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P2P Filesharing vs. The Web
The Importance of writes "The recent RIAA lawsuits have raised many questions and issues, but the focus has been on P2P filesharing. Before there was P2P, though, there was filesharing via webservers. There doesn't seem to be much complaint about the RIAA shutting down people who upload MP3s to their homepage. Why do many people seem to treat http filesharing different than P2P filesharing? LawMeme has one answer."
P2P is more popular than web-based sharing, so the RIAA can find more targets.
Esoteric reference.
We need to use P2P as the official file distribution system for Linux. I think we should replace the whole ftp web based style with a clicknrun gui style P2P system for file distribution.
Because the majority of people use P2P software, so therefore that is what the RIAA targets.
"There doesn't seem to be much complaint about the RIAA shutting down people who upload MP3s to their homepage." - these people are the sharers,the copyright violators. The outcry over P2P prosecutions are related to the loss of files to leech. Grabbing the files is not the problem, making them available is.
If all the leeches were using websites to grab their music then there would be an outcry, but they don't - they use P2P so that is where the focus is.
Because an http server with files to download is more black and white. Either offering those files is illegal or not.
With a p2p network its much more shades of gray. Some people offer the latest Britney, some offer all stuff from IUMA, but most are in between.
I post my MP3s on my personal webserver in a streaming Jukebox so I can listen to my rightfully licensed music at work. but Google got ahold of my collection and returns my site with certain searches. I then ended up on a few H4x0r5 WAREZ-MP3 lists. Needless to say, within a week of this "publicity" my bandwidth was shot to hell. The RIAA doesn't need to shut down those that put MP3s on servers. Other leeches will take care of that for them.
On a side not, I still get occasional mails from people that find a google listing and ask for access to a certain song. I can deal with that.
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"First things first -- but not necessarily in that order"
-- The Doctor, "Doctor
I think Mr. Miller at Lawmeme has it right: filesharing is more personal. A user can watch people upload the files, and enjoy the feeling that others enjoy the same music as he does; he can see what other people are searching for (primarily pr0n from my own experience); he can add, modify, delete files on the fly - in short it's a much more personal experience to share files from your PC using P2P than it is to offer them up on a website. Particularly if the website, like most, is hosted by a computer that you don't directly control. Further P2P is new. It still has that "new car smell" about it. It's also easier for the average user to install some software, fire it up, and click-and-share away. Most users are probably intimidated by HTML - even if they don't have to generate any, the idea of it will drive people away. They have the feeling that creating websites is hard, and that it's something they cannot do. They can, however, share files. Pierre
i think the "learning curve" for using apps like kazaa and naptser is much lower (and much more highly publicized) than regular downloads via http. and with more publicity comes (naturally) a larger number of users, and subsequently, a larger number of files being downloaded. the RIAA was probably able to deal with a small amount of "piracy" the same way a software company would be (since it's just the nature of the business). but once P2P gained international notoriety and everybody and their 12-year-old cousin got broadband, a cd burner, and kazaa, the number of files and instances of filesharing shot right past the "acceptable" level
well, it's nothing one behind the ear wouldn't cure
You must not have used DC++ in a while. Recent versions broadcast information about how many hubs the user is connected to each hub and lets the hub-owners decide how to handle it. It also sends out other information such as the version number. Yes, it's all open source so determined people can "stealth" their clients, but it's harder for the average leecher to leech. Also, restricting access to those with 50 gig share limits(I use hubs with 80 gig and higher limits) provides some sense of security to the major sharers. The people sharing on those hubs are the ones the RIAA wants to get, but they'll have a harder time if they need to have 50 gigs of share to connect to the server. Combine with bots that check for share fakers and people sharing non-sharable files (installed programs, etc.) and you have pretty tight security against the RIAA/MPAA. Yes, this too is defeatable, but it's another hurdle.
While P2P and HTTP may be excellent ways of file sharing, for better or for worse, the RIAA _will_ stop them. Right now they have attacked legally, which is leading P2P developers to make some advancements in the way of encryption, anonymity, etc. The RIAA seems to realize, now, that there really is no way to stop technology. We have already won.
Now they are taking the overused advice of "adopt a new business model", which seems to be services such as Apple's iTunes Music Store (Soon for Windows), BuyMusic.com, Rhapsody, and soon Roxio Napster 2.0.
The new RIAA attack plan is to offer B2P services. The problem? DRM. If I buy a CD from iTMS, for example, it may be $9.99. I would buy the same CD in store for $14.99. No, I'm NOT paying five bucks for the album art, professionally burned CD, etc. I'm paying for the right to do with it what I want. There's something about having "SOMETHING" in your hands. They can't take that away from you, like they can with digital music.
P2P for me is a way of sampling music before buying the CD. This will never be replaced by a $0.99 deal, since I like to download it, and listen to the song throughout the day. At work I listen to different music than at home. At night, different music from the day. Walking music is different from sittin' or driving music. Rhapsody fails here, so does iTMS... you can only sample certain portions, while in front of your computer. It's not the same.
Why P2P is better than HTTP? It's easier. More people use it, than HTTP was used for MP3 trading. Does it matter? No, B2P will overtake them both. There IS a large number of people who ONLY want digital music, that's why they turn to P2P. These people will turn to B2P once it becomes "mainstream."
For the most part the RIAA doesn't have to do legal battles any more (though it is a nice source of income), they can attack it by offering new online services, just as EVERYONE has been saying for years. Me, I'll stick to brick and mortar, and P2P though.
I confess I'm a pirate. So are my friends.
We download, we vet the downloads. We upload songs to private FTP servers with the bandwidth we're not using when we're at work.
We have a trust based, friend based, non peer to peer, but distributed, quality controlled file sharing experience.
It's great. It doesn't get flooded with crap, it doesn't get flooded with music we don't like. Anyone with an account on the machines is known to everyone else.
Gosh it sounds just like some warez servers back when I used to have an interest in warez, or hacker BBS's when I had an interest in that.
The web? That's all a bit new fangled for us..
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
I point everyone to NameProtect. Their NPBot hit my page a couple of times before I told it not to. Basically, it scours your website and looks for songs. It then collects the links (not the music) and tries to get a bounty from the artist (?) by showing you that someone is sharing their music. It's other business model is that it can be contracted to find your music on websites.
from robots.txt:
User-agent: NPBot
Disallow: /
Get Firefox!
Yes--there aren't many webpages with links to music files. However, when a webpage like that is found by the RIAA, they sue the person who put the webpage up--not that person's ISP, not the engineers of the HTTP spec, and not the writers of the HTML spec. I'm actually glad they're going after users instead of the people hosting servers (though I think they should send C&D letters first).
Because most broadband providers in the US (Time Warner, for example) specifically prohibt residental-class customers from running web servers, and get royally pissed if you start sucking down huge amounts of bandwidth.
I've wondered about this though... I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to run a web server, but if you've got a p2p program running 24/7 with all your slots full all the time, what's the difference? It's almost certainly more bandwith than running your own little web page that will never get any visitors after your aunt Tilly and your girlfriend go there once. I'm really surprised--and almost scared to even speak about it--that we haven't heard about more ISPs cracking down on p2p usage due to bandwith concerns.
I wish more companies offering symmetric broadband--like speakeasy--would spring up. (Speakeasy's a bit too pricey for me right now...) Then again, maybe that's why the big ISPs aren't making a stink... they don't want to rock the boat.
Yes, sharing files by P2P is easier than having them on a website, because you're using software that is purpose-built for the task. And in general, P2P software makes it easy to share files, and trys to encourage you to do so. IE ain't about to do that.
But more important, I've got 10M of disk quota from my ISP for a website. I've got an old computer with a 20G hard drive running a P2P program. Which one you think is going to work better for sharing files? I suppose I could set up my own web server, but it's unlikely to be anywhere near as secure as a single program that only opens up ports for a single task.
Obviously people who are overly worried about people knowing what files they have shouldn't be sharing files. But with a website, Big Bro can just look over your offerings and decide what he wants to bust you on. My P2P program will only admit it has a file if you search for that particular file, or at least, a search term that has a match. Big Bro can't just have a list of everything I have available, so he can't append a screenshot of 600 filenames to his court papers.
Most major universities (mine is in that crowd) turn a blind eye to P2P traffic... until they get a C&D complaint. The policy here: the networking people immediately cut off the connection. They will not turn it back on until a student says the offending file has been removed (honor code is involved - very serious honor code). And, if it really was the student's fault - that is, the student can't prove the letter was a mistake - it's a $80 reconnect fee.
The university I'm at has ~15,000 students. They get several C&D letters a week - many are repeat offenders. Just about everyone I know (or rather, who understands how) cuts off their upload and leeches in order to avoid C&D-type problems.
Get a single C&D letter, be out $80... whoops, there went the month's beer money. College students ain't stupid, not when it comes to getting that beer...
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire
By comparison, the P2P "sharing" networks are horrendously inefficient. It's embarassing how crappy the technology is.
I've been thinking about a whole new approach, where what's passed around are random bitstreams. You have to get several bitstreams from different sources and XOR them together to get content. Different combinations of different bitstreams produce different content. No single bitstream contains copyrighted content, and every bitstream can be XORed with something which will provide legitimate content. The bitstreams are passed around via netnews. But I'm not going to implement this; it's not something I'm really interested in.