Has P2P Become a Passing Fad? 393
plasticmillion asks: "As the RIAA launches increasingly rabid attacks against P2P networks and users, pundits continue to debate the future of P2P. On the one hand, some argue that P2P is just a clever way to escape detection from copyright owners, like in this recent Slashdot story. Others, like Clay Shirky, make a strong case that processing is destined to move to the 'edges' of the network. I'm curious to know what Slashdot readers think: is P2P the start of a major new trend that is just getting started, or is it a passing fad that will fade once legal client/server systems for media distribution finally take hold? If the former, which of the supposed advantages of P2P over client/server systems are really significant?"
p2p is NOT DEAD... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a passing fad (Score:5, Interesting)
As a matter of innovation.... (Score:4, Interesting)
So of course P2P is here to stay, but the RIAA, that' a different story, one of the old fighting to not move out of the way of then new and innovative.
P2P allows for more than just sharing of "media" (Score:2, Interesting)
I suppose the same could apply to Linux scripts if not for concerns over security.
William
I said it back when (Score:5, Interesting)
it's here to stay in some form (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Copyright will be abolished. (Score:1, Interesting)
The importance of physical stuff is shrinking every day and immaterial rights is more and more important. At this point in time IP rights are the most important rights.
p2p not going anywhere (Score:2, Interesting)
Since the P2P acronymn has been improperly linked to illegal activities (copyrighted materials sharing). Maybe we should get a new one (Colabarative Resource Sharing CRS, or maybe computer resources Co-op CRC)
Re:no passing fad (Score:3, Interesting)
p2p not just filesharing ... (Score:2, Interesting)
p2p filesharing may yet be squashed by the RIAA's evil henchmen - this is an argument that will probably, in the short term at least, be settled by cash. However, it seems that p2p itself - the move away from the little client, great big server, towards lots of modestly proportioned servents - is unavoidable. Fact is, most people have more computing power/storage space/network bandwidth than they really need; p2p often makes better use of the resources that are available. Unless there is a really radical shift in the hardware market (super thin clients maybe ?) I think p2p will be here to stay.
Neither a Fad nor a New Trend (Score:5, Interesting)
What pundits fail to realize is that P2P is not a class of applications; it is simply a form of distributed computing architecture in which nodes act as both client and server.
The term P2P is, however, a passing fad. It is a label for this architecture whose greatest association is with a class of applications designed to steal intellectual property from others. It is unfortunate that this association has come about. However, the architecture will outlive the fad.
Re:p2p is NOT DEAD... (Score:3, Interesting)
However, when it comes to more questionable material, I see the whole mp3/file movement going back underground (I haven't downloaded an mp3 off kazaa & company in a while...still stick to the tried and true: trustworthy FTP and Hotline servers). One interesting development would be if P2P developers built in the ability in the client to detect where the user was at globally, and to allow or disallow sharing of certain types of files all according to that person's country's laws. So if you wanted that new Atmosphere track, you would be able to download it from a user in the Netherlands but not Wisconsin.
Of course, I seriously doubt that will happen, but it's a possibility. The other possibilities are that people will just bite the bullet until legislation gets passed to tame down the RIAA/MPAA pigs and continue to download, or the general public will abandon the entire concept of P2P due to massive lawsuits being filed internationally.
Goodbye Local TV Stations, Cable, Movie Theatres (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.nonesuch.org/p2prevolution.pdf [nonesuch.org]
In a few years when my broadband is 10 times as fast and I have 10 times as much storage and I can download directly to my Tivo, why would I bother watching ad-ridden TV shows or go to sticky movie theaters?
Anonymous network possible & easy (Score:5, Interesting)
someone wants to download a file from you, your computer doesn't send
it directly to theirs. Instead your computer sends the file to a proxy
machine which then sends the file to the rceipient. Both connections
are encrypted with public-key cryptography, and the proxy machine
stores nothing that is not encrypted. Congratulations, you have just
send a file to anyone (maybe even an RIAA spy) without then
interacting with you and finding out what your IP address is or who
you are.
Now imagine that in addition to super-peers, Kazaa maintains a list of
proxy servers whose sole job is to upload stuff from users and
download stuff to other users. You can run such a 'data peer' yourself
legelly since all the data is encrypted so you don't know what your
computer is storing.
Of course this network is less efficient than Kazaa, since each file
gets copied twice whenever it is downloaded. I guess that's why
nothing like this network exists yet. But if Kazaa dies due to its
users being sued off the network, I'll bet this 'proxy'-based network
takes over. Let the RIAA try to sue users on this proxy network!
Anyone interested in helping build this?
P2P was never a fad... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bah! (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I've gone off the searchable networked P2P, and on to sending secret web links to people I meet over IRC. Napster, Kazaa, they just simplify and dehumanize the interaction. The ways that used to work -- hunting down generous people with loose morals and begging them for files -- still work just as well. As does sneakernet and a stack of discs. I've had file sharing "parties" in the past year...grandiose events where three friends come over with a couple cool CDs and we trade them.
Ironically, I don't trade files much at all. Not because I am afraid of the RIAA, but because most of what I want to listen to nowadays is off the major lables that are members of the RIAA and I want to support them. I had to seriously hunt for CDs from bands like Jiker, Valis, Edan (the humble magnificent) and the Black Keys. These same bands are all over the P2P networks. When your music distribution system is so screwed up that it is EASY to steal music but nearly impossible to BUY it...you've got big problems. Maybe an answer is to shut down p2p. Maybe a better answer is finding some way to reach the millions of listeners who don't want to hear Madonna's robotic warbling.
P2P is *NOT NEW*. Therefore, it is not a 'fad'. (Score:3, Interesting)
P2P, as a technology and as an infrastructure design, is not new. There have been p2p apps in use and around the 'net since before UUCP.
The press treatment of 'p2p technology as fad', though, is something which has been extremely useful to the RIAA propagandists. True p2p users, however, know that there will *ALWAYS* be p2p apps out there, for as long as it is legal to write your own network protocol implementation, anyway.
As long as people continue to believe that there is 'always something new around the corner that might be cooler', then there is fluidity, and Big Media can start to introduce the 'consolidated applications' (AOL 9.0, anyone?) which
Re:I hope so. (Score:5, Interesting)
The real issue here is the fact that thier business model was forced to change due to technological developments, and they don't want to change at all. They feel that they should continue to mass produce the same style songs as they have been for the last 10-12 years and still have people eat up everything they lay on the plate. Well, P2P and Napsture has changed that. No more can they just place 1 or 2 decent songs on an album and expect everyone to go out and purchase that album for $20 just for those 2 songs. The music industry needs to actually redesign the way they produce and sell their music now. They can no longer expect people to buy the $20 album for those 2 songs with another 7-8 of pure filler. P2P has caused this problem, and that, I will concede.
No more will customers continually overpay for the product, as they know that CD's are easily created (physically created), and they also know how easy it is to mix songs that they (the customers) like to listen to. They want to be able to purchase a "custom" CD with the tracks that they select, not what they are told they "must" buy. People will no longer stand for purchasing something at full price for only wanting to listen to 16% of the product.
Now that is only the start of the problem that the music industry is facing. The other problem is the fact that they have been signing fewer and fewer new bands and creating less and less new music. There was a great study posted here before (sorry, too lazy to look it up), which delt with compairing the number of new bands signed (and their respective new songs produced) with the overall sales generated that year for the music industry. The study showed that there was a very high correlation between the number of new bands to the number of sales. Over the past 3 years, there has been approximately 30-40% decline in the number of new bands being signed. According to the numbers in that study, at least 20% of the "lost" sales over the last 3 years should be attributed to the fact that there are 30-40% less new bands being singed and thus less "new" styles of music out there that people might sample.
You can also chalk up a minumum of 10% more of the "lost" sales to the major economic troubles being faced in this country as well. You yourself should be able to realise this, especially with your wife lossing her job. Well, she isn't the only one out of work, or working in a job that pays far less then the prievious one. What is the first thing that you stop purchasing when you suddenly loose a major part of your income? Well you cut out non-essential purchases, i.e. anything that is not related to shelter, food, and health. Well, guess what doesn't fall under any of those 3 categories, $20 music CDs. With so many fresh-out-of-college students unable to find a job in the industry they just spent upwards of $100,000 over the last 4-5 years, and can only get work in the same summer job industries they could be imployed BEFORE they got that degree, you seriously think they will have the extra cash to purchase music CD's for $15-20 a pop?
The RIAA needs to seriously look at the above problem. They want to blame P2P and piracy for everything. Well, it isn't the real cause. The problem is and always has been their business model. P2P in a sense could be blamed, but only because it showed people that they should have to be forced purchase 100% of a product for only wanting to use 8% of that product.
I won't even get into the issue of P2P actually helping sales by introducing people to music that they never
P2P isn't used only for copyrigth infringement (Score:1, Interesting)
Videos:
Conference Hispalinux [ed2k].
Conference Windows vs Linux [ed2k].
Video Frikis en el Chill out [ed2k].
Video Computer Mods [ed2k].
P2P: From People to People.
Re:Anonymous network possible & easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Take it one step further, and add some chain remailer technology. Have a % chance that , instead of the file going directly from the proxy to the recipient, the proxy sends to another proxy. This way, traceability becomes increasingly impossible, and thus, implausible. This becomes a lot easier if, as you suggest, a proxy is a supernode, with encrypted communications.
Another great enhancment might be to simply use steganography to have plausible denyability of contents... sure, I have 10,000 5MB word documents on my /mp3 folder :-)
Re:no passing fad (Score:3, Interesting)
Has the internet become a passing fad? (Score:3, Interesting)
My family doesn't care if they ever get broadband, and now I'm finally starting to agree with them. Our society just ain't smart enough to know what to do with this technology, so we police it, tax it and commercialize it. Its almost forced monopolization of an extremely valuable service. Bra vo. Watch us turn the internet into the next cable TV network or telephone system. Watch us repeat our historical examples over and over and over again. Just watch us.
An idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just an idea which I'm not more able to think through tonight (it's very later here), but what about a UDP approach to a file sharing system. Everybody sending something to you could definitely be anonymous (UDP does not require a valid source IP). The tricky thing would be how to actually _find_ stuff, because that would need the IP of the potential source to be known. Hmmm...
Any bright ideas?
Re:Anonymous network possible & easy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And now imagine an RIAA sponsored Honeypot.. (Score:4, Interesting)
You are looking at the matter from completely the wrong viewpoint despite the fact that I told you I was not interested my my rights as a listener. Forget about the filesharer's rights. Concentrate upon the competing rights of the file's creator. The filesharer is merely a hapless bystander who has been caught-up in a legal quagmire.
Now, try again...
There is music out there which the artist wants downloaded. There is music out there which the artist does not care whether it is downloaded or not. There is music out there which the artist wants protected by copyright. The problem is that there is no way to tell which music is which.
What's a poor filesharer to do? If it is assumed that the file is protected by copyright then the free speech rights of the artist who wants it downloaded are infringed. If it is assumed that the file is free speech then the RIAA is going to harrass you.
I say that free speech is fundamental. The copyright interests just have to come up with a solution which doe not infringe fundamental free speech rights -- or not, and get swept away. It's not even my responsibility to care whether copyright survives or not, and it certainly ought not be my responsibility to figure out whether a file represents free speech or copyright.
read current CS research (Score:3, Interesting)
They provide amazingly scalable (i.e. - theoretically internet wide) network topologies for things like multicasting, distributed file systems, and network monitoring.
Great stuff, and generations ahead of anything Kazaa/Napster/Gnutella did.