Chinese iTunes-style p2p
p2p news / p2pnet: "So while Baidu’s getting sued over its music downloads, the Chinese MP3 maker Aigo has launched a pay download site inspired by iTunes, but at 1/8th the price since it is denominated in RMB," posts Joel Martinsen on Danwei. “MP3s and music videos ready to be downloaded to your flash player.”
“That’s nice and all,” he says, but while he was researching the p2p networks, recently, he turned up the VeryCD site.
Martinsen told p2pnet it’s obvious VeryCD’s maintainers and community, "are enthusiastic about creating an orderly p2p media index, but they may find themselves in trouble if record company suits against other Chinese free-download search engines are successful". >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Pay downloads vs VeryCD
By Joel Martinsen – Danwei
VeryCD I’d run into before; it’s the manifesto that’s new to me (see the end of this article for a full translation). It’s a libertarian websurfer’s dream: free downloads, few ads, and all of the sexy software kids are talking about these days. It’s even licensed under Creative Commons.
And for all its bluster about cutting down on copyright violations, the Chinese government, through the Shanghai section of the Ministry of Information Industry, has given its stamp of approval to this website that offers downloads of such public-domain classics as Lost, Microsoft Office, and The Myth.
VeryCD’s business model is unclear. Besides serving up eMule and BitTorrent links, it develops Chinese versions of eMule, Firefox, and Media Player Classic – all free programs – and it is hiring new programmers. There are very few ads on its site (and not just in comparison to other Chinese sites), though it does invite donations "to cover bandwidth costs." It has parterships set up with many other websites, but one expects that these might evaporate depending on what happens in the Baidu suits.
"Death to pay download sites" would seem to preclude a Napster-like transition if it gets shut down, but the files will still be around on the P2P networks, and perhaps people will still carry the torch for uniformly-labeled, sensibly organized and categorized pirated media.
The full "VeryCD Sharing Plan":
This album is a participant in the VeryCD Mp3 sharing plan.
We hope that you can participate, too. Do not erase the compressed file, but continue to share the album.
Please visit http://www.VeryCD.com to download more music.
Attachment: VeryCD Mp3 sharing plan
Target: All net users who uphold freedom and love music.
Goals:
1. Every person shares three albums in order to establish the world’s largest P2P Mp3 music library.
2. Through the VeryCD website’s search, allow all users convenient and quick downloads of Mp3s.
3. Death to pay download sites.
Proposal for downloaders:
1. When downloading, provide as many uploads as possible to benefit yourself and others.
2. Tell your friends to come and download to let more people enjoy this resource.
3. Keep the packages you download and continue to share them.
Requests for distributers:
1. Distribute according to the plan, including an introduction & photo. Don’t distribute redundantly.
2. Uniform Mp3 format with ID3 information.
3. Uniform RAR package and filenames.
4. Provide enough bandwidth for distribution.
Martinsen points out that the VeryCD pic top right is the logo and a skull and crossbones, and not the actual logo itself.
(Thanks, Lee and Joel)
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
=========
If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
=========
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
See:-
Danwei – Pay downloads vs. VeryCD, October 20, 2005
Baidu – Big Music and mp3.baidu.com, September 27, 2005
