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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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!

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]

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

"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"

[Frazbin]

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

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"

[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

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

[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

[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!

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.

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[R2.0]

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

Conclusion: High Comedy! (+5 Funny)

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?

[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?

[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. ;)

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...

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

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/

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....

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: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.

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.

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 ?

[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 ?

[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 ?

[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.

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.

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.

[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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

[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.

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.

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)

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!

[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: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.

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: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.