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Skypecasting - P2P File Sharing

Posted by Zonk on from the hello-can-you-hear-my-warez? dept.

shashark writes "Technologically savvy users are merging these technologies to "Skypecast", using Skype's service to distribute recordings across the internet for free. This allows expert users to run their own mini-radio stations, which can be accessed by any Skype user. Skype does not actively support these uses, but encourages its users to find new applications for their service. Other possibilities discussed by Skypecasters at Unbound Spiral or Moodle are to turn an MP3 player into a radio station for any of Skype's 29 million registered users to dial up using their Skype line. Instructions also are available on how to record a personal soap opera and use Skype to distribute it en masse. Even more ominously, some Skypecasters record Skype calls and post them on the Internet."

6 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. RIAA? by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I sure hope the RIAA doesn't ask the Federal Govnerment for wiretapping rights to see if VoIP calls are really U2 songs. [shivvers in corner]

  2. Blame Game. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    " Even more ominously, some Skypecasters record Skype calls and post them on the Internet.""

    Remember: Blame the users, not the technology.

  3. I call bullshit by Sanity · · Score: 5, Insightful
    What is the point of this? Skype's codec is optomised for voice, not audio. There are perfectly good open source tools like Icecast which have been around for years and which work with codecs designed for music. I also doubt Skype will scale up to be able to support more than a small number of listeners at a time.

    This sounds like some marketing droid at Skype trying to invent a phenomenon by pretending that it already exists.

  4. They already have wiretapping rights by John+Seminal · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I sure hope the RIAA doesn't ask the Federal Govnerment for wiretapping rights to see if VoIP calls are really U2 songs.

    Didn't the government already rule that wiretapping applies to internet communications?

    And having a phone would only stregnthen that argument for requiring ISP companies to have technology which allows for wiretaps.

    But I don't see how VoIP will help P2P, it is just between 2 people, not like Napster was, or BitTorrent where one person shares, and anyone can d/l.

    --

    Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

  5. Re:RIAA and the options left -- by latroM · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Skype calls are encrypted end-end. Even if RIAA gets the wiretapping rights to see if VoIP calls are really U2 songs, it'll be hard for them to snoop in. And skype is just a beginning.

    It's not Free software, how do you know? The intelligence agencies probably have their own back doors built in. I wish that skype will die and that it will be replaced by some open and free standard. Like the gnomemeeting guys said, skype is hype

  6. Good Call by wirefarm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The point of this is that someone wanted to use the word "Skypecast".

    Look at the the "bullet points" from the article:

    >>A growing number of people are sharing the digital music on MP3 players and other music devices using freely available software and Skype, a free Internet phone service.
    How are mp3 players part of this? Sure, you could rip the stream from skype, tag it and save it, then transfer it to your iPod, but it would be a pain and sound pretty bad.

    The enthusiasts are borrowing heavily from another personal broadcasting phenomenon called podcasting, in which digital recordings are posted on a Web site for download to a variety of music players, including desktop PCs and portable gadgets like Apple Computer's wildly popular iPod.
    They're borrowing more heavily from kids who used to play songs for each other over the telephone, with similar results.

    "Skypecasters," as they call themselves, use Skype's peer-to-peer telephone network to distribute recordings over the Internet directly to each other for free. ...In a way that has little to do with any of the advantages of modern peer to peer distribution, as Skype uses P2P merely for point to point, one to few transport.

    This is a case of someone tossing around buzzwords without understanding the technology, in an "iPods! P2P! Skype! Isn't it all just so neat!" kind of way.

    I give it a week before some bonehead is yammering on about how "BlueCasting" is all the rage.

    --
    -- My Weblog.