eDonkey Pays the Recording Industry $30M

ColinPL writes, "MetaMachine Inc., the firm behind online file-sharing software eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry. The company also agreed to take measures to prevent file sharing by people using previously downloaded versions of the eDonkey software. The eDonkey application now displays the message, 'The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available. Please see eDonkey.com for more details.' After that message is displayed the uninstaller is launched automatically." If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address. How much will the demise of eDonkey matter, given that most who access that P2P network do so using the open-source eMule?

Comments

recording industry?

[doti]

The so called "recording industry" is just not needed anymore. Just get your fortune and invest in another productive area, and get over it.

Go away. Please.

Re:recording industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, dumbass, somebody has to *make* that music before you can steal it. eDonkey didn't make that $30 million from people who wanted to hear Creative Commons .oggs of Cory Doctorow blowing his nose.

Re:recording industry?

[kz45]

"The so called "recording industry" is just not needed anymore. Just get your fortune and invest in another productive area, and get over it.

Go away. Please."

even if the current RIAA is gone, there will always be some type of recording industry around. It's just too lucrative.

also, most artists have no experience marketing, selling, or dealing with the right people that will get them the high-paying gigs they need to continue performing and feed their family and or make the rent.

Re:recording industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only more artists acted like Weird Al: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids. individual&videoid=1130211390

Re:recording industry?

[no_opinion]

You are right. Clearly the number of people still interested in getting a recording contract for large sums of money has diminished, as illustrated by the shrinking number of American Idol applicants and spin-off shows. /sacrcasm

Re:recording industry?

[aplusjimages]

I don't know if they should go away, but for crying out loud adapt to the Internet. This is the new format. They all need to work together and remarket their products. They still expect people to buy their CD's by the billions as if CD's are still new technology. They still think they can put out 1-2 songs and then throw in 8 other songs to fill up a disc. The market is changing, so they need to change with it.

Re:recording industry?

[lymond01]

Their tactics could use some updating certainly, but there's a lot of money to be made in creating the next big star. Recorded music is still a commodity, and what drives the price up of concert tickets? A: Who is most famous. How do they get famous? A: Recording industry promotes them.

What would happen without the recording industry? A: They'd become popular by internet vote and word-of-mouth, someone would claim to have "made them famous" on their website and demand some of their earnings from concerts, videos, commercials. Other people would hop on that bandwagon, realize it's easier to promote people if they work together, and they'd call it the WMIA, World Music Industry Association, claiming rights throughout the world as an "international" (ie internet-based) company.

You'd think the way people talk that big industries are just a bunch of small people being greedy. Well, you'd be right.

Re:recording industry?

[InsaneProcessor]

There is a whole lot of money to be made by extortion. RIAA is a perfect example of legalized extortion.

We'll take your house, both cars, your bank accounts, and your first born male child!

Re:recording industry?

[arevos]

also, most artists have no experience marketing, selling, or dealing with the right people that will get them the high-paying gigs they need to continue performing and feed their family and or make the rent.

Yep, presumably artists will still need outside help to help them finance, organise and arrange large live gigs. However, I think there's less of a need for recording companies to market and distribute music from artists. Distributing music via the Internet is obviously cheap enough not to need financial backing; I need hardly go into the details of that on Slashdot. But marketing music is also a industry I expect to decline in the next few years. Music is an odd thing, in that one cannot 'sell' a piece of music in the same way one would sell a car. The customer either likes the piece of music he hears, or he does not. No amount of salesmanship will get him to change his mind, as it boils down to personal preference.

Because of this, marketing music consists largely of getting people to listen to it. Unfortunately, people have limited time on their hands, and cannot listen to every piece of music, so recording companies market selectively, using bands they know have a wide appeal. It's a broad, scattergun approach, and I can't help but think that one could do a far better job with a large database and some social networking software.

Re:recording industry?

[Evil Shabazz]

It's a broad, scattergun approach, and I can't help but think that one could do a far better job with a large database and some social networking software.


Are you suggesting GoogleMusic? :P

Re:recording industry?

[yaphadam097]

Music is an odd thing, in that one cannot 'sell' a piece of music in the same way one would sell a car. The customer either likes the piece of music he hears, or he does not. No amount of salesmanship will get him to change his mind, as it boils down to personal preference.

I disagree with this fundamentally. A lot of people, especially young people, buy music for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the actual music but have more to do with a certain image or subculture. I grew up listening to punk, and while some of it actually does qualify as good music, much of it is less about the content and more about expressing an opinion on the culture (Kind of like /. ;-) Rap/Hip-hop music too is often about an image - the clothes, the cars, the attitude, etc. - and not about the quality of the music. All of these things are expressed outside of the music as well. e.g. by the artists appearances, actions, and speech on radio/television, live concerts, etc. This "artistic image" is a kind of marketing and has always been exploited and/or manipulated by the recording industry. In this regard, there is quite a bit of salesmanship in the industry, and the artists are to a large degree dependent on the industry to get that image out via appearances in other media.

Re:recording industry?

[shark72]

"I don't know if they should go away, but for crying out loud adapt to the Internet. This is the new format. They all need to work together and remarket their products. They still expect people to buy their CD's by the billions as if CD's are still new technology. They still think they can put out 1-2 songs and then throw in 8 other songs to fill up a disc. The market is changing, so they need to change with it."

Check out the iTunes Music Store sometime. Most of the major record labels are on board, and in most cases you can buy individual tracks, so you can pick the music you want and not buy an album full of fillers. The iTMS has been a rollicking success by any measure, and online music sales are experiencing amazing growth, while CD sales are declining.

Five years ago, it was a different story. Only a few major record labels saw the light, and tracks cost $3.00 or more each -- no kidding! Your advice would have been right on the money back then. But, as I mentioned, that was five years ago. The record companies have adapted. Take a look at the iTMS and I think you'll see what I mean.

Re:recording industry?

[AlHunt]

> nothing to do with the quality of the actual music but have more to do with a certain image or > subculture

Hmph ... I dunno. Looking back from almost 50, I don't recall ever buying music for "image". If I didn't like it, I didn't buy it.

Since RIAA started their vendetta against customers I've bought 2 albums.

Al
(apparently an old fart)

Re:recording industry?

[westlake]

The so called "recording industry" is just not needed anymore. Just get your fortune and invest in another productive area, and get over it.

I'll take the odds on the proposition that P2P downloads track the Billboard charts with no significant statistical differences: in plain English, that what users want is music from the major labels and the not-so-small independents.

Re:recording industry?

[talksinmaths]

A lot of people, especially young people, buy music for reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the actual music...

You misspelled shallow. :)

Re:recording industry?

[gosand]

I don't know if they should go away, but for crying out loud adapt to the Internet. This is the new format.

It *was* the new format, back in 1999. But I agree with your concept. :)

Re:recording industry?

[Oddster]

Rap/Hip-hop music too is often about an image - the clothes, the cars, the attitude, etc. - and not about the quality of the music.

I hope you know that the type of rap and hip-hop you talk about here is the kind which is foisted upon the airwaves by the recording industry, put on by the likes of 50 Cent, Chingy, etc. I used to dislike this genre myself for this reason.

Then a friend turned me on to good hip-hop. Like Common, Hieroglyphics, and Mos Def to name a few, real hip-hip artists who you rarely hear about through the mass publicity of the RIAA. These artists use intelligent beats and mixes combined with intelligent lyrics, often philosophical, and are actually a counterforce to the mass-market version of the genre - Common and Mos Def actually have lyrics about their college educations. If you want a nice starting point, I recommend Like Water for Chocolate or Be by Common, or Black for the First Time by Mos Def.

Re:recording industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks for the clarification!!!, when people put hiphop down like that i feel like pulling my hair out..

god if underground, and independant artists weren't so slept on these assholes you see on tv, and hear on your radio would be dead broke.

Re:recording industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not even the recording industry anyway. It's the "plastic disc manufacturing and distribution industry." And they don;t even DO that anymore, but they still want you to pay them for it.

Re:recording industry?

[Sj0]

Video killed the radio star....and marketing killed the video star. Oops!

Re:recording industry?

[neax]

I found this great explanation of change. Which I think applies nicely to the recording industry and where they currently stand.

"There are two forces which cause different effects. The first one is ATTRACTION. If there is a position which is more attractive than the original one, the thing starts to move towards that new position. Again, this could be physical or mental. Thoughts could be moved to another direction by an attractive idea. Water moves down from the mountain, because of the gravitational attraction. In my workshops with students I often use the vacuum cleaner as example of the attractive force. The great attractivity - as I may use this word- of attraction is, that the process of repositioning is a process under control. One could predict the effects, the new position is known. These effects could be described as 'concentration'. In other contributions, I have also used 'pulling' as a synonym for attraction. In human behaviour, one could also speak of 'stimulating'.

The opposite of attractional force is REJECTION - pushing. Rejection cause generally uncontrolled effects. It means that the original place lost its attractivity, but there is no alternative. Something has to move, but does not know where to go; it could be in all directions."

"...But think also of the effects of punishment in human behaviour. This issue has been discussed on this list. Punishment is comparable with 'pushing'; the very position is made as unattractive as possible. The resulting effects of human behaviour are very difficult to predict. A lot of governments - creating new rules and laws to change behaviour by means of punishment, seem to neglect or underestimate the possible effects of their actions. "

[source: http://www.learning-org.com/00.05/0149.html]

The RIAA is Rejecting the p2p phenomenon, and that is just going to cause more problems. Ultimately file sharing is here to stay. It is not going away. So they need to find a constructive way to work with it so that everyone benefits. In my opinion it is just the larger, more popular artists that loose (only money, they rep increases) as their sales can decrease due to people sharing their music instead of buying it. Smaller, unknown artists however, benefit in a big way, because it is cheap easy promotion, and ultimately they end up getting known. which leads to sales and great crowds at gigs.

Re:recording industry?

[htnprm]

How many of you 'acquired'?

Re:recording industry?

[Logiksan]

also, most artists have no experience marketing, selling, or dealing with the right people that will get them the high-paying gigs they need to continue performing and feed their family and or make the rent.

Don't tell that to touring bands like Widespread Panic, moe. and the String Cheese Incident who have made a pretty healthy living doing things themselves for most of their careers.

It's really not that hard. You just need an act worth paying money to hear and a place to play. Make yourself accessible to the fans you generate, and be patient. If you're good, things will come together on their own. If you're not, then you're in the wrong line of work.

Re:recording industry?

[hkmwbz]

someone would claim to have "made them famous" on their website and demand some of their earnings from concerts, videos, commercials

That's just too bad then. They won't get a cut. They can claim that until their face crumbles up and falls off, but it won't help.

Bye-bye, industry.

Re:recording industry?

[trezor]

ITMS is not an option. Can you spell DRM? If I can't copy the music to the devices of my choice and play it on players of my choice it is worthless.

Yes, I know there are hacks and workarounds for this, but the second somebody intentionally makes a product crappy and tries to limit my abilities to use it, that's really the end of that. I'm looking for a working product, ready for use, thank you very much.

Re:recording industry?

[soliptic]

Music is an odd thing, in that one cannot 'sell' a piece of music in the same way one would sell a car. The customer either likes the piece of music he hears, or he does not. No amount of salesmanship will get him to change his mind, as it boils down to personal preference

You've not actually tried marketing music, have you? Suffice to say: I wish you were right.

Re:recording industry?

[AlHunt]

>How many of you 'acquired'?

Me? Nothing new, actually, since the RIAA vendetta started. Not out of any great sense of morality. Mostly because I have hundreds of pre-vendetta CDs to tide me over and I've been able to buy "used" CDs at Sound Exchange. I know this is kind of indirect support, but I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.

Someone recently http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/ here. You can check artists RIAA affiliation there, so maybe I can buy a few again - there are a bunch I'd like to have. All that said, I don't want to hose my favorite artists out of their "due", so I'll gladly support them with my dollars as long as I'm not lining the pockets of the RIAA.

When I do get a "new" CD, I rip it to my hard drive and put the original away. Then I burn whatever I want for the car. You shouldn't use your CDs in most car CD players anyway - they get scratched to hell and then you have to re-buy them.

Just the view from here ...

Re:recording industry?

[poot_rootbeer]

What would happen without the recording industry? A: They'd become popular by internet vote and word-of-mouth, someone would claim to have "made them famous" on their website and demand some of their earnings from concerts, videos, commercials.

And the artists would respond, "I created this, not you. Go to hell."

Or, alternately, those artists that WANTED to pay other people to do their promotions for them could do so, and would be free to negotiate whatever terms they feel mutually appropriate.

The point is taking control of the music industry and giving it back to the musicians.

Re:recording industry?

[From A Far Away Land]

And I'm not sure if the Internet killed marketing, or put it on steroids like an 800lb Purple Gorilla.

Re:recording industry?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

It's a broad, scattergun approach, and I can't help but think that one could do a far better job with a large database and some social networking software.

Are you suggesting GoogleMusic? :P

Or Pandora?

Re:recording industry?

[arevos]

Maybe I'm too naive :(

Re:recording industry?

[arevos]

Perhaps I'm underestimating the number of shallow consumers in the music industry. However, this would still imply that the recording industry would still decline in size somewhat, with those who buy music because of how it sounds gradually turning to means of distribution that would more accurately cater to their needs. In such a world, the RIAA would be left to cater for those who only buy music to further an image, regardless of how the music actually sounds, whilst any artist that appeals to geniune musical taste will find more lucrative deals elsewhere.

Or perhaps I'm again falling into the classic economic trap of assuming that a market will make perfectly rational decisions.

Re:recording industry?

[deblau]

someone would claim to have "made them famous" on their website and demand some of their earnings from concerts, videos, commercials.

And get laughed at. Who gives people money just because they demand it? The recording industry makes money because they manufacture, distribute, and sell recordings. Making musicians famous is only a means to that end, it isn't worthy of payment by itself.

Re:recording industry?

[yaphadam097]

To be fair, I said "often". No generalization is 100% true, and it is certainly the case that there is high quality music in any genre and there is also celluloid drivel in any genre. The two examples I gave were punk and hip-hop, but I could have used any music from the 1950s or later (Since the advent of the "rock star" phenomenon).

Good thing

[Vampyre_Dark]

Good thing they paid up. Uncle RIAA thought it would be a shame if "something should happen to their nice office building".

Re:Good thing

[pla]

Good thing they paid up. Uncle RIAA thought it would be a shame if "something should happen to their nice office building".

For some reason you got modded down, but really, I have to wonder about the legality of this...

"eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry". Not damages awarded by a court, not even to settle a pending suit - To avoid a potential lawsuit!

If that doesn't meet the textbook definition of extortion, I don't know what would.

Re:Good thing

[ThatsNotFunny]

It's not really extortion if you've got no legal defense.

Re:Good thing

[miyako]

doesn't this sort of thing happen fairly often? Company A pays Company B X dollars to ensure that company B will not sue Company A for any sort of legal infringments? I think it happens mostly with patents.
Not saying that it's right, just that it does seem to be the status quo.

Re:Good thing

[no_opinion]

Thank you for your researched and objective spin. Clearly many people on slashdot have not heard of a settlement.

I got called into jury duty a few months ago and when I showed up I was assigned to a case. But they had all of the potential jurors just stand out in the hallway for what seemed like an hour. The whole time there was this nervous looking group of people down the hallway from us.

Eventually the judge called just the jurors into his chamber and gave us a very friendly talk about how we had just saved the tax payers money. He said that the nervous looking group was the defendant and legal team, and when they actually got to see the jury pool in person, the reality of the situation hit them. They decided to settle because maybe their case wasn't so good after all.

Settlements happen every day. A real attorney will tell you that very few cases actually get litigated all the way to the end.

Re:Good thing

[itschy]

It gets worse:
I heard even ordinary people like you and me have to pay for things to not get sued for stealing!

Re:Good thing

[Alchemar]

I think you missed the point. It would be one thing if it was a settlement, however there was nothing to settle. There was no lawsuit. If they had filed a lawsuit, and then reached an agreement it would be a settlement. This was more along the lines of pay us what we want or we will sue you. If you happen to think that the threat of getting sued is justice, you have not been in court with someone that outmatched you financially. It is more like poker than justice. If you can match the bet you can call thier bluff, otherwise you have to fold.

Re:Good thing

[DittoBox]

So long as their lawyers don't carry around baseball bats, planks with a nail or three in the end and/or tommy guns I don't think anyone but music fans will give a flying fornication. The RIAA just needs one royal f***-up (no, not the "minor" ones they've been doing recently, something spectacularly bad), then the public and Congress (no, scratch that last one...they'll still be payed off) will wake up. Hopefully.

Re:Good thing

[BGraves]

The vast majority of disputes are solved this way, which is a good thing. It reduces the costs created by taking a case to court, and frees up the courts to deal with other, more important disputes.

Re:Good thing

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

Its perfectly legal to threaten a civil suit against someone if they don't comply with certain demands. What is illegal is to threaten someone with a CRIMINAL suit. Like if the RIAA threatened to prossecute them for theft if they didn't pay up, that would be 100% illegal.

Re:Good thing

[westlake]

Like if the RIAA threatened to prossecute them for theft if they didn't pay up, that would be 100% illegal.

You do understand that the decision to prosecute a criminal case is made by the state?

Re:Good thing

[ari_j]

Actually, it happens all the time for all sorts of things. Have you ever been bumped off a flight at the airport? The flight voucher they give you is not just a friendly gesture - it is normally in settlement of any claims you may have against the airline as damages for your missed flight. There are even more frequent, smaller examples at work every day.

Re:Good thing

[cpt kangarooski]

If that doesn't meet the textbook definition of extortion, I don't know what would.

It doesn't, and I guess that means you don't know what would.

It's a settlement. A lawsuit doesn't actually have to have been filed, or be on the eve of being filed, in order to settle. A settlement is merely an agreement between parties to waive legal rights against one in exchange for something of value from the other. It can be anything, from money, to a promise to do, or not do, some particular action, or whatever. RIAA has agreed not to sue eDonkey over this, and now they are absolutely precluded from doing so. Of course, it doesn't stop anyone else, and it only counts as to the subject of the agreement, not other things eDonkey might be liable to them for.

The courts love it when parties settle. And there's no timing issue: you can sell from when the right to sue first exists, all the way to just before the case finally concludes and the right is laid to rest.

Extortion would be if one party wasn't waiving a right to sue, but instead agreed not to do some illegal thing, e.g. burn down a warehouse. And of course, it's not even binding, really.

Re:Good thing

[Daedalon]

Not damages awarded by a court, not even to settle a pending suit - To avoid a potential lawsuit!

If that doesn't meet the textbook definition of extortion, I don't know what would.

If RIAA came by with all the proof they needed to get a court case through and they'd be asking for $30M, it might really be worth it if their case would likely result in a higher compensation. Can't see anything wrong with the victim (as defined by law) directly asking for compensation. In fact I see it as a better option than going through the huge court process, employing loads of lawyers and wasting many hours of MetaMachine Inc. workers' time supplying the lawyers with all the details.

Apart from the business side, it's more humane for the workers too.

Re:Good thing

[miyako]

I'm not nessessarily talking about paying to license a patent specifically. A lot of times it comes to to a company wanting to create a product, and they end up paying off other companies in case they accidentally violate some vauge clause in some old and unused patent. I don't know about you, but if I come up with an idea out of thin air and try to market it, I don't think it's stealing just because you had the idea first (especially if you've never even made a product based on the idea).

Re:Good thing

[SpaceballsTheUserNam]

ya. maybe theres a better word for it, i dunno. im saying say you get caught stealing at a dept. store. if they say they promise not to turn you in for shoplifting if you agree pay them $500. it would be an illegal contract and you wouldnt owe them any money.

Morte d' Robertson

[Stanistani]

Slowly the vise closes in on all P2P... yet filesharing grows year by year...
The media congloms win lots of battles while losing the war.

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[Anonymous Coward]

you gotta change your sig pal. get rid of the bold.

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[X0563511]

They call that a war of attrition. And they are indeed loosing (big lawsuits against few people wont work, they need small lawsuits against teeming crowds).

But that's almost as impractical as SCO's lawsuit(s)

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[smilindog2000]

I believe the powerful music and movie industries will succeed in forcing the US government to crack down on ISPs (not just individuals and web-sites). Then, eMule and it's network will go away, at least for us in the US. The ISPs will be happy to comply, since this will eliminate much of their traffic. It probably would have already happened had these industries not POed the GOP by donating generously to Democrats for years, and if the government weren't working so hard to be budy-budy with backbone carriers so they can get their secret data taps, and if the baby Bells weren't such grand GOP supporters.

One the bright side: legal digital music and video distribution should get cheaper. Those of us who actually pay for our stuff will see a benefit.

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[aplusjimages]

• I'm more confused by the bullet point when its a sig and there's only one bullet

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[anotherzeb]

One the bright side: legal digital music and video distribution should get cheaper. Those of us who actually pay for our stuff will see a benefit.

Be realistic - they won't bring down any prices even if they do manage to significantly reduce illegal filesharing / copying / whatever. I doubt that more CDs will be sold if they eliminate filesharing - people mostly download music they probably wouldn't buy anyway (people I know like the inlay and printed CDs too much to download music they really want) - but even if they sell more CDs, the only people who would be affected will be the record company execs and maybe some of the top artists

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[dthree]

One the bright side: legal digital music and video distribution should get cheaper. Those of us who actually pay for our stuff will see a benefit.

I don't see how. Right now the industry has to compete on price with FREE. If they successfully eliminate that competition, why would they lower the prices?

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[Digital Vomit]

One the bright side: legal digital music and video distribution should get cheaper. Those of us who actually pay for our stuff will see a benefit.

I've got a bridge to sell you...

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[geekoid]

If they want to loose common carrier status then fine.

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[westlake]

Slowly the vise closes in on all P2P... yet filesharing grows year by year... The media congloms win lots of battles while losing the war.

But is filesharing really growing year by year?

More importantly, what is the file sharing demographic?

The labels aren't bound to a single artist or genre. They can market to the five year old, they can market to the eighty year old. I find as I grow older, P2P loses its appeal. I don't have the time. I don't have the patience.

What I do have are sound systems that benefit from something better than an amatuer's mp3 rip. What I am not is judgement proof and a plausible future poster child for the EFF. I'll get no free legal help, and not a word posted to the blogs.

The typical settlement with the RIAA is $4500. For which I could buy twenty-five years of a premium subscription and rental service like Rhapsody.

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[evil_tandem]

When has a reduced production price ever made this industry lower it's prices? Doesn't that actually mean the prices go up?

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[Stanistani]

The bullet point is actually the sig's only point. :)

Re:Morte d' Robertson

[Stanistani]

Sorry. Can't read your post. Please log on and try again.

time to cash out

[User 956]

MetaMachine Inc., the firm behind online file-sharing software eDonkey, has agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits from the recording industry.

Sounds like they've made their fortune, and have made the decision to pay the piper and cash out. I have no doubt that MetaMachine's profits were far in excess of $30 million.

Re:time to cash out

[hernyo]

Yes, dude. How in hell could they have so high incomes? Donations??????

Re:time to cash out

[kc_cyrus]

No! from GAIN network.

Re:time to cash out

[Un pobre guey]

Don't bother the poor schmuck asking for facts and credible evidence.

Re:time to cash out

[fuzzix]

Don't bother the poor schmuck asking for facts and credible evidence.

If you look at the April archive of edonkey's webpage you'll see that they offered paid services and software. I don't find it that hard to believe that they picked up enough subscribers over the years to be able to afford to, erm, give the money and run :)

Re:time to cash out

[Un pobre guey]

Sorry if I was a bit harsh.

a one-time payment of only $19.95 says the (c) 2003 web page. In order to pay US$30 million, that's 1.5 million paying users. Add to that the operating expenses for however long they lasted. Any info on how much money passed through their hands (like sand between their fingers)?

Re:time to cash out

[Anonymous Coward]

Their software has a mandatory ad banner embedded in the UI, and the installer had lots of optional spyware (default - enabled) for a very long time. I have no doubt that they made a very pretty penny running their business.

Re:time to cash out

[Anonymous Coward]

my gut feeling is that after the payout they're still net positive - but i'm wondering though, in that case, why did the RIAA et al settle for 30m then? one would imagine if that the profit was much higher, the sharks would want more of it

Re:time to cash out

[Un pobre guey]

Bastards.

It logs your IP address.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address

If you visit one my my sites, I'll log your IP address too. So what - are they following up on each one to see if they are potential pirates?

Re:It logs your IP address.

[mordors9]

Have they been approaching it that way so far.... NO. They will simply send everyone a letter threatening to file suit if you don't send them a couple grand. Then it is up to you to prove you are innocent, and good luck doing it. Gee whiz, you seem to think that you should be innocent until proven guilty. What a wacky concept.

Re:It logs your IP address.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness I only use eMule to download porn and not music.

Re:It logs your IP address.

[vertical_98]

If you visit edonkey.com, it logs your IP address

I logged onto every one of our servers and lynx'ed to it. just so if someone is actually reading the logs can wonder why they get XX.XX.XX.130,131,132,133,....152.

Vertical

Never ending gravy train

[LiquidCoooled]

So, eDonkey wants to stay legit, good on them.
They want to put in place controls to limit copying, good on them.
They then give all their money to the bullys, bad move.
Paying of the artists might seem like a prudent course of action, but once you pay of one group, what about the next?

Theres the RIAA, MPAA and the BSA.
The guitar tab people and the knitting pattern folks and all the other American groups.
Thats not including all the individual software companies who want a piece of the pie, nor does it include all the groups from other countries (like FACT(Federation Against Copyright Theft) or CAAST(Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft)).

What happens when I find software from my company is available on limewire, where do I get my piece of the pie from, or is mine not big enough and is simply enough to get it added to the list of banned searches without any financial payback?

What makes my company different to the RIAA groups?

Let the copyright owners prove blatant infringement, let them show the service is doing illegal things and let the service fix itself.

Don't give into threats.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[sane?]

Paying of the artists might seem like a prudent course of action, but once you pay of one group, what about the next?

I'd have less problem with them paying the artists directly, rather than the industry which includes all the other hangers on and parasites. I somehow doubt any of this money actually goes to the artists at all - it just inflates the profit lines of the various companies.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[trevdak]

I view the RIAA and MPAA very differently.
To make good music, you don't need a multi-million dollar budget or massive amounts of bling. The RIAA could disappear from the face of the planet and music would, if anything, improve as we are exposed to a more diverse selection.

Movies, on the other hand, often need a high budget. You can't make the Matrix or LotR or Star Wars or 90% of the other movies that slashdotters love without HUGE budgets. The MPAA needs movie tickets and DVD sales to survive. Granted, they do live very comfy lifestyles for the most part, and could lose some profits and still be fine, but filetrading definitely hurts the movie industry more.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[OzPhIsH]

With the way you formatted your post, I couldn't help but read it as if they were song lyrics. I think I'll go upload this post on a p2p network now... Arrrrrgh

Re:Never ending gravy train

[rts008]

I agree.
It seems funny I was reading the Sept. 2006 edition of Reader's Digest this morning, and was drawn to an column "Turning Point" featuring Bob Newhart this month and he had something along those lines to say also.
The article is titled "Finding My Funny Bone", by Bob Newhart.

He was talking about two of his recordings : "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart", and it's sequel, "The Button-Down Mid Strikes Back". The first went to #1 on the Billboard charts, and got between the two recordings, got him three Grammy's that year. He goes on to say that he just recently started getting royalties on the recordings (they came out in 1960), and:
"Lately I have begun to receive royalties on the albums on a quarterly basis. Even as a trained accountant, I'm no exactly sure how they calculate these royalties without all of the financial records and contracts that burned up in The Great Warner's Office Fire of '73. But they apparently have a formula. Just last week, I received a check for $1.18."

Re:Never ending gravy train

[Daedalon]

Paying of the artists might seem like a prudent course of action, but once you pay of one group, what about the next?

If they haven't yet collected the evidence needed to get their case through in court, then nothing.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[bky1701]

but filetrading definitely hurts the movie industry more.

There is something called "proof" you seem to lack...

Re:Never ending gravy train

[trevdak]

Look at box office sales and budget on IMDB (click box office and business on the left hand side ofr any movie). Many movies don't break even. That represents a bad investment by a producer and the possibility that they won't invest in another movie. Granted, some people who download the movie never would've bought the DVD, and some people will download the movie, like it, and buy the DVD, but there's still that percentage that doesn't go see movies anymore because they're free on the internet. Big budget requires big returns. It's not a great big leap of logic I'm making here.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[Denial93]

>once you pay of one group, what about the next?

>Theres the RIAA, MPAA and the BSA.

In North America. They have industry associations in the rest of the world as well. Settling invites over the European and Japanese guys to extor^H^H^H^H^Hreceive their own part of your cake.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[drsquare]

I'd have less problem with them paying the artists directly, rather than the industry which includes all the other hangers on and parasites.

Of course, the artists had no problems accepting the cheque when they signed the deal with the record company.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[bky1701]

But, the proof you lack is that P2P is really hurting it. It has been as you describe for as long as I can tell. You can't blame an old problem on a new event.

Re:Never ending gravy train

[squiggleslash]

This is true.

However, the RIAA has limited its lawsuits to copyright infringment. It happens to be in the news because there's a hell of a lot of copyright infringement going on.

The MPAA however has successfully lobbied for laws to make illegal, as in "Being thrown in a Federal Prison illegal", not "Pay up in a civil suit" tort, playing a DVD on an unlicensed DVD player.

Remember that. You can copy a DVD, and you'll be sued. But you can make a DVD player, for the sole purpose of playing bought and paid for DVDs, and the movie industry will try to throw you in prison.

That's how I see it. And that's why the MPAA, for me, is immeasurably more evil than the RIAA ever will be. While you're correct that you only need a few hundred thousand dollars to record and produce a professional, high quality, piece of music, it's not as if anyone has to pirate that music anyway - nobody can argue that the lawsuits - when applied to actual pirates - are unjust.

Get this...

[Anonymous Coward]

It also logs the page you requested, when you requested it, and your browser. Everyday, they also rotate their logs and compress them for further statistical tracking at a future point!

Re:Get this...

[aliendisaster]

I wonder if they make pretty little charts to see which part of the country is 'stealing' what kind of music and selling that to the recording companies so they will know what part of the country to push thier new 'i wish i could sing' artist?

Re:Get this...

[russ1337]

I wonder how resistant their site is to being slashdotted....

Re:Get this...

[dougmc]

I wonder how resistant their site is to being slashdotted....

Probably very. It's just a single small page, straight text. Probably just a single static file on a web server -- that's all they need.

Assuming that this is correct, even a 486 or so on a single T1 could probably handle over 100 hits per second.

Re:Get this...

[dougmc]

(Well, obviously the page isn't *entirely* static, as it gives your IP address. But even so, the CPU needed to do this is absolutely miniscule.)

Re:Get this...

[egypt_jimbob]

It also logs the page you requested, when you requested it, and your browser.

User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Don't trust me I'm evil; en-US; ) Gecko/19291029 Evil/1.5.0.5

Re:Get this...

[discord5]

It also logs the page you requested, when you requested it, and your browser. Everyday, they also rotate their logs and compress them for further statistical tracking at a future point!

My God!!! What is this world coming to? Where is the time a man could visit a site without having his IP, page and browser being logged, ans also rotated and compressed. Quick, call the EFF and the ACLU, I feel my rights are being violated. Sorry, doorbell, brb it's the FBI

it's only natural everybody uses eMule

[ranjix]

historically speaking, eMule comes from eDonkey (eStallion) and eHorse (eMare)... Plus is sterile, RIAA likes that

eDonkey is still around?

[gravis777]

I thought eDonkey had long since been dead. I have not seen an ed2k link on the net for quite some time. And I had never used eDonkey for downloading music, and it seems most other people didn't either. Seemed like a popular way to pirate movies a few years back before BitTorrent took off, and was used a lot for porno. I was really the only one I know of that used eDonkey at all, and I think I may have downloaded one thing off of it, some like subbed anime or something.

E-mule is deffinately more pevelant, even if people do not realize it.Doesn't Limewire use eMule client as its backbone?

Re:eDonkey is still around?

[urbanradar]

Actually, Limewire (and its fork, FrostWire) access the Gnutella network, IIRC.

Re:eDonkey is still around?

[jZnat]

LimeWire uses the open protocol Gnutella.

Re:eDonkey is still around?

[gravis777]

That's right, I think I was thinking of Sharaza or something

Ducking Fisgusting.

[Penguinisto]

Instead of threats of violence or interference, there's threats of lawsuits to extract cash and force the death of anything that threatens a well-financed-enough organization. Yay. (as /me shakes head)...

It's almost as if the RIAA can now go after any company who sells products with any sort of file-transfer technology... I wonder why they haven't gone after any web browser that supports FTP, or anyone who makes/distributes an NNTP reader? Hell, FTP and NNTP were passing copyrighted files around long before AOL even reared it's head... Ah, but the answer is pretty obvious in thsoe cases, no?

N.B. how much money does a grassroots organization have to scrape together and put in the politicians' pockets before we can get some sort of copyright law reforms, anyway?

/P

Re:Ducking Fisgusting.

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be an utter moron? The difference between FTP/HTTP and eDonkey is that eDonkey while providing a mechanism for sharing files, PROFITED from the copyrighted intellectual property of others, while FTP/HTTP are open standards not controlled by any 1 company. If a company began offering copyrighted downloads over FTP/HTTP they would likely be sued as well.

Re:Ducking Fisgusting.

[Penguinisto]

"The difference between FTP/HTTP and eDonkey is that eDonkey while providing a mechanism for sharing files, PROFITED from the copyrighted intellectual property of others"

Oh? How about all those years that people used Agent Pro, or Netscape News Reader, or ...? software writers turned a decent profit from those items for quite awhile.

And, umm, "NNTP", not "HTTP". You know, like "USENET". Will no one rid me of these troublesome newbs!?

Or were you referring to proprietary vs. open standards for transferring files? Shouldn't matter either way, there - unless it's suddenly illegal to write and sell proprietary software that uses proprietary communications protocols ('course, you could try and sue Novell for doing that... they've been at it for years! ;) )

Ah, wait - nevermind... your premise is flawed in another way entirely, which means that I don't have to keep guessing at WTF you were attempting to talk about: eDonkey made money from sales of their "Pro" software, not from pirating everyone else's stuff. Customer motivations have nothing to do with sales intent, otherwise gun and knife makers would be civilly liable for every murder committed with their products. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good parallel (and a reason why most lawsuits against gun makers have failed utterly on such premises...)

...unless of course you're going to assert that they made their cash from actially selling pirated stuff online - you aren't dumb enough to assert that, are you AC? Didn't think so.

Re:Ducking Fisgusting.

[shark72]

"Customer motivations have nothing to do with sales intent, otherwise gun and knife makers would be civilly liable for every murder committed with their products. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good parallel (and a reason why most lawsuits against gun makers have failed utterly on such premises...)"

Napster tried that argument what, five years ago? They were laughed out of court.

Make no mistake: Sam and Jed know damn well that their software is used primarily for piracy. Jed told me so himself, when I happened to run into him at a party in San Francisco years ago. The P2P business was already booming when he launched eDonkey, and he wanted a piece of it, because he knew there was money to be had.

This is the important thing: we all know that vendors of P2P software have to lie when they say things like "you shouldn't use this for piracy" or "we don't know what our customers are using our network for," et al. They have a financial motivation to lie -- they want to stay in business and avoid prosecution. This is the very same reason that head shop owners will tell you that their stuff is intended for tobacco smoking, or cable descrambler dealers will tell you it's "for testing purposes only." This is all par for the course. A little nudge nudge wink wink, and life goes on.

But we don't need to buy the lie, nor do we need to lie on their behalf.

Re:Ducking Fisgusting.

[Penguinisto]

"Make no mistake: Sam and Jed know damn well that their software is used primarily for piracy. Jed told me so himself, when I happened to run into him at a party in San Francisco years ago. The P2P business was already booming when he launched eDonkey, and he wanted a piece of it, because he knew there was money to be had."

Ah - I should've been more clear: a company's officially stated intent, so long as it is incontrovertable (that is, as long as someone can't prove otherwise w/ solid evidence), cannot be magically changed to evil just because said company is being sued. Hearsay about what the CEO said at a party, even if he did say so outright, won't stand much chance in court (at least in the US) - now if you have internal emails, memos, stuff like that? Then you have something that proves actual intent, which is a different story altogether.

The Napster case - wasn't their defense destroyed because Fanning basically admitted to his intent in an interview?

/P

Re:Ducking Fisgusting.

[shark72]

"The Napster case - wasn't their defense destroyed because Fanning basically admitted to his intent in an interview?"

My understanding is that it was due to some internal emails, but yeah, your understanding is correct. There was hard evidence that they knew what they were doing.

The record labels are going after the P2P companies based not on the Napster ruling, but on a later case, known as the Morpheus ruling, or MGM vs. Grokster. You can read about it on the EFF site. It gave the record companies the momentum they needed to go after the rest. It was eDonkey's turn sooner or later.

I wonder...

[GmAz]

So, does the $30 million go to the 'starving' artists or will the RIAA soak up the money?

Re:I wonder...

[Mantooth]

The $30 million will go towards future lawsuits that rake in even more millions. What a vicious cycle. Eventually, the recording industry will make more money from lawsuits(extortion) than it will from music.

Re:I wonder...

[really?]

Of course it will go to the starving artists. The starving RIAA scam artists, that is.

...So?

[Avillia]

eDonkey's IP records are useless in any sort of legal action and will be so tainted by random internet traffic such as that generated by SlashDot that I will mock any fool who attempts to use that data in any productive way, targetted advertisement excepted.

On another note, a patch will be made for eDonkey within the day to allow all three people who still want to use the eDonkey network to do so. If there was some indexing server or such shut down by this, a new one will be emulated, and aforementioned patch will redirect queries to aforementioned emulated server.

Re:...So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit saying "aforementioned" retard. It doesn't make you look smarter, especially when you have it twice in the same sentence jackass.

Re:...So?

[Danga]

Quit saying "aforementioned" retard. It doesn't make you look smarter, especially when you have it twice in the same sentence jackass.

Daaammn, take a chill pill dude! Why do you have a problem with him using the word "aforementioned"? He used it and spelled it correctly and it is shorter to write "aforementioned" instead of "previously mentioned" so whats the big deal?

I have a question....

[dcavanaugh]

Where did eDonkey GET $30M to pay RIAA? Or is this a hyped-up announcement of a "settlement" that is never really collected?

Re:I have a question....

[AbRASiON]

This is exactly what I was thinking.

Has another company gone broke because the RIAA are a bunch of assholes?

Re:I have a question....

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, why? Could someone answer?

Re:I have a question....

[shark72]

"Where did eDonkey GET $30M to pay RIAA? Or is this a hyped-up announcement of a "settlement" that is never really collected?"

From advertising.

Many people mistakenly see the big players in the P2P game as "white knights" because they make it so easy to get so much music for free. But, make no mistake: they are not in it because "information wants to be free." They are not in it to "stick it to the man." They do it to make money. They are in the business of helping people pirate music, and business is goooood.

It's funny that many of us justify our P2P usage by imagining some record executive in a $3,000 suit. The reality is usually different. The only record company owner I've met ran a ten-person label and paid himself $25K a year. Sam and Jed, the folks who brought you eDonkey so countless teens can "stick it to the man," likely made about $25K every week. The executives at Sharman are also multi-millionaires.

So why are Sam and Jed rich, while my friend the indie record label owner could only afford to pay himself $25K a year? Because my friend paid artists, paid employees, and paid for the production of the music.

Re:I have a question....

[Psychotext]

I hate to say it, but it could also be that your friend isn't very good at his job. It's not a flame or anything, it's just that I run my own business too and I've seen as many people go bust because they aren't any good as I've seen people become millionaires and not have a clue what they're doing.

This isn't about pirates putting independant record labels out of business. Hell, indie labels are least affected by this sort of thing and in some cases have used the technology themselves to help generate interest in their artists.

Re:I have a question....

[shark72]

"I hate to say it, but it could also be that your friend isn't very good at his job. It's not a flame or anything, it's just that I run my own business too and I've seen as many people go bust because they aren't any good as I've seen people become millionaires and not have a clue what they're doing."

Could be... I don't know, either. But the point I'm making is that your average indie label is likely a lot smaller than the typical Slashdotter imagines. Five or ten-person labels are quite common, and pay in the record industry is not high. It has its millionares, sure, but so does the software industry and pretty much every other industry of significant size.

"This isn't about pirates putting independant record labels out of business. Hell, indie labels are least affected by this sort of thing and in some cases have used the technology themselves to help generate interest in their artists."

When Napster really exploded, my friend had to lay off some of his employees. People were using Napster to get his bands' stuff for free. Not "free but they ended up buying it" or "free but they bought a t-shirt." Free as in "I don't have to pay the band or record company in any way, shape or form." If he'd been a larger company, he might have been a bit more resilient, but because he was pretty small and paying his bands much higher than the contract rate of the big record labels, P2P hit him hard.

That was several years ago. Nowadays, the reality is that indie labels without big bank accounts must be able to cope with the force of P2P; or better yet, use it to their advantage. It's economic darwinism. But I've no doubt that the P2P explosion caused many indie labels to go extinct, as it were.

Re:I have a question....

[Khyber]

Easy, they get that money from the unsuspecting consumer that buys a "Pro" version of their software for "A better quality experience." Personally, I like Limewire. I don't need to pay for Pro - it's open-source so I could modify and recompile the code myself to give me a "Pro" version.

Re:I have a question....

[geekoid]

Your friend is no where near the RIAA execs. It is laughable to even compare them. Now when your friends has 200 clients and is paying himself 250K a year then you can compare.

The generation of people in grade scholl right now will demand to get there music online. If it is provided most will pay a reasonable price, if not then all will infringe on copyright to the point where it will become irrelevant.

What can they do when 100 million people break a law?

Your friend should do better advertisine and sell music online becasues thats what people want.

Re:I have a question....

[shark72]

"Your friend is no where near the RIAA execs. It is laughable to even compare them. Now when your friends has 200 clients and is paying himself 250K a year then you can compare."

Larry Ellison is a billionaire. There are many millionaires in the software and IT biz, too. But the vast majority of software companies are really teeny, and the vast majority of people who ply their trade in the software and IT biz are everyday Joes who make a middle class living. I'm not going to, say, dig up a crack for a $10 shareware app that some guy is selling simply because there are people like Larry Ellison who are very, very rich.

The record industry is the same way. Most industries are the same way. If it helps you rationalize piracy by imagining that everybody in the record industry is a millionare executive, then God bless you, but it is assuredly not the case.

"What can they do when 100 million people break a law?"

Stop what they can, and manage their business so they can accomodate the rest. Just like every other business does.

If you're not sure what I mean, think of Fry's, Best Buy, or Safeway, or Macy's. They know that people will always find an excuse to shoplift. There's ultimately nothing that they can do about it. Yet they will still kick your ass right proper if they catch you.

Re:I have a question....

[guruevi]

And your friend is probably not a member of RIAA/MPAA. Even if he was, do you think he would see anything from that $30M?

Re:I have a question....

[shark72]

"And your friend is probably not a member of RIAA/MPAA. Even if he was, do you think he would see anything from that $30M?"

The way he put it once was "I'm a member of the RIAA, but they do not speak for me." ie. he joined for the usual reasons that one joins a trade group, but he was not a fan of their policies.

I don't think the RIAA is divvying up that $30 and sending checks to every teeny little record company, if that's what you mean. I don't think the AMA sends checks to doctors when the AMA gets judgement or settlement money, either.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Logged IP?

[im_mac]

Everyone who clicks on the eDonkey link gets this friendly message:

"You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material. Your IP address is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and has been logged."

Great, I only go to the site, they chastise me for 'stealing' music and then write down my IP address. How long until the RIAA sends me a letter regarding my visit to eDonkey.com and requests to view my harddrive to find 'stolen' files?

Re:Logged IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.router19.org/cracked.aspx :-)

Strange enough, I found it in the source code. When removing a strange nag screen asking for something like a key or so. I wonder what this thing should be good for when everyone is legally allowed to change the source code and compile it on his own.

Re:Logged IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked on the link in a new tab before I read the /. editor comments...now is my company going to get a threatening letter?

Re:Logged IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

As we say here in Argentina, you sir are rightly fucked

Re:Logged IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely...wonder what corporate would think if I clicked that link?

Re:Logged IP?

[blackest_k]

it will almost certainly never happen, you have been used and abused probably intentionally to provide a list of visitor ip addresses with no intention of downloading the edonkey client. why else would slashdot and the original story both link to the edonkey site.

visiting the site after reading the news story is normal legal behaviour, not evidence that you have shared anything or grounds to investigate further.

of course if your running ubuntu you wouldnt have any reason to visit the site even if you did want to get a p2p client for the edonkey network.

however $30 million buys a lot of stamps. ;~)

Re:Logged IP?

[gsslay]

How does this count as 'insightful'?

they chastise me for 'stealing' music

Where?

and then write down my IP address

Yeah, like many websites do for every hit. Is this news to you?

How long until the RIAA sends me a letter regarding my visit to eDonkey.com and requests to view my harddrive to find 'stolen' files?

I don't know. How long until dramatic and unfounded leaps of hyperbole are punishable by death?

Re:Logged IP?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're so cool, write your own software. I have 3 kids and we're stuck eating kraft dinner 3 nights a week, cause people like you decide 10$ is too much for them. Next family you see lined up at the food bank could be mine. Thanks for being such an @55ho|3.

Let's not forget aMule...

[urbanradar]

And let's not forget... for Linux, there's the ever-excellent aMule client to access the network.

Re:Let's not forget aMule...

[Wizarth]

I actually prefer mlDonkey (or mlNet as it seems to be renaming itself) for accessing the ed2k network. aMule would lock up on me while performing certain operations, seemed like just a busy loop but was still a pain.

mlDonkey does ed2k, Kad, Overnet, BitTorrent, and others I haven't used. I leave it running on my server, control it through the web interface (or telnet), get an email when the file is complete and watch it when I get home.

your sig

[SnowZero]

I declare a subthread for people with prime user id numbers only.
factor 92219: 92219

Re:your sig

[Chris_Jefferson]

Woo! I love primes!

factor 581445: 3 3 3 5 59 73

defeated....

Re:your sig

[jelle]

Whodathunk?

$ factor 14827
14827: 14827

Do I win a prize now?

Re:your sig

[kkovach]

Woot!

$ factor 267551
267551: 267551

Re:your sig

[SnowZero]

Yes, but you have to split it approximately 78,000 ways[1]

[1] http://primes.utm.edu/howmany.shtml

Re:your sig

[TubeSteak]

I'm pretty sure 669689 is prime.

I checked my UID at this website:
http://primes.utm.edu/curios/includes/file.php?fil e=primetest.html

Re:your sig

[Tycho]

What about the poor people who have more than one prime factor?

factor 11893: 1699 7

Re:your sig

[gigne]

990887: 990887

woot!

Re:your sig

[mchale]

$ factor 104743
104743: 104743

Sweet.

Re:your sig

[Arathrael]

# factor 742381
742381: 742381

Huzzah, I'm a member of a meaningless subgroup!

Re:your sig

[Qzukk]

Elite bastards, the lot of you.

Re:your sig

[alx5000]

We're way classier.

896642 = 448321 2

Re:your sig

[Sleepy]

1517 * 3... damn, I knew I joined /. too early.
I should never have cancelled AOL...

Re:your sig

[ither]

factor 62861: 62861

Nice

Re:your sig

[Ponga]

I'll bite... so far I have the highest prime ;)

Re:your sig

[MalleusEBHC]

% factor 597600
597600: 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 5 5 83
% factor 597599
597599: 597599

Like a CS101 assignment, I'm off by one.

Re:your sig

[DoctorPepper]

I'll see your 92219 and raise you 92269!

Re:your sig

[strider44]

$ factor 650833
650833: 650833

Never would have thought - meaningless subgroups rule!

Re:your sig

[steve_bryan]

I just checked with Mathematica and my user ID is also prime. I'm so happy. (Use FactorInteger[n] to find factors).

Re:your sig

[uolirod]

Yeah I'm in there too?

Re:your sig

[sr180]

You dont really get this do you? All the factors are going to be prime.

Re:your sig

[JasonTik]

I hereby hijack this subthread for users with even uids only.

Re:your sig

[Bombcar]

Woohoo!

factor 16057
16057: 16057

Re:your sig

[Taimoor]

I'll go for it...

factor 891521: 891521

--Nick

Re:your sig

[Machtyn]

Darn, so close. $ factor 759119 759119: 53 14323

Re:your sig

[fbjon]

Ooh, let me try!

$ factor 692006

...oh wait...

Re:your sig

[AI0867]

# factor 868277
868277 : 868277

yay!
(no I'm not running as root, I'm just using zsh)

eMule - Kademlia

[Anonymous Coward]

Kademlia will live forever.

Calling it Quits?

[BuckaBooBob]

If Edonkey wanted to call it quits.. Why Bother paying out.. They should have given they lawyers the 30Mil and told em.. Spend it all in court.. Then closed the doors and send everyone home.

its called a settlement....

[Brigadier]

It happens all the time. Big company with mean lawyer informs small company that if they dont' pay up we will litigte you to all hell. Even if we lose you will still be paying $30mil in lawyers fee and lost revinue so save yourself the trouble and pay us now. It's called legal blackmail.

Official Linux version still works

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to test. I just ran the official Linux version of the eDonkey2000 client that I had downloaded from edonkey.com a while back for testing purposes.

No expiration message, no automatic uninstallation... It works exactly the same as it always had.

So, did they build this functionality into the Windows client, but left it out in the ports? Does anyone have the official OS X version to test?

Artists?

[Anonymous Coward]

So when do the artists get their cut?

Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right?

[isaacklinger]

Okay, they've shut down a firm that was directly hosting and indirectly responsible for massive copytight infringement. Seeing that unauthorised distribution of copyrighted material is illegal in most, if not all, the western world, I think it's good to see the law being enforced. Sadly it's being enforced by corporate lawyers and not governments. Untill now, copyright infringers have been prosecuted, and had lost, to the corporate lawyers. Even so, copyright infringement is steadily on the rise.

What do you think they'll do next, seeing that going after the clients and servers can only yield so much? Perhaps ask the government to join in on the "War on Piracy", and target the infrastructure? Personally I don't see my government being very interested in media piracy, but the US government sure is.

Where does all this money come from?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Where does all this money come from? Weren't they distributing a free program to allow the free swapping of digital files? Where does the $30M show up from?

Re:Where does all this money come from?

[antic]

That's my question too. $30m! Even if there was a paid, pro version, who actually buys those to download files?!

Re:Where does all this money come from?

[soft_guy]

Where does all this money come from?

The investors in eDonkey?

Re:Where does all this money come from?

[shark72]

"Where does all this money come from? Weren't they distributing a free program to allow the free swapping of digital files? Where does the $30M show up from?"

Giving something away for free, which helps people get free music, does not necessarily mean that you are a philanthropist. Sam and Jed were very much in it for the money. And they did very well. They are millionaires. So are the principals of Sharman Networks, the folks behind Kazaa.

It's ironic, because many people justify their piracy because they believe that artists and/or record companies are "greedy." Sam and Jed likely did better, financially speaking, than 90% of the record labels and 99% of recording artists.

Re:Where does all this money come from?

[Enrique1218]

advertisement

Re:Where does all this money come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is basically copypasta from another post on this topic. Mod down.

FUD!

[robpoe]

Plain old FUD .. EVERY friggin website in the world logs your IP address. It's only that, an IP address.

I went there JUST so they would log my IP address. There! Sue me RIAA. I visited a public website. Boo friggin hoo..

Next they'll be sending secret police to my house to @(*$fiu$#(NO CARRIER)

cool!

[Supersonic1425]

now when I want to know my IP address, I can get a free threatening message with it! awesome.

Re:cool!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is especially useful because edonkey.com is shorter than whatismyip.com

You must not be very good at poker

[shaneh0]

You don't have to be able to match their bet to call their bluff. You just need to be willing to commit all of YOUR chips. If I raise you $100 and you only have $20 at the table, all I'm really raising you is $20.

This is more like YOU were bluffing, and I just raised you big time, and you know that all you hold is a pair of deuces, so you fold to my bet. It's not that they can't afford to fight it--christ, they have at least $30,000,000--it's that they know that they don't have a case.

Re:You must not be very good at poker

[no_opinion]

Actually, not true. Since the supreme court ruling, the p2ps have been settling. I don't think it is a mystery as to why - none of them actually have a leg to stand on when it comes to the inducement test. If they thought they could win, it would certainly be cheaper than $30 million to litigate.

Why are they hitting these guys?

[NRISecretAgent]

The P2P people are still at fault? You know I think in a normal place the Industry would be paying the P2P networks to shut down instead of twisting laws to do it.

Pay the RIAA? Are you kidding me?

[Bryansix]

That's like paying Satan to get off your back. It will only make the problem worse. If I was one of the people who ran eDonkey I would have left the country a long time ago to escape the Recording Industry Mafia known as the RIAA.

Re:Pay the RIAA? Are you kidding me?

[NRISecretAgent]

I meant I would think that the Music Industry would be paying the P2P coders to close up shop and go home so as to preserve their market...

Gnapster vs. OpenNap all over again.

[pjbass]

When the recording industry forced the Gnapster community offline, they all patted themselves on the back for a job well done. But the opennap network was just spinning up, and was bigger and better than the original. Fast forward a few years ahead, and all these attacks on PnP filesharing has generated beautiful, useful protocols like BitTorrent.

Let them keep attacking, because we will always have someone out there out-innovating the money-hungry RIAA and MPAA.

Re:Gnapster vs. OpenNap all over again.

[satoshi1]

You can't out-innovate something that doesn't innovate. Or can you always out-innovate something that doesn't innovate.. I always get the two confused.

oh noes

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap... it was all true! My computer *is* broadcasting an IP address!!

Re:Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right

[IngramJames]

Seeing that unauthorised distribution of copyrighted material is illegal in most, if not all, the western world, I think it's good to see the law being enforced. Sadly it's being enforced by corporate lawyers and not governments.

That'll be because Copyright infringement is a Civil, not a Crimminal offence in most of the western world.

Governments can't prosecute it.

Funny, that, because they do prosecute people who sell pirated DVDs.. anyone care to explain the difference for me? Damned if I can spot it..

Web design??

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, they can come up with a huge filesharing network, yet they can't even make a decent web page... I'm impressed.

summary:

[Kaenneth]

The tighter you squeeze the more slips out between your fingers.

Re:summary:

[siasl]

Just have less and less space between your fingers. ..........and squeeze harder......

A low blow in the "War on Piracy"

[cyberfunkr]

It appears that the Recording Industry has taken to biological weapons.

As defined in Wikipedia, "Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. It is meant to incapacitate or kill an adversary."

Does the colonies of corp lawyers qualify as a bacteria, virus or other disease-causing organism? I think we need to tell the President about this. He'd love to hear that we really did find a weapon of mass destruction.

Math of sociopaths

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's a fact of the universe that 1 song = $150k,

($30 million settlement) / ($150,000) = 200 tracks.

If $150k can't be hung over eMule's head, then how can it possibly be threatened against individual file sharer's head? Providing a tool that most likely is mostly intended for illegal file-sharing results in a settlement of -maybe- pennies per track traded, but an individual shown to have a handful of copyrighted tracks in their upload folder is worth $2k per track?

I'm not saying eMule should pay more, or that there should be more (or any!) liability on their part, but I mean...is there a point where the whole thing makes sense and everything clicks without assuming sociopathic tendencies on the part of the RIAA?

I guess that /. interview will tell us the answer we don't want to hear but know we will.

Ohnoes!

[grazzy]

They got my IP!

Re:Ohnoes!

[Khyber]

They got your intellectual property?? SUE!! SUE!! SUE I SAY!!!!! [/faceteciousness]

IP logging?

[nurb432]

Is visiting the edonkey site enough to constitute intent to infringe and bring the wrath of the man down on you?

What "matter"?

[Corwn of Amber]

How will it matter since everyone uses eMule?

It will not.

First, I could never get past a queue on that network. As in, "come back in a week or two, maybe less if others drop off".
I can say I never downloaded anything off ed2k...

Second, there is eMule, as just said.

Third, a network that's older than Kazaa's and had not been sued yet must have sucked more (as in "has been even more inefficient") than Win95.

Fourth, it is a centralized network, which, being used for illegal filesharing and little else, is functionaly equivalent to waving a banner written in letters so big you can read them on Google Earth, saying "SUE ME HERE NOW".

Fifth, Every other p2p app used for illegal filesharing is very, very dead since Bram Cohen released BitTorrent.

Sixth ff.

Re:What "matter"?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, this isn't the way it works. You need to build up credit first, by sharing. ed2k works best if your client is online 24/7.

Second, eMule is not a network, just an application that uses (and expands) the same protocol. OK, it has its own serverless Kademlia network now, plus source exchange so you needn't ever connect to a server. But even then you're still indirectly using the ed2k network.

Third, non sequitur.

Fourth, server-client does not equal centralized. Anybody with some upload bandwidth can be a server. There are no superservers.

Fifth, try finding non-mainstream or old(er than 2 weeks) stuff on BitTorrent that is still being seeded. Or try sharing many files. BitTorrent's credit system of instant gratification just doesn't allow keeping downloaded files in your share.

innocent until proven guilty

[nurb432]

That only works in a criminal case. These are civil cases.

Re:innocent until proven guilty

[cpt kangarooski]

Even in a civil case, the burden remains on the plaintiff to make his prima facie case. So it works the same, even though civil cases don't deal with concepts like guilt or innocence.

Re:innocent until proven guilty

[julesh]

The standard of evidence required *is* lower. Implications are good enough.

Besides: having visited their servers is probably enough to get you listed in a court case, at which point **AA get to examine your computer for "additional" evidence. They'll probably catch quite a few like this.

If the logs are being shared, that is.

Re:innocent until proven guilty

[cpt kangarooski]

Yes, it's easier to initiate a suit, and it's easier to show enough proof to win a suit, but the plaintiff still has to do it. He can't just accuse someone, fail to show any evidence, and require the defendant to defend himself.

And also, implications are not good enough. To file a suit you need to certify "that to the best of the [attorney's] knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances ... the allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, are likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery." You don't just file these things at will.

And to win, you need to prove your case by a preponderance of the evidence. That is to say, the court must believe that you are more likely than not correct, based on the evidence they consider and the weights they assign the evidence.

Heh I had no idea...

[Fnkmaster]

My guess is that they agreed to a settlement that the RIAA knew the company didn't have the funds to pay. This will force them into a Chapter 7 liquidation under which the RIAA recoups a fraction of the 30 mil, and lines up with other creditors based on their priority in the capital structure of the firm.

The goal of this is probably to prevent the equity shareholders from getting any return on their dime.

I doubt that eDonkey had greater than 30 mil in cash on hand, and I doubt they even had that in total assets. This is based on my knowledge of the workings of other similar P2P developers and of small tech firms in general.

If I am wrong and they have sold hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and were sitting on a huge nest egg, I'd be very surprised.

Tell em Leia

[OzPhIsH]

You tell em Leia! The people of the galaxy are behind you!

Tor, Tor, Tor!

[bookstack]

This demostrates the importance of tor and privoxy in the daily life.

Re:Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right

[Anonymous Coward]

It's criminal in the U.S. and I thought it was in most other countries that have signed the various copyright treaties.

Great Rational

[nurb432]

Since they were busted for *indirectly* being responsible, lets also go after microsoft. If it wasnt for them being an enabler, then ed2k wouldnt exist.

Oh, dont forget the internet backbone carriers for providing the bandwidth, dell for the computer, seagate for the drives that allow them to store the illegal content.

Moron.

Re:Great Rational

[shark72]

"Since they were busted for *indirectly* being responsible, lets also go after microsoft. If it wasnt for them being an enabler, then ed2k wouldnt exist. Oh, dont forget the internet backbone carriers for providing the bandwidth, dell for the computer, seagate for the drives that allow them to store the illegal content.

"

If you're confused about why P2P companies have been held liable, and backbone carriers, PC makers, OS makers, etc. aren't, you can read some of the court decisions (Napster tried an argument very similar to yours about five years ago). I know the court decisions can be long and boring, but they're the best way to learn, if you really want to learn. A shortcut is to google on "Substantial non-infringing uses" and learn what people have to say about the concept.

Or, you can look at it by imagining you're Jed McCaleb several years ago when he launched eDonkey. My guess is that his mission statement (not that he had one) would be something like this:

"Capitalize on the explosion of P2P and the huge demand for pirated material by providing easy to use software that enables people to trade MP3 files quickly and easily."

To your point, broadband providers do capitalize on the explosion of P2P (although the whole BT throttling issue is another story), but they are protected by the "substantial non-infringing uses" thing. People use their broadband connections for a lot of things besides copyright infringement. By comparison, the vast majority of P2P traffic is unauthorized by the copyright holders.

Again, if you're really confused by this, read the court decisions. The EFF site has some links.

thanks for the reminder, RIAA

[xoundmind]

I haven't turned on my aMule client in months. Downloading now...

Music magically appears, for free

[Un pobre guey]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with recording music for the purpose of sale, with the expectation that its copyright will be respected. It is moronic to think otherwise, as it implies that musicians in particular and content producers in general (including software developers) have some sort of obligation to give their work away. That is a ridiculous premise.

The problem is not that music is easy to pirate and therefore copyright is meaningless and music should be free. Please stop insisting on that, it gets in the way of any reasonable solution. The problem is the rapacious business model of the overall commercial recording industry. Add on top of that these windfall legal victories, and they have very little incentive to develop a more realistic business model.

If a commodity is in high demand but is very expensive, people will try to steal it. If it is very easy to steal, many people will steal it. It is still theft. Ask Richard Stallman if violations of GPL are litigable offenses or not. Copyright must be respected. It is dangerous to suggest that copyright has no usefulness anymore.

If music tracks cost US$0.25 or less each, it would still be a lucrative business, people would have much less incentive to steal it, and copyright would be much easier to uphold. Personally, I think tracks should cost five or ten US cents each starting about 6 months or so after their release. Then again, I don't make my living that way.

How much it matter?

[Jugalator]

How much will the demise of eDonkey matter, given that most who access that P2P network do so using the open-source eMule?

Just a teeny little bit? :-)

Viewing a webpage is not a copyright infrightment

[jonfr]

This is the single most stupid message that I have ever seen. Thease idiots did the right thing, they did die in the hands of a bully.

------
The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available.

If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.

Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme Court --
have ruled that businesses and individuals can be prosecuted for illegal
downloading.

You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material.

Your IP address is -removed- and has been logged.

Respect the music, download legally.

Goodbye Everyone.
------
So, RIAA is going to sue all of slashdot ?

What a shame

[Pedrito]

Really, I never used eDonkey, but I've used eMule quite a bit. It seemed to me that they would have had a strong case against the RIAA. Yes, they would have to worry about the issue of providing tools for pirating, and in the current legal environment, that's pretty dangerous, but the case history has been that if you can show substantial non-infringing uses, then it's not illegal, and let's face it, you can find very substantial examples of non-infringing content on the eDonkey network. That just seems like it would have been a pretty easy case to make. IANAL, however, and their lawyer(s) clearly thought differently. Oh well, everyone hold their breath until the RIAA disappears in a puff of irrelevance. 10 years from now, they'll be a distant memory.

Re:What a shame

[Technician]

Oh well, everyone hold their breath until the RIAA disappears in a puff of irrelevance. 10 years from now, they'll be a distant memory.

You mean like SCO died? I have a feeling they will start to have money problems as people move away from RIAA labels like people moved away from SCO, but the lawyer money will be there in hopes for a big settlement that will make them rich. Too bad they aren't a public stock like SCOX. It would be fun to watch. Watching SCOX stock has been fun. The value in trading on some days is less than the value of my car. It's hovering near $2 and the volume has been in the 1-5 thousand range. Why they are still trading is a mystery to me.

Re:Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right

[Anonymous Coward]

That'll be because Copyright infringement is a Civil, not a Crimminal offence in most of the western world.
I know for sure that it's criminal in Italy, and you may even go to jail.

Funny, that, because they do prosecute people who sell pirated DVDs.. anyone care to explain the difference for me? Damned if I can spot it..
The difference is really easy to spot: if you sell what you download you make money out of someone else's work, if you use it at home, you don't. Didn't you think about that? And you may own a original copy (e.g. a scratched cd), in that case downloading again its content is perfectly legal in most countries.
 
Screw copyright.

Welcome your new Robber Overlords - the RIAA

[unity100]

Future activities of your new overlords will include, but wont be limited to :

- Extorthion

- Bridge trolling and tolling

- Forcing every household's firstborn male into service

- Claiming each and every newlywed bride for the first night

quick, everyone go to edonkey.com!

[jeffs72]

Lets give the RIAA a few million IP addresses to pay people to sift through!

Here's my thoughts on stopping that....

[Khyber]

What should be done is have the ISPs (at least those in the Telephone industry, like Bellsouth, etc, that got our tax money to upgrade our infrastructure,) taken to court and sued for our tax dollars back. We can prove we gave them 200 billion dollars (I think?) to upgrade our entire nation's telecom infrastructure, with them promising better everything, including faster internet speeds. We should just gather all of the evidence we have, find a good lawyer, get a bunch of Slashdot users (most of them more than likely being more knowledgable than the ISPs,) for expert witnesses, and raise a full-out legal war with them until they buckle from the bad press and/or lose the lawsuit and have to pay all that money back to the American people. At 200 billion bucks and approx 400 million people, they'd be paying $500 to every person in the US. That's a good two or three month's worth of phone and internet. I'd bet they'd not enjoy that prospect.

Owned by NAT.

[CCFreak2K]

If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.

Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme Court -- have ruled that businesses and individuals can be prosecuted for illegal downloading.

You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material.

Your IP address is 207.62.231.230 and has been logged.

Respect the music, download legally.

Goodbye Everyone.

Gee, that's too bad that I hardly even use my own IP address, let alone the fact that my address changes every 20 hours (even less if my firewall decides to keel over again).

I know it doesn't apply to everyone, but I scoff at this "you are not anonymous" business. The RIAA and all of their cronies can kiss my IP-shifting ass.

Seriously, though, so what if my address is logged. Everyone may have already drawn this conclusion, but the page put up looks like a scare tactic hosted by our friends at the are eye double ay ess ess.

Re:Owned by NAT.

[Anonymous Coward]

>let alone the fact that my address changes every 20 hours

You're in for a really nasty surprise. ISPs keep long term logs of which customer got what IP when it's assigned, and those logs can be subpoenaed. Even if it's not your own, there is a trail that can be followed.

Re:Owned by NAT.

[geekoid]

You IP history is also logged.

So do it from someplace else.

Re:Owned by NAT.

[bohlke]

http://anonymouse.org/

Re:Owned by NAT.

[wharlie]

"Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme Court -- have ruled that businesses and individuals can be prosecuted for illegal downloading."

They don't sue you for downloading they sue you for uploading.
If they sued you for downloading then they could only sue you for the value of the song that you downloaded (actual losses), and if you had a legally purchased copy they couldn't even sue you for that.
They get you for "supply" not "possession" and work out the damages based on some tightly guarded "bullsh*t" formula meant to represent the losses caused by your actions.

Re:Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right

[shark72]

"That'll be because Copyright infringement is a Civil, not a Crimminal offence in most of the western world. Governments can't prosecute it."

FYI, here in the USA, it falls under both civil and criminal law, depending on the volume. If you would like the specifics, see Title 17, Chapter 5, Section 506. In a nutshell, you're allowed to pirate up to $1,000 worth of stuff in 180 days before you run afoul of the feds.

"Funny, that, because they do prosecute people who sell pirated DVDs.. anyone care to explain the difference for me? Damned if I can spot it.."

It's not the media; pirate enough of anything and you'll go to the clink. Remember the guy in the news lately who just got seven years for software piracy?

Oblig.

[Meph_the_Balrog]

So, RIAA is going to sue all of slashdot ?

You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

vast majority of P2P traffic

[nurb432]

Vast majority of auto traffic breaks speed laws. So we should sue ford?

I dont care if the Judge made a statement, its wrong to penalize a company beacuse their product CAN be used for illegal purposes.

You hit home on one subject...

[Khyber]

That subject is guitar tablature sites. Almost every single tab out there is another person's interpretation of another artist's work and usually not a direct copy of the tablature from an official tablature book. Since it's not guaranteed to be 100% accurate, why must they be taken to court? The only thing they do is host an individual's interpretation of how a song is played. Aren't interpretive works covered under fair use, especially when it's not being sold for money, and is used for purely educational purposes?

Re:You hit home on one subject...

[cpt kangarooski]

Almost every single tab out there is another person's interpretation of another artist's work and usually not a direct copy of the tablature from an official tablature book.

A copy can be a copy without being an exact copy. For example, if I copy a book by hand, and I make some typos, or accidently skip over a page here or there, but the book is substantially there, it's a copy. Perfection isn't required. I suppose that in some cases, a tablature could be a derivative work instead. Still, copyright covers both the making of copies and the making of derivatives, so I don't see how it matters.

Aren't interpretive works covered under fair use, especially when it's not being sold for money, and is used for purely educational purposes?

Fair use is a case-by-case affair. There's no uses that are always fair or not. So you need to go through the actual four-factor analysis. Offhand I'd say that you get half of the first factor, as it's not educational, but it is probably noncommercial (so long as there's really nothing commercial, not even ads on the web page). You're being overbroad with regards to educational uses. If I burn a copy of Star Wars and give it to you, I suppose I've 'educated' you as to the contents of the film, but it's obviously not really educational. It needn't be formal, at a school, but it can't be a thin excuse with no substance either. You lose the second and third factors, as the work is creative, and you're using, if not all of it, a very substantial, important part of it. And the fourth factor is a loss because you're harming the actual or potential market for official tablatures, regardless of whether you're giving them away for free or not. You're making a substitute for the copyright holder's version (or possible version).

I'd say that it is not a fair use, but of course, that'll depend on the exact facts of each case.

Re:You hit home on one subject...

[SuiteSisterMary]

But would listening to a work, then writing out what you think is the tabulature, not be more akin to reverse engineering than to copying?

Re:You hit home on one subject...

[cpt kangarooski]

No.

Copyright protects creative works. It does not protect ideas, processes, methods, etc. Most works are a mixture of creative expressions and underlying ideas; the expression is copyrighted, the ideas are not. So while copyright doesn't allow you to copy a program so you can sell copies of it, it does allow you to figure out how it works and write a new program that works in an identical fashion. The implementation is what's creative, not the underlying workings.

With a piece of music, while you could certainly use the musical ideas present (e.g. changes in tempo, or whatnot), you can't copy the implementation, which in this case would be the actual piece of music.

It hurts everyone.

[cjkeeme]

The use of P2P sharing really puts a strain on networks. It's not only illegal, but it hurts everyone else using the network especially if your admin doesn't have some type of QOS implemented (there are always ways around this). I come to this conclusion after administrating a network of 300 university students for 3 years.

Re:It hurts everyone.

[Travelsonic]

I call BS on one point - if you are sharing legal stuff, using P2P is NOT illegal.

Re:It hurts everyone.

[cjkeeme]

I agree 100%. The problem is that it is easier to click 50 songs to download illegally than to click 5 songs that you purchase.

stealing?

[spoop]

from edonkey.com: "If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law." NO SHIT. Now if only it was possible to actually steal music via the internet.

Other clients and networks

[alexo]

Please suggest other clients and/or networks for Windows, Linux/BSD and Mac

Re:Other clients and networks

[ColinPL]

• uTorrent (BitTorrent, Windows)
• Azureus (BitTorrent, Java)
• BitTornado (BitTorrent, Windows/Linux/BSD)
• KTorrent (BitTorrent, Linux/BSD/Mac)
• eMule (eDonkey, Windows)
• aMule (eDonkey, Linux/BSD/Mac/Windows)
• FrostWire (Gnutella, Java)
• Cabos (Gnutella, Java)
• Shareaza (Gnutella2/Gnutella1/eDonkey, Windows)
• Ares (Ares, Windows)
• DC++ (DirectConnect, Windows)
• RevConnect (DirectConnect, Windows)
• Valknut (DirectConnect, Linux/BSD/Mac)

bad precedent

[BalkanBoy]

does this mean all P2P companies are going to get sued? Kill the messenger, of course, it's the "easiest" way. Instead of thinking about how to change their business model in light of disruptive technology like P2P, recording/movie studios are pissing off even those who might potentially pay for their products some other way (e.g. flat fee per month).

What would happen if we had a subscription-based, DRM-free service where we could download all the MP3s and movies we wanted for a flat monthly fee, even if that fee may have to be substantially more than let's say 20 per month? Well for one, I would subscribe. The myth that I'm going to pirate the shit out of everything is completely bogus. Most people who earn a living through a job do not have time to pirate music or films nor do they want to. Yes, I may occasionaly burn a copy of a movie or a song and give it to someone I know, but that would be the final extent of such "piracy". If someone who is ethical (and most my friends are) understands the ramifications of piracy, he or she would choose to subscribe to the service too. Why? Because by removing DRM, and allowing unlimited downloads for a flat fee - the RIAA/MPAA says - "we trust you will do the right thing". I know this is absurd to say, but you can't gaun trust out of people by suing them. All that does is generate bad press and more antagonism. Studios have to eat the monetary loss to gain that trust at first (think of it as investing in your future, or changing the consumers' mood), and then expect to reap the benefits of that later down the line.

Universal already figured this out (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=6&url=ht tp%3A%2F%2Fwww.techdirt.com%2Farticles%2F20060829% 2F0819245.shtml&ei=wUUHRcDSJ4LyYK338N8E&sig=__LLzf axSLA1fYwCwLwRdYHzz-Zso=&sig2=eyOXGhJL0WAGNBWMBNoc uQ) . Alright, well, they'll probably try to plug some ads in there... But there has got to be another model, which has NO DRM, is flat fee, and allows unlimited downloads of movies and/or songs. Well, at least MOVIES, because it takes you 2+ hours to watch a movie, whereas in the same time frame you could hear 2 albums worth of songs, so there's some additional logistics as to how you'd price either one... but the concept's the same - flat fee, no DRM, unlimited downloads OR no flat fee, no DRM and be forced to hear/watch advertisements either directoly prior or directly after the movie/song. A compromise can be made. I just dont know why it hasn't been made yet.

Since you asked

[Anonymous Coward]

Textbook definition: "Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person obtains money, behaviour, or other goods and/or services from another by wrongfully threatening or inflicting harm to his person, reputation, or property." (Wikipedia, but pretty close to Black's)

The key word is "wrongfully." The RIAA is within its rights to file a non-frivolous lawsuit, therefore no "wrongfully threatening" therefore no extortion.

5000 Fans Theory

[Alien54]

As seen here

5000 Fans Theory was first floated by Brian Austin Whitney, founder of Just Plain Folks, in one of his monthly newsletters. Brian pointed out that an artist who has 5000 hardcore fans to give him or her $20 each year -- be if from CDs, ticket sales, merchandise, donations, whatever -- stands to make $100K per year, more than enough to quit the day job and still have health insurance and a decent car.

Now, 5000 is a big number, but not that big. That's like, what, one-eighth of an average baseball stadium? And you might not even need that many. Here's an exercise: take your own salary, pre-taxes, and divide it by 20. If you were to quit your job right now and start living as a full-time musician, poet or author, that's how many fans you'd need, spending $20 each year to support your art. So, if you're making $30K yearly, you'd need 1500 paying fans each year to replace your salary. And it gets better if you're willing to take a pay cut. In Washington state, where I live, a person working for minimum wage would only need around 700 paying fans. As Hobbit sez, there are a lot of people working for minimum wage doing stuff they hate.

Note that I say "paying fans." This is important, because depressingly enough, it's a numbers game. You could already have 5000 people on your mailing list, but only a percentage of them will actually invest some money in you. I have no idea what that percentage is, but it's small. If you're lucky, you'll have a few hardcore fans who offset those merely interested by contributing more dollars to your cause. At this point it (sadly) starts to smell a lot like Statistics 101.

And of course, it's not a steady paycheck. Remember also that tastes change, and sometimes people just stop being interested in what you do. So your quest for new friends and fans is never really over.

The attraction of 5000 Fans Theory is that the numbers, while still large, are very much attainable. You really don't need millions of fans across the globe to be a career artist, just a few thousand who actually care. And: the committment to find them.

I'm gonna try to tie this all together to make a point: if you really like a particular artist and want to support them without paying for yet another piece of plastic, the very best thing you can do is tell other people. Swap those MP3s, burn those CDRs, blog about them, play those tunes in your podcasts. Bring a friend, two friends, ten friends, to a show. Anything you can do to put the art in front of ten more potential fans. Get involved in the quest for fans and help make it happen. (Of course, the artist has to do his or her part, too. If all you're doing is pushing MP3s out to your website, you're gonna be waiting a long time for your 5000 fans to discover you.)

Re:5000 Fans Theory

[drsquare]

$20 a year is actually quite a lot. If you consider that bands might release an album on average once every four years, and if they make $10 profit selling an album (very generous once you consider taxes, pressing, distribution, marketing, the store's cut etc), that's only $2.50 a year. Then say they go to a gig every five years at $20 each, minus the costs of putting on a gig, that's maybe $1 a year. So far we're at $3.50.

Re:5000 Fans Theory

[Alien54]

Well, if they self publish, and they run their band as an actual busines vs a bunch of blokes having a really good time, it is far more practical and reachable than trying to be a megastar. Being the toast of Belgium is easier than cracking the top of the USA market. It is the concept of a respectable earning vs going for national fame status right away.

They agreed to pay? But will they pay? Horseshit!

[Simonetta]

They agreed to pay what $30 million dollars???? I cry horseshit! Nobody who actually has $30 million dollars has ever, does ever, or will ever just agree to give it away to someone. Especially something as legally dubious as an RIAA lawsuit.

    Most likely they agreed to 'pay' some absurd amount of money knowing full well that barely more than a few thousand dollars would ever be passed to the RIAA under any circumstances. They agree to some sum that they would never have (after all they aren't any different from you and me, gentle Slashdaughters) if there was any posssiblity that they would actually have to come up with the cash. I would guess that 'E-Donkey incorporated' owes $3,000,000,000,000,000 dollars for their 'crime', and the people and programmers who actually were eating all the pizza at E-Donkey's parties don't have to pay anything. As long as they agree to 'be good in the future'.

    If the actual people had to pay even 1/1000th of the this absurd amount for their 'crime', then I'll bet that they would be planning serious mayhem on the RIAA lawyers that were personally involved with this bullshit lawsuit.

    Look, I'm against violence and horror as much as the next girl, but, in the real world, when you're up against real assholes like the RIAA, then violence and horror goes a long way to 'equalizing' the legal chessboard. Sooner or later the RIAA is going to figure this out. Probably each lawyer will, individually, as they watch their guts drip out onto the floor of their BMW just after winning another extortion lawsuit for downloading 'Yummy, Yummy, Yummy' against that one wrong person.

    Keep your fingers crossed.

Shareaza.

[crhylove]

Just wanted to shamelessly plug shareaza, which is a great FOSS p2p app for windows that most n00bs can find their way around. It does edonkey, gnutella1, gnutella2, and even torrents (though not especially good in the torrent dept.).

Anybody you know wishing to find a new p2p app I can recommend it highly, though I still use utorrent for torrents.

rhY

Dated...

[TrevorB]

I find it ironic that threats against various servers, P2P technologies always seem to be about years behind the curve. Does anyone actually *use* eDonkey anymore? I figured we all moved over to eMule. In 2004!

The claim has always been "No matter what they take down, FTP and the web will always be there. In effect, you might be able to say the same about bittorrent. Shutting down sites that gather up torrent files won't make the trackers go away.

They are trying to terrify people

[razgriz]

Just a kind of: "Give me the damn money or I will do something to you!!" In last year, some association sent a letter to my ISP and said my IP logged and download a illegal copy of a German movie. ISP forced to suspend my internet access. but I never do that. How come I download a movie I never heard? finally my ISP resume my access but it annoyed me for a week. I don't have any compensation (I can't even know who "sue" me!). In Hong Kong, movie industry catches some bittorrent ip and ask ISP to tell them the users info. The court forced ISP to do this (in my opinion, it is non-sense to give information based on IP without any evidence but a bunch of "LOG"). and the HK movie industry threaten those people either give them HKD$23,xxx (while watching a film cost HKD$50, who knows the calculation behind) or "see you in the court". The problem is, how come they have power / right to monitor what am I doing? They are not police, they are not custom, but they monitor us and capable to get our information and sue us anytime!! Where is the protection of our privacy?! (P.S. an famous artist in Hong Kong, Eric Tseng, announced "BT"(BitTorrent in short form) is equal to "Bad Taste". It really hurts me.) (P.S. Sorry for my poor English. I am not a native speaker)

Re:They are trying to terrify people

[dillee1]

"The problem is, how come they have power / right to monitor what am I doing? "

They don't, but they are not monitoring BT traffic on your side. They put up some bait seed/tracker, see who is connecting to it, log his IP. The IP adress is then used for forcing the netblock owner(e.g. ISP) to give out user info of the IP in question, follow by the RIAA style legal extortion.

Re:Slashdot is all for copyright protection, right

[westlake]

Personally I don't see my government being very interested in media piracy, but the US government sure is.

How much do you think The Beatles. James Bond, and Harry Potter are worth to the UK? Now scale that up to the dimensions of the entertainment industry in the domestic and export markets of the US.

Ejem...

[ag0ny]

factor 59629: 59629

IP Logging

[webheaded]

Yeah, I'd like to echo the comment that every website logs your IP address automatically. Look through your access logs if you're running Apache and there you have it. The REAL logging would be logging system stats and outputting all the information into something useable. So either they are logging more than just your IP address or even more likely they are just scaring people.

What is down?

[Mantrid42]

Did they just shutdown the eDonkey client, or did that take down the network too? Isn't eDonkey partially centralized? Either way, long live the gnutella network!

cost

[Anonymous Coward]

currently,. I buy zero movies on disk at 20 dollars, and none at 15. At ten I start to think about it..but don't. Bargain bin new marked down to $5 I buy a few a year, pawnshops and yardsales at a buck or two I buy a dozen or more. I don't download illegal to copy anything so that isn't the issue, the issue is *cost*. What they want for a stamped disk in a case is obscene, it's a ripoff. They have not dropped prices to reflect technological advances, not even close, when they could. I know what blanks cost. They could pop out disks for three dollars and have them on the shelves in cases with the cover sheets, etc at walmart or wherever and sell millions and millions and millions more *per movie* and a lot of people wouldn't even bother downloading then, but the MPAA members refuse to do this, even though it is technically feasible and they would probably make more profit then they do now and people would not despise them for being gougers. But you see, they are cheap stuck up millionaire fucks who think about a 20 dollar bill like you might a quarter in your pocket. They have no concept nor practical frame of reference once once they hit multi millionaire status and all their friends are multi millionaires and they all live in million dollar plus mansions and drive hundred grand and up cars. What 20 bucks is to most (or a lot, just generally speaking here) people is not what 20 dollars is to those movie mogul goons who set policy. 20 bucks is the internet for an entire month, or perhaps one full week of electricty to the house, or a big part of the gasoline to commute to work that week, etc. They sell non critical products, entertainment, this isn't necessities. They mostly live in extremely wealthy areas with skewed cost of living indices and much higher than median wage structures. Much higher. They just don't get it past a few large cities where these executives live-they cruise on LA/hollywood pricing and lifestyle levels, and it affects their business decisions and they just can NOT understand why people don't want to be gouged-because to them they can't see they are gouging!

Once they get more real on pricing, which they could easily, they will sell a lot more and this piracy thing will drop to very low levels, at least in the western richer nations. If I saw a movie for three dollars at the gas station when I went in to pay the gallons and it was three bucks-I would grab one probably, probably one movie a week around payday. To deliberately go out and drop 20 dollars on a movie, now that there are hundreds of big movies released all the time..nope, I have important bills to pay and my spare cash goes into my very meagre investments for the future. No0w I still like a good movie same as the next guy, but for real, this price thing they have a hard on for is ridiculous. It's become a fetish with them that they mast drag a jackson from you for a damn movie. Keeping those folks in rich la la land is not an important bill, I'll wait until it is on OTA free TV or used or just not ever see it..and so far I don't seem to be suffering one bit from that. I manage to stay entertained enough. I haven't even finished going through my VHS tape collection I accumulated over the years, most of them used and cheap, I am picking them up now for 50 cents a lot of times.

I realise there are a lot of people here who make enough money they fall into the 20 bucks is chump change level, but there are still millions and millions of people out here who aren't at that level. And thinking about it, even if I was I still wouldn't pay them 20 for a movie, just on ethics, because I know it's a gouger price and I won't encourage gouging type behavior in companies, I woudn't go along with it. I have quit jobs over internal to the company shaky ethical issues so I know I would never pay cash to support it in some other industry.

I've been buying computers for a long time now, and I know if some schmuck tried to sell me a hard drive for a thousand bucks and it was like 2 gigs I would know that is a gouge and not buy it, because

Re:Recording Idustry Wins

[timlyg]

Hmmm...how sad, but this just proves my point further.

Your rights... IN GERMAN!!!???

[Anonymous Coward]

eDonkey does warn you know, but unless you speak German you wouldn't know:

Here is what Babelgibberfish thinks it says

"from now on server version 17.13 (lugdunum) applies for caution with the thoughtless Downloaden in the Emule!! On behalf of the industry log Anti-P2P-Firmen are short your data exchange and your retrieval queries in the Emule!! But we have strong proofs! Over further anonymous Downloaden to be able used asks roofridge load - here the servers are located in Switzerland, your registration are coded stored and for technical reasons cannot not be logged. We co-operate with roofridge Laod and recommend to you 14 days a test account."

Could this be an IP logging fishing expedition for the RIAA?

Can anyone read Babelgerman? (Downloaden!?). In German:

"server version 17.13 (lugdunum)
Ab jetzt gilt Vorsicht beim unbedachtem Downloaden im Emule!! Im Auftrag der Industrie loggen
Anti-P2P-Firmen seid kurzem euren Datenaustausch und Eure Suchanfragen im Emule!! Dafür haben wir
handfeste Beweise! Um weiterhin anonym Downloaden zu können benutzt bitte First-Load - hier stehen die Server in der Schweiz, eure Anmeldung wird verschlüsselt gespeichert und aus technischen Gründen kann nicht geloggt werden. Wir arbeiten mit First-Laod zusammen und empfehlen euch einen 14 Tage Testaccount."

Personally I am looking forward to China becoming the new superpower. The bad news is they don't care about civil rights. The good news is there is a chinese word for mule too! ;-)

(Mumbles Frigging RIAA Coccaine Sniffing Pedophiles)

Re:It logs your IP address. BOTNET

[jackjeff]

Just can't help thinking what would happen if someone used a botnet to make zombie machines log on edonkey.com..... Ok there's no money incententive, but still, having millions of stupid IP addresse of people who don't even have an edonkey! Wish I had a botnet today :)

Even the win32 client can still be used

[johanw]

There was reported here that the Linux client is not affected, but I found the Linux client to be extremely unstable anyway. It crashed often just after starting. However, the win32 client can still be used (it would be a shame to delete all those nearly completed files that AFAIK can't be ported to eMule): the check that triggers the uninstall is done only once, so just deactivate the network connection when you fire it up. I also did that when installing it, so it would not even try to get spyware on my machine. After starting eDonkey2000, reconnect the network cable and deal with the error message that complains about not finding a peer network. I'll try something called "eDonkey2000 lite" later this week.

RIAA is like the Borg

[freedom_india]

They adapt to every change in weapons/phasers that we make.

Of course they are reactive, but they are persistent.

How long do you think we would continue innovating, before we run out of frequency/ideas?

And how long do you think before Orrin Hatches pass a law that outlaws any other other than port 80 for supply by ISPs. This way they would have effectively throttled torrent.

Coupled with failure of Net-Neutrality law, am sure AT&T would join hands with Sony, BMG, etc., to prevent usage of other TCP/IP protocols other than TCP at 80.

Re:Viewing a webpage is not a copyright infrightme

[z0idberg]

Unless they have handed over control of the domain to the RIAA they could have at least had a little fun with the message they put up. They should have tried something like this:


The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available.
For those who want to steal music or movies we suggest you stop
Unless you want to be caught breaking the law.
Courts around the world - including the USSC - have ruled that anyone can be prosecuted for illegal downloading.
Kindly remember you are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material.

This is your IP address 127.0.0.1
Hope you realise we have logged it.
Even though you have only visited this website, and haven't actually done anything illegal.

Respect the music, download legally.
It's been fun.
All the best in the future.
And Goodbye Everyone.


Sure they would have cottoned on pretty quick and made them take it down but at least go out with (small) bang rather than a wimper.

Re:recording industry? emule 0.47b

[Zeio]

Everyone - please download and use eMule 0.47b, it now has protocol obfuscation:

Protocol Obfuscation is a feature which causes eMule to obfuscate or "hide" its protocol when communicating with other clients or servers. Without obfuscation, each eMule communication has a given structure which can be easily recognized and idenitfied as an eMule packet by any observer. If this feature is turned on, the whole eMule communication appears like random data on the first look and an automatic identification is no longer easily possible. This helps against situations were the eMule Protocol is unjustly discriminated or even completly blocked from a network by identifying its packets.
It is however important to note what Obfuscation is not intended to do: It will not increase your anonymity, it will not make you "invisible" in any way and it will also not protect you effective against eavesdroppers. Also if your network admin has a good legal reason to block eMule (for example a restircted company network), bypassing it may cause you other unwanted consequnces.
Obfuscation is currently availble for ED2k TCP and UDP, Server TCP and UDP and Kad TCP communication. Kad UDP packets are not yet obfuscatable.

By default, each eMule client (>= 0.47b) supports obfuscated connections to other clients, but doesn't actively requests them. If your ISP is not discriminating the ED2K Protocol you do not need to change anything and still help other users which may need obfuscation. Otherwise your have the following options which can be found in the

Also, please update the ipfilter data file here in eMule, options, security, tick off "filter servers too", and put this URL in the "Update from URL box"

http://www.bluetack.co.uk/config/nipfilter.dat.gz

And click load.

Dont forget to add these two servers to static and dont forget to connect to both KAD and the ED2K networks!

ed2k://|server|62.241.53.16|4242|/
ed2k://|server|62.241.53.2|4242|/

Happy donkeying!

Download here:
http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi ?l=1&rm=download

Go download that songs!

[jetmarc]

Go download that songs! RIAA grabbed $30M. It's all paid for.

mod parent informative

[Avishalom]

i need to know my ip about once a day, and this page loads faster than my php script

I enjoy seeing the RIAA waste money

[Frobozz0]

I, for one, enjoy seeing the RIAA waste millions and millions of dollars in a fruitless effort to stop piracy. It's fun.

Re:They agreed to pay? But will they pay? Horseshi

[Chuu]

It should also be noted, that in the real, world, they did agree to pay thirty million dollars. I don't see how anything after that first sentance you wrote changes the fact that they are now liable for quite a bit of money.

OSS

[infidel13]

Yet another good reason to use open source software.

High-paying gigs: why?

[jotaeleemeese]

Why every time there is talk about music, everyvbody by default begins to think about Madonna, Sir Elton John end the mega rich and famous?

What artists need is to get gigs. Period. The good ones will get high-paying ones, and will hire the aid they need as a consequence.

The not so good ones will get less gigs, will be paid less, and in consequence will require less help because the logistics will be more manageable.

There are also wonderful artists that the only thing they need is a musical instrument, a chair and a decent sound system to perform. I am sure that in a mature industry where the artist has recovered the right to make a living from performing there will be "ready made solutions" that will facilitate the life of any performing artist.

Recording as a means so revenue is the dependency drug many "artists" are afraid to let go, because then they will have to earn their living the old honourable way: working hard, not working for a couple of weeks in a record and then (if extremely lucky) waiting for the money to roll why they snort drugs and shag models....

Take a look

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, the point is NOT if these copyright should or should not be respected. The point is another. Why, why recording company decided to file something against a technology developing company. In order to give you a better illustration I give you an example.
You know, Russia struggles against terrorists in Chechen Republic. What OS do terrorists use? Do you really think that it's not M$ Windoze? Fine, let's make a ride, arrest all the Russian Microsoft because they support terrorism. Am I right?