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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!
or the end of grokster entirely?
Regardless of if it's the end of the software, it's the end of the spirit.
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...
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!
That's really what I read at first too. I almost lost it.
But Grokster... I could take it or leave it. I've never used it. The only suspicious thing is not being able to distribute their software anymore. There are far more dangerous things that are still allowed to be sold
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.
"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.
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...
Too bad there has never been a single instance of "theft of copyrighted files" on any P2P network that has ever existed
Probably the closest thing to that would be when a filmaker sends a screener, under the terms of a strict agreement with the recipient, to critic or other party for preview. The screener stays the property of the filmaker, and the guy that takes that filmaker's data (even if they eventually return the original media) and gives it out to a couple hundred thousand special "friends" over the 'net can pretty safely be said to have stolen that material. Certainly by any reasonable person's evaluation of the situation (say, while sitting on a jury), that's not so different than running off with any other trade secret or other proprietary information. That scenario, of course, is scarcely imaginary. We've seen it many times already.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
Sarcasm is a more useful rhetorical device when the truth that it (directly or indirectly) points out resonates with the sarcastic statement being made. But since Xerox didn't ever position its products as a way to "get free stuff" or spread around copyrighted works by the millions, their equipment's use in copyright infringement was despite their corporate position and publicly proclaimed admonishments. The P2P services that have found themselves in trouble have been loudly supporting piracy since the get-go. Intent is the difference, and lack of it makes your example fall flat. Maybe more fun to allude to old-style forgeries, counterfeiters, or all those other classical (and already blatantly understood as illegal) methods to make your point. Um, except the point wouldn't mean as much.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Why would one PAY to share files?
1. People are at best ignorant, at worst stupid.
2. The service might actually provide some value-add. Like news-servers, they offer search, retention, stability and download bandwidth without upload (very nice if you're on a very lopsided connection).
3. No matter how you twist it, bulk data is very cheap compared to the IP embodied in those data. You might as well ask "Why would one PAY for CD-Rs to share files?"
4. People are already paying for it. Many people have broadband connections faster than they otherwise would have for the prupose of illegally downloading something off the net.
5. To legitimize themselves. I've heard several people who were using Napster who quit when they were convicted. Everything up to then was like "unclear" even though the users in question were blatantly violating copyright.
Those are just the ones I can think off of the top of my head. If you want it summed up on one line: It's better to pay a little than to pay a lot.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The position on information sharing can have different attitudes to classical copyright and copyleft copyright without beeing inconsistent.
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
Isn't this a tad bit of a broad definition of stealing? Given the legal/free content out there, and the fact that you can legally get music CDs and other "usually pay for" content free from contests, promos, even from your friend giving it to you because he doesn't want/need it, or buying it from a used CD store.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot