Has P2P Become a Passing Fad?

plasticmillion asks: "As the RIAA launches increasingly rabid attacks against P2P networks and users, pundits continue to debate the future of P2P. On the one hand, some argue that P2P is just a clever way to escape detection from copyright owners, like in this recent Slashdot story. Others, like Clay Shirky, make a strong case that processing is destined to move to the 'edges' of the network. I'm curious to know what Slashdot readers think: is P2P the start of a major new trend that is just getting started, or is it a passing fad that will fade once legal client/server systems for media distribution finally take hold? If the former, which of the supposed advantages of P2P over client/server systems are really significant?"

Comments

no passing fad

[ummit]

I'm not heavily into P2P at all, so I'm speaking out of some ignorance, but: do we now accept the RIAA's definition that P2P is synonymous with piracy? It seems to me that, even if all sharing of copyrighted music were discontinued, P2P would still have a perfectly valid place in our spectrum of networking possibilities.

(As an example, I'd like to see P2P used to maintain collaborative anti-spam blacklists, so that there wouldn't be single-point-of-failure central repositories.)

Re:no passing fad

[dirk]

While there may still be uses for P2P without copying copyrighted files, it is safe to say that if there were no copyrighted files on P2P systems, there would be less than 1% of the users they now have. P2P without copyrighted files would be about as popular as gopher.

Re:no passing fad

[thomas.galvin]

There are some very real, very good uses for ananymous P2P; for instance, it would allow the people of China to see and share information deemed 'subversive' by their government. I expect this to be the 'killer app' of P2P in the fairly near future.

It just so happens, though, that the features that would make P2P useful for fighting represive regimes are also useful for fighting the major media companies.

Which, when I think about it, is a redundant statement.

Re:no passing fad

[Kyouryuu]

I couldn't have put it any better. The original news post seems to assume that peer-to-peer is synonymous with piracy. As far as that aspect goes, I don't really know the answer. As far as P2P in general goes, we're seeing many widespread uses of the technology. Peer-to-peer allows a user to divide work across several machines rather than concentrating on a powerful, base machine. Such a solution is easily scalable - we can merely add more machines to the network instead of trying to upgrade a central machine to increasingly expensive bleeding-edge technology to keep up. Countless scientific surveys tout the benefits of a peer-to-peer approach compared to a centralized approach in various applications. In every application? Of course we cannot make such a generalization, but that doesn't make the concept any less valid.

The original asker of the question is short-sighted to assume that the RIAA will end peer-to-peer as a concept. Bottom line: Peer-to-peer is just a method for dividing a workload amongst several machines, not a gateway to piracy. Please don't let the RIAA or anyone clueless argue that peer-to-peer is anything more than what is clearly is.

No, but like any fad

[Anonymous Coward]

There comes a time when it moves to the mainstream. Long-term and practical uses for P2P are just now being developed. It's a bit like the internet in general. At first, a few early adopters, then it was everywhere and everything, and now, it's calmed down to a more reasonable level. Instead of edogfoodwithfreeshipping.com, you have real uses for the web and the internet.

killer app

[Frymaster]

p2p is the killer app of the internet. really. access to information (the web) and communication (email, chat) is nice, but people want stuff. it's like one big mall... and we know how much americans' love their malls.

Re:killer app

[darkov]

This is what mystifies me. Software, including anything that can be encoded such as music or movies, is absolutely made for the Internet and p2p. The cost of distribution is zero. The marginal cost per unit is zero. All these stupid corporations need to do is work out that they're sitting on a gold mine and increase their profits exponentially. They ought to figure out that 1000 times the sales at one tenth of the price is still 100 times the revenue, or something in that order.

But, as all monopolies and oligopolies inevitably do, they have become fat and lazy and will eventually alienate or destroy (through overpricing) their market. Technology is just helping that process along. One day's they'll wake up and make a mint.

Meanwhile p2p and such tech will grow and flourish.

P2P is eternal.

[Faust7]

is P2P the start of a major new trend that is just getting started, or is it a passing fad that will fade once legal client/server systems for media distribution finally take hold?

P2P will be around forever, in whatever form it takes through the future's unimaginable technology, for one simple reason:

It's free.

Legal systems for digital media distribution will always cost money. Why pay money when you can get something almost as good -- or as good, with a little know-how -- for free?

The big question is...

[Robotech_Master]

...how are you going to keep them (from) down(loading) on the farm after they've seen the lights of peer-to-peer? Apparently more people use P2P than bothered to vote in the last Presidential election. With that many people engaged in the activity, it's not like it's going to dry up and blow away because the RIAA starts cracking down. Heck, if legal crackdowns ended illicit behavior, we wouldn't have had any booze since the '20s and we wouldn't have a drug problem now.

On the other hand, there's a certain case to be made for the vast majority of those sixty million P2P users being ignorant sheep who can only use P2P in the first place because it's so easy to install the app--and who may not even be aware that they're uploading songs at the same time as they're downloading them, strange as that would seem to a Slashdot reader. And so, even if someone comes up with a totally "safe" method of filesharing, it could lose many of its prospective users if it is even slightly nontrivial to get working properly. (As an example, consider what happened to the mp3 websites after the RIAA's last legal crackdowns...they retreated behind a web of spawning browser windows, porn ads, top ten lists, and so on, until you have to be a hacker just to find where the MP3s actually are.)

So balancing the two questions...I think peer to peer will always be with us, but depending on how easy it is to use, it may lose a lot of its users--and, thus, a lot of potential sources for files.

P2P vs. Commercial File Sharing

[__aagmrb7289]

I guess when you look at this, the best question is: why are these systems being used now? And the even better question: what are the legal uses of the system now?

My answer is that the best reason to use these right now is to share ideas, music, pictures, etc. with other people, including strangers: things that you own and have the right to redistribute, either because you created it, or you have permission from the creator. Email is used heavily in this fashion, but it has the limit of most providers attempting to make attachments a no-no: either for cost considerations (size); or for the fear of viruses. So, is there a legitimate use? Yes.

Next question would be: what are the usage numbers for these legitimate uses? Well, that one I can't answer too well. My first guess would be that it is a relatively small percentage of the current traffic, with a VERY high figure being around 40%. So, is that enough to keep these things around? Yep.

Okay, so, my conclusion is that P2P serves a useful purpose, outside of the illegal ones. So, the next question becomes, can a commercial solution replace these P2P solutions? That one is really easy - no! There is no way that any organization can afford the freedom that is required in moving these files back in forth. Anyone in IT is quite aware of all the potential dangers to the network, and anyone involved in the whole law side can see how heavily exposed these companies would be if they were allowing viruses, etc. to be damaging customer's systems.

So, ultimate conclusion? Unless they are outlawed, P2P networks are useful, and are likely to remain in existance for a long time.

We should *thank* the RIAA...

[pla]

P2P will not die just because the RIAA has cracked down on a few people sharing music.

First, let me say that I don't particularly support massive stealing of music - A bit of sharing between friends, sure, but the wholesale infringements we see thanks to the likes of Kazaa, no. That said...

As with virus/worm authors, the RIAA has served a useful purpose, if by reprehensible means. They have demonstrated that P2P has a major flaw that most people do not know about - The model itself does NOT automatically mean anonymity. It just means that no central server exists to shut down, thereby making it all but impossible for any legal action to completely kill. People (can) still have accountability for their actions on a P2P network. Aside from the RIAA's abuse of this fact, we should worry quite a lot more about government use.

So my prediction - P2P services such as Kazaa, that try to track users and transactions, will fade into oblivion. At the same time, those that make every effort to prevent logging, to give plausible deniability, and that use encryption to hide the actual data going over the weak links (anywhere between the first "P" and the second "P"), will gain in popularity. As an obvious current choice, the open-source Freenet does this already, though it has serious problems as far as actually finding what you want goes.

Someone will eventually find a way to make Freenet (or a similar app) more useable, however, without compromising the benefits I mention above. That will replace the current generation of P2P programs, but will itself still count as P2P.

So no, the idea won't die, nor will its use. Implementations will simply become far more sophisticated, and while at each step in the free-information arms race a few people will suffer (as has held true throughout all of history), the rest of us will benefit from their sacrifice.

I believe W.A.S.T.E.-like clones are the future

[mkro]

Justin Frankel knew what he was doing when he made WASTE: On big, open P2P-networks, you never can be sure if happysunshine84 downloading a MP3 from you isn't someone preparing a lawsuit. A closed, WASTE-like network is therefore a better solution, also redusing the noise (spam, renames, clients modified to not upload, etc) you usually see from the typical P2P networks.

I never tried WASTE, as I never got the thing to work under Linux, but as I understand it, I can have e.g. have one network with 10 co-workers and another one with my friends. If I share the files I download from both groups, I will be a link between those two networks. Now, if also my co-workers and friends are on more than one network, fresh files will always be pouring in (If these guys are nice and share what they download).

Quality-filtered content where no-one from the outside can know what you are doing, what else can you wish for?

That is, besides a Linux client

I vote for passing fad...

[feidaykin]

Yep, just like television. All the pundits predicted that no one would want to stare at a little box all day.

Oh, and compact discs. I mean, 650 MB of read-only data? C'mon, that's more worthless than 8-track tapes!

Or maybe it is a fad like bell-bottoms. They go out for a while, then come back in the 24th century as part of Starfleet uniforms! Quick, everyone go check the ST Encyclopedia and see if it mentions P2P!

All joking aside, to use a trite but true statement, I think the genie is out of the bottle, cat's out of the bag, etc. The only people that think P2P is a fad are probably the people that want it to be a fad.

P2P will likely usher in new business models, and new ways of getting entertainment. The RIAA/MPAA clinging to the old ways would be, as some have pointed out, not unlike the makers of horse-drawn carriages trying to stop the production of the automobile.

Change happens. People don't usually like it, but are capable of adjusting. Corporations are not people (despite what the law may say) and simply refuse to adjust to change unless they can see an obvious, and instant, financial gain.

Technology often makes current systems obsolete. For example, gunpowder pretty much made the feudal system of government obsolete. In the future, an invention like matter transporters (beam me up!) would probably make our current governments obsolete.

P2P is making the way we purchase, oh I'm sorry, "consume" entertainment obsolete. I highly doubt the RIAA/MPAA can cripple technology enough to keep us all in the old days.

p2p is the future

[retro128]

I'm curious to know what Slashdot readers think: is P2P the start of a major new trend that is just getting started, or is it a passing fad that will fade once legal client/server systems for media distribution finally take hold? If the former, which of the supposed advantages of P2P over client/server systems are really significant?

I believe p2p is the future. Copyright issues aside, I doubt I'm the only one that's noticed that there are some downloads that are getting extremely large. Maybe it's a game demo, a movie trailer, or a software upgrade. How often has it happened that some thing comes out like, say, a Matrix trailer or a new game mod and people swamp the main server and mirrors alike to download it? Why else would recent Slashdot articles on popular downloads be linking .torrent files?

The problem is further escalated by the fact that the ranks of broadband users are growning every day. I hear that Verizon is wanting to dump somewhere around 11 billion dollars into their network to ensure that all of their customers are able to get DSL, and they have lowered their prices across the board...You can now get 1.5 down/128 up for a flat $30/mo, similar to what SBC's been offering. With all this broadband around, popular web sites will not be able to keep up, expecially if they have downloadable goodies. The answer is distributed computing. p2p represents the infancy of the inevitibility of distributed storage, processing, and bandwidth.

P2P is here to stay

[t_allardyce]

p2p filesharing wont die - its the killer app for broadband. Not many people have seemed to grasp this fact yet but, theres not much use for ever-faster connections unless you have something to download. Websites are not going to increase in size that much, streaming video isnt really what gets people going (its just another tv channel) and games have their limit in bandwidth usage.

Now, give people free content without restrictions and you have something that everyone wants. Why are search engines the most popular websites? because the user types in what they want and gets it. From a users point of view, kazaa is the same as google except you can get everything that you cant get on google - its like the too hot for google channel. Are you seriously telling me that people dont want to be able to download all the music, films, porn, software, games, books and southpark they want for free!?!?! get real!

The only things that might kill p2p filesharing as we know it are:

• Legislation and heavy enforcement (at the moment RIAA lawsuits and sen. Friz Hollings are restricted to the US only)
• Networks collapsing thru abuse, free-loading, or (taking the law into their own hands) sabotage (they seem to be pretty resistant)

Governments (well in the UK anyway) are pushing broadband for all sorts of PHB reasons like "education" and obviously the ISPs - AOL etc are gonna try and sell it. Sen. Hollings is even for it. The absolute irony here is that the very same people who are pushing broadband so they can sell content are the same ones who will be fucked out of their money by filesharing! its brilliant, serves them right for their evil DRM plans.