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The Law and P2P
Anonymous Coward writes "Here's some interesting legal commentary on the continuing saga of copyright enforcement and Apple's attempt at a constructive approach."
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Available on Kazaa soon
Je t'aime Stéphanie
I was under the impression that iTunes was Client/Server, not P2P... How does it possibly relate to Napster/Kazaa/Gnutella, etc.
They are more akin to Amazon.com no?
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
I'd read that article, but isn't it copyrighted by the person who wrote it?
....
I wouldn't want to break the law or anything
Apparently your magic-8-ball has never had the pleasure to use it personally.
My magic-8-ball has been formerly introduced to the product. When I asked it's opinion, I recieved "Outlook not good".
Try exposing your 8-ball, and rechecking it's results. If the message does not change, you may have a defective 8-ball, and should call the manufacturer for a replacement.
I understood that the decision rested primarily on the fact that these networks were determined to have significant uses other than copyright infringement, rather than their distributedness? Am I wrong, or is this article wrong?
Obviously, the 8-ball hasn't noticed all the gaping security holes.
Outlook is not good.
Sorry, no links.
Why Grokster and Morpheus Won, Why Napster Lost, and What the Future of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Looks Like Now
By CHRIS SPRIGMAN
----
Thursday, May. 08, 2003
On April 25, in M-G-M v. Grokster, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson dismissed a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a group of movie studios and record companies against Grokster and Morpheus. (Grokster and Morpheus are peer-to-peer services that enable users to share copyrighted music, movies, and other content over the Internet without paying a dime to the copyright owners.)
Many observers were surprised. They had assumed that Grokster and Morpheus would - like Napster in A&M Records v. Napster - be shut down for facilitating individual file sharers' copyright infringement. But Judge Wilson, after carefully examining the underlying technology, found that though users' infringement was occurring, Grokster and Morpheus were not contributing to or authorizing it. Thus, they could not be held liable.
The decision is obviously bad news for Hollywood studios and record companies. If it is upheld on appeal, they will continue to face wide-scale infringement of their copyrights.
If the decision is indeed upheld on appeal, will that be good news for consumers? That is a more complicated question. The answer depends heavily on Hollywood's reaction. Will it continue its battle on other fronts - focusing perhaps not on the services, but on their users? Or will it, instead, launch new strategies to take advantage of the powerful business opportunities that peer-to-peer might provide?
Comparing and Contrasting Grokster, Morpheus, and Napster
To see what is likely to occur in the future, it's helpful first to take a closer look at the differences between Grokster, Morpheus, and Napster.
First, Grokster. It offers for download a branded version of software owned by Sharman Networks, a company incorporated in Vanuatu - a remote Pacific island chain that markets itself as protecting corporate secrecy.
When a user boots the software, his computer is directed to sign on to a "root supernode" (a server owned by Sharman), which then directs the user to a "local supernode." The "local supernode" is some user's computer, which has been temporarily designated to route file-sharing requests among a large number of other users. (A particular user's computer may function as a local supernode one day but not the next; the process is largely invisible to the user).
Suppose a Grokster user requests a certain file - it could be a song, a movie clip, a video game, or an e-book. His search request is relayed among a large number of local supernodes and on to individual users. Once the requested file is found, it is transferred directly between the users.
Now let's look at Morpheus. Its software is based on the Gnutella peer-to-peer platform, built from "open source" code. Morpheus users connect to the Gnutella network by contacting another user who is already connected. (This initial connection is usually made by linking to a computer on the network that maintains a constantly changing list of IP addresses for certain currently active nodes.)
The Gnutella network is a "pure" peer-to-peer network - composed of users running Gnutella-compatible software such as LimeWire, BearShare and Shareaza. It does not use supernodes. Instead, user search requests are passed from user to user in the network until the requested file is found. The file is then transferred directly between the two users.
So what's the difference between Grokster and Morpheus, on one hand, and Napster, on the other? It is this: when Grokster and Morpheus users search for and receive digital files, they do so without information being relayed to or by any computer owned or controlled by Grokster or Morpheus. Thus, as the district court noted, if Grokster or Morpheus shut down, their users could continue to share files with little or no disruption.
In contrast, Napster users relayed se
-- Bill "Houdini" Weiss
I hope that Apple sees the chance to pull in some extra revenue, and ports this to PC. I doubt anyone would switch to a Mac just because of iTunes, but it'd give them an extra stream of cash if they let PC users share in the goodness.
While $10 is still higher than I'd spend for most craptacular CDs, it is a reasonable fee. I'd love to be able to just download the new Metallica CD as soon as it comes out, legitimately.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
This is a great idea that would be embraced by the public... until someone asked:
Why would i pay to download music on one service, that i can download for free on another?
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
The distributedness was really the clencher though. Basically, the opinion states that Morpheus and Grokster had no ability to prevent copyrighted files from being shared due to the nature of the network. This, of course, requires that there were significant other uses than copyright infringement.
-Alison
It is quite likely that at some point the music industry will end up making more money out of Internet distribution of their music than they do out of selling CDs. It is also entirely likely that they will continue fighting against P2P tooth and nail until they have exhausted all possible options.
The problem is that right now the lawyers are making the decisions. If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and if you are a laywer - you often assume that all problems can be solved with a law suit. This mentality will likely continue to persist until it is absolutely obvious, even to the lawyers, that it can't work.
What does this mean? Well, for one it means that we should fully expect legal attacks against users of P2P networks to continue. This will simply serve to encourage greater use of Freenet and other future systems which protect user anonymity (Freenet still needs work to make it well suited to this task - but if there is a demand, someone will create a suitable third-party app which uses Freenet as a back end).
After Freenet or its successors have finally demonstrated the futility of trying to use the law to halt progress in communications technology - the music industry may eventually accept that it needs to adapt, but don't hold your breath for it to happen any time soon.
Sell at $1 a song until business gets sluggish, then surprise users with a $20 a month, download-all-the-songs-you-want subsription service. Everyone goes gah-gah because they have been paying $100-a-binge for songs and signs up for the service. Mac users revel in the fantastic deal they're getting from Jobs.
RIAA now has the business model it wants, though Apple gets a small cut, in that instead of people paying $17 a few times a year for a cd, they now have them automatically paying $240 a year. Cell-phone pricing syndrome has everyone blissfully unaware that they are paying way more than they ever wanted to in the first place and the RIAA uses the extra dough to have public executions of P2P software engineers.
Of course, resorting to such extreme measures would almost certainly inflame public opinion. And, as George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr has argued, it might even land a few record company executives in jail, absent Congressional immunity for such tactics, which (believe it or not) has been proposed."
I personally would love to see this happen, if they damage my computer, I want the bastards in jail. If somebody came into a music store and stole a bunch of cd's, they can't just break into their house and smash them - along with anything else they might believe is stolen, they'd have to notify the authorities. I'm not trying to defend copyright infringement here, but two wrongs do not make a right.
It's scary cause it's true. Or maybe I'm just a cynic.
Napster was ruled against because it isn't really P2P; requests went through a central server.
Grokster and Morpheus were not ruled against because they are really P2P; if the backend companies shut down the users wouldn't be affected.
Previous attempts at online music services failed because they were too expensive and too restrictive.
Apple's online music service will not fail because it is not expensive and not restrictive.
The media industries should follow Apple's lead.
IMO, this article wasn't that interesting, nor that informative. It was yet another summation of the story thus far. At least it was a quick read.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Yes, that would be great, except for $0 a month, everyone can download all the songs they want through ftp, irc, newsgroups, web, etc.
Which he talked about here. He nearly went to jail simply because of having some p2p friendly ports on his computer!
or, Ignoring that Cognitive Dissonance
You may notice a large number of posts made on Slashdot concering KaZaA, or similar programs such as Gnutella or FreeNet. Often these will be posted under "Your Rights Online" (YRO), in order to show how the use of KaZaA affects your "rights". You may wonder what the hell programs whose sole purpose is to circumvent copyright laws is doing on a conservative (yes, I mean it) site such as Slashdot.
Let me explain to you. In the back of their minds, most Slashdot readers ("Slashbots") know that they simply don't want to pay for anything which they can get illegally for free. Most people are exactly the same way. KaZaA et al allows them to get music for free, so they use it. They know that this is copyright violation, which is a bad thing to do. This brings them feelings of guilt which they want to do away with.
How do they do this? They rationalize it away. It's the copyright laws that are wrong, not them. DCMA needs to be rewritten. The MPAA needs to be destroyed. It's an expression of free speech. And those greedy record companies take all the money anyway. Never mind that with pirate mp3s the artist never sees any money anyway. This way, they are sticking it to "the Man", who exists to make life difficult for 31337 Linux users like themselves. Yes, it is flimsy, and yes, it allows them to take the moral high ground by robbing hard-working artists. Yes, many will say that modern popular music is all horrible anyway, and that their favorite music is the only worthwhile type, but then go on to slam others for being "elitist" in any discussion in which Gnome or KDE is mentioned.
And what about the SCO Linux beta? Didn't that violate the GPL by attaching a NDA agreement? And remember the cries of the Slashbots that Corel should be sued, destroyed. boycotted, etc.? All because SCO who was helping out the Linux community mistakenly added a certain clause to their beta, which violated the GPL. As you can see, the "community" is quick to cry foul when the copyrights on their software is violated, even by companies with good intentions. Our copyright good, yours bad.
It's called "hypocrisy" and if you read Slashdot enough, you'll have to get used to it.
Now ask yourself exactly why ther is coverage of KaZaA on a site obstensibly devoted to Free Software. KaZaA is proprietary as hell. Those protocol specs had to be reverse engineered. Isn't proprietary software bad? Isn't all free software superior? Isn't "open sourcing" a piece of software the best way to improve it?
These are all bleatings of the party lines. Here, we consider proprietary software Evil until Rob Malda tells us otherwise, or it gets ported to Linux. Then it becomes a special class of proprietary software which somehow becomes better than the rest. KaZaA is one example. SCO is another. Somehow, they are able to ignore this seemingly large discrepency by claiming that these companies are "helping" the "community". The only one being helped is VA Research^W Linux^W Software who gets to sell ads to these people after giving them free publicity on the most popular "Linux" site of them all.
Stop lying to yourselves.
Hell yeah.
BeOS 'till I die!
...and many of us do so for $10 a month from emusic.com.
It may be cracked, but the majority of the customers who have said DRM scheme (ie DVD's), are too busy to rip a DVD on their PC. Most people want something that will easily let them dupe DVD's they rent at Blockbuster (ie DVDXCopy) that allows them to play the copy in their home dvd player. Mostly related to ease-of-use, but also don't forget that most of the MPEG4 codecs used for DVD rips don't support Dobly 5.1 sound (or at least they didn't last time I asked a Divx enthuseist friend of mine).
what the fuck?!? why are you claiming the apple is doing anything useful or vaguely P2P? they're also doing exactly what you railed on anyone else against in the past: Selling restricted use DRM-wrapped music online that you DO NOT HAVE FAIR USE OF.
slashdot is to conservative what Stalin is to Right-wing.
Steve's said on more than one occasion that subscriptions suck, which is why iTunes is structured the way it is. Why would anyone buy music that goes away if you don't re-up every month?
Folks like the recording industry are mostly out for short-term profits (if a given executive can make his millions and get out, what does he care about the future?). However, they have probably finally realized that slowly pulling the rug out from under an unengaged public will make their long term goals easier to achieve than trying an all-at-once lockdown.
If you use mencoder (mplayer) and dump the audio with -oac copy, you can encode the ac3 5.1 surround with mpeg4 video and is playable with mplayer with full surround.
Actually what's going to happen is that Napster is going to reform, retool and re-appear on the scene letting users download any and all music for $0.10 per song with no DRM restrictions using lossless open source audio compression techniques. The RIAA will take them to court, be defeated, and all of it's members will be jailed for being jerks to music lovers.
Naturally I have no evidence to back up these wild claims.
Which is exactly the same amount of evidence you have for claiming that Apple and the RIAA are going to pull a PressPlay on its customers.
Here's a concept: Maybe they're the first people to do this thing correctly. Maybe in a year's time everyone will be doing it this way. Maybe all non-Mac users will look back on the fact that Apple led the way with this model and laugh nervously and rapidly change the subject. Kind of like they do with most of the other innovative firsts to come out of Cupertino.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
RIAA now has the business model it wants, though Apple gets a small cut, in that instead of people paying $17 a few times a year for a cd, they now have them automatically paying $240 a year. Cell-phone pricing syndrome has everyone blissfully unaware that they are paying way more than they ever wanted to in the first place and the RIAA uses the extra dough to have public executions of P2P software engineers.
This is not automatically true. I remeber when AOL did this sort of switch (yes, I was at one time an AOL'er, I'm sorry, I have learned better now). When I first started with AOL they gave you so many hours per month, and then charged you for any extra hours you used. And with Neverwinter Nights(the original) still running on AOL, I burned out those hours pretty quick, but since I didn't have the money to pay for extra hours, I forced myself to not run over. Then they introduced the $20 all you want method, and people went nuts (me included). It was hell trying to connect to a server, all of the modems in my area were clogged constantly. But when I did connect, oh baby. Since I was in high school at the time, and not working, I would play NWN all night and day during the summer and weekends. I was on constantly, and so was everyone else in my area. It stayed this way for as long as I stayed on AOL. Then, sadly, they killed NWN. By that time I had pretty much seen that I didn't want to be on AOL anymore and cancled my subscription shortly thereafter (I had a job by this point, and was paying for the subscription to feed my addiction).
Moral of the story, a flat rate is not always going to be overcharging. If there is enough value in the service people may well get their money's worth out of it. But as the customer, you have to decide which type of pricing will be right for you. Will it be cheaper to pay per song, or flat rate per month (assuming that gets offered). Me, I'll try and stick with the per song rate, my roomate on the other hand would be a good candidate for the flat rate idea. We'll just have to see where this goes.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Apple's attempt at a constructive approach.
The attempt is not constructive! I guess only apple could convince people that a platform independent, DRM enabled, pay per song model was what they wanted. Everyone has always been asking for mp3 or ogg, no DRM, and subscription based. The only requirement they satisfied is instant downloads. Yes, per song is better than per album. Still, DRM? I don't want to burn to CD and back to get mp3! I have an mp3 player that plays mp3s on CDs! RIAA is still getting money, artists aren't. We can still make a better service. Don't settle for Apple's crap.
DRM will only restrict legimate media outlets. The consumer will have a choice...pay for a cripled version, or download an unrestricted version for free. They are shooting themselves in the foot. At least we are getting to watch history in the making.
don't forget that most of the MPEG4 codecs used for DVD rips don't support Dobly 5.1 sound
They support any audio/video codec you want to throw at them. Of which Dolby Digital 5.1 is one. AVI, the most common DixV "format", is merely a container for the data streams.
Dear Tinysack,
... I mean they suck shit.
It is I who makes more money than you, doing even less work spamming people about viagra alternatives.
Don't piss ME off or I will ping flood all 256^2 machines on your puny network, they won't work correctly for at least two months. You don't need to remind me to send you your Trollbot updates every month.
So, stick up for your class of unskilled M$2k admin, and bend over, BITCH!
Reguards,
Your freakin' sex dominator
PS: Your posts suck anyway
This smells like flamebait to me, and the post goes downhill from there. Armchair psychology and broad generalizations are not insightful.
Kazaa is covered on
in a couple of ways, but one specifically - the author states that Gnutella does not use supernodes. in fact Ultrapeers (the gnutella term for supernodes) have been on gnutella for quite some time. there weren't as effective as hoped, but that was because of several bad iterations of implementations. things are getting better - check out any respectable (BearShare, LimeWire) gnutella servent and you'll see.
smd4985
well, it might be cracked - but what about if apple starts watermarking all the files you download on the fly (much easier than doing it with individual cds)so they can be tracked to the original downloader. you could still burn them on cd for yourself but you won't make them available for download. yanking a good watermark out of an audio file will be hard to do and it shouldn't suffer too much from format conversion.
in my eyes, that'd be a good approach - fair use would be covered but illegal downloading would be stopped. but they shouldn't stop you from burning it on cd in the first place then so people have to crack the drm before they can get their fair use.
The RIAA might just let the cops do it for them.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners. - Berke Breathed
Duuuuude! You must have one of those cheap Mexican ripoffs, because when I broke open my official Magic 8-ball to dring the purple juice, the little DND die-looking thingie clearly had "Outlook not good" embossed on one of the faces.
Now remember, the Magic 8-ball was invented before Microsoft was even formed as company, so HOW DID THEY KNOW?!!!
Obviously, Hasbro is actually prescient!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I wonder what the pricing breakdown per song for iTunes is. What percentages are going to the Record Industry and the Artists? Since there is no cost of the physical "CD", besides advertising, promotions, etc.
I don't think that this is necessarily a solution for the artists, but a solution for the consumers. The RIAA always talkes about how it's artists are loosing money because of P2P. I hope whatever "tax" that Apple has to pay the record industry to pay for the copyright use of these songs, that a greater percentage goes to the artist.
Obviously, the effects haven't completely worn off yet!
You are getting better, but still you are an insipid wannabe. Try a little harder boy. Drink your milk.
Not unaware, they are just too stupid to care. Not everyone (although it sure does frickin seem like it) has a cellphone. I used to own a cell-phone when you could pay for the minutes you used. I paid $11 a month for service, and got 0 free minutes. I loved it! Why should I pay for something I don't use? I am convinced that the American public is just stupid. "Hey, I've got 1000 minutes, I think I'll call my buddy and blather on about absolutely nothing." People are always asking for my cell number, and they look at me like I have a tree growing out of my forehead when I tell them I don't have one. I am no luddite, I just refuse to be convinced that I need something just because everyone else has it and it is the cool thing to have. I think that about 90% of people don't need a cellphone, or at least only need to use it 1% of the time they currently do. Same goes for SUVs. The herd mentality is just overwhelming, and is really sad. Maybe that is why I don't want Linux to succeed on the Desktop, because the idiot sheep in this country will suck all life out of it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I'm not sure it's fair to assert anecdotally, absent evidence, that the same persons most vocal about e.g. GPL compliance also advocating copyright infringement via Kazaa or otherwise. Furthermore, I see *no* inconsistency between saying people should respect copyright law and that copyright laws should be changed. A charge of hypocrisy really can't be levelled at a group of users where each user may (and often does) have differing views on any two given issues.
</SOAPBOX>
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
The customer was not being served by the music industry. Apple's recent Music Store opening offers ample evidence of that. It certainly has shortcomings but the overwhelmingly positive response to it clearly demonstrates that people will pay a reasonable amount to download a quality recording.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
...regarding eMusic. In the article, he implies that eMusic's subscription model requires you to continue paying the monthly fee, otherwise your previously downloaded songs stop working.
This is not true. eMusic's files are straight MP3s, with no DRM encumbrances. They do require you to sign up for a minimum 1-year commitment, but after that year you are free to cancel, and all the files you downloaded will continue to work just fine.
Neither company operates "supernodes", which facilitate entry into the P2P network. Grokster does rely on Sharman to operate a "supernode" for all clients attaching to the KaZaa network. Once connected, the clients do not go through this central machine. According to the logic of the ruling, operating this server would be equal to contributory infringement. It was specifically noted that Grokster did at one time operate a server. It can be deduced that Sharman will be found liable using the same logic, and may be forced to shut their server down (if it is located in the US anyway). This will effectively "decapitate" the KaZaa P2P network, as no new clients will be able to be connected.
Morpheus (and all other Gnutella-based systems) will not have this liability, and if this ruling is not overturned on appeal, will be basically immune from these types of lawsuits. Those that rely on a central server for anything can and will be held accountable based on this ruling.
As for the P2P vs. Apple/Other services, it's a basic principle - Get rid of the "free" but cumbersome and unreliable option (via lawsuits) while opening up a cheap and quality service on the other side. Now if the RIAA did this on their own, they might be raking in the dough... good luck ever changing thugs like them without a shotgun and backup though.
Maybe that suggests that if a legal, convenient, and "balanced" online music distribution system can exist under the DMCA, then perhaps the DMCA isn't as evil and restrictive as some here would like us to believe.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Couldn't agree more. The best cell phone to have is a quarter in your pocket.
there's no place like ~
I see so many articles about this but even on a law site the OBVIOUS point is still missed. These are TOOLS. Tools do not break the law, people break the law. If there is even one small legitimate use to a certain piece of software, no one should have any argument against its use even if millions are breaking the law with it. HTTP and FTP can and ARE used to host files that violate copyright. So can Windows file and print sharing, my goodness, you can even encode hidden files inside of picture files. Are all of these going to be outlawed by the government and the RIAA and MPAA? Get a grip. Go after the ones breaking the law not the tools people are using to do it.
Moral rant *****
ALSO just because you break the law doesn't mean your not on the moral high ground.
Mull over the following fact:
I am definitely to the point of refusing to buy CD's and movies because I am treated like a criminal.
Yes... I use it. I just downloaded all of Fallen by Evanescence. I liked it so much that I went to their website and tried to find ANY method to pay them directly because I REFUSE to give any money to the RIAA. There is no way to do it there. I know there sites out there that are trying to do this but there should be the option to pay the artists directly because I want to KNOW where my money is going.
I'm not saying I'm right and that I'm not hypocritical by doing this and finding excuses not to pay, but I'm fed up with it. There has to be another way.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
When a user boots the software, his computer is directed to sign on to a "root supernode" (a server owned by Sharman), which then directs the user to a "local supernode."
I've never used KaZaA or Grokster, but if the above is true, how is it that "when Grokster and Morpheus users search for and receive digital files, they do so without information being relayed to or by any computer owned or controlled by Grokster or Morpheus." is also true? If Sharman Networks were to shut down their servers, how could Grokster/KaZaA users find each other?
Or is the article saying that the company behind Grokster isn't responsible, Sharman Networks is -- but they are way over in some island and hard for the RIAA and MPAA to find?
If I were the RIAA, I would do what I could to shut down Sharman Networks. Have they tried that yet?
And how does Gnutella work? Can someone explain how a network can be "pure" peer-to-peer and anonymous at the same time (how would you connect to a the network)? The article explains it as: "This initial connection is usually made by linking to a computer on the network that maintains a constantly changing list of IP addresses for certain currently active nodes.". How do you find that computer with the list? Isn't that a central server, the maintainers of which should be targets for the RIAA?
"And there be unix which have made themselves unix for the kingdom of heaven's sake." - Matt. 19:12
That's not the fault of the RIAA; it's the fault of the entertainers who whore themselves to the RIAA. If entertainers wanted to maintain control over the music they create, and sell it via their website, they wouldn't sign contracts with the RIAA.
Don't blame the RIAA because entertainers make foolish deals with them.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
However, if you can get away without the 30/month landline. You could have a cellphone instead. If all you use it for is talking, the cell phone is the better deal.
Last time I had to get a landline, I told them no to every option they had, refused long distance and still couldn't get the bill any lower than 25/month.
i wish i could, but the new download manager doesnt work that well for me. i really like what emusic has to offer, but the service really got bad at the beginning of may.
-- john
The Federal Code has several sections on Fair Use.
The first section on individual Fair Use may not be all that relevant to P2P, but the second section seems to go straight to the heart of the matter.
The second section is about Libraries and Archives. It's the Archives part that seems particularly relevant to P2P. That's what P2P is, isn't it --a distributed archive.
Moreover, the law itself specifies what it means by a library by saying that a library is a publicly accessible non-commercial media lending facility.
Libraries and Archives are allowed not one, not two, but three. Count them, three big copies of any copyrighted work. And what is the purpose of these three copies? Specifically, the purpose of these copies is to lend to other publicly accessible non-commercial archives.
So, let's compare this to P2P. A hypothetical user has two copies of a copyrighted work on CD backups and another on the hard drive. That's three copies. Hmm, so far I don't see any infringement. But what's the intent. Let's see here. It appears our hypothetical user is going to lend a copy to another publicly accessible non-commercial archive.
According to US Federal law this seems to be completely legal activity.
I'd also add that if the public accepts a balanced solution then perhaps the content providers will not feel compelled to defend themselves by pushing for drastic legislation like the DMCA.
The DMCA is the understandable backlash from the content providers in response to the rampant and widespread subversion of payment for copyrighted works that exists today. It, and the motivation behind it, wouldn't exist if the rampant piracy weren't taking place.
Pay phones cost 50 cents where I live. Better have a pocket full of quarters if you need to make calls.
now I understand why all the posters on /. seem like they've never read the article...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
IANAL, but this really looks like common sense.
Oh wait, the **AAs have none of that. Gee, this ruling IS interesting.
You could've hired me.
Look on the bright side, at least they went with the Scottish convention and didn't name it after an Irish guy, McIntosh. Then everyone would be calling them MCs and the model releases would be "Hammer", "Lyte", and "P" (for our Tron fans/freaks out there). :)
Btw, where did the name MacIntosh come from?
Nothing fails quite like prayer.
My magic-8-ball has been formerly introduced to the product. When I asked it's opinion, I recieved "Outlook not good".
Try exposing your 8-ball, and rechecking it's results. If the message does not change, you may have a defective 8-ball, and should call the manufacturer for a replacement.
Kinda obvious, and by now possibly redundant (if so, forgive me-- I'm at work, so it's taken me a while to get to typing this), but...
That's not a defect. That's a feature!
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Of course, the difference is people are paying $240 a year for the songs they actually want, instead of $17 a few times a year for a cd with one or two songs they want and 10 to 15 songs they don't.
1) Move files between machines
2) Play files forever if you like
3) (most important) make a CD.
Really #3 is the only reason why I consider fair use to be decent for Apple files. I could always re-encode them if I liked, or store them in a non-lossy format that would keep the quality frozen forever just as it is now - which is good enough for me.
In practice I don't really do that though, because I do use iTunes for music and don't need to convert the files. If I had a dedicated music server for my home I'd probably store all my CD's lossless anyway.
To summarize, most people consider what Apple doing as useful because there is a way out of that file format. Just like an airplane emergency exit, you don't use them every day but they are there and you can use them.
What I find intriguing are how iPods are able to play these files... couldn't you copy files from one iPod to any other when mounting them as FW drives? Does the new iPod software have some idea of who the user is when the user synchs?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
In the UK, for example, I pay Orange rental of GBP 50 per month (USD 80) which gives me:
200 minutes to any UK mobile network;
150 free SMS
10mb GPRS transfer (emails on PDA);
Free handset upgrade each year (I like my gadgets); and my cellphone insurance.
I can guarantee you that my monthly bill would be a lot higher without these pricing plans - while people like yourself may see them as a con, a cellphone can be most useful, and affordable.
Tim
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
From the article: "If Hollywood really wants to get rough, they might get down to the ugly task of cyberwarfare." Oh yes, I'm sure that Hackers everywhere are trembling from Hollywood's l337 c|2@ck3r sk1llz. It would be a U.S. vs. Iraq type of war. If the RIAA had really wanted to scare Kazaa users they would have the users see this when they boot up "MBR not found." Instead they send out messages to everyone using Kazaa....real scary.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
...but some are more equal than others:
Of course, resorting to such extreme measures would almost certainly inflame public opinion. And, as George Washington University Law School Professor Orin Kerr has argued, it might even land a few record company executives in jail, absent Congressional immunity for such tactics, which (believe it or not) has been proposed.
I guess it goes without saying, but this is a load of crap. Am I the only one that sees an "equal protection under the law" problem here?
You might be allowed to read it, but you certainly can't tell anyone what the article is about.
P2P definitely has legit uses:
1.) The only way I was able to download RedHat 9 CD1 was via a Gnutella link posted here on /.
2.) I can't upload *.zip files larger than 1MB to my website, so when I want to make a project I'm working on available to the world, I just post a Gnutella link.
3.) Same goes for mp3's of ME playing PUBLIC DOMAIN music.
4.) And I'm sure others here can expand this list significantly.
ummm, just because you dont use it..and it'd be a rip off for you to own a cellphone doesnt mean others dont.
:)
christ, herd mentality? what makes you a cut above the rest? do you get out much, i think you'll find in general the american public is your average american joe. they have a nice standard of living, dont mind shelling out money for the convienence of being able to make a call from anywhere, even if they dont use it that much.
christ, you are just as bad as "followers" if by standing by on your soapbox you tear them down. you are being distracted and manipulated just as much. look at how excited you got over OTHER people wanting cell phones.
and by the way. nearly every major provider has prepaid cellphones now. you pay per unit of airtime. so ya, you can get by on 11$ a month. but im sure you know that. cause you seem to know everything, about everybody
Here: Gnutella
And here: Edonkey
i think you'll find in general the american public is your average american joe.
Did you work that out all by yourself?
Sort of. Several people I know have commented that if they had the option of downloading quality recordings at a reasonable price, they would abandon music piracy because it would be (is now, with iTunes) easier to "do the right thing."
Try exposing your 8-ball,
That's ok. You can expose your balls. I'd rather keep mine under wraps until use.
Will they wring their hands about it, or will they go after the people sharing them, or will they stalwartly ignore them?
Practice Kind Randomness and Beautiful Acts of Nonsense.
Absolutely herd mentality. Why do you have such a problem being part of the herd?
You are missing the point. They get a cellphone because they are taught that they need one. They use it all the time because they are most likely getting "free" minutes, which is a stupid concept because they are paying for it. You are right about convenience - everything is so convenient that people don't think anymore. When in doubt, get on your cellphone and annoy everyone. If people used them responsibly I wouldn't have a problem, but THEY DO NOT. They don't turn them off in restaurants or movie theaters, they drive while yammering on them. Everyone likes to think that they are so important that they need to be reachable at all times. It is a farce that the providers are feeding people, and they are just standing in line eating it up. If it didn't impose on my life, it would simply be comical, but it does impose itself on me.
christ, you are just as bad as "followers" if by standing by on your soapbox you tear them down. you are being distracted and manipulated just as much.
Uhh, what? This makes no sense.
look at how excited you got over OTHER people wanting cell phones.
I don't care who has a cellphone. I care when it impacts me, and it does on a daily basis. People at work, in meetings, taking calls. People cutting me off on the road because they are not paying attention. People in the grocery store, or the video store, or everywhere else, just talking for the sake of talking. When it impacts me, it bothers me. It has become an annoying habit.
and by the way. nearly every major provider has prepaid cellphones now. you pay per unit of airtime. so ya, you can get by on 11$ a month. but im sure you know that. cause you seem to know everything, about everybody :)
Yep, that is the phone my wife has. We use it when we NEED to. I am not anti-cellphone, I am anti-cellphone simply for talking your stupid head off and not only annoying me in public places, but endangering me on the road.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Don't click that link, it's the goatse guy.
These people look deep into my soul and assign me a number based on the order I joined.
And that is exactly how emusic operates now. $10/month, all you can eat. And it's freakin great. Fast, no hassle d/l, consistent quality.
As has been said before, the only problem is their selection. A lot of minor/new stuff, but sadly lacking in the majors. Beatles, Pink Floyd, etc.
Monthly is not necessarily a detriment.
Include Gnucleus in your eval, it's highly respectable and open source as well.
unless you want to be accused of using your 57 CD-burners (equivalent to 1 24x burner) to produce 14,000 mp3 cds (1 or 2 cds, with highly "valuable" content), then get off kazaa.
--RIAA
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
You mean like the WIMP? Oh, wait, that came out of Xerox PARC. Apple is about as "innovative" as Microsoft.
If it wasn't for Microsoft, we'd all be bitching about Apple abusing it's monopoly power. And if it wasn't for IBM, Microsoft would be just some other tech company no one ever heard of.
Presumably by giving you the right to burn your own CD you have the right to do anything with it.
...
You can certainly resell shop-bought CDs. So is there any earthly reason why you couldn't
resell a CD you had burned (made up of MP3s that you had legally downloaded) ?
Of course that begs the question as to how they could tell a fake MP3 from the real thing
provided they were both the same bitrate etc
- Only useful for those who own an Apple, and eventually Window$, and have an iPod and iTunes. BLATANT integration.
- If they'd just release MP3's, this problem would have been solved up front. Note that this is not a deal-breaker: download song, burn CD, rip CD... done.
- $0.99 per song is too much. CD's cost ~$15 these days, and contain ~15 songs. The cost of purchase, download, transfer and burn time, plus media easily makes up the difference in price. Add depreciation in hardware (that "cheap" Apple hardware) necessary to join this service. Suddenly a dollar per song ain't cheap.
Get with it. Try $0.50 per song (effectively half-price and close to used CD store price) in decent rate mp3 format. Anyone that wants high fidelity buys the CD, the rest of us lowlife P2P scum actually feel like paying for what we can get for free.And, in final analysis, the cost to the industry of running this service is minimal beyond storage and bandwidth. Certainly less than burning and distributing CD's.
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
I'm sure i've said this in other similar threads, but i'll say it again..
.25cents these days.
Apple is doing something wonderful and putting a legit business model to music downloading. It provides users with access to music, for a fee, which i'm sure a percent goes to the hardware and such to keep the site up, a percent goes to apple, and a percent goes to music industry.
This is a valid business model.
So, let's say in the real world, and you get a copy of a CD from a friend, wonderful thing about the digital world is that whole (almost) lossless copy issue. A CD quality copy, assuming it was from a CD is there and about of
There presently is NO system in place for people who actually which to support the bands they like who get pirated copies.
The next step I feel in this digital music revolution would be for record lables and such to actually legalize private and public sharing of media, and offering a license for it. Why buy the CD when you can get a copy, but how do you support the band? Buy a license, possibly in the form of an offical flyleaf, a nice CD label, jewel case for your home brewed CD solution. Word of mouth has always been the best means of marketing, and you have people willing to dedicate their bandwidth to distubute this material.
Users will get a warm fuzzy feeling and will be able to say, "hey, I support music" wether or not they are a signed artist or unsigned independent. It would reconize the value of peer to peer networks for their distubution of material that tradationaly was very costly.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Yeah, I thought that statement was stupid. Dracocat is clueless.
Yesterday I bought a copy protected cd by accident (now why is that they only have a tiny inconspicous sticker on the front cover?) and only realised it was copy protected when I sat down to enjoy the front cover. The thing is I really liked the cd but am dead against copy protection so I will return it. For fun I put the cd in the cd-rom and dvd-rom, sure enough it wouldn't play unless I install an update to windows media. That really pissed me off so I used Clone CD to rip out the tracks. Sure enough in less than 7 minutes, all 14 tracks of Sarah Brightman's new CD got burnt into a blank cd. The copy protected cd contains two sessions, the first is the audio session with all the tracks that a regular audio cd player can read. The second session makes all the audio data in session 1 invicible so the cd-roms and dvd-roms can not see them. Oh they also put in bad sectors in track 1. I presumed the regular audio cd player skips those sectors? But when it comes to ripping the tracks NERO attemps to read all the tracks from track 1 but fails becasue of the bad sectors. Work around? Simple, use CloneCD, set the setting to copy session 1 and turn off subchannel audio capability and go. It is so easy to rip and my question is why do record companies continue to spend money on copy protection technology such as this? I personally will buy cds because currently that is the only way I can support the artists instead of downloading music. I do think most people will do that and for the ones that want to freeload... well they always will find a way no matter what the record companies do. All this talk about record companies loosing millions and billions of $ and record sales going down year after year and blaming on piracy is just a lot of hog wash. May I suggest the reason for sales dropping isn't due to piracy but due to the crap they are putting out?! Oh and they are way overpriced for the crap, consumers have just got smarter that's all.
You quite clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Let a guy watch "Triumph of the Nerds" on PBS and suddenly he's all-knowledgeable on the history of the personal computer industry. Not.
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
Since there is no cost of the physical "CD"
Then what do you call Apple's bandwidth bill?
Will I retire or break 10K?
sounds similar to the FastTrack protocol (KaZaA/Grokster)'s "Supernodes".
Hostcaches and supernodes are completely different. In the WinMX, FastTrack, and Gnutella protocols, supernodes (which correspond to "servers") are responsible for forwarding queries and results from one leafnode to others. (Nodes on dial-up and low-end DSL and cable are typically leafnodes.) Hostcaches, also called trackers, list working supernodes.
If the client software comes preset with the address of one, then the network is not highly decentralized (in which case the RIAA has someone to go after).
Client software may come preset with the addresses of a dozen or so hostcaches, and each client program may come with a different set of addresses. And even with well-known hostcache addresses, it's still possible that the network has a substantial non-infringing use, like for trading rpms or debs of free software, and if the client program maintainer is not the hostcache maintainer.
Hostcaches are not needed in IPv4. All that is needed for introduction to the network is a random scan of the /12. The larger address space of IPv6, however, makes random discovery impractical.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can't sell a CD-R disc on eBay unless:
Will I retire or break 10K?
If they'd just release MP3's
Try here.
$0.99 per song is too much. CD's cost ~$15 these days, and contain ~15 songs.
First of all, the price of most albums on iTunes is capped at $9.99. (Multiple disc sets may be more expensive.) Second, most albums in pop genres that contain 15 songs do not contain 15 good songs.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I doubt it. It might be more useful if the iTunes users could transfer rights to another users' iTunes account though, which would also make trading a disc acceptable - so long as the songs are then owned by the receiving party.
I'd blame cell phones as the reason pay phones never get fixed, but actually the problem's been around since the mid-80s, before cellular became ubiquitous. <troll style="bait: shrill-right-wingers;">So I blame Reagan</troll>.