I'm amazed they got this far with as strict of a licence they have. Encoders like lame or bladenc are in reality, illegal to use unless you have a licence. So if you run Linux and burn MP3's, its likely you are breaking the law.
That's why letting people use their IP for free was the best thing that Thompson could have done.
Think about it.. people could already play their CD's on their computer, and they could even rip their CD's into wav files. So simply using MP3 encoders does not really add that much value to the average computer user's life. If the encoder wasn't freely available, the user base would be a lot less, and nobody would feel like they're missing out on anything.
However, Fraunhofer/Thompson has let encoders be freely available, and lots of people have lots of MP3 files. EVERYONE now knows what MP3 is, and wants to listen to their MP3's while jogging. And Thompson is making money on every single piece of MP3 hardware you can buy. Give away the razor (bladeenc) to sell the blades (hardware and commercial software).
By not suing their user base, they are actually making more money (and having their standard more widely adopted) then if they had "protected their IP more vigorously".
Everyone who advocates Digital Rights Management could learn a thing or two from their business model.
I keep waiting for someone to sue one of these companies for violating consumers fair use rights. I can't be the only one thinking about it.
I have to think that if it were possible to sue over this, someone would have sued MacroVision by now over their DVD copy protection.
After all, crippling DVD playback just because a VCR is in the signal chain is far worse than just crippling the ability to rip MP3's from a CD! At least you can still listen to the CD!
Kids putting copyright symbols on drawings and papers? What's next...intellectual property contracts within a school system?
Actually, I has a College EE Professor who was too lazy to make up new tests every year, and put a copyright notice on all his tests, supposedly to keep the student IEEE chapter on campus from making copies of old tests and giving them out to students.
Besides, doesn't everything have an inherent copyright on it? Why shouldn't a kid put a copyright notice on his drawing?
I work in a fairly large company as well, and I see plenty of things prohibiting employees from doing ANYTHING with the corporate network, wireless or not.
It takes enough red tape and forms and variances to have a stinkin' ethernet port turned on here. Even if wireless were more secure than Ethernet, anyone that does anything network-oriented without the blessing of IT (or organizations contracted by IT) is in a heap of trouble. There's sinply no business case to justify changing from Ethernet (a proven technology) at all. Period. Even if there is, trust me, the people who make the decisions don't (can't?) see it.
(And if you ever find out where I work (which you won't), remember that my opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer, or my employer's IT department, etc.... People also get in a heap of trouble for not saying that, even if they're posting anonymously.)
I have no plans to play the game, and know nothing about it.
But, by reading all these posts, it seems to me that the vendor has actually suceeded in creating some Anarchy Online.
As an American, I find it disgusting that our reputation as the "land of the free" has basically been whittled down to allowing businesses almost any freedom they desire..... I just got back from a month long visit to Europe. I never spent more than 30 seconds in a customs line. When I came back to the US through Philidelphia, I had to wait two hours in line to declare my copy of "Alf: Der Film"
I agree with your premise, but not with your example. Try flying through Chicago or JFK next time! I personally have had no trouble in either place, although I haven't been through many times.
Or, better yet, try getting through Customs in Europe in 30 seconds or less WITHOUT that American passport! Believe me, it's worth something in that situation!
It seems that the American reputation as "the land of the free" is worth somethin OUTSIDE our borders...
Digital Divide, anyone?
on
Congress@Work
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· Score: 1
Guess what, little Johnny - the nice congressman says that if your parents can't afford unfiltered Net access at home, then you're too poor to communcate with the Chipmunk Liberation Army! You need to be Spoiled Rotten (like all the rest of your classmates) to do that!
Maybe this congressman should consider that the kids in his district ae bring destructive because they live on Long Island, and have nothing better to do!
Goods and Services IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: providing news, information, products, on-line tools and services via the internet for a select audience. FIRST USE: 19981028. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19981028
Is that the Legalese translation of "News for Nerds... Stuff that Matters"?
We've discussed this on Slashdot in the past...
Do TV and print advertisers worry about how many people actually buy stuff because of their advertising? Even if they did, there's no qualitative way to measure it. And TV and print advertisers still pay for advertising.
Just because we can measure click-through rates on the web doesn't mean its useful!
What is big-budget advertising used for today? Yes, it's used to sell stuff, but it's mostly used to build brand recognition, an intangible that can't be measured. Once people get the idea that good advertising can only give indirect returns and thus shouldn't be quantified, web advertising will be more sustainable because the fact that their brand is visible on the web is worth more than click-throughs, which will always be at a lower rate than the advertiser wants.
Remember, advertising is buying the attention of complete strangers! Passive, "brand-building" advertising will be more palatable on the web than obtrusive "Clickmeclickmeclickmenow" advertising, and piss off less people when a web site sells their eyeballs to advertisers (without necessarily consulting the eyeballs)...
They (Gracenote) posted the whole spec and everything you need to write a app that would read and write from the CDDB. I even had downloaded intending to code a player in VB that used it. Now, if that was patented technology, then why were he specs on the web for all to see???
Actually, Patents are meant to be public knowledge -- that's the whole point. Once a patent is granted, Patent holders gain a temporary monopoly on their invention, and the public gains the knowledge of how the invention works AND the ability to use it freely once the patent expires (assuming you don't violate other valid patents in the process.)
I'm also pretty sure that GraceNote licenses the patent free to developers that have less than a certain number of copies of their app out there. (A point that I'm too lazy to confirm right now...)
Of course, the patent system may very well be broken with respect to software patents, but that's a different issue.
I'm sure that if you contact Napster directly you might be able to get some help.
They must have some PR people, at the very least, who could direct you.
You might also want to broaden your scope to P2P technologies in general (which Napster technically isn't, but which are facing many of the same Copyright problems as Napster) in which case contacting O'Reilly or the author of That Book might not be a bad idea.
Isn't it illegal to intercept and/or interfere with private wire/wireless communications unless you have a court order to do so?
Perhaps... but then again, if you intercept communications at the server. (like Napster wants to do) does that still count?
Or what about my Cable Modem... Is that a communications device in the scope of these laws?
[FLAME] Or what about the RIAA getting a standing court order to intercept all our Internet communications because we're all thieves? After all, all Napster/AIMSTER/*.p2p users must be doing something illegal, doesn't that meet the standard of a "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing?" [/FLAME]
I think that this is exactly what the MPAA should be doing.
That is, what I gather from the article is that the MPAA actually hired a firm to determine whether the Gnutella users actually were trading the MPAA's copyrighted movies, and provided evidence to the ISP's. We hope they actually downloaded "The Matrix" and checked to make sure that it was actually the Movie, and not some guy's Film Project.
If, instead, they are simply trying to get ALL Gnutella servers shut down, regardless of whether they were actually serving the MPAA's copyrighted movies, (or all servers that serve files named "The Matrix" without checking them first), then all the good things I have said go out the window, and we should all get out our Clue Sticks again.
I always thought that Apple had to release their kernel source in some form, since it was based on "Open" Projects (Mach and BSD). I'm not up on the technical aspects of the licenses for those projects, but I'll bet they allow for Apple to "Open" up the source for the Kernel while keeping the source for the GUI closed. It's an "Open" Kernel, but not an "Open" OS.
They were never trying for OSS acceptance because they were probably just satisfying the contractual obligations of their licenses by releasing the Darwin source as "Open" (as opposed to Open, without quotes, which Mr. Raymond apparently has some say in...)
They never tried, that is, until it started generating negative P.R.
You would think they would shy away from this latest stunt out of fear of negative P.R. also, but I guess their lawyers put a higher priority on "protecting" the GUI than on pissing off potential developers.
Curious George points out: "The potential for danger (with many newbies and not-so-newbies making use of binary RPMs from untrusted sources) is that Linux could develop an unwarranted reputation for problems by someone (or perhaps some Corporation?) purposely diseminating RPMs with built in vulnerablilities or exploits. We should do our part to educate and spread the word on this issue."
Of course, most commercial entities already ship binary code packages with built-in vulnerabilities or exploits. They're called "bugs". (or, "Innovations", depending on which company you're talking about.)
I don't see how this is any different for RPM's than it is for any other way to add or update software, on any platform. People who downloaded "illegal betas" for their new Mac OS X Boxes are in the same boat. I don't think any of them were trojans, but you never know...
Stick to downloading from "trusted" sites (i.e. The Authors' or OS Vendors') as part of your overall plan for keeping your system healthy. This should be drilled into every computer user, from newbie to expert!
(Which Authors' and OS vendor's sites we should trust is an excersise left to the reader.)
Microsoft's "Innovation" is to cripple the operation of one perfectly good technology (MP3 Recording) to favor a different technology that has "Rights Management" (WMP) but in most other respects is LESS good than the technology it is replacing? (At least from our perspective. We know where the RIAA stands.)
Some "Innovation". Unfortunately, most people will "eat it up", as this article on ZDNET suggests.
I don't know much about iTunes, but it's very existence confirms to me that at least Apple won't roll over and let the RIAA scratch its belly.
When you're renting, you have the right to use something for a specific period of time. That's all.
If Hertz went out of business while I'm on my next trip, do you think they'd let me keep the rental car? Hell, no!
I use EDA tools at work,which are typically time-licensed (for 100K+ per license) and if one of those companies were to go out of business, you'd be SOL. This doesn't happen too often in the EDA world, however. You're much more likely to have a struggling company bought by another company, and have the users hope against hope that the new company would continue to support old products (especially when all the employees in the acquired company have likely left).
Which leads us to the question you should be asking :
What happens when an old version of rented software works fine for you, but the vendor will only license newer versions that don't fit in your work flow or that would invlove significant cost on your part to perform the upgrade?
At best, the vendor would sell you licenses without support, since they only have the resources to support the newest versions. At worst, they'll tell you that if you don't want to buy the new version, you can suck eggs. And they can do that, since you were only renting the software to begin with.
This arrangement works for EDA tools, where you get significant support from the vendor in exchange for your $$$, but I imagine that when deployed in the software industry at large, it will only serve to screw the consumer even more, and put more money in the vendor's pockets in exchange for doing less.
Is it any wonder that software rentals are the ultimate dream of any software company?
Apple was successful in stopping computers from being built with the prefix "i-" in the name. Methinks a judge can be found that will support this.
Sorry, try again. Apple stopped companies from selling machines that looked like iMacs and were sent to dealers with flyers that listed the top ten reasons to buy eMachines instead of an iMac. If that isn't intentionally trying to mislead people, I don't know what is.
Is I remember correctly, somenoe tried to sell iOpeners at one point, and Apple didn't say Boo, because they didn't look like Smurf computers.
Or, am I remembering this all wrong?
Now, That doesn't mean that this whole OpenGL affair isn't just stupid legal posturing. I think it's clear from what I read that the Open?L people are not trying to intentionally mislead people, but what do I know, I am not a Llama.
Yeah, it sucks that something that was free last season costs money this season. Baseball isn't the most popular sport, after all, and MLB should be doing all it can to win fans, and not ailenate them.
But, as a frequent listener of games over the Web, I've come to the conclusion that $10 isn't really that much, provided the following things happen:
- I want my home team's announcers, even when that team is on the road. It always pissed me off that broadcast.com always gave you the home team's radio feed. You had to look for that feed yourself if they're on the road.
- I want some reasonably guarantee of quality for $10. As in, let's put some of that money into the server farm, and don't just give it all to A-Rod.
- I don't want some lamebrain executive to decide to raise the subscription prices every year, like they do with ticket prices.
- Finally, I also want to abolish the DH, but that has nothing to do with streaming games.
If all these things happen, I'll have no problem paying my $10 every year. After all, just because something's on the Internet, doesn't mean it has to be free!
I always thought that was due to the fact that the ads were hosted on a different server, and might not have loaded yet if the path to that server is congested.
As a matter of fact, if any page is stuck after about 20 seconds, I usually press "Stop" on my browser, and the ad that was trying to load appears as a broken GIF, while the entire text of the article I was trying to read appears like magic after I stop loading that sluggish ad.
Perhaps some of the more banner-ad-knowledgeable/.ers could comment on this phenomena..
I've been wanting to write to my representatives in Congress for some time concerning the DMCA and the legislative eroding of Fair Use rights, but have been struggling with precisely what to say.
This guy says most of the things I've wanted to say, in a far more concise manner than I could ever put it.
Now I think I finally will write that letter, with a printout of this speech attached. I want to make sure they read it and know that I (along with others in their districts) think this speech is filled with Good Ideas.
It is estimated that 15% of a chip's circuitry is dedicated to distributing the clock signal and as much as 20% percent of the power is consumed by the clock. Yeah, and I'll bet that traffic lights and intersections take up a fair amount of road space in any city, and if we get rid of them, think about how much more traffic we can handle!
Seriously, one of the reasons that clocked logic is used everywhere is that it's (relatively) portable across process tweaks. If Intel used asynchronous logic on the new Octium... err... Pentium VII, then every time it tweaked its process there is the potential for the critical logic path to change, and the design would have to be re-optimized, re-layed out, and Oops! There goes the schedule again. Not to mention the fact that Logic Synthesis for Asynchronous circuits is a pain. (All of my designs are clocked...)
IANASPE, (I'm not a Semiconductor Process Engineer), so I'm probably getting this explanation all wrong. But I am a rather lame Digital Designer, FWIW.
On the other hand, There are some games you can play in a fast Clocked design. At 1GHz+ speeds, the clock skew across a die is so great in comparison to the period that you have very little time (if any!) left over for Logic. I think companies like Intel and AMD must have a way to "schedule" and plan for clock skew, so they can make tighter designs that actually work... This technique kind of looks like Asynchronous Design if you look at it sideways.
File-trading network Aimster is using an unusual shield to protect its users from snooping: copyright law sponsored by the network it runs on."
DMCA or no, I doubt that AOL/TW will permit its Instant Messaging network to piss off it's record division.
I'm not up on all of the technical details of Aimster. What's there to prevent AOL from just not permitting Aimster traffic to go through its network, a la the MS Messaging battle of a few months back?
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That's why letting people use their IP for free was the best thing that Thompson could have done.
Think about it.. people could already play their CD's on their computer, and they could even rip their CD's into wav files. So simply using MP3 encoders does not really add that much value to the average computer user's life. If the encoder wasn't freely available, the user base would be a lot less, and nobody would feel like they're missing out on anything.
However, Fraunhofer/Thompson has let encoders be freely available, and lots of people have lots of MP3 files. EVERYONE now knows what MP3 is, and wants to listen to their MP3's while jogging. And Thompson is making money on every single piece of MP3 hardware you can buy. Give away the razor (bladeenc) to sell the blades (hardware and commercial software).
By not suing their user base, they are actually making more money (and having their standard more widely adopted) then if they had "protected their IP more vigorously".
Everyone who advocates Digital Rights Management could learn a thing or two from their business model.
I have to think that if it were possible to sue over this, someone would have sued MacroVision by now over their DVD copy protection.
After all, crippling DVD playback just because a VCR is in the signal chain is far worse than just crippling the ability to rip MP3's from a CD! At least you can still listen to the CD!
Actually, I has a College EE Professor who was too lazy to make up new tests every year, and put a copyright notice on all his tests, supposedly to keep the student IEEE chapter on campus from making copies of old tests and giving them out to students.
Besides, doesn't everything have an inherent copyright on it? Why shouldn't a kid put a copyright notice on his drawing?
It takes enough red tape and forms and variances to have a stinkin' ethernet port turned on here. Even if wireless were more secure than Ethernet, anyone that does anything network-oriented without the blessing of IT (or organizations contracted by IT) is in a heap of trouble. There's sinply no business case to justify changing from Ethernet (a proven technology) at all. Period. Even if there is, trust me, the people who make the decisions don't (can't?) see it.
(And if you ever find out where I work (which you won't), remember that my opinions are my own and not necessarily those of my employer, or my employer's IT department, etc.... People also get in a heap of trouble for not saying that, even if they're posting anonymously.)
But, by reading all these posts, it seems to me that the vendor has actually suceeded in creating some Anarchy Online.
(Or, at least some Online Anarchy...)
I agree with your premise, but not with your example. Try flying through Chicago or JFK next time! I personally have had no trouble in either place, although I haven't been through many times.
Or, better yet, try getting through Customs in Europe in 30 seconds or less WITHOUT that American passport! Believe me, it's worth something in that situation!
It seems that the American reputation as "the land of the free" is worth somethin OUTSIDE our borders...
I posted this last time we had an OLED article, but for those who missed it:
Kodak has been working on OLED for a while...
Guess what, little Johnny - the nice congressman says that if your parents can't afford unfiltered Net access at home, then you're too poor to communcate with the Chipmunk Liberation Army! You need to be Spoiled Rotten (like all the rest of your classmates) to do that!
Maybe this congressman should consider that the kids in his district ae bring destructive because they live on Long Island, and have nothing better to do!
Is that the Legalese translation of "News for Nerds... Stuff that Matters"?
Do TV and print advertisers worry about how many people actually buy stuff because of their advertising? Even if they did, there's no qualitative way to measure it. And TV and print advertisers still pay for advertising.
Just because we can measure click-through rates on the web doesn't mean its useful!
What is big-budget advertising used for today? Yes, it's used to sell stuff, but it's mostly used to build brand recognition, an intangible that can't be measured. Once people get the idea that good advertising can only give indirect returns and thus shouldn't be quantified, web advertising will be more sustainable because the fact that their brand is visible on the web is worth more than click-throughs, which will always be at a lower rate than the advertiser wants.
Remember, advertising is buying the attention of complete strangers! Passive, "brand-building" advertising will be more palatable on the web than obtrusive "Clickmeclickmeclickmenow" advertising, and piss off less people when a web site sells their eyeballs to advertisers (without necessarily consulting the eyeballs)...
Actually, Patents are meant to be public knowledge -- that's the whole point. Once a patent is granted, Patent holders gain a temporary monopoly on their invention, and the public gains the knowledge of how the invention works AND the ability to use it freely once the patent expires (assuming you don't violate other valid patents in the process.)
I'm also pretty sure that GraceNote licenses the patent free to developers that have less than a certain number of copies of their app out there. (A point that I'm too lazy to confirm right now...)
Of course, the patent system may very well be broken with respect to software patents, but that's a different issue.
I'm sure that if you contact Napster directly you might be able to get some help. They must have some PR people, at the very least, who could direct you. You might also want to broaden your scope to P2P technologies in general (which Napster technically isn't, but which are facing many of the same Copyright problems as Napster) in which case contacting O'Reilly or the author of That Book might not be a bad idea.
Perhaps... but then again, if you intercept communications at the server. (like Napster wants to do) does that still count?
Or what about my Cable Modem... Is that a communications device in the scope of these laws?
[FLAME] Or what about the RIAA getting a standing court order to intercept all our Internet communications because we're all thieves? After all, all Napster/AIMSTER/*.p2p users must be doing something illegal, doesn't that meet the standard of a "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing?" [/FLAME]
That is, what I gather from the article is that the MPAA actually hired a firm to determine whether the Gnutella users actually were trading the MPAA's copyrighted movies, and provided evidence to the ISP's. We hope they actually downloaded "The Matrix" and checked to make sure that it was actually the Movie, and not some guy's Film Project.
If, instead, they are simply trying to get ALL Gnutella servers shut down, regardless of whether they were actually serving the MPAA's copyrighted movies, (or all servers that serve files named "The Matrix" without checking them first), then all the good things I have said go out the window, and we should all get out our Clue Sticks again.
I always thought that Apple had to release their kernel source in some form, since it was based on "Open" Projects (Mach and BSD). I'm not up on the technical aspects of the licenses for those projects, but I'll bet they allow for Apple to "Open" up the source for the Kernel while keeping the source for the GUI closed. It's an "Open" Kernel, but not an "Open" OS.
They were never trying for OSS acceptance because they were probably just satisfying the contractual obligations of their licenses by releasing the Darwin source as "Open" (as opposed to Open, without quotes, which Mr. Raymond apparently has some say in...)
They never tried, that is, until it started generating negative P.R.
You would think they would shy away from this latest stunt out of fear of negative P.R. also, but I guess their lawyers put a higher priority on "protecting" the GUI than on pissing off potential developers.
Of course, most commercial entities already ship binary code packages with built-in vulnerabilities or exploits. They're called "bugs". (or, "Innovations", depending on which company you're talking about.)
I don't see how this is any different for RPM's than it is for any other way to add or update software, on any platform. People who downloaded "illegal betas" for their new Mac OS X Boxes are in the same boat. I don't think any of them were trojans, but you never know...
Stick to downloading from "trusted" sites (i.e. The Authors' or OS Vendors') as part of your overall plan for keeping your system healthy. This should be drilled into every computer user, from newbie to expert!
(Which Authors' and OS vendor's sites we should trust is an excersise left to the reader.)
Some "Innovation". Unfortunately, most people will "eat it up", as this article on ZDNET suggests.
I don't know much about iTunes, but it's very existence confirms to me that at least Apple won't roll over and let the RIAA scratch its belly.
If Hertz went out of business while I'm on my next trip, do you think they'd let me keep the rental car? Hell, no!
I use EDA tools at work,which are typically time-licensed (for 100K+ per license) and if one of those companies were to go out of business, you'd be SOL. This doesn't happen too often in the EDA world, however. You're much more likely to have a struggling company bought by another company, and have the users hope against hope that the new company would continue to support old products (especially when all the employees in the acquired company have likely left).
Which leads us to the question you should be asking :
What happens when an old version of rented software works fine for you, but the vendor will only license newer versions that don't fit in your work flow or that would invlove significant cost on your part to perform the upgrade?
At best, the vendor would sell you licenses without support, since they only have the resources to support the newest versions. At worst, they'll tell you that if you don't want to buy the new version, you can suck eggs. And they can do that, since you were only renting the software to begin with.
This arrangement works for EDA tools, where you get significant support from the vendor in exchange for your $$$, but I imagine that when deployed in the software industry at large, it will only serve to screw the consumer even more, and put more money in the vendor's pockets in exchange for doing less.
Is it any wonder that software rentals are the ultimate dream of any software company?
Sorry, try again. Apple stopped companies from selling machines that looked like iMacs and were sent to dealers with flyers that listed the top ten reasons to buy eMachines instead of an iMac. If that isn't intentionally trying to mislead people, I don't know what is.
Is I remember correctly, somenoe tried to sell iOpeners at one point, and Apple didn't say Boo, because they didn't look like Smurf computers.
Or, am I remembering this all wrong?
Now, That doesn't mean that this whole OpenGL affair isn't just stupid legal posturing. I think it's clear from what I read that the Open?L people are not trying to intentionally mislead people, but what do I know, I am not a Llama.
But, as a frequent listener of games over the Web, I've come to the conclusion that $10 isn't really that much, provided the following things happen:
- I want my home team's announcers, even when that team is on the road. It always pissed me off that broadcast.com always gave you the home team's radio feed. You had to look for that feed yourself if they're on the road.
- I want some reasonably guarantee of quality for $10. As in, let's put some of that money into the server farm, and don't just give it all to A-Rod.
- I don't want some lamebrain executive to decide to raise the subscription prices every year, like they do with ticket prices.
- Finally, I also want to abolish the DH, but that has nothing to do with streaming games.
If all these things happen, I'll have no problem paying my $10 every year. After all, just because something's on the Internet, doesn't mean it has to be free!
As a matter of fact, if any page is stuck after about 20 seconds, I usually press "Stop" on my browser, and the ad that was trying to load appears as a broken GIF, while the entire text of the article I was trying to read appears like magic after I stop loading that sluggish ad.
Perhaps some of the more banner-ad-knowledgeable /.ers could comment on this phenomena..
... from Kodak.
This guy says most of the things I've wanted to say, in a far more concise manner than I could ever put it.
Now I think I finally will write that letter, with a printout of this speech attached. I want to make sure they read it and know that I (along with others in their districts) think this speech is filled with Good Ideas.
Yeah, and I'll bet that traffic lights and intersections take up a fair amount of road space in any city, and if we get rid of them, think about how much more traffic we can handle!
Seriously, one of the reasons that clocked logic is used everywhere is that it's (relatively) portable across process tweaks. If Intel used asynchronous logic on the new Octium... err... Pentium VII, then every time it tweaked its process there is the potential for the critical logic path to change, and the design would have to be re-optimized, re-layed out, and Oops! There goes the schedule again. Not to mention the fact that Logic Synthesis for Asynchronous circuits is a pain. (All of my designs are clocked...)
IANASPE, (I'm not a Semiconductor Process Engineer), so I'm probably getting this explanation all wrong. But I am a rather lame Digital Designer, FWIW.
On the other hand, There are some games you can play in a fast Clocked design. At 1GHz+ speeds, the clock skew across a die is so great in comparison to the period that you have very little time (if any!) left over for Logic. I think companies like Intel and AMD must have a way to "schedule" and plan for clock skew, so they can make tighter designs that actually work... This technique kind of looks like Asynchronous Design if you look at it sideways.
DMCA or no, I doubt that AOL/TW will permit its Instant Messaging network to piss off it's record division.
I'm not up on all of the technical details of Aimster. What's there to prevent AOL from just not permitting Aimster traffic to go through its network, a la the MS Messaging battle of a few months back?