I guess no one will get that joke :)
;)
Roughly translated, it means "measured, measured, weighed [and] wanting." Let's just say they should read the handwriting on the wall
Or I could be wrong.
This weekend, the RIAA began using the IM feature of most p2p clients to mass instant message users and threaten individual lawsuits. It seems to me that this is a violation of the programs' Terms of Service (most say that their services are for noncommercial use only). I wonder if the p2p companies can sue the RIAA for this?
The president says, "Yes, now what?"
Oh, just the small detail that the evil entity hasn't been defeated yet and is now heading straight for Earth at a somewhat excessive speed. And you know what? I think the EVIL in that movie symbolized the RIAA. The Fifth Element symbolized freedom. And the whole This is a police alert; Put your hands in the yellow circles. thing symbolized the way WE are gonna live if things don't change... in apartments that look like some Industrial Zone in Doom II, with yellow circles and KEEP CLEAR painted on your wall, and police will look inside your apartment anytime they want and snatch you away in a body bag if someone so much as accuses you of a crime. Only in our REAL future, there won't be any Fifth Element to come along and rescue us. That's how things will be if organizations like the RIAA have their way. See my other posts about sheep, et cetera. It's just like the title of my post says...
that last line "vowed appeal" mustve gotten someone mad enough to hack their website but wait... i think this has been happening already
AOL [yes I use AOL, bite my shiny white arse] has a survey it's users can participate in, on it's internal homepage thing.
Here are the questions and results, as of just now:
Do you think online music trading is wrong?
84% No, it's the CD prices that should be illegal - 204,896
16% Yes, stealing is illegal, period - 39,978
Total votes: 244,874
What would most effectively curb music piracy?
54% Lower CD prices - 135,991
33% Nothing, it's too late - 82,687
6% Better pay services - 15,809
6% Threat of prosecution - 15,411
Total votes: 249,898
You'd think someone at AOL-TW would take note of this, since they're the ones asking.
(As well as which of their members voted for what and may require "further investigation" as a result.)
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
that the fundamental problem with the recording industry is that they don't serve a purpose in the internet era(this being a few years ahead since most people still hear new music on the radio). Their other major problem is that they are trying to collect money from artists works without paying the artists. They have to walk a fine line between wooing the artists and stealing their work while wooing the fans and stealing their money. You know a business model isn't really solid when the sellers have to use the courts to collect their money. Nobody needs to legislate toilet paper(follow obligator links to toilet paper cases)
My Blog
Actually, I hope the rights are just GIVEN back to their rightful owners: the artists that made them!
No one around HERE would get that joke. Slashdot is full of anti-religion nutcases.
That's got to be the stupidest poll ever conducted. Let's set aside for a moment the whole issue of who participates in a poll like this and just look at the questions themselves. That's just absurd.
This poll isn't worth the paper its printed on.
Great news on this recent verdict. What I'm wondering is when users all stop buying CDs and switch over to the Apple Music Store, will the RIAA still try to claim that CD sales are down due to illegal music sharing?
Declaring file-sharing programs illegal because they are used to share unlicensed MP3s is, in effect, equivalent to making camcorders illegal because they can be used to shoot videos of terrorist targets. *sigh* apologies for the melodrama.
+4 insightful?!? how is this insightful?
Let's get ONE thing perfectly straight here ... there WAS no trial! Grokster won it's case on a Motion for Summary Judgment. Basically, the court looked at the evidence submitted by the parties (who BOTH moved for summary judgment) and said "there are NO material facts in dispute, the only questions to be decided are questions of law, therefore, I can decide this suit WITHOUT a trial.
... Napster DID have control over their network and they COULD ban users engaged in copyright infringement. It is a matter of FACT that Napster turned a blind eye to rampant copyright infringement on their network when they had a (rather blunt-object sort of) means to control it.
... (cf, e.g., Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Larry Wall, many sci-fi fanfic authors). P2P means that people don't have to maintain crappy geocities websites to distribute their creative works for free if that's what floats their boat.
Why is this distinction important, you ask? The lawsuit was in FEDERAL court. The federal courts of appeal in the US are VERY deferential to the District Courts in deciding whether a summary judgment was the proper way to dispose of a case. The Court of Appeals will start from a presumption that the judge was RIGHT and the burden will be on the RIAA to prove that the judge was wrong on the LAW he followed in deciding the case. The burden is on the RIAA to show that the judge's decision was "arbitrary, capricious and contrary to the rule of law." This is an EXTREMELY heavy burden on an appellant, especially since the district judge's "Memorandum and Order" appears to be WELL supported by U.S. Supreme Court case law.
<rant>
To state the matter bluntly, the RIAA has throw a punch and drawn back a bloody stump for their effort. The fact that this has occurred in the entertainment industry's own back yard means that this case, when it is affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, will establish a VERY important precedent (I would estimate that it will be at LEAST as important as the Betamax case) with regard to whether a technology should be suppressed because it CAN be used for copyright infringement. Napster was correct
Grokster, KaZAa, LimeWire, gnutella, etc., are the opening efforts at a very promising internet technology. P2P promises to make the distribution of FLOSS and independently published literature and art a routine matter. It is true that you can't make a profit on your work if you share it by P2P, but true artists often work for the love of the art
It is now and always HAS been my postition that I support strong copyright protection. After all, that's what keeps free (libre) software free. The FSF ACTIVELY enforces the copyrights assigned to it by various FLOSS authors.
Why the HELL isn't Hollywood willing to do the same when their copyrights are MUCH more valuable, from a financial point of view? One possibility is is that these highly profitable companies who, collectively, have more money than Bill Gates, would rather spend that money buying legislators who will pass laws shifting the cost of enforcing their property rights to the general public than spend it directly on legal fees (which are recoverable under copyright law).
A darker thought is that they want criminal penalties attached to any and ALL forms of copyright infringement fot the purpose of invoking the legal doctrin of "liability per se", which would award them a damned near automatic judgment against anyone convicted of a criminal copyright infringement, whether that is shipping MILLIONS of pirated CDs a week from your warehouse in Hong Kong or sharing a ripped mp3 file of a copyrighted work out to the internet.
The media conglomerates want to stomp out peer-to-peer because it threatens their stranglehold on the distribution of entertainment. More
utter rubbish
and you have a problem with this?
The fact is that the RNA / MPAA exists to 1) ensure that artisits are in the position to be butt-f$cked
utter rubbish
...this could just be a dastardly plot to lure all of those P2P execs in one building...then BAM! 'Accident' involves gas leak mixed with suspicious DRM-compatible audio equipment.
in conclusion, record companies? Who the fuck needs them?
/. that record companies, movie studios, publishers - pretty much any type of media distributor that is known to anyone without an Internet connection - is purely parasitic, that they perform no useful function at all.
We do. Well, I do.
You can read Project Gutenberg and whatever other publishers agree with your personal vision of copyright protection. You can refuse to go to movies owned by mainstream studios or distributors, you can refuse to buy CDs published by mainstream record labels, and all of that is your choice and the best of luck to you. But I won't follow you in that, because...
Well, I've seen independent movies and mainstream ones, I've heard independent and mainstream music, and I know which one I prefer. And frankly, I've already read all the Project Gutenberg books that interest me for the moment.
So the question for me is, should I allow that preference to be overridden by some ideological feeling that I prefer one distribution model over another? In short: should I allow my own cultural consumption to be determined by something other than my own personal taste?
And the answer to that, the only answer that makes any sense intellectually, culturally or morally, is a heartfelt and full-throated NO.
There's a strange prevailing belief on
But - making culture available to the majority of the world's population who don't live in front of their computers - is that not a useful function? Finding and promoting talent, screening out tens of thousands of frankly untalented artists per year so I don't have to waste my life checking them all for myself - isn't that useful?
And you may not agree with their decisions in terms of what to promote, but the brutal fact is that the record companies live or die by the market, and if they choose to promote bands that nobody likes, they are the losers by it. And you may call J-Lo a "no-talent slutty girl", but several million CD buyers - people, that is, who are willing to back up their opinion with hard cash - say you're wrong.
And you may say their taste is defective and yours is educated, and you may well be right... but at that point I can just call you an elitist prig with no understanding of commerce, and dismiss you. Because in this sense, the market is absolutely democratic: your taste has no more weight than a 14-year-old boy's. In fact, with your stated behaviour, it has less weight. Because you've voluntarily made the quality of the art irrelevant to your "buying" decision: what matters to you is the distribution medium and mechanism. So why should the record companies waste their time considering you at all?
Removing yourself from the market means disenfranchising yourself. That's your decision. I won't follow it.
That doesn't sound right to me. They didn't completely answer the question: what discovery services do they use? Every P2P Servent has discovery services. Kazaa has a bootstrap server, Gnutella/Gnutella2 (Shareaza, Gnucleus etc.) has GWebCache... what does Grokster have? I seriously can't think of another way to obtain a list of "Supernodes"/"Hubs"/"Ultrapeers" other than a centralized location. Well, maybe port scanning a range of IP's to see if they're running Grokster and know of any Supernodes, but I don't think they'd do that...
It just seems like they were avoiding that question, trying to get Grokster "unaffiliated" with anything "central". Because "central" = easy to shut down.
Frankly, I really don't care what happens to Grokster. Grokster isn't in for it for the evolution of P2P technology, but rather money. Hell, they didn't even really code Grokster, they just license other P2P clients from other companies which were created from other companies. All they do then is create cute GUI layer then stuff it to oblivion with Spyware and other ads which yield them, apprently, "millions".
What I think won this case was their defense that P2P can be used for "good things". They probably use Gnutella as a prime example, where the network is free, open and decentralized. FastTrack (the network Grokster is modeled after) is none of those. IMO, it's a three strikes your out philosophy. Is your closed source? Strike. (Okay, you can get away with that one) Is your client network closed? Strike. Do you earn profit? Strike. Grokster is outa' here.
maybe napster should go back to have their court case overturned?
comment directly in my journal
If you're approached for licensing your property, you must agree at a preapproved price. Just like radio stations have to be permitted to play your music, but they have to pay.
This ability to refuse business is unique to the entertainment biz. Ever go into a store and have someone say this isn't for sale to you? Didn't think so.
The mandatory licensing is in return for your access to the court system.
when it is affirmed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,
Problem is, the 9th is the most overturned court in the land. No telling what these nutcases will do with the appeal, just a bunch of Barbara Boxer homos and San Francisco lovers.
Seems like quite reasonable questions and responses to me, actually.
This poll isn't worth the paper its printed on.
Maybe that's beacuse this poll isn't printed on paper? (or was that an attempt at a joke?)
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
"Grokster does not operate a Supernode server or a server with IP addresses or any type of server that interfaces in any way with the operation of Grokster or FastTrack with the exception of ad serving via the Start page."
Do Grokster client have to route through the ad server before being allowed to operate normally? If so, then Grokster will lose the appeal as this is a central point of control. This will also demonstrate that, since the Grokster execs know that its service is being used to extensive copyright violations, the service operators can control who is allowed to use the service and eliminate those who violate copyrights.
If the clients are not required to pull ads for the normal course of operation, then the above doesn't apply. However (and I admittedly know nothing about Grokster), if Grokster is a for-profit company and makes money by selling ad space to users, and since the Grokster clients are closed source, I can't help but think that Grokster operates by requiring users to pull down ads from a central server in order to operate correctly.
Of course, the ad and spyware servers may not be hard coded in as a requirement for the P2P software to operate, and the P2P software may merely assume that the ad and spyware servers will not be firewalled off or otherwise blocked. If the operation of the software depends upon the ad and spyware servers being operational, then Grokster has already lost the appeal and will be guilty of contributory infringement just like Napster.
This poll isn't worth the paper its printed on.
Maybe that's beacuse this poll isn't printed on paper? (or was that an attempt at a joke?)
It was an allusion to Sam Goldwyn's quip about verbal contracts not being worth the paper they're written on.
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
the heads of the various P2P services are hoisting their glasses in triumph
I think I've seen this movie before. They're doomed.
Premature celebration is always the setup for the big take-down scene. Just you watch.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
The best thing about Napster was the Linux
support. Hopefully one of these other services
will release something or make it possible for
gtk-gnutella to work.
you are such a karma whore dude
The primary source of income among RIAA members is in recording songs and selling them. They have a huge amount of resources invested in making that particular business model work. While they could in theory promote concerts, there is one key problem.
Concerts are local events. You dont get much market penetration in Los Angeles when the concert is in New York. A recording can be sold pretty much anywhere.
END COMMUNICATION
If anyone cares: It is not exactly accurate to say that the "trial" is over because there was no trial in this case. The judge decided that it was not necessary to have a trial on the facts because the RIAA parties could not win as a matter of law. This is called "summary judgment."
WTF
Who keeps modding stuff redundant? This is a valid point that was not stated prior in this discussion.
I think they (p2p) could sue for violating terms of services, if this is in fact what the RIAA is doing.
Am I the only one that can detect the overflowing sarcasm of this post?
It's hilarious!