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New Music Player to Spread Files Wirelessly
PontifexPrimus writes "A new P2P / media player project could allow mobile music devices to automatically transfer media files from other players running the same software. While there seems to be a certain risk (mislabeling files, creating intentionally corrupt songs) there also seems to be a huge potential to this idea (get on the subway to work and when you arrive there your available music has doubled). Of course, this also is a nightmarish scenario for the RIAA-like organizations, especially since such swapping occurs without active user participation, in a drive-by way."
Current P2P is strictly pull. You select what you want, and get it from (wherever). Having random people push random stuff on to my hardware? Not a chance.
Would you allow someone to do this with your PC? Didn't think so. Remember that when you connect your new mp3 player to the USB port.
A potentially good idea, but we all know there is a tiny minority who will screw it up. Badly.
>And no one would produce anything, because people do actually need to eat.
>
>Do YOU go to work for free?
Yes I do. There are a load of things I do for no monetary reward that others get paid for, the same is probably true for most people. Some people get paid for writing out their opinions in print, for one example.
Music predates copyright by a few thousand years. People didn't need copyright to write or play it before, they don't need it now. Writing and playing music is fun and rewarding in and of itself, and there are plenty of ways that musicians have been financially supported in the past without copyright.
By the logic you put forward nobody would play sports anymore if you took away the professional leagues.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." -Plato
You're absolutely right.
That's exactly why VCRs are illegal! Because people could use them to commit copyright infringment!
Oh wait, no. You're an idiot. This whole issue was resolved twenty years ago in the Sony v. Betamax supreme court ruling. This is perfectly legal and it is a good idea for the exact same reason VCRs are legal and a good idea.
Yes people could decide to commit copyright infringment. So fucking what?
I have an entire folder on my computer of public domain / Creative Commons MP3 songs. The people manyfacturing this product have every right to sell it to me, and I have every right to load those files onto the product and to distribute and redistribute those files to anyone and everyone.
Of course, the second this moves from simply audio to pictures and/or video, you could wind up with other illegal content (i.e. child porn) on your player, just by walking by someone with a similiar device who so-happens to be a pervert.
Yeah, and?
Someone can mail child porn into your mailbox. And they could put a flyer with child porn under your car windshield. And they could hand you a free innocent-looking magazine on the street as you walk by, with child porn on page 8.
Someone could choose to commit copyright infringment using or to distribute child porn with it. Just as they could use a Xerox machine to do the same things.
And whenever you find files on it that you don't want... whether it is simply crappy music or child porn or whatnot, then you delete it. And no, you are not violating any laws if someone sticks child porn into your mailbox or broadcasts it onto your device and you had no idea about it.
The answer is simple. They have the right to sell it and you have the right to buy it, and YOU are responsible not to intentionally violate any laws.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.