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Kazaa Launches Legitimacy Campaign
Beolach writes "The Washington Post has an article on Kazaa launching a $1 million advertising campaign promoting itself as a legitimate media distribution tool. From the article: 'The campaign is the latest push by the Kazaa file-sharing service and its parent company, Sharman Networks, to counter a multi-million-dollar legal and lobbying effort launched by music, software and movie firms convinced that peer-to-peer (P2P) services are a major source of online piracy'."
How will Kazaa Lite promote itself then? ;)
Kazaa is a major source of on-line piracy - they cannot deny this. However, P2P file sharing does have legitimate uses, and the tool cannot be blamed for what it is used for. Rat poison can be used to kill people, but that is about how it is used, not what it is.
I love kazaa. And I think this approach will help... Kazaa needs to highlight it's "other" uses...
however, many people will see this as I see the tobacco companies offering anti-smoking advice/commericals?
Public appearance is everything.
Sharing files is not against the law.
Distributing copyrighted works is.
The various P2P networks are a major source of online piracy.
Now, I'm not saying that that's all they're used for, or that they don't have legitimate uses (distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind), or that the various lobbying groups should succeed. But I can't see how anyone can deny that P2P is used a lot by pirates, both casual and probably organised.
Of course, so is ftp, http, etc, and I'm not saying that they should be banned either. I'm just questioning the tone of that part of the summary, is all.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
They are convinced because.....it is a major source of piracy! :)
Promoting kazaa for legitimate purposes is the right idea, it is a tool. for example ftp can be used for internet piracy as well, it is just another tool.
Warez sites claim that they only distribute games and apps to those that unluckly broke their original CDs in half.
North Korea is creating nuclar bombs just to lower unemployment - officials say.
add your own lie here!!!
I found this quote particularly interesting:
"Whenever I talk to people about Kazaa, they treat it like marijuana -- as much as they love it, they have a sense that what they're doing is a little bit wrong."
I also think the pending War on Copyright Violations is a bit like the War on Marijuana: Driven by entrenched intrests; lubricated by political donations; with lots of innocent casualties; and ultimately futile because at the end of the day it criminalizes something which is not immoral.
Who is bankrolling the campaign? How does a company, dare I say, with no visible means of support come up with the scratch? Venture capital? Dunning the sorority girls in Massey Hall? Dollar a piece so you can have your Christina Arugula, girls? I just don't see how they do it?
Illegitimate ?:
BTW, is it just me or is Kazaa's boss a stone-cold hottie?
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Can I download it off Kazaa? What is the file name?
Isn't a lot of the pr0n copyrighted as well? I mean, not that i would know...
So basically take out the pr0n, take out the music, take out the movies and other copyrighted materials. What's left?
World's Funniest Home Videos.
The MPAA estimates that file sharing has cost the film industry more than $1 billion in the last year.
I estimate that the MPAA overestimates 125% of the stats that they estimate.
Because somebody watches a pirated movie does not directly mean that anybody lost money over it. Money is only lost if that person would have paid money but instead watched it for free.
Apart from the question of who is actually financing this and what they hope to get from it, the idea is good.
The next year will see a massive publicity campaign from the top 5 music companies as they try to exaggerate the impact of p2p ("try" is what I mean, cause I believe the impact is really huge), in the hope that this will allow them to merge into 2 or 3 companies.
Without some anti-publicity, it means a lot more of the "hacker pirates stealing music" stories. Kazaa are not my choice for a champion, I'd prefer someone like Michael Robertson of mp3.com fame. But it's a start.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Why do you think copyrights doesn't apply to porn?
Isn't this like the "guns are not made for killing people" argument?
P2P networks were designed to a) distribute files, b) without a central authority that could limit what gets distributed. It is a given that people will distribute things they otherwise can't.
So even if guns have theoretical uses besides killing or hurting people, it is their primary function. Just like the primary function of P2P networks are to allow sharing of digital content, regardless of copyright. Good people want to share what they enjoy; it's the same basic psychology as inviting somebody over for a dinner you've spent hours cooking. You are proud of it, and you want other people to experience what you liked to experience, to make them feel as good as you did. Humans are not alone about this; the same behavior can be seen in all primate species - especially with regards to sharing food in a community.
However, in the specific case of P2P networks, you still get to keep what you are sharing. Therefore, the cost of sharing - to the sharer - is close to zero. Hence the effortlessness of sharing gigs and gigs of movies, games, you name it. Myself, I share about 350G of unnamed media, and that puts me in the lesser ranks of my P2P communities.
Note here: I personally believe that the concept of copyright needs some serious overhaul; when 50 million people believe something is right and some 10,000 believe it is wrong, then by the laws of most countries, it cannot be wrong for a long time more. But that is another issue; I just wanted to point out that "P2P has legitimate uses" is a rather weak argument.
Owning a legal gun is not against the law.
;-)
Shooting copyright lawyers is.
Disclaimer: Anybody is free to interpret this post as any combination of anti/pro-guns, anti/pro-file, anti/pro-piracy and anti/pro-shooting
They should just say:
"Tell your lawmakers that you want free copyrighted material or you won't vote for them."
That's just not a very tasteful way to promote your service, IMHO.
You seem to believe that copyright is a God-given impeccable right.
It isn't. It is a man-made construct that can and should be changed if society as a whole benefits from another model.
Of course, with any change of order comes fierce resistance from those who will lose from the new order. That has always been the case; already Machiavelli knew this.
I do think copyright applies to pr0n, its just the pr0n industry is currently not as vigourous in their defense of it as say the RIAA. Plus a lot of it is just snippets most of the time people do not download the whole thing as is the case with music and other movies
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
They say that "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.
Sharman's been playing the "us vs. the recording industry" game way too long to try to create any impression of legitimacy now. Maybe if they'd made a concerted effort (and not just a hide behind enough legalese to cover their asses) from day one to discourage copyright infringement, they might have a shot at it.
But they didn't, and they don't. And if they had, they certainly wouldn't be in the position they were today as the household name in file "sharing".
Sharing files is not against the law...
Distributing copyrighted works is.
Sometimes... if you're not the author, if you're not a librarian or a lawyer, if the copyright is valid in your country and hasn't expired, and there's no implicit permission or explicit license... and if you do actually make copies, rather than distributing the same copyrighted work that you received...
Why do people make out that copyright is so simple as the DRM people say it it? It's a complex subject, and contains more information than you can contain in a 1-bit "copyrighted? Y/N" flag.
This text I just wrote is copyrighted. Your browser just copied it. Why? because there's implicit permission.
First off, since they give Kazaa away, where is the money for the ad campaign coming from?
;~)
Secondly, if the MPAA & RIAA are both doing so badly, where are all the broke movie and music superstars?
Now some editorial comments.
The real theft is the loss of freedom which comes as corporations work to stripmine the benefits of common property. We all gain when something is created, discovered or shared. People who create should be rewarded if even only for the reason they can then create more. By restricting what is commonly and freely available, we all lose, and for the sole benefit of those who are already affluent.
Furthermore, as the overly affluent use this unearned excessive wealth to further corrupt the legal and political processes, we all move closer to the prepice of corruption which all previous great civilizations have fallen off.
Words to men, as air to birds.
Kazaa is a lot like LSD:
1. Designed by scientists in search for cure.
2. Found to be useful in getting high.
3. Agencies experimented with it to see if it's suitable for their own evil needs.
4. Although some legitimate (medical) uses were possible, it was determined to be a drug and thus declared illegal and prohibited for any use.
5. Still wanted by end users and therefore still around in pure form or in variations.
6. Variations, shall we say, vary, therefore it's very difficult to say which is original stuff and which is not.
Like it or not, but it's there and it's not getting away easily. Some publicity sure helps.
I like my outfit, it's inexpensive, but cool -- April Ryan
It is exactly the same argument as "guns are not made for killing people" - and both arguments are correct.
Blaming a gun for a murder is senseless and sophmoric and blaming a file distribution technology for piracy is as well. People have "warez" ftp sites where piracy occurs, does this mean ftp needs to be abolished? How about the internet in general?
It is a simple mathematical case of failing to find the common denominator. People pirate files using ftp. People pirate files using http. People pirate files using P2P. Do you see the common denominator here?
People kill with knives. People kill with vehicles. People kill with guns. People kill with clubs. Did you find the common denominator in this one?
In case you missed it - the answer is "people". If you want to stop piracy you have to make "people" stop doing it - not disable or outlaw the technology and if you want to stop murders you have to make people stop killing each other, not outlaw or abandon guns, knives, etc.
But that's not easy, is it? It's easier to abolish guns than address the *REAL* problem of dealing with people. It's a cop-out.
reminds me of a story: One night a woman is on a street corner looking for something when a man wanders up. He can see the lady's distress and asks what the problem is. The lady tells him that she lost a hundred dollar bill and is looking for it - so the man starts helping her look. After a bit of searching he asks the lady where she thinks she may have dropped it and the lady responds by pointing down the street through the darkness a block away. Puzzled, the man asks the lady why she is searching here? Pointing to the overhead streetlamp above them the lady responds "because the light is better".
We cannot, as a society, try to find the answer to problems where it is easiest to look because, quite simply, the answer simply isn't there. It is far more difficult to find the "answer" to murder is in people, the "answer" to piracy is in people. A far more daunting fix may be in order but it is the correct one. Anything else is as futile as looking for lost money in a place where the light is better.
Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks, is showing the OpenSource community the way to win this P2P file sharing war with the RIAA & MPAA. It would behoove us to pay attention. The OpenSource community should imitate their ad campaign. It would be money well spent. The sooner this war is politicised the better. The only way Congress is going to pay attention to our conserns is when it begins to cost them politically. Ad campaigns are by far the surest way to get their attention.
I have used Napster,gnutella,Morpheus and Kazaa lite.Why?Not to get anything that is legitimate but copyrighted music.Not because i dont want to spend any money but because i cant get here in london what i want.
I dont have a problem if i want to listen britney boobs and company.their music is everywhere.
But good flamenco and jazz is impossible to get.most of it is simply not available anywhere.
so what am i doing ? violating the rights of the artists or am i keeping their legacy alive, some of those artists long dead.
Wanted : A Signature.
it's also not quite clear that making an exact duplicate copy, where it does not degrade the original, is "theft".
it's infringement of copyright. just like when people used to tape albums for their friends, just on a different scale.
There are no trolls. There are no trees out here.
I'm satisfied with any margin being used for legal purposes...and I'll give you an example. RedHat is legitimately distributed via BitTorrent. Frankly, I don't believe in group punshment -- if a small group of people have a legitimate use for something, there's no reason to tear it down.
It's clear that Bittorrent is being used to distribute both legal and illegal content. I don't know the percentages, and with regards to the discussion of legality, I don't care. With regard to arguing over percentages, it's pretty easy to draw parallels to the DeCSS lawsuits (where the legitimate users of this software were Linux users -- but because they were a minarity, they were ignored). This was a bullshit case with an outcome that I still view as completely unjust.
The fact is, P2P is a tool. It can be both used and misused. Further, the implications for the common person to be able to publish any type of document and distribute it on a massive scale with a cost approaching nil are great. I view this alone to be a greater threat to mass media than piracy. It's their content. If they want to distribute it with loads of DRM -- fine. I jsut won't buy it. If they can't innovate fast enough -- fuck 'em.
-Turkey
Jack Valenti, cleaning up his house last weekend, found $1 million tucked beneath the cushion of one of his diamond-embroidered chaise lounges. He was nonplussed.
I'm not how well a million bucks of advocacy is going to fare against the abysally-deep pockets of the American entertainment industry...
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I wonder why the porn industry isn't more up in arms than the RIAA is. They probably lose more potential business than the RIAA; is it becasue the porn industry doesn't rely on investments for livelyhood as much as the music industry does, and thus their company value isn't as pertinent to their success?
At least on Kazaa, it seems as if getting specific songs, and complete songs, is next to impossible. That, and nearly every search returns at least half a dozen instances of porn (unless I simply search for music, in which case it's only one or two). On the other hand, if someone searches for porn, it's likely little else will show up.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers