Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I thought the open source and decentralized eMule was the tool of choice for the eDonkey network, with Shareaza and other tools following closely behind.
. . .that the U.S. government will bend over for the highest bidder.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
Welcome to the capitalist world, where justice is something that you purchase by the hour, not something that you have an inalienable right to.
It's what everyone else is doing to get away from the expense and inconvenience of doing business in the US.
Deleted
It's rather strange to load up an article which is talking about shutting down p2p with iPod nano ads all over the place. Now I don't know how to feel.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Feh. We don't really care if we put you out of business. You don't pay us!
Do you feel owned yet? You will.
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.
"No reasonable person can claim anything except that his plan to achieve popularity with eDonkey was through facilitating illegal file-sharing. "
/.ers) may not seem obvious to other reasonable people.
First, I disagree. Plenty of reasonable people could claim otherwise. What may seem obvious to you (and a lot of us other
Second, it doesn't matter if he facilitates illegal file-sharing. What matters is if he expressly promotes illegal filesharing, or takes other affirmative steps to foster infringement.
Justice Souter, from the Grokster decision:"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.""
Whether or not his business plans hinged on ease of infringement to gain popularity -- if he didn't promote it, and if he didn't distribute eDonkey with the expressed intent of promoting illegal filesharing, then he would not lose the case.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
"Ah, but can you prove that in court? OJ got off with more evidence against him than you have on eDonkey. "
If the file don't transmit,
You must acquit.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They just need to move to Canada, where the Supreme Court decided that file sharing is legal. Voilà! Problem solved!
The way to make money off P2P is not to offer P2P services (a direct invitation for lawyers and other scum to line their pockets), but to *use* P2P to distribute your own data for next to nothing.
It's a terrific delivery mechanism with an enormous benefit/cost ratio, so why not make that the basis of your business by delivering your own material over it, or delivering content belonging to other less technical providers under contract? You would be legally in the clear, while benefitting from absolutely minimal networking costs.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
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.
Rich people win again!!! I like rich people because they're better than the rest of us. I think they should always get their way, because rich people are just better genetic material, it's true, ask them. The government knows it, it's just a matter of time before the rest of us catch on.
There only needs to be one corporation: MicroHaliRIMPAADellAppleMartopoly. And it will pay regular people the same wages, but rich people will get more. And it will know what we're doing at all times (to thwart terrorists) and have total control of all media. Like real communism (not ideal communism). Kind of like what's happening now, but without hiding the fact that regular people are getting shit on.
Suppose a for-profit hospital sets up a clinic in a high-crime area, despite the difficulty of operating a business there. Their business plan calls for them to make money from the crimes of their customer base. They report the evidence of crimes they find, but they can't police the neighborhood.
A pawn shop in that same neighborhood sells guns and ammo, despite the difficulty of operating a business there. Their business plan calls for them to make money from the crimes of their customer base. They report the evidence of crimes they find, but they can't police the neighborhood.
What do both of those businesses have in common? They both make crime more convenient. One sells the supplies, the other wipes up the mess (so you are less likely to die if your victim fights back). Both businesses serve the perps and the victims, and both discriminate as best they can between them.
What do they have in common with EDonkey? Either they all need to be shut down for capitalizing on human frailty, or none of them do.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
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
As others have already posted, the p2p scene is only going to be pushed further underground now. Laws and lawsuits are not going to stop the swapping of copyright protected materials and of course the commercial pirates won't be stopped either. That being said, I think that p2p will disappear from the political landscape because anyone with a high profile service is going to be sued out of existence right away, leaving only the largely invisible underground.
Out of sight is out of mind! *AA will declare victory since there's no point in chasing ghosts (as long as they keep quiet). And the politicians will also declare victory since there is no political hay to be made railing against something that's largely invisible and too technical for ordinary folks to care about. So if everyone is patient, the game will soon be over and those in the know can return to their regularly scheduled filesharing, legal and otherwise.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Small companies are bullied out of business because they can't afford to prove your point, although they haven't done anything wrong.
Sad.
We may very well be on the brink of returning to the earlier days.
The internet of 1997 with the connection speeds of 2005? Sign me up!
Obligatory responses to this include multiple variations of:
Me too!!1!
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_Victory
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The only way to combat the frivilous lawsuit is to be anonymous. Never let them find out who you are. Frivilous lawsuits can't really punish the person whose identity isn't known.
No, my friend. That would be workers.
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.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
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
They already do that... for as long as I use eMule. eMule downloads a server list and connects to servers hosted by indivuduals, mostly. God, do people moderate at random to get rid of those extra mod points?
Bored? Browse Slashdot with a +6 modifier for Troll comme
It's interesting that so many folks would bring up the issue of accountability, really. As with any crime committed with the aid of an instrument or piece of technology of some kind, the instrument itself can not be held accountable for the act it was used to perpetrate. Common sense tells us this. If only common sense were applicable to the Judicial Branch of the United States government, perhaps we would see a sharp decline in incidents such as this.
If I remember correctly, the Supreme Court recently ruled that a gun manufacturer - Smith & Wesson, to be exact - can not be held accountable if their products are used to injure or kill innocent people. When I read of this, I thought to myself, "Finally, common sense prevails!" Did I think that because I want to defend gun manufacturers? No; I've never liked guns, and I've never liked the people who make them, either. I became fond of that ruling because it embodies an important underlying concept: A device, even if it is designed for the sole purpose of causing serious and immediate bodily harm, can not be inherently evil. Therefore, the person producing these devices can't be made to answer for someone else's crimes.
Sure, if a company was producing a dangerous product that didn't have any real legitimate applications whatsoever, they could - and probably should - be dealt with. However, the point remains: Here we have a gun manufacturer, whose products may well kill hundreds every year here in the United States alone, but it's not their fault that people are using their guns to commit serious crimes. It is the motive of the buyer and how the product is actually used that truly matters, not the product itself and the person who made it available. (After all, firearms have other places in our lives. Home defense, hunting, sport, or simply collecting guns, for example.)
You can probably see why I almost shit myself when I first heard about the Grokster ruling. The Grokster ruling is, in itself, a shining example of the ass-backwards logic that exists in the courts these days. A gun manufacturer can't be held accountable if their guns kill someone, but it's Grokster's fault if I pirate a poorly compressed copy of The Boondock Saints using their product. Excuse me? Of course, it also goes to show where the government's priorities really are: satisfying campaign contributors and special interest groups. I know I'm really going off on a tangent here, but if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. The NRA doesn't think gun manufacturers should be held accountable if their guns kill people, but the RIAA and MPAA think it's Grokster's fault if someone uses their products to pirate music and movies. Let's play a nice, fun game of 'Follow the Money', shall we? Wait. We don't have to. It's blatantly obvious.
It's extremely unfortunate that any company can be made to buckle under this kind of pressure. Many new technologies are now endangered by the Grokster ruling, not because they can be eliminated outright, but because it takes so much time, money, and patience to deal with the courts that nobody in their right mind without a few million dollars and an army of lawyers would even try to defend their products.
I just find it very strange that the Smith & Wesson ruling's logic doesn't apply elsewhere. Sure, if a product is defective, and that defect results in bodily harm or the destruction of property, that's the manufacturer's fault. However, if a product does not cause bodily harm or the destruction of property by its own volition, and must first be activated or otherwise utilized by a human being to present any kind of danger, it's the user's fault.
Therefore, the proprietors of a filesharing network and the programmers who created the client software used to access said network can not be held accountable if other people utilize their network to engage in illegal activity. While I do believe that the network's owners should do what th
How do you figure?
Here's how: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
Oh look at the section titled "Development of Gini coefficients in the US over time":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#Deve lopment_of_Gini_coefficients_in_the_US_over_time
* 1970: 0.394
* 1980: 0.403
* 1990: 0.428
* 2000: 0.462
This is a FACT, it is BUSY HAPPENING, not some arbitrary abstract tinfoil-hat notion that might theoretically happen. A run-away Gini Coefficient is NOT sustainable.
History has prooven time and again that money is rather like water - if you try and dam it up it will eventually flow elsewhere or be unleashed in a torrent.
No, it hasn't, and it doesn't. If you try to "dam money up", what happens is that it becomes worthless - it loses it's value and the economy collapses. Money is a reflection of the amount of value, or "production" being generated by an economic system, and when production ceases (because the means of production are consolidated and regulated into a disproportionately tiny percentage of hands), that money no longer generates corresponding "stuff" that gives it meaning - everyone is just poor. For references, see, well, pretty much hundreds of countries at all times in history including today. You can print money, but you can't create money. You can only create "stuff". The bottom falls out of an economy when too many people are poor and too few people are producing - e.g. see the Great Depression - and when everyone is poor, it is not easy to get out of it, even if someone came along and gave you a few million dollars, there would be nothing you could do because nobody would be able to buy the products you'd try to produce with that.