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Row Brews Over P2P Advertising
KennyMillar writes "BBC News Online is reporting that advertisers are starting to place ads on P2P networks, because they are so popular. But the owners of paid-for download services are accusing them of "providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.""
Providing oxygen to illegal downloading? Okay the next time you get in a car and drive on a road, you are supporting drunk driving.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I've already gotten Mobile SMS pop-ups.. "It's inevitable.." - Agent Smith
How dare they come up with an innovative business model that directly competes with established companies. This isn't a free market here.
Don't get me wrong though, ads in P2P networks are a huge pain in the ass.
I upgraded my wrt54g to a newer firmware and one of the features in the it has host blocking. I simply added a list of advertisers to the router block. The first one added was doubleclick.net. Mass advertisging I guess will have to be distributed rather than a single company or I will contiue to block single point companies.
As for the advertising. Well my bittorrent client has no images, I can turn adverts off with Mozilla on web pages, so I'm fairly free. There are ads all over the internet now, why is this any different.. Now if they started inserting ad breaks into a film I downloaded that may be a different matter.
...wait until the ads start popping up. Unwanted advertising seems to infect every aspect of our lives. On the other hand, is this a sign that P2P is gradually becoming legitimatized? If major companies start promoting their products on your favorite P2P program, then perhaps the **IA will be less inclined to sue. We can only hope...
Never heard money called "oxygen" before.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
On one side amoral advertisers who will stoop to any measure to get their 'message' across. On the other possibly the greediest most conniving industry in the world. Lets hope they do some serious damage to each other.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
It seems like these ads are likely to push everyone the way they are already headed, more towards bittorrent over centralized P2P networks. geraldkw
"Paul Myers, chief executive of Wippit - a peer to peer service which provides paid-for music downloads - believes it is time advertisers stopped providing 'oxygen' for companies that support illegal downloading.
"You may be surprised to know that current advertisers on the most popular peer to peer service eDonkey who now steadfastly support copyright theft with real cash money include Nat West, Vodafone, O2, First Direct, NTL, and Renault," he said in an open letter to the British Phonographic Industry last month.
He urged people to follow his lead and 'dump' brands associated with companies such as eDonkey.
'Networks like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster facilitate illegal filesharing. The BPI strongly believes that any reputable company should look carefully at the support they are giving these networks through their advertising revenue," it said in a statement. "
Self-serving words aside, he's got a point. If advertisers want to place themselves on P2P networks, doesn't that legitimize them? The next time Congress tries to declare P2P an outlaw technology, just say, "But it's got mainstream advertising! It must be legitimate. Money makes the world go round, right Congressman? You wouldn't want to outlaw an outlet for advertising dollars, would you?"
stuff
Not that this would actually work very well.
Think about all the different peer-to-peer systems in use. Gnutella, BitTorrent, Fasttrack, etc... The people using KaZaA Media Desktop are already seeing ads. Same with Limewire Basic. But all the rest, Shareaza on Windows, probably every implentation of BitTorrent, Acquisition on Mac OS X....how the hell are you going to insert ads into these programs?
...Unless these ads are just going to consist of miniscule files with keywords and a URL in the file name, that dominate your search results? That's more just spamming than anything else. I don't see how that'd be much in the way of an effective delivery method for advertisements. It's unreliable, most p2p clients don't have a provision for being able to click a link in a file name in search results window and send that to your browser.
I'd say most people that are smart enough to use various p2p systems in the first place are probably going to go for an open and free network instead of some proprietary bullshit from some dot-com, and avoid all these ads entirely. Bottom line, unethical, impractical, just plain dumb. Never going to happen.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
How is this any different to government adverts on late night tv in the uk? Are the government trying to encourage people to stay up late watching pr0n on channel 5, in order that they watch their adverts? Because, if they are, that's morally reprehensable, and obscene, and the government clearly supports pr0n, so I Object!
They do. It's called "product placement." E.g. ever notice how (almost) every computer ever shown in movie or TV show is a Mac?
Cheers,
Richard
I don't see a reason for compaines to try to use ads in p2p, since most of the users are just teenagers getting music and have little money to begin with, most adults are to afraid to use p2p because they see it in the news with the lawsuits going on with the RIAA, In my oppion i'll just stick with torrents its nice, spyware free and the system works a hell of alot beter and you know the file your revieing works unlike the .mp3s going around on kazaa.
The last thing I got via a P2P network was a free application for BSD.. Which was copyrighted of course..
Don't see anything illegal with that.
The last MP3 I got, was from a band sponsored website ' please download these and do what you want with them , share them.. burn them.. and if you like it come back and buy our album " Their music is ALSO copyrighted..
Enough with the 'its all copyright piracy' arguments already..
And this doesnt even touch the argument that even downloading 'restricted' media may actually be legal anyway in many cases, regardless of what the RIAA/MPAA thinks..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
...after all, an advert saying "We can see what you're sharing" would probably scare plenty of the less clueful P2P users. Whether the P2P networks would accept advertising from them would be an interesting question - if, as they claim, their intention is for legitimate file sharing only then they wouldn't really have a leg to stand on if they wanted to refuse it.
If their "competition" is the music industry, then their product is something to which they don't own the rights.
If it's not the music industry, then you're talking out your ass.
I can't understand how people wouldn't want advertising added to their P2P, their IM, and their cell phone! I personally get many interesting offers every day and I'm sure to buy things that way, because that's how you get the best deals!!! Just the other day I got a movie popup on AIM and it was all about the Polar Express movie and so I immediately went out and watched it and let me tell you it was quite a good movie for me to watch and touching too! Then I was browsing msnbc.com and I got ads for a new Jeep Liberty which now I want to buy because it is trail rated and that is important to me! I didn't realize there was such a thing as trail rating for cars but apparently there is and my current honda civic that I added a sweet spoiler to is simply not going to cut it on the trails. I can't wait until I get lots of offers on my phone and on my P2P because that's basically all I do is txt people on the phone and then download the coolest songs by aviril lavigne, who is awesome. Her and jessica simpson are my playlist right now ever seence I saw jessica's cd in 7-11 where I hang out when I'm txting and downloading things. I'm gunna go now bcause I want to find any P2P clients with advertising, people please respond with links to them! THanks!
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
So the obvious solution is for media companies and studios to start building P2P broadcast stations that produce such high-quality entertainment that a) it can generate huge ad revenues and b) it drowns out the illegal stuff... right?
Why they should do this:
1. They're not restricted in terms of media. They can ship any audio, video, text, software, etc. media that the "viewers" can open.
2. They have a leg-up on illegal files because they can provide several stable download points (perhaps even using something like Akamai) that make their files faster to download.
3. There is no uplink lag
4. Uplink equipment cost is trivial by comparison with a broadcast or even cable station.
5. Ad revenues can be tied to more reliable measures of the viewer base than with broadcast or television. Neilsen would love this, as would advertisers.
6. You get to leap-frog HDTV and go to better digital formats long before HDTV telvisions have saturated the market.
There are more, subtler advantages, but I think any Hollywood MBA worth is diploma should be able to see them.
Not that I ever seen big companies put ads on P2P sites but if they do it is a sure sign that the music industry is now considered worthy of being ripped off by both consumers and other industries.
Lets face it. File sharing is good business. ISP's and telecoms make money off it. Recordable CD/DVD makers earn from every burned game/movie/cd. Burner makers profit. HD makers profit. Modem makers profit. Cable companies making the cables being rolled out to support our ever increasing data needs profit. Streetmakers profit because cables go underground.
Everybody is making money of filesharing except the music industry and now even totally unrelated industries are finding ways to make a buck out of it. It makes sense for a mobile phone company to advertise to music file sharers. Kids who don't spend money on overpriced cd's DO spend it on SMS packages.
Music industry wake up. Nobody likes you or your product. Get with the times or die. When the first cars arrived I bet the horse industry held similar pleas and nobody cared back then either.
Want to beat filesharing? I got a very simple solution. Get rid of pre-pressed cd's. Put 1 big central computer in each record labels basement wich contains all their songs ever recorded. Put smaller computers hooked up to the net in each point of sale. Give it a few terrabyte cache with the best sellers. Put up several terminals for people to browse the catalogs and sample songs. On request burn or upload selected songs to the buyer. Songs in the cache cost no extra bandwidth and HD space is cheap. Songs downloaded cost peanuts.
Every point of sale will have an infinite stock and be able to sell to every type of music lover. No longer problems with over or understocking. No stolen cd cases.
A simple business model and one the point of sales people love. They have been suggesting this for a long time and several have tried.
But the music industry doesn't want it. It prefers to cling on to the old model. Some horse cart makers turned to making horseless carriages and survived, some didn't. Do we really care about the losers?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If advertising on P2P networks is 'oxygen' for piracy, does that mean.....
Advertising on Indy cars encourages drivers to go 200+ MPH?
Advertising on NASCAR cars encourages to only turn left (except for two times a year)?
Advertising in adult magazines encourages people to do everything naked? Ok, that one may be stretching it, but you get my point......
Advertisers want the best bang for the buck. It's only a sensible business model.
Just as Indy wasn't created as an outlet to teach people to speed, P2P networks were not created (well, most of them) to allow people to Pirate.
People do speed, people do pirate software. Evil people will do evil things, regardless of who the advertiser is.
I mean, come one, do you really think that stupid Joe Camel guy was encouraging kids to smoke? I think a half naked lady is more encouraging to a 13 year old than a dromendon with a phallic symbol for a nose.
Repant. Thy end is sheer.
Your printer is out of paper. A dialog pops up:
You open the system control folder. Before showing your files, it tells you:
You start writing a letter. A window opens:
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Just make popups and banner ads appear on the page hosting all the torrent files.
....
Suprnova.org has been doing this for a while.
And who's advertising on Suprnova.org??
Well, since I'm in Canada I keep seeing ads for the famous U.S. Greencard Lottery (yes - just like the first spam on the Internet.....) and for Zip.ca.
Zip.ca is an online DVD rental company like NetFlix.com - but Zip.ca has side banners on Suprnova.org
I think they also have pop-ups but I'm not sure since I have pop-up blocking on
It seems that P2P apps are legal, and they look likely to stay that way.
No, they're neither legal nor illegal per se. Some P2P apps may be illegal (Napster) whilst others are legal (Grokster). The reasons for why their legality differs isn't to do with their being P2P programs, it's something slightly different.
The developer of such software can be held liable for the copyright infringement of the users in either or both of two situations:
1) Contributory liability stands where the developer knows of or has reason to know of the infringing activity, and at that time induces, causes, or materially contributes to the infringing activity.
The Sony case held that where a technology is developed that has potential, substantial noninfringing uses, the mere fact that it can be used in an infringing manner isn't sufficient to show knowledge.
However, the Napster case held that where the developer has actual knowledge of the infringement and the knowledge requirement is satisfied.
Grokster, following both Sony and Napster, pointed out that the actual knowledge must exist at a time when the material contribution is made, or else there is no duty by the developer to avoid such contribution. Since their software is designed in such a way that by the time they receive such knowledge they can no longer do anything about it and are no longer contributing to it, the developer is safe -- if he has carefully limited his involvement with the P2P network. Napster was too closely involved with their network, and thus were contributorially liable.
Grokster -- which I should point out is the weakest of the cases cited here -- also opined that mere software development without involvement as to the network wasn't a material contribution.
2) Vicarious liability stands where a developer has the right and ability to control whether infringement occurs, regardless of whether he has knowledge of it, and where he has a direct financial interest in the infringement.
Sony is not applicable to this form of liability, as the Napster case pointed out. This is because knowledge is not a factor.
Again, what might protect a developer is the lack of a right and ability to control whether infringement occurs. Napster, which could ban users and files, clearly did have such right and control. Coupled with the premise that their interest in the infringement was to draw in users who would eventually pay or be advertised to, Napster was found liable.
Most P2P developers are paying attention to the fallout of Napster to avoid the pitfalls that did it in. Those pitfalls still exist, and thus great caution should be taken since you cannot blithely assume any given P2P app is itself legal to create and support. Its architecture and your business practices are important.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Well, this already happens to some degree - when my Epson printer gets low on, or runs out of ink.
A dialog will appear with a "Clink Here to Buy Ink" button, which oddly enough, takes you right to the Epson online store...
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
I think you'd be hard pressed, however, to find someone who sees advertising near the copier to be a serious problem.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I'm pretty surprised any p2p app that has the potential to be used for illegal filetrading is using ads, as that revenue stream is exactly what got Napster collared and dragged through the courts.
Soulseek was smart enough to use a donation system instead, as that doesn't give the "directly profiting from people using the system" way in the legal bods needed to prosecute the bejesus out of them.
...but I would /kill/ for a government that supports pr0n. The one we have now flips out over a nipple. Hell, I was looking at nipples when I was less than a year old, but then, I don't have the moral sense, as our Fearless Leader (TM) would put it.