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Grokster Shutting Down?
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo news is reporting that Grokster is shutting down. In a settlement with Hollywood and the music industry Grokster will be permanently banned from 'participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files and requires the company to stop giving away its software.'" A continuation on their deal with Mashboxx, or the end of grokster entirely?
This sucks!
Oh. Grokster.
never mind.
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
or the end of grokster entirely?
Regardless of if it's the end of the software, it's the end of the spirit.
What other file sharing (free) are still left?
"There are plenty of services where you can download music and movies legally. This is not one of them." Yikes!
Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, which is why engineers sometimes smell really bad.
Isn't that an oxymoron?
Uh, wait, I thought file-sharing technology was used for a variety of things. Yeah, it's mostly file-swapping of copyrighted material, but hardly the only use. According to the AP, let's just ignore the legal uses entirely and pretend that the whole purpose of this technology was to steal.
"This is a chapter that ends on a high note for the recording industry, the tech community and music fans and consumers everywhere," said Mitch Bainwol, head of the Recording Industry Association of America.
This is a temporary victory only for the RIAA. They can't change the fact that their business model is becoming obsolete.
Bradley Holt
Cue the almost unanimous outcry about how this guy is not speaking for us.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
as to what other kinds of software might be construed as having a hand "directly, or indirectly" in piracy and is subject to being shut down? Apache HTTP server? Outlook Email? Mozilla Firefox? "The Internet"?
It seems you just can't fight corporate giants with billion dollar legal power...
This is bad news, but the writer sounds biased and presumtuous with lines describing Grokster as: "... popular for stealing songs and movies online..."
It's one thing to shut them down. It's another thing entirely to require them to say something that sounds like a scolded child. I can't *prove* sounding like a scolded child was part of the deal, but i don't think i'm out of line assuming that that statement is less than 100% voluntary
They'll probably be back, but you'll have to pay for the service.
public class null extends java applet { System.out.print ("Tabula Rasa"); }
Grokster was never really that popular anyway. Anyway, they can shut down whatever network they want, and they can arrest anyone they want, but they'll never kill P2P off. As long as pirates exist, P2P will exist. It's a fact.
Long live Bittorrent!
participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files
I don't think I like such vague wording. How close to the pirating does software need to be in order to be "indirectly participating". Lots of pirated movies are encoded with Divx, are they next? Some come packed in RAR archives, how about them?
Hell, why not go for the gusto? Maybe it can be proven that the majority of pirates who rip and encode copyrighted media do so on Dell machines with Intel components running Microsoft Windows and we can take out the whole triumvirate.
I support the separation of oil and state.
Unfortunately for the movie and record industries P2P already exists. Killing the specific tools, in this case grokster, is not going to end the treats and the downloading. They are going to find that in the end they are going to have to give up against an overwhelming force that is too much for them. They have already killed, or at least neutered, Napster and now they got grokster but they still will face more, such as the current bittorrent and will face more in the future. As long as they do not provide what the clients want, and theft is not the main reason P2P exists, they are going to continue to face what they see as threats to their wellbeing
participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files
Too bad there has never been a single instance of "theft of copyrighted files" on any P2P network that has ever existed, or the Internet itself for that matter. Now copyright infringement is an entirely different kettle of fish, but I don't see anything in the summary about Grokster being banned from that.
@find *band*name*
to find the band you want@username
to get a list of his/her files so you can download themintellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Back in the mid-twentieth century, a company called Xerox was producing a machine which could be used to illegally copy copyrighted materials in books. The courts ruled that the company had to stop making and selling the illegal technology and pay damages to the publishers. At least that's how I remember it.
I know it's highly evil and would cause problems for many others besides the RIAA but I am strongly tempted right now to write a virus that simply starts up a p2p app, downloads and shares the latest Britney album or whatever tripe is top of the charts this week. Last week someone here described a virus that deleted itself off the disk when it launched and re-wrote itself on shutdown. That sounds like a good place to start ;)
Those bastards need to be taught a lesson - they don't speak for us "consumers". How this bastard can justify his statements are beyond me - in what way was this a happy-ending for anyone but RIAA stooges?
....only 74% of Goblet of Fire Downloaded!! Have a heart people!
A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in an election.
1. Make file sharing software 2. Get sued by *AA 3. ...
4. Profit!?!
"Grokster Ltd., a leading developer of Internet file-sharing software popular for stealing songs and movies online, agreed Monday to shut down operations...
... bans Grokster from participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files..."
Righteous anger its-not-theft-there's-no-deprivation-of-property flamewar to begin in 3... 2... 1...
Seriously, though, if you want a certain company's product, pay for it. If you wouldn't pay $0.01 for it, then why bother downloading it at all?
And just to forestall the inevitable, NO, I DON'T WORK FOR THE RECORDING INDUSTRY. I just believe that if you don';t think a product is worth the price offered, then you shouldn't buy the product... nor should you look to the black market for the product. Do without, it won;t kill you. And by not pirating the product, you won't help drive the *AA's assertions that they are losing a ton of cash to piracy.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
The article says "BitTorrent" is a service.
Is this true? I thought it was a file transfer protocol.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Of course given the stupidity and greed of the **AAs it would not surprise me to see them attempt to crush BT either by going after Bram Cohen or by having their bought and paid for congresscritters write an exceptionally broad addendum to the DMCA that would ban any development or distribution of P2P software. Of course the inevitable consequences of such a ban will be disastrous, but they'll take several election cycles to materialize, which is far beyond the horizon of the aforementioned congresscritters.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
So what's next for the RIAA? Where do they go from here?
I, for one, use file-sharing software EXCLUSIVELY for Linux Distros and public domain E-Books...Yeah, right.
Netcraft confirms it. Grokster is dead.
srobert is talking about photocopies. That was sarcasm, folks.
1990: We'll add passwords for computer games. Piracy "stopped."
1995: We'll copy-protect audio CDs. Piracy "stopped."
1997: We'll copy-protect DVDs. Piracy "stopped."
2001: We'll shut Napster down. Piracy "stopped."
2002: We'll shut Kazaa down. Piracy "stopped."
2005: We'll shut Grokster down. Piracy...
They're really up a creek without a paddle once people realize they don't need them at all.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Here is the Grokster story from the NYT.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
New York City - The Mafia has promised not to dip people in concrete and dump them into the Hudson River. In an agreement with FBI and Rudolf Giulani's ego, the Mafia has agreed that it will cease and desist this practice, regarded by some (particularly victims) as being somewhat barbaric, and usually quite illegal. "Da FBI came down on us and says 'Looks Fat Tony, we's getting tired of all da pollution. Peoples gotta drink dis water, ya know what I mean?'" said Fat Tony Lucchese.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Lets see, some of their users get involved with 'pirating' but its Grokster's fault and they get 'punished'?
So does that mean i can sue Ford because some moron hit me while driving a mercury?
Oh, and wasnt some of the 'offenders' using Grokster improperly using Windows? Then Microsoft is at fault too.
This is insane.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The University of Richmond's IP Institute web site has more information and links on this story.
http://ipinstitute.blogspot.com/
Lessee, the guns themselves are just tools, they can be used properly or they can be used improperly. Without knowing the relative proportion of usage of guns in both cases I would state without proof that the latter isnt a miniscule minority.
I believe replacing "guns" with "file sharing apps" wouldnt make the statements above invalid.
So the way I see it, the only real difference is guns have a huge corrupt lobby group FOR it, while file sharing apps have a huge corrupt lobby group AGAINST it. Ethically/morally, I don't see a difference.
So does this mean i can sue the manufacturer of the shovel that was used to kill my brother? I mean the tool was never designed to be used for murder, and I know the crazy guy the killed my brother misused the tool, but hey the entertainment industry was able to sue the manufacturer of a tool that harmed them, even though it was by the misuse of the tool by their users. So why doesn't this M.O. work for me?
One thing threatening Open Source today--piracy.
As we have already seen, the GPL is under attack from evil forces known as "pirates." These shadowy folk silently steal source code and violate the GPL, infringing on the rights of GPL authors. They are nothing more than thieves getting a free ride off the work of others, and I for one am disgusted at the idea of it. As you can see in the previous article, clearly Slashdot is also sickened by the idea of copyright infringement and piracy.
Some have even called for a lawsuit against these pirate thieves. Suing individual infringers has always been a position that Slashdot and its readership has supported, so it's only fair that the original GPL authors protect their rights and safeguard their material from being stolen in the future. I think we should all support any lawsuits against these infringers to protect the rights of GPL authors everywhere.
I applaud Slashdot and its readers for always taking a proactive stance against piracy and copyright infringement in general, and I would like to join the cause against this "source code theft." Piracy is a major threat facing OSS today. Thankfully, Slashdot always seems to take the side of content creators and never on the side of pirates, freeloaders, and other thieves.
Wink, nudge, etc.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Reintroduce the new legal version of Grokster with the RIAA filter service. Make said service a dll. It will be patched the next day. Then when the RIAA and the courts come a calling, you say quite rightly, "But Sir we do filter our downloads and we have strictly encouraged people on our site to use it to exchange legal files only." "Well what about all the piracy that is going on?" "Well sir these people all appear to have violated the DMCA and altered our software to do this. How can we be held accountable for changes someone else made to our code?" "So why are you not suing them all." "Well for one they are not committing a crime against us. Two, we do not want to bear the legal cost. Three, bad publicity would ruin our industry" "Well the RIAA sues?" "Case in point, Sir" "Oh!"
The result a legal service with the ball back in the RIAA court. They will once again have to sue each person, unless they seriously think that companies like Microsoft are going to allows them to pay a court into ruling that software makers are liable if someone else alters their code to commit a illegal activity. Think about it.
No match for "GROKSTER4G.COM" You know they'll want this one if a few months ;)
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Isn't this another example of the rise of unchecked corporate power. It appears to be inevitable that those of us who are employed will be working for one of four companies:
Microsoft
Disney
Wal-Mart
AT&T (When SBC buys up all the baby bells and revives the old giant)
All this time we have meaninglessly bickered over social issues.
The sooner the better I say - the confusion between theft and fair use has the potential to inflict a regime of oppressive digital restrictions management on legitimate users (like me) who merely want to take advantage of technology that has been available for at least a decade to make acquiring and using media simple. I want to be able to download tracks for 10c, with most of that going to the artist (that's about what they get currently, only we pay something like an order of magnitude more to the 'legacy music industry'). I want the format to be open so that I can still listen to music I own 20 years later - long after the iTunes music store has been replaced or the format obsoleted. I want it to be lossless and the masters to be of sufficiently high a quality that I *know* that any difference in quality is due to deficiencies in my hearing and equipment rather than some comercially driven decision to use a low quality codec (like 128k AAC). It should be so easy to obtain legitimately that there's no point in downloading it illegally, and value adds like cover art, lyrics, video, etc. should be included. I want at least the same freedoms I have with CDs currently, only without the restrictions imposed by the physical form. In particular, if I buy music I want my whole household to be able to enjoy it, ideally concurrently - not just from my account. I want to be able to use it everywhere - in my car, on the train, at work, etc. and I don't want to have to think about this; I want it to happen quickly, transparently and ideally wirelessly. I also don't want to have to go hunting for nor force fed new music - I want to have suggestions made based on others' collections which are similar to mine; if I like classical and trance surely there's someone else out there who does too, and they might have a few tracks I don't. There's a bunch of other things I want too, but you get the point...
So long as there's large, illegal distribution networks my needs may not be fulfilled.
"I felt a great disturbance in the Grok, as if a million recording artists cried out in torment and were silenced at once..."
i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it
Grokster's business model, if you can call it that, was basically to hang a big neon sign on themselves that said "Sue the shit out of me, I dare you, you pussies". Somehow this would have helped them succeed in whatever Bizzaro reality they lived in.
Oh sorry, I mean, they were trying to be the cutting edge in a new media uhh... reality where uhh... insert some crap here where they would be the white knights of the free music era.
Now they have joined Napster in the "we were once interesting, but now are shambling repurchased zombie brands controlled by the Dark Lords of the RIAA".
Maybe they'll have a merger and the world can brace for the biggest collective yawn the world has seen since the Dinosaurs accidentially did the same thing and all simultaneously died of boredom. Or something.
Gropster? Hmm.
"...participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files..."
What? You mean that they aren't allowed to steal copyrighted files?
... for freedom of speech.
Because, if ONLY "authentic licensed" works can be traded, what stops a government to decide if a particular file (i.e. controversial news of some chinese blogger text) is "illegal"?
Unregulated file sharing networks must keep existing. Let the RIAA sue users if they want, but DONT touch freedom of speech.
Welcome to America, land of the free! Freedom reigns here, and tyranning is not tolerated! :-(
So, after this, does anyone still believe that?
I seem to remember there being much more than that.
*ahem*
Look, I don't like the RIAA/MPAA etc and all, but lets be honest here. Sure you can use Grokster and other programs to find "indy" music, but pretty much all of the traffic on these networks is getting free music and movies one would otherwise have to pay for.
Whenever replying to someone who uses "theft" when they mean "copyright infingement", just reply substituting the word "murder" since that makes about as much sense. Don't explain, wait for them to ask why you're using that term.
e.g.
Only a small percentage of Grokster's customer base were not murdering music files, that's why they got shut down. I agree that murder of artist's music should not be allowed.
-Ryan C.
File sharing isn't a crime. Stealing is. This makes as much sense as suing crowbar manufacturers for home break-ins. Just be honorable and don't steal. Downloading copyrighted music is not some sort of protest, it is dishonesty pure and simple, with the added effect of causing rubbish like this to happen. The DMCA wouldn't exist if people had used common sense and a little restraint and not copied music that didn't belong to them. Now we have threats every other day regarding issues of fair use which were settled years ago, but now are considered gray areas because of the RIAA, DMCA, and broadcast flag proponents. We created an opening for them to change the law, and so they did, and are continuing to do. Grokster should have taken advantage of the precedent set by Gun makers and refused to give in. If people continue to lose their nerve, we will have fewer rights than we did before this whole mess.
What about bands that put their music on P2P networks in order to get noticed? Or bands that are aware that their music is being shared and don't mind?
What about them? Believe it or not, 99% of the sharing on P2P networks is illegal, copyright-infringing content. In fact, that was the networks' primary purpose - the illegal sharing of copyrighted material. Also, that's why they lost their court case - even though the service has other uses, it is overwhelmingly used for piracy.
Compare this to a bong and to a VCR. A VCR has its legal uses - taping a show for personal viewing later harms no-one, and is in fact fair use. Though it can be used to pirate videos, that's not its usual use.
Now, compare it to a bong. Sure,a bong has other uses such as:
a bong's primary purpose is to get high. Hence, where getting high is illegal, bongs are generally illegal. (In fact, they're called "drug paraphenalia." Now, not to open a pandora's box of hippies and "legalize pot" posts, but back to my point:
Grokster was shut down for piracy. The network was created solely to host illegal content, and the vast majority of its traffic was little more than piracy. The few bands that actually used its service can always create/host their own torrents - much easier and better, IMO.
So, don't debate the effects of the "loss" of this "service" to a handful of bands - start debating something more meaningful, like the proper extent of Intellectual Property rights or the fairness of the recording industry's oligopoly.
<GetsOffSoapBox/>
DATABASE WOW WOW
The sheer nature of the internet is peer to peer. You cannot change that. From one end to the other, the Internet, in itself, is THE LARGEST P2P Network.
Come on, RIAA. I want to see you TRY shutting down the whole internet.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I've seen (Score: 5, Troll) several times. (How: post gets moderated once as "Troll", lowering the score and modifying the text segment, then several people say "Hey, that's not right!" and decide to use "Underrated", which raises the numeric score but leaves the text segment unaffected.)
Actually come to think of it, if I recall correctly, one of them was CmdrTaco's wife (... Kathleen?) responding to his will-you-marry-me post in the affirmative. The image of a troll wedding makes me laugh every time I think about it. I mean, obviously, under a bridge, but...
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
...is the one that gets the attention. This goes against the commonly held view by the courts that the creator should not be held liable for the deliberate misuse of their product. That is the reason why every automobile maker, gun manufacturer, and alcohol producer is not completely bankrupt. I cannot buy the argument of intent: Samuel Colt knew when he designed the revolver what it would be used for. And advertising? Please. Look at any beer commercial and tell me the advertising has a completely benign intent. The entertainment industry has made it their plight and they are not going to stop until every "sharing" program is history. I believe it was the OJ Simpson trial that taught me justice is not blind...if you have the financial backing to unbalance the scales.
In a settlement with Hollywood and the music industry Grokster will be permanently banned from 'participating directly or indirectly in the theft of copyrighted files..."
Tsk...so, eh, anyone other than Grokster is still allowed to steal copyrighted files? Sweet. Sucks to be Grokster though. Couldn't the courts have just issued a temporary ban, and allow Grokster to participate in stealing once they serve their time? I mean a permanent ban, whoa, I mean that means they won't be allowed to steal again EVER.
The more files are shared right through their fingers.
Asshats.
Aw c'mon guys! That's not fair, everybody else is allowed to steal and just because we a' stole too much now youz'a gonna say we'z permanently banned and can't a' ever steal again for the rest of our lives!? Ma'ma m'ia, that's a' so unfair!!
On the day that the much anticipated Battlefield 2 demo came out, I queued up at the EA site and found that my 500 meg dl would take over 8 hours to complete due to EA's servers being slammed. Not to be discouraged, I tried several mirrors- but I guess the billion other people downloading the game also thought of that....
I did a quick search on google for 'Battlefield 2 Demo Torrent' and quickly found an active torrent (of the DEMO - there were others for the full game, but I didn't want to touch that). I let the EA demo continue and decided to let the two downloads 'race'.
Verdict? Bittorrent won by a landslide- my EA download clocked at over 9 hours, wheras Bittorrent was able to grab the file in 2 hrs and 12 mins.
For files that alot of people need relatively quickly (I needed my fix!) - Bittorrent works great. Sadly, alot of people also want to steal software....
I run a community gaming site that catalogs maps for First Person Shooters. With over 10 GB of maps and growing, P2P combined with magnet links is an incredibly valuable method of file distribution that doesn't require loads of cash, server cycles and bandwidth to operate and maintain. It boasts hundreds of downloads a week. I'd hardly call that "occassional."
No tracking, content control and targeting? Not convenient? You have to share back to get good rates? File descriptions are poor?
Any qualified web admin can implement tracking on the web site that's listing the download whether it be magnet, torrent or otherwise. As well, some P2P apps provide limited download tracking. BitTorrent on it's own does not provide tracking either (you'd have to analyze torrent downloads in the server log files), so your point is kind of moot.
Not convenient? Ever heard of a magnet link? You put a link on your page. Clicking it launches the user's P2P app and starts the download. How is that not convenient? On a comparison to BitTorrent I'd say it's just as, if not more convenient (I don't have to delete old torrent files with magnet links). Compared to HTTP downloads, all P2P tech is obviously less convenient since you have to download P2P software.
Share back to get good rates? Funny... that's how BitTorrent works and a good number of other P2P networks don't.
As I mentioned, magnet links eliminate the problems of the "vast network of crap." They contain a file hash similar to a torrent file and can contain one or more source seed server addresses. They can be put on a website just like any URL with the added benefit that they don't require you to have a one-to-one relationship of all your files to torrent files.
The fact that you even need to maintain and distribute torrent files is a pain. If I've got 4,000 files I want to distribute via BitTorrent, it requires that I maintain 4,000 torrent files. Granted, a software author may not have 4,000 files, but the requirement to maintain them still exists regardless.
The consumer only gets faster downloads with BitTorrent if they are able to get it configured and playing nice with their particular setup. Most, but not all, "average Joes" I've tried to sell BitTorrent on always complain about painful tweaking and crappy speeds because of it. This is primarily because BitTorrent requires you to upload back to the swarm, while others do not.
And a BitTorrent author only pays less for bandwidth if there are a large number of continually connected seeds and peers. If not, the
What about guns marketed to kill people (aka "home protection")?
Two words: justifiable homicide.
This makes as much sense as suing crowbar manufacturers for home break-ins.
No, it makes as much sense as suing crowbar manufacturers who promote their products as useful for breaking and entering.
Many of your arguments in favor of "traditional" P2P networks are very much the same as my arguments in favor Bittorrent. Your use of magnetic links to maintain your system is exactly why "bittorrent type" sharing is so beneficial.
My arguments against traditional P2P lie almost soley in their typical or originally intended use, which is to connect to the network with a client and start searching. This is not particularly convenient to the end user searching for legitimate content. It's much simpler for them to connect to your website and use your magnetic links, which is analogous to connecting to your website and clicking on torrent links.
If I had been more educated about magnetic links, I would have lumped them in with my arguments in favor of that type of file sharing.
could you give an example?
First off, assume that .torrent files are uploaded to an account at an online service provider such as a web host or a dedicated torrent host (e.g. newnova). Legal action would then proceed against the account holder, starting with a John Doe suit to discover the uploader's identity through a court order against the provider. Some countries have enacted legislation along the lines of the OCILLA to encourage providers to help out.
The most recent Limewire I installed required you to check a box that you will not use the software for copyright infringement. Or something like that. Don't remember seeing that before but maybe I forgot. Wonder if this will hold off the lawyers?
magnet links _are_ BitTorrent. All it is is a link that points to a torrented .torrent file.
(i.e. the client downloads the tracker from the swarm)
...percentage wise. Add up speeding, illegal lane change, driving to endanger, following too closely, failure to use turn signals, DUI and etc,etc, picky point and etc, the traffic on most interstates I have seen is well over 90% illegal. It's just more accepted and tolerated and indulged in by society at this point.
I think perhaps a better analogy might be booze prohibition way back when. Illegal as all get out, indulged by millions regularly, with highly selective harsh law enforcement.
Either way though your point is still valid. The only even half way answer I have for "the file sharing problem" is personal selective shunning. Onerous copyright compounded by gouging level prices, don't share it, don't patronize those concerns with your business either. Just say no, look for something else.
I hit a somewhat middle ground, against the ridiculous prices and vendor lockins with the **AAs products, so I only indulge with used or severely marked down pre recorded media, and those at a very low level. I have never downloaded one single thing that wasn't legal to do so, but I understand people's attitudes about it completely. You just lose all respect for a business that is so overwhelmingly run by and for crooks. There are exceptions of course, but not many.
Don't use the regular lanes, go back to sporting goods or garden or even jewelry at wallyworld. You can checkout there with hardly ever a wait. Same thing at kmart or home depot and some others, just don't use the normal checkout areas if there is a huge line.
I'm pretty sure that Magnet Links were invented by Kazaa and predate Bittorrent by many years.
First, copying is done by other people - it doesn't make sense to consider weather it's "voluntary" for somebody not involved. Second, file sharerers don't spread lies. I am a Mac user, and there are no services for me to legally download movies longer than 2 minutes.
I have the same PGP signature on my luggage!
Id like to echo your sentiment.
Furthermore, I would have expected something about the betamax decision by the parent. Your points are why I think the Grokster decision did not overturn the important parts of the 1984 betamax decision. The SCOTUS was very careful not to outlaw the technology behind grokster, but (what amounts to) malicious intent by the company.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
No, a magnet link doesn't point to anything.
Magnet links are "an open URI-scheme and supporting practices/code for enabling seamless integration between websites and locally-running utilities, such as file-management tools." They are a URN rather than a URL in that it specifies what to search for rather than where to download from. See http://magnet-uri.sourceforge.net/ for more information and the spec.
A magnet link will never point to a torrent file, but it could specify a file hash for a torrent file that can be searched against.
This is a magnet link
It specifies what to search for. The href portion is "magnet:?xt=urn:sha1:YNCKHTQCWBTRNJIV4WNAE52SJUQC
This is a link to a torrent
It specifies a location to download the torrent from. The href portion is "http://torrent.dulug.duke.edu/torrents/stentz-bina
...will they stop PJ from kicking the **AA's ass at every corner? It's like every 28 days she gets a new surge of energy and all the ball-less guys at the **AA's suddenly cringe and run for cover!!!!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yeah but, some bands i've downloaded can only be accessible via file sharing program. Like say they're in a whole different country. Take indie start-up bands for one. No label or distribution. 0.o;
For a moment I thought it was saying Groklaw. I'm glad Groklaw isn't shutting down.
magnet: links are a standard.
KaZaA didn't have any, though K-Lite had sig2dat (third party).
ED2K and eMule had/have ed2k: which is broadly similar (but based on MD4). See Sharereactor for how well that turned out.
First time I saw it was in a Gnutella client, but I can't remember which one. Shareaza helped to popularise it, and DC++ supports it now as well. Most major clients do, it allows for a good kind of scalable link and for content indexes. Bittorrent doesn't really have that so well, because it doesn't have what you might call a search, but it just about does the job.
The interstate is more like the Internet. Grokster is more like a trucking company that advertises "We're the cheapest way to ship your illegal narcotics!"
While FedEx and UPS may unkowingly ship illegal drugs to customers, they certainly don't encourage this sort of thing. If Grokster hadn't encouraged their customers to "share", we probably wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
A recent interview with the BBC has Napster's CEO Duea quoted as saying "The dream is that Napster would work on any PC, any player in any territory and work seamlessly,"
Some dream! Let's face it, it's a great dream if you have a PC, but it still doesn't work on a Mac.
Here's what you get if you want to check out Napster from a Mac:
"We're sorry, Napster is not currently compatible with your operating system.
Napster is currently compatible with Windows XP/2000, Windows 95, Windows NT and the Mac OS are not supported at this time."
at this time meaning since NAPSTER was "reborn" as a legitimate company. So I guess Duea's dream is alive for PC users but dead for all those looser Mac users. What gives NAPSTER? Sounds like you're just a Windows pimp whoring WMA!
What about my super cool iPod. Do your NAPSTER format files, oops sorry, Microsoft format files work on it?
"14. Does Napster work with iPod?
Apple has chosen to keep both the iPod and iTunes closed off from Napster and every other digital music service. Napster's philosophy is different. A Napster Membership gives you more ways to discover and enjoy music on more players. Click here for more information."
How about:
"15. Does Napster work on a Mac?
Napster and Microsoft has chosen to keep both Napster, DRM Enhanced WMA files and over 300 other music stores closed off from the Mac."
My essay, "The Case for File Swapping" explains why file swapping is ethical and moral and why it should be legal. It touches on many points of the subject and is very comprehensive. The page links to other discussions and resources on the topic.
We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
FIGHT THE POWER!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
All of the mentioned items in the subject could directly or indirectly aid copyright infringement.
When in the name of all thats holy are these pricks going to stop playing whack-a-mole? What is this supposed to achieve? Even if they can shutdown an odd software company, how does that stop users already running the network? Fuckwits!
If all the media they sold was put in libraries, people would be getting just as much media as they do with P2P, for exactly the same price.
Except that you're wrong. Libraries are typically run by local/county/state governments and either purchase, or have donated to them by people who did purchase, the material that they loan out. If I purchase a copy of a Harry Potter book and donate it to a library, a thousand people cannot simultaneously be reading Rowling's work. If the library wants to be able to loan it out to 1000 people, they'll need a 1000 copies of the media on the shelf. Likewise with books on tape, etc. The author of the book is still compensated for the library's ownership of the book, and it's not being spread around to multiple people at a time. Yes, someone could stand there and photocopy the entire book - but that's illegal, and the libraries watch for that degree of infringement. If you take the book home and do it, and start passing around copies, you're infringing just like any other pirate - but even dumber, given the material costs.
They sell *so many* CDs and DVDs that there literally isn't a market for them anymore.
Then, why do they continue to sell more? And, if there's no demand for the artists' work, then surely there's no one out ripping it off, either, right? Except people do. Thousands and thousands of copies every hour for the popular stuff. That's not the same as "no market." No, that's "people ignoring one half of the buyer/seller transaction, and just taking what they want because they've found a way to avoid paying for it." If those people actually respect the artist enough to enjoy their music and call themselves fans, why are they spitting on the artist when it comes to the relationship that the artist has asked the fan to respect?
If it's widely acceptable to copy most anything on xerox machines for personal use, how is it horrificly wrong to copy music to a few other people in the world for their personal use?
Because then it's not for personal use. It's for someone else's use. Once I'm done with a good book, I routinely give it or loan it to a friend. I do the same with movies and music. Especially with movies, it's very rare that I'll ever want to actually watch something more than once. With music, I can get tired of it, or not. But I don't photocopy whole novels for friends, and I don't burn CDs or fileshare digital media because it's cheap to just buy it if I think it's actually worth owning. Someone who just has to have a copy of an artist's work, and can't find the $9.95 it costs to actually get it the way the artist they say they like has asked them to obviously doesn't have the cash on hand to have a lot of the things they'd like to have. But unlike a nicer car or a bigger house, they can rip off the people they want to entertain them with relatively little risk of consequence. But then, most people have almost no capacity for embarassment, so that's not surprising, I guess.
Copiers are, on a per copy basis, probably used MORE than computers for copyright infringement
I'll be very curious about the source of your statistics. How much time do you think your average 20-year-old sophomore in college spends actually photocopying lengthy documents when he can just store the PDF or other media during the course of research? Now, how often does that same person "share" digital entertainment, since he spent all of his ready cash on beer, instead? I would suggest that the impact of his daily activities involves far more digital infringement than old-school analog.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to what % of P2P traffic is non copyrighted stuff? GPL, CCL, share ware or whatever. I suspect the number is roughly the same as the % of non spam e-mail.
Shaun
Using your analogy:
Telling a person to "go kill your wife" is far different then giving them a gun "this could kill your wife".
I dont think grokster ordered anyone to commit an illegal act. If that is the case and they did, then id retract my opinion on the case.
---- Booth was a patriot ----