Some thoughts on the file-swapping ruling
Down with Kazaa and their ilk
Monday, June 27, 2005 by Draginol | Discussion: Industry
Over on the WinCustomize.com news page I gave my two cents on today's ruling. Based on the poll I saw on News.com, 2 out of 3 people disagree with the ruling. What a shock. "But...I don't want to have to pay for other people's work..I want it for free.."
I know a lot of people who pirate software, games, music, movies, etc. I don't harp to them about it. What ticks me off are the companies that actually make a business model out of serving pirates. eDonkey and Kazaa and the like made millions of dollars by enabling people to steal other people's stuff.
And in turn, they have harmed consumers in ways most people don't realize. Copy protection has gotten nastier, DRM has become a household term, and licenses have gotten more and more restrictve. Not that such schemes don't get cracked -- they do -- but the record industry (whom I'm no fan of either) and the like have figured out that those who don't pirate can be made to buy more stuff with more DRM to make up for those who would have bought stuff but were able to download it for free from Kazaa or something.
Such services cheapen the value of hard work too. The other day I read someone complaining how WindowBlinds was "too expensive". It's twenty bucks for crying out loud. That's just a bit more than a Pizza dinner. A decent cooking knife costs $50. An AutoScanner is $140 (and I can tell you with some experience that the production/profit margins on these things is pretty significant). Cheap shoes are $50. Stuff costs money. Yet we'll see someone complain that a software product that took years to perfect that people run every day for years that costs $20 is too expensive. And why? Because places like Kazaa have made software look worthless.
People will complain about paying $40 for a game that took two years to develop and provides support to the user but you rarely hear the same people think twice about paying $40 for a small box of legos where the buyer will never interact with the company. Places like Kazaa and their ilk devalue intellectual property. And the results hurt us all in ways that people don't realize.
Software piracy isn't as huge of a deal as many make it out to be, but the mainstreaming of it through these peer-to-peer services were steadily making piracy something that even the newbie down the street was able to do which definitely takes revenue away from hard working software developers, musicians, etc.
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Reply #22 Tuesday, June 28, 2005 1:50 PM
People like DaVinci, Shakespeare and Mozart were able to do what they do because they lived in a time when art was more highly regarded. Now art is a commodity that you can pick up at the 7-11 next to the slurpee machine. The commercialization of performance is only possible because we permitted it as a society. You can't blame the record companies or movie studios for playing it safe when it's obvious that works since we all go and hand over our cash anyway.
And striving to be great rather than rich... those three guys listed above did their work ON COMMISSION. They were paid princely sums in many instances to produce their work. So really, the money motivation has always been there... the process has just become more refined.
Reply #24 Tuesday, June 28, 2005 4:47 PM
Reply #25 Tuesday, June 28, 2005 6:10 PM
Reply #26 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 1:05 AM
*BUT* if you choose to go to the Dark Side of the Net and use file-sharing, go with LimeWire.
Kazaa sucks.
eDonkey is okay.
Warez P2P doesn't really do much . . .
and Ares is DEAD
those are the only ones I've really tried.
And there's always Bittorrent!
*BUT* There ARE some artists out there who allow free downloads. Check out Download.com's music section.
Link
you can find some real goodies in there.
Reply #27 Wednesday, June 29, 2005 10:27 AM
Who is bold enough to admit they HAVE used illegal means of downloading?
I have - Kaza
Reply #28 Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:46 AM
Speaking as a musician (a poor one I hasten to add), I think that record companys should allow at least 2 free downloads.
At the end of the day it shouldn't be about the record companys but the people like us who make the music.
I didn't become a musician to become rich, but because it's who I am.
And if I can make someone happy with it (whether they paid for the privilege or not), that's payment enough for me
Reply #29 Thursday, June 30, 2005 2:20 PM
Reply #30 Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:10 PM
Reply #31 Thursday, June 30, 2005 6:51 PM
- Software available world wide on launch day
- Software that did not require cd-in-drive after installation, that could be taken as many backups of as you wanted, that you could run on more than 1 of your home computers (if you had such), that did not install drivers to ruin your system
- Games at the 'click' of a button.
P2P networks could have been a business opportunity if companies tried to work with 'them' instead of trying to sue away innovative and exciting technology.
A downloaded copy is not theft or lost revenue, its a business opportunity.
Reply #32 Thursday, June 30, 2005 8:23 PM
| A downloaded copy is not theft or lost revenue, its a business opportunity. |
hahaha...chuckle..chuckle..chortle...smirk...snigger...guffaw
Reply #33 Thursday, June 30, 2005 10:45 PM
I must admit he does have a point. Software companies could direct sell to custmoers much like stardock does, only with torrent files. You can encrypt a torrent file to only be allowed by one user if you do it right. The opportunity is there, no one makes use of it though.
Reply #34 Friday, July 1, 2005 9:33 AM
Quality sells by itself and does not require lockdowns.
Reply #35 Friday, July 1, 2005 8:59 PM
Reply #36 Friday, July 1, 2005 9:09 PM
Citizen Fizzle1203537 ....possibly...
My father [now 87] once said..."if you are not a socialist in your youth then you have no heart....but if your not a capitalist when you're older then you have no brain."
I kinda like that one....
Reply #38 Saturday, July 9, 2005 5:57 PM
The ruling states that those who "promote" p2p can be sued. WTH is that supposed to mean really. Nobody should be pleased with this ruling at all, because it is a BS ruling It can be fought from all angles in court, It doesnt mean a damn thing at all to Kazaa, and it seems like this ruling was made to satisfy people's whims.
If the courts really cared, they would have made the ruling affect whoever PROFITS from illegal P2P distrobution.
Reply #39 Saturday, July 9, 2005 10:57 PM
The other day I was looking around to see how widely available our stuff is from thieves. I found Orion icons up there. What's the excuse to pirate Orion icon's? They're what? $8? The effort involved in creating thousands of icons should be obvious to anyone and yet there they were, people pirating them.
But that's not what this ruling was about. It's not about piracy on its own. It's about scumbag companies making a profit from piracy.
People like Bram Cohen disgust me. They make programs that are primarily used to enable people to steal (spare me the occasioanl legitimate use of it, the issue isn't P2P, it's the IMPLEMNTATION of open ended P2P that I have an issue with) and then they put in nags to donate money to them via paypal. What is their excuse for needing donations? What's their "overhead"? It's PEER file sharing for crying out loud. But there he is, profiting from something used primarily to steal from OTHER people. That's the sort of thing that bugs me.
There's a big difference between someone pirating an MP3 and someone making money helping people pirate that same MP3.
Reply #40 Tuesday, July 12, 2005 3:39 AM
| The other day I was looking around to see how widely available our stuff is from thieves. I found Orion icons up there. What's the excuse to pirate Orion icon's? They're what? $8? The effort involved in creating thousands of icons should be obvious to anyone and yet there they were, people pirating them. But that's not what this ruling was about. It's not about piracy on its own. It's about scumbag companies making a profit from piracy. People like Bram Cohen disgust me. They make programs that are primarily used to enable people to steal (spare me the occasioanl legitimate use of it, the issue isn't P2P, it's the IMPLEMNTATION of open ended P2P that I have an issue with) and then they put in nags to donate money to them via paypal. What is their excuse for needing donations? What's their "overhead"? It's PEER file sharing for crying out loud. But there he is, profiting from something used primarily to steal from OTHER people. That's the sort of thing that bugs me. There's a big difference between someone pirating an MP3 and someone making money helping people pirate that same MP3. |
Yeah um i dont want to sound rude or anything but i do feel the need to tell you to zip it. I doubt you even used bit torrent or know how it works. Bittorrent is THE way to share linux distributions securely and effectively. Getting on Bram for making the protocol and the client is like getting on the ARPANET developers for making what we know as the internet today. He never promoted illegal file sharing, and bittorrent was never made in the first place for illegal file sharing, and at the moment it isn't used primarily for illegal file sharing. Most illegal file sharing is done over gnutella/fastrack/edonkey networks.....AND those clients have more legal stuff being shared than illegal stuff. But one thing for sure, the legitimate use of bittorrent far exceeds the "occasioanal" use that you bluntly mention.
He made a real good program and system and has every damn right to ask for a donation, which are VERY easy to turn off I might add. I have no idea how linux would spread without Bram Cohen.
Oh and if you are angered by the implementation of open ended P2P (is there another kind?!!?! wouldnt really be P2P unless it was open) then dont use the internet because of its openness. God forbid that somebody is whining about how open it is, rather then the copyright issues.
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Reply #21 Tuesday, June 28, 2005 1:36 PM