Big Music to ‘legitimize’ p2p
p2pnet.net News:- You can relax. File sharing and p2p may not be going away after all because, “Recording companies have begun taking steps to legitimize the peer-to-peer technology that lets computer users share songs, video and other files with one another online,” says the Associated Press.
Had you realized “peer-to-peer technology that lets computer users share songs, video and other files” wasn’t legitimate? No?
Anway, the Big Four record labels, which have been trying everything in the book to grind p2p, file sharing and file sharers into the dust ever since they killed the original Napster (not to be confused with today’s wan and pale Napster II ‘rental’ software), “have signed licensing deals with companies working to field file-swapping services that would block unauthorized files from being traded online,” continues the story.
Yankee Group analyst Michael Goodman is quoted as saying some 330 million tracks were bought online last year from such as Apple’s iTunes, “but around 5 billion were downloaded from free file-sharing networks”.
Actually, it wasn’t “such as iTunes”. It was iTunes. And there’s no count of how many of these downloads resulted from one or both of the free Apple / Pepsi bottle-top promos. The other online music services, 230 of them, according to the IFPI, the music industry’s overseas enforcement arm, don’t even begin to figure in the corporate online music biz.
And Goodman’s five billion is probably a very considerable under-estimate.
The average number of users simultaneously connected to p2p networks each month around the world has rocketed from 3,847,565 in August, 2003, to 8,722,793 up to June 17, 2005, says p2p research firm BigChampagne.
The Big Four record labels have sued more than 11,000 people in the US, not one of whom has been found guilty of anything by a court. However, “2,500 cases have been settled, typically for about $3,000 each,” says AP.
Translated, this means 2,500 very ordinary people with very ordinary incomes accepted offers they couldn’t refuse – ‘Either pay us to go away, or face our lawyers and risk being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars,’ says the RIAA, owned by the multi-billion-dollar recording industry.
“The Supreme Court is considering whether companies behind unrestricted file-sharing services – Grokster and Morpheus – should be liable for copyright infringement,” emphasises AP. “The case’s outcome could speed the way for licensed peer-to-peer services.”
Licensed peer-to-peer services, of which Grokster and Morpheus are two, already exist, in spite of entertainment industry cartel efforts to kill them.
Others, such as LimeWire and BearShare, are properly and legally constituted companies registered in the United States, unlike Sharman Networks’ Kazaa, which lurks in the wings. Blubster is also a legitimate company, registered in Spain.
“Even so, it remains to be seen whether those industry-endorsed alternatives can attract people who now tap open file-swapping networks using such programs as eDonkey, BitTorrent and Kazaa,” the story continues.
“The industry may know the answer at least in part as early as next month, when Peer Impact, one of the licensed file-swapping services, is slated to launch.”
Interestingly, there was a recent comment post on p2pnet pointing to Peer Impact. But as we say in the preamble, “we delete all lame efforts to get free advertising by posting in Readers’ Writes”. So we trashed it.
Snocap, from Napster creator Shawn Fanning, is also mentioned in the AP piece, as is Mashboxx, which uses Snocap and which is up for beta soon.
The AP story also cites Avalanche, Microsoft’s dismal effort to copy BitTorrent, as another example of possible progress.
However, Microsoft Avalanche is,. “a bunch of proposed algorithms,” says BitTorrent creator Cohen. “There isn’t even a fleshed out network protocol. The ‘experiments’ they’ve done are simulations.”
And in the real world of online music, the beat goes on. And on. And on ……..
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Associated Press – File-Swapping May Be Here to Stay , June 22, 2005
bottle-top promos – New Pepsi Apple iTunes ads, p2pnet, January 19, 2005
couldn’t refuse – File sharing, p2p criminals, p2pnet, March 12, 2005
proposed algorithms – Microsoft Avalanche is Vaporware, p2pnet, June 21, 2005
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:15 pm
I was the one that posted comments about Peer Impact and I wansnt trying to advertise it I was commenting how it is a very good network with great customer support Im a beta tester and consider it to be one of the better paid services out there with great potential.Maybe Ill have to register soon .
June 23rd, 2005 at 6:48 pm
It is amazing as to what lengths the cartels will go to protect their so-called “intellectual property rights” while at the same time denying ordinary folks their TANGIABLE property rights. In the Police States of America, the “Supreme” Court ruled that Cities can steal private property and give it to others such as developers, corpoations, and other such entities as long as they “provide” “just compensation.”
Today the citizens of the P.S.A. have lost the excercise of a vital right.
Nobody should call the “U.S.A.” the land of the free. It is not anf has not been so for many, many years. As soon as I am able to afford it, I plan to finish my degree so that I can find a country that will except me as an immigrant. I no longer want to live in a country where people have no rights. I would love to stay and fight, but I’m afraid that I would be fighting by myself as 99% of the people here are content with what they think they have.
Anyone here have a list of countries where people actually have enforceable rights? If so, please post them here. Thank you.
June 23rd, 2005 at 7:16 pm
sorry, you can’t just “move” to another country.
first, get hired by a company in the country of your choosing – but you must apply for the job while living in usa. you can’t just go there and start applying for jobs. after you get hired and have worked there for several years – depending on the type of work/residence permits you have, you could apply for and become a permanent alien resident.
or…
if you have a high-skilled profession like lawyer/doctor, etc. you might be able to have someone sponsor you for residency or citizenship after you’ve worked there for some years.
or…
you can marry someone from a country which is in the EU and she/he has an EU passport and would basically be free to live and work in any country in the EU.
or…you could apply for political asylum. but that’ll be hard to prove as an american citizen. and they’ll stick you in an asylum seeker centre (almost like a jail in many countries), or they keep you in the airport, for anywhere from 6 months to a year before any decision is made on your case.
good luck.
until then, just keep voting for independent candidates and get on your reps’ asses about what you want.
June 23rd, 2005 at 8:43 pm
This is exactly what I tell those “Love it or leave it folks.” I love it, but I’m afraid to stay in it
I wish people would just pull together and fight to regain our freedom.
June 24th, 2005 at 12:40 am
Actually if you’re highly-skilled as in an MD (not lawyer, no one other than the US has or wants lots of lawyers.) then you’d have a good chance of going wherever you like. It goes also almost without saying, if you are rich you can go wherever you like and get citizenship easily. The only thing you probably have got going for you in the eyes of most countries is that you are young.
My own country nows has tight rules which can go under the headings money, education and age, ohh and did I mention money.
Most western countries are lenghtening the time of permanent residency before
you can become a citizen. However, the system for people coming to the US is probably still the most difficult, believe it or not. Of course, the big loophole in the US system that lets unskilled people enter and stay legally is family connections.
If you truly want to leave, it is not as difficult to find jobs outside the US as people would lead you to believe. The steps from a work visa to a resident visa to citizenship are not so high.
June 24th, 2005 at 7:36 am
Where should I emigrate? What coutry actually protects the rights of people as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution? (I know that the U.S.A. no longer honors Constitutional rights.) I am a certified electronics technician. I am currently working as a computer programmer (No degree though
) . I am so frustrated by the lack of freedom nowdays in the P.S.A. By the way, I am not that young. I am over 30, so I have seen the government of the Police States of America usurp right after right. I migh as well be grateful for any country that offers me asylum let alone freedom.
June 24th, 2005 at 6:19 pm
Does one have to pay to beta test paid services.
July 13th, 2005 at 7:54 am
Canada, New Zeyland and if your are willing to learn Scandinavian:
Norway then Sweden. As a rule of tumb in the industrialized world the smaler the country in term of population, the more the freedom the better the quality of life and it does not matter how the governement call himself: Socialist, republican, comunist, liberal or democrate.