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Razorback2 Servers Seized
An anonymous reader writes "Slyck is reporting that Belgian and Swiss authorities have raided and seized Razorback2's servers. From the article: 'Razorback2 was an eDonkey2000 indexing server - very different in nature from an indexing site such as ShareReactor. Unlike indexing sites, Razorback2's index was only available through an eDonkey2000 client such as eMule. While it does not host any actual files or multimedia material, it does index the location of such files on the eDonkey2000 network. The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.'"
That's just not true. People download more than they would have bought, that goes without saying...but services like iTunes have demonstrated that people will pay for their downloads if they're made available for purchase. I know people who never bought CDs who now buy songs online because they can buy only the songs they want. Prior to that, they pirated the material.
As for the wording of it, whether you like it or not "unauthorized duplication and distribution" is becoming part of the definition of piracy. You might as well give up that fight.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Why can't we, as an opensource community create a real completely decentralized p2p network? I have been thinking of doing this for a while and do have a lot of ideas for this. I have been online for 14 years and have seen a lot. After all we all know the problems with existing p2p networks from the past years:
- It has to be truly decentralized. No main server. Whatsoever. Except websites to download clients. It has to be able to discover new clients/networks/etc...
- Specs have to be open so anyone can implement a client.
- It has to be secured. Using SSL for example.
- It has to work from behind firewalls.
- It has to be secure enough to differentiate dups and fake files.
- Searches have to be decentralized, but cached, and verified for integrity.
- Of course, it has to be ad-free/spyware-free.
- It has to be built upon security, safety/integrity of the files and users in mind.
- Most of all, it has to be thought off as a legal project with legal uses so it can't be stopped.
I see no reason why this can't be implemented as a community effort? I have been a project manager for years, and for one would be willing to work/coordinate on such a project.
I don't want to live in a 1984-style society. But comments like this are not fair. Yes it's legal to link to illegal content, sort of. But when the _only_ purpose of a server is to link to illegal content, you have to be retarded to think it's just for research, or study or for the sake that it's not illegal.
This intent of this server's owners is clear: they wanted to exploit a legal loop to provide copyrighted content. They played, they lost. They knew the rules, otherwise they wouldn't have tried to exploit them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free, legal downloads for a private use. But these people can't say they didn't see this coming, unless they are liars.