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eDonkey Tells Congress It's Throwing in the Towel
An anonymous reader writes "Sam Yagen, President of eDonkey, testified at the Judiciary committee's hearing 'Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World'. It was there he told the committee that he is throwing in the towel. 'The Grokster standard requires divining a company's intent, the decision was essentially a call to litigate. This is critical because most startup companies just don't have very much money. Whereas I could have managed to pay for a summary judgment hearing under Betamax, I simply couldn't afford the protracted litigation needed to prove my case in court under Grokster. Without that financial ability, exiting the business was our only option despite my confidence that we never induced infringement and that we would have prevailed under the Grokster standard.'"
While many people don't use eDonkey (and the like) to pirate, the simple fact of the matter is that most do. Everyone suffers.
It would take a company with an enormous amount of funding, and legal stamina to keep up with all of the litigation involved with something that can be abused so easily. The RIAA and MPAA (the most litigious groups) do have that stamina, funding, and will to carry out all of their pursuits.
Hopefully artists will continue to open their music up to the masses. I think they stand to make more money (you know, they clearly do not make enough already) by publishing directly to these online music libraries (ala Yahoo, Rhapsody, iTunes, etc.).
There are still the issues with software "sharing." There is blatant piracy there. I've seen my neighbors kids come over with CD's of burned software that they got "for free" from Kazaa. They put me at risk that way. I don't want that crap installed on my computer so I can be their next target and example.
Will anyone miss P2P if it goes away? I won't even notice.
My ZooLoo
eDonkey is only a client application, there are plenty of independent eD2k servers out there that will continue to operate without it.
eMule also has it own kademlia network for distributed content indexing but it requires a server to fetch some clients to bootstrap off of - very much like Gnutella. If you do not mind hunting down a bootstrap IP:Port yourself and entering it manually, then you can use Kad without eD2k servers.
They just need to move to Canada, where the Supreme Court decided that file sharing is legal. Voilà! Problem solved!
While the Bittorrent protocol is clearly more modern, more fair (more upload usually does equal more download, unlike eMule), eDonkey and eMule clearly have their uses; whenever I was searching for Really Old Stuff like "classic" movies (>20 years), music, or games (both >5 years), OR something off-mainstream which might not be easily available otherwise, eMule has almost never disappointed me. It's like a huge P2P culture archive. I have not yet found a better source for satisfying such desires than eMule, but maybe I didn't look hard enough and someone might point me towards another P2P service that satisfies these needs?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
By your example, Xerox would have never made it out of the garage.
A pen can be used for copyright vioations, as can a camera. How much ink is invested in illegal copying every year is anyone's guess. Cameras, the same thing.
Yes, I know that those are ridiculous examples. However, under the Grokster standard, either of the latter could be considered instruments for wanton copyright violation (despite the ridiculousness of it) and be banned...if they were new technologies.
Most any tool, be it software or hardware, is capable of being used illegally. That people do so is not so much a reflection of most tools but instead a reflection on those people.
When I see how eagerly RIAA tries to prevent unpreventable evolution (i.e. P2P networks) I wander, if RIAA was so active couple of decades ago, they would probably try to ban digital coding of information, since it is now their main source of problems. I could bet that they cry for those old times when vinil was one and only. There was no sub-50$ vinil-burner then.
No sig today.
We may very well be on the brink of returning to the earlier days. Fewer companies and/or individuals will be willing to put their name on a P2P product thus opening themselves up to this type of expensive litigation.
"The days are growing darker." "The board is set, and the pieces are moving."
this is just a case of proving that the *AA really are bullying? If you can't afford to fight them (or just claim it) isn't that bad press for the *AA? Isn't this proof that they are attempting to rule what innovations should be allowed and which shouldn't? Doesn't this demonstrate that you can have a business or technology as long as it doesn't harm anyone else? at least not those with 150 year copyrights (even if your business isnt't designed to ruin them). Wow, those poor folk that owned train businesses! And those bad people that built horse drawn wagons. They got put out of business... shouldn't we pay their families restitution? .... Seems to me that this is the pinnacle of why software patents, DRMing, and such are stiffling innovation, and using monopolistic business practices.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Going offshore isn't much protection if the US gets their way:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651, 39220179,00.htm
Microsoft, *IAA, etc. know they can't win against offshore firms and open source under the current global legal system. They're pushing hard to have US laws (and presumably the US patent/copyright databases) applied globally.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'm not sure I'd take it so far -- but the concept is the same. Does the hospital promote violence to increase its bottom line? Does the pawn shop promote theft to increase profits? If so, the hospital or pawn shop would be guilty of a crime.
Whether or not the businesses profit from illegal activity is irrelevant to this case. What matters is if they promote illegal activity.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Exporting US culture is a pretty important part of the US economy and, less- tangibley, our politics. It is actually really important for the future of our country that Chinese and Indian people want to listen to Snoop-Dogg on their iPod and drink a Pepsi or a Coke and wear Levi's or Wrangler's or FUBU and Nike or Sketcher and watch Baywatch or The Dukes of Hazzard. And the Movies and Music are a really important part of that. It influences what the world thinks of the US.
If the RIAA and/or MPAA are allowed to kill their competition in the US, they will drive the innovation off-shore, and possibly make themselves obsolete.
We don't want the Chinese and Indians watching each other's movies and listening to each other's music. We want them craving all things American.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Go grab "Psychohistorical Crisis" by Donald Kingsbury. Not the catchiest title, but you'll thank me later!
I think most every poster has missed the point here. The eDonkey people are making this claim in front of Congress to show them how the new court ruling/laws stifle the free market* in a certain area sector. If you are unable to start a business because you can't afford the legal costs to prove that what your business does is not illegal, then something is seriously broken. eDonkey is using this opportunity to say exactly that.
Innocent until proven what?
*Tangent: Does it not seem obvious that the RIAA is trying to pass blanket laws to kill "unauthorised" content providers, even if they are legit, in order to continue their monopoly? Aside from iTunes, they are the only ones who can afford to prove that yet-nonexistant music service is legit.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
Ahh, the wisdom of the anonymous coward making ad hominem attacks. OK, here are the facts, go ahead and tell me which one you dispute. The U.S. is a very capitalist nation. Corporations are the product of capitalism, being for profit legal bodies created by and for capitalists to promote their capitalism. Large corporations change the legal system using large contributions to politicians in exchange for laws favorable to them being created/passed. Corporations use the existing laws to stop smaller companies innovations from being successful, being available, and thus costing them money.
Care to dispute any of these assertions 'O' font of knowledge? For the record I am neither a socialist, marxist, or capitalist. Maybe you've been sleeping for the last few hundred years and missed the current events. Capitalism stifles innovation and progress regularly. It also encourages it with (often) some measure of reward and by encouraging competition. Now tell me how the RIAA, a capitalist organization to the point of having overstepped U.S. antitrust laws and exceeded even it's lax policies to prevent complete consolidation, is encouraging innovation by bringing lawsuits against the creators of new technology (eDonkey) in order to bankrupt them with legal fees when they are obviously not breaking any laws? Do tell, I'm all ears.
I thought about it. The original Cochran quote was, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit." The quote has been changed, even in Conchran's memoirs, to "If the glove doesn't..."
I shortened "doesn't" to "don't" because "don't" is better for comedic flow, and because I wanted to drop a syllable to make up for the extra syllable in "transmit."
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
except, self service gas stations and self checkout lanes both have major perks for me as a user. the self service check out lines give me an option of getting through the line much faster when I only have 1 or 2 items, a major improvement.
Self service gas stations have always been cheaper than full service and most of the time I don't require the full service. Frankly, I"ll take the discount.
on the other hand, I get nothing out of giving away my upload bandwidth. I don't necesarilly get faster transfers so unless it all comes to me cheaper, I'm not buying it as a distribution method.
If the market moves to using Bittorrent anyway, there is no "center" to sue. Sure, they can attack the current "developer". Then, a new (set of) developer(s)will take over and keep pushing the FOSS code base forward.
Against such overt aggression by the RIAA, I think the only model is strategic passivity combined with highly tactical aggression spread out over many people and countries.
Then the RIAA will have to play a very large and distributed version of "whack-a-mole" which they can never win.
THE Private Pilot Adventure Guide
Capitalism's Big Lie is that it is responsible for production. Once upon a time, this was true: capitalism freed productive forces from the grave inefficiencies and baseless impediments of the feudal system. But now it merely does a better and better job of siphoning profits to those who own, and contributes no productivity. It serves the interests of the parasites.
Ah another Modernist....
Modernism's big lie is that we are always socially progressing to something better. This is the foundation of Marxism and I would argue that it is fundamentally wrong. In the natural world, for example, evolution is adaptive rather than progressive (i.e. animals don't keep evolving to be better and better-- they keep evolving to adapt to their environment).
Our current economy here is based on what I call Free Market Capitalism. Free Market Capitalism actually represents in some very profound ways, the fulfillment of Marx's predictions regarding the means to production being regarded as a common good. Free Market Capitalism regards the Free Market as the most important means of production and socializes it with things such as antitrust laws, the anathema of the Big Business Capitalism that Marx wrote extensively about.
However, I don't think that one must develop big business capitalism in order to develop free market capitalism later (the Marxian assessment). I think that the institutions of Big Business Capitalism are simply the same as free market capitalism and that the only difference is the role of government. If a feudal government moves to create and protect a free market, they can do so without going through the intermediary stage of allowing large businesses to run amok with the economy. I would argue that this is *exactly* what is happening in China at the moment (though rightly at a glacial pace).
While you do have a point that music and other content could still be produced in a non-Capitalistic society and that it is easy in a Pre-Napster world to confuse Universal, BMG, etc. with the artists, I don't think you can generalize this to other areas of the economy. Certainly, for example, the film studios rely on a larger level of corporate infrastructure than the rock musicians, so separating, say, Dreamworks from the films they produce is not as valid as separating Universal from the music CD's they produce.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
It reeks of anything but capitalism (and not to poison this post, it does reek of fascism).
Not to invoke Godwin's Law here, but this last phrase is very important and right on. I think it was Harry Truman who defended antitrust law because he said that corporate monopolies could become stronger than the federal government and pose a clear danger to American Democracy. He also used the term 'fascism' to describe the result of corporate monopolies.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
How short-sighted!
You forget that "those who own" and those who "don't own" are not permanent conditions. At one time in my life, I was a worker bee. Now I own a business. I advanced because I had the incentive to do so, and there is no doubt that I am contributing more to the economy of my town than I was before. I employ people. Without capitalism and it's incentives, I would not have done that - I would have been content to be a worker bee forever, and probably eventually slacked off when the realization of the futility of trying harder really set in. Incentive in life is everything. Capitalism is the only proven economic system because it taps everyone's selfish interests, you commie.
Profiteer!
About incentive, I'm sure you're industrious, but do you think the poor are poor because they're lazy?
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
So all corporations are not corporations? Are then not all citizens really citizens?
A poor corporation is really like a citizen, and a really "rich" person is actually a corporation in disguise?
It's still all bunk, I think.
-Brent