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[KingSparta]

eDonkey exec says his firm is months away from announcing a settlement with the record industry; others facing deadline.

The young chief executive of MetaMachine, distributor of eDonkey file-sharing software, appeared six months ago before a US Senate committee and said his network--the world's most popular--was ready to turn over a new leaf.

Now Sam Yagan and his company are nearing the point that they'll have to deliver on that promise.

More At : http://www.mp3.com/stories/3131.html

[Mr ChriZ]

That will be a sad day :-(
I'm not really into downloading stuff, but occasionally I'll
want to preview something before I go out and buy it on CD,
and P2P is still the easiest way to do it.
If afterwards I don't like it, then I chuck it.  I want it in Lossless quality
anyway.

[ADDiCT]

Interesting topic... 

In my opinion, P2P companies are irrelevant to P2P networking itself. Most P2P programs (or at least the good ones, without backdoors and stuff) have been developed as open source, and to me it seems some of the "companies" are trying to make money from open source development - or from the media buzz that's happening around this topic. In our time, you don't need a product or service to make money - all you need is the media.

Another point is that these "companies" are "real people" (or "real companies"), not groups of private persons developing software. Thus they are much more vulnerable to judicial attacks, and they _have to_ settle with media companies and the law, or get shut down.

If the movie/recording accociations or media companies would have a way to shut down P2P for good, they'd used this a looooong time ago.

I'd just wish all the large media companies would think of alternative ways of keeping their customers. They've ripped us off with highly overpriced, bad-quality products for over ten years now, and all they can think of is sueing everyone (even private persons!). I'd think about pricing, distribution, and _QUALITY_ if i was one of the "Big Guys". It seems the large media companies are slowly starting to move in that direction, but it seems to take a long time to turn the Titanic around.

Just my €0.02 

[KingSparta]

As you may remember about 5+ years ago they basically said the same thing about napster, but that stopped only napster. and many more pop-ed up.

[richard.e.morton]

I personally don't agree with P2P sharing of copyrighted music.  However I agree with the point, it is good for previewing music.

But the nuts thing is how can you condemn a company for a technology which is inherrently not "evil" it is just a manner of transferring files without a server. So in essence if the big companies embraced it and issued just licenses from a central server to authorise playback imagine the bandwidth (i.e. cost) savings that would be gained by them.

The issue is not the network, it is the users of the network who choose to distribute copyrighted material.

I agree that users have the product promoted to them on the basis of "free" music, but then there are many bands who distribute there music for free in the hope of getting a recording contract - 'Arctic Monkeys' anyone?


It's like prosecuting Einstein for the Atom Bomb or Mercedez Benz for every road death 'cause they invented the car.

Rich

[KingSparta]

If I spill Coffee in my lap I am not responsible for it McD's is.

If a Kid 10 years old uses P2P should the adult be held responsible?

As adults we should understand legal implications of our actions.

Some kids don't care or do not realize the legal implications of there actions.

To tell you the truth i never even heard of eDonkey until i read that article.

[richard.e.morton]

if the authorities have told the child what they are doing is illegal and could go into care at what point is a child aware and responsible, and at what age is a child able to understand this? 2nd or 3rd warning from the authorities, 16yrs old, 15, 14, 13, 12???

And yes, parents do have a responsibility... but many parents can't use computers, at least not to the level of a kid, hell I can't use a computer to level of many kids!

[glynor]

In my opinion, P2P companies are irrelevant to P2P networking itself. Most P2P programs (or at least the good ones, without backdoors and stuff) have been developed as open source, and to me it seems some of the "companies" are trying to make money from open source development - or from the media buzz that's happening around this topic.

Here here!

The vast majority of the still-relevant networks are not run by corporations, and the *IAA will have a lot more trouble shutting those systems down.  I'm sure they'll try though.

And, by the way, it looks like the companies that do still want to offer P2P services will have somewhere to run afterall.

But the nuts thing is how can you condemn a company for a technology which is inherrently not "evil" it is just a manner of transferring files without a server. So in essence if the big companies embraced it and issued just licenses from a central server to authorise playback imagine the bandwidth (i.e. cost) savings that would be gained by them.

I think about this all the time.  If Napster hadn't been the first P2P application, but instead it had been invented in the 70's with IRC, email, and FTP and used initally for transferring text files and UNIX bin files (and later pr0n JPEGs probably) the entire atmosphere surrounding the technology would be completely different.  Even when MP3 compression was invented and broadband penetrated far enough to allow the systems to work just as they do today!

In fact, I imagine it would be viewed as an integral part of the way the Internet worked and no one would imagine discribing the entire network protocals as illegal or "underground".  The improper users of the systems would be viewed as the ones at fault, not the systems themselves.

In a way, Shawn ruined it for everyone by making it about music from the start.

[dNj]

Who remembers this PSA from the early 90' "don't copy that floppy"

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4837609090332617729