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Kazaa/Altnet To Pay Users For Trading Content
mesozoic writes "News.com is reporting that Kazaa and Altnet are unrolling a setup where users are paid to distribute 'authorized content.' The article also mentions something about getting rid of unauthorized files, but is unclear on when and how. I'll be paying close attention to whether this P2P business model pans out; Sharman _has_ shown some shrewd business sense in the past."
Great, now I can get paid to host some companies spam on my computer. Lucky me!
how about this idea instead, they take out gator and any other nasties they include.
they can keep the money, we'll just call it even.
Mike
almost as dumb as getting paid to look at more ads while surfing the internet (a few years back). users were paid so little that it wasn't worth it. and hacking it got your account killed. those bastards.
I write code.
If they try to go legal, they'll get trounced by Apple, disowned by computer users, and end up lie the legal version of Napster...forgotten.
If they stay illegal, they'll get trounced by Apple, keep their user base, and not make a penny for it. Great business sense indeed...
Why do I picture a bad made-for-TV movie (yes, I know that's redundant) where the guys are looking at each other, nodding, and saying, "you know, it's so crazy it just might work..."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
This sounds even better than when Bill Gates e-mailed me saying he will pay me $5.00 for every person I forward the message to!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
So say someone in the USA downloads my copy of 'That's When Your Heartaches Begin' to complete his Sun Studios collection, he would be a law breaker, a german doing the same would be enjoying his right to peruse material in the public domain, but where would I stand?
Economic Left/Right: -0.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69
...that it would be easier to just host the content themselves. The real value is in getting listed in the search results, and bandwidth is relatively cheap compared to the complexity of a system that tracks and pays random idiots on the net. Of course, I am probably wrong.
Life in Orange County
Sharman _has_ shown some shrewd business sense in the past.
Yeah, just don't squeeze him.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
I can earn peer points for allowing my computer to be used as a distributed host for someone elses software. From P2P to B2P2P, except I don't have to want the stuff on my computer.
Next stop, My computer will be used as a pr0n server without my knowledge, and since it will be (semi-)encrypted, I won't even necessarily know about it.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Or if anyone will care.
a world in progress...
Sharman executives say the new system is well worth bundling inside their software, but they say it can be easily removed if users don't wish to participate.
"Altnet's Peer Points is like the spell checker in Microsoft's Word," said Phil Morle, director of technology for Sharman Networks. "It's an integral part of the program that you can choose to use or not."
And it's not like Sharman and Brilliant Digital would ever try to pull a fast one on their users, would they?
GMD
watch this
This model seems like it would apply better to BITTorrent, where companies could provide a link on their website to download a song/movie/whatever. It makes more sense that way, companies could sell content on their website and not have to worry about having the bandwidth available should certain content become extremely popular.
Visualize the world of wine
'They can then host files that are authorized for distribution through this network and will receive "Peer Points" that can be redeemed for prizes every time someone uploads a file.'
One of those banned Shadowbane players already has 768,323,000,000 Peer Points, and plans to redeem them for a Harrier jet.
Because the companies didn't communicate their plans with Kazaa users, the news sparked fears of "spyware"
Spyware fears with Kazaa? Unthinkable!
Kazaa's move is essentially an implementation of what BitTorrent's creator alluded to in the recent /. story --
getting past the "subversiveness" of file sharing and making it work for everyone, including the creators of the shared content.
Veddy interesting......
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
But what about ISP's acceptable use policies? If Kazaa is sending you checks, doesn't this violate almost all Acceptable Use Policies that forbid commerical use of residential broadband access?
Looking at my Roadrunner account's AUP:
Unless you have specifically subscribed for commercial grade service, the Road Runner service is provided to you for personal, non-commercial use only. This service cannot be used for any enterprise purpose whatsoever whether or not the enterprise is directed toward making a profit. If it is your intention to use this service for these purposes, please contact your local cable operator to inquire whether commercial Road Runner service programs are available.
I have to believe hosting Kazaa / Altnet content and getting paid for it *could* get some users in trouble.
Actually, that is not entirely so. In Europe, copyright expires 50 years after the death of the author, not 50 years after the work is published and the author is dead. In the US, the current limit is AFAIK 75 years. As a consequence, Elvis' works are not yet in public domain in Europe.
Other than that, you are absolutely right; it raises some interesting questions. For example, the works of George Orwell passed into public domain in Europe two years ago, but when I featured them on my Web site, I was quickly presented with a cease-and-desist letter from a US publisher. Residing in the US and having all my files on a US-based server, I had to oblige.
By unauthorized I assume they mean copyrighted/illegal files. I think it's also safe to assume that while Kazaa has legal uses, it's primary use is trading copyrighted material. If this material is removed for non-paying users, we'll see a dramatic drops in the number of users.
As has happened in the past, with Napster for example, once one peer-to-peer program removes copyrighted files, there is a mass migration to new, alternative peer-to-peer system that does allow it.
As others have mentioned, I hope that the least Kazaa will do for paying customers is remove all the spyware.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Another thing that Kazaa may remember that sometimes people may have more altruistic motives. Take for example Seti@home. Millions of people allow SETI to use their computers to analyze data signals for no charge. It might a little more successful if Kazaa allows points to be donated to charities at a higher rate.
Without more details it's hard to say how this system will really work.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Just use KazaaLite. And then run Ad-Aware to remove Gator and all the other evil spyware and crap Kazaa installs. Plus, KazaaLite makes you a super user. Supposedly that has benefits...
In reading the article, I can't help but wonder if anyone is really foolish enough to trust Kazaa with their money? As an advertiser, I would always wonder if the paid downloads really happened (was it actually a person downloading or a hackering mimicking downloads for cash?)
As a host, I wouldn't put much faith in actually ever receiving cash from the company. Schemes like this tend to have a history of absconding with the cash.
Of course, it would be nice if there were an easy way for college students to make a little bit of cash by selling their school's bandwidth.
I've always found Kazaa slightly disturbing, so I invented the following conspiracy theories about it, using the tried and tested research method of wild conjecture: - 1) Most of the files on Kazaa aren't really transfered peer to peer - there's a huge central repository somewhere of horrible 128kbps quality mp3s full of noise. The noise makes these files sufficiently different from the original songs that Sharman doesn't have to license them. This is why any poor quality songs start downloading instantly, whereas you have to wait approximately forever to find any good quality material. 2) Sharman also regularly publishes versions of it's other popular software package 'Kazaa Lite'. This contains just as much Spyware as standard Kazaa, but it's special 'stealth' Spyware custom written by Sharman. It also crashes randomly. 3) Sharman also publishes 'Diet Kazaa'. This contains twice as much Spyware as either 'Kazaa' or 'Kazaa Lite', and crashes twice as often. However, as a reward, you get a special button that looks like Britney Spears. 4) Any version of Kazaa uses your idle bandwidth and processor power to research dangerous biological toxins and military hardware for the US Department of Defense. Coming soon - the Sharman Tank. 5) Sharman logs all copyrighted files shared over their network, and the users sharing them, so that if they are ever short on money, they can sell the list to the **AA. 6) Sharman is run by a group of aliens, from their spaceship. This is how the company is able to move so swiftly between countries each time legal action threatens.