Exeem "Successor" to Suprnova Announced

After the demise of Suprnova, hype has risen over Exeem, the supposed heir apparent to the popular BitTorrent index. Today on Novastream, Sloncek announced it officially, but to me his announcement raised more questions than it did answers. Since the official exeem.com website still isn't up, I've got a few notes below. Thanks to several users on irc.suprnova.org, and Sloncek himself for answering my questions.

First, Exeem really isn't an extension of Suprnova as the hype might have you believe: the connection between the two seems more marketing than anything else. Sloncek has been hired to promote their product as the heir apparent to his popular website, but his involvement really seems to be almost entirely PR. It'll work obviously: my headline on this story mentions Suprnova, and so will hundreds of websites around the world in the coming days. "Yet another p2p app" would not create anywhere near the waves that "Successor to Suprnova Announced" will. I hope that people judge exeem by its own merits and not by its (clever) marketing.

Second, Exeem is pretty much what was rumored earlier: a blending of the tracker, the BitTorrent client, and decentralized indexing. It's Windows only. It's in beta now, and will be out at some indeterminate date in the future. It also has a rating and commenting system which appears to be somewhat rudimentary. It's unclear to me if the rating system will be as useless as other attempts, and I think this is the critical thing: Suprnova succeeded because the content available on it was verified and trustworthy. Suprnova was as much the work of a few dozen editors as it was a list of torrent URLs. So far no other p2p system has achieved that level of accuracy. Exeem supports magnet sites which is a start, but not exactly p2p either. And did I mention that it's adware?

Third, there's a mystery company. Someone is paying Sloncek. He won't say who, but there's a history in the p2p world of secretive development. Since Exeem is to be adware, someday it will have a billing address, which means the legal issues faced by predecessors like Napster and Kazaa will be forthcoming, which is of course why we have a mystery company that Sloncek won't talk about in the first place. We definitely haven't heard the last of this.

Personally I was hoping for more: source code and cross platform compatibility never hurts. These are the things that made BitTorrent a huge success. I guess I was hoping for a new protocol instead of just another Kazaa. I guess I was hoping for a monumental leap, and instead Exeem to be a more incremental step. I'm sure we'll learn more in the coming weeks.

Comments

To your sig:

[pVoid]

The part that says: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Re:I'm not surprised that pirates modded me down

[laughingcoyote]

I didn't say that, and if it doesn't apply to you, why are you responding? Clearly, I struck a nerve.

"I also never had to work for anything in my life, and my parents bought my car for me growing up, so it's only natural I have the same sense of whiny entitlement the other bitter freeloaders have." (excerpted from original post)

So could you please explain what you DID mean by that?

Well, can't argue with that kind of research.

Never claimed any type of "research" or that such a method is scientific, only that I am not the only one who sees the current system as broken, and that such people come from both sides of the political spectrum. While I imagine that scientific polling would bear that out, I don't claim I've done such a study.

It absolutely is. It illustrates the root cause of your position on defending piracy.

Very well, I am a social democrat. However, that is not the root of my position on this particular issue, that is based on my read of the situation.

And so one of the root causes surfaces--bitter envy and vitriol toward business. You are a dorm room anti-capitalist.

Dorm room? Hrm, when I look around, my house looks little like a dorm room to me. I'm curious as to how you came up with all this stuff you "know" about me, being as I do not believe that I know you, and most of it is in error.

As for being anti-capitalist, in some ways that is true and in some ways false. We are, however, only discussing the pros and cons of intellectual property here, not the rest of my political philosophies, or yours.

It's very simple. You are protected under law to come up with something that is your own and sell it as you wish.

I was unclear, my apologies. I understand the concept, and I do understand why some think it should be implemented. I think, however, that the cons of doing so outweigh the pros, and disagree that it should be. Thus far, I've heard few argue as to why it should exist, most who believe so only like to throw "thief" and "pirate" and "freeloader" around without making a cogent argument as to why their position is correct.

COPYright. You own the right to copy and sell it. You're veering off into a strawman argument. Nobody's talking about the ownership of ideas. We're talking about copyright.

So, you can come up with an idea, and subsequently prevent anyone from competing with you on, improving upon, or creating copies or derivatives of, that idea? Sure sounds like "ownership" to me.

I'll remember that in the next GPL "source code theft" article.

I recall saying nothing about the GPL. However, if "IP" were eliminated or scaled quite a way back, the GPL likely would no longer exist. Neither would the need for it. In the meantime, I have great respect for those who release GPL software, they utilize the current system to do what should be done. Of course, those companies who state out of one side of their mouth that copyright should be universally respected have often turned around and attempted to fight the GPL, but THIS is not hypocrisy of any type.

Nobody EVER, EVER said that. But those companies do have a right not to have their rights violated. If their business is going to die, it should be because nobody is buying it, not because their product really is in demand but people are making sure they don't have to pay them for it.

Actually, copyright is, in effect, stating that the copyright industries have a right to a continued flow of money from any idea they've ever come up with, even if someone else comes along who can do it better and cheaper.

Clearly the consumer wants it if they're pirating it. Consumers don't have a "right" to something just becuase they want it. Your argument has already fallen completely flat.

Correct on the first part, clearly the consumers do wish it. And clearly, they do not wish to pay per copy. A flat-fee or collective license scheme woul