Harnessing the Power of P2P, Looking Back

brajesh writes "It has been seven years since Napster, the first widely-used peer-to-peer music sharing service, was released, and it made a major impact on how people, used the Internet. NY Times has an article about Napster and how it quickly grew into an Internet phenomenon - not to mention the music industry's bête noire until it was shut down by the courts four years ago. The article also mentions Shawn Fanning, the creator of Napster and his new venture, along with other efforts like new version of Grokster, Apple's iTunes, trying to cope up with growing concerns of Copyright Violations and corresponding backlash against P2P file-sharing."

Comments

Sure it did...

[Anonymous Coward]

and it made a major impact on how people, used the Internet.

Sure it did. From that day on, people using the new protocol were all guilty before proven guilty. All people hear today are 'cutting sales', 'innovation', 'rootkit' for that matter. This is a new age I guess. And if you're not one of the 'big guys', it's not really fun...

Summaries quality?

[dorkygeek]

Is it just me, or is the grammar of the summaries especially, bad on weekends?

Re:Summaries quality?

[LarsG]

It, is just, you. ;-)

Napster never lost his case, justice did.

[k00110]

Actualy if Napsters had has many lawyers and money as the Majors "babels", they would be where iTunes is right now. The ways laws work should be changed so people with the most ressources don't get an advantage over those without.

Captain Kirk?

[XanC]

and it made a major impact on how people, used the Internet.

Is that you?

Re:Hmm I wonder

[Powercntrl]

I wonder how Shawn feels about letting loose the RIAA and the massive flood of lawsuits and etc that exists today...

Like a sellout, perhaps?

From above link:
The creator of Napster has a plan to help file-sharing networks go legit and make money for the music labels.

Napster had the most impact on the Net since WWW

[saskboy]

I'd say that Napster shaped how people use the Internet. It was the greatest advancement in Internet use since the invention of the WWW for browsing. SETI@Home came out about the same time as Napster, and it paved the way for other distributed computing projects which have had some impact on the Internet's usage, but even the popular screensaver has been dwarfed by P2P sharing programs.

I think SETI@Home would have been the biggest thing since sliced bread if they found a way to search for alien music online while looking for alien signals in space. And the Voltrons don't even have obscure earth copyright laws for downloaders to worry about, although their tenors do make your head explode if you crank the volume.

Isn't it funny?

[MightyYar]

Everyone who used Napster thought it was the coolest thing that had happened to music in a long, long time. How messed up is our system when something that universally praised met it's demise?

Re:Isn't it funny?

[RAMMS EIN]

``Also, I take issue of the term "pirate" as applied to people who are not doing anything for profit. For instance, was I a pirate when I made a mix-tape for the girl I liked in 6th grade?''

It depends on the law. In the Netherlands, for example, you are allowed to make a copy for personal use, and you're also allowed to lend your CDs etc. to friends (who are also allowed to make a copy for personal use). You are even allowed to make a copy on behalf of someone you know; this makes your mix tape perfectly legal. Downloading from the 'net also counts as making a personal copy, so it's legal as well.

In the States, I understand, this is all very different.

``I believe that laws should protect the interests of the electorate.''

You would expect so, in a democratic country. I think it's long past time for political reforms; there are many things wrong with the American political system, from a voter's point of view. Of course, that's just one arrogant European's opinion.

Hmmmm

[Sv-Manowar]

It's amazing how napster and the other p2p programs have really revolutionized the internet, before home pc's were common I knew no-one who would have over maybe 50 CDs. Now when I talk to anyone, they have a full iPod and tons of songs. Instead of hounding the net, the music industry should be celebrating how it has helped people find new bands and new genres that they like.

Re:Hmmmm

[issachar]

Absolutely. I just listened to the little music I had before. I almost never bought music and when I did, it was from second hand CD stores. Then P2P happened. I've got more music than I can listen to and my tastes have really expanded. (Of course I also went to college in the meantime, so that might have had an effect too).

But P2P is a hassle. As easy as Limewire is, it's not as easy as I'd like it to be. (Although it is easier than going to a store and finding what I'm looking for).

The napster subscription model works for me though. As long as they work out the small problems. I wouldn't have considered something like Napster before P2P. I wouldn't have felt any desire to have it because my musical tastes weren't that large.

Re:Hmmmm

[Jerry Coffin]

Instead of hounding the net, the music industry should be celebrating how it has helped people find new bands and new genres that they like.

This would only make sense if the music industry really wanted to serve their customers -- and based on their actions, that's quite apparently not the case at all.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that while the recording industry makes lots of noise about how much revenue they're losing due to P2P, they also have good enough financial analysts that when they're being honest with themselves, they realize that the real loss is essentially zero.

First of all, the ability to actually search and find what you want to a large extent makes the recording companies irrelevant. Until recently, bands fell into two discrete categories: those with recording contracts, and those without. Anybody without a contract remained essentially a nonentity. Many bands were quite willing to sign virtually any possible recording contract, because even if they realized it was horribly unfair, they still ended up far better off than without it.

Most of this derived from two things: distribution and promotion.

With P2P, both of those are largely nullified. The P2P network provides absolutely anybody with essentially instant, worldwide distribution. Likewise, searching means people can find what they really want instead of depending on the record company promotions to tell them what they want.

Now, it's true that the majority of what has been distributed over P2P networks has been material copyrighted by the record labels. Frankly, I doubt that's what they really cared about though -- what they cared about was the fact that if Napster (for example) had been allowed to survive for very long, there would have been a migration away from "their" music, and they would have faced utter irrelevancy.

For them, this isn't a matter of boosting sales by an extra few percent -- it's a matter of outright survival. They probably also realize that it's really a losing battle. As an industry they're currently providing no value, and despite attacks on their intelligence, they're smart enough to realize that if they provide no value, they'll die.

What they're doing right now is (I suspect) mostly a delaying tactic, trying to maintain some degree of relevance until they can figure out how to put themselves back onto the mainstream.

I suspect iTunes (and its ilk) will be a large part of that. Contrary to implication elsewhere, while iTunes is certainly a way for people to download music, it's most assuredly not a p2p network. iTunes is a perfectly average centralized network where you're downloading music from ITMS' servers. It's centralized and controlled in almost exactly the same way as traditional music publishing was. In fact, in the long run it probably creates a situation even MORE favorable to the recording industry.

With traditional brick and mortar distribution, the big distributors (Best Buy, Sam Goody's, etc.) had quite a bit of power over the recording companies. Most of this power derived from the fact that building thousands of record stores was expensive and difficult, so the supply of national distributors was fairly limited. The Internet and non-P2P record distribution like iTunes changes that: it takes virtually nothing to set up a reasonably usable international recording distribution network. ITMS is way out in front right now, but I'm pretty sure Apple realizes that there are thousands of other people with the capability and resources to put together a reasonably competitive offering in a matter of months.

This means ITMS has virtually not power when they bargain with the record labels. Previously the record labels probably had something like 80% control over the music stores. I'd guess with Yahoo! Music, ITMS, MP3.com, etc., they see a chance to have more like 95% control, and they like that idea a whole lot.

ITMS (for one) may seem a lot like Napster in a

Re:Hmmmm

[Jerry Coffin]

It is very much the case. RTFA. The fact of the matter is this: Record sales are going down. Illegal P2P downloads are going up.

That depends on who you listen to -- according to the RIAA (i.e. representing only the largest labels) sales are going down. NARM (representing record stores) disagrees -- they claim that although it's slow, there is actually growth in record sales.

IOW, much of what's happening is that independent labels are growing at the expense of the major labels. The assertion that illegal P2P downloads in increasing seems completely unsupported. I'd guess that, if anything, the opposite is true: since Napster was shut down, illegal P2P downloads have slowed substantially.

All of this also ignores the economy as a whole: the fact is that the economy in general slowed substantially around five years ago, and especially luxury industries have had flat to falling sales since then. IMO, P2P downloads are purely a red herring, and record sales would be down about the same (or even a bit worse) if nobody had ever invented "P2P" at all. Again, NARM takes this into account -- for example, though they it was "offset by cannibalization", they admit that "...sales were stimulated by file sharing". Also note that this is from 2000, when file-sharing was at its height.

You missed one minor technical detail: Musicians, producers, studio engineers, and session musicians actually like getting paid for their hard work. [...] You forgot "paying all the people who work hard to make a great album of music".

I didn't miss this at all -- I ignored it because it's irrelevant. An engineer, musician (session or otherwise), etc., working for an independent label doesn't do it for free either. Likewise, when a musician decides to publish directly, he's rarely doing it for the sake of charity either.

In any case, a great album rarely needs much expensive production work. A great album is recorded, and transferred to its final form with a minimum of fuss or bother. The albums that are expensive to produce are mostly mediocre garbage made by "musicians" whose talent (if any) is in areas like synchronized dancing, not music.

It's also worth noting that costs in this area are really substantially lower than they used to be as well -- as with many other things, computerization has made engineering/post product substantially easier and faster than used to be the case.

Oh, it's very much what they care about. Case in point: Record companies did nothing to stop IUMA, who was delivering musicial content in mpeg compressed format before mp3 even existed.

You're making a fundamental mistake here. On one hand, there's what they really care about. On the other, there's what they have at least some minimal excuse to take people to court over. The fact that something doesn't fall into the latter doesn't necessarily exclude it from the former.

One thing to keep in mind is that many, many people can make music. Very few can make music that is actually worth listening to. This is why people download the latest Gwen Stefani song instead of some garage band.

Sorry, but this is pure BS. The reality is that lots of people can came music that's actually worth listening to. Addding things up in my head, so far this year I've heard at least seven local acts who are every bit as good as Gwen Stefani, and IMO, at least one of them is substantially better. Unless you happen to live near me, and go to listen to local bands, you've probably never heard of any of them though.

There are a lot worse examples than Gwen Stefani too. Face reality though: complete lack of musical talent hasn't stopped a lot of boy bands (to name just one class) from making tremendous amounts of money.

--
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

The New Napster...

[issachar]

Having just signed up for the new Napster a couple of days ago, I think they might actually have something worthwhile.

The subscription model is good. I still don't trust buying something digital that I can't copy. I also tend to have tastes that change all the time. For $10 per month I get "everything". Even if the DRM is crackable, why would I bother doing it? I'm still going to want to get new music and $10 per month isn't going to break the bank.

Napster downloads fast and it's simple. Limewire and the like are cheaper, but they're slightly more of a hassle and my time is worth something to me.

It does have a few problems though...

1. The subscription model breaks down unless they've got virtually everything I'd want to listen to. This means they need to have everything. Everything Independent music, foreign music, all of it. If it's just favoured RIAA stuff only or even worse, RIAA stuff without they're best music it'll fail.
2. They've got 1 million songs available in the UK and the US, but only 700,000 in Canada? I asked them about it, and they said it was because of different music licensing in different countries. So... Fix it! That's an excuse not a reason.
3. Having part of library unavailable for streaming/download and available only for purchase as tracks are sold in iTunes. Lame. If I wanted to buy music a la carte, I'd go with iTunes. Apple sells them for less anyway. That goes with point #1. The subscription has to be total or people will continue to use other P2P. And if they're using P2P, they might stop using Napster.
4. Charging extra for letting you listen to your music on a DRM-enabled mp3 player. This should be basic service. It just looks greedy.
5. The searching interface needs improvement. Too much clicking required.
6. The software should not crash. Which it did when I was listening to my first song. It got messed so badly I had to use System Restore to get it back. No problems since then though. It might have had to do with upgrading to Windows Media Player 10. (I see no reason to do that again and confirm my suspicion.
7. I hope they fix the problems. Overall, I like the service.

And history repeats itself

[RAMMS EIN]

It's funny how history repeats itself here.

Before Napster, people downloaded music from websites, and usually paid for it.

Then Napster came, and it was a revolution. Suddenly, downloading music got big. Unfortunately, the widespread illegal practices on the network were used to force Napster to shut down.

Many people have tried to set up services similar to Napster in spirit. Virtually all of these get attacked by the **AA sooner or later, usually resulting in them shutting down. That's the short cycle.

In the meantime, many people have gone back to downloading music from websites. That's the long cycle.

Re:No, napster was wrong

[illectro]

Actually, there Napster and several other internet music companies (myplay, musicbank etc etc) all tried working with the labels and were universally stonewalled. The napster case was actually the catalyst that got the labels talking with the digital music companies, but by that time most of the 'legal' companies were in bad shape financially and folded. had built all the technology and sales models we see in the market years before the Itunes music store appeared and won all sorts of awards for innovation.

Re:Napster had the most impact on the Net since WW

[InterStellaArtois]

I think SETI@Home would have been the biggest thing since sliced bread if they found a way to search for alien music online

That's one for The Onion:

Furious lawyers representing the Recording Industries Association of Neptune arrived on planet earth today to initiate litigation in response to the latest internet file-sharing phenomenon - Search for Extra-Terrestrial Music @ Home ...

"12-years old or not", snarled Zgilrolivolgh, "this little pipsqueak is leeching off our deprived artists who can barely afford a breath of CO2 between releases".

OK so maybe I shouldn't write it but the idea's there.

P2P

[phunster]

Most of the replies seem to be focused on music file sharing. This is a result of the RIAA and MPAA demonizing P2P in order to protect themselves without regard to the legal uses of P2P. I believe that P2P democratizes the Internet, it gives a developer the opportunity to distribute something that he/she has created without incurring the costs of bandwidth. It gives a new band without a recording contract a way to distribute their music. It gives a filmmaker without a studio "deal" an affordable way to distribute a film . In the 90s the mantra of many businesses was that by using the Internet a small business could look like one of the big guys and compete on quality, service and price. The fight to keep P2P alive is about a lot more than stealing. Their are many ways to prevent the illegal use of P2P without destroying it. Let's get on that bandwagon before it is destroyed so that a few very rich companies and individuals can protect their wealth.

To each their own.. The New Napster...

[issachar]

Well, to each their own. I like the service. If you don't then I guess it's not for you.

About the DRM. If you don't like it, that's your beef, but I see no problem in principle. Their DRM lets me download my music to a player and take it with me. I see no problem. iTMS lets you download your music to a player and take it with you. Again, no problem. I just prefer subscription to a la carte.

I DO see problems with DRM in an iTMS style purchase model. If I buy a song I want to actually be able to do anything I want with it. (Use Winamp, whatever). But with Napster I'm not buying the music. I don't want to buy it. As soon as I'm unhappy with the service or I see something I prefer, I quit. In a model like that, DRM makes sense. Without DRM that model wouldn't be available to me.

I doubt you'll get an iTMS plug-in because I suspect that Apple would have to agree to it. Why would they do that? They like the iPod-iTunes duo.

About the too much clicking though, I think you misunderstood me. No clicking at all in an interface? That wouldn't work for me. I'm just talking about the fact that I have to click a drop down menu to indicate a search for artist or track or whatever, click again in the text box for my search terms, and click again to begin the search. iTunes has a single box that refines my search every time I type a character. Much nicer.