Slashdot Mirror
Downhillbattle.org Bounty For P2P Gaim Plug-in
thecombatwombat writes "Music activism site Downhillbattle.org has started a fund to pay a bounty on a peer-to-peer plugin for Gaim. With new laws threatening peer-to-peer, Downhill Battle thinks this is the future. Regardless, it's an interesting funding of open source."
I hope it doesn't bring down GAIM.
Once again, how people use a tool shouldn't affect the legitimacy of the said tool, but it's RIAA we're talking about here.
BitTorrent is pretty concerned when more and more pirates are using it to illegally distribute software, not that BitTorrent is an illegal tool, but you just don't want the trouble of lawsuit, and not to mention you're not guaranteed innocence in court (if your bank account can last that long).
So personally, I don't think changing the "method" is going to help anything.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
and ran across Grouper. Only for Windows, but it does almost exactly what these folks want.
I doubt that Gaim would be held responsible for a third party plugin that allowed it to do file sharing. Thats like suing the maker of Windows because it runs BitTorrent.
Raised as of Nov 13, 6:30am: $354
Raised as of Nov 15, 6:30am: $359
Cost of bandwidth usage after being Slashdotted: Priceless
There is no controversy. Technology is not illegal. Uses of it are. People like etree make such a mockery of the RIAA's claims that filesharing is only used for evil that it's not even funny. Perhaps the RIAA is pissed off that so many bands are content with giving their music away for absolutely free.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Perhaps if GAIM had a list of plugins that it officially supported, it would have solid footing for saying that this plugin was off the reservation, so to speak.
I know they don't officially support any of these third party plugins, but in a way similar to microsoft warning you before you install third party hardware drivers, gaim could warn you that it's an unreviewed unsuported plugin? Just a thought.
I think then even the dumbest civil court judge would be able to understand that GAIM isn't a part of this p2p shennanigan.
...fairly stupid. Not only is this a mix of two seperate things, but why would making a plugin for GAIM do anything? It's the same thing for people who want to merge WASTE with Miranda or GAIM. I do fine with my P2P seperate from my IM, and I don't WANT P2P with my AIM, etc. It's not going to help stop the RIAA either, they will just go after people using the plugin. I'll take mine seperate (and secure as in darknet) thank you.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
do you realy want your friends (especially girls) browseing through your porn??? will they ever look at you the same way again. If you have a huge stash of bart and lisa cartoon porn?
Not smart... Public statements like this will rile things up too much. They'll end up shooting themselves in the foot by pushing the government and the RIAA like that.
It's like over-vaccinating diseases: While it solves a problem at hand, the disease evolves because of it, possibly into something really bad.
Look at the DMCA: that is drastic, malevolent evolution if I could ever spot it.
No, no... I think that the way it's been since Napster is just fine: Slow, steady activisim that pushes authority in the correct direction without unnecessary vigor.
-ubuntu others as you would have others ubuntu you.
From the requirments part of the bounty article:
They were probably talking about WASTE when they mentioned this. My friends and I tried it for a while. It was too complex to set up and maintain. My friends need simpler point and click installation. Firewalls gave a lot of greif, too.
I have, however, gotten several of my friends to switch to GAIM after they've realized how crappy and bloated MSN messenger is. I hope something useful can come out of this.
With Bit Torrent creating 35% of the Net's traffic, is it really time to declare it dying, and in need of a successor?
The nice thing about Bit Torrent that Napster and Kazaa never had going for it, is that legitimate companies are already using it to distribute their product. Blizzard, Mandrake, and others with large applications that geeks primarily download.
While adding P2P to Gaim may look important, Bit Torrent is the wave of the next few years.
If someone is designing a Gaim P2P, make sure sharing a file with a contact is as simple as MSN where you drag the file to the chat window, but have it resume broken transfers, etc.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
But for $500, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. I mean let us, for the moment, ignore the other arguments. Personally it's going to take more money than that to make me a target of the RIAA.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
I see many uses for this, but it shouldent be seen as a compeditor against large P2P networks. This would be great if you were a group of students working on a project, and clicked a button and saw a list of project related files on your group's computers, or even had access to their music. I dont think this is meant as a replacement for large-scale Networks like eDonky or GNUTella(2). Keep up good work and PLEASE dont focous on illagel sharing of files, rather on colaboration and efficency of groups. [redundant] Do whatever to keep RIAA out of this[/redundant]
If you have a huge stash of Bart and Lisa cartoon porn, it's fairly safe to say that you probably don't have friends in the first place.
How many of us actually TRUST everyone on our buddy lists? Hell, I keep my enemies on my buddy list.
Also, this proposal doesn't answer that lingering question of what happens when a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend is an RIAA employee.
Thats like suing the maker of Windows because it runs BitTorrent.
What a great idea - why hasn't RIAA thought of that?
the IM services (AOL, we're looking at you) will be coerced into more aggressive Gaim-blocking in fairly short order. This will result in your loser friends that you can't get to use GPG or gaim-encryption complaining that it doesn't work (they're too lazy to get the update the Gaim people put out within 3 hours of the block, remember) and forgetting the whole idea. Good idea in theory, but you have to convert your friends to Jabber at the same time.
-insert a witty something-
They are doing it because they want to illustrate exactly how stupid it is for the government and media companies to go after the software itself rather than the people abusing it. They want them to realize that if you wanted to stop file sharing from being possible, you'd have to shut down the entire Internet, because everything, including even Microsoft's software (e.g. IIS), could be used for copyright infringement.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
However, I wanted to point out a way you can help the fight that's not just defensive, but offensive. Let's go after the people in congress who make this sort of thing necessary. Head on over to IPac and sign the petition. Donate. Help elect representatives and senators that understand our issues, and will fight on our side, not the side of the RIAA and MPAA.
One of the things that bothers me about search based networks (bittorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella, Kazaa, napster, etc.) is that you already have to know what you're looking for before you find it. Anything that requires you to type a search query to find a music file is useless as a tool for serendipitous "surfing" that allows you to stumble on new music.
This problem partially undercuts a major argument of file sharing proponents- that file sharing exposes people to music that they wouldn't have considered buying before.
If I can have a "buddy list" of people whose music libraries you can casually browse through, I'll be much more likely to experiment with new music because there'll be less fear of encountering music that 5u><0r5. I understand there is already some filesharing software that offers this functionality, but bundling it with a IM application that people already use heavily and like to leave open as much as possible is a good way to build a user base fast. In fact, I can see Joe User types switching from AIM to GAIM once they find out it has secure file sharing capabilities.
Also, if communities like AudioScrobbler or MusicMobs could be integrated into GAIM, it would extend its use to being a tool for finding people who have similar music interests that you can add to your buddy list.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
I think this sort of integration takes a neutral position, actually. With encryption and private trading groups, the RIAA has to go a LOT further to stop it. They need to start doing more than connecting to a tracker and getting a list of IPs and send out an automated e-mail. Maybe then people will see how silly the RIAA has become.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I think the problem is that they already realize that ... and simply don't care. Why should they? The RIAA and the MPAA want to maintain control of content distribution at all costs and they don't care who they hurt in the process, so trying to raise their awareness is a futile effort. Never depend upon another man's better nature (he might not have one), and I think that those two groups have already amply demonstrated that they have no better nature. And so far as the government is concerned (and in this case, we really mean Congress since they are the ones considering creating new law) they don't concern themselves with justice or long-term effects or any real understanding of these issues because the Congresspersons involved in them have already been paid not to. I understand what these developers are trying to do but they're wasting their time. The proper (and the only even remotely effective) course of action is to raise the awareness of the voting public, and make this enough of an issue that the ??AA's can't totally rubberstamp it (as they did with the DMCA and the various copyright extension acts.) The problem there is the print and TV media have swallowed the RIAA/MPAA's line pretty much hook, line and sinker (or have had the proper palms greased) and are in the process of convincing the public that copyright infringement is some kind of heinous crime and that the public has no rights when it comes to copyrighted materials. Try explaining "fair use" to someone who has been accustomed to hearing the "the music industry is being decimated by rampant piracy" on the five o'clock news every day for the past couple of years. This goes beyond mere PR, it is a vast, orchstrated example of the "big lie" and it's working.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Anyone here remember DirectConnect? I don't have a link handy but it is *exactly* what they are suggesting here. A small closed network of only "trusted" members. The problem with this, and why very few people still use DirectConnect is that the files are much easer to trace to people.
Let's say I'm using bit torrent and I forget to turn on my IP blocker, If RIAA finds me downloading something they don't like then they have my IP address, which changes daily. They would have to go through all the legal troubles of filing a John Doe suit, and subpoena my DSL company for my information, assuming they even keep records of what customer has what IP at what time.
If this were integrated into GAIM then anyone who knows how to check the "look at profile" thingy on gaim could see information about myself that I wouldn't really want then to find that easy. This is exactly what killed of DirectConnect back in the day.
(This is of course assuming I ever download something other than anime over bit torrent)
My UID is prime and so is this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0.
In Change the Law I discuss the constitutional basis of copyright law in the US, and suggests a number of steps you can take to bring about much needed copyright reform. The steps range from speaking out to practicing civil disobedience.
There are over sixty million people using p2p networks in the US. That's more than voted for George Bush in 2000. That's enough people to bring about change, if you can work together effectively.
My article has been read by over six hundred thousand people so far but I'd like to see all sixty million American p2p users read it by the time of the 2006 midterm elections. I'd like to see copyright reform become a hotbutton issue in the next election.
If you're sad that Kerry lost November 2nd, consider that Kerry voted for the DMCA. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are on the side of the RIAA and MPAA. They're on the side of the big-money donors after all. That needs to change.
There are very few elected officials who feel that the DMCA is any sort of problem. They think it's the solution. Our elected officials view people who share files as the problem.
If you feel as I do that more people need to read my article, you can help by linking to it from your website, weblog or from message boards.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Putting all discussion of what this could do to GAIM aside, I'm not sure if downhillbattle.org really considered if this could be done. I run DoorManBot on AIM, so I've run into many problems which will prevent them from being able to do this.
The issue is that on a network such as AIM, clients talk only to the AIM servers, not to each other, leaving no room for behind-the-protocol interactions between clients.
This means that the plug-in would need to be able to identify buddies also using the plug-in through something such as a tag in the user's profile; not the cleanest thing to do, though still doable.
Now comes the biggest problem. How will the plug-in communicate with others to do searches? Inter-client communications can only be done via the basic IMs that are sent between users. This would mean a new IM popping up every time one of your buddies decides to search for a song. Even if the search was hidden inside invisible tags, the IM would still need to present itself. This alone, I believe, would drive off any potential users.
Unfortunately, MSN and Yahoo! are just as bad as AIM in this respect, leaving any potential plug-in to work only with a different protocol. But with that, the user base is lost, destroying the purpose of the plug-in in the first place. A great idea, but sadly without hope.
Send offline messages on AIM with DoorManBot
It's the "human shield" theory of software development. If P2P features are incorporated into lots of "innocent" software, then the INDUCE act becomes a sort of doomsday device -- it can only stop P2P by stopping the entire software industry.
Let me get this straight. Music sharing isn't actually hurting the music industry, maybe it's even helping them,[I think you're confusing the music "industry," the RIAA, with the music "profession," the artists.] but you should do as much of it as possible because it will bring down the evil music monopoly and then we'll be living in paradise, so don't buy a CD because it won't really help any artist, just download their copyrighted material for free so that you help end the evil empire of the RIAA after which we won't continue to just freely distribute whatever we want to through this massive network of unregulated, uncontrollable digital distribution we've created, instead somehow all the artists will be fairly compensated, I think by some kind of magical money fairy that flies right out of my ass...
I don't know if it flew out of YOUR ass exactly, but that magical money fairy has been around for a long time. That fairy comes from the fans--who pay the artists for the shows they do through ticket sales and other merchandise. "Album Sales == Artist's Income" is the premise that's on crack. It seems to be a secondary income at best. It is the major source of the RIAA's income. The RIAA companies were in the business of promotion and distribution. Now that they've become so powerful, they need to be in the business of litigation, legislation, and popularity control* if they're going to keep their monopoly.
The roles of promotion/distribution can now be filled very inexpensively and mostly by the fans. The RIAA is now only as relevant as their lawyers/marketroids are persuasive. I'm not saying they should be dissolved, but they sure as hell don't need or deserve all the power they have.
*popularity control - the device used by The One True Record Label (RIAA) to control what is/isn't popular by promoting the hell out of whatever they need to sell next, regardless of its quality. That's how we get all that crappy music crammed down our throats.
A response has shown up on downhillbattle, it covers some of the points people have talked about in this thread.