Slashdot Mirror
Court Docs Reveal Kazaa Logging User Downloads
Dan Warne writes "The most explosive documents in the ongoing Kazaa court case have emerged today, including logs of discussions between parent company Sharman and the Estonian developer of the Kazaa Media Desktop. They include extraordinary admissions like: "Reporting will make Kazaa look like spyware, as soon as it becomes evident we record downloads and playbacks, users will flee to competitive networks" and then "One can argue that we have knowledge of copyrighted material being downloaded in our network and have to install filters. If we are reporting [gold] files, then technically we could do the same for every file." Finally, "RIAA [could] collect the IP addresses for everyone who has searched for or downloaded that file." Despite the Kazaa developer's concerns over these issues, Kazaa went ahead with the logging." (More below.)
Warne continues "APC Magazine journalist Garth Montgomery, who has covered every day of the trial in the Australian Federal Court, says: "In a nutshell, this has got to rate as the most explosive document revealed. It makes it damn near impossible to maintain the separation theory that Sharman and Altnet rely on in terms of business independence and technical infrastructure. The control they exercise over the system is complete." Montgomery has also scanned in all the documents and made them available in PDF format, including the confidential Kazaa purchase contract and technical specifications for the Kazaa Media Desktop."
It looks like bye-bye kazaa. It will soon join Napster (The real one, not roxio).
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
...I am reminded of why I use a reputable, private bittorrent server and alternative (read: under-the-radar) means of P2P. Hasn't this been suspected about Kazaa for quite some time?
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
You mean that when I use an electronic network to transfer information, that information travels in orderly patterns that can be tracked? What happenned to the magical fairy of the internet that made all things miraculously anonymous?(/sarcasm)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Kazaa has always been the seamy underbelly of the internet. While Napster at least had a little swagger as the slick pirate software, Kazaa has been plagued from the start with spyware and other malware.
Good riddance.
I think stuff like that shows you why closed source software can't be trusted. I bet bigger companies do similar sorts of things as well, as part of their "software updates" and all the other network traffic they generate.
... so dead.
And stupid. They knew that they were walking a very narrow path with respect to legality. They had to be like Caesar's Wife - not only pure but seen to be pure. But instead they took their behaviour well over the line into things that they knew were illegal. And then recorded the fact that they were doing it.
Breathtaking.
These people are stupid. Not only do they discuss matters as whether they're arguably criminal conspirators / facilitators -- but they do so in on the record documents, as opposed to quiet chats in the cafeteria.
That's Richard-Nixon-tastic.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
So does this mean that they can get the logs and go after people who have illegal downloaded media?
http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting
Creepy stuff. Not that the logs are all the useful -- considering just how many people and IPs will be in them. That's like getting a list of 5 million people... you can't send them all to jail and/or fine them. Or... can they?
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
They've been walking a tightrope for years....looked like it just snapped.
Other contries to consider are Mexico and Argentina.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
I should proof read more often !
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
It looks like we are going to evolve backwards... everyone will be running back to IRC for their illegal needs.
Ehta nyeh IBM, ehta Macintosh!
I was assisting in installing KazaA once. It was like: "What do you think," the librarian asked me. "According to this EULA they could log our downloads," I said. "So? Is it good or is it bad?" (She's so cute!) "Bad. I do not authorise it. Remove it, add to the black list, never bother me again." Now, if anyone is screaming bloody murder because a program does something that was explained explicite or implicite during the installation, one is not the brightest individual under the Sun if you ask me.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
You could care less? Then why don't you? You're admitting you at least care a little about this issue!
News Flash!
Management may at times ignore developer concerns, although developers can have insight into the customer base not obvious to management.
It's been that way at every company I've worked at...and usually ended up in tears.
Tears for customer support, that is.
Film at 11.
Seriously only internet newbies, grandmas & grandpas installed the Kazza Media Desktop. All other installed Kazza Lite (No Adware!) or eDonkey.
Later all eDonkey users switched to Overnet and later on to eMule and BitTorrent
An open source P2P application is more safe in use than a closed source application because clever people can read and understand the code.
Oh I forgot:
1) Idea
2-6) see above
7) ???
8) No Profit
9) Sued by RIAA/MPAA...
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
...if other "reputable" download services like soulseek are up to the same wrongdoings as kazaa. How can anyone know for sure?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Yeah, you're right :D. This also downs the credibility of Skype to the ground.
Your head a splode
GoogleFight!!!
Ahso... So solly... You ruse!
Is it just KaZaa Media Desktop that is affected by this, or is it done on the server end, thereby logging downloads by ALL clients, such as giFT-Fastrack?
to help you with your spelling. It is explicit or implicit .
I realise English could be your second language, you can use that as a reason to get even more sympathy from her.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
What strikes me as remarkable is that anyone thinks so-called "lawsuits" of this nature will in any way stem the Niagra-like flow of files being shared on computer networks.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals.
It is clear that the individuals behind Kazaa are just a bunch of crooks trying to get rich of bootlegged goods, but so were the rum-runners of yore, and in the end, after much bloodshed and suffering , it was seen that rum could indeed be run legally with out the "sky", as it were, "falling". Let us hope those in power today come to a similar realization soon.
I wouldn't quite put it that way...
If you read the article carefully, unlike the submitter, you will find that gold files (and all searches?) were logged while 'illegal' downloads *could* have been logged. But the article is very vague. Where are those scanned documents??
Ludwig Wittgenstein
There ought to be a campaign "Geeks don't let friends use spyware" or something. Heh. Make a vow today to give your friends safe P2P software - it's the gift that keeps on giving!
Well, the recording part is the part that's really sad. It's such massive lack of clue, it's... well, come to think of it, probably standard for management.
And wth is with all these companies and collecting data about their users? Everyone must track you, profile you, and make you go through an intrusive registration just to (for example) download a patch to a product you've bought.
Now I _know_ that you're not really anonymous on the Internet, they can collect a ton of data about you, bla, bla, bla, Sure, they _can_. But do they even have a _legitimate_ use for that data? I.e., one that doesn't boil down to "we can sell the list to spammers later."
Most of the collected data nowadays (and again I don't only mean Kazaa) is plain useless for anything even resembling an aggregate statistic.
E.g., in Kazaa's case can they even do an automated aggregate statistic over the filenames? How? There must be hundreds of different ways to write the same filename, so good luck telling whether more people download Britney Spears or Eminem. Or which genre do people download more. And even if (ad absurdum) they could get an aggregate statistic, what would they do with that data?
E.g., in the case of some companies' intrusive registration forms and out-of-hand data collection, wth are they gonna do with such pieces of trivia as my house number or telephone number? _How_ does one use that in an agregate statistic?
I mean, "How many people bought our product in Europe vs USA?" is a statistic. "How many people with an even house number bought our product?" is at most useless trivia. There is _no_ useful information in there.
Dunno, reminds me of dogs chasing a car. They have no idea what they'd do with it if they caught one, but they just must do it anyway.
Sad.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Glad I only use Kazaa for porn!
Thats my story and I'm sticking with it. (That was a bad pun...)
They use encryption and promise you will be anonymous. "ES5 hides your IP address while you are uploading and downloading files"
;)
pS,
Folks, lelieve it when you see it. Make sure to read the caveat at the bottom of the page: Folks, take these ramblings as the virtually unedited observations from each day of the Kazaa trial. At best, it's anti journalism. The other side is going to misconsture everything in their favor and present it that way to be as damaging as possible.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Ok, so how do I know that my client, eMule, isn't like this?! Bittorrents won't do because the trackers are already being raided in Europe and users are harassed.
IF this sort of action was taken at KaZaa what decisions of a similar nature are being taken at Skype?
I know that I use it for personal calls with no inherrent value but there are compaanies who are starting to use it to cut inter-office and employee communications bills - they could very easily be concerned about this.
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
What ramifications does this have for Skype? If it seems the company is not trustworthy, then no amount of "this is not spyware" will allay users' fears now.
I've had enough of /. lately, whats with the unchecked facts? I know it's claimed that its up to the users in comments to identify this, but when the site constantly posts such trashy and unsubstantiated nonsenese it's hard to keep the faith.
5 ECA256FA1000FB45F/$FILE/TopSearch%20specifications .pdf
For example, they're not actually logging file downloads, nor what you do. All they acknowledged is that they do this for Altnet, which you must have figured out (How can you buy a file from Altnet without the owner knowing about it?), and that they could potentially do this for Kazaa if they were so inclined and able:-
"Pritt: Posting stats to to 3rd party servers...."
it starts. But then, the fact of the matter follows:-
"Of course we won't know about downloads and playbacks of non-signed content, but it doesn't make a difference because:-
1) It's hard to communicate this to lawyers and users.
2) If we are reporting signed files [Ed: Altnet] then technically we can do the same for any file."
See for yourself, http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/2F22997D6933B1
Bottom of page 4.
In other words, they only logged what they said they would in the user agreement, but they didn't broadcast it because people who don't check their fucking facts will post it on large public forums for debate, and immediately leap to all the wrong conclusions.
It's not the dynamite people think it is. All it shows is that they can log, it means that the next few moves are foretold:-
1) The argument will be made that they can log, and therefore are complicity.
2) The counter-argument will be that logging on
such a scale is an invasion of privacy, illegal and out of the scope of the user agreement.
3) The argument will be made that the agreed upon logs with the users can be used as evidence against P2P users. It's not a serious logistical blow, but will be the *real* credibility damage Kazaa will face.
The endgame is either a Kazaa concession to log all activity, another sale to a different country or just a block on un-authorized files through a deliberately dis-incentivised weak version of Kazaa noone will want, and the winding down of the network will play to the Napster tune.
Flamebait? Isn't that a little harsh? He's just saying that many Windows apps have hidden spyware and such.
Management may at times ignore developer concerns, although developers can have insight into the customer base not obvious to management
News Flash
Developers may at times ignore their own sense of morals, although they have insights into the illicit usage of the software they create, they think they can wash their hands of it by "warning" management.
Film at 11:15 (it can be downloaded at 10:55)
You're on line downloading... downloading is illegal in the onctext of what most people use it for... What would it be for them to bite you back? Alls' fare in love and war as they say...
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Billboard Jan 8, 2005 - Regarding the federal Syndney court battle over Sherman's Kazaa technology and major labels attempt to "recover compensation for past illegal downloads":
[The labels' lead barrister] Bannon also asked [Sherman chief technologist] Morle to sign on to Kazaa using a "special command line." This lead to those in attendance witnessing a connection to an alleged central server in Denmark, which Morle said he thought had been "phased out." The labels claim there is a "bank of some 20 computers in Denmark" contolling Kazaa.
During the 13-day trial, the parties submitted "hundreds of pages" of documents and sworn affidavids of expert witnesses as evidence. Only a portion of these winesses provided live testimony.
Attempting to establish the operators' ability to control the network, other industry experts said user statistics have been collected by Sharman, users' activities could be monitored, and logs could be maintained to trace users' locations.
Does anyone know how far back these logs date? I used to download a lot of files through Kazaa a few years ago, but I stopped when the RIAA began taking people to court. Even though I haven't done anything illegal over the Internet since my days on Kazaa, do you think Kazaa's logs can still come back to haunt me?
You think people would of learnt something from the eFront/Sam Jain incident?
Would they be able to log Kazaalite users?
It's not an oxymoron. Perhaps you need to look up the word "reputable". I will help: it means having a good reputation, being honorable.
If this underground bittorrent service has both a good reputation and it is honorable (ie: they are not screwing their users), it is reputable. It doesn't matter that you don't like what they are doing, or that it is illegal.
I'll thank you to stop pissing on my language and twisting it for your own purposes. I'm having enough bloody trouble with marketroids making the word "buy" mean "license".
Most files on Kazaa are dead files shoved in there by recording companies and the RIAA anyway. So yeah they can sue you for downloading a song, but can they track which copy of which song was actually downloaded and whether it was a valid file ?
As I remember reading, Kazaa was such a hard legal target to bring down because of how decentralized the business is. Servers in one jurisdiction, employees in another, the company registered in a third, bank accounts in another, and onwards, etc.
While it offers an extraordinarily complex legal knot to untangle for anyone trying to bring a suit against them, once they do land in court, the company's internal workings will all be well documented because everyone communicates through email or IM. Oops.
Ok, they have IP address and whatever was downloaded. No the question is how long is the retention policy of your local ISP with respect to the IP address you had durning that download period.
Expect a call?
Bottom line, if you want to download stuff illegaly, do it carefully and non-mainstream. One of these days there will be a sensable way to purchase music that you can burn to cd or otherwise do what you like for a fair price. Until that day comes, don't be a moron about it.
Well, don't be a moron then either.
Don't Tread on Me
Anything more than a screenfull of plain english is a waste of time and the people who write the ELUA's that suck your data prey on this fact. They really want to help you so they burry it in a one-click contract more complicated than a housing loan. Not every granny owns a geek to interpret ELUA's for her.
As for TFA my tin hat says this could be some sort of "mutual destruct" attempt, there could be some very interesting names and companies in the mountain of logs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I believe Topsearch.dll is the file that does this. I think that kazaalite does not create this file, and certainly not the hacked versions of kazaalite.
Correct?
For using closed source + adware infested applications..
Cant trust them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
How many times do I have to say this?: no-one uses the kazaa client people use kazaa lite, not kazaa, its very simple, anyone who found out about kazaa also found out from their geek friends about kazaa lite.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The server only keeps a track of what IP numbers have WHAT files. When you search, the server sends you a list of file names and IP numbers. YOU communicate with the PEERs to download files. The server does not know what files you download--UNLESS YOUR OWN SOFTWARE TELLS IT WHICH FILES YOU DOWNLOAD. That would be SPYWARE.
What I think was going on here was that the SPYWARE on kazaa was sending info back to the server on what files you downloaded. That is the spyware part of kazaa/altnet. Specfically, the file topsearch.dll.
However, and please correct me if I am wrong, kazaalite, and specifically the hacked version 2.4.1 does not contain this topsearch dll file. Thus, kazaalite, at least the old hacked versions of it, do not inform the server of what you do, or what you download.
THen we have the question of how long your ISP keeps server logs of IP numbers.....
Or at least that is how it used to be in the old days, before this fancy internet thing.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
lameness filter sux
not that i've done anything wrong (gotta get rid of the evidence) but i think its about time i er .... look over there! (yoink)
I'm not suprised at all.
This is why I'd rather work with an open system that doesn't have a 'parent' company attached to it. And that's also why I don't, and have not used Kazaa for a VERY long time.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
a post from above that explains it, I think:
by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 07, @08:15AM (#11595612)
The server only keeps a track of what IP numbers have WHAT files. When you search, the server sends you a list of file names and IP numbers. YOU communicate with the PEERs to download files. The server does not know what files you download--UNLESS YOUR OWN SOFTWARE TELLS IT WHICH FILES YOU DOWNLOAD. That would be SPYWARE.
What I think was going on here was that the SPYWARE on kazaa was sending info back to the server on what files you downloaded. That is the spyware part of kazaa/altnet. Specfically, the file topsearch.dll.
However, and please correct me if I am wrong, kazaalite, and specifically the hacked version 2.4.1 does not contain this topsearch dll file. Thus, kazaalite, at least the old hacked versions of it, do not inform the server of what you do, or what you download.
THen we have the question of how long your ISP keeps server logs of IP numbers.....
You'd be realizing it instead.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
I have heard both of these phrases used. seamy=sordid or dirty
seedy=disreputable
Both make sense and would typically be interchangeable in the context most often used. Is there a linguist here that can give some insight into the origins of this phrase? "xxx underbelly"?
Signed,
Just Curious
Well, if you were in North America, anyhow. (dunno how that got deleted from the original post.. crazy internet.)
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
. . . it's got to be one of the worst jobs in the world.
If you're a policeman (policeperson?), and doing your job right, you want to serve, to help people, to protect.
Then you have to stop, for speeding, one of these citizens that you want to help, and they start lying and trying to weasel their way out of something that they knew they were doing illegally, like a bratty 3-year old, only probably with worse language. The citizen ends up in his weaselly arguments at the conclusion that it is your fault that he was speeding in the first place. You are level-headed enough to write the ticket anyway. Three days later the police chief calls you into his office and explains that the speeder was the mayor's nephew, circuitously asks about ways to let the nephew off the hook. Now, you have to either stand up for your word, the law, and your principles, and risk losing your job, or knuckle under to petty corruption and lose a little more self-respect.
I think it wouldn't take very long for me to get cynical with a job like that.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Cops are often nice people, but the job requires that they be a prick - they even take courses in it.
That's actually true. My uncle is a cop and nowadays a trainer at a law enforcement academy.
Sometimes it's paramount to be nice -- to keep people calm, to get vital information out of people, or just because people in a tragic situation are close to a complete breakdown and you don't want to cause any more damage than they have suffered already. (The "cops are human too" aspect of the job.)
And sometimes it's paramount to be a prick -- to keep people at bay and a situation contained, to get vital information out of (initially tough) people, or to just protect yourself from emotional damage to stay able to do the job.
So cops usually receive training in both approaches, and how to judge which one is appropriate for a given situation. Then, they do their best with what they learned in the real-life of the job, and you get a lot of individual variation...
I'd rather say they are normal people who are nice when they can, pricks when they need to, and themselves off duty. But sure the job teaches a lot about life and people -- up to the guy how that affects. Personally, most cops I've met have been guys I look up to. Sure there are different experiences too.
"We know you downloaded files, so please send us the logs. Please. Thanks." - Kazaa
Hey, sweet, if no one can see my IP address, that means I can't communicate with them via tcp/ip, which means a return to IPX/SPX, just like playing starcraft on a lan pre-TCP patch. Hells yeah!
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
For me, the only decent P2P programs nowadays are DC++ and Bittorrent. I rarely use programs like Emule since one takes days to start downloading a file, and one can't shutdown the computer while waiting, or the place in the queue will be lost...
So I'll summarize what I think are the advantages of each program/protocol:
DC++ Advantages - well organized shares, great for downloading music (if you want more than you can find on Kazaa).
DC++ Disadvantages - no multi-source downloading (although there are dc++ mods which permit this), no queuing system.
Bittorrent advantages - fast downloads, great for popular files.
Bittorrent disadvantages - not too much variety of things to download.
Emule/Edonkey advantages - fast downloads (once you start downloading) and has more variety of files than bittorrent.
Emule/Edonkey disadvantages - queuing system makes it almost impossible to start downloading some files unless you have your computer on all the time, and the shares are not as organized as in DC++.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Only idiots use Kazaa. Smart people use Gnutella, OpenFT, Torrent, and Freenet and leave their wireless access point open so it could be anyone downloading files.
You can bet the *AA's will be subpoenaing the records, and will have a field day.. .
I wonder if they will sue under 'intent to defraud' for people that simply searched on a file name, regardless if they didn't download..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is a troll. Skype is not owned by Sharman. Skype is run out of Luxembourg and was created by the people who created Kazaa, not the people who own it now.
I think it's safe to say that just by association, it further sullys the reputation of their competitors, too.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Everytime someone calls copyright infringement "stealing", all the 10-year-old Sea Lawyers come out of the woodwork. "But Mommy, I didn't really take anything, honest!"
Bah! Call it what you want, but you cannot justify immoral behavior by twisting words around your middle finger. If you're going to do this sort of thing, at least you can be honest about what it makes you, and don't complain when you get caught.
There is no privacy on the internet. Everything you do can and will be tracked by someone, somewhere. It makes Orwell look like a piker, doesn't it?
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
Clueless, or ordered by the government?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Say I!
Logging of IPs, files... talk about smoking gun.
Isn't it possible that you can release your IP, let it expire and get a new one? Or, how about those that have dynamic IPs? How does it work for them?
Live forever, or die trying.
Well, this is no surprise really. Bringing the total number of corporations doing Kazaa/Fasttrack logging to at least two. For years now several companies have been poisoning the fasttrack and other p2p nets along with doing logging based on the weak hashes and/or a more sophisticated hash that can actually determine their bogus content from the real stuff - upon arrival of the completed data. Fasttrack has been used and abused far worse than any of the other nets out there, it really isn't worth it. slsk, edonkey, and torrents are there if you still want to engage in the experiment of unsecured, unauthenticating p2p - don't ever think no one is logging you though - just be happy your content didn't get poisoned.
from the report it says:
."
"Altnet documents reveal KMD control
When a Kazaa user gets an Altnet file, the KMD tells Altnet where to put the file on the users computer, and the file is delivered by Altnet.
"KMD uses other Altnet functions to periodically determine the status of the download and report the download progress to the user. Additional Altnet functions are used to pause, cancel, or resume a download - features available to the user inside KMD....
TopSearch ensures that the sponsored file appears in preference to the hundreds of other files that might also be returned as part of the user's search," writes Rose, before detailing that sponsored files will need preferential treatment by being displayed before non-sponsored files, with an icon, and an additional hyperlink to the sponsors site, as well as any additional DRM info that needs to be displayed.
So this is all about what they can do with users who HAVE KMD (Kazaa Media Desktop) AND TOPSEARCH installed, and download a file from altnet.
Kazaalite, and especially the old hacked version DO NOT HAVE KMD INSTALLED, and DO NOT HAVE THE TOPSEARCH DLL file.
kazaa is a PEER TO PEER system. The kazaa server does not act as a server for files. Only the KMD spyware can tell kazaa what you downloaded from a peer. If you do not have the spyware, they do not know what you downloaded. They know what you searched for, but not what you downloaded--unless spyware you installed tells them that.
Kazaalite does not have that spyware installed. Kazaa does. If you have KMD installed, then they COULD tell what you downloaded from another peer. But these docs seem to relate to files downloaded from altnet, which is not a peer, it seems. but a service that sells files for download. At least that it what it appears to be....
Is it me, or does the defense of Kazza & Co. really blow? A paranoid person may think that it's being done on purpose to sink Kazza and get an example of how P2P networks can and should be closed after an undisclosed exchange between the RIAA and the Kazza executives involving the Cayman Islands and/or thick brown envelopes. I don't think anyone could forge better evidence against them even if they tried, and they just happened to leave a paper/electronic trail of all those discussions about their less correct deals. Right.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Spyware-free tinfoil hats.
On the one side, P2P on the Internet is 'stealing'. Individuals that participate in such actions are criminals and deserve whatever actions they get.
On the other side, P2P is a paradigm shift not contemplated when individuals first dreamed up copyright. At the time, copying materials had cost. Developing materials also had cost. The 'pirate' then would have an advantage over the content creator in that he/she skips the developer costs, while they both share the materials cost. Now, however, materials cost have dropped to nearly zero (It's not free, but for the sake of this discussion, it might as well be). This fundamentally changes the variables, and thus P2P should be allowed.
-----
Now here's where I am (and you too, maybe). I've given up (for the most part) on paying for media content. I just don't care anymore. I rarely see movies at the theater. Don't get the newspaper or cable/satellite. And I never buy CDs. I will, however, consume media via P2P. I do this for entertainment. It's not that I particularly care about what media I am consuming, just as long as it sufficiently entertains me at that time.
Here's where the problem comes in. I mean it when I say that I don't care about what I'm consuming. That means that an entertaining non-copyrighted media file can be just as fun as something that is copyrighted.
My contention is that as this wacky world of the Internet marches on, the distinction between something that is copyrighted (BAD in P2P-land) and something that is not (GOOD in P2P-land) gets blurred for someone like me. In other words, it's entirely possible that I can/will/do consume media files that I honestly don't realize shouldn't be consumed by me without some sort of payment to somebody. If I knew, I'd just skip it. In fact, I do. I skip it everyday by not subscribing to cable, the newspaper, or going to movies/buying CDs. When it comes to the Internet, however, I would like to consume content freely and legally, but I can't!!
Here's where I look to the other side of the looking glass. The argument these days frames Internet users and the bad guys. The media interests are forever using the world's court systems in an effort to prosecute and punish people who have attained their files via P2P. But it's entirely possible (and will be even more so in the future) that there are people like me who can't discern between copyrighted material and free materials! In the future, innocent people simply trying to entertain themselves freely on the Internet can (and will) be prosecuted for obtaining files that they honestly didn't know were 'bad' files.
Personally, I think this sucks. I think it's time someone brought this argument forward and went on the offensive (in courts) against the media companys for polluting the Internet by allowing their copyrighted materials (prosecutable files) to exist at all.
I realize that there is nothing that can be done to stop the proliferation of these legal bombs, but they sure as hell don't have to keep pushing for the inane idea that everyone who shares these files does so intentionally, and in an effort to hurt their financial positions.
You forgot to refute the part of his logic that assumes that one disreputable user makes the entire service disreputable. Some people use Slashdot to post "Gaynigger" trolls - does that make Slashdot a disreputable, homophobic, racist website? How about people who use Linux to develop Internet worms - does that make Linux a disreputable kernel?
For a group of people supposedly at least remotely qualified to perform scientific analysis, there is a whole hell of a lot of disregard for any sense of logic here at Slashdot.
Is a GIANT magnet...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
And never was.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Whoo-hoo!! I typed mine in and got:
Club 604 International
http://club604.free.fr.
Party Time!!!
If you're not in the USA the RIAA probably won't care.
They care, they just can't sue you directly.
They can, however, exert pressure on local authorities, or found and fund a similar organisation that will do so at their bidding.
You can't take the sky from me...
And the real reason the *AA are trying to get P2P banned is not because they're losing revenue (they're not, their profits are up) but because P2P threatens their distribution monopoly.
If P2P really kicks off then they're not going to be able to "push" their latest crap at people any more. Using P2P transfers everything to a "pull" model and, who knows, people may actually start looking for new interesting stuff on their own. Before too long independent artists/small time players will get equal access to "ear space".
And once their distribution monopoly is cracked they'll go the way of the dinosaurs. They know this, we know this. That's why they're after P2P.
"Illegal" downloads are the best free advertising the music "industry" ever had (just look at the relationship between CD sales and downloads from Napster and Audiogalaxy)
Their problem is that they just can't sell the same amount of crappy advertising or rig the playlists any more. Their payola funds will come to nothing and the "indutry" parasites will have to work for a living.
That's why they're crying.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Why would they sue the Enterprise? Is that even possible?
paintball
If you stopped paying your bill, you'd still own the electros, it'd just be harder to get them to move.
paintball
haha...
;)
do you have stairs in your house?
Yes, I have some vague clue on data mining. I'm not an expert by any means, mind you, but I've been asked to program that kinda stuff before.
What I'm trying to say, though, is that there's a level of granularity beyond which it becomes _trivia_ instead of a statistic.
For example, "How many games did this team win?" is a statistic. Gives you some idea of their performance. "How man games did they win on a rainy tuesday afternoon?" is garbage. It's trivia material, not anything useful.
Ditto for breaking down, say, sales statistics by street. Take for example The Sims, a game which had such an intrusive registration. How does that kind of fine granularity help them make a better game?
Grouping the buyers by country or state, now ok, I can see _some_ point in that. There are cultural differences which will be reflected. Now consider it finely grained, down to street and house number level. "How many people bought our game on Elm Street?" How the heck does that help them make a better game?
No, seriously. I want to know.
"that information has value to others trying to sell stuff to you- Sherman networks knows that you liked SNL with Ashly Simpson- so in theory they could sell your name / address to companies that sell SNL videos"
Bingo. That's why I made the distinction between "legitimate use", as in, stuff they need to provide a better service, and seling that data to spammers. That kind of fine granularity is useless for a legitimate aggregate statistic, but is valuable to spammers. (I do include spammers of the snail mail or phone kind.)
I.e., that detail of data mining just tells me "non-legitimate". It tells me that there was a _dishonest_ mind behind it all. That, yes, they do have a plan, even if a backup plan, to sell your data for money. In one word: lamers.
Unrelated, if Sherman planned to sell data back to the companies in RIAA, they're more stupid than I though. So they're accessories to something illegal, know it's illegal, make a recording of it, and... plan to sell the data to the ones they helped defraud? Geesh. It's last going to a bank and saying "wanna buy a list of your offices I drove robbers to?"
I can only hope that it wasn't their plan, because _that_ kind of massive stupidity would just be depressing.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I had similar downloading problems over eMule, as the firewall was blocking incoming connections.
With lowid fixed, things go swimmingly. As long as you pick files that have an Availibility > 5, you're fine.
Go through this thread and note the posts that explain how only the Kazaa Media Desktop has the potential to do this, and NOT kazaalite. Now notice how those posts are modded down.
THen go back and see the posts that say that the server will log all kazaa downloads. See how those are modded up.
Is it possible that the public relations arm of MPAA/RIAA is action right here on this thread?
Am I the only one who sees this differently? It reads to me like the the guy is arguing against ever using logs. He is just describing all of the things that can go wrong if they begin doing so. He doesn't actualy claim that this is a practice they have been doing all along. More like a lot of 'what if' statements.
Apparently, this is why you do not squeeze the Sharman.
but that is why it is called PEER TO PEER. The file downloads are from peer to peer. Not through the server!
The way that Kazaa was getting teh information was through the KMD installed on the client--your computer. THe KMD is what is telling altnet what files you downloaded. Altnet/kazaa has no idea what you downloaded from a peer--unless your client software tells them. That is the ESSENCE of peer to peer.
If you use kazaalite, you DO NOT HAVE kazaa media desktop on your computer. Therefore kazaa/altnet has no idea what you downloaded. THEY are NOT the peer from which you download the files. Their server only keeps a list of what files are being shared by what IP numbers. When you search for a file, they tell you what IPs have it. Then you send a message to some of the IPs that have that file.
KMD will tell them what you downloaded. That is the spyware part of it. But kazaalite does not have that spyware. Have you been following this thread at all? I see several of your posts here, but you seem to have failed to grasp the basics...
Thank you! There are so many mainstream Windows apps that include spyware it's not even funny.
:P
Just a few days ago I helped a friend try to clean up a family member's computer -- the 2+ GHz machine was literally taking a minute or two to draw menus and open Explorer windows. We mananaged to run Spybot S&D and Ad-aware in safe mode, and found more than 3,000 "objects" (yes, I realize many of them may have been simple cookies.) You *can't* deny that this is a big problem for non-geek users, and a pain for those geeks who have to support people running said software. Maybe the mod(s) who got to my original post work for Microsoft.
If he's using it for legitimate purposes, why does it matter whether it's under the radar or not?
Well you could want to stay under the radar if you were using P2P to get hold of Falung Gong documents in China or Microsoft products in Iran, but you're right, it's unlikely that the grandparent was anything other than a theif.
"Is it possible that the public relations arm of MPAA/RIAA is action right here on this thread?"
Quite, quite possible. So the XXAA has agents here to subvert the truth and warp our opinions? Certainly an intriguing possibility.
But on the other hand, consider this - isn't planting the seeds of doubt a very efficient way of destroying trust? And claiming conspiracy where there is none is practically impossible to disprove. A very effective way of doing so, especially in an enviroment prone to believing it.
Exactly the kind of thing an operative from a large corporation working against the geeks would say, isn't it?
BURN HIM!
I for one will laugh and point when they lose the case they stupidly set themselves up for to begin with.
Those who have kazaalite, at least the earlier versions, for sure, do not have to worry, as they do not have the topsearch.dll or cd_clint.dll that are used to do the spying. These DLLs are part of the client on your computer, kazaa media desktop, which is what is used to send your downloads data BACK TO kazaa. That is the SPYWARE portion of kazaa. If you have kazaalite, the spyware was removed, although according to this wikipedia entry, some of the later kazaa lite versions DID have the KMD code, but the spyware part was still disabled.
From the document cited above, here are the pertinent portions:
The TopSearch Specification document ends discussing user stats going back to a central server and the concern of balancing that with privacy issues. Basically the stats collecting works like any banner ad clicked, which would send your info back to say, Doubleclick.
So we can see that it is the installed kmd client that SENDS BACK the downloads info. The kazaa server does not have any records of your downloads until kmd/topsearch.dll does that.
The next paragraph goes on to say:
"However, in the p2p space that tracking has not previously existed, and perhaps users take advantage of greater anonymity," writes Rose, who goes on to say how adding the tracking mechanism means your IP can be logged and that means "RIAA [could] collect the IP addresses of everyone who has searched for or downloaded that file."
Clearly, the RIAA/MPAA could only access this data if the client sent the data back. Kazaalite does not do that.
Can anyone define how viewing/listening to something 'live' on the tv/radio and downloading it for later use is any different than the BetaMax ruling of 'time dilation'?
Read the rest of this rant...
If the knockee has the P2P app, it'll answer, and the two apps can have a nice little chat. If not, no answer, and on we go. Plus, of course, you can just manually add people you already know have the app.
At a 2nd tier of connectivity, as clients learn about other clients, they can (slowly and reasonably) share client lists with each other, and pretty soon, you'll have a good sized network connected P2P with no central server at all.
The only people with logs of who has downloaded what would be the people doing the downloading/uploading. Assuming you kept them, which isn't a given.
Add solid encryption; stir to taste.
I mean, really -- how hard a problem is this to actually solve in a final and complete manner?
It seems to me that the P2P developers are not trying very hard.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I don't seem to understand something about the legality of file sharing, and how *riaa is sueing those who share.
If I own a CD, wouldn't I be able to download the mp3's leagly? It wouldn't be much different than using a ripper to do it. So what is so illegle about that?
And they are sueing people who share the stuff, never have I seen anything for someone who is downloading. So what is wrong with sharing? It is part of the legle system to get MP3's for your CDs. There is just no way to tell who is leagle and ileagle on our ends.
I would love to share every CD/movie I have ever puchased, and somehow stick it to *iaa when they take me to court if I could.
Why can't there be something like this:
Lawyer: You commited copyright infringement, you owe us 10k for 500$ worth of music.
Me: I didn't commit copyright infringement, I paid for all my music.
Lawyer: Well you owe us 20k for allowing others to pirate our music
Me: What are you talking about, this is how the system works, and as far as I know, everone who has downloaded from me owns the music as well.
Judge: Go away riaa, no case here.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
What about people with dynamic IPs? Are they going to call my isp and demand to see their MAC tables? That's a lot of backchecking.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
> Bottom line, if you want to download stuff illegaly, do it carefully and non-mainstream.
Uploading illegally is the risk, not downloading, therefore, the monopoly on distribution rights in copyright. Uploading illegally in non-mainstream networks is being a moron. If a non-mainstream system works well enough, it will be mainstream, given time for popularity to increase. Then, expect copyright laws and such to include more severe penalties and to extend "expiration" terms perpetually, expect everyone to pay recordable media/internet levies, and expect DRMs in more hardware. All of these are happening; thus, the future is predictable with more severe penalties, longer copyright terms, higher levies, and DRM in everything.
> One of these days there will be a sensable way to purchase music that you can burn to cd or otherwise do what you like for a fair price
That day will come, when there are global efforts to end consumption of media cartels' addictive "art". The faster this happens, the better everyone will be. Waiting and consuming these narcotics will only exacerbate the problem.
They can't win this their case anymore now that they can no longer claim ignorance about what is being traded on their service
Yeah. That's great. Brilliant. So... the fact that you need the KMD executable to install some versions of K-lite?
Means you're wrong.
K-lite has been able to sidestep some of the limitations of the real Kazaa, but not all of them. It still must get a centralized index of users and files or K-lite would only be good for downloading and you'd never be able to upload.
Were they logging ALL downloads, or just the sponsored "gold" downloads? Can someone make this clear? The link to the news story about the case did not clarify this for me.
Wait this doesn't seem to be that big a deal for one they were talking about developing the procedures. They never stated that they have this control with current software. Although I do not know what the standard for liability Is in australia. This limd of kind liability was discussed abd rejected in us betamax case.
I hope someone mods the parent up. This is correct. Version 2.4.3 doesn't have the topsearch.dll either, btw.
Without the spyware, the only thing the Kazaa central server could track was which files you have available for sharing. If you didn't have the spyware AND you are one of the slimeballs who didn't share, you're going to be okay.
So now that no one will be sharing on Kazaa, it's the last coffin nail in that P2P. Next target for the xxIA: bittorrent. Next haven of safety: FreeNet?
Correct!
Yes, obviously, even kazaalite sends a list of shared files to the main kazaa servers. However, many kazaalite users download, but do not share, files. They have sharing turned off. They do not want to get sued.
So, obviously, this story about kazaa having a list of DOWNLOADED files by IP address, is a concern for those people. That is what this thread is all about--downloading, and not sharing.
So, back to my point: kazaalite does not have the topsearch functionality. Thus, when you click on a file to download it, your kazaalite sends a signal to the PEER storing the file, but NOT to the kazaa server. THe spyware has been removed in kazaalite.
When the download is complete, kazaalite will inform the kazaa server that another file is being shared--IF sharing is turned on that file. If not, it does not do so.
The question is, why did kazaa keep this functionality at all? They knew it could get them in trouble. Maybe they kept this data knowing that they could use it to save their own asses in the end game.
Hypothetical scenario: "OK, RIAA, we will give you all our data if you promise not to pursue our executives personally."
Classic criminal justice type of plea bargaining--get Bad Guy A to give up (roll over on) Bad Guy B, if Bad Guy A gets a better deal....
...How about off topic?
Nobody ever tell's me that when I type "yah, right" what I really mean is "no, you are wrong."
"I could care less" is a idimatic phrase that is always spoken sarcasticly. Though it doesn't come through in typing, an analysis of the tone people use when saying it reveals its sarcasm. You clearly just saw some guy on TV (I can't remember the name of the show) tell you it was incorrect, along with the proper pronunciation of Neanderthal, and you have decided to punish everyone with your pedantry ever since.
Prescriptiveist hooliganry is also responsible for that awful "jim is taler than I" rule. It was made up by some guy, because he thought English would be more logical IF people spoke that way, and some people who wanted to sound hoyte toyte (Hey mom, you sent me to Harverd for four years, and now I know you say "They are still smarter than I!") I love English, but I lover REAL English. Don't thrust your ignorance on other people. (This is slashdot, they'll probably believe you.)
for around the cost of a pot of coffee a day, your grandma could be supporting a geek's caffeine habi^w^w^h^h^h, and as we all know geeks put money back into the tech economy ad infinitem, so every input counts. Everybody wins; the RIAA doesn't get to find your your grandma looks at baloon and vynil porn, doesn't sue her for downloading the album sexy-rubber by madonna, your grandma gets to be efficient and productive with her computer, and a geek who would otherwise be starving may end up with enough to subsist herself and or play quake.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It doesn't matter what anyone's logs say you downloaded. If the RIAA can't verify the contents of the file to prove it really was the copyrighted song in question, then they have no case.
Assuming Kazaa was logging all downloads, what server would be doing the logging? Remember, unlike Napster, there is no "central authority" that keeps an index of all the files shared by all the clients on the network. On the Kazaa network, all the indexing is done by a second tier of Supernodes. The only way all the downloads and/or searches could be logged is if every single Supernode (we're talking thousands here) was doing the logging (and the operators of said Supernodes all being in on the game.) The only way a network like Kazaa could be keeping a log of all the activity is if every single client did, in fact, send all of its searches to two servers: the network of Supernodes and another central server, which would be evident by looking at the source code.
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!
the radio stations pay a fee to air the music. the Betamax ruling and Time shifting had to due with taping a show wathcing it later but you cant use that tape as a archive copy to watch over and over agien.
Though the EULA of the old k-lite admits that running the program is illegal (as per the license agreement of Kazaa), it didn't have any malware or tracking in it, as far as I know.
Funny, that.
Is there anyone out there who actually didn't know this was happening? The fact that it installed Gator and Bonzai buddy in its earlier releases should have clued everyone in...
Not that I have installed it in a long while, but I think now it installs WeatherBug, which everyone knows is really a pop-up system.
Kazza is, was and always will be SpyWare in my book... Go with any Gnutella system (and then remove the spware) or Torrents instead.
My 2 Cents.
Copyright is a very simple concept.
If you created it, you have the copyright of it, unless you sell that right to someone else.
Did you create the piece of media? Did you buy the copyright from the person who currently owns it? Have you got permission from the owner of the copyright to use the media in the way you are?
If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you are safe, otherwise you are breaking copyright.
If you download media without the copyright holder's consent then you are in breach of copyright laws as you have a COPY of something you have no RIGHT to.
So if you download an episode of the simpsons or buffy or anything you can get on TV, even though it's kinda freely available on TV, that's in breach of copyright. (For further advice, google copyright)(Intellectuall Property is a whole other thing)
Stop modding the parent down?
Do you work for Kazaa or something?
Funny isn't it?
If someone called Bill Gates stupid or even Stephen Jobs they might not be modded down.
Here I am saying something very true.
Kazaa - a company that is notorious for infecting PCs with trojans and spywares and full of greed.
How many of you didn't get your system fucked after installing Kazaa?
Lame moderator:
Go and suck a dick!
or rather, a bastardised, ocker version of it :-).
.The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
Just thinking of countries that don't or didn't have extradition treaties with the US. The Great Train Robbers went to Brazil, a Nazis after the second world war went to Agentina, and we always see law breakers running to Mexico in North American movies.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
see, when I write server software, the server is totally aware of what data is passing through it.
My understanding of the search mechanism is an example: When you hit the search button, the text of the search is sent to the local Supernode. The supernode looks through it's files. At this point, it is quite probable (if I were writing the software anyway) that the supernode send the incomming request to the local directory server (the one you originally connect to to get the other Supernodes.)
Whe you hit the search button, it sends search request to server, server adds search request to log and then perfomrs the search.
Same deal with download.
Client sends request to start download to server, server adds log entry, performs download.
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here.
I wouldn't use a separate spyware or adware to do the logging, I'd do it at the server.
I did not mention searching. Searching is not what RIAA can use. Downloads, maybe. Sharing, yes.
Anyway, this whole thread is about downloading. You download from peers, not supernodes.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
This Niagara has a tap. Our cable ISP offers a branded version of MusicNet. USENET downloads have been capped. Its parent company is a media giant hostile to P2P. You will not find its DSL competitors any friendlier.
As with the United States' ill-fated experiment with "Prohibition" back in the 1930s or whenever it was, attempts to pressure a legitimate society-wide demand with artifical "legal" constraints simple result in a Newtonian counterforce of equal strength.
Prohibition had its roots in the nineteenth century and was the last reform movement of that era of that era to gain national success. Prohibition failed in cities which were multi-ethnic, multi-racial, with significant religious and class differences from the rural and small-town reformers which had driven the movement for decades.
But to carelessly generalize from the Prohibition experience is dangerous.
Broadband access in the United States is generally limited to an affluent center-right middle class, which knows no geographical bounds, and in which other divisions are muted. Property rights are an issue they do understand and around which they tend to coalesce. No free lunch.
Mark these words it is only a matter of time before the RIAA and company unleash one legal sully too many and the citizenry responds with clandestine acts of violence and possibly even people and/or animals
This is singulary incoherent and fanciful.
The middle class does not break out the guns because Amazon charges $18 for the latest Harry Potter DVD or Blockbuster offers an all-you-can-eat DVD rental buffet for $15 a month.
Nor do they riot whenever some punk kid gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
...to put everyone who's never used P2P in a building they're not allowed to leave, and call the rest of the world "jail".
Similar concepts have been envisioned.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Just curious ;)
How is the parent Redudant? Anyone?
Warning: The KaZaA cronies are here!
How is the parent Offtopic ? Anyone?
We are talking about similar technologies
Warning: The KaZaA cronies are here!
Your arguement is flawed because despite your claims, you KNOW you are infringing on copyrighted materials. Your statement that "I don't particularly care what media I am consuming, just as long as it suffiently enterains me at that time."... chances are if someone took the time to make something sufficently entertaining, they also took the time to copyright it. If it looks like it cost 100,000s of dollars, it probably did.
The reason you've stopped paying for media is because you don't have to, not because that media isn't worth paying for. There is a reason newspapers, dvds, cable costs money. You aren't paying for the physical newspaper, but for the content inside. Content costs money to create. I'm not saying that media isn't over-priced, it is, but to say that you don't know what media is copyrighted or not is silly. If you want to download something for free, then take the time to find out if it is free (a quick trip to google could clear it up for you). I would assume you've at least slightly researched whatever it is your downloading. Otherwise how do you know what that movie/show/etc is about. I don't imagine you just randomly click download links, but I could be wrong.
But my larger point was based on the future. I contend that in the future, it will only get more difficult to tell the difference.
Audio files can be this way now. If you find a link to a song (maybe a friend of yours simply recommended the song/link to you), how are you to know if that song is copyrighted or not? Are there not thousands of people in the world creating music files that are to be freely shared? Not for profit, but simply because they want to?
The world is a big place. Billions of people in the future will literally be empowered to create professionally produced audio and video on their own for whatever reason they wish. They may or may not want money for copies of their work, but the point is that there is nothing inherently identifiable in an audio or video file that says "you may copy this, or you may not". And there probably is no realistic way that there ever could be.
I also understand your point that it is my responsibility to determine whether I have legal access to the file that I am downloading, but is this really feasible? Especially in the future with trillions of files floating around on the P2P network.
I truly believe that the future will see all of us being 'pirates' without our even realizing it.
Certainly there is something amiss in the music industry, where a CD sells for $30AUD and the "artist" gets $1. Personally I'm more in favour of the work of musicians and singers than "artists".
Nowadays, we can all listen to music for "Free".
We have been able to do this on commercial radio for some time, however the difference between that old model and this new digital model is that no advertising revenue is gained and piped indirectly back into the music industry.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
its bull that the riaa is suing people for downloading songs, who gives a crap, so what if the musicians cant afford to buy there 200th jaguar or if they cant afford to buy a whole country and have to settle for their own island, id like to met the artists that are crying about it so i can kick there asses, if you ask me its bullsheit