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Crossplatform iTunes Sharing and Trading
An anonymous reader writes "As reported on Cnet
and others, an open source java iTunes client named ourTunes has been released under the GPL by a group of anonymous hackers. Unlike the Apple iTunes for Windows and Mac, ourTunes allows a user to queue up and save to disk the music shared by other users. Recent court rulings have held that developers of p2p file sharing software cannot be held liable for 'for any copyright infringement committed by people using their products.'"
In light of the recent court decision, will Apple still be able to use the DMCA to bully Sourceforge into taking down the software?
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
I don't see a problem with ourTunes... I mean, iTunes itself allows sharing within the local area network, ourTunes does the same thing, it doesn't extend beyond the current capabilities of iTunes (except it's actually more multiplatform).. So what's wrong with it? It looks to me as though it's just a way to let everyone utilize those features of iTunes, not just Mac/Winduz people.. Soooo.. Anyone that'd sue them over that is pretty messed up... Or maybe I just need to research this more... But I don't see anything wrong..
I have my music on an old G3 in the basement, and want to play it over the network from my powerbook.
As it stands, I can listen to what ever I click on, or in the default order - but no custom playlist or random order.
Again, DRM and 'copy-protection' annoys the casual user, without providing any return.
But there's a way you can enjoy free music downloads without getting into trouble. Listen to the legal music that many unsigned and independent artists provide as a way to promote themselves. Find out how in my article:
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Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads
If you downloaded such music instead of infringing copyright on the p2p networks, we'd make short work of the RIAA. You'd start listening to bands that aren't signed with RIAA labels, and the RIAA would have no cause to complain because no one's copyright is being infringed. The RIAA labels would wither away because no one is buying their music anymore, and a lot of deserving artists would get the exposure they deserve.Here's a page that I found out about just a couple days ago and haven't added to the article yet. etree offers a page of Bit Torrent Downloads, all of them TradeFriendly.
If you feel as I do that more people need to read my article, you can help by linking to it from your own website, your web log, or from message boards. Be sure to email the link to all your friends who use P2P!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Fine, send me a plane ticket and a few hundred bucks. What? You'd rather have a preview of what I sound like? Well I'll need a recording studio and a distribution channel. You'd rather just send me 99 cents online? How do I know you'll be willing to pay me directly when you won't even buy a CD?
Ripping off artists directly instead of indirectly ain't any fairer.
cat * >> sig
eh.. how about "not in some way that presumes I am a crook."
This would also be my perferred way to pay for games.
Quite frankly, I am *pretty* sure that I, or my roommate, have paid for every game I have played that wasn't free.
Can I make the same assertion about music? Only kind of. Back in the day I did some napsterizing, but all of that was experimental. That is, I never napsterized anything that I wanted to "own" but I did do a lot of pick a song, check out the playlist of the user that had that song, download things that looked interesting. Can't say that I listened to much, if any of that more than once.
My roomate is into audio production and I am into writing. We naturally have these conversations about theme and content. So somewhere I think I *still* have nine versions of "little bunny foo foo." They are all *quite* terrible.
In its heyday Napster was very much the Star Trek experience of "computer, find me citations on (x)" querying, even if it was just music.
And honestly, I don't know that I have scrubbed out every reference to every song that was so fetched. I also think that several other people had access to the one computer as it was a house resource for brief period of extremity.
I say all this because if there had been a way to take the song tracks that I had already fetched and use them as a key to a payment system. I'd have done that on several occasions.
The way iTunes etc work, you pay your money and then you take your chance.
Given god like powers, or the money and title to make things different I'd do the following.
1) offer a large catalog of music (in fact every title I could, no exceptions) for free download at "good quality" (at least 128bit mp3, possibly more).
2) provide an app with a big drag-and-drop target (etc)(sort of a Big Red Button). When you take the free title and apply it to the app, it sends of a dime or two to The People Who Deserve Money(tm).
2a) the app would then let that computer download "really high bitrate" versions of that same song. Yes, it is only the one computer that is so authorized, and no, the good copies are not DRMed to be frozen to that box or anything like that. I wouldn't even bother to brand the high bitrate songs as comming from that computer.
2b) even the high-bitrate titles from 2a could be dropped onto the Big Red Button (on a different computer) to send money to those who deserve to be paid.
2c) using the Big Red Button will also get you money off credits for songs containing that version of that title on full CD purchases from the attached online store.
3) provide the old napster structure of search and share, and wire it up to automatically carry the free-quality songs freely.
4) treat the persions who pay for the very-high quality tracks not to spread them around, as the "good quality" tracks are available to everyone.
5) generally treat the customers as nominally honest and dignified humans.
5a) the very-high quality tracks are suitable for burning of CDs and the people are encouraged not to share these, and the napster-like applicaiton would be "resistent" to sharing these version, but they are not blocked from doing so by DRM or "playlist burn counts" etc.
So the p2p system removes my cost to distribute. The people who are "Causal Copiers" will be given all the music they want (a-la radio) and those who want more are going to get more by paying money. Marketing is automatic and quite rich, the whole "persons who have this song also have these" is implicit. Money is to be made at the low and high end. The "illicit feeling" is removed from the transaction. And most importantly, you know exactly what you are getting with every purchase, so quality must be good and there will be no "the rest of the album sucked" or "this wasn't what I thought it was" problems because there is no risk to the purchaser.
It could be done cheaply and it would work.
(Consider... Napster is the only reason that I ever bought Green Day... 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press