P2P Now and Then

brajesh writes "There was an earlier story on Slashdot regarding eDonkey overtaking BitTorrent in P2P traffic. The BBC story was based on this press release by CacheLogic. To expand on this, there is a comprehensive analysis of P2P trends in 2005 by the same firm. The report makes some insights into the present and future of P2P, particularly interesting in the light of recent steps taken by BBC -BBC iMP and others. The analysis also makes some observations about the break-up of P2P content."

Comments

P2P Now and Then in a nutshell

[WellAren'tYouJustThe]

Now: stealing stuff
Then: stealing stuff

Feal free to replace stealing with infriging if it will help you get through the day. And don't give me no "linux ISO" bullshit.

a new conduit

[Brigadier]

I may sound like an idiot for saying this, but does anyone ever get the impression that p2p is going to be the new conduit for the oppressed ( oppressed being everyone subject to coorprate america). The first conduit was the free press on obstructed information flow allowing abolitionist and the like to band together and spread there cause, then radio TV etc . Now there is p2p another on obstructed means of passing information uncontrolled by the cooprate majority.

Re:a new conduit

[Neil Blender]

I may sound like an idiot for saying this, but does anyone ever get the impression that p2p is going to be the new conduit for the oppressed ( oppressed being everyone subject to coorprate america).

I'm sorry but not being able to get music and movies for free is not oppression.

Re:a new conduit

[Anonymous Coward]

p2p does not == stealing movies and shit.

p2p also offers darknets and structures such as hidden services on tor, I2P sites, and freenet and freesites. This allows for *any* information to be distributed. If someone wanted to start a site leaking thousands of corporate secrets and doing things that are blatantly illegal they could. If someone wanted to oppose policies of a repressive govt. they could. p2p offers a new method of distributing information. Certainly copyright infringement and the like are the most popular uses. But when a new technology comes along that sort of thing should be expected. The rise of home-video offered many new possibilities, but mostly it was used to film home-made porno.

That sort of straw-man argument ("I'm sorry but not being able to get music and movies for free is not oppression.") doesn't mean that the technology itself is not able to create a new paradigm that allows for more freedom for everyone. The ability for free flow of *any* information is certainly an amazing change, and it offers methods to circumvent oppression.

Your same argument could've been made about the nascent internet.

Claim 1: The Internet will allow for free flow of information and the ability of mankind to learn and be more Free!

Claim 2: I'm sorry but getting massive amounts of pornography is not learning and Freedom.

Why P2P is not like the printing press

[Nom du Keyboard]

Printing presses are large, expensive, hard to hide, and easy to suppress. This is why they have such high Constitutional protections. Their problem is that whomever anc afford and control the press controls the news. For The People this is a double-edged sword.

OTOH, P2P is small, cheap, everywhere, and hard to suppress. While it cannot merit the need for such heavy handed protection yet, it disseminates information broadly and uncontrollably. For The People this is often a good thing!

The Internet without P2P Networks?

[theJML]

Ok, so as far as I see this the entire internet is made up of P2P connections. Heck, I made a point-to-point connection to pull down the slashdot page. Distributed P2P networks (where files from multiple systems are put into a list as available from my location) like Kazaa, Limewire, etc... are pretty much just fancy extensions of what I do at home when I'm on my laptop and want to pull a file from my server or workstation. So unless I'm missunderstanding all the buzz, I've been using P2P since way before Kazaa and Napster and don't see how anyone (including the *AA groups) going to interfere with my ability to transfer a movie from my PC to my laptop.

Having said that, anyone can transfer information in a number of different ways, be it open or copyrighted so how can the *AA ban a service from working because when they checked it, it happened to be transfering copyrighted material... the same service could transfer legal data (like a webserver). P2P networks will be here to stay in one way or another. That's just the way the internet works, and, as a previous poster mentioned, the Industry will just have to get over it and *gasp* use that to their advantage!

You don't understand English or Economics

[geekee]

"While *some* used/use it as justification and denial, I have also seen, ans have used it because when talking about FACTS (not opinions or personal beliefs), the crimes involving p2p and copyrights involve piracy copyright infringement, not rape, murder, larceny, stealing, theft, etc.

Copyright infringement (gain + no loss) != theft (gain + loss. Copyright education + RIAA/MPAA/BSA = PROPAGANDA AND F"

You don't understand English:
Or are phrases such as "you stole my idea" or "you're stealing cable" not correct English

You don't understand Economics:
Claiming copyright infringement causes no loss to the producer is a fallacy. Illegal sources of the product lower the effective value of the product i.e. the price at which it can be sold. So therefore a loss of the product's value has occurred. Note that /.ers often say that labels should make albums cheaper so they'd buy them instead of stealing them.