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.'"

Comments

Hmm

[voice_of_all_reason]

Picard: "Data, their species is aware of the existence of copyright law..."

Data: "No, sir."

Picard: *long pause* "Oops..."

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you like that "Jimmy" guy from Seinfeld where he refers to himself always in third-person (eg: "Jimmy like to read Slashdot")
But instead of that quirk, you redefine current discussion in the context in terms of Star Trek, the Next Generation?

We have a guy like that at work that redefines everything in terms of Simpsons episodes.
So, if we have a server problem, he pipes up and says "you know, this is just like in season three where Homer & Bart ...etc, etc. etc.)

Re:Hmm

[geniusj]

Awesome! I know this guy on slashdot that redefines everything in terms of Seinfeld episodes. So, if someone likens something to Star Trek, for example, he pipes up and says "Are you like that 'Jimmy' guy from Seinfeld where he refers to himself always in third-person?" ;)

Re:Hmm

[rjstanford]

As long as companies like Adobe justify charging $700 for Photoshop, and rationalize it partially "to make up for the ten people who steal it", I will have no sympathy for companies who lose money to software piracy.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to call a bullshit on this one. The trouble with your theory is that to anyone using Photoshop commercially, $700 is money well spent. For almost everyone else, $50-70 for retail copy of Photoshop Elements is a pretty reasonable expense.

Besides, companies offer software at a certain price. If you don't like it, don't buy it, and don't use it. If it is worth it to you then pay the price and use the software. I still don't see the problem.

Re:Hmm

[Sanchi]

For graphic designers, you know the people that Photoshop is developed for, 700 bucks is a steal.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but with adobe it's pretty much a monopoly.

That would be like saying "the city water system charges a fixed amount for water, if you dont like it dont use it, but dont "steal" from them by collecting rain in buckets"

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes charge a reasonable price

iTunes screws you. allofmp3.com charges ~$10/GByte or roughly 10 times less than Apple and you choose format and bit rate. no DRM.

Re:Hmm

[SillyNickName4me]

Bad analogy. Collecting rain in buckets would be akin to using the Gimp or suich, which is perfectly legal for all I know.

Re:Hmm

[Knara]

When you can get an entire operating system for under $200, I don't know what sort of reasoning one could use that would justify the ~$500 difference between PS Elements and normal Photoshop. The combination of features you get for $500 just doesn't seem to add up.

Besides, if you sold Photoshop for $150-200, I'd be really surprised if the profit difference could be even noticable to Adobe.

Ah well, just put me in the camp of people who have always thought that Adobe is overly greedy, and so overprices their software.

Re:Hmm

[goldspider]

I think Adobe overprices their software too. That belief alone doesn't entitle me to a copy of said software. There are many who disagree.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I don't believe too many people die from lack of commercially owning Adobe Photoshop either. They have from lack of proper sewage and a water supply though. It's easy to justify crime through poor reasoning and analogy, isn't it? Ahh, the folly of /. youth. Make way Generation X, here comes Generation $0!

Re:Hmm

[slashdotwannabe]

You're missing the point; this is not about what's legal or ethical to charge for software, it's about market perceptions, which guide people's actions as least as much as reality. If people perceive they're being screwed -- which you get primarily on price, not value -- they will tend to react.

Re:Hmm

[mark-t]

Likewise, I have no sympathy at all for people that end up going to jail or paying outrageous fines they can't afford because they happened to be "unlucky" enough to get nailed for piracy.

Many people in this world have much more than they deserve. Megahuge companies that wouldn't miss anything that was pirated may very well seem to be among them, but that doesn't mean that it's right to do so.

The old saying "Two wrongs don't make a right" applies very much here.

If I don't like the fact that a company is charging too much for their product, I won't buy it. I will even usually go out of my way to find less expensive solutions instead. If enough people feel this way, laws of supply and demand will cause the price to drop. That's the way our economy works.

Re:Hmm

[meringuoid]

Are you like that "Jimmy" guy from Seinfeld where he refers to himself always in third-person (eg: "Jimmy like to read Slashdot") But instead of that quirk, you redefine current discussion in the context in terms of Star Trek, the Next Generation? We have a guy like that at work that redefines everything in terms of Simpsons episodes. So, if we have a server problem, he pipes up and says "you know, this is just like in season three where Homer & Bart ...etc, etc. etc.)

Interesting. That's just like this episode of TNG where Picard's stranded on this planet with an alien whose actual language the universal translator understands, but whose syntax is totally weird because he speaks entirely in allegory and unknown cultural references. "Shaka - when the walls fell!"

Re:Hmm

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, but, uh, it's THEIR software. They can put whatever price on it they want... they can charge $5,000 if they wanted. Or $50,000. You as a consumer have the right to choose either to buy it, or not buy it. That's how the whole damned system *works*.

If everyone agreed with you and thought it was overpriced, then Adobe wouldn't sell as many copies and they'd either have to lower the price or they'd go out of business. Again, that's how the system *works*.

Personally, I believe that home/hobby users should be perfectly content with Photoshop Elements which does probably 80% of what Photoshop does and costs a tenth as much. Wild-ass guess here, but I bet most people who pirate Photoshop because it's "too expensive" don't use more features than are available in Elements anyway.

Additionally, obviously, if Photoshop is overpriced, you should be able to create a competitor and sell it for less, right? That's pretty much the definition of overpriced. Therefore, if you want to undercut Photoshop and steal their market, get together a few investors and go for it. That's also part of how the system works. InDesign grabbed a ton of customers from Quark.

Re:Hmm

[rjstanford]

Ford produces the GT500, which costs, what, around $125,000. Let's ignore the fact that its also used as a rolling R&D bench to develop technologies that eventually make it into vehicles like the Fusion and the Escape.

The difference in price between it and a Fusion is huge - $100,000. If they sold it for $25,000, they wouldn't notice the profit difference on their bottom line.

Therefore its okay to steal the GT500 from your favorite Ford dealership. Or make them sell it to you for the price of a Fusion. ...

To put it bluntly, if the additional feature set you get by moving from Elements to Photoshop isn't worth $500 to you then don't buy it! It is to many people, but they can spend the money which funds the development of features that will shortly make it into your Elements product? How is this a bad thing for you as a potential Elements customer?

More seriously, how does the fact that they make a more expensive product in any way shape or form justify taking without paying it instead of just paying $50 for the less expensive one that does everything you need it to do anyway?

Re:Hmm

[Knara]

Sure, and I'm not saying they can't price it whatever price they want. However, I still think it's overpriced.

As for Elements vs "full" Photoshop, unless Elements has improved significantly since v2.0, it's really not even a decent substitute for the full version. If elements was just Photoshop with some features removed, I could see someone arguing their point, but as of the last version I bought (which I did purchase on the presumption that it was just Photoshop with the advanced pieces removed), entire process chains for certain tasks were entirely re-arranged and dumbed down. It's actually very annoying and counter productive. Which is why, I wager, people who can afford Elements still pirate Photoshop CS2 or whatever is the latest one.

Additionally, obviously, if Photoshop is overpriced, you should be able to create a competitor and sell it for less, right?

In theory, yes. The reality is that PS is so easy to pirate, that no one has really bothered making as good of a product. Take from that what you will.

InDesign grabbed a ton of customers from Quark.

Sure, because Quark made an amazingly stupid mistake when they didn't move to OS X promptly. It's kind of the same issue, but not exactly.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

nteresting. That's just like this episode of TNG where Picard's stranded on this planet with an alien whose actual language the universal translator understands, but whose syntax is totally weird because he speaks entirely in allegory and unknown cultural references. "Shaka - when the walls fell!"

A perfect phrase to use when your Win2k3 server gets rooted (yet again).

Re:Hmm

[Knara]

To put it bluntly, if the additional feature set you get by moving from Elements to Photoshop isn't worth $500 to you then don't buy it! It is to many people, but they can spend the money which funds the development of features that will shortly make it into your Elements product? How is this a bad thing for you as a potential Elements customer?

Well, the real question to me is more akin to: Why does Adobe make an expensive product, and an annoyingly retooled "consumer" product, when they could sell the more expensive one at a lower price, sell more of it, expand their legitimate user base, and reduce piracy, all at the same time? I mean, we're not talking Windows XP here, with tons and tons of developers. The Photoshop dev team is a relatively small group as far as major industrial programming projects go. If Adobe isn't making a WHOPPING profit off of PS sales, they're doing something wrong, and I'd be curious if they've even done a study on at what point they'd have to price PS "full" in order to eliminate the need for Elements altogether and still made the same revenue from the single product sales.

I guess my real point here is, sure people should be able to make money from their work, but just because someone charges a high price for something, doesn't mean it's the best idea on their part (or even a good idea). In my view, the rampant piracy of Photoshop over the years is a direct result of them overpricing the product for a huge population of their potential customers.

So in that respect, it is the market (that is, the potential customers) demonstrating that the price is too high.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Razorback and Copyrighters at Belgium.

Re:Hmm

[rjstanford]

I guess my real point here is, sure people should be able to make money from their work, but just because someone charges a high price for something, doesn't mean it's the best idea on their part (or even a good idea). In my view, the rampant piracy of Photoshop over the years is a direct result of them overpricing the product for a huge population of their potential customers.

That still missed my point. The vast majority of those people who pirated Photoshop would have been perfectly happy with Elements. Its available, and its dirt cheap ($50-70). Why didn't they buy it, if they're really just complaining about the price of Adobe software when they pirate? Or are you saying that $50 is still too expensive for something that powerful?

Or are people just rude pricks who don't like paying for anything they don't have to?

Re:Hmm

[Starsmore]

"Therefore its okay to steal the GT500 from your favorite Ford dealership."

Old news, probably, but just gotta point this out... it's not stealing. Stealing is depriving the original owner of their property. Downloading Adobe off eDonkey is akin to going over to your favorite Ford dealership, pulling out the Wizard (It's not a FUTURE PROBE!) and making an exact duplicate.

God. I watch too many kids shows...

in other news...

[Abstract_Me]

100 similar services have sprung up in the last ten minutes...

Re:in other news...

[darmey]

please name at least one. My aMule is not able to find a server having the same number of digits in "indexed files". It seems more like "long live ed2k" to me...

Decentralize

[ZephyrXero]

This is why decentralized file-sharing is the only way to go.... maybe now stuff like Waste or the more traditional Gnutella will gain a big rise in popularity?

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. People will wise up. I hate the term piracy, because it's NOT actual piracy. Piracy is "stealing" a physical object. Intellectual property is NOT property, and I will forever hold to the FSF on this point.

I prefer the term revenus stream hijacking, because the people that download stuff would not have bought it anyway.

I'm looking forward to seeing more decentralized efforts put forth. This is why everyone needs to push for free software and strong crypto.

Re:Decentralize

[zwei2stein]

Thats why eMule (THE ed2k client i might add) had Kademlia (decentralized ed2k-kinda-combatible network) running paralel to server network for quite a time...

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. People will wise up. I hate the term piracy, because it's NOT actual piracy. Piracy is "stealing" a physical object. Intellectual property is NOT property, and I will forever hold to the FSF on this point.

I prefer the term revenus stream hijacking, because the people that download stuff would not have bought it anyway.

It sometimes takes years for professionals to understand inmate behavior. In just one post, you managed to put several criminal psychologists out of work...

Re:Decentralize

[PFI_Optix]

the people that download stuff would not have bought it anyway.

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.

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

suck my dick you fucking file-sharing thieves

Re:Decentralize

[networkBoy]

While I agree with you, I don't think that you'll ever make that argument work on /.
sorry.
-nB

Re:Decentralize

[squiggleslash]

Piracy is not "stealing a physical object", it's a word whose definitions are numerous but include "copyright infringement" (unlicensed radio broadcasting on frequencies that require licensing is also called piracy.) The definition that includes stealing physical objects actually goes somewhat further - me walking into a store and walking out with a CD that I haven't paid for (and should have) isn't piracy, unless the store's on a vessel in international waters, and I've just stolen that CD as part of a process of raiding the vessel.

BTW I find your assertion that "people that download stuff would not have bought it anyway" to be largely false. I know far too many people who see unlicensed P2P as a substitute for buying music. There are the handful that see P2P as a way to try out new artists, and there's the occasional poor student who doesn't have any money to spend on CDs anyway, but by and large, a substantial amount of unlicensed P2P use appears to be to circumvent the notion of paying for the music people listen to.

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. People have drank the corporate kool-aid far too long. My brother got an ipod a couple of weeks ago. He's no geek by any stretch, and he got into some trouble with syncing on more than one amchine, etc. I told him to return it, buy an iriver or other player, switch to linux and use rhythmbox because he wants to have more freedom with what he downloads. Easy. Rip it to mp3 and/or ogg vorbis and then share it. DRM is evil plain and simple. If I buy a CD, which I buy often enough, if I want to share with people, I should be able to. I will never use a MS or Apple product because they encourage IP and DRM. I cannot lose my idealistic views on freedom so others can profit. Call me un-pragmatic, but in the end, I have my freedom and others don't.
Besides, "piracy" (I hate that term, it's not accurate) is getting easier and easier with things like ipods, not better. AAC is easy to rip to almost any other format. And while you will lose a tad of quality in the process, it's not enough to get your knickers in a twist over, so I've read about people who fill their ipods up with all kinds of things and then share them with others.

Re:Decentralize

[Hurricane78]

We also got mldonkey, supporting overnet and kademlia (a "remake" of overnet from emule), gnutella 2 and 1 AND some more... so as usual ther does not change a thing for most users. ;)

will offline-poeple ever get it? ;)

Re:Decentralize

[JBv]

I belive it is a general missconception that people would buy all the stuff they download or borrow. It's just a way to inflate the perception of loss for the industry.

Re:Decentralize

[loginx]

I seriously have no idea what you're talking about...
I have an iPod, I sync it on 3 computers, and I do so with Rhythmbox.
All of these files are MP3s in my collection with a few other formats, and it all works fine.

Re:Decentralize

[m50d]

Ssh. Do not tell anyone gnutella's actually good now. Besides, it has the same "indexing nodes" situation.

My money's on gnunet. Not only does it have the whole anonymity thing, but it also actually works quite well as a filesharing network.

Re:Decentralize

[mpe]

I prefer the term revenus stream hijacking, because the people that download stuff would not have bought it anyway.

It's rather more complex than that, since there certainly are cases of people only buying stuff because they downloaded it. There's also a common complication that people may not be able to buy even if they wanted to. Either because of a distributor's wish to have arbitrary (sometimes even illegal) geographic restrictions or because the whatever is "out of print".

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

Miss Conception? Yeah, I think I dated her a few times. Completely missed the double entendre until about nine months later.

Re:Decentralize

[Deliveranc3]

No this is silly, their software is automattically indexing files, they aren't looking through them for a number of reasons.

P2P is always going to be around but it's getting less and less efficient, Kazaa was the peak in terms of efficiency and it's been downhill since then.

What sucks about this is that a p2p standard that supports piracy will become dominant (probably bittorrent or a derivitive, the dht tracking and non tracked torrents makes this quite likely) but when industry gives up and goes home a new standard will have to be developed.

Software like Opera will remove bittorrent (or keep it wasting HD space) and legacy sites that have those "old fashioned" bittorrent links will seem broken.

Indexed file swapping is better, it totally blows that linux distros aren't being traded over Kazaa or another searchable ratings based centralized p2p server

Re:Decentralize

[PFI_Optix]

If I buy a CD, which I buy often enough, if I want to share with people, I should be able to.

As a musician, I'm going to say you're dead wrong there. Either the label or the artist themselves has invested a great deal of time and money in creating and recording the music. Because they made the investment, they should have the right to control distribution of the music.

Loan the CD out all you want. Make all the copies you want for your own personal use. But every time you give that song away to someone else, you inhibit their ability to recover their investment.

But hey, give away all the music you want to. Encourage the people you give it to, to do the same. When they stop producing the kind of music you like because it's not profitable and yet another fake blonde with surgically enhanced curves tops the charts with soulless, mindless music cut straight from a corporate "one hit wonder" template, you'd better not complain. If you don't want people buying good music, don't expect artists and labels to invest what it takes to get it to you.

Disclaimer: upon reading this post, I realize the language can come across as rather antogonistic. Understand that this is something that affects me and my friends personally, and it really bothers me to see people who are apparently ignorant not only of the law, but of what their actions do. Consequences are ignored all too often in this nation, especially when they only impact others. I've no love of the RIAA and their goon squad tactics, but two wrongs most certainly do not make a right...and music piracy is wrong.

Re:Decentralize

[Isotopian]

Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.

Re:Decentralize

[PFI_Optix]

I agree. The record labels would have us think that every downloaded song equates a lost CD sale. The movie studios could even say that every downloaded movie is a lost movie ticket AND a lost DVD sale. That's not the case at all, and any rational person understands that most people don't go see a movie a week, yet I know of people who download far more than that.

From 1995 to 2005, movie ticket sales rose 100,000,000 units. And that includes a very sharp decline from almost 1.6b in 2002 to under 1.4b in 2005. A similar period of time--1983 to 1995, shows half the rate of growth (I added two years because 1985 shows a larger drop in ticket sales than 2005 and skews the numbers a bit).

Movie ticket sales are going up. DVD sales are going up. They just aren't going up fast enough for the movie industry. These figures make it clear that not every download represents a lost sale.

Straight from the horse's mouth: http://www.mpaa.org/researchStatistics.asp

Re:Decentralize

[el americano]

Here are two extreme arguments:

Illegal downloaders would never buy any of the stuff that they download.

vs.

Everything illegally downloaded is lost revenue for the owner.

I think copyright owners hurt themselves by arguing the latter, but I suspect the truth is that almost all downloaders would have bought something - not much - of what they downloaded. It adds up to real lost revenue. We should be honest about that - despite their practice of ridiculously overstating it.

Re:Decentralize

[mjm1231]

Not to mention, it ignores the people who download stuff that they already bought. There are lots of reasons an *cough* hypothetical person would do that. Their CD might be too scratched to rip, or maybe it's something they own on record or tape and can't conveniently rip it themself.

The biggest incentive to me for purchasing new music in digital format would be that I never have to pay for that song or album again. Why should I pay every time a new medium comes along? When I bought albums in the 70's, it wasn't because I liked round pieces of vinyl. I was paying for the content.

Re:Decentralize

[anhdres]

It's not needed to go to gnutella or sth. The edonkey network already has a viable alternative, the Kad network eMule uses.

Re:Decentralize

[el americano]

YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR (...see kid eyeing parked car)
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION (...shadowy figures heisting TV from apartment)
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A DVD
DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW

What a bunch of dumb bastards. I guess guilt works on a larger percentage of people than does logic, or the producers of this commercial are just telling the studio people what they want to hear. They may wish it were true, but hearing "You wouldn't steal a car" usually gets a laugh out of me. Of course, when I see that on a DVD I've bought, rather than rented, I'll probably just be pissed that I have to sit through five previews and then this shit to get to the movie I payed for!

Re:Decentralize

[el americano]

Razorback2 was one of the most populated servers, which allowed you to get better and faster search results - so I've heard ;-)

The users will just migrate to other servers, but this will be an incovenience for users and a major hassle for the server owners that will likely last years, whether or not they eventually get charged with anything. The Sharereactor case still hasn't concluded, although I've never heard that he was ever charged with anything.

Re:Decentralize

[ZephyrXero]

I believe he's referring to AAC files bought off iTunes, not MP3s you ripped yourself ;)

Re:Decentralize

[yourlord]

Of course you should always keep in mind that your profit motive does not extend to all musicians. I consider it a compliment for someone to listen to my music, and if they like it enough to pass it on I'm grateful. I'd rather have 10 million people hear my music and 10 people pay me for it than 100 people paying me and only them hearing it.

The money will come with exposure. If you have enough people who like your music then even if only 2% contribute to the cause you're going to make out just fine.

If someone likes my music, but not enough to pay for it, I'd rather they be able to listen to it than to assault them with lawyers. If they like it and want more then I'm willing to trust that they will put $5 in the pot to fund the next album. If they don't, oh well. I spent a ton of money on gear and computers. I would be recording this stuff even if no one ever paid me a dime so every cent I get is just a nice side effect of something I enjoy doing.

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - if you regard your music as a product just to make money from do humanity a favor and keep it to yourself. We'd all be much better off without it. Follow your true calling and become a used car salesman or a telemarketer.

As a musician myself I'm going to say that you're dead wrong. And I'm sick to death of rich people whining that they're not making as much money as they think they should. As to record labels, why should they have any say about it? If I write the song, sing it and play the guitar where the hell do they get off claiming any rights to it whatsoever? Because they provided rcording equipment? The money they make from sales more than compensates them for that. Way more than it should, actually. The recroding industry has been a big rip-off of musicians and songwriters from day one.

Believe it or not, there are musicians who prefer to give away copies of their music. It works as a promotion and that enables them to make more money from concert performances. But, alas for people like you, that means actually having to do something to earn money instead of recording a few songs and milking it for eternity. And I suppose you couldn't tolerate going without all the over-priced recording equipment the label provides, could you? Your listeners might then find out what you really sound like.

Music "piracy" is not wrong. It's people like you who are in the wrong. There was no such thing as "music piracy" until the RIAA invented it by bribing politicians to make laws agaisnt it - before the it was fair use and the customers had rights, which they none now. Every single right that the customer had has now been taken away, especially with the RIAA saying now you can't even rip a song off a cd to use in your own ipod (or similar device). Claiming you own music is like claiming you own the wind. Once you distribute it you immediately lose control of it. That's the nature of the technology. What you people are trying to do is impose control over something you actually can't control any more than you force yourself to stop breathing. And just look at the limits of the control you're trying to impose! It actually is illegal to sing a song you like to yourself while knitting at home, did you know that? Before the technology came along coupled with corporate greed no one "owned" music. The only right you had as the originator of the music was the right to the credit; if someone claimed they were the author of one of your songs you could take legal action against them (the nature of that action varying by the time period). Amazingly enough, other musicians could perform the songs of another musician without needing a lawyer. It's worth saying this again - music piracy didn't exist until the RIAA decided that it did.

As to my disclaimer, I just wanted you folks to know that not every musician is a money-grubbing, greedy Madonna wannabe. Some of us regard music as music and not a product. Some actually like the idea of people downloading our music; hey, it's free marketing. Before there was recording technology musicians depended on word of mouth. Music-sharing over the internet is the new, improved version of word-of-mouth.

Re:Decentralize

[pushf popf]

But hey, give away all the music you want to. Encourage the people you give it to, to do the same. When they stop producing the kind of music you like because it's not profitable and yet another fake blonde with surgically enhanced curves tops the charts with soulless, mindless music cut straight from a corporate "one hit wonder" template, you'd better not complain. If you don't want people buying good music, don't expect artists and labels to invest what it takes to get it to you.

Can you imagine if individuals and small groups of local musicians got together and played because they like to, not because they were getting paid millions of dollars?

They could play after work in parks and coffee shops, and put their music up on the web for people to share for free. Maybe they could even get warm fuzzy feelings for making music people like.

They would do it because they enjoy it, not because they're getting paid, just like musicians have done since the first humans beat clubs on the ground in rhythm.

Doesn't that sound horrible? No big record companies, no "Digital Rights Management", you could find music you like and play it on your MP3 player or tin can and a string if it made you happy.

As an added benefit, I suspect that without marketing, the number of artists producing recordings that glorify death, violence or sound like 1000 cats being strangled by noisy robots would be reduced quite a bit. Much of it wouldn't get more than a first play.

What a shame.

Not. If they need money, they could get real jobs just like the rest of us.

Re:Decentralize

[AnotherBlackHat]

  Here are two extreme arguments:

Illegal downloaders would never buy any of the stuff that they download.

vs.

Everything illegally downloaded is lost revenue for the owner.

I think copyright owners hurt themselves by arguing the latter, but I suspect the truth is that almost all downloaders would have bought something - not much - of what they downloaded. It adds up to real lost revenue. We should be honest about that - despite their practice of ridiculously overstating it.

Two children were walking down the street, when they spotted a cake on the sidewalk.
Alice said "I saw it first, it's mine".
Bob said "We saw it together, we should share it equally"
Just then a man walked by and after listening to the two children argue, said;
"You should compromise - give Alice 3/4 of the cake, and Bob, you take 1/4"

Re:Decentralize

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice. But the laws you musicians and your buddies at the RIAA had passed to protect yourselves mean I can to go to jail for writing code or a few hyperlinks. That makes you the enemy, therefore I don't give a damn who pirates your stuff or even steals it outright.

Re:Decentralize

[I(rispee_I(reme]

In addition to the inconvenience, the recording industry has set up several fake Razorback servers, which will now have a monopoly on the once-prestigious Razorback name...

Either one of the less populous servers will take over Razorback's role, or lots of former eMule users will download LimeWire.

Re:Decentralize

[Pofy]

>DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING

Were did you get that strange idea from? For your information, it might be copyright infringement in some cases (but not nessecarilly all). Copyright infringement is also against the law by the way.

Re:Decentralize

[JesseMcDonald]

Loan the CD out all you want. Make all the copies you want for your own personal use. But every time you give that song away to someone else, you inhibit their ability to recover their investment.

Minor dispute: Giving someone my recording of a song (you can't actually "give" the song itself) is only copyright infringement if I happen to keep a copy for myself in the process. You may not like people getting used CDs from others (since it makes it unnecessary to order new copies of the CDs), but that doesn't make it illegal, immoral, or unethical to do so.

Primary dispute: The value in an artist's work (whether musical, visual, literary, ...) is in the release (initial publication) of the art itself. Up to the point at which the art is released the producer has complete control. Someone else might create and publish something similar (possibly even identical), but only the producer can choose whether or not to release what he/she created. At the point of release, the work has been expended, the costs have all been paid, and it is up to the producer to find a buyer. If he/she invested wisely, and created something that others value in excess of your costs, then he/she will make a profit from his/her work. If the producer invested badly then he/she will lose money. There is no guarantee that a producer will make back his/her costs; that is an investment risk inherent in any production.

Similarly, once the terms have been agreed upon, and the work has been released, the creator ought to forfeit any rights to control the use or distribution of the work, just as any other producer would. It is up to the producers to ensure that their investments earn a suitable profit; that responsibility cannot belong to anyone else, much less to society as a whole. If the investments do not earn a profit, that is the fault of the investors (the creators/producers), who did not accurately predict the marketability of the work, or (as is typically the case here) who chose a business model unsuitable for the realities of the market (the impossibility of controlling the distribution of data).

Lastly, the value of a good (such as a book or CD) depends not only on its immediate value to the buyer, but also in the rights which accompany that good. Those rights typically include direct use, resale, rent, transformation, reverse-engineering, etc. When you strip away these rights, you reduce the value of the item you're selling. Someone who might be willing to buy a CD (with the right to make copies) for e.g $500, knowing that the demand for the CD will lead to a profit in its distribution, would hardly be willing to pay the same for CD suitable only for personal use.

Copyright, and patents, and their accompanying technological restrictions (DRM), do not create value; they can only serve to create artificial scarcity by controlling distribution. As any economist would tell you, limiting distribution inevitably leads to a poorer society. That, and not a desire for "free stuff", is why I oppose the concept of "intellectual property".

Re:Decentralize

[nexex]

Don't copy that floppy!

Re:Decentralize

[Achromatic1978]

Besides, "piracy" (I hate that term, it's not accurate)

It's interesting. Not a day goes by on Slashdot where I don't read about the redefinition of language, and attacks on language nazies with the refrain, "common usage is what makes definition, it's called the evolution of language". They'll fight long and hard and bitterly about it.

Except ...

When it comes to 'piracy' and 'theft'. Strangely, these two words are immune to this. Their definitions are sacrosanct, never to be redefined. I wonder why this is?

Re:Decentralize

[Achromatic1978]

He didn't... it's an advertisement / 'warning' plastered at the front of far too many movies in the cinemas these days, and, increasingly, DVDs.

Re:Decentralize

[ringm000]

That's soo aameerican - all this is right and is wrong stuff... Who entitled you to claim that? I don't believe you. I want to see your papers, please.

Bollocks. Try stopping piracy. Just try it. I have a huge music collection and I have bought some - that's little compared to the pirated part, but much more than an average Joe Sixpack. If I wouldn't have a chance to pirate, I'd just stay below that Average Joe level. I wouldn't buy. Sometimes I buy just because I want to "donate" extra to the author, usually that's after a live concert. Stop piracy - do you think I'll want to do that? I'll listen much less and I'll buy much less. I'll replace it with movies, books, going out, chopping wood, growing dead parrots, talking slugs, anything...

Art isn't basic commodity. It is NOT! Try getting it down to that level, and it will sell exactly as much as it is close to being basic commodity. And not only that - you will filter out good art and only that pink britneyspears vannilla bubblegum will remain. Thank god, most of good artists understand that and don't try stopping the distribution of their creative work.

And by the way, you mentioned that "profitability" in creating art... Believe me, profitability of the publishers is so far from anything relating to the art itself, that it doesn't make sense to discuss them on the same page...

PS: sorry for my bad English, that's not my native language.

Re:Decentralize

[lucifer_666]

As a musician, I'm going to say you're dead wrong there.

As a musician, aren't you more concerned with getting your sounds out there, into peoples ears? Isn't it better for more people to give away the recordings of your tracks to as many people as possible? As a musician, you wouldn't make any cash in your pocket off CD sales anyway. But the more people who hear your music and like it, the more chance they will buy a ticket to your concert, where you, as a musicican, can make a decent living, no?

Or perhaps you're not a musician, as no musician or artist I know really gives a shit about something like control of a digital track, or money for that matter, they just want to be... acknowledged.

It's not piracy, it's publicity!

Re:Decentralize

[darmey]

True. Besides, if they are really good, they can make a fortune on tours. Get several thousands of fans and make it $3 a ticket, and you will have the ends met performing once a month. That's a good way for a musician to make money, and noone is going to accuse them of something in this case - they have to eat something like ordinary people, after all.

Re:Decentralize

[LittleBigLui]

When it comes to 'piracy' and 'theft'. Strangely, these two words are immune to this. Their definitions are sacrosanct, never to be redefined. I wonder why this is?

He said "Jehova"!

Re:Decentralize

[Eivind Eklund]

I think you're taken in a bit by the easy conclusion - happens with all of us from time to time. What should be important to you is how many CDs you sell. The number of CDs that gets copied is irrelevant.

In my personal experience, if I get a private copy of a CD that will increase the chance that I buy something from that artist by a factor of at least 10. Sometimes I buy that CD, to support the artist and get nice covers etc. Sometimes I buy another CD because I want more music from that artist.

After Napster shut down, I had a period of several years where I did not get any music outside of purchasing it. In this period, I bought a total of maybe 5 CDs, instead of my usual 3-4 per month. And the statistics seems to indicate that this is common (purchases go up with increased downloads, down with decreased downloads).

Eivind.

Re:Decentralize

[Jizzbug]

iTunes demonstrates that *dumb* people will pay for their downloads if they are available. The rest of us, we'll continue to download for free, thank you very much.

Re:Decentralize

[pfleming]

As a musician, I'm going to say you're dead wrong there. Either the label or the artist themselves has invested a great deal of time and money in creating and recording the music. Because they made the investment, they should have the right to control distribution of the music. Loan the CD out all you want. Make all the copies you want for your own personal use. But every time you give that song away to someone else, you inhibit their ability to recover their investment.

Well written. I personally want to continue to be able to make copies of CDs that I know are going to end up on the floor in my kids' room. I can't stop that, I can only reduce my "loss" to the price of a CDR instead of the original (which sits on my shelf in pristine condition). But now Sony has decided that I should install a root kit when I insert the "CD". That's not really fair use. When am I going to be allowed to install software on their computers without their consent? That would be (more) fair.
Fair Use aside tt's when people "share" music that things start to get funky in my opinion. It is one thing to listen to music with your friends, passing them the other ear bud from your iPod, it is another to "share" it with thousands or millions of "friends" on the internet. The former might encourage your friend to buy a copy of the music - or they might just get a copy from you, the latter definately implies that your "friends" never pay for their copy of the music.
The next question that comes to mind is why isn't the music industry embracing this new advertising medium? All of the time, effort and money that goes into "sharing" could be susidized by the industry. People do actually buy CDs of music that they like and I don't see the RIAA trying to sue radio listeners and MTV watchers (payola and royalties aside)
------- If the above post doesn't make sense, blame it on the beer.

Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

...because it was the biggest and best ed2k server but there are lots of others left. Also, there is KAD (kademlia - a decentralized search) which has pretty much replaced the ed2k servers for me (you get *FAR* more and way better results using KAD instead). The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...

Re:Sucks...

[tribentwrks]

(you get *FAR* more and way better results using KAD instead). The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...

Hmmm, I worry about server load increase, and yet I post a glowing review of said servers on SLASHDOT!

Re:Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it sure sucks that pirating the shit out of everything and not paying for it will be a little more difficult. You and I deserve to freeload for the rest of our lives and never pay anybody for their work.

Re:Sucks...

[dtsazza]

The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load......and making it a larger target. It's certainly no coincidence that the "biggest and best ed2k server" was the one that got shut down. The agencies know they can't take down every server, so they concentrate on the few where it'll hit the users hard. Then a new one will rise to prominence, and be shut down... over time, enough big setbacks cause popular networks to be less useful, and newer ones come up under the public radar to be the Next Big Thing.

Granted, there have been a lot of technical innovations, but the major reason why there's so much churn in filesharing is that it sucks to be big - it paints a nice big "sue me" target on you...

Re:Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse my ignorance,

I thought KADEMLIA did not use a server. Sure, extra users will create extra overhead to be shared out across the network, but the increased network size will mean that each user still bears the same burden?

Re:Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load...

Please, get your facts straight!

Kademlia (short: KAD) is _NOT_ a centralized search facility, it is a search that goes just as much Peer 2 Peer as the downloading goes.

You ask your "neighbours" in the network, they will ask you, they report back to you, you to them and so on...

Therefore, your thought about "overloading the KAD-Servers" just wont happen, maybe your very own connection will use more resources for searching and giving results than before when everyone uses Kademlia but thats about it.

Read more about Kademlia here

Re:Sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you send to public radio stations? You aren't stealing their hard work are you? When you fix someone's computer and they give you their old monitor in exchange, you list that as a barter sale on your income tax don't you? Hope you aren't a hypocrite.

Re:Sucks...

[Achromatic1978]

Only on Slashdot could this be 'insightful':

How much do you send to public radio stations? You aren't stealing their hard work are you?I pay taxes. That's where the majority of their funding comes from. More from charitable contributions.

When you fix someone's computer and they give you their old monitor in exchange, you list that as a barter sale on your income tax don't you? Hope you aren't a hypocrite. Ahh, the world where it's okay for you to commit a crime, because other people do.

Re:Sucks...

[4D6963]

"The worst problem I see is more people will rely on KAD, increasing the server load..."

Yeah man, as someone pointed out, you got that just wrong. The only problem with kad, compared to eD2k, is the overhead. Back when I was using a 56k, I looked at the overhead for Kad and it was making 74% of the overhead. So I decided to turn it off, but since I got broadband i turned it back on.

The only other problem with kad is that you don't really know when you search is over, and also you hardly can use search arguments of less than 3 characters, which can be annoying. Other than that, it's just perfect, and improving.

"A menace to society"

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I think they're blowing it a little out of proportion with that statement.

But from the article's description, RazorBack2 does seem to be host to all sorts of unsavory content. Not to mention party to illegal activities. Now it's gone and some other network will step in to take its place.

I'm sure all those poor kids who don't have money to go out and actually buy CDs will now be inconvenienced. Boo hoo.

Re:"A menace to society"

[insert cool name]

But from the article's description, RazorBack2 does seem to be host to all sorts of unsavory content

According to TFA they didn't host any content savory or otherwise, they just indexed what was available elsewhere. Kind of like a search engine does. . .

----

http://www.jarfinder.com/

Re:"A menace to society"

[Overly Critical Guy]

Even Google makes an effort to filter things out, such as child porn. Claiming indexing isn't the same as actually sharing it is like saying the guy driving the car that carried some burglars had nothing to do with their crimes. The indexing servers are there to directly facilitate piracy and connect users to other users.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. but what sucks is that the MPA (is this the MPAA?) has all of this power, and other nations are cracking down on piracy. I also love how they always put a spin on these stories "[it is a menace to society, people could download child porn, and terrorist groups can download bomb making instructions]" Um, terrorists can just ask another terrorist, het ahmed, how do i make a bomb? and, this sounds sick, but pedofiles usually make thier own porn. So.... rather than arrest pedofiles and terrorists, we will just shut down some server somewhere, and not have to worry about getting shot at.

kids dont download music anymore, we have myspace now. kids download full length movies now. get with the times :)

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that make it harder to track down the purveyors of this sort of thing?

Re:"A menace to society"

[Frazbin]

Making crazy, half cocked, analogies is like driving a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

The indexing servers are there to directly facilitate piracy and connect users to other users.

You say that like it's a bad thing. That's why we need to decentralize. And it also makes it important to develope a wireless mesh(cloud) to get the corporate ISPs and gov't snoops out of the way. You can cry all you want about your struggling industry, but it means nothing to me. Look for another way to get paid.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Gnagus]

Hmmmm..... So if I follow that line of thought, Google, with it's huge index, is assuredly indexing the contents of some websites that host copyrighted contents. No doubt about it.

Should we take Google down? After all, their indexing does *facilitate piracy*, just like Razorback2 - to a lesser degree, of course.

And before you mention it, (just like in Google's index) not all the content that was on RazorBack2 was illegal, mind you. And last time i checked, connecting users to other users was not illegal anywhere in the world.

Where do we draw the line? When do you decide that Google is legal wereas Razorback2 is not??? This has to be decided by the law, not by associations like the RIAA.

Re:"A menace to society"

[LurkerXXX]

But from the article's description, RazorBack2 does seem to be host to all sorts of unsavory content.

It indexes over 170 million files. 170 million. Of course there are likely to be some nasty ones in that large of a cache, but what percentage of the makeup do you think the 'nasty' ones were? Pretty insignificant I bet.

Re:"A menace to society"

[jaywarrietto]

I don't see how this is modded insightful. Funny it is, insightful it is not.

Re:"A menace to society"

[LunaticTippy]

Judging from my upload stats, the nastier the more popular.

I tried keeping some cc music around as a service, but the porn requests absolutely drowned everything else.

Re:"A menace to society"

[pureevilmatt]

You've obviously never driven a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure all those poor kids who don't have money to go out and actually buy CDs will now be inconvenienced. Boo hoo.

There is much more than convenience at stake here. Actions such as these actively oppress electronic freedom, and (in the minds of the public) legitimize the illegal/harmful actions of the large content monopolies.

Those "poor kids" who now have to buy CD's will be giving their money to institutions who will use it to make your computer stop functioning, and further make it illegal for you to buy one that does function.

Innovation is always resisted by those in power, because it threatens their continued wealth. They respond by litigating against it and halting its progress as much as possible (except insofar as they feel that they can keep it under control and ensure that the greater part of its advantages go to them specifically, rather than the public in general). In response, the rest of us must force the issue of innovation by reacting loudly in word and deed when things like this happen.

Vote with your pen, and also with your wallet. Either that, or accept the collar they put on your neck, and heel.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Moosechees]

Making crazy, half cocked, analogies is like driving a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.

That is, something you are bound to come across at least a few times every day on the internet.

Re:"A menace to society"

[TheSpoom]

case FUNNY:
  karma += 0;

case INSIGHTFUL:
  karma += 1; // use insightful rather than funny so poster doesn't suffer
              // net karma loss if they get modded down

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

Making crazy, half cocked, analogies is like driving a cart full of dachsunds through a marshmallow factory.

A great way to make meaty marshmallows?

Re:"A menace to society"

[jaywarrietto]

then instead of getting around the "bad" karma/modding system we should lobby for its repair. maybe I'm just a little bitter because once I was modded flamebait and then my karma went from good to bad. it has since to change. though I don't make very many posts.

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

I just posted that to bash.org.

Best of luck :)

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

If the karma bothers you so much, use underrated.

Re:"A menace to society"

[proind]

Well, the razorback server didn't host any content , unsavory or not. You could find the same files using another server on the network. And saying that it was a menace for society is like saying the same thing about ISP's, because they allow people trade child pornography or bomb recipes by letting them connect to the internet(thinking about it, the internet is a menace to society).

Re:"A menace to society"

[maxpublic]

Claiming indexing isn't the same as actually sharing

would be technologically and logically correct. But it appears you neither have the knowledge nor the intellectual faculties to appreciate either.

Max

Re:"A menace to society"

[Anonymous Coward]

Perl doesn't have switch statements, you insensitive clod.

What you should have written is:

$mod_type{FUNNY} = 0;
$mod_type{INSIGHTFUL} = 1;
$karma += $mod_type{$mod};

The power of open source!

Interesting

[voice_of_all_reason]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

Re:Interesting

[Daniel_Staal]

I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

It's much more fun that way.

Re:Interesting

[dbolger]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

That's because regular citizens "loot" these materials, while Microsoft "find" tax loopholes ;)

Re:Interesting

[Tackhead]

> > How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."
>
>That's because regular citizens "loot" these materials, while Microsoft "find" tax loopholes ;)

I am erotic. You are kinky. They are perverts.
We protect. Our allies enforce. Our enemies oppress.
Congress appropriates. Microsoft lobbies. Citizens steal.

With apologies to Calvin and Hobbes - if you think verbing weirds language, wait'll you try conjugation!

Re:Interesting

[menkhaura]

Where are my mod points when I need them?

Re:Interesting

[Overly Critical Guy]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

A raid is an ability the law provides for. Content creators have just as much rights to protection by the law as "regular citizens" do. It's silly to pretend the Razorback servers were being used for some grand, benign purpose. Everybody including the server owners knows what happens on the E2DK network.

Re:Interesting

[Minwee]

"How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid.""

When they don't call in advance to let you know they're coming, it's a raid. That's what it has always been called.

"I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn."

Unfortunately the spell checker in the new version of Office sometimes has trouble with the names "Tuttle" and "Buttle"...

Re:Interesting

[xiando]

I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

It kind of reminds me of "the borg". The Justice Department do rides and get media attention to repeat one message: "Resistance is Futile". However, we really do have some significant choices. Residence to tyranny is obedience to god.

When it comes to Microsoft, they can not play the "Resistance is Futile" trick like they do on the little guy because Microsoft know the can easily resist by sending a dozen high-paid lawyers into the fight.

Re:Interesting

[typical]

I am erotic. You are kinky. They are perverts.
We protect. Our allies enforce. Our enemies oppress.
Congress appropriates. Microsoft lobbies. Citizens steal.

Well, I'd already marked you as a friend, so I can't do that, but this is a wonderful post.

Re:Interesting

[david.given]

...if you think verbing weirds language, wait'll you try conjugation!

Now, now, conjugating verbs should be done only between consenting grammatical forms in the privacy of their own paragraph.

Remember: people have sex, and words have gender!

Re:Interesting

[jonnythan]

Because the definition of "raid" is "a sudden forcible entry into a place by police."

Hence, they use the term raid when a raid has occurred.

Re:Interesting

[nurb432]

Um, thats easy.. The average joe doesnt have enough money to buy the government.. Microsoft does.

Re:Interesting

[mpe]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."
I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.

The most likely explanation is that they don't want to offend Microsoft, but couldn't care less about offending a "regular Joe". Worst case senario is that governments actually fear big corporates.

Re:Interesting

[Digital Vomit]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

Because it takes more than five people to do it?

*rimshot*

Yes, World of Warcraft humor can be lame.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

No mod points here, at the moment - but that was very funny indeed. Well done!

Re:Interesting

[RexxFiend]

Ah, the good old irregular verb, as popularised by Bernard in Yes Minister.

"I give informal briefings, you 'leak', he's been charged under the Official Secrets Act".

If you are not famliiar with Yes Minister then I would highly recommend it - Very funny stuff and just as topical now as it was 30 years ago.

A few of my favourite quotes:

  "The Opposition aren't really the opposition. They are only the Government in exile. The Civil Service are the opposition in residence."

  "The Prime Minister doesn't want the truth, he wants something he can tell Parliament."

  "The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials."

  "There was nothing wrong with appeasement. All that World War Two achieved after six years was to leave Eastern Europe under a Communist dictatorship instead of a Fascist dictatorship. That's what comes of not listening to the Foreign Office."

Obsessed, me?

[secolactico]

Am I the only one that read the headline Razorback2 Servers Seized and tought, "well, at least pyzor is still alive".

Re:Obsessed, me?

[Sporkinum]

Yes you are.. I thought maybe it had something to do with the University of Arkansas.
http://www.hogwired.com/

Re:Obsessed, me?

[Soruk]

If the Razorback2 servers were designed in such a fashion that no index information was ever written to disc (e.g. all cached in RAM, no swap file/partition) then the seized servers would have lost all information about anything that might have been indexed the moment the power cables were disconnected.

Maybe this is the way for future indexing servers to go?

Re:Obsessed, me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, these servers need to be hosted in countries that could care less about the evils that are DRM. There are hosting data centers in good places like Anguilla, South America (esp. Brasil), etc.

Strong crypto on the servers kicks in in the event they are powered down and unplugged by unauthorized users, self-destructing programs that wipe the data and overwrite it with cryptoed ones and zeros.

Re:Obsessed, me?

[Anonymous Coward]

spoken like a real email server admin....

what is you poison?
postfix
sendmail
exim
other

Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Emule/Edonkey is dead. Bittorrent is the new king of peer-to-peer, and for good reason. Which is better: maximum download speeds or 1000+ queue lines? Fuck queues and fuck Emule.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Emule/Edonkey is dead.

I agree, but lets not put all of our peers in the same basket.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

Much much much larger selection through eMule networks(though most my experience is Razorback). If there were a larger variety of torrents, and they didn't die out as quickly, I'd agree.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[typical]

ed2k URLs provide a mechanism for content-based addressing. This is a hugely valuable feature for both content of any kind (regardless of its legality).

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[daikokatana]

Emule/Edonkey is dead.

One: it's not dead. Razorback2 going down is only temporary, until the other servers pick up. And there are a LOT of others out there.

Two: While I like BitTorrent (and use it), it's not the same as eDonkey. At least with eDonkey, I can turn off the upload. I haven't found a BT client that can do that.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[MrDigital]

Oh, so you're one of the assholes who doesn't upload. Way to be, fool.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[daikokatana]

I did not say that I do NOT upload. I'm using an ISP which limits my download and upload capacity. I am allowed to download 10 GB per month, but I can only upload 1 GB per month.

So when I'm using eDonkey, I do upload, but as soon as I get near my limit, I turn off uploading, and stop the "heavy" downloads. This way I can still share about 1 GB per month with other users, download as usual, and during the last few days when I can't upload, I can still download some smaller files.

Do yourself a favour - don't always judge people for the worst.

Oh, and by the way - switching ISPs is not an option: there are two others, one is not available in my region and the other one sucks (ask me how I know).

To me, the general idea of filesharing is "share as much as you can", and that's what I try to do. With BitTorrent, alas, I cannot do this. I have tried it, and the moment I start downloading, my upload skyrockets and I am uploading a multiple of what I'm downloading, which in my case is not a good thing for long.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[brady8]

Use uTorrent, and just limit your uploading throughout the month. You won't go over your limit, and you'll still be able to suck bandwidth to your heart's desire.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[daikokatana]

Thanks for your advice - I'll be sure to check out uTorrent.

Arrest Me

[lbmouse]

Here's the address of a bank down the street that you can rob if you want:

334 South Main

Now come arrest me.

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

In the trunk of my car is a vast assortment of drugs. Here's the key, and knock yourself out, kid!

Now come arrest me.

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a valid analogy. The servers contained NO illegal content, just pointers to that content. In your analogy, your car DID contain illegal drugs.

Try Again.

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hmmm, I agree as well this post is shallow and pedantic."

Terrific...Terrific

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true. It's more like ...

Here's an address where outcomes of bank robberies may be stored:
123 East Main
Now come arrest me.

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 false analogy. Try more like "there's a guy selling stolen goods at [address]".

Re:Arrest Me

[Anonymous Coward]

(-1) No Proof - Who said the titles that are being pointed to are "stolen". Is there proof that the people hosting these files have not purchased them?

Re:Arrest Me

[bill_mcgonigle]

There's a guy selling stolen goods in Chinatown. And in most pawn shops.

Ah... edonkey

[daranz]

The authorities will have to spend 10 days in a line, just to power the servers up.

Seriously, though... ED servers are like a looser version of BT trackers, tracking more files. And the legality of BT trackers is overall just "questionable."

Re:Ah... edonkey

[jlseagull]

"And the legality of BT trackers is overall just "questionable.""

Oh, absolutely. All those people with BT trackers running for the perfectly legal torrents of the Linux ISOs and WoW updates and 3DMark apps should be shut down immediately - you know, for the children.

Idiot.

Re:Ah... edonkey

[SatanicPuppy]

It's not questionable. That's like saying the postal service is "questionable" because illegal things make it into the mail. Is the telephone network questionable because you can call criminals, or plan an illegal activity? Are fricking lightwaves questionable because you can see things you're not supposed to see?

No, in fact, it's not questionable. Copyright infringement is illegal, therefore illegal stuff has made it into a perfectly normal information conduit. This is not the conduit's fault, it is the fault of the individuals who are putting the material on there.

End of story.

Re:Ah... edonkey

[ichigo 2.0]

ED servers are like a looser version of BT trackers

Did you mean loser or looser? An honest question, nowadays people don't seem to realise they're two different words.

Re:Ah... edonkey

[radish]

So wait, I'm confused - are we for or against the RIAA taking action against individual file sharers this week? Does someone have the rota?

Re:Ah... edonkey

[grub]

Why is he an idiot?

Pointing to illegal stuff is not illegal. Would it be illegal to say "No, I don't have any pot, but that guy Bob over there can sell you some."

Re:Ah... edonkey

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, personally, it pisses me off that it's illegal at all. And then it pisses me off that the RIAA are apprently the governments enforcement arm, when it comes to copyright violation. And I hate the RIAA, just because I think they're a pure evil leech latched onto an industry to could survive perfectly well without them.

But, all that being said, if they're actually going to be enforcing this stupid law, then they should be enforcing it against the people who are breaking the rules (filesharers) and not the people who are making filesharing possible.

Other servers

[FadedTimes]

I just see that the other indexing servers availble are just going to raise in popularity and replace the razorbacks postition at the top of the lists.
Also can't they just change the location of the razorbacks?

Re:Other servers

[Jozer99]

Yes, but its hard when you are in jail, or on parole.

Re:Other servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Donkeyserver1 has moved into the top spot now. Alot of good shutting down razoback 2.0 and 2.1 did. Stay away from any other razorback 2.x or if 2.0-2.1 comes back, those are RIAA/MPAA data collecting fakes. Best ones are BigBangs, Donkeyservers, and Bytedevils.

I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[neo]

You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal. What's wrong with these people ^h^h^h^h^h^h lawyers? Is this how the new administration uses it's "terrorist" powers to do what they like when they like to do it?

Perhaps.

But until we the people stand up for our rights, we wont have any.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Dillusionary]

Yes. I mean consider the overall threat to profit!! But in other news... http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/21/port.securi ty/index.html
Does this make you feel even more safer? I mean seriously what is the difference betweet the British running the port and the UAE? Besides the fact that Bush and family have serious ties? And a couple of hijackers for 9/11 came from UAE. In Bushes words "I don't understand what security has to do with it".

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[amliebsch]

You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal.

I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law might be different outside the U.S.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[seancallaway]

Do you mean the new Swiss or Belgian administration?

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[igotmybfg]

The servers were not in the US. This has nothing to do with the 'current administration'.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrmmm just pointing to illegal things being a crime by itself eh?

Concerned citizen: Hey, police! Look over there! *points to an old man having a heart attack*

Cop: YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR POINTING US OUT TO A WHOREHOUSE

cc: but... I pointed to the old man right next to it, on the floor!

Cop: DON'T YOU BLAME OTHERS FOR YOUR OWN FAUL... oh man, let me help that old man... I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU LATER.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[parodyca]

>>You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it.
>>It's perfectly legal.
>
>I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law
>might be different outside the U.S.
>

Darn straight. As the grandparent said. "It's perfectly legal". It's the US that makes it illegal to simply link to content. The rest of the world is more sane. Which again begs the question. How did they justify this raid?

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I can tell all my criminal friends when you're away on holiday and your house is safe break into, right? I'm not breaking in myself, so its ok, right?

"But until we the people stand up for our rights, we wont have any."
And those who abuse their rights don't deserve them. What he have here is the common Slashbot delusion that anything that stops you getting what you want for free is somehow The Man 'oppressing' you, and that by being cheap fucks you are somehow standing up for your rights. In reality, you simply have problems with dealing with the consequences of your actions.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[amliebsch]

Which again begs the question. How did they justify this raid?

Do they need to justify it? The Fourth Amendment does not apply. Is there a Swiss or Belgian equivalent? What does it require?

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[neo]

From the article:

Since November of 2004, authorities have closed down all of the major eDonkey servers in the United States, and now, Europe.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Overly Critical Guy]

I know it's super-awesome to use the old "^H" joke and make cracks at the "new administration" since Bush is always wrong here on Slashdot, but next time RTFA. This wasn't in America.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[tpgp]

I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law might be different outside the U.S.

That sound like TERRORIST talk to me ;-)

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Alarash]

You can link to illegal content. You're pointing to it, you aren't hosting it. It's perfectly legal. What's wrong with these people.

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.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[xiando]

Is this how the new administration uses it's "terrorist" powers to do what they like when they like to do it?

You missed part of history. Please (re-)read the Patriot Act. Jaywalking is now a "terrorist" offense in the USA.

As for Norway, Norwegian "Police intelligence" chief Jørn Holme publicly stated that "If it is not against the law, and can not be prosecuted, then we will take the measures we feel is appropriate". That basically Means that if you do absolutely nothing wrong and you criticize the Norwegian regime then they will torture you and in any way possible try to destroy you. This is relevant because the "Police intelligence" department (PST) started a surveillance, torture and sabotage operation on me after I made documentaries about 911 available on the Internet and posted a lot of information with links to it in Norwegian forums. Here they do not even use the terrorist excuse, they simply say "We do not like you, so we torture you".

Getting my servers shut down like Razorback2 is one thing the Norwegian Gestapo Police can't do that sine they are hosted abroad. So instead they torture with microwave weapons, voice-to-scull mind-control weapons, steal my mail, harass my neighbors and on and on BECAUSE OF RUNNING A DAMN WEBSITE with information that goes against everything the criminal regime would have people believe.

Take my word for it, getting your server(s) shut down is nothing compared to what some governments are willing to do to stop video documentaries to be accessible to the public.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[leuk_he]

It is not that they are judged by a judge now, they just had their servers seized for searches i suppose. In a year or so they will be releases without any consquences to the owners. This is the scenario that has happended before.

It goes like this: the local MPAA agency tips off that there is an international organization that makes millions in copying their data and selling it. Local cops seize the servers. After a year they discover there were only some advertising sponsered hobbiest (well you can earn quite a lot by the advertisements on a popular server, but that is a different story) and the servers are returned. 8 out of 10 hobbyist do not like this and do not start again. mpaa-people 1-0.

In the meantime the p2p networks go more underground to avoid such things and the reall illegal (kiddy porn, terrrorist and long haired hippies) can use those anonymous networks as well. All thanks to the hunting of the copyright kartel. :X

Ok, now some real information. The first news i read was from raratium. That also describes that the razorback site also proviede other services.

The ed2k network will keep running, since there are plenty of other servers, even if this will hurt search a bit. The server software developer was associated with the rasorback servers, so i hope he is not affect too much by this. Kad is running quite stable now and even without ed2k servers the emule client (but not sharezae, mldonkey and other yet ) will survive. The kad network was invented so that the server network did not affect the ed2k network too much . servers gave limits like a max of 200 shareable files (not enough).

leuk_he ( emulemorph.sourceforge.net )

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[rjstanford]

So instead they torture with microwave weapons, voice-to-scull mind-control weapons...

Voice-to-scull mind control? Damn the government and their hatred of small rowing expeditions!

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[R2.0]

First impulse: Troll (-1)
Second Thought: Paranoid Schizophrenia (-1)

Conclusion: High Comedy! (+5 Funny)

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Tweekster]

OMG First off the whole 9/11 stuff you posted, well that just makes you a moron. Secondly, do you really believe, well anything you just said? I mean, I have seen crackpots before, but you qualify as lucid.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Watson Ladd]

Link to jaywalking segment please? I find it hard to belive. Anyway, law boils down to who has the trigger of the gun. If it's someone you like he is a leader, else he's an extortionist.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who on earth modded this "insightful" ..to the author.. They have quite lovely medication now a days for mental illness. I suggest you look into it.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[DJCacophony]

It's the US that makes it illegal to simply link to content. The rest of the world is more sane. Which again begs the question. How did they justify this raid?

You misread the previous post, it's legal in the U.S. to index content, its the other countries that made it illegal. Last time I checked, hardly any U.S.-hosted ed2k servers have been seized, and nearly all servers that have been, were hosted in Europe or Asia.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[DJCacophony]

Legally, yes.
Morally, not so much.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[dirk]

I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law might be different outside the U.S.

WHAT?!?!??! What kind of savages do they have living in the rest of the world? Everyone should be obeying US laws, as we all know that it is the best and fairest laws ever to excist. We need to liberate the citizens of the rest of the world, so they to can follow US law, instead of whatever ungodly, communist laws they have been following. Think of the poor, heathen children!

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

> 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

I used Razorback2 to get episodes of the new television series "The I.T. Crowd", which the BBC has made freely available to anyone on the Internet.

Therefore, it is not true that the "_only_ purpose of a server is to link to illegal content".

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[RossumsChild]

"But when the _only_ purpose of a server is to link to illegal content. . ."

Wait. . .are you arguing that all of the material that Razorback2 indexed was illegal? Or are you arguing that a substantial number of legitimate uses for the indexing service does not justify it's existence? Because if you're arguing the first--you're just plain wrong. I share public domain content all the time. And if you are arguing the second, well, the Supreme court disagrees with you.

Sounds like somebody needs to read Sony vs. Universal again.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[cataclyst]

Those who are willing to sacrifice liberties for security deserve neither.

-Some dead guy

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[xtracto]

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.

I do not know but, I am sure that razorback linked to linux distributions and thousand of other legal content (documents, videos etc).

Now, about the linking thing, I have one question. Was Razorback2 indexing manually mantained?, if not, I guess it is the same case as Google page indexing, I mean, right now you can go: Google/Maxxus/Violate DMCA in 3 clicks but somehow the government does not gives a shit about google because their indexing is done automagically...

In that case, what happens if Razorback2 indexing is done again automatically???

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Haeleth]

While you have a valid point, your language is sloppy, and I'm going to pull you up on it, because using sloppy language on subjects like this plays into the hands of those who seek to restrict legitimate fair use as well as illegal copyright infringement.

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.

Illegal content wasn't the only purpose of Razorback 2. They linked to some legal content too.

Now, I don't deny that illegal content was the primary purpose. And it's perfectly legitimate to argue about where the cut-off should be, how much illegal use there needs to be before the technology should be banned; in the case of Razorback 2, you might even find that the vast majority of people agree that the illegal use so overwhelmed the legal use that the takedown was justified. But you should not just ignore the legal users - you should acknowledge them and present an argument that the authorities are acting in the common good when they act in a way that restricts those legal activities.

This intent of this server's owners is clear: they wanted to exploit a legal loop to provide copyrighted content.

This is the big mistake. You must not say "copyrighted" when you mean "unlicensed".

This post is copyrighted content. I own the copyright to it. But you are not infringing my copyright if you read this post, and you could email this post to everyone in the world if you like without infringing my copyright, because you have my permission to do that.

Similarly, if I compose a song, and record myself singing it, and give you a copy under a suitable Creative Commons license, you can upload that onto any P2P network you like - you will then be sharing copyrighted music that you don't own over a P2P network, and you will not be breaking any laws or infringing any copyright.

When you use "copyrighted" to mean "unlicensed", you strengthen the dangerous myth that copyright is a special thing that only protects commercial works, and that it's illegal to share copyrighted materials with your friends. The record companies want you to believe that, because they damn well don't want you to find out that there's free music out there that it's legal to copy and share, because that threatens their business.

It may sound like I'm nitpicking, but we live in a world where words have power. Words shape the world we live in. And if you let someone else define your words, you can only talk about the world they want to live in. You mentioned 1984 yourself: if you're familiar with the book, you're presumably familiar with Orwell's concept of the Party redefining words to make concepts like "freedom" and "democracy" literally inexpressible. We might not be heading quite that way yet, but we soon will be if we don't use words carefully rather than lazily.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[plasmacutter]

I have to disagree.

Outwardly it is not, but the last few raids like this it was clear who was pulling the strings.

Excuse me if I just believe they learned to better conceal themselves in the shadows.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you are arguing the second, well, the Supreme court disagrees with you.

Which Supreme Court? There are many, and the case you link to seems to be from a wholly irrelevant jurisdiction.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that was Benjamin Franklin. And old Ben didn't have body parts exploding around him at the local subway station either. A wiser statement than this would be...

"Democracy and Liberty are degenerate fantasies for the criminal only, and suffer by calamity alone, society will nurture it back to healthy servings."

-Some alive guy.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going to flame and troll at least get your facts straight. Maybe if you'd quit looking for a reason to push your whacky, liberal agenda of hatred for the sake of hatred and actually look to empower those you agree with the make the changes you think need to be made, you could find solutions instead of just finding blame. It's easy to point out a problem, but quite another thing to come up with a fix.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[grumpygrodyguy]

They have quite lovely medication now a days for mental illness. I suggest you look into it.

As someone who's been taking said medication for the last 2 years, I can assure you it's not lovely. Lots of very nasty side-effects.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[timmyf2371]

I wasn't aware the Sony vs Universal court case applied uniformly outside the US.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Alarash]

I'll try to answer with my sloppy language.

When you use "copyrighted" to mean "unlicensed", you strengthen the dangerous myth that copyright is a special thing that only protects commercial works, and that it's illegal to share copyrighted materials with your friends. The record companies want you to believe that, because they damn well don't want you to find out that there's free music out there that it's legal to copy and share, because that threatens their business.

Please explain to me how sharing copyrighted (which is exacly what I meant, not "unlicensed") work, like the latest Madonna song or Spielberg movie, is legal? It's not even legal to borrow a DVD to/from somebody ; merely tolerated. Well in Europe anyway, I don't know about the US.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[vertinox]

I'm not an international lawyer or anything, but it occurs to me that the law might be different outside the U.S.

That is what biased extradition laws and CIA kidnappings are for. ;)

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[vertinox]

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.

Thus, begs the question... (OK not really begging the question but)

Why is this content illegal?
Who made it illegal?
What was their motivation?

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Tweekster]

Last time I checked, neither do we...

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

plawyers?

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Alarash]

Like I said, don't get me wrong. I'm all for a so-called global license (free or $5-10), where copyrighted material is legal to share on P2P networks.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Anonymous Coward]

...I think you missed the point. The grandparent post was pointing out that not all copyrighted work is illegal to distribute. Sure, just about anything that you can buy in a retail store would be unlicensed for re-distribution without the "express and written consent of the copyright holder" (as it is often expressed), but not all copyrighted work is as such. Look at the many many things available under a Creative Commons License. Or, hell, anything available under the GPL. Each and every one of them, copyrighted works, and yet can be distributed on and on and on.

And that's the difference between copyrighted work in general, and unlicensed copyrighted work, the stuff whose author(s') don't want it going anywhere they themselves have not allowed.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[slavemowgli]

The law is different *inside* the USA, too. Just check out the DeCSS case brought against 2600 Magazine, for example.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[slavemowgli]

Don't be silly. It was not the server's only purpose to index or link to illegal content; the purpose was to link to *any* content whatsoever that users chose to submit for indexing, without trying to find out whether it was legally shared or not or even looking at it.

This is the same reason why Smith and Wesson can continue to manufacture guns even though people use them to kill each other. Illegal killings are not the *only* purpose of guns - so they're not illegal to manufacture/sell/possess themselves, even though the actual number of murders committed each year would probably be significantly lower if no guns were available.

Also, I'm not sure about your "it's legal to link to illegal content, sort of" comment. Is it legal (in Switzerland) or not? If it is, then there's no legal grounds for seizing the servers, period; and if it is not, well, then it is *is* illegal (not just "sort of"), and it's the operators' own fault for breaking the laws of the country they operate in.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[StikyPad]

That's ridiculous. I'm not saying the administration had anything to do with it, because I have no idea, but Washington absolutely leans on foreign governments, and works in coordination with foreign law enforcement in order to "protect intellectual property." The idea that we had no part in it just because it occured on foreign soil is simply wrong.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Kaenneth]

Iraq, and Gitmo arn't in the US...

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[LittleBigLui]

Taken from some random file from my HD:


Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.


Copyrighted, yet copying it isn't illegal. QED.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[egork]

It is illegal to link to illegal "content" at least in Germany. One of the most popular computer magasines in Germany, Heise.de was prohibited from linking to a russian MP3 trading site, which was found to be legal in Russia but declared as illegal in Germany. I do not name the site because I am posting from Germany :-)

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[Syrrh]

Way to go off-topic. Alas, IHBT...

Why is there a problem with UAE owning ports in the US? I'm kind of shocked that I'm backing Bush on this, but he's right on. Who cares what country the company's head office is located in? Are you deluded into thinking there was never a single arab on their ships before the deal went through? It's not like we don't do the same thing, how many foreign ports and airbases does the US operate around the world?

Where Bush looks stupid is he and all the other politicians have been beating on the whole "TERRORISTS! OMG!" boogeyman for so long, now they have to 'fess up that there really isn't such a huge threat, and even less if we as a country weren't such assholes all the time.

Re:I thought we settled this with hyperlinking?

[blackest_k]

good point
slightly let down by the fact its a channel 4 series and hense nothing to do with the BBC.

File sharing isn't illegal inherently, neither is sharing a file called photoshop7.iso which is actually a gayporn avi file unless the copyright owners of the gayporn avi wish to assert thier copyrights but unless you know who produced said avi. your going to have to watch an lot of gay porn to identify who might be the copyright owner.

Changing the file extension from iso to avi might be seen as decryption. As an iso file it was unreadable it takes a skilled user to convert this file into a gayporn video.

At what point does this file become illegal and who committed the offence?

It's firmly in the hands of the users what they choose to do with a P2P application and its pretty much down to the downloader what to make of a block of encrypted data.

One Word...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kad.

That's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

There also needs to be a lot more legit or political oriented (ie, about China, NK etc.) content distributed this way. That way our courts will find a legitimate use. Else ultimately not just p2p .. but encryption itself will be banned. Only way to have encryption is if you are going to an SSL website that is "licensed" or "registered". ISP's will have no block all unauthorized protocols, and any encrypted traffic going to an "unlicensed" website.

Don't say you never saw it predicted.

But the "bright side" is yeah there may be stego etc. still for criminals to use. Until the "war on stego" happens.

Re:That's not enough

[nasch]

The ACLU would cream their pants if the US government tried that. As much as the Bush administration tries to crap on the Constitution, it's still in effect.

Re:That's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as the ACLU tries to crap all over the constitution, theyre still a money grubbing institution who also happens to want to ruin our country.

Re:That's not enough

[Tweekster]

You know I have hear some really crackpot stuff, but that is just flat out lucid... I think we need a war on whatever narcotics you are taking by the pound. Do you really believe this idiocy you spew? If you do believe it, you must be the most joyless person ever to be encountered.

Re:That's not enough

[fuzzix]

You know I have hear some really crackpot stuff, but that is just flat out lucid...

Eh?

Re:That's not enough

[pureevilmatt]

lol!

Re:That's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, threw me for a loop too. Perhaps he was trying to say "ludicrous?"

Re:That's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

This was suppose to be humorous, right?

Re:That's not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

No, those scumbags can burn in hell. If you think they do good most of the time, you have serious mental issues. They either defend pedophiles, hate artwork(against religion, publicly funded), or are busy trying to make money.

Theyre out here right now in St. Louis suing Metrolink because they pulled the adds for a white supremacist group off of the advertising space on PUBLIC TRANSIT.

-I don't hide behind AC, I just have no reason to make an account.

eDonkey

[revery]

Ironically, it is reported that prior to the raid, Swiss authorities had called Razorback2 and requested certain information. The raid was prompted only when they received a response in the form of:

Information requested. You are number 563432 in the queue. Please wait...

Re:eDonkey

[geschild]

"Information requested. You are number 563432 in the queue. Please wait..."

If only they had unblocked the eDonkey port on their firewall, they would've gotten a low ID and a higher place in the queue.

Goes to show you that even authorities don't RTFM...

Clarification please

[Inda]

I haven't used the eDonkey network in years. One of the reasons I stopped using it was because PeerGaurdian was needed to safely access the network. I'm sure that good old install-a-root-kit Sony ran the top five biggest servers and they were called 'Sonny1', 'Sonny2' etc. I'm sure I read that these were only there as honeypots.

Can anyone comfirm this or did I dream it?

Re:Clarification please

[Anonymous Coward]

Peer guardian does not make it safe to download copyrighted material from the ed2k network although it may help a bit. The risk is low through safety in numbers. Reccently released films and music are probably higher risk than older stuff.

Yes, there are fake servers that filter search results or record users activitys. There are fake razorback servers active now.

I recommend either a) using emule set to not connect to a server and using kad
or b) turn off the options to auto update your server list from servers and clients, clear all the servers, update your server list from OCBMaurice's server list ocasionally. The gruk.org server list went down along with razorback. All the other server lists I know of are out of date
or list fake servers.

Alternativley go back to using binary newsgroups. Less choice than ed2k but much less risk if you just download.

Re:Clarification please

[TubeSteak]

What about
http://ed2k.2x4u.de/index.html
?

I've been using that site forever... mostly because it is the #1 Google result for emule + server

I will do what you suggested in (b), though my understanding is that when you do a global search, the request propogates through the server you're currently connected to and then onward and outwards to other servers.

Should I start limiting my searches to Server Only?

Re:Clarification please

[Anonymous Coward]

269 servers?! The last time I updated from Gruk.org, it showed something like 59. I'd be careful about that list.

Major blow to piracy. right

[Anonymous Coward]

By shutting down Razorback2, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online will slow dramatically

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaa! suuuure

Re:Major blow to piracy. right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yarrrr! Us pirates only use Razorback! Now we be forced to go back to pillaging and looting booty on the high seas.

Landlubbers however are free to update their serverlists and continue their dubious activities unhindered.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show how clueless you are. I get excellent speeds with emule (often better than the torrents which are leeched to death lately), and often over a thousand sources. Downloading a 2 or 3 movies in a day is not uncommon at all.

BT like NGs has the very latest stuff (telesync and such), but other than that it fucking sucks. To find stuff, you gotta look thru thousands of posts everyday - most of which are total crap and old shit. Quite a waste of time (the torrent search sites hardly help).

On emule, search for ANYTHING - ANYTIME! It WILL be there basically. From old stuff like Louis de funes movies or Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, to TV episodes, to entire discographies zipped, endless GBs of ebooks of all kinds (IT, electronics, woodworking, cooking, etc), magazines, apps, games, anything! You name it, it's there! Anything you could ever want just one search away, no need to go thru websites with tons of crap posted everyday to find anything worth DL'ing. There's got to be about 100 trillion more times as much stuff on ed2k than BT. You'll easily find the very latest build of every app out there on ed2k as soon as it's out, whereas go to any common BT site like TPB, you'll see old crappy versions of everything being posted everyday - it's beyond ridiculous the amount of crap posted everyday (things like nero 6.0 when 6.6.x.x has been out for over a year, and even v7 has been out for ages, old insecure builds of winamp, etc).

In fact, if you had been paying attention lately to news, you'd see it's becoming more popular than ever - more than BT, and for a reason. I couldn't care less if BT died, it may have been a good idea, but the thing sucks. Especially with the latest issues we see (overloaded trackers like TPB, some of the best clients banned, etc). Fuck BT, long live emule!

Nice job Swiss....NOT!

[gasmonso]

Good to see the Swiss being so neutral on the matter ;)

http://religiousfreaks.com/

Re:Nice job Swiss....NOT!

[Tweekster]

The swiss are not neutral, they simply try to avoid being involved... They were ready for the Germans during WWII. The germans realized it wasnt worth the hassle and went around them.

Re:Nice job Swiss....NOT!

[chriguhose]

Exactly right, and because their unwillingness to be involved in anything... they seized the indexing server ;-)

Re:Nice job Swiss....NOT!

[anti-pop-frustration]

What saddens me it that it's the second time that the swiss authorities (sharereactor anyone ?) acted as **AA watchdogs, raiding someone who wasn't actually sharing any files. It does not feel nice when your state bows to lobbyists...

And yet switzerland is supposed to be one of the world's least corrupted state...

Re:Nice job Swiss....NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Gah, put your stupid website in your sig. Retard.

You got a point

[denis-The-menace]

There's a pirate radio station at 107.9FM

there's crack house at 123 thug street

There's a guy selling copied music on the corner of Bank and heron.

You can get music through Kazaa and emule

News flash: Google and Yahoo point to Music and movies, too.

Interesting bits from TFA

[NiteShaed]

Swiss authorities arrested the site's operator at his residence in Switzerland this morning and searched his home.

Searched his home? For what, burned copies of Spider Man 2 and illicit Metallica albums?

By shutting down Razorback2, the ease with which pirates can obtain illegal content online will slow dramatically.

Two comments about this part....

One, I hate it when they make it seem like the main users of these systems are organized crime lords sitting in their pirate CD distribution warehouses. I guess that image is more dramatic than nerds looking for episodes of StarGate Atlantis though.

Two, slow "piracy" down dramatically? Do they actually believe this? Taking down one ed2k server, however large it is, hardly strangles p2p file sharing....

Re:Interesting bits from TFA

[aitan]

Two, slow "piracy" down dramatically? Do they actually believe this? Taking down one ed2k server, however large it is, hardly strangles p2p file sharing....

Absolutely right.
I wouldn't have notice in one year that the Razorback servers have dissapear at all. Do they really think that we need servers to connect to each other or that we need just that one server?

Come on!
I never look at the server page, I couldn't care less the server I'm connected to.

the mpaa uses pirated pdf tools for their pressrel

[Anonymous Coward]

eases....

the mpaa uses pirated pdf tools for their pressreleases

also see

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19476& postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75

(check the posting of the nxm dude in that thread)

check their pdf at:

http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_02_21_raze r.pdf

(wonder why its named razer.pdf when the site they took down was called razorback2. are they as dumb as shit?)

Hang on a minute...

[Spad]

The operators of this eDonkey site chose not to exercise control over files being traded by users which including those containing child pornography, bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos.

In other news, phone directories choose not to exercise control over people they list, which include paedophiles, bomb-making experts and terrorists.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, but your analogy just went "poof!".

A phonebook lists names, not filenames. From Mr. Johnson can you infer pedophile? Now how about boyzcocks.mpg? And of course the obvious, having to knock on Mr. Johnson's door with a search warrant after informant feedback. In contrast, any novice net admin can show you how to watch the network stream for illegal content, and filter it.

Sorry, but if you provide any public service, you must also serve the public interest - which laws are a part. Niiiiiiiice try there Mr. Anarchy!

Re:Hang on a minute...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

... bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos.

Guess I'll have to go to the store and buy the MacGyver DVDs.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[aug24]

You're AC, so you'll prolly never read this but: if any net novice can show how to 'watch the stream for illegal content' then I'm a potato. Do you actually believe computers can read jpgs (let alone mpgs) and interpret the content correctly for legality automatically?

Anyway your whole point is irrelevent. There is a list of file names. The files themselves are elsewhere. Assuming that we could infer paedophilia from names, would you then say that a phone book shouldn't list paedophiles - even if they have a phone?

Justin.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was a phone directory for criminal activites, the police would use it to arrest the criminals and shut it down. This is no different.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[DJCacophony]

Filenames reflecting their actual contents? HA!
You've obviously never used a filesharing network.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Mr. potato! You're obviously outside your area of expertise by your statements. By the way, I like you best dipped in Vegetable oil and salt and cut in thin slices.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

And those that ARE should be allowed? HA!
You obviously own an empty intellectual tub with babies laying in water. DOUBLE HA!

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is; it's called a rap sheet. And that's the rap p2p networks have with society, so rightfully so Industry shuts them down using their very own tools, catching a robber with his own crowbar so to speak.

The parent's phonebook analogy was a poor one at best. The moderation of Insightful is a reflection of bias, interest, and youth moreso than honest observation. At leat the ACs got it right...

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Jugalator]

These servers hosted far from exclusively only illegal content.

Re:Hang on a minute...

[Jugalator]

A phonebook lists names, not filenames. From Mr. Johnson can you infer pedophile? Now how about boyzcocks.mpg?

If you believe criminals name their files to blatantly obvious things like this, you're horribly naïve.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like this story is old, where were you slashdot?!

Whiners

[HangingChad]

The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.

And why should something silly like "legal" get in the way of a good enforcement action? Hey, if the president can wiretap Americans at will without a warrant, then what's the problem with confiscating a few servers and taking a business offline?

Bunch of left wing, tree hugging whiners if you ask me. Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government. Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.

Re:Whiners

[javaxman]

Bunch of left wing, tree hugging whiners if you ask me. Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government. Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.

Worse, they'll start talking about "Geneva conventions", as if laws should apply to the executive branch! Don't these people know we're *at war*!?!

Just one real question, though... I'm not aware how these things work, but...

what's the problem with confiscating a few servers and taking a business offline?

I know eDonkey sells client software, but was this Razorback2 thing a business? How did it make money ? Was it run by the folks who sell client software, or is there some other business operation there ?

Re:Whiners

[ScentCone]

Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government.

You do realize you're talking about Belgium and Switzerland, right? This has nothing to do with the US, unless indirectly, in the sense that some pirates that just happen to be in the US have just one less tool to aid in p2p-powered infringement.

Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.

Not that it has anything to do with TFA, but you do know that some of the loudest voices bitching about having their copyrighted works ripped off are people who generally back lefty causes and politicians. Right?

Skype=Spyware?

[ynohoo]

Following the link in the story gives me:

Spyware blocked
The requested site is not permitted, because WinProxy has determined that it contains spyware:
Spyware/Malware Sources
If you think that page is mis-classified click here
WinProxy version 6.0 R1c

Bad ScuttleMonkey!

Re:Skype=Spyware?

[ynohoo]

doh! Slyck, not Skype.

OK... it's not in the US. I didn't RTFA. I suck.

[neo]

Mea Culpa.

Re:OK... it's not in the US. I didn't RTFA. I suck

[Tweekster]

You were just too anxious to use the cliche of terrorism and bash Bush... By the way, how many times a day do you feel it is necessary to do that.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[xiando]

I personally find anonymous Internet usage (regardless of protocol) a very good thing. http://tor.eff.org/ is very nice for the World Wide Web. However, it is very slow - but worth it if you want to be anonymous. The same applies to file-sharing if you like "that" kind of files. Tor can be used with _any_ P2P programs protocol and is thus highly recommended. I urge anyone who makes p2p software to immediately implement support for it. I agree decentralized file-sharing is good. Back in the 90s a lot of folks were doing centralized, they met in schools or other places and copied files. Those were called "copy-parties". The police, in their glory, rided some of those on behalf of the glorious Record and Movie Industry (RIAA/MPAA). Hmm. Now that sounds familiar. Wonder who oh who ordered the raid on the Razorback2 Servers? On a last point, please beware of this: There are information on the Internet that are very important but ignored and/or blacked out by governments and the corporate media. These video files are generally free and freely available on p2p services (like on my bittorrent TV site) but governments are willing to go to great length, even covert torture here in Norway, to shut such sites down. This is something one should consider seriously when reading about sites being shut down.

P2P ala Search Engine?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this that much different than a search engine that indexes websites? A search engine might reveal a website that has copyrighted material that can then be downloaded just as Razorback2's servers would.

Re:P2P ala Search Engine?

[typical]

How is this that much different than a search engine that indexes websites? A search engine might reveal a website that has copyrighted material that can then be downloaded just as Razorback2's servers would.

Oh, that's being worked on as we speak.

Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[drasfr]

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.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[kevin.fowler]

But if we make it completely open source, an adware-filled copy will appear faster than you can cash your adsense check. And people will be dumb enough to buy it.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Tweekster]

Who is this "we" you are talking about...

in all honesty it would be OTHER people developing, you simply using it, and pretending you are part of something.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[boxxa]

The direct connect protocol basically does that and I belive even has SSL support now. Files are checked for integrety by hash values and the central server running the "hub" doesn't host any files or even index. All sharing and searching is done peer-to-peer.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[LeonGeeste]

It's called Shareza (sp?). There's also DC++. They both work great. Try it sometime.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[typical]

opensource community create a real completely decentralized p2p network?

Check.

- 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...

Check.

- Specs have to be open so anyone can implement a client.

Check.

- It has to be secured. Using SSL for example.

No. What would your goal be in using SSL?

- It has to work from behind firewalls.

Check (unless both people are behind firewalls, in which case they've chosen to cut themselves off from the real peer-to-peer Internet anyway).

- It has to be secure enough to differentiate dups and fake files.

Check (via add-on systems like Bitzi).

- Searches have to be decentralized, but cached, and verified for integrity.

Check to decentralized and cached (at least people have talked about it...not sure whether it's actually done). What does "verified for integrity" mean?

- Of course, it has to be ad-free/spyware-free.

Well, there has to be such a servent, yes.

- It has to be built upon security, safety/integrity of the files and users in mind.

What do you mean by this?

- Most of all, it has to be thought off as a legal project with legal uses so it can't be stopped.

Check.

Use Gnutella recently?

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[dtsazza]

That's as maybe. But we'd still have (if that's the only problem) a wonderful, robust, fast, legal P2P network.

Stupid people will always buy stupid things; you can't try to protect them from that by never creating anything that could be marketed in a misleading way. And although it won't really apply to said stupid people, if the GPL or equivalent was used, the adware-filled copy would have to be open source too.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[plasmacutter]

and yet they somehow manage to sieze hub central servers, so what gives here. i guess the law does not apply to protect nerds, only jocks and rednecks?

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't we, as an opensource community create a real completely decentralized p2p network?

Emule is open source and can search and share files without using servers. Just set it to connect to kad and not to a server.
You need to bootstrap it when you first install it so it finds other kad users which is most easily done by connecting to a serer once but the ip+port of an existing user will do.

Link encryption like SSL does not provide worthwhile security in an open network. You can encrypt the transfer when you send new-movie.avi to user xyz but if user xyz is working for the MPAA you may still get a DMCA letter.

Using link encryption with edonkey servers would likly massivly reduce the number of users they can handle due to the extra processing time and memory needed to do encryption and hold the session keys in memory.

The only options are to restrict the network to trusted people, friend of a friend style invitations/key exchanges, anonymity by relaying traffic or some combination.

Some people are still quietly using mute and waste networks. They encrypted the transfers and relayed data through intermediate nodes. They just don't scale above a hundred users.

I2phex, which uses the i2p anonymising layer is looking promising. Open source, java. Uses a lot of cpu power.

I am not a lawyer but I think that to maintain denyability you need to not admit any computer knowledge in connection with relaying anonymous networks.
If you know your computer is relaying traffic for other people and you know the network is full of copyrighted material then you are knowingly assisting. The authoritiys might be able to charge you with conspiracy or somthing similar.
I think the developers are putting themselves at legal risk if they admit to running a node and the users need to consider what they post on forums.
Most importantly we need lots more legitimate content.

In the long run we may well end up back at sneakernet. You can get a lot of stuff on a 400GB USB2 external drive or 8.4GB dual layer DVDR's. We might actually have to leave the house or have friends round instead of spending all our time in front of computers.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[IgnoramusMaximus]

and the central server running the "hub" doesn't host any files or even index.

Oops right there. Didn't they just take down a bunch of DC hubs last year for "facilitating piracy". Raids, seisures, big announcements and all that jazz...

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called BitTorrent with DHT.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Anonymous Coward]

i am a developer of Rodi project (google or check wikipedia)
please contact me e-mail larytet at yahoo.com
ICQ 82857660
YahooID rodip2p
MSN rodip2p@yahoo.com
AOL larytet
position of project manager is open

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check (unless both people are behind firewalls, in which case they've chosen to cut themselves off from the real peer-to-peer Internet anyway).

one of the goals of the Rodi project is to enable people from behind firewalls to communicate. this is the only project today which incorporates "hacks" to break through the firewalls. firewall is not always a free choise you see.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[wiml]

There are several of these. Freenet (Ian Clarke's Freenet, not the other things called Freenet) is one good example. The problem is actually prety difficult: since you can't have any centralized servers, and you can't necessarily trust all nodes, it's really hard to write something that will do what you want.

There's a tension between privacy and speed; it's hard to get both, since if you keep information private then you can't use that information to optimize the network. BitTorrent manages to be fast in a wide variety of situations, but it doesn't keep any secrets. Freenet manages to be secure in a wide variety of situations, but it can be really sloooow. They take totally different approaches.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for pointing that out.

There's nothing worse than a backseat coder.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[m50d]

http://www.gnunet.org/

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[J0nne]

Yep, you're right.

I don't see eDonkey going down in the near future either, as there are still other servers, and there's kad in case somebody manages to shut down all servers.

So the completely decentralised networks that are hard to shut down are:
-gnutella (the original, still going strong after 6 years)
-G2
-Ares
-Fasttrack (yes, that network is still running, despite being a heap of crap)
-eDonkey (with kad, i don't see anyone shutting that down)
-WinMX (used to rely on central servers, and when those went down, someone else just started running those servers)
-All those anonymous P2P projects that nobody cares about (freenet,mute, ants, ...)
-and i'm probably forgetting some

And regarding legal use: I primarely use P2P as a source for free software, so I don't have to wade through badly designed websites that let you click 20 links before you finally get to the download.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[forkazoo]

Bit Torrent still needs a server to host the .torrent files. The actual transfers can all be peer-to-peer, but a server is still involved. Gnutella is more like it. Or, maybe something run on top of Freenet...

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Blakey Rat]

Stupid question:

If it's a "legal project with legal uses", why would it need to be decentralized? The entire point of decentralizing P2P services is to prevent the entire system from being shut down by the RIAA/MPAA/someone.

Look at Bittorrent for example. Tons of people use it to steal crap, no doubt about it. But since it was developed to be a "legal project with legal uses" there's no effort to shut down Bittorrent. (Some sites using Bittorrent have been shut down, but they were pirating material beyond-a-doubt.)

The very fact that you're going through so much effort to make it decentralized and secure from spoofed files means you're not going to be seen as a legimate project... legimate projects, like bittorrent, don't worry about such things.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[gottabeme]

Not with magnet links, AFAIK. Using magnet links and DHT eliminates the need for tracker servers.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[Nekomusume]

Actually, there are a great many reasons to decentralize. You may have heard of such things as "natural disasters", "hardware failures" or "wars" for example. The internet itself is decentralized for a whole bunch of very good reasons, all of which apply to P2P networks.

Re:Why not a community based p2p client/network ?

[maxpublic]

That's an idiotic notion. In the U.S. I don't have to justify my reasons to ANYONE for building a decentralized network; the U.S. government doesn't get to decide whether or not I can do this thing, or if I can release the results to the public. It's incumbent on *them* to prove that the sole purpose of the software is to aid and abet criminal activity.

I don't know what country you're from, but if the government has that much control over what you can and cannot do I sure as shit do not want to live there, or even visit.

Max

Does "we" mean the US?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

In the US, there's an appeals court precedent about linking to illegal material. The law may depend on your (perceived) intent in making the link.

Regrets of sad little men

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very interested in psychology, what motivates people to do things, and how they put their actions
into a wider perspective, how they deal with the things they do and their identity. What ever happened to
those South African policemen who murdered black kids, the ones who quietly snuck off into the woods
once apartied was over? What happened to the gaurds at Auswit and Belsen, the minor little nobodies who were
never brought to trial? You don't need to be a monster to run into severe mental problems later in life.
I worry for the pitiful, compliant little yes men, lawyers, corporate dogsbodys and the other oily little
pencils who do their masters bidding so readily. It comes down to this. One day your wife or children are going to ask you about what you did with your life. Or maybe lying on your deathbed overcome with regrets you are going to have to face the music yourself. And there are some people who have to say "I tortured', "I killed", "I lived a lie for another man" But to realise you spent your life raiding servers, destroying work, communications, effort, pleasure etc of other
people for a set of values based on a technology you don't even understand yourself, man that has to be pretty big
hit on someones self esteem (if they are capable of feeling it). Even complete tools like traffic cops have some sense of social value and need for their unpopular activities. These clowns have no redemption whatsoever.

Re:Regrets of sad little men

[Anonymous Coward]

And there are some people who have to say "I tortured', "I killed", "I lived a lie for another man" But to realise you spent your life raiding servers, destroying work, communications, effort, pleasure etc of other
people for a set of values based on a technology you don't even understand yourself, man that has to be pretty big

and I bet there are thousands of /.ers who will realise that they spent their life steeling the results of hard work by programmers and artists.... that what they were doing in their teens and 20's was WRONG

MOD PARENT UP....

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of 40 posts on this artical, it's one of the only few decent ones...

Scary in another context.

[AntiDragon]

I find it somewhat worrying. It's an index, right? It's not the infringing content per se, but a list of where such content could be found. Morally, pointing the way to some of this content is wrong...but what law is it breaking?

Look at it another way. Let's say I've learnt of someone who gives away burnt CDs. I don't have any myself but but I'm fully aware of how to contact this guy and get freebies. So in conversation I let other's know too. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything and although it may be immoral not to turn the guy in, I'm fully within my rights to share what I know. I'm basically indexing this guy's contact details for other people to obtain. How they use those details is beyond my control.

Shakey analogy aside, where does protecting copyright end? Shall we go close down a library because a few of the books describe how to perform an illegal act (Shock! Horror! This book describes how someone murdered an innocent! No!)?

Or am I just getting pissed off and ranting? Probably both to be honest...

Re:Scary in another context.

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, you're kind wrong in your argument. if you are aware of someone committing a crime, or intending to committ a crime, then you have to report it to the authorities. if you are aware of a crime and turn a blind eye, then technically you can be prosecuted under some law about aiding in a criminal activity.

Re:Scary in another context.

[Rick.C]

My wife is a librarian, but I am not. (MWIALBIAN)

She informed me that there are specific State laws (in the US) that exempt libraries from copyright laws. That is why you can go to your local library and borrow a CD-ROM game or tax software or whatever, install it on your computer and use it until you have to return the CD-ROM. Even if the software doesn't check for the presence of the CD, you are morally obliged to delete it after you return the CD.

If the **IA wants to try to repeal these State laws, they are gonna get shushed into oblivion!

Re:Scary in another context.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an index, right? It's not the infringing content per se, but a list of where such content could be found. Morally, pointing the way to some of this content is wrong...but what law is it breaking?

I am not an expert on Belgian and Swiss law, but many countries have laws on contributory infringement and similar concepts. Substantially and knowingly helping a commission of a crime can be a punishable action in itself.

Does a large portion of eMule traffic constitute material protected by copyright? Do razorback admins know it? Is the judge ruling on this case likely to be stupid?

Re:Scary in another context.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm proud to be a Belgian.

It's about time they stepped in. Indexing illegal content should be illegal.
Now just let them seize Google, Yahoo and everyone elses servers.
Great.

Good job!

Btw you are probably just pissed.

Re:Scary in another context.

[Nekomusume]

Of course, with laws like that, then the next logical step would be to shutdown such companies as Sony, Phillips, etc. for manufacturing devices like VCRs, digicameras, camcorders and the like - as they are often used to facilitate copyright infringement. Heck, the entire computer industry, and the internet itself must be eliminated. Also, photocopiers, printing presses, pencils...

Hmm

[slashdotwannabe]

As long as companies like Adobe justify charging $700 for Photoshop, and rationalize it partially "to make up for the ten people who steal it", I will have no sympathy for companies who lose money to software piracy.

As long as products like iTunes charge a reasonable price for a reasonable product (both reasonables debatable, but the point stands), I will happily plunk down my $.99 cents per song.

In other words, don't make me feel like you're screwing me, and I won't feel like I have to screw you back.

Its not hyperlinking, well sorta ...

[dnamaners]

This has happened before and it will happen again. OK so you can "hyperlink" to content, but this is "so different, its like they use a program, and its not a web browser..." Once the lawyers get their reality distortion fields locked on to the, hand picked and mind numbed, jury any thing can happen. All they need is a few precedents and money can often buy them. Remember, in the US the tomato is legally a vegetable (not a fruit) simple because it pleased someone financially. Reality and reason can often have little place in a courtroom when big dollar civil cases are in play.

Its a basic fact: Like large amounts of mater warps space time, large amounts of money warps peoples perception of reality....

If it was questionable legality

[MMC Monster]

If it is of questionable legality, shouldn't it be brought out in court. That way people will know if it is legal or illegal.

While I am totally against frivilous lawsuits, having something brought to court to determine if it is legal is occassionally necessary.

Assuming that things aren't settled on the sidelines, of course.

They lose again!

[plasmacutter]

So.. i read this and decided to kick on amule just to check things out.

a search for "spiderman" in the absence of razorback is still producing results.. over a thousand and still going. Not that I want or like spiderman, but hey.. it still works you **AA klods, you missed a few thousand other servers.

Well gee...

[ded_guy]

I guess they'll have to flip the switch on Razorback3 then ;)

Backup....

[stunt_penguin]

Aaaand the backup server in another country goes live in 3....2....1

If the legality of it remains questionable

[Tim C]

Then it is for the courts to decide on it. If that's the case, then in any individual case it's fine for the hardware to be seized - it's just become evidence in a court case, after all.

Yes, it sucks for those involved, but until a court rules that this is legal and they have no case to answer, expect more seizures.

Legal schmegal

[Dachannien]

The legality of such indexing remains questionable, however this has not deterred copyright enforcement actions.

Well, think of it this way - the content industry claims billions in annual losses. Getting sued over the confiscated servers, even for treble damages, after getting the government to do your dirty work for you is a drop in the bucket compared to that.

Mod parent up =)

[plasmacutter]

No you are not, these points are good.

Politicians and Cartel lobbyists seem to think that just because its done with wires and silicon platters it somehow does not deserve the same protection. Well there is no real functional difference, and your analogy is not particularly shaky either.

I say MOD PARENT UP.

Restraint of Trade

[lynx_user_abroad]

Makes me wonder if any Copyright Holders who have authorized the distribution of their material through p2p can get a class-action lawsuit going against the [MP|RI]AA for illegal restraint of trade.

After all, they did just shut down a distributiuon channel for legitimate publishing in their overbroad sweep.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[typicallyterrific]

Support is already enabled. Only problem is that the people behind tor have made it very clear that they DON'T want people to do that.

Think of Tor more for a tool for free speech, not copyright infringement.

Of course, nothing is stopping us from making our own onion network, if anything to enable plausible deniability.

IPv6/SSL would be good.

[Anonymous Coward]

IPv6/SSL client/server architecture would be great. For one, it would accelerate the rate IPv6 is accepted and implemented and two, it would be secure enough for wide use. But, wouldn't it be too hardcore? Naaah, I do not think so. I have been waiting for such client for years now because IPv6 News servers are not enough for me ]:> :/

Just my 2c.

P2P filesharing != criminal

[typical]

The indexing servers are there to directly facilitate piracy and connect users to other users.

No.

Look.

P2P filesharing does one major thing that previous mechanisms *did not do*. It spreads the costs of distribution out over all the users. That means that the original content publisher need not spend lots of money to distribute his content.

Sure, Paramount doesn't like this, because Paramount has an *existing* business model that has been developed and can address the costs of distribution. It provides no benefit to Paramount.

A lot of our legal publication channels have evolved to deal with (and even rely on) a system where distribution is the primary cost. Book authors get money from publishers, who perform the task of publication and distribution.

If I run out and make a cool movie or a Linux distro or *anything*, *anything* at all that's large and that a lot of people would like, I have to offload distribution costs. There are a couple ways to do this.

(a) Get someone like sourceforge to pay distribution costs.

(b) Offload costs to all users.

(c) Other approaches that haven't seem to have caught on much.

(a) works okay for some content. However, (b) is not illegal or criminal or anything else along those lines.

The reason that there is so much copyright infringement on P2P filesharing systems is simply because there is a lot of demand for infringing content, and the main barrier was cost of distribution. I can't print up thirty thousand copies of Stephen King's latest novel and send them out to people who want infringing content for free. P2P filesharing cuts the cost of distribution down to so low a level that this barrier goes away.

Now, I happen to get a lot more good out of noninfringing content that is given away freely than infringing content. I use a huge amount of entirely free software every day, whereas my infringing content is the occasional ebook or movie, plus a couple CDs worth of audio that I listen to on loop. The fact that I can write a bunch of high-resolution textures for Quake II and distribute them over a P2P filesharing system at little cost to myself is phenomenal. Maybe this isn't true of everyone -- I don't know.

All I want to point out is that shutting down of P2P servers as "criminal" is absolutely absurd. If you are *not* content-neutral, if you are doing something like "download the latest and greatest movies here" on your main webpage, then there might be an issue. However, if you are doing nothing other than providing content-neutral services, then you are simply providing a service that changes (in a good way) the costs of distribution. The fact that this conflicts with the systems that we've built up to fund content creators, which are currently adapted to a different set of costs, is simply an unfortunate quirk.

I can understand maybe shutting down Napster, because it was definitely not content-neutral -- searching for the year of someone's album seems to be very likely to be intended for copyright infringement. But ed2k servers are content-neutral. Shutting one down simply *because* distributed distribution costs lend themselves well to infringement and because they are thus often used to infringe is simply unacceptable, in my view.

Doesn't anyone else see?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just a way for them to find out who has what. It indexes content so now they have the IP's of A LOT of file sharers to go after.

Re:Doesn't anyone else see?

[0123456]

Perhaps I'm retarded, but if they wanted to know who had what, why not just... do a search on the servers? Obviously having the entire database available would allow faster searches, but if you're trying to find people downloading 'Death Wish 15', then the P2P app will do the search for you. Or put up the file yourself and track who downloads it.

Seems to me that this siezure is far more useful for disrupting the network and scaring away users than tracking pirates... there are easier ways to do that, and you can monitor the network for a long period rather than just the state at the time the server was siezed.

Re:Doesn't anyone else see?

[Intron]

If they put up a file, they can't very well sue someone who downloads it, so I think that your speculation is correct.

Re:OK... it's not in the US. I didn't RTFA. I suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Thrice daily.

Aiding and Abetting?

[nurb432]

I suppose they could call it that technically Since you have to be on the network to access the indexes, and you cant get there accidentally.

Except that ED2K also houses plenty of LEGAL files, so how can you claim its only used for illegal activities? That's like saying the corner newspaper store is really just a porn shop because it has a 'backroom'.

But then again, if you have more money then the guy you just hit, you never have to make it to an actual legal decision before they drop out.

i wonder if they will now start going through the logs and go after 'users'.

There needs to be a way to run a server, and be a user, totally anonymously. Or this game of cat and mouse will never end.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's like saying the corner newspaper store is really just a porn shop because it has a 'backroom'."

Not quite. It's more like running a porn shop that has room in the back with a handful of newspapers.

Re:Aiding and Abetting?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. You're both wrong. Actually it is like running a flea market and allowing people to sell illegal stuff there.

More info?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you give me:
* The floorplans to the bank?
* The hours of the guards?
* Details on the type of security, and escape routes?
* Instruction for nerve agents to attack the staff with?

At some point you would be going to far.

You Imply that the address is not enough, well fine, its not. But there is a line, it can be crossed, and it won't get clarified by bad analogies on slashdot.

Re:More info?

[hamoe]

I'll bite.

Hello world, there's a guy who apparently is giving away:
* The floorplans to the bank
* The hours of the guards
* Details on the type of security, and escape routes
* Instruction for nerve agents to attack the staff with
over at 123 Main st.

Arrest me? I hope not. But, since there are millions of these people out there that I'm pointing to, it's much more convenient to arrest me.

Re:More info?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello world, there's a guy who apparently is...

So your not giving the information, only where to find it, right?

Well, what the information *is* makes a difference. Is it army positions, or apple pie recipes?

To find the balance of whats right means considering many things: what information - what motive for sharing it - what method of sharing (its effectiveness) - what effect it has on: people | society | business...

"Common carrier" is meant to be a *legal* definition to clarify the issues, not a *moral* judgement about what it's OK to do.

ps - we're just going to change the laws if the practical situation does not change to the moral line they decide to strive for

Re:More info?

[Zphbeeblbrox]

Your talking about the difference between aiding and abetting a crime and knowing how to do the crime.

For instance: if I were to give you all those items knowing you planned to rob a bank and you robbed a bank I could be charged as a co-conspirator.

However. If I run a search engine that locates a page on the internet which has all this information and you use my search engine to locate that information all without my knowledge then then at most I can be charged with some sort of irresponsible conduct.

The difference here is intent. In the first example I am knowingly helping you rob a bank. The second example I just failed to keep you from that content. I had no idea that you planned to rob a bank neither did I know that my engine had indexed the content.

Now while in the case of the Razorback servers you might be able to argue that the intent was to aid and abett an illegal activity you can not make that case across the board. And it might very well be possible that they can prove the intent was not there. Either way the crime is not file sharing it's aiding and abetting in an illegal act. That is perhaps what bugs me the most about all these news stories and press releases. They misstate the crime and that misleads people.

You are right though bad analogies don't help clarify the issue

IANAL so take all this with a grain of salt

Re:More info?

[Maggott]

It's dangerous to treat potential as the actual event.

For example, say you hand me a nuclear weapon with a big red button on it, then drop me in the center of Manhattan.

Does that make you guilty of aiding a terrorist attack?

If you thought yes, then no offense, but you're being a dumbass.

Why?

Because if you handed me a nuke and dropped me off in Manhattan, I'd hitch a ride on the bus, go home, throw the nuke in a closet and spend the rest of the day playing Castlevania, that's why.

Now, in the case of an indexing service, you can point to the fact that people did proceed to download copyrighted material. But it's totally inappropriate to assume that providing the information alone is enough to presume guilt.

If the guy walks in and gasses the clerks at the bank, you might have a point. On the other hand, if he looks at your plans and uses them to decide on the strategic placement of gas masks and changing guard schedules in order to reinforce the bank's security, am I still justified in throwing you in jail for giving out that information?

Everything we do publicly aids both good and bad things. When we stop Dr. Evil from destroying the Earth, we're also saving the lives of every child molester on Earth. When we publish phone books, we're providing great convenience and utility to some people while providing ready-made lists of potential scam targets to others.

It's bad policy to say that making information publicly available constitutes aiding the people who misuse it.

Re:More info?

[L7_]

go to the library, ask the librarian. they will help you find all of the above.

Re:More info?

[guruevi]

Sure I'll do:

You can torture the architect (or his secretary for that matter - is more fun), for his name look on the big brass plate when you enter the bank. Since I do not condone torture or anything related to that: you could also just walk (or break) into his office and ask the plans of that and the surrounding houses for some student project or offer your computer services to them and they leave you alone for the day in a dusty archive office together with the server.

As for the guards being not there: Usually, after office hours when the bank is closed, there is no active force in the bank (at least not at mine). There are some camera's which you might want to conceal and maybe even get a tap on the communications (you could "repair" the telephone lines in the neighbourhood for instance). If you're going during the day, I honestly don't think there is an ACTIVE force in the building (almost-retired-guard)

Since the guards are not there, you do not need to sedate them so no agents required. If you do it in the middle of the day, swinging some big gun will do.
For the security company who is doing the security, look for the shield-like tags on the doors of the bank. With a little luck you can even infiltrate in their company (if you are planning it a few years in advance)

Oh and by the way: in my bank the vault is usually open. If you want to know the codes (of my bank's vault) then order a box in the vault and if you're a big guy like me and go first thing in the morning you can look over the managers shoulder when they type it in.

Escape routes: well, my bank has a front and back - the front goes onto Main Street who is kind of narrow to escape on. The back door however has a big parking lot that connects parking lots of adjacent buildings and their parkings front entrance who is connected to multiple streets.

And since all this is just common user thinking (i'm not a crook, honestly) and is easily distilled out of just going regularly to the bank, I think everybody ever walking in a bank should get arrested.

A modest proposal

[cortana]

Seems to me as if there is a straightforward solution to this problem: make all content illegal, except for content signed by some central media authority. This authority should be run by the government since they are impartial and have our best interests at heart!

MOD PARENT UP - kad is not a server

[LunaticTippy]

I was going to post this myself, but this AC took care of it already.

Was napster a dream?

[parodyca]

Say, wa?

If it was legal in the U.S. to index content, then Napster (the original) would still be around. Unfortunately the Americans have this little thing called the DMCA which creates whole new categories of crimes for behaviour which should be and is allowed in other 'free' countries in the world.

Wanna try that on me again?

Re:Was napster a dream?

[amliebsch]

What Napster did was much more than "hyperlinking" or even indexing, and it's disingenuous for you to imply otherwise. It was contributory copyright infringment, because they actually did stuff to make it easy and convenient to violate copyright. Kind of like the difference between witnessing a crime and being an accomplice to the crime. And for what it's worth, I don't think contributory copyright infringement is legal in any country that complies with the Berne convention.

BitTorrent Is Not Illegal.

[colonslashslash]

Comments like that really piss me off.

Myself and a friend have been running a BitTorrent tracker / site over at tlm-project.org for over 2 years now. We've put a hell of alot of effort into the site over that time, and spent alot of money funding dedicated servers and bandwidth bills (we also use our servers to seed torrents on other distribution's trackers). Our advertising revenue covers about 10% of the total monthly cost.

Why do we do it? We love the concept of Free and / or Open Source software. We _only_ serve out Open Source software, primarily Linux distributions and the odd kernel release, but also some BSD's and applications too. There has never been a single byte of illegal material on our tracker, and yet people seem to have this idea that because people use BitTorrent to break or bend their local piracy laws, it's a bad protocol that can only be used for illegal activity.

Maybe I've taken what you said the wrong way, if so I apologise, but I see so many people blurt out similar crap... it's a pet peeve of mine.

Re:BitTorrent Is Not Illegal.

[daranz]

Personally, I use BT, both for downloading stuff fully legally, and not. I'm not trying to say that every single tracker out there is bad and evil. What I was trying to say that with trackers used to share illegal copies of software/music/movies/whatever, there is always a lot of discussion on whether or not they are actually illegal.

I suppose I should've made it clear that I mean legality of individual trackers, not trackers in general.

Re:BitTorrent Is Not Illegal.

[colonslashslash]

Fair enough man, no harm done.

My thoughts on the matter; as is often pointed out on Slashdot, you can't condemn something such as a network protocol because of the way it's used anymore than you can condemn a car manufacturer for its customers participating in a drunken hit-and-run. Everything can be used _and_ abused. Blaming a technology for how a person misuses it is illogical and abusrd to me.

If BitTorrent didn't exist, something else would take it's place (as history has shown us repeatadely) as the predominant means to the end, and people would use (or abuse ;)) that to achieve the exact same results. The logical conclusion of a misguided argument to outlaw a protocol because people use it to break a law has some very scary ramifications. Take it a couple of steps further, should email be illegal "just in case" someone decides to mail their co-workers a copyrighted image? How about that there interweb? The whole premise of that is based on computers sharing data, maybe we should just nuke the whole thing and go back to writing letters to each other with pots of ink and papyrus. Oh wait, there would still be an opportunity for plagerism....

Re:BitTorrent Is Not Illegal.

[LittleBigLui]

There has never been a single byte of illegal material on our tracker

Liar! Thief! Filthy Criminal! Of course there were. For example, the byte 0x5A - taken straight from adios-4.15.iso that you help distributing - is clearly stolen from the latest Britney Spears CD, where it appears next to the byes 0xC2 and 0x82, and we both know that those make their appearances in said ISO, too.

(perceived) intent

[dpilot]

Does it really depend on your "perceived intent" of the link, or on the "customary historical usage" of the link?

MOD PARENT UP!!

[murukusu]

This is the big mistake. You must not say "copyrighted" when you mean "unlicensed".

New definition...

[Anonymous Coward]

for troll and flamebait is this post. Doesn't get any better than this. No point to this other than to rant about a government that actually didn't take part in the raid whatsoever. Good job.

leech

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucken leecher.

Something worse?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the passenger in the linux taxi cab, who neither tips the driver or offers to drive, but also complains about the free service?

That a battle not the war

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no practical reason for taking down Razorback.
The only reason, it was well known.
If you want make a show. You don't take down a small
Site that no one every heard of you attack the more popular one.

Did this affect the donkey network? No.
My emule client made a beep when that server dropped off the net. 10 second later it reconnects to one of the 100's of real servers out there and restarts my download.

http://www.amule.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ_eD2k-Kadem lia

The internet and internet applications are tuff and by design were made to work around disruptions. It was designed to work even if segmented after a nuclear war.

So I'm sure it's more than a match for the MPAA.

zbeast

Re:That a battle not the war

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I would mod you up but thats just not true, emule didnt beep at all, nor did downloads stop. They carried on downloading at full speed while emule was connecting to another server that it does every so often either way ;)

You never gave anyone anything.

[worb]

Razorback2 never gave anyone anything. It was simply a server which passed on information others sent to each other. From the press release:

"The operators of this eDonkey site chose not to exercise control over files being traded by users which including those containing child pornography, bomb-making instructions and terrorist training videos."

They chose not to exercise control just like common carriers choose not to exercise control. Would we punish phone companies for not screening all calls for terrorist threats? Of course not. They have no control over what kind of calls people make, just like Razorback2 has no control over what kind of content passes through the server. Well actually, the "content" is more like links to content...

If you were to be used in an equivalent example, you would be a phone company which chose to let others freely place calls on their phone network.

Re:You never gave anyone anything.

[cpghost]

They chose not to exercise control just like common carriers choose not to exercise control

Yes, that's a valid point. But common carriers are heavily regulated and licensed by the state before they can go online, while Razorback2 was not (heavily regulated, that is). With the new EU directive, common carriers will also be forced to keep a huge backlog of transactions for traffic analysis while Razorback2 probably kept all their connection data in RAM (did they?). The bottom line is, that it's sadly not the same situation.

Dan Glickman

[j3one]

"This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks," said Motion Picture Association (MPA) Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman."

- indeed.

My tribute: http://www.joplan.com/DanGlickman/Danglickman.html

Revolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Fight back! Don't let some government illegally sieze your shit! Just because they're the government stealing your stuff, y'all think you can't treat 'em like the criminals they are? The only difference them being G-men makes is that they're slightly better armed (most of the time, ignoring the fact that a lot of criminals use full-autos and almost no police force does) than your common crook. All that means to the Law-Abiding Citizen is that they have to break out the jacketed hollowpoints and be quicker on the draw.

Government fucking oppression...

Maybe just an exemplar operation

[metroplex]

I am Swiss, and I recall having read on the local newspapers that the authorities would "stop toleranting file-sharing" starting in the first quarter of the year 2006. This looks like a demonstration of that intention. It's possible that the "raid" just served as an example for other big networks. Everybody knows, however, that shutting down a server will certainly not stop the network it belonged from being active, and on the contrary it may well push people to find new, better, more anonym ways of indexing and sharing files. (see the shutting down of Suprnova.org and the rising of decentralised tracking for bittorrent)

uh-oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fucked.

priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

great were more worried about the legality of some p2p servers than

AMERICANS keeping prisoners without trials for 5years now, or illegaly invading other countries

wake up people!

Re:priorities

[DerProfi]

Boy-howdy... Your eloquence and obvious deep knowledge of the subject has convinced me. I'll ring up President Bush and ask him to release all of the unlawful combatants if you agree to one condition: you have to let them live in your house and your neighborhood side-by-side with your friends and family for the next 5 years. Deal?

As for your bleeding-heart cause du jour being more important than Razorback2 getting carted away, WTF??? Get your priorities straight, AC. Don't you know that potential Near Earth Object impact and DHMO toxicity are where it's at as far as the cutting edge of humankind's worries? You're, like, so 2004!

But it is the homogenized music which suffers!

[FatSean]

Check what these kids are pirating...it is all mainstream poppy shit that they want because advertisments, MTV and their MTV advertiement watching peers all say you should like it.

If we keep pirating and make music distribution less profitable, perhaps that bland BS will go away.

The Music I like was released on tiny little labels, and I'm sure there isn't much profit there to begin with. People who make 'real music' in my opinion, would be doing it even if they couldn't make a cent.

They do it because they want to do it, not out of any expectation of profit. I'd even argue that the opportunity for profit is what attracts people to the field to create crap 'corporate' music.

Re:But it is the homogenized music which suffers!

[PFI_Optix]

I play because I love to play. But on the rare occasion that I'm asked to sit in on a recording session, I'm reminded that quality recording simply can't be done without at least breaking even.

I know one artist who has a $20,000 studio in his house. It's where several of the guys I know do their recording, and where I've recorded all my samples when people asked for them. He's coming close to getting it paid off through album sales after his concerts. I can assure you, if there were no chance of recovering that investment he never would have spent the money.

Re:But it is the homogenized music which suffers!

[ZephyrXero]

PFI_Optix, please pass this along to your friends too... Simply telling people not to share music is a losing battle. What you and the rest of the music industry need to do is look at the causes of piracy, and work on the reasons people do it, not the effects (same goes for movies/games/etc). Ask yourself, why would someone pirate your music? If you talk with people who download music on a regular basis, it's almost always the same responces, A. I just wanted to listen to it to see if I liked it, B. I didn't want the whole album, just this one song, C. I don't think this CD's worth $20 and/or I'm too poor to buy music, I can barely pay my bills, D. "The money's just gonna go to the giant corporations who dominate the industry, the actual musician only gets a little tiny slice, so who cares?"

So let's look at each one. With A, a very large portion of the time, people like to "try before they buy" and then they say they will go out and actually buy the CD or whatever if they end up liking it. The problem is that once they have it on their machine, it can be much more tempting not to bother with buying it or they didn't think it was worth their money, but they decided to keep it anyway.... This is a problem with supply and demand... people want to hear your music, but everyone makes it so difficult for them, that just downloading an illegal copy of it is the easiest way to check it out usually. If artists offered they're entire albums online, at a lowerer quality bitrate probably, then people could try out your music without the downfalls... If the samples are streamed and/or a lower than adequet compression level, they'll still need to go out and buy a high quality copy.

B. Online music stores like iTunes (even though I hate them for their misuse of DRM) are fixing this problem as people can get the songs they want and not the ones they don't. However, with most current solutions, the music files usually have so many restrictions on them that people can't use them very easily, so this still may end up backfiring.

C. This one's pretty simple. The music industry has pushed the limits on what people feel is a fair price for a full album, so if people feel that you are ripping them off, then they'll have no problem ripping you off in return. And as for people who can't afford to buy CDs (like all the college kids who make up the majority of file-sharers), they wouldn't have bought your CD in the first place.

D. This one's a little confusing, but the common perception of mainstream music is that the artist get a very small cut of the profits, so what do they care anyway? Now of course, not all musicians are on major labels, and some actually get a decent royalty, but as someone has already pointed out, the more mainstream music is, the more likely it is to be pirated, and vice versa. I don't really know how to deal with peoples perceptions, but if you are an independent artist who will actually be making some worthwhile profit from your albums, then try your best to let people know your situation, people feel alot worse about stealing from someone who are struggling to get by than someone who goes on Mtv showing off all their money. And then again if you are one of those people, you've probably got so much money it doesn't really matter....damn I still hate Lars :P

The point is, treat people right, and they'll usually treat you the same in return...unfortunately the music industry is doing just the opposite, so it will only get worse unless they change.

Re:But it is the homogenized music which suffers!

[maxpublic]

If we keep pirating and make music distribution less profitable, perhaps that bland BS will go away.

In other words, it's stuff you don't like. Newsflash for ya, junior: musical tastes are nothing more than a matter of opinion. Your opinion on what is and is not good music isn't worth more than anyone elses.

People who make 'real music' in my opinion, would be doing it even if they couldn't make a cent.

But you don't get to decide what "real music" is. Nor do you get to decide what musicians are going to do with their music. If they decide to play free in the park or sell CDs of it for $20, either way it's *their* choice - not *yours*. Your only choice in the matter is to buy or not to buy, just as it should be in a supposedly free society.

Suck it up and deal with it.

Max

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[cayenne8]

"Support is already enabled. Only problem is that the people behind tor have made it very clear that they DON'T want people to do that."

Well, what I got was that the Tor network is still small, and the p2p stuff would just overload it at this point.

However, I have seen links that will let you use Tor with BitTorrent, but, not for the data transfer, but, for the tracker information...which would be a good thing to have shielded.

Wicked sense of humor

[vinn01]

I'm one day late to mod this up.

I had mod points yesterday....

Napter wasn't Indexing???

[parodyca]

Err, OK somebody ain't getting it. Maybe it's me. But how was Napster doing anything more than indexing? They kept a database of filenames along with IP addresses of where to find them. That was it as far as I know, and that is nothing more than an index.

As for Berne, I have actually skimmed through it and its amendments. I could be wrong, but I don't think the concept, let alone the words 'contributory copyright infringement' are there anywhere. The idea of holding a person who makes tools for copying accountable for copyright infringement I doubt had even been considered when this treaty was thought up.

Oh no. The American's have ideas of copyright which go faaaar beyond Berne. (As if Berne isn't bad enough)

What boggles me is how other people in this thread can hold up America as an example of freedom with regard to this issue. America is one of the most, if not THE MOST repressive regimes with regard to intellectual freedom in the Western world.

Re:Napter wasn't Indexing???

[amliebsch]

America is one of the most, if not THE MOST repressive regimes with regard to intellectual freedom in the Western world.

I was going to post a long, detailed reply, but when I got to this sentence, I realized it would be futile. If you truly believe this, then I am sorry, this conversation can serve no purpose any longer.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[billcopc]

Like anything in this jealous world, if you get too big, someone wants to take you down.

If you had "copy-parties" so big that the cops knew about them, then you have too many "friends". If you were just handing copies of NHL 2000 to your mates for some late night multiplayer goodness, you flew under the radar, but if you're inviting the whole state to your "party" (a party without liquor nor women :P), then I have a dunce hat that's just your size.

Drawing the line

[RyoShin]

"Middlemen" who connect people with guns-for-hire are often arrested on an accomplice charge. They aren't the ones doing the shooting or looking for someone to get shot, but they connect those two parties.

However, that is a rather severe simile. A closer one would be someone you go to get something from the black market, or to buy stolen good through. Yes, they weren't the ones who are actually selling the goods or stealing the stuff, but they can point you towards those who do and are. Without them, it would be much harder to gain access to those things, so they do help to perpetuate it.

Knowingly hosting this kind of information is, in my opinion, morally wrong. If it was a service for legit files, and a few copyrighted items snuck in and were undetected, then they shouldn't have a problem. If they're allowing large amounts of posting (even of the links) for copyrighted items, feigning ignorance won't do them (or you) much good.

The legal system is still wrestling with the notion, so it's anyone's game right now.

Good Ridance

[bod1988]

eDonkey was slow and unreliable.

Old News

[Predecessor o Christ]

Way to follow up the story a day later. Even Digg had it posted yesterday. For SHAME.

Or the Manassas Park Police

[Anonymous Coward]

How come when the property of regular citizens is siezed for investigation of a piracy or drug-related crime, you always hear the term "raid."

I mean, surely when the Justice Department needs to take a look at Microsoft's paperwork, they send in in an elite squad of ATF agents to rappel down from above, crash through the roof, and storm the building with machineguns drawn.


http://www.theagitator.com/archives/026298.php

DIGITAL CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

[zpodcaster]

I think this issue is too big to slip between /. posts. So I created a http://digitalcrimesagainsthumanity.blogspot.com/" blog for it, with this post only.. I really want these names to stay on the Web together: crimes, humanity, holocaust, RIAA, Nazi, SONY. DIGITAL CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY This post is a science fiction. There's no such a thing as a crime against digital human rights. But perhaps, there ought to be. As our digital culture evolves, corporate censorship, digital genocide, arrests and police actions against some very specific digital groups begins to appear. One of these groups is P2P: peer-to-peer networks, raided often by governments in response to lobby by corporations: SONY and others. According to some definitions: Genocide is a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of *** groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. In the 1945 world, the *** in the term of genocide meant "national". But in today's world, corporations and governments take an aim at the digital life of individuals. I wrote this post when RIAA (SONY and others) raided Razorback2 servers in Switzerland (Razorback is a server helping eMule community locate each other's files on the Internet). Does it mean at some point these raids will cross into something threatening our digital lives, our freedoms? Do we feel helpless, when legitimate files, otherwise inaccessible via other means are targeted by these organizations? Clearly, RIAA (SONY and others) does an indiscriminatory digital genocide against entire networks, groups of peaceful people with the aim of annihiliating groups themselves. This is a definition of the digital genocide. Now, to the Holocaust. According to the holocaust encyclopedia (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/) the holocaust was systematic, bureaucratic, state sponsored persecution and murder of millions of people. Well, in today's world, the Digital Holocaust committed by RIAA IS a SYSTEMATIC, BUREAUCRATIC, STATE SPONSORED PERSECUTION of millions of P2P network users. Think about it.

Re:DIGITAL CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

[Slashcrap]

While I suspect that we do need a spokesman for digitial rights, I am absolutely certain that it shouldn't be you. Please don't publish anything else on the Internet about this subject. It would be much better for everyone if you let someone coherent do it instead.

Here's why that will NEVER work

[Bodysurf]

"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"

I'd be willing to help! I have a lot of money, and access to high-speed internet connections and massive servers.

mailto:mole-rat@riaa.org

Re: Sony V. Universal

[RossumsChild]

I don't know. . . can you buy VCRs in other countries?

It seems to me that if the fallout hadn't been felt the world over, Universal would have taken the case to the rest of the courts. Unless, that is, they felt it likely they'd be put down in those arenas too?

Pathetic attempt at sarcasm to belittle the point = 0.
Real world results of the decisions in question = 1.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[Stoutlimb]

"There are information on the Internet that are very important but ignored and/or blacked out by governments and the corporate media. These video files are generally free and freely available on p2p services (like on my bittorrent TV site) but governments are willing to go to great length, even covert torture here in Norway, to shut such sites down."

That's quite the claim. Would you share any details about this, or are you just saying something inflammatory to get attention/mod points?

Anyone noticed download speeds increased?

[Anonymous Coward]

My downloads have been slow to day but they jumped to 500KB/sec today and they are just fantastic now. Thank you MPAA!

Selling?

[nurb432]

Since when do you have to pay for what you download on ED2k? your analogy doesnt work overly well.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[Stiletto]

What, do you expect a link? The sites have already been censored.

That's the thing about censorship. Done wrong, the people get up and arms and want the material. Done right, the people never even know the material exists.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright infringement IS free speech.

Seriously - any law telling me I can't distribute speech is a violation of my right to free speech.

I would even go so far as to say that copyright is unconstitutional in the US - the first amendment modifies the copyright provisions in the body of the constitution.

Submitted not by "anonymous reader"

[Why Login]

The story was sumbitted by ME! But it does not really matter what the moderator put.
I am happy anyway because it is my FIRST story that was accepted! Hooray! :-)
First one, out of four :-)

What if...

[jgoemat]

What if each file to be sent was split into two files of the same size that contained completely random data, but if you XORed them together you would get the original file. Each 'sharer' on the system would only share one of the two files. Anyone downloading it would get gobbledy gook unless they had the other part to the file themselves already. That way you are not actually serving the file since anyone looking at what they get from you will juse see random data. In fact, I could also create 'random' data to make the exact same data turn out to be part of a public domain movie from the gutenberg archives. This would double the bandwidth on the network, but the only sites vulnerable would be indexing sites, which you wouldn't need if peers could index themselves.

For instance, let's say I have LINUX.TGZ and it is 5mb long exactly (old version of the kernel ;). I create a 5 MB stream of random bytes (A) and xor LINUX.TGZ with it to get another 5MB stream of random bytes (B). Then I take my MP3 of "Enter SandMan" (SANDMAN.mp3) which is also 5 mb and I XOR it with (A) to get another seemingly random stream of bytes (C). This way I can keep people from listening to my music without having (A). Then I xor LINUX.TGZ with (C) to get another seemingly random stream of bytes (D). I could then do a search for (A) by MD5 HASH and download it. Then I could do a search for (B) by MD5 hash and download it. Combining those two files would give me LINUX_KERNEL_0.99.TGZ. Now if I do a search for either (C) or (D) by MP3 hash and download it, I can reconstruct the others.

1. Combine (A) and (B) and you get LINUX
2. Combine (A) and (C) and you get ODE_TO_ME.mp3
3. Combine (C) and (D) and you get LINUX

   Therefore, if I only share (A) and (B) on my hard drive, I can upload both parts needed to make LINUX to other users. If my friend shares (C) and (D) on their hard drive, it is the same, you can use both parts to create LINUX. Now if someone were to download (A) from me and (C) from my friend, they could illegally use them to recreate the SANDMAN.MP3 file, but why would someone want to break copyright law? My friend and I are just serving the parts to make LINUX.TGZ which is perfectly legal.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been suggested before, but is generally not feasible for two reasons; one practical and one legal.

On the practical side, it requires a person to download at least twice as much for each file. 2x 5MB is one thing, 2x 350MB or 2x 4.7GB is entirely different. No one will want to do this.

You could argue that only a small number of random data files are needed (say a few hundred) and that everyone uses those. This leads to two further problems. Firstly the requirement for each person to store these otherwise useless files on disk - a hefty storage price. Secondly, there is still the start-up cost of people wanting to share new files - they must first download a large file against which to XOR their share, which severely delays distribution.

An better alternative is to use data from a signal generator function. It won't be random data, but it you won't need to download it as you can exactly recreate the file given a set of function parameters which can easily be stored in 1kB text.

However this could lead to an opposite problem. Everyone when sharing may use their own personal combination, leading to the XORed files being fairly unique and possibly tracible to the person who originally shared the file.

Both above systems suffer from the same legal problem. I interpret the scheme as intending to introduce plausible deniability into the possession of large files of apparently random data. However, a group of people who independently happen to have the same XORed version of a file might be open to "conspiracy to commit" charges IN ADDITION to copyright infringement (unless you can prove that *everyone* *worldwide* has the same XORed version) [compare: possession of a bank card vs. possession of a tampered bank card].

I recognise that the idea is intended to obfuscate possession, but realistically the liklihood of an individual who is not mass-uploading new content being raided is vanishingly small. It makes no sense to potentially add further charges in the event of being caught. Believe me, possession of a number of seemingly-random data is highly suspicious, unless you can *prove* that it is innocuous (e.g. SETI@home data).

[note to the "prove innocuous" above: guilty until proven innocent is a reality of the UK RIP act with regard to encryption - in order to prove you are not withholding keys you would have to show what the random data really is - you would prove your own guilt of infrigement. Additionally, and agent snooping on a distribution channel for a short time would easily collect enough information to undo the obfuscation.]

In Which Tennessee Ernie Ford Is Alluded To

[DannyO152]

Just curious. When you or your musician friends needed to teach their bands a song a few years ago, did everyone go out and buy a copy of the cd/lp or was a little casual infringement via cassette accepted? And when you were starting out and a friend told you about a rad band, did you schedule a trip to the record store to buy the disk, so you could legally listen at home and decide, strictly on their say-so, every single time you got a tip?

I understand the rules and I think I understand the business. Record companies and, maybe to a larger degree, musicians are looking for that shot to be part of a sub-culture's soundtrack. It doesn't happen unless a lot of folks hear the music without explicitly paying. So, it seems to me that if the rules are ever 100% enforceable, via legislation, litigation and/or code/technology, and no one can ever make mix tapes or copies for friends, relatives or band mates, then this has gone too far. (I think it'd be a good thing if collectors were allowed to offer out-of-print obscurities on-line at no cost for download, which is well outside of the realm of any one's definition of personal use.)

Back to my original questions, music is not this thing that springs fully formed from the brow of Zeus. It exists as a chain of ideas and techniques developed by musicians hearing stuff and performing stuff which other people and musicians hear, and I know you understand that. Records, radio, cds, mp3s, the internet have all brought us to a point where it is really really easy for someone to hear our music without the former bounds of geography. So, how much lockdown is too much lockdown? I think we passed the point of too much a few years ago. If it goes further, and going further has the momentum, then a golden age of pop culture is irrevocably past and right at the time when the finders in the farthest corners of the globe could share with any seekers. Perhaps it's nearing time to talk about music like it was a can of beans and devalue the artists to the status of the pickers and packers fighting for the chance to owe their soul to the company store.

How?!?!?!?

[Cyno01]

How do you turn off the upload on edonkey? I just got a call yesterday (after using it here for a year and a half) from resnet telling me to turn off uploading, but is that possible with edonkey? I thought that was one of the main features, that you cant leach. I dont want to leach forever, just for another 3 months untill i get my apartment and my cable connection. I had a couple of important files that i took over to my friends house that hes finishing for me, but all the trivial stuff that theres no rush i dont wanna give up on for 3 months. But with Ed2k turning down the upload speed automatically throttles the download speed. Whats the trick?

Re:How?!?!?!?

[daikokatana]

Ah... I should have said that I'm a software developer and that I have modified the source code for eMule (also should have said that I use eMULE not eDONKEY, I always confuse them).

It's available for download for free (open source), so you can pretty much do what you want with it.

There are so called "leecher mods" out there, but I don't want to use them because they turn off the upload completely, AND speed up the download mechanism (queues and stuff) which poisons the network. Some of them even send out invalid packets as return packets (invalid data to poison the file of another downloader). This was and will never be my intention - I just want to be able to share within my own restrictions.

I suggest you take a look at the source code (it's on SourceForge), and go from there. It's pretty self-explanatory what you need to adjust, but getting the right libraries in the right versions together to get a decent build is another story. All in all, eMule is a wonderfull client. Good luck!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bland is most certainly NOT subjective.

[FatSean]

I see somebody recently learned an important life lesson about opinions. Like most simple folk, he has forgotten that other people have already learned that lesson.

'Bland' may be subjective in a literal sense, but when you are considering the entire set of human-produced music, it is quite simple to make a distinction that everyone can agree with.

Re:Bland is most certainly NOT subjective.

[maxpublic]

Yet another opinion touted about as some universal truth, simply because the poster can't accept the fact that his taste in music is no more important than anyone elses - including the kids who happen to like Britney, or whoever the pop megastar of the moment is.

You don't get to decide what is "bland" and what isn't for anyone but yourself. Nobody but you and your pals gives two shits what you think on the matter. If you think otherwise, time to wake up, smell the coffee, and realize that you aren't any more important than the guy who picks up your garbage or the 15-year-old boy rocking out to some candy group on his iPod.

Like I said, suck it up and deal with it.

Max

Filesharing Camelot

[joebob2000]

What happened to the utopia of Honorable Filesharing?

While your offer to manage this project is laudable, you need to design a system that can generate trust among untrustable peers.

How can you trust people when you do not know them and never will, and when you cannot tell the difference between a "legitimate" peer, and a honeypot setup by law enforcement?

If you stick only to people you know and trust, you will not have enough critical mass to get the files you want when you want.

Sharing the wrong kinds of files is a no-no, so anyone participating can be put into the prisoners' dilemma. Isn't defecting the proper "strategery" when playing that fun game?

Re:the mpaa uses pirated pdf tools for their press

[Anonymous Coward]

No, as the poster said himself, it could be either trialware, or a cracked copy. Why does everyone always assume that the MPAA is guilty?

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[Stoutlimb]

Absolutely I expect a link. I'm sure there exist countries that won't censor whatever it is you are talking about. If not, give me a freenet link if you must, nobody can stop that.

Kad

[4D6963]

"This is a major victory in our fight to cut off the supply of illegal materials being circulated on the Internet via peer-to-peer networks," said Motion Picture Association (MPA) Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. "By shaving the illegal traffic of copyrighted works facilitated by Razorback2, we are depleting other illegal networks of their ability to supply Internet pirates with copyrighted works which is a positive step in our international effort to fight piracy."

Ever heard about Kad? You can shut down every single eDonkey server, eMule users will still have Kad to make their business as usual. Shutting down some server might hurt a little, but shutting down the network is impossible, because *we* are the network (evil laughter)

Not about posession

[jgoemat]

Both above systems suffer from the same legal problem. I interpret the scheme as intending to introduce plausible deniability into the possession of large files of apparently random data. However, a group of people who independently happen to have the same XORed version of a file might be open to "conspiracy to commit" charges IN ADDITION to copyright infringement (unless you can prove that *everyone* *worldwide* has the same XORed version) [compare: possession of a bank card vs. possession of a tampered bank card].

It's about distribution, not about posession or masking what is actually on your hard drive. The people being sued by the RIAA are the ones sharing music. If I'm just sharing files needed to make LINUX then I'm not technically sharing music at all. They can do a search for files A, B, C, and D, but if I only share A and B then I am not sharing the MP3 file. You can't even use what I'm sharing to create the MP3 file. Same goes for someone sharing C and D.

So you do have to download twice as much, unless several files make use of the same random data. For instance, you could use file B to XOR with files 10.MP3, 11.MP3, and 12.MP3 to form randomish data files E, G, and I. Then use those with the original Linux to form data files F, H, and J. If someone has file B, they only need to download E, G, and I to form all three MP3 files. If I only share files A & B and other people only share E & F, G and H, or I and J, then they aren't sharing the music files. This would work well for popular music files. This is no more of a conspiracy than having LimeWire and sharing and downloading MP3s anyway.

The problem becomes getting the metadata and being able to perform a search for "10.MP3" that will tell you that you need files B and E to create it. That could be done with a P2P gnutella-type search over TCP connections where you never know if the results are coming from the peer you are connected to of someone down the line from them. I don't know how bad bandwidth will be tried anyway if you do have to download twice as much data. I just updated from 1 mbit to 6 mbit dsl, I can now download 5 megabytes in 8 seconds if I use my full bandwidth. 6 mbit is as fast as watching a DVD in real-time.

Actually I think this is most useful as a thought experiment and to show how ridiculous copyright law can be. You are talking about conspiracy and worse. The person with files A & B would not even be distributing the music at all yet you would treat them like a criminal. How can it be 'stealing' or 'theft' if the 'owner' can't even recognize what it is you are transfering as 'theirs'? Files A & B are no more owned by the owner of the copyright of the music file than they are by the owners of the copyrights to LINUX.

ASSAULT AGAINST INTERNET FREEDOM

[Anonymous Coward]

ASSAULT AGAINST INTERNET FREEDOM must only be punished with severity.

Belgium government must pay a very sever punishment from the worldwide internet users, something must be done.

Re:Decentralize / Anonymous

[goldspider]

"That's the thing about censorship. Done wrong, the people get up and arms and want the material. Done right, the people never even know the material exists."

That argument, though, lends credibility to every wild and absurd conspiracy theory out there.