New Wave Of File-Sharing Embraces Secrecy

twin-cam writes "There's an article over at The Inquirer that software developers are designing secret file sharing networks that will make it harder for the music and file industry to prove cases of piracy. According to Reuters, three file sharing networks are being planned which its users think will make it a lot harder for music industry to track and charge people on their networks. The first is Optisoft which runs on Blubster and Piolet, music-only file-sharing networks. Only a matter of time before the RIAA requests a data dump from the ISPs or just sues everyone using their network."

Comments

Re:Sorry

[evilviper]

It's becoming harder and harder to believe the desperate cries of "why don't they understand that people are interested in P2P for legitimate uses!"

There are plenty of prefectly legal, and non-grey legal uses for normal filesharing... These are not for those situations...

Did anybody around here tell you that anonymous, encrypted file sharing was for mirroring of Linux ISOs? No, I think you made that up yourself.

These have a couple different significant applications. The first is the idea behind Freenet... You have a network where you can share ideas that may be quite unpopular to your government. Military personell can share their photos of Iraqi prisions being tortured, or Chinese can share their anti-Government views, without fear of retribution. Maybe you just want to share DeCSS with the world, and not get a subpoena...

The other legitimate purpose this obviously serves is the grey-areas of the law. See, you have the legal right to make a copy of a DVD you own, you just don't have the right to break the encryption that the DVD uses to prevent you from making a copy. In the even that your DVD gets scratched, your copy-protected CDs get stolen, or your videogame disc shatters, what do you do? By all means you should be able to take them in to any store and exchange it for only the nominal cost of the media... But since that's not the case, where do you go to get a copy of something you have the legal right to posess? Anonymous file-sharing is really the only option.

You might think, well you only get sued for sharing files. Possibly true, but you can't get something for nothing. If it's legal for you to download these files, it has to be legal for somebody else to upload the files for you. Since exercising (what most rational people would concede are) your rights can get you into legal trouble, you need to do it beind closed doors, which is what this network allows.

Honestly, it can't be about download speed. I've used Bittorrent before. It's slow.

It's a proportional thing. I've gotten very very good speeds from P2P in many cases. The fact that you don't just shows that you are comparing different senarios. If those FreeBSD FTP servers you were download from were running bittorrent, you would have gotten at least the same bandwidth that they provide, plus a boost from all the others downloading it. You see, right now bittorrent is mostly popular for sites that don't have that kind of bandwidth, so you are making an unfair comparison with only anecdotal information.

Remind me again why anyone would want to grab a Linux ISO from a P2P app when there are plenty of fast FTP sites where the ISO can be downloaded?

Speed is #1. #2 is altruism. When you download from an FTP server, you suck up their bandwidth, and don't provide anything in return. With P2P like bittorrent, all while you are downloading, somebody else is uploading from you. If you've got a 1.5M/768M connection, then you are transfering at least half that data to another person before your download is done. That means for every 2 people wasting the main server's bandwidth using bittorrent, there is 1 person that doesn't use the server's bandwidth at all. 50% reduction in the bandwidth fees a mirror site has to pay is a good thing by anyone's account.

It's simple, and while nothing can be done to stop the network being used for copyright infringement entirely, I'm sure such measures would greatly reduce the amount of piracy that would occur.

Naspter was the only network where this was possible. You know what happened to them.

You want somebody to create a new one that can share files other than MP3s, okay... but that requires a lot of server bandwidth. Who is going to bankroll this thing? Current P2P networks, like Gnutella are completely decentralized, so nobody can dictate what you can and can't share. It also means nobody has to foot the bill for the operation of massive central servers.

Programs like bittorrent are just like HTTP, and I'm sure you wouldn't insist that Apache have some built-in system to prevent copyright infringement.

Why the hell don't you just use iTunes?

[bonch]

Instead of creating "secret" networks whose sole use will be outright copyright violation, why not just use what we have that's legal? They sell CDs for 11.99 a pop at my store, they sell CD singles for even less, there's a radio and online radio that lets you "sample" things, and we've got countless music services now including the popular iTunes music store.

Sorry, kids, but just because you don't like DRM, or you don't like the price of something, or you think it's "heavy-handed tactics" (actual phrase used elsewhere in this discussion) to sue people infringing on your own copyright, doesn't mean the copyright magically transfers over to you for you to pirate endlessly across the Internet.

Why is it we all get up in arms when a company dares violate the copyright of the GPL, but when it comes to violating the rights of those who aren't on "our side," it's suddenly a "gray area?"

It's bullshit, is what that is.