# Peer to Peer file sharing software declared legal



## Ugg (Apr 25, 2003)

http://news.com.com/2100-1027-998363.html

An interesting development in the whole mess.  I totally agree with the judge.  If P2P software were to be banned totally then it would essentially say that you could not share a song with a friend.  Granted, if you start sharing 10,000 songs with a friend it might be a different story.  

Anybody have any ideas where the music and film industry will be 5 years from now?


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## edX (Apr 25, 2003)

that's all fine. now let's hear a discussion of all the legal ways people have use them on a regular basis.


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## habilis (Apr 25, 2003)

All I know is I haven't bought a CD in about 4 years. I download playlists from my favorite internet 128k radio stations and ******* is too good to be true. It's like a kid let loose in the candy store, and the candy's all free.

It's a shame really, the whole thing...


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## edX (Apr 26, 2003)

general warning - turn this thread into another filesharing thread and it will be deleted very quickly. we have recently removed almost all discussions of filesharing apps from the site. it is our belief that, while in theory p2p could have legal uses, nobody actually uses it for such. so don't mention any filesharing apps by name and the thread should be ok. otherwise, it will go away like most of the rest of them.


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## habilis (Apr 26, 2003)

It's only a matter of a few years though before it's all heavily regulated and monitored and then the record companies can have their monoplies and back.


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## Ugg (Apr 26, 2003)

That may be true, but I see something greater at work here.  The record companies are in decline, the overpaid Madonna's of the world are screaming bloody murder at pirates and so far there is no effective technology to limit sharing.  Even if there existed such a thing, would it even be legal?  Fair use is a very well-established legal right.

I am not in the least advocating piracy but as with all technological advances there are unintended consequences.  My question isn't about the morality or legality because those two issues are being debated endlessly elsewhere, rather, where is the music/film/publishing industry going to be 5 years from now?  Of course it is unknowable but its fun to speculate.  Will Apple's "Music for your ears" announcement change the way we get music?


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## xyle_one (Apr 26, 2003)

oh, to share files the way it was meant to be. Information. sharing ideas, and theory. too bad. the internet failed too imo. a beautiful tool to be used in a productive, human advancing sort of way. instead, %80 of the web is filled with porn. ehh. disgusting. oh well. im a little drunk, and will start rambling a bit more than i am now....later. hopefully i didnt say or rather, write anything i shouldnt have.


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## Satcomer (Apr 26, 2003)

The scary court case is the one about the RIAA forcing Verizon to hand over  the name of a downloader with even a warrant (here is the US the police need a probable cause then just issues a search warrant). I feel my rights (as a US citizen) are slipping away. I pray this insanity goes to the Supreme court. This has constitutional case written all over it.


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## scruffy (Apr 26, 2003)

Don't know about anyone else, but I bought way waaay more music when Napster was around - I could download recent music, listen to it, figure out if I liked it, and buy what I liked.  The radio really isn't an option - all you hear there is *****.

When napster died, I had no real way of figuring out which 2% of the music out there was to my liking, so I just didn't buy any.  Since then, other than about 4 months when some other app was running usably (what was it called - it was centralized & browser based...)  There's been nothing usable for Mac, so I just haven't bought much music

There's no danger of me listening to mp3s only - I'm kind of a stickler for sound quality, and mp3 just doesn't cut it, especially over the fan noise of a computer, and through a dinky little sound card


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## Dlatu1983 (Apr 26, 2003)

I'm with scruffy here. I buy CD's, but there are times when you'll hear someone throwing around the name of a new band, and you want to check them out before you pay for a CD. I've been hearing about The Dandy Warhols lately, and they aren't a band that gets any radio airplay. I downloaded 2 or 3 of their songs, & fell in love with the band. If I hadn't downloaded the MP3's, I would never CONSIDER paying $18 for a CD, not even knowing what they sounded like. Also, I download a lot of unreleased acoustic (from the soundboard) and live songs, and there's noplace other than P2P to get that.


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## fryke (Apr 27, 2003)

I'm with common sense here. I mean, what does the music industry think that it wants sharing tools to be illegal? "It's used for piracy." Yeah, cars are used for crimes, too. So are kitchen knives. Even hairdriers have been used for murder in the past. Yet...

Sure, Ed's right, many, many people use those tools for illegally sharing copyrighted work. But it _should_ be the sharer's fault, not the software maker's.

The music industry should learn from Apple, really. Innovate your way out of the downturn. It's the only way to go. Make better products. Make albums that are worth the money, because they're MORE than the 15 songs.


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## Randman (Apr 27, 2003)

Well, with Apple's music service just about to be realized, we'll see how this pans out. Will music sales increase, decrease or stay the same, and are Apple users enough to make a dent in the music business.
  How will this impact p2p? How will stodgy record companies cope knowing their precious music is being ripped and played on iPods?

btw, Scruffy hit the nail on the head. Kudos.


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## toast (Apr 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *Make albums that are worth the money, because they're MORE than the 15 songs. *



You have been heard by the video industry: the DVD is "MORE than the 150 minutes" of film. The audio industry still misses this post-CD support.


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## Cat (Apr 27, 2003)

I totally agree with Fryke. Let's ban Aeroplanes, they are being used for terrorism ... 

No really, I am responsible for what happens on my machine. All actions I undertake with my property are being done under my responsibility. If I decide to share, lend, give data to someone, I should be able to do it when legal, and I, not the medium, should be held accountable when illegal. 

About the internet being a mess, well, I don't agree. There are plenty of useful uses for the internet: e.g. being able to consult online scientific journals, listening to foreign radio channels otherwise unavailable, fora like this, instant worldwide news from dozens of tv-channels and newspapers. 

The problem isn't the pr0n (aka porn), but the people who want it or push it. You don't have to go to the sleazy part of town, but if you do, don't blame the town for having one ...


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## mr. k (Apr 27, 2003)

I think that if the record labels just brought down the mothfkssa cost of cd's people would buy them a LOT more.  you go to best buy and into the record section and the cheapest albums you can find are the $12 discount ones in bins.  i don't wanna dig throught bins to get a cd!  $16 is too much to spend to buy all the cd's i would want - so mabye one or two a month, but still thats a lot of money too spend.  
A download service would be great, mabye i could get high quality audio cd's with no packaging for $10, but thats still expensive when you buy lots of cd's.  where are the days when you could buy a tape for real cheap?


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## habilis (Apr 28, 2003)

I've thought about the whole CD cost thing and this is what I come up with;

I hate to sound like some kind of pirating freek but I don't care if a brand new CD costs fifty cents, I ain't gonna buy it if I can get it free. Also there's stuff out on ******** that you can't buy, like live show's, concerts, stuff like that. Once you have a broadband line you can download mp3's in the 260-320k range and they sound as good as a CD any day - you would have to be a freeking robot to hear a difference. What most people download is that 96-128k crap that sounds like a scrached record.

We're living in the golden age of the internet right now; unmonitored, unadulterated, and unregulated. There's BIG MONEY to be made by the guy who figures out how to put a stop to this pirating and they *will* find that way in time, probably by using some exotic form of packet header monitoring.

We still have at least another decade to have fun - so I'm havin it. My 2 year old daughter will not know the same internet freedoms the we know now.


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## toast (Apr 29, 2003)

Similarly, you are already living in a regulated era of the Web. 10 years ago, spamming, credit cards, spyware, those weren't there.


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## Ugg (Apr 29, 2003)

Well, now that the Music Store is out (I wanted to abbreviate it to MS, but....) I think this is the future.  Whether it succeeds or not is the question that remains.  

On another thread somewhere somebody stated that his little brother and friends have never bought a cd.  I keep coming back to that thought and realize that under 18s can't legally buy anything from the Music Store even if they do have a credit card.  Hmmm, since they probably have the least money, are the most tech savy and have lots of time I don't see how they will be stopped.  Yet, that age group tends to drive a lot of music sales. 

A while back I read an article about music in China and native Chinese musicians have to make all their money from concerts because of the proliferation of pirated cds.  Is that the future for the music industry in the west?  

As usual more questions than answers


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## habilis (Apr 29, 2003)

I think Apple went overboard by calling their music store "revolutionary". So, instead of downloading songs for free, you pay 99 cents for the same download. Nearly the same idea, the downloadable music store has already been tried at mp3.com for the last 5 years.


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## Ugg (Apr 29, 2003)

I agree that it isn't revolutionary but it IS one step in the evolution of the music delivery business.  The other music services have totally and utterly failed to capture any significant portion of the music buying market.  Apple's method seems to combine all the best of what has come before without all the hassle and limitations.  Whether Apple succeeds remains to be seen.

Habilis, methinks, you overlook the fact that free does not equal legal.  Free means that the producer of the product is giving it away.  I know of few musicians who give away their music.  The music industry is in big trouble when it comes to people who think like you do.  As I mentioned above there is a whole generationi of people who believe that music is essentially free just like the air we breathe.  This is big problem, not just for music but also films and books and anything with a copyright.  

You've been very forthright about your position and it has helped me see that there is no easy answer, if any at all.


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## Ugg (Apr 29, 2003)

Here is an interesting article about the ongoing battle.  I wonder how legal it is?


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## bjurusik (Apr 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by fryke _
> *I'm with common sense here. I mean, what does the music industry think that it wants sharing tools to be illegal? "It's used for piracy." Yeah, cars are used for crimes, too. So are kitchen knives. Even hairdriers have been used for murder in the past. Yet...
> *



Yes, but you can apply that to anything.  Honestly, what other purpose do file sharing apps serve other than to provide people a means of pirating software/music, etc?  I can't see any.  If you want to download freeware, say AIM, wouldn't you go to their website instead of searching for it on p2p?  Sure free things are great and better than paying for them, but it doesn't make it right  Some people will say record companies are a monoply, but artists are still losing money.  It's no different than someone's credit card info being shared on p2p.  Screw the card owner, I'm getting a brand new 1.4 PowerMac and 23" Cinema Display.  <BR><BR>There's a lot of loop holes though.  For example, the Smashing Pumpkins released an internet only album.  How do you manage that?  Who knows.  Speaking of Smashing Pumpkins, does Virgin Records have an agreement with Apple?  I search for the SP's on iTunes but no results.  Apple should definitely get Virgin, they have tons of great bands.


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## habilis (Apr 30, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Ugg _
> The music industry is in big trouble when it comes to people who think like you do.  As I mentioned above there is a whole generationi of people who believe that music is essentially free just like the air we breathe.  This is big problem, not just for music but also films and books and anything with a copyright.


You're right about me and the generation comming up now. I'm not trying to be an anarchist or an anti-corporate zealot, and paradoxically, I pay for ALL my software and games, even though I know I could get it free easily, but the vast majority of people will take free over cheap. There's nothing anybody can do to stop that thought process. 

No doubt filesharing is going to impact the music industry bigtime. It even affected my own music making; For the longest time I had dreams of making a modest living off my music, but not long after the first filesharing/mp3 downloading programs made their debuts I decided that my efforts were in vein. The people that will be hardest hit by filesharing is the little guy.

Everybody knows filesharing is a highway robbery free-for-all, but like I said before it's only a matter of time before filesharing gets purged, sanitized, and regulated.


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