I read about this in the basement of the university radio station I DJ at. We're all watching very closely. Here is a quote from Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who supports the changed media rules.
"We have no intentions of taking up that bill," Tauzin spokesman Ken Johnson said. "This has become a political soap opera, and given the chance Chairman Tauzin intends to cancel its run."
I'll admit I'm not an expert on House Committee rules, but this is a serious obstacle for this bill.
What has really peaked my interest is that this bill not only seeks to undo the most recent FCC decision, but seeks to undo the radio deregulation of 1996, which has been great for ClearChannel but a disaster for the music industry. In my opinion it is directly responsible for the lack of quality most people see in today's music industry (and therfore the primary reason for the music industrys economic slump).
Another amendment involving radio passed 12-11 and would expand the FCC's new, stricter radio ownership rules so they apply to stations a company already owns. If enacted, the change could force companies like Clear Channel, the country's largest radio chain with 1,200 stations, to sell stations in markets where they exceed ownership limits.
"This is an attempt to single out one company for being successful and punish them for playing by the rules," said Andy Levin, a Clear Channel vice president. He predicted the measure will be defeated later.
I think its a mistake to categorize tracker decentralization with "warez". Frankly, at this point tracker decentralization is absolutely necesary if bittorrent is going to thrive in a competitive (legal) environment. This is true for 2 reasons: 1.) 2 really cheap servers can do the same job as 1 really really expensive server and 2.) redundancy is necesary to achieve stability. If my downloads (or my clients downloads) are mission-critical, I can't depend on a single tracker, regardless of how cheap it is.
As for anonymity I totally agree with you, however you're already too late. I can already turn off my upload (and the *AA's seem preoccupied with only those who are serving).
Well, for the second part, not every tracker has that information right now. It would require storing every torrent your tracker is serving, and even then you will only have the name of the file to go by. You're also talking about increasing the load and bandwidth of your tracker by a huge amount, many more times what is being used by the tracker now. You're basically creating another hotline at that point.
You make a good point, but this is still a single point of failure.
Regardless of whether I'm downloading a DVD-rip or a linux ISO, if my tracker gets shut down (be it by *AA influence/costs/technical problem) I'm not going to be able to get that file. So there is still a need for some decentralization before bittorrent can be used with any kind of reliability.
And, even though I may be downloading a legal file, people may be using the tracker to download illegal files.
First off, it's very important to note that bittorrent isn't a P2P network; it is a completely new protocol, fundamentally different then anything that has come before it. In that regard, the "movement" so to speak will not die. The technology will continue to be improved on and it will continue to be used by people who love to get distros the second they come out. Hopefully, we'll finally see bittorrent get some commercial use. There is no reason every game company shouldn't be releasing their betas/demos with bittorrent. It is perfect for these companies that use very little bandwidth, but then every so often require HUGE amounts of bandwidth that force them to use mirrors, which are becoming increasingly annoying. Bittorrent is really a revolutionary innovation, IMO.
But, it has some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. For a technology that promises infinitely scalable bandwidth, the tracker isn't very scalable at all. Multi-tracker functions (both the interconnectivity of trackers and the use of multiple isolated trackers within the torrent) are an absolute must for this technology to prosper. Also, an apache mod where you could simply upload the file to your web server and not have to worry about running a bittorrent "seed" would be great. From the companies standpoint nothing has really changed, but instead of everyone flooding your website to get this file, the file is only accessible by your bittorrent tracker, so your bandwidth remains consistent. And the company doesn't need to run a separate seed process for the thousands of files it may be serving, the apache mod would only open connections for files that are requested by the tracker (which would only request the file if the full file wasn't already being distributed by those connected).
As for the piracy aspect, I don't really see it going anywhere but I also don't see it growing. There is always going to be some site where you can upload torrents, and that site will always die within 6 months only to be replaced by another.
As a legitimate consumer of both computer games and music CDs, I am constantly frustrated when various copyright devices infringe on my right to enjoy the product I have purchased (for example, computer games that use SafeDisc to ensure I'm not using a copied CD). If a company chooses not to employ such measures, can it still legally legally targeting offenders in court, despite the fact that the company does not implement such security measures for the good of its own consumers.
As an avid gamer, I can say that I've never heard of this game, and unless there is some evidence on their computers to back up this claim, its basically groundless.
Offtopic, I love the new gaming icon (Tellah is my favorite video game character of all time!)
News.com: Is it moral to create a general-purpose, anonymity-preserving tool--a file-swapping system that can be used for good (publishing political tracts) and ill (trading copyrighted music)?
Oppenheim didn't really answer this question, nor has anyone else from the RIAA or any similar organization. Instead they put forward the assumption that all anonymous file-swapping systems are inherently designed for the sole purpose of copyright infringement.
If anonymity is truly necessary for free speech (as the courts have upheld), then isn't the anonymous trading of files an obvious side effect? Oppenheim also decided to completely ignore the fact that Freenet is being used in places such as China, where anonymity really IS necessary, and not "necessary" in some legalese definition, "necessary" as in "if the government finds you they will kill you". Does the RIAA honestly believe that pro-democratic Chinese dissidents should be denied an anonymous file-sharing technology simply because it can also be used to circumvent copyright? I'd love to hear them actually answer this question.
I believe the term was somewhat co-opted after World War II and has since come to be used to describe the complete irradication of any single group, not necesarily people. A "scorched earth" policy of sorts.
oh, and I seemed to have missed when dictionary.com started charging for the meaning of words.
It should be noted that this contradicts what has been reported in the main stream news, with one cable news channel reporting a 15% drop in file sharing.
(off topic, when I'm posting a new comment to an article, slashdot should include the article on the page where I'm responding so I can reference it)
Do you see any practical applications of bittorrent in the buisness community? Why have companies, which often have spurts of insane bandwidth necesity (such as the latest game demos) failed to take advantage of bittorrent? How do you think your decisision to make it open source has affected this?
I'm no buisness genius, but if doubling there income would get them in the black, wouldn't halving there cost do the same thing? If Salon was saying "Give us 6 months and we will drastically cut costs" I'd buy a 6 month subscription. But we've been down this road before, and it doesn't appear Salon is serious about maintaining (or, achieving) financial solvency.
On another note...
[i]Mr. Drudge, of course, has been derided for years as a cyber-gossip by snooty media elites, but when future historians analyze the Internet phenomenon of the 1990s he'll be considered a pioneer while someone like Mr. Talbot will rate a mere footnote.[/i]
This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever read on the internet, and people, thats saying a lot...
I'll be sad to see Salon go, but its hard to see this as anything but a sinking ship. Who is that guy that companies hire to come in and clean house? (Sun hired him, then fired him). Well, Salon needs that guy.
If you're anticipating a large number of downloads, especially in a short period of time, you should really use Bittorrent, although it might not be necesary with such small files, but you'd save money on bandwidth.
I'm sorry but that is simply a joke. Kasaparov was beat soundly five years ago. If the developers of Deep Blue had continued development and upgraded to today's hardware, they would probably have a machine unbeatable by human players. The battle has been over for 5 years.
That being said, I hope that this new tourney structure (which the entire world of chess has been sorely lacking, its worse then college football) will encourage development (one of the reasons IBM quit development was that Kasaprov would not guarantee a match, which was later reinforced when he ducked several challenges by the head developer of Big Blue after he aquired the rights, see Behind Deep Blue)
I was suprised and overjoyed to see the game broadcast on ESPN2. Hopefully this will bring Chess into America.
please don't generalize the term "independant promoter" when you really mean something else.
true, many independant promoters are just a middle man in the pay-for-play arrangement between labels and radio stations. but there are legit promoters who get a bad rap.
well, here in reality, most end users don't consider the newest windows worth $300, and the usually get it for almost nothing whenever they buy a new PC.
#1: Cost. While you may end up paying the same for a car that doesn't have a transmission for one that does. You're gonna save in the long run (much more then you would if you bought the car for 10k) not only on gas, but on repairs. You'll never have to repair your transmission (or the 1000's of other things that can go wrong with the primative combustible engine)
#2: Fast Recharge. While this may never be possible, you should consider this alternative. A car that take 8 hours to charge but has a range of a hojillion miles (or, more miles then anyone could possible drive in a 12 hour period). This would remove the need for fast recharge, since you could never run out of power between long-time chargings.
#3. "Plastic Toy". This has already been addressed. You need to test drive an EV.
either everyone on this board is ignorant or electric cars have taken a huge step back.
i tested drived an electric car about 4 years ago.
it went 85+ miles an hour.
it accelerated faster then any car you can buy from ford right now.
it had a range of 400 miles (300 with excessive use of radio/ac/heat)
it looked, felt, and drove, like a regular car. none of you could tell the difference from 20 feet away.
there were only 2 drawbacks at that time.
they were expensive.
they took a long time to charge.
its sad that so many of you have been fooled into thinking electric cars have to be small plastic toys or cant go faster then 55 miles an hour. go test drive one.
it breaks down like this... dang i've lost the link
Anyhow, if all things are equal (meaning primarily the timings on your memory) then pc2700 will out preform pc2100 on a 266 fsb. however, if you have to lower the timing on your ram (say, from cl=2 to cl=2.5) to get it to run at pc2700, then you'll actually get a lower result. so, expensive pc2100 is better then cheap pc2700.
the reason people always use a memory module thats faster then their FSB is because its so easy to increase your FSB (even to just 140-145 on a lock xp). this yeilds much faster results with pc2700, not so with pc2100. extreme overclockers lower the multiplier to acheive syncranous 166/166
you're assuming game developers will look at x-box sales. they won't. they'll look at x-box GAME sales. so even if thousands of people buy an x-box and run linux on it (which will never happen) it want make any gamecube developers (who are swimming in money) second guess their platform of choice.
cross breed ALL the corn in the world with genetic corn that has IP rights, then, techinically, every single kernal of corn belongs to them, which would be impossible to uphold.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll admit I'm not an expert on House Committee rules, but this is a serious obstacle for this bill.
What has really peaked my interest is that this bill not only seeks to undo the most recent FCC decision, but seeks to undo the radio deregulation of 1996, which has been great for ClearChannel but a disaster for the music industry. In my opinion it is directly responsible for the lack of quality most people see in today's music industry (and therfore the primary reason for the music industrys economic slump).
I think its a mistake to categorize tracker decentralization with "warez". Frankly, at this point tracker decentralization is absolutely necesary if bittorrent is going to thrive in a competitive (legal) environment. This is true for 2 reasons: 1.) 2 really cheap servers can do the same job as 1 really really expensive server and 2.) redundancy is necesary to achieve stability. If my downloads (or my clients downloads) are mission-critical, I can't depend on a single tracker, regardless of how cheap it is.
As for anonymity I totally agree with you, however you're already too late. I can already turn off my upload (and the *AA's seem preoccupied with only those who are serving).
Well, for the second part, not every tracker has that information right now. It would require storing every torrent your tracker is serving, and even then you will only have the name of the file to go by. You're also talking about increasing the load and bandwidth of your tracker by a huge amount, many more times what is being used by the tracker now. You're basically creating another hotline at that point.
You make a good point, but this is still a single point of failure.
Regardless of whether I'm downloading a DVD-rip or a linux ISO, if my tracker gets shut down (be it by *AA influence/costs/technical problem) I'm not going to be able to get that file. So there is still a need for some decentralization before bittorrent can be used with any kind of reliability.
And, even though I may be downloading a legal file, people may be using the tracker to download illegal files.
First off, it's very important to note that bittorrent isn't a P2P network; it is a completely new protocol, fundamentally different then anything that has come before it. In that regard, the "movement" so to speak will not die. The technology will continue to be improved on and it will continue to be used by people who love to get distros the second they come out. Hopefully, we'll finally see bittorrent get some commercial use. There is no reason every game company shouldn't be releasing their betas/demos with bittorrent. It is perfect for these companies that use very little bandwidth, but then every so often require HUGE amounts of bandwidth that force them to use mirrors, which are becoming increasingly annoying. Bittorrent is really a revolutionary innovation, IMO.
But, it has some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. For a technology that promises infinitely scalable bandwidth, the tracker isn't very scalable at all. Multi-tracker functions (both the interconnectivity of trackers and the use of multiple isolated trackers within the torrent) are an absolute must for this technology to prosper. Also, an apache mod where you could simply upload the file to your web server and not have to worry about running a bittorrent "seed" would be great. From the companies standpoint nothing has really changed, but instead of everyone flooding your website to get this file, the file is only accessible by your bittorrent tracker, so your bandwidth remains consistent. And the company doesn't need to run a separate seed process for the thousands of files it may be serving, the apache mod would only open connections for files that are requested by the tracker (which would only request the file if the full file wasn't already being distributed by those connected).
As for the piracy aspect, I don't really see it going anywhere but I also don't see it growing. There is always going to be some site where you can upload torrents, and that site will always die within 6 months only to be replaced by another.
As a legitimate consumer of both computer games and music CDs, I am constantly frustrated when various copyright devices infringe on my right to enjoy the product I have purchased (for example, computer games that use SafeDisc to ensure I'm not using a copied CD). If a company chooses not to employ such measures, can it still legally legally targeting offenders in court, despite the fact that the company does not implement such security measures for the good of its own consumers.
As an avid gamer, I can say that I've never heard of this game, and unless there is some evidence on their computers to back up this claim, its basically groundless.
Offtopic, I love the new gaming icon (Tellah is my favorite video game character of all time!)
-1, wrong.
Wendy's wasn't even remotely close to being the first drive-thru restauraunt. Sorry.
News.com: Is it moral to create a general-purpose, anonymity-preserving tool--a file-swapping system that can be used for good (publishing political tracts) and ill (trading copyrighted music)?
Oppenheim didn't really answer this question, nor has anyone else from the RIAA or any similar organization. Instead they put forward the assumption that all anonymous file-swapping systems are inherently designed for the sole purpose of copyright infringement.
If anonymity is truly necessary for free speech (as the courts have upheld), then isn't the anonymous trading of files an obvious side effect? Oppenheim also decided to completely ignore the fact that Freenet is being used in places such as China, where anonymity really IS necessary, and not "necessary" in some legalese definition, "necessary" as in "if the government finds you they will kill you". Does the RIAA honestly believe that pro-democratic Chinese dissidents should be denied an anonymous file-sharing technology simply because it can also be used to circumvent copyright? I'd love to hear them actually answer this question.
I believe the term was somewhat co-opted after World War II and has since come to be used to describe the complete irradication of any single group, not necesarily people. A "scorched earth" policy of sorts.
oh, and I seemed to have missed when dictionary.com started charging for the meaning of words.
It should be noted that this contradicts what has been reported in the main stream news, with one cable news channel reporting a 15% drop in file sharing.
(off topic, when I'm posting a new comment to an article, slashdot should include the article on the page where I'm responding so I can reference it)
Do you see any practical applications of bittorrent in the buisness community? Why have companies, which often have spurts of insane bandwidth necesity (such as the latest game demos) failed to take advantage of bittorrent? How do you think your decisision to make it open source has affected this?
oy, I hate bb code, not [i]
I'm no buisness genius, but if doubling there income would get them in the black, wouldn't halving there cost do the same thing? If Salon was saying "Give us 6 months and we will drastically cut costs" I'd buy a 6 month subscription. But we've been down this road before, and it doesn't appear Salon is serious about maintaining (or, achieving) financial solvency.
On another note...
[i]Mr. Drudge, of course, has been derided for years as a cyber-gossip by snooty media elites, but when future historians analyze the Internet phenomenon of the 1990s he'll be considered a pioneer while someone like Mr. Talbot will rate a mere footnote.[/i]
This is by far the stupidest thing I've ever read on the internet, and people, thats saying a lot...
I'll be sad to see Salon go, but its hard to see this as anything but a sinking ship. Who is that guy that companies hire to come in and clean house? (Sun hired him, then fired him). Well, Salon needs that guy.
If you're anticipating a large number of downloads, especially in a short period of time, you should really use Bittorrent, although it might not be necesary with such small files, but you'd save money on bandwidth.
Humans Hold Off the Machines... For Now
I'm sorry but that is simply a joke. Kasaparov was beat soundly five years ago. If the developers of Deep Blue had continued development and upgraded to today's hardware, they would probably have a machine unbeatable by human players. The battle has been over for 5 years.
That being said, I hope that this new tourney structure (which the entire world of chess has been sorely lacking, its worse then college football) will encourage development (one of the reasons IBM quit development was that Kasaprov would not guarantee a match, which was later reinforced when he ducked several challenges by the head developer of Big Blue after he aquired the rights, see Behind Deep Blue)
I was suprised and overjoyed to see the game broadcast on ESPN2. Hopefully this will bring Chess into America.
please don't generalize the term "independant promoter" when you really mean something else.
true, many independant promoters are just a middle man in the pay-for-play arrangement between labels and radio stations. but there are legit promoters who get a bad rap.
well, here in reality, most end users don't consider the newest windows worth $300, and the usually get it for almost nothing whenever they buy a new PC.
Some fan could make decent english subtitles for the complete Cowboy Bebop dvd set I bought on ebay!!!
#1: Cost. While you may end up paying the same for a car that doesn't have a transmission for one that does. You're gonna save in the long run (much more then you would if you bought the car for 10k) not only on gas, but on repairs. You'll never have to repair your transmission (or the 1000's of other things that can go wrong with the primative combustible engine)
#2: Fast Recharge. While this may never be possible, you should consider this alternative. A car that take 8 hours to charge but has a range of a hojillion miles (or, more miles then anyone could possible drive in a 12 hour period). This would remove the need for fast recharge, since you could never run out of power between long-time chargings.
#3. "Plastic Toy". This has already been addressed. You need to test drive an EV.
you need to test drive one before you say stupid things like "I would never take one of these on the highways either"
people were driving this from LA to san diego 4 years ago. think for yourself.
either everyone on this board is ignorant or electric cars have taken a huge step back.
i tested drived an electric car about 4 years ago.
it went 85+ miles an hour.
it accelerated faster then any car you can buy from ford right now.
it had a range of 400 miles (300 with excessive use of radio/ac/heat)
it looked, felt, and drove, like a regular car. none of you could tell the difference from 20 feet away.
there were only 2 drawbacks at that time.
they were expensive.
they took a long time to charge.
its sad that so many of you have been fooled into thinking electric cars have to be small plastic toys or cant go faster then 55 miles an hour. go test drive one.
it breaks down like this... dang i've lost the link
Anyhow, if all things are equal (meaning primarily the timings on your memory) then pc2700 will out preform pc2100 on a 266 fsb. however, if you have to lower the timing on your ram (say, from cl=2 to cl=2.5) to get it to run at pc2700, then you'll actually get a lower result. so, expensive pc2100 is better then cheap pc2700.
the reason people always use a memory module thats faster then their FSB is because its so easy to increase your FSB (even to just 140-145 on a lock xp). this yeilds much faster results with pc2700, not so with pc2100. extreme overclockers lower the multiplier to acheive syncranous 166/166
i cant spell
you're assuming game developers will look at x-box sales. they won't. they'll look at x-box GAME sales. so even if thousands of people buy an x-box and run linux on it (which will never happen) it want make any gamecube developers (who are swimming in money) second guess their platform of choice.
cross breed ALL the corn in the world with genetic corn that has IP rights, then, techinically, every single kernal of corn belongs to them, which would be impossible to uphold.