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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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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
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?
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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.
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.
The decision is obviously bad news for Hollywood studios and record companies
Doubt it. More like bad news for a lot of people sharing copyrighted material who can start expecting to hear from the legal attack dogs shortly
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
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.
From the Article:
Meanwhile, Apple has announced that it is adding additional music to its library, and will introduce a version of its service for Windows machines by year-end.
There you go...
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'll just be glad to be able to download just the couple of songs that I want from a CD, and not have to pay for the filler crap. This is one of the reasons I don't buy many CD's, there is usually 1 or 2 songs I want on the CD, and the rest is mediocre at best. I often wait for a "Greatest Hits" type CD from a band before I'll buy one of their CD's, and even then I try to get it cheap/used. Call me a skinflint if you want, but I don't think of $20 as a small amount of money that I can just throw around, I want to get a good value for it. And $15-$20 for a new CD with a handful of songs that I like is just not a good value. Now $1 for a song I do like, now that's a pretty good deal.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
"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."
Then explain to me how Apple sold 1 million songs? Explain to me why a lot of people would pay $300-$400 for an iPod or similar piece of hardware when they don't want to spend $15 for CD?
You assume it's about price tag and it never occurs to you that what's really wanted here is to be able to make music more interesting and entertaining. MP3s have brought on an interesting revolution in music by making it more portable and more customizable to the listener. (Playlists, etc.) Meanwhile, in an effort to combat this on every level (including the legal uses of MP3s), the RIAA's gunning for sweeping changes to destroy the rights of individuals, instead of just doing the right thing and filling the demand people have. Apple's site proves that people are happy to pay for music as long as the service is good and prices are fair.
So yeah, nice troll. Congrats on getting your ill-thought comments modded up. Never mind that people want their music to be more interesting, no no, it's all about making it free. That's why MP3 players are making so much money when people could burn their MP3s to a music CD.
"Derp de derp."
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.
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
And it's a fine line between fair use and illegality, and as we all know, blocking the illegal behavior also prevents fair use. And fair use is legal; or do you think it shouldn't be?
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.