4000 counts of perjury times 5 years max - that's an impressive potential sentence.
Though I'm against the action, I don't think it's necessarily right for one to consider each of the counts a separate offense. That's like saying the RIAA is right when they sue you for $2.5 million because you downloaded a 10-song album, each count being a $250,000 infringement.
Modded +4 Insightful??? I'm going to have to agree with the/.=Digg comment - there is absolutely NOTHING insightful in this post. It's the most BLATANT of flamebaiting. Regardless of whether or not you or I agree with the current administration, that gives you no moral right to personally attack those who voted for Bush as "idiots" and "sick f**ks*. More insightfully, God knows what Al Gore or John Kerry would have passed for the sake of politics.
Please metamod the oc into obscurity, where it deserves to be.
The vast majority of the world does not work like Linux, whether you may think for better or for worse. Open source the client, and someone will rip the client to create their own WoW server. Maybe they're feeling generous and create a WoW clone with no user fees. Suddenly people migrate and Blizzard employees are out of jobs.
I'm all for anti-RIAA and MPAA and even Blizzard's argument to copyright what's written into RAM, but/.ers are seriously going overkill on anticopyright law. Copyright law is supposed to balance the rights of the creator/owner with the rights of the user, not abolish the rights of one in favor the other.
IAALS. At least here, cops have access to the power switch, and may turn the camera on and off at will. The audio is routed not through the camera or car but on the officer's uniform itself, so that you can hear regardless of where the cop is standing. They have the ability to turn off or dismantle that portion as well.
To the other comment, police footage remains in custody of the police pricinct. It must be subpoenaed in order to be admissible in court, like any other form of evidence. If there is a court order, they must overturn it as evidence.
Does anyone look back on Google and say "They hired a massage artist? Proof the bubble is back!" No, because they thought they were going to be big and they were.
Page and Brin aren't known for extravagant and luxurious corporate spending. IIRC, they celebrated their first $1 million earned by dining out at Burger King. The Googleplex does have exercise and kitchen amenities, but what major offices don't these days? A better example would be the SAS Institute, which provides its employees with massive scale luxurious amenities and still sees profit, since such amenities like on-site healthcare and daycare actually increase productivity and reduce cost.
You're forgetting, though, that land is an extremely scarce resource, relatively speaking. Taxation upon land is a result of that scarcity, because ownership of land equates to power. Because the government has some degree of control over your land, be it through zoning, utilities, and the like, they have determined a right to tax you for it. We are not, however, taxed on a number of other physical properties, such as books, computers, technological devices, food, the list goes on. There is an initial sales tax, but that is to cover the expense of the government providing commerce, not for the good itself. Once you own the good, you are able to do with it as you please, untaxed, so long as it remains within the realm of legality. According to your theory, the government should have the ability to tax us for all of our possessions. That is socialism or communism, depending upon your interpretation.
The ultimate psychological difference, as has been stated here, is that intellectual property can be copied indefinitely. Therefore the ability to determine "harm" from re-use of a work is much more challenging. Copyright law is in desperate need of a complete overhaul, but the concept of intellectual property rights should not be abolished with the onset of the internet. I never hear anyone complaining about the illegality of copying books, copying movie scripts, copying physical patents... it's always books and movies. Everyone wants to justify their illegal downloadings under the guise of outrage and rebellion against an "unjust" law. Not to say that everyone is doing that here -/.ers have a knack for arguing the pedantic and philosophical - but go ask your average joe about downloading and copyright, and you'll either get a blank stare or an argument filled with spittle and stuttering buzz-words about how they deserve free things.
A - I have to say as an owner of both I'm very happy that a Blu-Ray drive isn't coming out for the 360. I once tried using my 360 as a movie watching machine, and it was disasterous. The fan noise coupled with the drive noise was abyssmal, not to mention the interface for booting is gaudy and interferes with the movie (i.e. having to bring up the system blade so I can disconnect live so I don't get invites to play and "X is online" in the middle of my thriller). The PS3 is a much better console for media, which was its original purpose - to put a BluRay player in every home. It certainly won them the format war. The 360 is a gaming machine, the PS3 is a media center that can play games as media. After 3 red rings on the same console and Microsoft's refusal to change my box or renew my 3 year warranty, I've started switching over to the PS3, and I have to say though it sucked starting out, it's a decent enough system to play on. Needs more mem, but games play close enough 1:1 cross-platform for my liking, save the loss of XBL.
B - I highly suspect that Squeenix hopped aboard the Sony bandwagon not for the same reasons that Kojima did with MGS4 (blatant fanboyism), but because it was the easiest platform for which to code natively. People were porting PS2 games to the XBox, not the other way around, as you see in today's generation of consoles. MS released much better dev tools, and because of that, it was easier for developers to harness the power of the box and deliver a better game. Because they got a jump start, sales aren't so overwhelmingly Playstation based anymore, and I suspect those shiny profit numbers did a little more than catch Squeenix's eye.
I was responding to a few comments in one, so that I could knock out three errors in the thread. I made a slight word error in my response, as no, it doesn't cost $12.75 to produce and ship a CD (costs closer to $5 if you're doing it professionally). Artists get payed on a royalty system called "Royalty Points" that are predetermined with the label before the album's production. Though these royalty points are negotiable, there's a pretty set pattern. Starting artists will bank on anywhere from 8 to 15 royalty points, range dependent upon which and what type of label they're signing with, midlevel (250,000-1 million record sales) artists will range from 15-17 points, and superstars (1 mill.+) will receive 18-20 points, on average. Since these points are a 1% of the profit, meaning that the artists don't receive one single penny until the label has made back all of their money, at best an artist will only receive on average around 15% of the profit made. That is assuming that the label even sells enough to pay off their investment in the artist. Many, many aspiring musicians won't see a penny come from CD sales if their stuff isn't moving in quantity.
Such as concerts? Today the RIAA basically gets most of the profits from CDs/iTunes downloads for any signed band. Now when you buy those burnt CDs from a local indie band, most, if not all of it goes to the band, but as for signed bands, they make money from concerts.
Having been heavily exposed to the music business, I can speak from experience. ASCAP and BMI do not receive most of the profits from CDs/iTunes downloads for signed bands. They receive a modicum percentage that adds up quite significantly. When you buy a burned CD from an Indie band, much of the money does go directly to the band... and right back to paying for the CDs burned. Working for a label, I've seen how much decent CD burning costs -- roughly 85% of the cost of the CD once you include printing and distribution. While printing out of your mom's computer's LightScribe may be cheaper, Indie bands aren't going to have nearly the publicity that signed bands will. They won't get played on the radio. They won't get sponsored in ads. Word of mouth promotion just isn't profitable. That's why the necessary evils of labels and publishers exist.
I'm all for tearing down the system and sticking it to the bloodsucking leeches of the RIAA, but the methodology you've proposed here is not a feasible or profitable option for bands. Concerts are notorious for lining the coffers of the big dogs. A significant portion of the money does go to the venue in the majority of cases. Still more goes to the stage equipment, the room and board, the travel costs of moving and setting up that equipment at each venue. Even more goes to agents who book the gigs. By the end, despite the fact that you shelled out $80 for that ticket, the band's only going to get a few red cents out of that ticket at the end of the day. Band tours aren't profitable - they're publicity. They're designed to get the band out there among the fans to draw up interest so that people will go to iTunes and buy money.
AC has it right. Also, the NFL has no rights over what happens to anything transmitted over the airwaves once it reaches my property, it is mine to do with as I please, including recording it, encrypting/decrypting it.
That is completely and totally incorrect. The NFL does have rights over what is transmitted to your property. They have intellectual property right, and whether you like it or not, it's a complete necessity in a capitolistic world. Do you support warrantless wiretapping of your phones? I imagine not, because you have a right (to privacy) that protects the content of your calls. The government requires a court order to suspend those rights. Intellectual property right means that even though you are watching the program, it is inherently theirs. Copyright law says that despite your watching a program they own, you have a limited set of rights regarding fair-use copying of their material. You own certain rights to copies of what they own. While they do not own the airwave over which their program is broadcast (which is mandated by the FCC), they still have significant rights over the material you are watching. While you may have a limited right to copy the data, DRM (Digital Rights Management) is trying to close that gap by saying you have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to encrypt or decrypt or copy the data.
Why? They chose to invest in a market with no intrinsic value that depended on an artificial scarcity.
Ideas have no scarcity, but you still retain certain legal rights to your ideas so long as you apply for them. By creating an artificial scarcity, you drive up demand (obviously) and therefore increase output. It's a pedantic argument as to whether or not the world would be better off without rights to intellectual property, since we can't say for sure, but I imagine the result would be somewhat chaotic. While it's all good and well to imagine that inventors invent things out of pure selflessness to benefit society, I can't re
You all are missing a very important point here. The ACLU is trying to go after the telecoms, holding them liable for complying to a legal order. While I do not support the Administration's decision of warrantless wiretapping, I cannot jump on the bandwagon that holds anybody but the decision makers responsible. If the Feds showed up at your doorstep with a warrant in hand granting them access to your premesis, do you think you should be held liable when they set up binoculars at your window and spy on your neighbor? Do you think that if you denied them entry you wouldn't go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200? That's the exact position the telecoms are in. They were following a government mandate that was retroactively found to be illegal (Patriot Act made it legal for the time being, whether you like it or not).
This is a terrifying precedent to set. The ACLU is trying to make people retroactively accountable for their compliance to legal orders and warrants. Imagine, for example, that legislation is passed that says that any negative comments made during an election year against a political figure is not considered to be protected free speech (roll with me here. There are more egregious violations of the Constitution as it stands). Do you think you should be held liable for any negative comments you might have posted about Bush, McCain, or Obama, on here or anywhere else you might have voiced your opinion? At least in this case, you weren't compelled to post by some kind of legal order. In this case, you'd actually bear more responsibility, because the "I was just following orders" argument actually does grant you a good bit of leway and immunity when the result of your NOT following orders is incarceration, court-martial, or a straight-up bullet to the head.
That's actually the most likely theory. The Western concept of cyclical time (sunrise-sunset, seasonal years) is actually a Judaic invention. If you read the Torah/Old Testament, you'll notice most of the book reads like a calendar or a history log. Time is extremely important and measured at least more precisely than history records of other predating cultures. When you read that King So-and-So of Babylon reigned for 800 years, that expression is used to convey his legacy rather than to express a particular and precise order of time. The convention of using numbers as you're using them - to provide a specific, standardized measurement of time or distance - is completely Western (Eastern, too, though the process of development was completely different as their languages evolved from runic script instead of heiroglyphics and alphabets). They would simply say, "Go to the big tree, follow the morning sun to the big cliff. Follow the cliff until the small stream," or "I am older than my brother." Why, exactly, would you need to convey a specific quantifiable amount of age, so long as it is known that you are older than your brother? I imagine life would be much easier without tax forms...
Actually, there's a very significant difference in the case of internet sharing and library lending practices. Just as/.ers often point out the differences between physical and intellectual property, there is a similar difference between p2p servers and libraries. Libraries deal in the realm of physical media; when they lend something out, they are temporarily forfeiting their ability to "use" said medium. That's why if you ever use a digital library and someone else is viewing a document, you are not allowed access to the document as it is "checked out". The same holds true for "personal use".
It is legal for me to give a CD to my dad, or even to play music for him to which to listen. If my dad is in posession of the CD, I have forfeited my rights to listen to that music. Therefore, only one copy of the music exists at any given time. Mp3s are obviously a diffent case; an infinite number of copies can be made, so that any number of people can "possess" a medium. More than one person can listen to the same copy at the same time with their own freedom to "use" said product, which is much different than radio broadcast where they retain control (which is why you must pay a subscription to "rewind" a song on internet radio). It's worth noting this is why the RIAA is/was trying to get a ruling against ripping CDs, as it allows you to be able to access more than one iteration of a music file. As another user mentioned earlier, there is a more interesting case for the placement of photocopiers in libraries.
This wouldn't be a good first post if I didn't add a theoretical fix to the whole fiasco. Imho, if we could come up with a media format that can be copied as many times as you like, yet upon request to play it queried a server for rights of "use" so that anyone else trying to play that file must wait until it is free (exactly like a library system, or how many games treat their CD-keys for online play), this whole issue could be avoided. Of course, more practically, it's a lot easier if you don't place files in your "Shared" drive, or just don't use P2P servers. I don't get the appeal of them, anyway. Everyone I know who uses one is intentionally using them for illegal purposes. As if the new Britney Spears single is worth a legal battle with the RIAA...
Slashdot Mirror
4000 counts of perjury times 5 years max - that's an impressive potential sentence.
Though I'm against the action, I don't think it's necessarily right for one to consider each of the counts a separate offense. That's like saying the RIAA is right when they sue you for $2.5 million because you downloaded a 10-song album, each count being a $250,000 infringement.
Modded +4 Insightful??? I'm going to have to agree with the /.=Digg comment - there is absolutely NOTHING insightful in this post. It's the most BLATANT of flamebaiting. Regardless of whether or not you or I agree with the current administration, that gives you no moral right to personally attack those who voted for Bush as "idiots" and "sick f**ks*. More insightfully, God knows what Al Gore or John Kerry would have passed for the sake of politics.
Please metamod the oc into obscurity, where it deserves to be.
Like the internet? Someone should go back in time and stop Al Gore from inventing it. We all know how evil it is.
The vast majority of the world does not work like Linux, whether you may think for better or for worse. Open source the client, and someone will rip the client to create their own WoW server. Maybe they're feeling generous and create a WoW clone with no user fees. Suddenly people migrate and Blizzard employees are out of jobs.
I'm all for anti-RIAA and MPAA and even Blizzard's argument to copyright what's written into RAM, but /.ers are seriously going overkill on anticopyright law. Copyright law is supposed to balance the rights of the creator/owner with the rights of the user, not abolish the rights of one in favor the other.
IAALS. At least here, cops have access to the power switch, and may turn the camera on and off at will. The audio is routed not through the camera or car but on the officer's uniform itself, so that you can hear regardless of where the cop is standing. They have the ability to turn off or dismantle that portion as well.
To the other comment, police footage remains in custody of the police pricinct. It must be subpoenaed in order to be admissible in court, like any other form of evidence. If there is a court order, they must overturn it as evidence.
Does anyone look back on Google and say "They hired a massage artist? Proof the bubble is back!" No, because they thought they were going to be big and they were.
Page and Brin aren't known for extravagant and luxurious corporate spending. IIRC, they celebrated their first $1 million earned by dining out at Burger King. The Googleplex does have exercise and kitchen amenities, but what major offices don't these days? A better example would be the SAS Institute, which provides its employees with massive scale luxurious amenities and still sees profit, since such amenities like on-site healthcare and daycare actually increase productivity and reduce cost.
So really those middle-school bullies were just trying to save me from spam when they kept calling me Nancy!
You're forgetting, though, that land is an extremely scarce resource, relatively speaking. Taxation upon land is a result of that scarcity, because ownership of land equates to power. Because the government has some degree of control over your land, be it through zoning, utilities, and the like, they have determined a right to tax you for it. We are not, however, taxed on a number of other physical properties, such as books, computers, technological devices, food, the list goes on. There is an initial sales tax, but that is to cover the expense of the government providing commerce, not for the good itself. Once you own the good, you are able to do with it as you please, untaxed, so long as it remains within the realm of legality. According to your theory, the government should have the ability to tax us for all of our possessions. That is socialism or communism, depending upon your interpretation.
The ultimate psychological difference, as has been stated here, is that intellectual property can be copied indefinitely. Therefore the ability to determine "harm" from re-use of a work is much more challenging. Copyright law is in desperate need of a complete overhaul, but the concept of intellectual property rights should not be abolished with the onset of the internet. I never hear anyone complaining about the illegality of copying books, copying movie scripts, copying physical patents... it's always books and movies. Everyone wants to justify their illegal downloadings under the guise of outrage and rebellion against an "unjust" law. Not to say that everyone is doing that here - /.ers have a knack for arguing the pedantic and philosophical - but go ask your average joe about downloading and copyright, and you'll either get a blank stare or an argument filled with spittle and stuttering buzz-words about how they deserve free things.
A - I have to say as an owner of both I'm very happy that a Blu-Ray drive isn't coming out for the 360. I once tried using my 360 as a movie watching machine, and it was disasterous. The fan noise coupled with the drive noise was abyssmal, not to mention the interface for booting is gaudy and interferes with the movie (i.e. having to bring up the system blade so I can disconnect live so I don't get invites to play and "X is online" in the middle of my thriller). The PS3 is a much better console for media, which was its original purpose - to put a BluRay player in every home. It certainly won them the format war. The 360 is a gaming machine, the PS3 is a media center that can play games as media. After 3 red rings on the same console and Microsoft's refusal to change my box or renew my 3 year warranty, I've started switching over to the PS3, and I have to say though it sucked starting out, it's a decent enough system to play on. Needs more mem, but games play close enough 1:1 cross-platform for my liking, save the loss of XBL.
B - I highly suspect that Squeenix hopped aboard the Sony bandwagon not for the same reasons that Kojima did with MGS4 (blatant fanboyism), but because it was the easiest platform for which to code natively. People were porting PS2 games to the XBox, not the other way around, as you see in today's generation of consoles. MS released much better dev tools, and because of that, it was easier for developers to harness the power of the box and deliver a better game. Because they got a jump start, sales aren't so overwhelmingly Playstation based anymore, and I suspect those shiny profit numbers did a little more than catch Squeenix's eye.
I was responding to a few comments in one, so that I could knock out three errors in the thread. I made a slight word error in my response, as no, it doesn't cost $12.75 to produce and ship a CD (costs closer to $5 if you're doing it professionally). Artists get payed on a royalty system called "Royalty Points" that are predetermined with the label before the album's production. Though these royalty points are negotiable, there's a pretty set pattern. Starting artists will bank on anywhere from 8 to 15 royalty points, range dependent upon which and what type of label they're signing with, midlevel (250,000-1 million record sales) artists will range from 15-17 points, and superstars (1 mill.+) will receive 18-20 points, on average. Since these points are a 1% of the profit, meaning that the artists don't receive one single penny until the label has made back all of their money, at best an artist will only receive on average around 15% of the profit made. That is assuming that the label even sells enough to pay off their investment in the artist. Many, many aspiring musicians won't see a penny come from CD sales if their stuff isn't moving in quantity.
I'd say hunting for Manbearpig, but sources tell me his MASSIVE home energy consumption is fueling its containment cage.
Such as concerts? Today the RIAA basically gets most of the profits from CDs/iTunes downloads for any signed band. Now when you buy those burnt CDs from a local indie band, most, if not all of it goes to the band, but as for signed bands, they make money from concerts.
Having been heavily exposed to the music business, I can speak from experience. ASCAP and BMI do not receive most of the profits from CDs/iTunes downloads for signed bands. They receive a modicum percentage that adds up quite significantly. When you buy a burned CD from an Indie band, much of the money does go directly to the band... and right back to paying for the CDs burned. Working for a label, I've seen how much decent CD burning costs -- roughly 85% of the cost of the CD once you include printing and distribution. While printing out of your mom's computer's LightScribe may be cheaper, Indie bands aren't going to have nearly the publicity that signed bands will. They won't get played on the radio. They won't get sponsored in ads. Word of mouth promotion just isn't profitable. That's why the necessary evils of labels and publishers exist.
I'm all for tearing down the system and sticking it to the bloodsucking leeches of the RIAA, but the methodology you've proposed here is not a feasible or profitable option for bands. Concerts are notorious for lining the coffers of the big dogs. A significant portion of the money does go to the venue in the majority of cases. Still more goes to the stage equipment, the room and board, the travel costs of moving and setting up that equipment at each venue. Even more goes to agents who book the gigs. By the end, despite the fact that you shelled out $80 for that ticket, the band's only going to get a few red cents out of that ticket at the end of the day. Band tours aren't profitable - they're publicity. They're designed to get the band out there among the fans to draw up interest so that people will go to iTunes and buy money.
AC has it right. Also, the NFL has no rights over what happens to anything transmitted over the airwaves once it reaches my property, it is mine to do with as I please, including recording it, encrypting/decrypting it.
That is completely and totally incorrect. The NFL does have rights over what is transmitted to your property. They have intellectual property right, and whether you like it or not, it's a complete necessity in a capitolistic world. Do you support warrantless wiretapping of your phones? I imagine not, because you have a right (to privacy) that protects the content of your calls. The government requires a court order to suspend those rights. Intellectual property right means that even though you are watching the program, it is inherently theirs. Copyright law says that despite your watching a program they own, you have a limited set of rights regarding fair-use copying of their material. You own certain rights to copies of what they own. While they do not own the airwave over which their program is broadcast (which is mandated by the FCC), they still have significant rights over the material you are watching. While you may have a limited right to copy the data, DRM (Digital Rights Management) is trying to close that gap by saying you have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to encrypt or decrypt or copy the data.
Why? They chose to invest in a market with no intrinsic value that depended on an artificial scarcity.
Ideas have no scarcity, but you still retain certain legal rights to your ideas so long as you apply for them. By creating an artificial scarcity, you drive up demand (obviously) and therefore increase output. It's a pedantic argument as to whether or not the world would be better off without rights to intellectual property, since we can't say for sure, but I imagine the result would be somewhat chaotic. While it's all good and well to imagine that inventors invent things out of pure selflessness to benefit society, I can't re
You all are missing a very important point here. The ACLU is trying to go after the telecoms, holding them liable for complying to a legal order. While I do not support the Administration's decision of warrantless wiretapping, I cannot jump on the bandwagon that holds anybody but the decision makers responsible. If the Feds showed up at your doorstep with a warrant in hand granting them access to your premesis, do you think you should be held liable when they set up binoculars at your window and spy on your neighbor? Do you think that if you denied them entry you wouldn't go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200? That's the exact position the telecoms are in. They were following a government mandate that was retroactively found to be illegal (Patriot Act made it legal for the time being, whether you like it or not).
This is a terrifying precedent to set. The ACLU is trying to make people retroactively accountable for their compliance to legal orders and warrants. Imagine, for example, that legislation is passed that says that any negative comments made during an election year against a political figure is not considered to be protected free speech (roll with me here. There are more egregious violations of the Constitution as it stands). Do you think you should be held liable for any negative comments you might have posted about Bush, McCain, or Obama, on here or anywhere else you might have voiced your opinion? At least in this case, you weren't compelled to post by some kind of legal order. In this case, you'd actually bear more responsibility, because the "I was just following orders" argument actually does grant you a good bit of leway and immunity when the result of your NOT following orders is incarceration, court-martial, or a straight-up bullet to the head.
That's actually the most likely theory. The Western concept of cyclical time (sunrise-sunset, seasonal years) is actually a Judaic invention. If you read the Torah/Old Testament, you'll notice most of the book reads like a calendar or a history log. Time is extremely important and measured at least more precisely than history records of other predating cultures. When you read that King So-and-So of Babylon reigned for 800 years, that expression is used to convey his legacy rather than to express a particular and precise order of time. The convention of using numbers as you're using them - to provide a specific, standardized measurement of time or distance - is completely Western (Eastern, too, though the process of development was completely different as their languages evolved from runic script instead of heiroglyphics and alphabets). They would simply say, "Go to the big tree, follow the morning sun to the big cliff. Follow the cliff until the small stream," or "I am older than my brother." Why, exactly, would you need to convey a specific quantifiable amount of age, so long as it is known that you are older than your brother? I imagine life would be much easier without tax forms...
Actually, there's a very significant difference in the case of internet sharing and library lending practices. Just as /.ers often point out the differences between physical and intellectual property, there is a similar difference between p2p servers and libraries. Libraries deal in the realm of physical media; when they lend something out, they are temporarily forfeiting their ability to "use" said medium. That's why if you ever use a digital library and someone else is viewing a document, you are not allowed access to the document as it is "checked out". The same holds true for "personal use".
It is legal for me to give a CD to my dad, or even to play music for him to which to listen. If my dad is in posession of the CD, I have forfeited my rights to listen to that music. Therefore, only one copy of the music exists at any given time. Mp3s are obviously a diffent case; an infinite number of copies can be made, so that any number of people can "possess" a medium. More than one person can listen to the same copy at the same time with their own freedom to "use" said product, which is much different than radio broadcast where they retain control (which is why you must pay a subscription to "rewind" a song on internet radio). It's worth noting this is why the RIAA is/was trying to get a ruling against ripping CDs, as it allows you to be able to access more than one iteration of a music file. As another user mentioned earlier, there is a more interesting case for the placement of photocopiers in libraries.
This wouldn't be a good first post if I didn't add a theoretical fix to the whole fiasco. Imho, if we could come up with a media format that can be copied as many times as you like, yet upon request to play it queried a server for rights of "use" so that anyone else trying to play that file must wait until it is free (exactly like a library system, or how many games treat their CD-keys for online play), this whole issue could be avoided. Of course, more practically, it's a lot easier if you don't place files in your "Shared" drive, or just don't use P2P servers. I don't get the appeal of them, anyway. Everyone I know who uses one is intentionally using them for illegal purposes. As if the new Britney Spears single is worth a legal battle with the RIAA...