P2P Manifesto:Peer To Peer Study/Project

Marco Montemagno writes " P2P Manifesto is a P2P study that I've done and also a project, released under CC license. This study (30 pages, available on a dedicated blog, in pdf format or in .torrent/blogtorrent) explain why: - P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto, free to edit this original P2P manifesto. The idea is to then collect on the blog all the different P2P Manifesto's releases, to create a good knowledge base point about P2P issues."

Comments

Maybe your next study

[Anonymous Coward]

Can be on the use of - action phrases.

Hmm

[bburton]

One of the points from TFA:

"Users enjoy sharing all possible information."

Isn't that the problem?

Re:Hmm

[AoT]

I have not found it to be a problem for me.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a problem, it's simply not the truth. How many users want to share everywhere they go on the net and/or in real life? How many want to share their social security/ID number? How many want to share their credit card numbers?

Re:Hmm

[Taladar]

Only if you try to sell information for more than their perceived worth.

Re:Hmm

[Gax]

From the article:
"P2P is positive for Companies"

And bburton's post:
"Isn't that the problem?"

That is the problem. Something that the author of this "manifesto" has not been able to grasp objectively. I wrote my masters thesis on the use of p2p in business two years ago. Based upon my, admittedly limited, primary research consisting of 10 interviews and 25 questionnaires, it became clear that P2P will only be accepted if it can provide tangible benefits, are transparent (OK, he got this bit, but it is too general) and allow the company to maintain a degree of control.
So, virus checkers that distribute updates among their local peers are OK, Napster-style file-sharing are immediately rejected, P2P Groupware may be acceptable, dependent upon the type of software. The study may have been done two years ago, but I haven't seen anything that would convince big business to adopt it.

In the spirit of constructive criticism - a rarity on /. - I'm going to make a few comments on the paper. The author has obviously put effort into it, but if he wants it to be a manifesto for change he needs to consider his audience. At the moment he is aiming at existing P2P supporters who are impressed by pretty shiny things. He needs to provide practical reasons for those people who are unconvinced. At the moment it reads like a blog entry.

Re:Hmm

[SpaceLifeForm]

P2P is *NOT* about business.
P2P is the antithesis of a company maintaining a degree of control.
P2P does not exist so companies can exploit it.
P2P is what the Internet is all about.
P2P is UUCP on steroids.

Re:Hmm

[Dashing Leech]

"Isn't that the problem?"

To those with existing business models on selling contents, yes. Read the manifesto. There's also a more coherent summary. It's only a problem if you believe the current (or rather recent past) model is the right way to distribute content and sharing is wrong.

There are excellent points in this manifesto. As far as the sharing is concerned, the point is that the days of media companies making money from selling content are just about over. There's a new market in town and if they don't invest in new business models they will die. This doesn't mean content will die, but the monopolies and their business models will die because they thrive only through scarcity, which is gone now. And there are people in line to take their place. Already there are commercial companies jumping into the new markets opened up by P2P.

I think the manifesto is an excellent companion to Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture and the free culture movement it's inspired. The manifesto probably needs to be edited and updated by someone with more eloquent writing skills, but I think that's the point of article and releasing it under a CC license.

Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

[sulli]

P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users - All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto

Dilute! Dilute! OK!

Re:Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

Re:Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Re: Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

Did anyone else read that as Dr. Boner?

Re:Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pure genius. :)

Re:Dr. Bronner's Magic P2P Manifesto?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

That's because you don't shower or bathe and may be unfamiliar with soap.

While it pains me to stop hitting F5 on Slashdot for 10 minutes, I make sure I shower one a month with Dr. Bronners whether I need to or not. I think someday, a girl will notice this and love me for it. That's what my mom says anyways.

This "paper" is a mess

[Nugget]

Sorry Marco, but I don't see why I should respect the results of a "study" when the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy". Heck, the paper can't even distinguish between a Macintosh computer and a MAC address.

With such obviously lacking intellectual rigor, why should we have any confidence in your conclusions on the overall issue, which is far more complicated than many of the trivial things which escaped you?

P2P should be about people freely choosing to share their creations with the world, not about consumers choosing to violate the license on commercial goods that they'd rather not pay for. You do a disservice to the future of P2P and information exchange when you perpetuate the myth that the two are the same thing.

The goal should be making free-distribution licenses mainstream, not making it easier to violate licenses.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Vaevictis666]

Additionally, he should have someone proof-read the essay before he posts it to the world. I gave up half way through point 1 after getting fet up with all the comma splices, missing words, redundant words... Just... ugh...

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[eln]

I agree. This whole paper seems like the unprofessional, semi-insane ramblings of a 14 year old kid. My only comfort is that he accurately titled it a Manifesto, although referring to it as a "study" at any point is disingenuous at best.

This paper is full of errors, uses language that only someone with no concept of business communication would use, and, if widely propagated, could do more damage to the PR side of P2P than anything the RIAA or MPAA could hope to accomplish.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Templaris]

"The goal should be making free-distribution licenses mainstream, not making it easier to violate licenses."

To go about this licensing scheme I proprose a new manifesto, a Communist Manifesto where the people own everything! oh...forgot..

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Catbeller]

Ideas, images, movies and writings are not property.

Property has physical existence as its primary characteristic. A book may be physical property. But the stream of words and images within are is not.

Secondary characteristic: if you take a property away from the owner, the owner no longer has access to it. Take a book away from me, and you have stolen my property. Take an image of the book, and I still have the book; nothing has been stolen.

No memetic hijacking of the words "property" and "stealing", please.

Your point about "communism"? Jefferson and his allies wanted no copyrights in the constitution. Damned commie. Also, the U.S., until the 20th century, recognized no country's copyright laws save its own. The entire population and government of the U.S. were communistic thieves for over 125 years. We only cared about international copyright when we wanted to make more money.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugh, I gave up reading your post halfway through after getting fed up with all the misspellings and extraneous spaces.

Seriously, I don't usually feel the need to point out bad spelling and grammar, but you're complaining about his lack of proofreading yet you can't even write two sentences correctly.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Vaevictis666]

Ok, fet->fed is a valid typo, but what's wrong with half way as two words? I'm using it in the context of going half [of the] way through something.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[iminplaya]

...could do more damage to the PR side of P2P than anything the RIAA or MPAA could hope to accomplish.

Could that be the intention? Hell, it could be an RIAA paper. Remember, the idea here is to get rid of P2P in any way possible. The whole piracy thing is used to get more public opinion on their side, and it's gotten people here just as riled up about it, and it's gotten us off track of what the real issue is. These people don't want you to share or upload anything. They want you to read what's on cnn or fox dot com, and to buy from walmart.com. Nothing else. Personally, I couldn't get past here, "...all kind of social interesting information." in the abstract.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[javaxman]

If you want to create your own P2P Manifesto, you can. Feel free to edit the original P2P manifesto and send it at this email. All the different P2P Manifesto release wil be posted here.

While such language is common on Creative Commons-licensed stuff, in this case it's almost like the author is saying "Here is my first cut of a document I'd like to see produced, everyone else please edit it, fill in the ( huge ) gaps, give it some actual content and substance. Thanks."

It's the literary equivalent of setting up an open source software project with a not-really-functional 'prototype' codebase and hoping someone makes it actually work.

I know the topic of P2P ( and more generally, 'file sharing' ) has been studied by tons of smart folks at universities and corporations alike, what about some links to some of those? Oddly enough, the 'study' just has links to ( mostly ) opinion pieces and blogs ( including, of all things, a slashdot article ).

To speak to the parent posts' points of

the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy".

well, that's an interesting topic all by itself.

Frankly, copyright-protected files are the most common files found on P2P networks. Rather than hiding from reality, we should seek to understand what reality means. In this case, I think reality means that copyright is a generally unenforcable law - like many other laws on the books, it's an example of bad law which in the long run wastes taxpayer money for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population.

Copyright infringment is an old, old problem, vastly pre-dating the internet. Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled. As long as there is copyright protection for easily copied items, there will be piracy. It's a law which is extremely difficult to enforce- at best.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[wheelbarrow]

Catbeller,

What do you say to someone who sinks $1 million dollars into the production of a feature film that you just copied without permission? That is the person you are stealing from, not your next door neighbor who bought a legitimate copy.

In the world you describe, a film that cost $1 million dollars to make could be bought once for $20 by one person. That one person then owns the film and allows infinite copies to be made. What do you say to film producer who produced a world wide smash hit but is only able to recover $20 of a $1,000,000 production cost?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[18769]

Property has physical existence as its primary characteristic. A book may be physical property. But the stream of words and images within are is not.

You present a particular definition of property. What exactly `property' is is not the point of the conversation. The piracy / file-sharing debate is about the extent to which we should be carrying over the rules associated with property to information. On one hand, it is important to reward people for creating information. Without a positive expected value, what reasonable person is going to put effort into creating ideas? Where will the ideas come from? On the other hand, most IP laws are designed to give the idea's creator an effective monopoly, which is frequently unfairly exploited. Instead of raving about semantics, try addressing the issue of creating a system where people will develop ideas in a world where P2P limits the advantage that can be gained from those ideas. Perhaps you think that those people will still be compensated for their efforts, but you must have some idea why that is...

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[aardvarkjoe]

referring to it as a "study" at any point is disingenuous at best.

Even better is Hemos' "from the interesting-data-points dept." line. Admittedly, at this point I know that it's too much to hope that the editors would actually read the articles they post, but is it too much to ask for them to at least click on the link and glance at it for five seconds first?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

"No memetic hijacking of the words "property" and "stealing", please."

You appear to be unaware -- or at the least, hopeful that the reader is unaware -- that the term "intellectual property" has been in existence since before you and I were born. Perhaps it is a new concept to you, but frankly, that's not good enough.

"Your point about "communism"? Jefferson and his allies wanted no copyrights in the constitution. Damned commie."

Jefferson, that bulwark of freedom, owned slaves. Cherry-picking his beliefs to support piracy doesn't give us more grounding.

The free software movement does embody the ideals of communism -- a deemphasis of private ownership and individual gain. Indeed, the enormous popularity of the movement shows that a non-capitalist approach to the arts can and does work. There's nothing wrong with this. "Communism" only takes on a bad connotation if you let it.

I have no problem with people who embrace the free software / free music / etc. movement; those tireless individuals who create and give away their stuff for free simply for the pleasure of creating and for the common good. They are true heroes. On the other hand, those who give lip service to this movement simply so that they can help themselves to the intellectual property of those who don't give it away for free are jerks. They are hurting your movement.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Angostura]

Because we all know that information, knowledge and ideas - and the effort required to devise, create and embody it/them have zero value, correct?

Oh that's not what you meant.

So you meant that anybody who expends work creating something that isn't primarily a physical object, has no rights over the fruits of their labours?

Well, apparently that might be what you mean, but I disagree,

I'm perfectly happy to stop using the words 'theft' and 'property' when someone suggests alternative words that adequately express the loss that the creator of a work suffers when control of that work is ripped from their hands without their say so.

Any suggestions?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

"Even without filesharing, there'd be lots of "piracy", as it's now labeled."

Been labelled that for more than a century. Hit your school library's OED if it has one.

Otherwise, great post. I would mod it up if I could.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Taladar]

I would say to him that he shouldn't judge others by his own motives. If his movie is really good he will probably get a lot more than the $20 back. If it is bad, ...

Who wants to encourage the production of expensive, bad movies anyway?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

"I'm perfectly happy to stop using the words 'theft' and 'property' when someone suggests alternative words that adequately express the loss that the creator of a work suffers when control of that work is ripped from their hands without their say so."

I'd say that the response to this by many people reading this would be fuck them. If they're greedy enough to subscribe to this silly notion of expecting to be paid for their creative output, then they deserve what they can get.

Putting all concepts of right and wrong aside for a moment, I think many reading this will agree that said greedy content creators are a bit like the American Indians in the 18th and 19th century with their similar notions of "we were here first." Again, right/wrong aside, you simply can't win against a much larger group of people who have technology on their side, whether they're a bunch of settlers with guns who want your land, or a bunch of teenagers with P2P apps who want your song. This is how it has always worked. Obviously, there's an insurmountable gulf between a songwriter missing a few rent payments and an entire tribe being massacred, but the fundamentals of group behavior are the same.

Propaganda can be a useful tool here. Eradicating the Indian problem was made easier for our ancestors when they were fed the notion of Indians being diseased, drunken savages who raped our women. Likewise, today, although smart people know that the lifestyle of the typical artist is not a glamorous one, note how often it is that "artists are greedy, yadda yadda, limousines, yadda yadda, cocaine habits, yadda yadda they should just shut up and learn that P2P helps them" posts are modded +5, Insightful.

Re: This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

> Sorry Marco, but I don't see why I should respect the results of a "study" when the author doesn't distinguish between "P2P" and "people trading copyrighted data against the owner's wishes". This manifesto seems to perpetuate the myth that "P2P" is a synonym for "piracy". [...]

Well, didn't you know that "P2P" means "Pirate-to-Pirate"?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[wheelbarrow]

Are you saying that stealing copyrighted material ensures that good movie producers will recover their costs and bad movie producers will not? That's a bit tortured. I'll stick with the current system.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[MichiganDan]

The OED says that piracy (as in the theft of intellectual property) predates the American revolution. Damn. From the OED:

piracy

The action or practice of a pirate.

1. a. The practice or crime of robbery and depredation on the sea or navigable rivers, etc., or by descent from the sea upon the coast, by persons not holding a commission from an established civilized state; with a and pl., a single act or crime of this kind.

[1419 Charta Hen. V in Rymer F{oe}dera IX. 754/2 Per modum Piratiæ.] a1552 LELAND Itin. III. 33 Partely by Feates of Warre, partely by Pyracie. 1556 Acts Privy Council (1892) V. 358 He complained of a pyracie doone upon him by certain Englishe pirates. 1587 FLEMING Contn. Holinshed III. 1359/1 Fleeing first out of England for notable pirasies, and out of Ireland for trecheries not pardonable. 1630 R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 224 On those coasts he rather exerciseth Pyracie, than Dominion. 1702 LUTTRELL Brief Rel. (1857) V. 198 Condemned by the court of admiralty for 4 several pyracies. 1727 A. HAMILTON New Acc. E. Ind. II. xxxiii. 5 Those Portugueze..betook themselves to Piracy among the Islands, at the Mouth of Ganges. 1807 G. CHALMERS Caledonia I. II. i. 213 The Vikings confined their odious piracies to the Baltic. 1879 FARRAR St. Paul (1883) 241 The total suppression of piracy by Pompey had rendered the Mediterranean safe.

fig. 1897 MARQUIS OF SALISBURY Sp. in Ho. Lords 16 July, It was feared..that under the appearance of educational reform a scheme of what he might call theological piracy would spring up.

b. Physical Geogr. = CAPTURE n. 1b.

1904 CHAMBERLIN & SALISBURY Geol. I. iii. 99 The foregoing case may be called foreign piracy because the valleys of different systems are concerned. Domestic piracy may also take place... Here a tributary to a crooked river may develop, working back until it taps the main at a higher point. 1939 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. L. 1350 The stream pattern indicates that recent piracies have occurred. 1957 G. E. HUTCHINSON Treat. Limnol. I. i. 114 A wide valley, the main stream of which has been reduced by piracy. 1974 C. H. CRICKMAY Work of River iii. 62 Stream piracy.., of course, is not in every case effected by headwater extension.

2. fig. The appropriation and reproduction of an invention or work of another for one's own profit, without authority; infringement of the rights conferred by a patent or copyright.

1771 LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition. 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 520 He is charged with 'Literary Piracy', and an 'unprincipled suppression of the source from whence he drew his information'. 1855 BREWSTER Newton I. iv. 71 With the view of securing his invention of the telescope from foreign piracy.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[superpulpsicle]

Yeah, while I am absolutely against piracy. From the consumer standpoint, we have had alot of garbage shoved our way. Movies that were heavily marketed, and promoted only to be a disappointment.

People just like to make their $$$ worthwhile. The movie and music industry does nothing after selling you a lemon. It just ends up another bad CD/DVD on the shelf.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

" The OED says that piracy (as in the theft of intellectual property) predates the American revolution. Damn."

Excellent, thank you for the cite. I did not know that it went back as early as 1771.

Unfortunately this will be lost on the "words should not be allowed to have multiple meanings" crowd around here.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[a whoabot]

You're begging the question, unless you believe in an economic principle where eveyone is to be reimbursed for all of their investments . (Who are the socialists now? Heh.)

The question at hand is should copyright owners have the rights they do now? You assume they should, Catbeller does not.

Take for example some other person. She spends one million dollars developing a mathematical proof that (pi + e) is irrational. But, gosh dangit, no one is paying when they reproduce the proof! But there's no law to enforce it, what the frick, eh? What about her money that she invested? How will she be able to recover the cost? Without laws enforcing payment to mathematicians for their proofs, how can we guarantee that good mathematicians will be compensated?

We don't guarantee that though, because we don't worry about making sure everyone gets retribution for the things they do.

"Content producers" are only "copyright holders" because they are given those copyrights by the Copyright Act. It doesn't protect some theoretical inalienable rights(and even if they did, a similar argument can still be made), it only gives them the rights, which is underlined by the idea that it is best for "the advancement" of society in general. They're not enshrined there to guarantee content producers compensation just because they made investments in their production. That's a means to an end.

What many advocates of copyright law revision are saying is that the rights that are given to copyright holders are not what's best for society. They have whatever reasons. If you disagree with these advocates you have to argue against those reasons and not beg their questions and argue ad consequentiam with the effects it will have on some theoretical future content producers.* Or, I guess, you can argue for your principle that everyone should be compensated for any investments they make as an end in itself. Or at least content producers. It'll take more than merely saying that it's nice to the content producers.

* Almost obviously, I would say, changes in copyright law would not affect current copyright holders.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[radtea]

Look kids, see the straw person!

No one has suggested that creative works have no value, or that there ought not be some rights attached to creations.

The words you're looking for are "copyright", "trademark" and "patent". None of them are property rights. Property rights were invented to internalize negative externalities. Copyright, trademark and patent rights were invented to internalize positive externalities.

--Tom

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Angostura]

No straw person intended. The paragraph in the parent that really irked me was the one that said:

"Secondary characteristic: if you take a property away from the owner, the owner no longer has access to it. Take a book away from me, and you have stolen my property. Take an image of the book, and I still have the book; nothing has been stolen."

The implication in 'nothing being stolen' being that we have some kind of victimless crime, or indeed no crime.

There are many ways of using 'steal' in the English language - and you are arguing that we should limit ourselves to a legal meaning as defined by property law.

However there is a rich tradition of other meanings in English - steal a kiss, steal an idea, steal a girlfriend, none of which pertain to property law, but all of which express the removal of an intangible thing.

Copyright breach is a wonderful term for those who wish to obfuscate the damage that such an act can inflict on a person or corporation. 'He stole my lyrics' is a perfectly clear and unambiguous statement in English.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[hal9000(jr)]

I'd say that the response to this by many people reading this would be fuck them. If they're greedy enough to subscribe to this silly notion of expecting to be paid for their creative output, then they deserve what they can get.

And you would be wrong. My response to you for depriving me of income from work and effort that I have put into a creative piece of work would be fuck you and there he is officer, arrest him. It is not up to you to decide the cost or benfit that is due a creator.

There is nothing wrong with people charging for creative works. There is something very wrong with someone else taking that work without paying for it.

And trying to use the American Indian situation as support for your arguments shows that you don't have a grasp of either situation.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

Your indignation is indeed righteous, but entirely misplaced. I agree 100% with you. My post is summarizing what I think is the feeling of many Slashdotters. If you don't agree with me that the attitude I've describe is prevalent, stick around here a while. You'd be amazed at what lengths people will go to to justify violating others' intellectual property rights.

"And trying to use the American Indian situation as support for your arguments shows that you don't have a grasp of either situation."

Do tell. Sorry, but I think that these situations have everything to do with each other in terms of mob behavior. Our ancestors justified taking land from the Indians, and today we justify helping ourselves to others' intellectual property. I am definitely most not trying to equate killing an entire race vs. merely hurting somebody's livelihood; my point is that as a human race we're quite predictable.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[espressojim]

If you tell me that I can only be creative for my own enjoyment, and can't make money off it, then I'll tell you this: Nobody is going to create music, movies, etc anymore.

There will be nothing left for you to enjoy, because people will not have any incentive to produce works and distribute them.

If you're ok with that, great. But don't expect the same quality of movies, music, etc to be released. These things take time and money to create.

And no, I'm not talking about Hollywood trash, I'm talking about indie music, movies, etc. Where am I going to 'perform' my movie (which is some people's justification for music)?

If you want everything for free, you can have it...but there'll be nothing created you want.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

"If you tell me that I can only be creative for my own enjoyment, and can't make money off it, then I'll tell you this: Nobody is going to create music, movies, etc anymore."

Agreed. I applaud those people who do take the effort to create and release artistic works purely for the public good and for their own enjoyment, and if that little community thrives, then God bless them.

However, I don't think too highly of people who embrace the "info wants to be free" belief only as a means to provide moral absolution for helping themselves to others' work without the creators' permission. Information wants to be free? Great, then help yourself to the works of others who willingly make it freely available -- there's certainly a lot out there, although I can't vouch for the quality. But if somebody hasn't given you permission, then respect their wishes.

"If you want everything for free, you can have it...but there'll be nothing created you want."

Well put. And as an aside, I have a feeling that Marco and others who share his viewpoint generally aren't churning out huge volumes of music, film and other works of art that are in huge demand.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[10101001 10101001]

If you tell me that I can only be creative for my own enjoyment, and can't make money off it, then I'll tell you this: Nobody is going to create music, movies, etc anymore.

Actually, you can make money off of your creativity. But the free market will end up making it such that only live performances will get you any serious money, as publishers (be it online or offline) will make the bulk of the money from redistribution of the same song.

There will be nothing left for you to enjoy, because people will not have any incentive to produce works and distribute them.

Lets go back in time over 500 years to a time when there weren't books, CDs, or movies. Was there creative works? Hell yea. You can go back all the way to the Roman Coliseum or the Greek plays (a few obvious examples) to find entertainment. Shakespeare had to contend with pretty heavy piracy of his work as in England at the time actors were considered scum, so there was no legal protection offered to plays. Yet, amazingly Shakespeare and company routinely performed to sold-out houses. Why? Because that's all the entertainment there was.

Now, back to the present. Imagine if there wasn't a way to protect your copyrighted works from piracy. What then? Well, beyond the lock publishers would have on distributing really cheap versions of all the new plays, people would be forced to go out to plays more and music halls to meet people if they wanted to stay fashionable. With everything selling cheap, you'd get a glut of spam music/movies otherwise (publishers would be desperate for the attention for their massive plethora of goods).

So, I can only partially agree with your statement. Works would still be produced, there'd still be things to enjoy, but artists surely would not be the main force behind distribution of copies.

If you're ok with that, great. But don't expect the same quality of movies, music, etc to be released. These things take time and money to create.

You're probably right about there being a lot less extravagant movies and music. You'd likely see most publishers distributing concert bootlegs. Few (no?) publisher would be willing to have the exclusive rights to a "clean" version of a song/play because other publishers would near instantly redistribute it to others for the same or cheaper price. It'd only be stuff like brand loyalty that'd make people still go with a company. But how strong would that really be?

Where am I going to 'perform' my movie (which is some people's justification for music)?

It's called a play. Theater isn't completely dead, yet.

If you want everything for free, you can have it...but there'll be nothing created you want.

No, I think that if everything were near free, there'd be a lot less content, but even then we the people would be utterly spammed by the backlog of old content as well as current content, and people would be motivated to go to concerts and plays more because it'd be the only way they'd feel like they invested in something worthwhile.

Btw, my real concern of all the people you mention is the author. Even great authors, as storytellers, would likely have a much harder time competing against concerts and plays than books do against CDs and DVDs. At the same time, I think you'd find a lot more interesting storytellers out there who would live off of their performances. I'm pretty sure I'd much more enjoy the one-on-one interactions with the author than the situation that's of current.

And just to continue on this side-thread about books, you might be interested to know that Samuel Clemens was all for having infinite copyright length. Now, while I get the impression that this was at least somewhat his own selfishness, he makes a good point as well. That point is this: the removal of copyright in his time simply meant more profit for the publisher. There wasn't any incentive to decrease the price of the book because few, if any, other publishers were

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[kylemonger]

What do you say to film producer who produced a world wide smash hit but is only able to recover $20 of a $1,000,000 production cost?

Sounds vaguely familiar.

"Won't programmers starve?"

I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else.

But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.

The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now.

The above is excerpted from the GNU Manifesto.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[wheelbarrow]

You are already living in a world where you can choose to produce or consume movies that are not protected by copyright. Why not practice what you preach? From this point forward, only consume movies that are not protected by copyright. Likewise, please produce some high budget blockbuster hits that are not protected by copyright.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[shark72]

"Shakespeare had to contend with pretty heavy piracy of his work as in England at the time actors were considered scum, so there was no legal protection offered to plays. Yet, amazingly Shakespeare and company routinely performed to sold-out houses. Why? Because that's all the entertainment there was."

Shakespeare's family was pretty well off. His troupe called themselves the "King's Men," and they were in pretty good with the Queen. There was legal protection afforded to plays, and Shakespeare and his crew relied on that protection more than one time when they found unauthorized versions of their works being produced elsewhere.

However, we owe our nearly-complete collection of his oeuvre to piracy. For some of his work, the only copies we have are unauthorized.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

who on earth modded that up?

it reads like the insane ramblings of a drugged horse.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[a whoabot]

You're being unreasonable. Why you feel compelled to mention what I do in this regard is beyond me. You can comment on my own way of life as much as you like, but it doesn't affect the argument at hand. Further, there's no way you can know what I do, maybe I do only consume public domain movies.

This all misses on another, larger level as well, as I'm not an advocate of copyright law revision in the first place.

Again, you seem to be arguing the same thing but instead of pointing out the consequences that proposed copyright revisions would have on future content producers, you just allude to them, wrapped up in a near attack on my own personal actions, which you can only speculate on(despite that you do play the chances correctly in your guess that I don't only consume movies in the public domain, and that I won't in the future).

Even if I was preaching, I wouldn't have to practice it. Maybe I'm a really mean guy, doesn't mean if I tell my kids that they should be kind and fair that being kind and fair is not good advice. Maybe it's not, but it's not affected by my disposition.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

The creator of a work loses control of that work the second they make it public. IP laws try to alter this fact, but they don't; and why, exactly, should one have the right to control all copies, instances and derivatives of a pattern of information they created, if they choose to reveal it to strangers in return for money?

You want control of an idea? Simple, keep it to yourself.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[KidSock]

Why the hell is this drivel modded "Interesting". Wiping out the native american indians is "fundamental group behavior"? This guy is a psycho.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, except... you'd be surprised to find out just how many unprofessional, semi-insane, or poor spelling/grammer/intellect ADULTS are online. For some reason our image of online users have much lower ages than their real ones. That's why seeing photos of them is often quite a shocking experience.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[espressojim]

So, basically, in order for people to get their free music, we need to give up some art forms (movies), switch back to very small distributions (you can come see my play, performing in my city for a few months, instead of renting the DVD), and we will not have any more of the 'extravagant' works we used to have.

Oh, and regarding the musicians who can only make music off their performances: You're aware that there are people (individuals, mostly) who compose multi-part, extremely layered music, and just DON'T TOUR. Let's write to them, and tell them to fuck off, because they can't make a cent, doing what they do best.

I applaud your desire to squash creativity, and limit artists creativity to what they could pull off 500 years ago. Oh, but while you're making that comparison to 500 years ago, ignore all the changes in technology of the last 500 years.

Personally, I want to see artists skip the middle man, and distribute their own works. That way, they don't need to sell a million copies of a CD. They can charge more 'reasonable' rates - say a buck or 3, and sell 50,000-100,000 cd's. THat'll cover their costs, and provide some standard of living. Do they want to tour? Great, hook 'em up with some more cash.

I still don't know what people could do to preserve other art forms that have been invented in the last 500 years. Oh well, fuck the artist. Maybe they can perform that new movie "The tragedy of the commons."

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Andrew Cady]

Here, here! I'm fet up with spelling errors, too.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Angostura]

>IP laws try to alter this fact, but they don't.

Well, in fact - they do. They make it possible to gain remuneration from intellectual work.

>You want control of an idea? Simple, keep it to yourself

Which sadly precludes the possibility of gaining remuneration from intellectual work.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[10101001 10101001]

It seems like you're desperately trying to distort what I said. Even without copyright, there will still be publishers putting out CDs and DVDs because most people are willing to pay for the convenience of getting a disc instead of spending the time/effort to track down things themselves. So, concerts and plays will be "bootlegged" just like anything else, but people will still go to concerts and plays like they do now, and probably they'll do it more just because it feels better to watch a play in person than to watch it from someone's "cam" rip of the event.

Without many movies being in production (I'm certain low-budget films will continue to be made), play prices will likely go down which means a lot more local entertainment which I'm sure a lot of artists would love. Those who don't want to tour to make money are basically in a bind. But, then that's the way the free market works. The world doesn't owe such people a living. If they want to do the art as a career, they have to think of a way to make money.

None of this is a desire to squash creativity. I think it's funny that you have such a limited view of the subject. I would think the monoculture of a few distributors of movies and music would do much more to destroy creativity than anything. And I'm not trying to ignore the technology of 500 years. The ability to play back music flawlessly millions of times in every home without the need of a musician has certainly been a huge reduction in costs for people.

At the same time, people still go to concerts because music and plays are more than just about hearing/watching the static past actions of others. It's about getting to know/meet the people who make the art to further understand it. And it's to see the various ways in which the play/music evolves given that most artists alter their work as inspirating has them rewrite it.

I can't think of an artform that was invented in the last 500 years that cannot be done by small groups of individuals. Yes, movies as of current are very extravagant affairs, but their basic construction can be done with a good bit of time and lots of technology that's readily available.

The thing then that's missing to "preserve other art forms" is having massive amounts of money. The ideal life of the rock star with millions of dollars to blow and culture surrounding it might die. To me such culture can be preserved in history in plays. It doesn't need to be preserved in the making of the rich. It's just not much of a loss, in my eyes.

Finally, "the tragedy of the commons" is in various ways a bad analogy for the situation. The commons is a finite, grassy area which the industry of raising sheep was based. Without an owner or owners to divide up the commons and control it, each sheep owner was only as interested in, and had as much control in, keeping their own sheep fed. The tragedy of the commons doesn't decry how innovation doesn't occur. It decries how without ownership production of the norm disappears. But, clearly artworks already created do not disappear. You're crying out about the loss of *new* works of art, be them in the same genres that exist or new genres that do not exist yet.

Works already created are effectively infinite. To prevent pollution of a work, there could be the right of attribution without ever a need of ownership. No one needs to own works that already exist to continue their preservation. The only things that are needed are a means of gaining a copy (pay someone, if necessary) and a way to verify its integrity (attribution law + verification software conceivably).

There's a commons of information around you. It's the basis of the free market and democracy. Without it, one stumbles in the dark without any thoughts. People learning ideas does not diminish your knowledge, and them possing copies in books or other physical media does not diminish your ability to be creative in the alteration of existing works or in creating new works whose wonderment will cause them to lon

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, copyright-protected files are the most common files found on P2P networks.

For the love of god, can people please learn the difference between copyrighted files and copyrighted files that the author hasn't granted a license to distribute for.

Yes, copyrighted files are the most common files found on P2P networks. That's because damn near everything is automatically copyrighted at the moment it is fixed into a tangible medium.

Perhaps you meant that the majority of the material found on P2P networks are being copied illegally. But you didn't say that. You said something else, and now people have to look carefully at the rest of your comment to try and figure out what you are trying to say.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[jp10558]

I still want to know why the Pro-Copyright people feel that an author's work is worth many times as much as, say, a doctors work?

The doctor works for a year, and expects to get paid for that year at his salary or from his practice.

The author is the same, works for a year, and expects to get paid for the year from his publisher or whatever.

What I don't get is what happens the second year.

The doctor expects to see new patients, or have return visits from the same patients, and get paid for his work that year.

The author expects to do nothing new, and get paid AGAIN for the work he already did last year.

To that I say WTF??? Why does society feel this is right and good? Why doesn't the doctor get to rebill his patients in perpetuity for the work he did that one year?

Why the double standard?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[espressojim]

Finally, "the tragedy of the commons" is in various ways a bad analogy for the situation. The commons is a finite, grassy area which the industry of raising sheep was based. Without an owner or owners to divide up the commons and control it, each sheep owner was only as interested in, and had as much control in, keeping their own sheep fed. The tragedy of the commons doesn't decry how innovation doesn't occur. It decries how without ownership production of the norm disappears. But, clearly artworks already created do not disappear. You're crying out about the loss of *new* works of art, be them in the same genres that exist or new genres that do not exist yet.

The tragedy of the commons is that everyone wants to take music, movies, and other entertainment content for free. But once there's no incentive to create them, the commons will be destroyed (overgrazed, if you will), and there will be nothing left to take.

I'm sorry. Art takes time and money to create. I know and have worked with amature film makers, am friends with 2 groups of community theater people, hang out with tons of semi-professional musicians.

They all need money to excel at their work. If you want them to work for little to no money, then they will not have the time to produce many, if any works. As it is, most of them count themselves LUCKY if they are able to break even on any given project.

Break even does not mean they had a million dollar cocaine party. They work full time jobs, and breaking even pays for materials, software licenses, etc. Their salaries for working on their projects are effectively $0.

How many people do you spend time with who are in the creative fields? What have you been publishing? How much did it cost for you to do your last theater production?

Are you an idealist, or are you an active participant in the field?

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[mhearne]

Back in the early '80's, an effort was made to eradicate hand-rolled cigarettes, because the papers could be used to roll dope. When it was pointed out that aluminum foil could be used for the same purpose, they changed their tack, but not their attitude.

Going after the downloaders is just stupidity. They have to go after the top-level providers, not third-level distributors like they did with Napster, nor their rather insignificant clients.

I use Linux exclusively, and torrents are the best way to download distributions and .iso's. I have never downloaded music or any sort of video - just legitimate data.

I will not tolerate having my torrents monitored any more than I would submit to drug testing. It is all a load of horse biscuits.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[javaxman]

Wow. That was really cool, thanks, guys. I had no idea that usage of the word was so old.

Re:This "paper" is a mess

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that this info got any mod points, mind you...

Bleh

[daniil]

I'd say that it's a bit too late for such manifestos. It's not 1995 anymore. P2P is not something emerging, something that needs to make itself manifest -- it's reality. Heck, taking into account all the lawsuits and anti-piracy laws, it will soone be the past.

Try again. And try doing something real, instead of writing silly manifestoes devoid of any content.

Re:Bleh

[wernercd]

Heck, taking into account all the lawsuits and anti-piracy laws, it will soone be the past.

No offense but since sharing music over networks is still rampant DESPITE all the lawsuits YEARS after the lawsuits started.... Wouldn't it be logical to assume that maybe, just maybe, P2P will stick around also?

I'll agree the original article wasn't that well articulated. I know third graders that write better.

But to say that P2P is 'soon to be past' is shortsighted and lacking any exploration of history. History repeats itself.

Peace

Re:Bleh

[Anonymous Coward]

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."
-- Mark Twain

Re:Bleh

[daniil]

Will you belive me if i say that it was meant as tongue-in-cheek?

Either way, no matter whether p2p will be dealt a mortal blow by anti-piracy laws or not, i doubt that this guy's "manifesto" (and its derivatives, if there will ever be any) will affect the future of p2p in any way. He's just a poser.

Re:Bleh

[Taladar]

Don't forget there is a world outside your small box named US. A lot of countries haven't introduced any new copyright laws and the eagerness of the US to do so will encourage this behaviour in some countries around the world. Not everyone follows the US example, there are quite a few countries who do just the opposite.

Re:Bleh

[bob beta]

Do said countries produce any mass-culture content that anybody in particular wants to listen to or view?

Perhaps it's time for the US to begin producing highly corrosive pornographic and violent entertainment content, solely for export to said countries.

Re:Bleh

[wernercd]

Perhaps it's time for the US to begin producing highly corrosive pornographic and violent entertainment content, solely for export to said countries.

You apparently don't surf much or go to the movies much. That's not needed. We already make 'bad' stuff that's exported. We make it for ourselves tho. Any light attempts at finding that garbage will yeild huge results. It's called google :)

Peace

Great

[bert.cl]

Although I wouldn't call this a study. In a study you would also highlight (or at least mention) some of the disadvantages. P2P is se isn't perfect, it might needs some corrections. I like your idea, and as you will probably reply to my post, it's up to people to adress these disadvantages and come up with solution. Still, doing a "study" or a "project" without naming the possible disadvantages, seems more like astroturfing et al. than actually contributing to the subject. I will now go on and read the pages :).

My apologies if you actually did insert some limitations, but the blurb doesn't mention any, and as any other /. reader, I reply without reading TFA :)

Fools

[Donny Smith]

That childish crap is totally useless to their cause.

No sane person denies that P2P is useful for certain purposes. The problem is about the bad side of P2P which is that it is unrestricted playground for IPR violations.

They would be better off by
a) creating PR campaign against P2P abuse (quite useless as well, but still...)
b) working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients (of course, they don't want to do that)

So, the effect of their action will be naught - those who use P2P will continue using it, those who don't will not use it.

Re:Fools

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

b) working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients

Also, I should have to pay with time, money, and effort to have anti-stolen-cash technology installed in my wallet.

Re:Fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who believes that P2P has any other purpose other than trading copyrighted material is a fool. That's what ppl use it for, and that is what it will always be used for... at least 99% of the traffic at any rate.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to check my downloads... long live P2P ;)

I downloaded the manifesto but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...only got 30 pages of repetitive obscenity-filled paragraphs, written by Madonna. Anyone got a good copy?

Connotation

[Gogela]

Manifesto has a real negative ring to it. Let's call this thing "the titles of P2P"... thus altering the connotation from a crazyman's ramblings to that of a declaration of independence.

Re:Connotation

[stratjakt]

A written declaration of an individual or group's ideas, purposes, and intentions.

In other words, a manifesto has nothing to do with facts or thruths, only agendas and propaganda.

This "oh poor me I shouldnt have to pay for Britney Spears because I don't like her" crap is aptly titled.

Re:Connotation

[Anonymous Coward]

The tern "Manifesto" has negative connotations, primarily in the United States of America and, to a lesser extent, the countries which share its spere of influence. This is due to the Communist Manifesto, penned by Karl Marx. Interestingly enough, Communist has devolved into a derogatory term in the same areas. In the areas where Communist is not a swear word, Manifesto also does not infer the incoherent ramblings of a lunatic, placed in print to corrupt the world

Do you see a correlation?

Re:Connotation

[Anonymous Coward]

The connotation is apt, but the negative connotation of 'manifesto' is not strong enough. 'Screed' gets my vote, or maybe 'tirade'.

And if we are free to change this document I'd like to suggest: "warning, comma, misuse, and! other - random? punctuation?" be placed in a forward.

Re:Connotation

[Blakey Rat]

Don't forget the Unibomber Manifesto... that guy was sure a ray of sunshine and hope to the world.

Re:Connotation

[Anonymous Coward]

Compared to the RIAA, he sure as hell was.

Oh, and one more thing

[daniil]

Manifestos are so 1909.

Interesting

[Fizzlewhiff]

But I think I will wait 8 or 9 years for the Brian Hook analysis.

P2P = Pirate 2 Pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be darned if there were any P2P programs that were used mostly for distributing legal files (public domain books, linux or bsd distributions) and free speech, and not for piracy.

Re:P2P = Pirate 2 Pirate

[Anonymous Coward]

FreeNet? It's pretty damn hard to use it for anything, which means most pirates won't touch it and only people that need to use it will.

The problem is...

[PornMaster]

...it is a crazy man's ramblings.

Re:The problem is...

[arturov]

Not too harsh on the eyes? Maybe, but he bears an uncanny resemblance to a certain Patrick Bateman, and as such will probably gouge them out with an ice-cream scoop. This probably explains a bit about his insane ramblings.

Re:Thing is

[Anonymous Coward]

i didin't know Tom Cruise wass still in high school

Dude

[Anonymous Coward]

He's on Slashdot... he's famous! Now he can tell all his friends that he's been "Slashdotted" and can legally wear the "I was Slashdotted and all I got was a smoking server and this lousy t-shirt" t-shirt!

Nothing new...

[Lepaca Kliffoth]

http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc That's from 2 years ago, a very well made study by Microsoft about the darknets. The "bad guys" already know that P2P is unstoppable, the battle we're watching day by day is only a facade.

Re:Nothing new...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://crypto.stanford.edu/DRM2002/darknet5.doc

Re:Nothing new...

[warriorpostman]

I just read the first page of the document/study at that link, and I already see more content and points of technical interest in first page then I did in that horrific p2p manifesto. Thanks.

Not to mention the lack of English skills

[System.out.println()]

I can respect the fact that the author is not a native English speaker, but at least get a respectable translation! I think the last google automatic translation I got was more legible than this.

Re:Not to mention the lack of English skills

[Andrewkov]

Doesn't Google have an option to translate from ID-Ten to English?

..."Study"?

[Stween]

This guy doesn't seem to be aware that Peer-to-Peer application design is simply not new, it's only that people have become aware of "P2P" concepts thanks to Napster and successive file-sharing networks.

Page 13:
"Take back technology of let's say 20 years"... yet 30 years ago, peer-to-peer protocols were dominant in the Internet. Hmm.

Further, for a study, I'd expect some references. With interesting things such as, you know, FACTS and FIGURES. He seems to present an argument, with no data to back it up. This is like a high school report.

He seems to write.

In such a manner that William Shatner.

Would be proud of.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of this story is. Can someone please enlighten me?

Re:..."Study"?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no point to this story other than the fact that the author is full of himself.
He thinks he is so knowledgeable. Well he is out of his little pond now and into the big ocean now.
Let's critise him.

Re:..."Study"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please enlighten me?

Mu.

Re:..."Study"?

[IAmNotACowboy]

slow news day

Re:..."Study"?

[slinky259]

I'm not sure what you did in high school, but this sounds more like 6th grade writing. Even the ninth graders at my school would laugh at this.

Re:..."Study"?

[Stween]

I'm not familiar with American terminology, but 6th grade appears to be around the age of 12.

"High School" here in the UK refers to secondary education which starts at around the age of 11 (varying slightly certainly between Scotland and England).

danger

[AnonymousCactus]

I think there is a very real danger of this only being contributed to by hardcore proponents of P2P and the danger in that is that no one will subjectively evaluate alternatives. The academic research seems to suggest that P2P isn't necessarily the best alternative and that something more centralized like Napster or really centralized like a client-server model but where anyone can upload/download is better in terms of overall cost...at least for legal stuff.

For this to be useful both sides must be presented well and P2P still win...if that doesn't happen then it's not worth much of anything.

Re:danger

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Of course centralization is more efficient on several points. Decentralization was the fool's answer to legal attacks. Now the lawyer's are busy chasing down this individual or that individual. Decentralization offers no legal safety, no political safety. They should have been working on anonymity.

No one can sue you, if they can't figure out who you are.

They should also have been working on deniability. Freenet may offer anonymity, but when freenet is outlawed, it will be pretty obvious what IP addresses are participating in freenet. If the only software you run seems to be legitimate, and if everyone doesn't have to use the same software as everyone else to participate...

formatting is everything!

[focitrixilous P]

This study (30 pages, available on a dedicated blog, in pdf format or in .torrent/blogtorrent) explain why: - P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users

This is the worst formatting ever - It could be so much improved - By using commas instead of dashes - So people could actually read and understand - The summary a little bit - And this reeks of buzzwords - P2P this and P2P is positive - P2P is a scalable enterprise solution - With high ROI return synergy

Re:formatting is everything!

[Vaevictis666]

Actually, I think he just submitted his article with line breaks, not html, and it came out looking something like this:

...explain why:
- P2P is unstoppable
- P2P is positive for Companies
- P2P is positive for the market
- P2P is good for users

and it just got all bunched up because our editors aren't editing, just modifying.

Not a Manifesto!

[civman2]

Guys, Bill Gates already thinks we're communists!

Resistance is futile

[moonboi]

with P2P app as small as 15 line of code and broadband in more than 50% of Amerian houses File sharing is here to stay

Re:Resistance is futile

[aardvarkjoe]

Perhaps you could try borrowing a little punctuation from the guy who wrote the article; he seems to have too much.

And again...

[vyrus128]

... one for the "Peer2Peer" section!

Infringement "solutions"

[StupidKatz]

How about simply telling people not to copy what they didn't pay for? Nope, it won't be effective, but the alternative, working with interested parties to include anti-piracy code in P2P clients, makes it sound like it's the software author's fault.

What sort of "anti-piracy code" sdo you think will work?
Filters? Nope, there have been past stories here about the borkups caused by content owners not checking the results filters gave them.
Tie the software into a big content comparison DB? Let's see that one scale.
A back-door pass to control which files can or can't be traded? Hell no.

No simple solution. Best thing is to keep doing that the RIAA is doing... sue the infringing users. Of course, I wish they'd actually make sure that the folks they sue actually have been infringing.

Re:Infringement "solutions"

[Stonehand]

As noted, there's the legal stick -- suing, probably focusing on those offering the most with the highest bandwidth, as the big-time distributors are probably easier to track. They likely also want lots of attendant publicity, to scare those who are sitting on the fence into not starting.

They can also attack the P2P systems themselves through technological means, such as trying to flood the networks with bogus offerings (corrupted files, servers that drastically slow down during the download, etc) and perhaps sending numerous download requests to the big sharers to drive up their bandwidth costs -- although there's probably a line into DOS that they might not want to cross. They can attempt to make these networks inconvenient to use.

They could theoretically also attempt to reduce the incentive to download by offering alternative services or content that users might pay for, or dropping prices, but it's tricky to compete with "free". Perhaps offering a chance at concert tickets or backstage passes, or that sort of thing -- perks which cannot be trivially duplicated.

Re:Infringement "solutions"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not free, it takes time and the results are often really subpar, so competition isn't really difficult. It's just not all that profitable.

Re:Infringement "solutions"

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be suprised at what people will accept for free. Yes, it is still "free", regardless of how much time is spent.

jesus h.

[maxpublic]

Who wrote this crap? A 12-year-old with a hard-on for free porn and illegal warez? The quality of the 'manifesto' made me think there should be a "like, dude!" at the end of every sentence.

Max

Re:jesus h.

[scribblej]

Marco is Assistant Professor at Cattolica University, Milan (Italy), of "Theories and techniques of online communication", faculty of Arts and Philosophy.
----

I don't know the guy, this is on the webpage mentioned int he article. He certainly doesn't seem intelligent enough to be a professor of anything. Even if I let him slide a bit for being a non-native english speaker, the paper is still *awful.*

It hurts

[News for nerds]

to see too many P2P in a short P2P story paragraph and consequently I lost my P2P interest in the P2P paper.

Wikipedia

[burbankmarc]

I think you should submit this to Wikipedia, I think all knowledge on the planet should be put into Wikipedia...

Re:Wikipedia

[koniosis]

If he submits it to Wikipedia I'd go straight on there and delete the whole thing and replace it with a picture of a huge steaming turd, since they are equivilent and the turd takes less time to view.

Re:Wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

Less time, but likely more bandwidth. Something to consider.

PEDANT PARTY!

[stratjakt]

Ok, this is the most poorly written "FA" ever posted on slashdot. As such, and in my opinion, it should be go down in lore with the likes of goatse, hot grits, Soviet Russia, and our giant ant overlords.

It makes "All your base" read like Shakespeare!

I dedicate this thread to shredding this raging bozo, and hereby retaliate in the name of the King's English.

I'll kick things off with my favorite.

In this case in order to put it on Winmx it will be not even necessary to convert it from analogical to digital

Re:PEDANT PARTY!

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't been the King's English for quite a while.
52 years in fact.

Re:PEDANT PARTY!

[stratjakt]

Sounds like you just hit on the problem.

It should be the Kings English again, that way we'd need royal approval before adding made up nonsense words like "blog" or "spam" to the lexicon, when perfectly cromulent words already exist.

Re:PEDANT PARTY!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can start up a business benefiting of P2P, almost in every human being fields.

In fact, we are going to do that today. We are converting all our expensive software into P2P and adding value to shift the paradime. We will profit!!

Re:PEDANT PARTY!

[Spodlink05]

While you're slagging off his English, I thought I should point out that his email address appears to be Italian. Not everybody's first language is English you know...

hehe hoho haha

[koniosis]

this 'Manifesto' is a joke right? It sounds like someone talking about how great the 'Power Rangers' is on Cartoon Network, how unstoppable and amzing they are, my god even the most powerful demon in the universe can't stop them!!1onehundredthousandonehundredandandeleven

Re:hehe hoho haha

[koniosis]

Here, you want a paragraph which is more meaningful, better structured and readable:

"P2P has a lot of potential for reducing costs and increasing bandiwdth for distributing data but the technology needs to be developed furthur to protect the rights of content creators. Current solutions are synonmous with illegal pirating of music, films and applications, this is a stigma that will be hard to shift if current P2P technologies continue to allow this illegal distribution."P2P has a lot of potential for reducing costs and increasing bandwidth for distributing data but the technology needs to be developed further to protect the rights of content creators. Current solutions are synonymous with illegal pirating of music, films and applications; this is a stigma that will be hard to shift if current P2P technologies continue to allow this illegal distribution."

I'm sorry to slate someone so coldly, but honestly the article offers little fact and is practically illegible, I find it hard to take the author seriously. Do you disagree with me? Do you admit that you could also write something more meaningful in little or no time?

Version 2.0

[Anonymous Coward]

The author better be careful:

All the readers can create their own P2P Manifesto, free to edit this original P2P manifesto. The idea is to then collect on the blog all the different P2P Manifesto's releases, to create a good knowledge base point about P2P issues."

Version 2.0
P2P is NOT unstoppable
P2P is NOT positive for Companies
P2P is NOT positive for the market
P2P is NOT good for users

-RIAA

O'Reilly disease

[Catbeller]

I see a lot of ad hominem nastiness here. Try some arguments. Screaming that someone is stupid, a communist, or a kid is ripped straight from the Bill O'Reilly handbook. This is what passes for "arguments" on the lunatic right fringe, which unfortunately is pretty much what passes for news for most people today. Falafel-filled sadness. Sigh.

Re:O'Reilly disease

[Thundersnatch]

This is what passes for "arguments" on the lunatic right fringe, which unfortunately is pretty much what passes for news for most people today.

Really? The facts support the opposite conclusion, since more than 80% of journalists are democrats.

Re:O'Reilly disease

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think a report on a site that self-labels "The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias" is probably completely Fair and Balanced.

And the statement didn't follow logically. And it was off-topic. And it was a troll. But we don't expect much of your type. Go watch NASCAR and drink yourself the death.

Incoherence != manifesto

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

It's a disconnected bunch of phrases, as if he jotted down a bunch of ideas for his "manifesto", but forgot to link them into a coherent whole.

I suggest you learn to write, then try again.

Middle School

[Anonymous Coward]

"You know what does it mean? It means that Market is changed, technology is changed, consumers approach is changed, business is changed."

This guy needs to go back to middle school.

P2P is Awesome

[BarryNorton]

"My name is Marco and I can't stop thinking about P2P. P2P is cool; and by cool I mean totally sweet."

Re:P2P is Awesome

[Nspace13]

Facts:

1. P2P are softwareses.
2. P2P spews bits ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the P2P is to flip out and hurt Metallica's bottom line.

Testimonial:

P2P can kill any band's ability to make money! P2P can cut off the flow of money ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These programs are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this P2P program that was running on a computer in a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon it downloaded the whole britney spears collection in like 5 seconds. My friend Mark said that he saw a P2P program totally suck up all his bandwidth just because he tried to download anna kornikova naked.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't believe that P2P has REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop WASD fingers right off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

P2P is sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. These programs are totally awesome and that's a fact. P2P is fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I love P2P with all of my body (including my pee pee).

Re:P2P is Awesome

[espressojim]

I can't decide. Is the parent post satire, or plagurism?

And, could I steal someone's ideas, and just modifiy a few words with find-replace over a P2P network?

Re:P2P is Awesome

[Nspace13]

i was going for satir., it seems that the ultimate power site has been parodied so many times that it is just an open target. also hopefully it is taken as somewhat a tribute to the awe-inspiring wonderfulness that is the original ultimate power ninja site. You can find the ultimate power parody site here and there is a really long list at the bottom of links to all the different parodies that this guy has collected. enjoy.

my p2p manifesto

[br00tus]

I've a developed p2p program (Gnutizen - it can search and download files in Gnutella, but it's still beta and buggy) and have many ideas of where p2p can go in a technical sense. But if one puts sharing copyrighted works aside, there seems to be one main purpose to p2p - lowering distribution costs. If I am some kid in Portugal who writes a great Linux distribution, but can't afford to pay for the bandwidth of many people download 700MB ISO's from a web server every day, I can instead put up a torrent and leave it with one seed, throttling the speed to whatever I want.

Of course, p2p right now is often thought of as a single file - an ISO, an mpg, an mp3, a zip file). I see nugget has posted in this thread - the peer-to-peer programs which he currently helps maintain use p2p to do operation distribution, not file distribution. As does Folding@Home (which studies protein/gene problems in a distributed manner) and SETI. GPU is interesting in this respect as you are the one deciding what operations to perform - from adding 1 and 1, to calculating pi, to whatever. I really like Freenet - it is a very versatile protocol so that web pages, Usenet type forums, and even (small) file trading are all possible. I've even seen people play chess games over frost. And as a bonus, there is the option of (some degree of) anonymity on Freenet, so that is an added bonus.

I really would love to see someone with no money to host such thing create something as complex as Slashdot, with moderation system and all, and do it over p2p, maybe on something like Freenet, or maybe something else. The same with things like Wikipedia. Nowadays, the little guy is punished by high bandwidth costs if what he made is popular. With p2p this is not a problem any more.

But where are the facts & figures?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry that I wasted my time reading this. It didn't tell me one thing that I didn't already understand! There were very few real "facts" it was mostly just opinion shored up by other people's opinions. That doesn't make it wrong but it does nothing to cement the author's opinion either!

First I have no doubt that P2P is here to stay in one form or another. IP rights be damned, there will be P2P sharing - that is easy to see. There are faults though, how can you tell if a file is real or fake? How do you know that the owner's copyright is being honored or disobeyed?

Who is responsible for downloading an illegtimate copy of a copyrighted work? Is it the person who downloaded it (and posesses it)? Is it the person who shared it but downloaded it from someone else not knowing they violated the copyright? Is it the person who originally shared it? Or, is it all of the above? Legally the answer is likely to be all of the above but morally and ethically, there is some room for grey in this black and white issue.

Currently, using P2P file sharing is kind of like having unprotected sex with a stranger. It may be fun, and there may be some rewards but there is also risk. Risk of infection, risk of prosicution... And this is all before you consider the moral and ethical questions of what is right and what is wrong...

Clearly, we can protect ourselves to some degree from viruses and spyware using the protection afforded by anti-virus and anti-spyware applications but we remain wide open to the prosicution angle of being wrong. And the "Honest, I didn't know she was fifteen" excuse won't work here either! This means that there needs to be a DRM system built to work with P2P networks, a system that verifies the legitamacy of the file, the license required, and the person who authorized the sharing of the file.

From where I stand, I can't see this as existing quite yet. I'm sure that somewhere along the line someone will have a brilliant idea that will make something like this happen. But until then, can you really trust? Is the risk of it worth it?

Re:But where are the facts & figures?

[thegnu]

Currently, using P2P file sharing is kind of like having unprotected sex with a stranger.

Yes, and in the early days of sex, that was how it was done. Nowadays we have condoms, marriage, etc. This is a bad analogy I'm using, but you started it. The point is that p2p is in its early stages. As soon as someone with any clout has the balls and brains to utilize p2p, it'll explode.

EFL

[Anonymous Coward]

English isn't this guy's native language - he's Italian. Unfortunately the only way to get the word out in this world is using English. Discount the ideas, but it's just mean to make fun of the English.

Re:EFL

[ryen]

And since the "only way to get the word out in this world is using English" then, if this "kid" had any sensibility, he would have found someone competent in English to translate it.
Sure its not fun to make fun of someone's poor English, but its a blast to make fun of stupidity, and the tone of this "manifesto" reeks of it.

users want to share all information

[Anonymous Coward]

Press release from Redmond soon to come...

The TCO of P2P under Microsoft Windows is clearly superior to implementing P2P on Linux-based systems. With tightly integrated applications, lack of security, ubiquity, and many other features it's the perfect platform for sharing all your information with anyone and everyone. In fact the average Windows user on broadband has probably shared their address book already and many machines participate in serving valuable SMTP 'torrents' for erectile dysfunction treatment every day.

More Proof that Cory Doctorow is a doo-doo head

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone needs more proof that Cory is a chain-smoking high school drop-out doo-doo head, this essay provides it:

Are you not convinced Neo? Just read Microsoft Research DRM talk by Cory Doctorow and you'll understand better the problem.

Shortly: "DRM systems are usually broken in minutes, sometimes days. Rarely, months. It's not because the people who think them up are stupid. It's not because the people who break them are smart. It's not because there's a flaw in the algorithms. At the end of the day, all DRM systems share a common vulnerability: they provide their attackers with ciphertext, the cipher and the key. At this point, the secret isn't a secret anymore."

Cory is a real piece of work too. If you dare criticize his ideas in public, you will be the recipient of more foul language laced invective in a paragraph than in the Memorial Day South Park Marathon. I ask the gallery... why don't we demand that our intellectual leaders at least have a friggin college education? I know, I know... we don't even demand that they bathe yet. Our standards are soooo sad.

Oh here it goes again

[paranode]

Every time this comes up the trolls sneak out of the woodwork to say that "copyright infringement isn't stealing because they still have the original!". While technically you are not depriving them of this, you will have to face the idea that the language and the medium is changing in front of your eyes. You don't think there is such a thing as intellectual property at all? Just because there are some people who distribute ideas, images, movies and writings to the general public for free doesn't mean everyone should have to. Don't you think the original author should be the one to make that choice? In a digital era, there must exist laws to protect the ideas of people for their intended purposes, not to be copied and redistrubuted without consent.

If I "steal" cable (which is a quite common phrase), am I depriving the cable company of their "property"? No, I'm not. Does that make it alright? No, it really doesn't. Playing semantics on the words "steal" and "property" is no excuse for doing something you know is wrong.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you're depriving the cable company of bandwidth at their backhaul. A valid customer is now deprived of that bandwidth. So there's still a "physical" loss unlike copying/downloading a movie.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Anonymous Coward]

And if there weren't it'd be ok? If you wrote a book and wanted to sell it, would you be just fine and dandy if nobody bought it because some guy copied it and posted it online for all to read for free? Does he have the right to do that, in your eyes?

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Taladar]

I would say that the market should decide, not some arbitrary placed law. If people think his book/movie/... is worth it they will probably help him make the next one.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[penix1]

"And if there weren't it'd be ok? If you wrote a book and wanted to sell it, would you be just fine and dandy if nobody bought it because some guy copied it and posted it online for all to read for free? Does he have the right to do that, in your eyes?"

Is it right that fair use and the public domain is being stolen out from under us? Nothing you read, hear, or see today will be public domain in your or your grandkids lifetime. Where is the "limited time" the constitution guarantees To really fix the problem, the copyright laws need revamped to put the "limited" back in.

B.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[hal9000(jr)]

Where is the "limited time" the constitution guarantees To really fix the problem, the copyright laws need revamped to put the "limited" back in.


You want to point out in the US Constitution the section that deals with copyright please? Maybe if you read it backwards it is there ...

Re:Oh here it goes again

[UserGoogol]

The Congress shall have Power [...] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; (Article I, Section 8)

Re:Oh here it goes again

[penix1]

Actually, it is Article I, Section 8, Clause 8.

U.S. Constitution.

B.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time this comes up the trolls sneak out of the woodwork to say that "copyright infringement isn't stealing because they still have the original!".

If anybody is trolling, it's the people who repeatedly assert that copyright infringement is stealing, even though the dictionary, the law, the courts, and damn near everybody on Slashdot disagree with them.

Let's sum this up quickly. To steal something you have to take something. Copying something is not taking something as the original remains in place. Furthermore, the legislation in the USA and the UK that defines the crime of theft does not include anything about copyright infringement. And, to top it all off, the Supreme Court of the USA ruled that copyright infringement is not theft twenty years ago.

It follows that interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The Copyright Act even employs a separate term of art to define one who misappropriates a copyright... The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over the copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use. While one may colloquially link infringement with some general notion of wrongful [473 U.S. 207, 218] appropriation, infringement plainly implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

Dowling vs USA, 1985

You don't think there is such a thing as intellectual property at all? [...] Playing semantics on the words "steal" and "property" is no excuse for doing something you know is wrong.

Another typical troll tactic. Just because somebody understands the difference between copyright infringement and theft, it doesn't mean that they a) don't think intellectual property exists, or b) that copyright infringement is not wrong.

The trolls that keep telling people copyright infringement is theft don't have a leg to stand on.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Anonymous Coward]

sure they do but that's no excuse for rampant copyright infringement. you seem to want to justify this infringement by pointing at fair use issues, and two wrongs doesn't make a right.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[Anonymous Coward]

And if there weren't it'd be ok?

Where did he say that? Oh, that's right, he didn't.

Re:Oh here it goes again

[mrchaotica]

You don't think there is such a thing as intellectual property at all?

Exactly.

Just because there are some people who distribute ideas, images, movies and writings to the general public for free doesn't mean everyone should have to.

Yes it does.

Don't you think the original author should be the one to make that choice?

No.

You're might disagree, but ideas (including images, movies, and writings) are culture, and as such belong to the people (collectively). How could it be ethical to tax culture itself? Moreover, how could it be ethical to tell me what ideas I am or am not allowed to share?!

"Intellectual Property" sounds way too much like a capitalist 1984. No thanks.

Why don't you write your own?

[thegnu]

If his is so bad, click here to write your own.

Re:Why don't you write your own?

[koniosis]

Grr slashdot, heres the actual post:

Here, you want a paragraph which is more meaningful, better structured and readable:

"P2P has a lot of potential for reducing costs and increasing bandwidth for distributing data but the technology needs to be developed further to protect the rights of content creators. Current solutions are synonymous with illegal pirating of music, films and applications; this is a stigma that will be hard to shift if current P2P technologies continue to allow this illegal distribution."

I'm sorry to slate someone so coldly, but honestly the article offers little fact and is practically illegible, I find it hard to take the author seriously. Do you disagree with me? Do you admit that you could also write something more meaningful in little or no time?

Re:Why don't you write your own?

[thegnu]

I agree. I don't think I could write something better in Italian, and I think the guy is from Italy. I think if you found this by yourself while whittling away the wee hours of the night you'd not be so hard on him. I think your beef is more likely with the poster of the topic and whoever approved it.

Re:Why don't you write your own?

[koniosis]

I totally agree, I think the poster thought it would be funny; subjecting someone to all this criticism isn't a particularly nice thing to do. I appriciate the person may have spent time and effort on the report, but to be honest it should never have been submitted to slashdot in the way it was. It would have been much better for both the author and everyone else if the submitter had written something like:

"The author is Italian and would like an English speaking person to help translate his P2P manifest that he's working on. It brings up some valid points about P2P technologies albeit biased towards (illegal) file sharing, the author welcomes critism and wants to hear your views."

something like that...

The MPAA, RIAA, and BSA all smile...

[Ingolfke]

knowing that no one actually takes any "manifesto" seriously anymore, while at the same time the sponsor bloggers to write their own manifesto's citing how P2P is the best way to steal music, movies, and software.

Everyone knows...

[Stalyn]

if you want your manifesto to have any importance you have to do several things.

1. Be Insane
2. Kill or try to kill someone.
3. Send it to a credible news source.

So Marco, you got step 1, work on 2 and 3. I suggest killing Bill Gates or George W. Bush.

Re:Everyone knows...

[Anonymous Coward]

You Forgot

4. Profit !

Re:Everyone knows...

[ryen]

sadly, I think an italian news source picked up on his "manifesto" and had them on their tv news program. I dont feel like searching through the links, but there is a picture of him on tv, found in a site from a link at the bottom of the main "manifesto" page.
sad.

that

[Anonymous Coward]

was a good one! LOL. MOD UP.

About as realistic as the communist manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds good, but complete bullshit that screws over property owners in favor of freeloaders.

what a loser, or 'who is this guy'

[Anonymous Coward]

what I want to know is... Why did this 'manifesto' make it to slashdot? There are countless manifestos that deal with this, usually in a much more elegant and readable manner. Who is this freaking guy? Did he pay off CmdrTaco? What a loser, if you want to write to an english audience, learn english.

Obscene profits

[DuckFoundry]

I hate to critqie this as if it were a real paper, but...

Here's the problem: You monopolists appear to believe that you have a right to business as usual. You believe that if the rules of the marketplace change, it's not fair. You believe that you somehow deserve the private planes, the great parties, and the obscene profits.

"obscene profits" is an alert phrase. It means the writer is a borderline (or full) socialist. Once you accept that some level of profit is obscene, it opens up the question "obscene according to whom?" And usually the implication is that the person writing (or their government) should decide what is an "acceptable" level of profit.

We don't want to go down that road.

Re:Obscene profits

[donothingsuccessfull]

Once you accept that some level of profit is obscene, it opens up the question "obscene according to whom?" And usually the implication is that the person writing (or their government) should decide what is an "acceptable" level of profit.

Money is power.
The limits of individual power should be decided democratically.
So yes you're right, I'm a socialist *because* I'm a democrat.

Re:Obscene profits

[shark72]

"Money is power. The limits of individual power should be decided democratically. So yes you're right, I'm a socialist *because* I'm a democrat"

Fair enough. What is your personal opinion of the limit that should be set on an individual's annual earnings? It's just your opinion, so there's no right or wrong, of course. Would you apply that limit to everybody equally, or would you prefer a system where, say, doctors and other professionals have one limit, and musicians and other artists have another limit?

As a point of reference, when I asked this question on the Napster forum long ago, the consensus was that musicians should be limited to earning $50,000 USD a year.

Re:Obscene profits

[donothingsuccessfull]

Urgh, I was asserting the priniciple and then you go and get all socratic on me and make me chunk down. Thanks.
Do earnings count technically as profit? Isn't it just selling time?
Profit is return - investment, so profit from work = wages - (subsistance costs + work related expenses)?
But I digress.

The principle, that gross disparities of wealth create gross disparities of political power (and that's a Bad Thing), doesn't touch on incentives. So a single maximum wage would seem to be in order.
As to a concrete figure I have no idea. But if I were to have the courage of my convictions I would have to say I earned to much (sub median uk).
For reference in the uk the goverment decides most doctors wages, ~£82,000ukp for a consultant.
I'm tempted to say that any power structure one is subject to one should have a democratic say in. But that would include the economy and the economy is global implying a global government and that would just be flamebait.

I don't believe in the sanctity of property intelectual or otherwise they have to be justified with reference to more basic values.

Because it's the p2p way

[daniil]

He's a clever bastard, though: he knows his manifesto sucks ass, so he asks other people to write their own and post them on HIS website.

Yawn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Another "study" which merely sets out to prop up what the author already believes. This is the opposite of what a good study should do...

Congratulations, Marco Montemagno. You've now joined the ranks of Big Tobacco and the TM-Sidhi cult.

Re:OK

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that you haven't read the recent Slashdot article on Carnivore.

clicky

New lows?

[Andrewkov]

Forget about creepy Tsunami fish, or rampant Dupes, this story is a new low for Slashdot. I have a book report by my 13 year old neice if the Slashdot editors are interested...

Better colours

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/17/1 328229

Give this guy a break...

[autarkeia]

It appears from browsing the rest of his site that this guy is Italian and has a weak grasp of English. FWIW, he has apparently appeared on several different Italian television shows whilst discussing P2P. And he's not too harsh on the eyes, either.

While I agree that this translation sucks, don't ride him so hard on his poor English skills.

Re:Give this guy a break...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, boy. I'd ride him hard is so many different ways.

Re:Give this guy a break...

[syousef]

You're joking right? Give him a break because he's "pretty". This is /. not the young and the bloody restless. Its not just the translation that's poor. His grasp of the concepts is poor, and he's claiming to be an expert in technology. He's an arts professor! As far as I'm concerned he's a conman with a winning smile, and you're falling for it!

Re:Give this guy a break...

[supergiovane]

I'm Italian, and I feel pretty confident in claiming that he is not an arts professor. He did some work at an University (probably some TA sessions), but he's definitely not a professor. He looks more like a politician with the hobby of informatics, and the fact that he took part at several TV shows as an Internet expert (that's how he calls himself on his website), is more a symptom of the poorness of Italian TV, rather than a proof of his competence.

Re:Give this guy a break...

[syousef]

You're Italian so you must be right????

Here's the quote from the web site:
http://montemagno.typepad.com/p2p_manifesto /about_ en.html

Marco is Assistant Professor at Cattolica University, Milan (Italy), of "Theories and techniques of online communication", faculty of Arts and Philosophy.

Re:Give this guy a break...

[supergiovane]

Sorry. I should have stated it more clearly. I told that I am Italian because I was bashing what I think is a widespread habit in Italy: a slight and diffuse tendency to overestimation of oneself (e.g. look at our present Prime Minister). Therefore I was not stating that I hold the truth, I was simply asking not to be bashed as racist or something.

Facts:
The Professor of "Theories and techniques of online communication" at the Cattolica University, which is a private university, is Emilio Carelli (in Italian). Looking at his CV it is clear that he does not belong to the academia, but to Fininvest (a private holding of our Prime Minister). Currently he works for Sky (Murdoch's corporation). Incidentally, Marco Montemagno also works for Sky.

Personal opinion:
I'm not absolutely saying that people working in the outside world should stay out of academia (actually, we need more smart people from both industry and corporate world), but I raise the possibility that (in Italy) if your boss at Megacorp inc. works also for a private university and if you know the right people, you have good chances to obtain a highly paid job regardless of your effective skills and merits. Unfortunately this also happens, even if a bit less, in public universities.

Sadly, Montemagno's Manifesto confirms my previous assertions.

I hope I made it clear.

MOD PARENT UP

[Spy der Mann]

Funny :)

Why is this news?

[popo]

If you think P2P is cool, wait until you hear about HTTP!

Man that's going to rock!

But really: Most discussion of P2P is moot -- its here to stay and not only that its been here for a while. Furthermore (and this is what the RIAA can't get their tiny brains around) there is no real way to get *rid* of P2P. There are a near infinite number of P2P permutations from encryption to closed networks to more advanced file storate/indexing, etc. etc. that make P2P a genie that no-way, no-how is getting back in its bottle. That, on the other hand, in no-way makes violation of copyrighted works ok.

If this so-called "manifesto" had been written about P2P STREAMING (IMHO where all the *really* cool stuff is happening) it would be one thing, but this piece seems both misguided, misinformed, and sooo 1999.

Dubious?

[ScentCone]

for the ( dubious ) benefit of a small segment of the population

Well, if by that you mean the small part of the population that at least tries to make a living by creating things with their brains, then yes - protecting those people from theft is what those tax dollars are being spent on.

But I'm questioning whether or not those are the only people who would benefit. Why are people ripping off the creative output of that minority? Because they value the content. They want it. What the minority does is valuable to many, many times more people that consume it, else it wouldn't be sought after and pirated (now that it's so easy). Point is: you take away the incentive and reward for risking your time, money, and wits in producing something valuable... and all of us that don't mind paying for artistic excellence are going to find a big hole where the artists used to be. The rational, money-paying consumers of creative work are a much larger group than the creators - and those people will also be hurt by the pirates.

If the assertion is that only a small segment of the population is willing to pay an artist what they're asking for their work, while vastly more want it but won't - then that's a different comment on the situation. On the other hand, the P2P pushers routinely trot out the argument that all this "sharing" just sells more CDs (which I truly doubt). It can't be both ways. Everyone who engages in that musician/music-lover transaction willingly and through mutually agreed upon terms will lose when we throw up our hands over piracy. And officially (say, in law enforcement) taking that position that the situation is unenforceable sends completely the wrong message. About taxes. About speeding. About vandalism. About all sorts of quality of life and someone's-got-to-pay-for-it issues. Remember when Rudy Giuliani started enforcing "unenforcable" laws about commercial properties with broken windows, jaywalking, and pissing on park benches? It mattered, and this mattes.

Re:Dubious?

[javaxman]

And officially (say, in law enforcement) taking that position that the situation is unenforceable sends completely the wrong message. About taxes. About speeding. About vandalism. About all sorts of quality of life and someone's-got-to-pay-for-it issues. Remember when Rudy Giuliani started enforcing "unenforcable" laws about commercial properties with broken windows, jaywalking, and pissing on park benches? It mattered, and this mattes

You've missed my point entirely. Or, at least if you think laws regarding taxes, vandalism and public defecation are examples of unenforcable laws, you've missed my point- those are totally enforceable laws. All Giuliani did was increase police patrols in problem areas- something the cops would have done themselves years earlier IF they'd been made to give a rat's ass. Don't hold cleaning up NYC streets by pushing profiling and increasing police numbers as having anything at all to do with enforcing copyright- the two law enforcement problems couldn't be more different.

My point is that, if you're going to sell people books, you aren't going to be able to make sure one of those books isn't copied. Especially not if people have photocopiers at home. Enforcing behavior in public places is one thing, but what are you proposing we do, have police in every home? Or every piece of electronic equipment?

Well, if you're pushing DRM, then yea, you're asking for 'police' in every bit of electronic equipment. In which case, I'll be asking for you to pay for that electronic equipment, because I'm not buying it, at least not unless you're letting me make backup copies of the content I purchase for when my three-year-old breaks the disk trying to pry it out of the damn case...

Why are people ripping off the creative output of that minority? Because they value the content. They want it.

*AND*, it's easy to get. If it wasn't easy to get, they'd either not get it ( because it's to 'expensive' somehow ), or they'd go out and buy it ( because they want it ). That's my point. If you're looking to prevent trading of electronic files, you need to somehow make it difficult to do.

Which means DRM. But your DRM needs to be consumer-friendly enough that, if you *really* want to, you can make that backup copy or take a copy to another device/platform/whatever. A phsyical book is a pretty good example, really, and Apple's FairPlay ( and attendant "burn to disc 3 times" policy ) is also a good example- they're just hard enough to copy that pirating from those sources isn't huge, but easy enough to copy a few times that users feel like they get some rights to fair use when they buy the conent. CDs and ( weakly encrypted ) DVDs are bad examples- their high prices and easy-to-copy properties make them things that people _will_ copy and share and pirate. Over-the-air broadcasts are also easy to copy... at least until broadcast flag DRM is implemented, then we'll see if people just don't watch shows they can't record, or if they do watch them, then buy the DVD... we'll see. In any event, it's my humble opinion that these folks seeking copyright on easy-to-copy media are the ones actually creating the problems.

The folks copying digital files are just doing what comes easy- you want them to not share that latest hit song? Why shouldn't they? Are the artists getting all the proceeds from the album sales? If they were, you'd have a moral argument I could stomach, but even then, why would the file-sharing public be inclined not to pirate that song ? Because they'll be sued if they share 1000 songs? how about if I only share 900?? No, I think there's something wrong with the concept that I shouldn't copy digital files on a network around that network if they're MY files. If they're not my files, I shouldn't be able to copy them, does that make sense?

Re:Dubious?

[ScentCone]

Or, at least if you think laws regarding taxes, vandalism and public defecation are examples of unenforcable laws, you've missed my point

No, I must not have made my own point clearly enough. I cite those other things as having been routinely considered, by a lot of people, as beyond any hope of meaningful enforcement. Not because they were logisitcally impossible to enforce, but because the political will was absent, and had been (in New York, anyway) for years before it was put on the front burner and dealt with. And indeed, that speaks to my larger point - a lot of this is about attitude and prevailing social sensibilities. I maintain that the general sense that it's OK to go ahead and make sure all of your friends have copies of an album you just bought (even if only one more of them would have bought it, and now won't) is corrosive to many important civilizing notions - like property rights in particular, and the rule of law in general. 10 year old kids that think things they want are basically for the taking will extrapolate that into larger actions without ever stopping to consider the subtle differences between copyright infringement (getting the music he wants for free) and larceny (getting the iPod he wants by shoplifting). Hence my analogy to other law enforcement postures towards "petty" crimes and their importance relative to society (or just downtown New York) as a whole.

My point is that, if you're going to sell people books, you aren't going to be able to make sure one of those books isn't copied

But what if someone puts up a web site saying "I make a habit of copying lots of expensive textbooks, and if you meet me in the park a noon, I'll be giving away copies of them... just bring your own paper." I mean, philosophically it's the same thing, and when the owner of some IP sees someone doing just that - but with their digital content - they can and should be just as outraged as the book's author should be. And should have the same recourse.

Are the artists getting all the proceeds from the album sales? If they were, you'd have a moral argument I could stomach

But these are artists who, seeking a wider audience, epxressly sign up with people who can get them there. They couldn't possibly see the exposure, or work with the resources they use without agreeing to pay some, or even most, of their receipts to those other parties. But so what? I'd also rather make $0.02 300,000 times than $10.00 300 times, especially knowing that I've now got a much, much larger audience for my next effort. And, if I feel like keeping it up long enough, I can leverage that audience more directly once my contracts allow for it. It's a workable model... or was. Morally, though (your word), what difference does the percentage make?

Is not paying the artist for her work uncool when she's paying her business partners, recording studio, graphic artists, bus drivers, band, and so on, only 1% of what she pulls in from CD sales? But once it's 5%, it's "morally" OK to pirate her music? 10%? 90%? What's the ethical tipping point? How can that be a viable standard?

Re:Dubious?

[javaxman]

But these are artists who, seeking a wider audience, epxressly sign up with people who can get them there. They couldn't possibly see the exposure, or work with the resources they use without agreeing to pay some, or even most, of their receipts to those other parties. But so what? I'd also rather make $0.02 300,000 times than $10.00 300 times, especially knowing that I've now got a much, much larger audience for my next effort. And, if I feel like keeping it up long enough, I can leverage that audience more directly once my contracts allow for it. It's a workable model... or was. Morally, though (your word), what difference does the percentage make?

Look, I'm not trying to convince you that it's 'cool' to pirate music... although it might make a difference if the percentage is zero. Because, really, I don't give a rat's ass about record companies, because they don't give a rat's ass about the artist or the consumer. But that's neither here nor there- except to call BS on your percentage argument as an aside. Artists don't see jack from retail sales- changing that and having a big PR campaign about it would do more to stem piracy than all the lawsuits in the world, but the RIAA isn't going that way. Again, hat's an aside, not my point.

All I'm saying is that preventing the copying of something once it's in digital form is not a logically practical goal. Digital files are going to be copied, and increasing police action isn't going to solve the problem, nor is it really reasonable to expect ISPs ( even if owned by the record label ) to police every file that crosses it's network.

But what if someone puts up a web site saying "I make a habit of copying lots of expensive textbooks, and if you meet me in the park a noon, I'll be giving away copies of them... just bring your own paper." I mean, philosophically it's the same thing, and when the owner of some IP sees someone doing just that - but with their digital content - they can and should be just as outraged as the book's author should be. And should have the same recourse.

To my point, the owner of the digital content in your example above does have the exact same recourse, and should not need anything more. It's just much less odd than the "bring paper to the park and I'll copy my textbook for you" example, since it still takes time and resources to copy a textbook. The resources needed to copy a file are virtualy nil, and that's the entire problem here.

Sadly, it's not the artist's fault, it's the record companies who moved to unprotected CD formats for distribution, not thinking everyone would have good compression formats and not knowing what modems are. But that's where we are. Enforcing copyright on music files is a nightmare, and it doesn't look like suing a whole bunch of file sharing users is solving the problem. So, other than complaining about it, how about a solution?

The only solutions I have are (1) DRM your files and only distribute them in that form ( not going to happen, what, you're not selling CDs? ) or (2) don't depend on album sales for your revenue. I'd like to have a better solution, but if I did, I'd own the biggest record label ever right now...

Re:Dubious?

[ScentCone]

Look, I'm not trying to convince you that it's 'cool' to pirate music...

I understand. I'm thinking more about what other (idiotic) people think when they hear anything even remotely along the line of your (reasonable) arguments. Everything that even remotely adds up to throwing up our hands, or expressing gloom about the subject at all, normalizes the larger conceits of the "infomation wants to be free" crowd, and especially when that information is a freshly burned Matrix DVD, etc. I guess I chafe at giving comfort, however indirectly or mistakenly perceived by the unwashed pirate masses.

If you haven't guessed, I create IP (web widgets, in my case) for a living. In the past, I've also worked - for some years - in the rock and roll business. With and for musicians, in the equipment side of the industry, and even selling studio gear to broadcasters (ranging from small mom-and-pops to people like CNN and White House Communications). I've had these talks with all sorts of people on every front.

The most important thing that I take away from the musicians I know - especially those that have greater-than-bar-band aspirations - is that they know they need investment in order to succeed. It's not a single bit different than a bright programmer with a cool dot-com idea... you've got to have the venture people on your side, or you're in for a serious struggle that will probably fail. Then, you work for those venture people, and they want their+money+some back before they give you much more than a basic living wage. It's all a gamble on your showbiz future - and everyone involved is gambling, and pretty much everyone always loses. Note this has nothing at all to do with the folks who just love to play music for its own sake. This is about careers, and just like a new doctor that doesn't get out from under his med school bills and working 120 hours a week in a hospital for some time, the folks that want tour promotion, transportation, marketing muscle for their work... it takes time for that financial burden to turn around.

But: musicians do, of course, see some of the dough from sales, from concert revenue, and from other promotional tie-ins. But "new" talent (or, newly produced/promoted employees, which is what many of them are) have a long haul ahead of them, income-wise.

Badly written

[randallpowell]

But a point does come up about business using P2P as a tool to distribute content.

Imagine RIAA making a centralized P2P protocol and software. They charge, say, $40 a month for unlimited downloads. However, with a modified MP3 format (or some other audio file format). The format could degrade each time it's copied thus the more it's shared, it becomes a corrupted file. Then people would have to download it from RIAA again. Not fool proof but an idea.

P2P won't go away but with so many people using it to download warez and tunes illegally, no one will take it as a serious method of sharing info except for public domain material and maybe scientific papers that journals can't make money off of anymore (out of date).

Just my crazy ideas.

Robin Good summary

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.masternewmedia.org/2005/01/17/why_p2p_f ile_sharing_is.htm

rude assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't read the article, I dont have to.

I don't care what this guy had to say - regardless of his thoughts or conclusions, nothing deserves the abuse you assholes are heaping on him.

People have feelings, you know. Why the FUCK do comments such as "Go the fuck away you stupid idiot" get modded up?

Perhaps he is totally misguided and wrong, but almost every response has been nothing but vile hateful trolls.

"P2P is unstoppable"

[Gentlewhisper]

P2P is unstoppable - P2P is positive for Companies - P2P is positive for the market - P2P is good for users

Recently in Singapore, new IP laws have been passed that makes downloading a single mp3 a criminal offense punishable by 6 months jail & $20,000 fine.

While downloading mp3s is not the whole of p2p, but what exactly do people share really? There are only so many linux distributions that a geek needs right?

And the guy does not want it said out loud

[Anonymous Coward]

He seems to be deleting the negative comments - even if they were only slightly so.

Come on! Posting that turd on slashdot with that disclaimer and not wanting any feedback? WTF?!

Hidden Agenda?

[nurb432]

Perhaps that is its true intent, to help muddy the waters...

P2P can be used by business as well

[Gax]

SpaceLifeForm wrote:
P2P is *NOT* about business. P2P is the antithesis of a company maintaining a degree of control. P2P does not exist so companies can exploit it.

Try to avoid emotive language. No one is "exploiting" P2P - it's a network model that can be applied to a range of purposes. There is room for Napster-style uncontrolled content sharing, alongside more restricted P2P networks. By arguing that P2P should only be used for uncontrolled content distribution you create the impression its purpose is to promote piracy. Calling existing distribution models obsolete and bragging about how you can download loads of songs, videos and software may be fun, but it also puts the people who should be looking at the benefits of p2p on the offensive. The public is less likely to believe smear campaigns from the RIAA that all P2P is bad if they see similar terms being mentioned in newspaper ads for IBM and others.

bad comparison

[Doc Ruby]

Europeans (including the new "Americans") took land from American tribes usually by negotiating a trade treaty with them, then waiting until the tribe was vulnerable (business elsewhere, surprise attack, or just accumulated trust) to break the treaty, and attack them. After that worked with the first tribes along the Atlantic, the Americans were in a relatively stable balance militarily with the tribes for a generation or so. Then, after gearing up for the Civil War, the American states pointed the remaining, unprecedentedly destructive combined Union/Confederate military, and sent it west to conquer the rest of the tribes. This culminated in the "Spanish"/American War, waged to slap the tribes administered (and often not completely conquered, especially in the American desert and California) by the Spanish out of their hands. Combine that with biological warfare (including ecological attacks like bison slaughter and clearcutting), and the tribes were conquered over a couple of centuries by unbridled force, unseen in human history.

The American Indians weren't killed by their "justifications" for "ownership", but rather by their initial high civilization which could live in peace with neighboring competitors (but not warmongering Europeans), then their technological inferiority. Not only is that scenario a bad model for IP, but it demonstrates your naivete regarding how people interact in a conflict, and a willfulness to ignore history, or convert it to your convenience. Which calls your IP arguments into question, before I even turn to them - even if you're just "summarizing Slashdotters" - the paradigmattic strawman argument.