Free and legal file-sharing...psych!
Peer-to-peer file-sharing generally involves free software, and much of the technology is certainly still legal in the United States (for now). However, once you start trading copyrighted material like music and movies, that's where legal problems arise. If you're trafficking, uploading or downloading copyrighted digital material without consent of the owner, you are infringing. You are also risking the possibility of massive penalties, more if the work in question has not yet been released.
This weekend, a company called Qtrax made a big splash by announcing "the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer digital music site." It turns out that line of marketing nonsense was only the beginning of the company's misdirections.
Qtrax didn't give me free music downloads, but it did teach me a bit about the Oracle Application Server 10g.
(Credit: CNET Networks)After announcing deals to provide music from Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Group, and EMI Recorded Music at the Midem music conference in Cannes, France, Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz told CNET News.com on Sunday that there may not be agreements "written in stone." With such shenanigans involved, it's unlikely those agreements will ever be signed.
What's most unfortunate about the whole affair is that the name of a fine open-source project gets dragged through the mud. Songbird is a Firefox analog that adds media playback and library-management features to the popular browser. It's very cool, with tons of potential, but it's still unstable and in need of much development.
Qtrax simply grabbed the Songbird code, slapped in a few of its own extensions, added a big advertising banner on the top and a bookmark to the Qtrax Web site, and then launched this version of Songbird as its own. Qtrax didn't even write a new license or even rename the installer. Shenanigans, Part 2.
In essence, if you download Qtrax, you will get a beta application, hijacked by beta advertising modules, and offering zero free content. Sorry. Not good enough for me, and not yet good enough for CNET Download.com. Forgive me if I feel the need to sic Netdisaster on the Qtrax Web site.
I would love to see a viable, advertising-supported digital-music model, but I would be very surprised if Qtrax is the one to provide it.
Would you use a "free," advertising-supported P2P file-sharing client? If not, what's on your list for the perfect digital-music delivery system? Tell me about it in the comments.
I think many people do not take this seriously because many people have been downloading from p2p for years now, using Limewire or some other p2p.
What a shame,
It's back to BitTorrent for me.
An advertising-supported P2P would DEFINATELY have my support and interest.
On this though I am a softie because I made a fair amount of money from the music industry, (from the service sector) so I do subscribe to Napster and stay away from P2P for accessing music. But to pay 99 cents for one song is too much. I would gladly pay 99 cents for 4 songs if I got full rights. Since it is so much easier to get music through pay per or subscription than P2P the music industry should wake up and consider this. I really like listening to music through my computer or handheld with full rights. Because of all the album and biographical informantion. For 25Cents they would sell 10 times more and thus not have to worry about the P2P cheap skates. And then a lot of copyright owners might consider reissuing remastered material with modern technology such as psychoacoustics and EQ seperation with choices for car speakers, home speakers, or headphones. But they are not going to do this if they are not going to get paid.
but knowing those "free things" theres only and nothing else but the todays "music".that means hip-hop,rap,top-10 and relative music only kids listen too.always they forget the older generation. :(
so that means i stick to torrents and private p2p.
This was really what the record companies should have done in the first place. When file sharing started to rear it's head, they had two choices; make the most of the situation, or panic and start suing the various people creating and operating P2P clients. They went with the latter because they had no understanding of the technology involved and thought it would be easier to set their watchdog, the RIAA, on anyone they could.
Additionally, certain P2P clients have made it a lot more possible for many talented artists to get heard, instead of having major record companies keep feeding the masses the same vacuous, homogenised garbage. As lethal57 pointed out, it's just evolution, but they don't like it because they aren't making lots of money from exploiting the bands on their labels. But if you want to support the bands you like, go to their gigs and buy their merchandise from them. That way, the band gets the money, not the record company.
If in the first place it's a good idea, sponsorised music for P2P limitation, maybe the used method is not the good one.
I have tons of free webbased radio that plays music, titles that I'm looking for, and legally; moreover without any ad.
This is not a good model to follow, thus saying just before the launching that they were supported by Majors and they denied it the next day ruines everything.
I'd use this and wouldn't mind the ads...it would be worth it to download great music for free, but I'm also of an older (but not much!) era and would need a wide variety of music to actively use this program.
I also don't think they have ripped off Open Source as they haven't tried to hide the fact that they use Songbird, and Open Source means that they are allowed to do with it exactly what they have done!
This whole area is in tremendous flux and essentially I think we may be seeing a new hierarchy of publishers/retailers that will end up as an analogue of the old record shops and music magazines.
For example, personally I am appalled by the sheer quantitiy of music, good and bad, and would be prepared to pay a subscription to a filtering/reviewing site that would furnish music that has been reviewed. plus the option to rate it competitively, as on OurStage, so that the subscribers would collectively keep up quality atandards.
There would also be a newsletter/discussion feature similar to your own.
I would also envisage a virtual-spoace concert feature once a week or so where top acts would feature, possibly live -- this would be the equivalent of the old number 1 chart acts appearing on Top of the Pops or whatever the US equivalents were.
Whatever formulae evolve for delivering music, they will surely have to take account of the limited time available to human beings, even geeks in bedrooms.
The part that really gets me though is how much they want us to pay per hour for there product. How long is the average Album? 30 minutes or so? That's $40 an hour. How many businesses would like to realize a consistent $40 an hour return on investment. In my opinion it's evident where this is headed, and the record companies would like to go down swinging.
- by Element2727 January 30, 2008 11:09 AM PST
- I really cannot believe people would go that far
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