Posts Tagged ‘p2p’
The Constable on October 24th, 2008
There’s a new article over at Ars Technica discussing how the legal use of P2P is growing at a faster rate than illegal use. Of course, the fact that illegal use is already so immense does make it quite easy for legal use to grow at a faster rate (a much lower baseline).
What’s the most interesting about the article is that P2P is seeing some very legitimate uses. As we’ve said before: if people pay attention to technology and distribution models that gain popularity as a way to steal content, they may start noticing that the technology isn’t always created solely to “steal” but instead as a better way to distribute (and may have help businesses better serve their customers, if they can figure out how to give customers what they want - and then build a business model around it).
The Constable on September 8th, 2008
According to both the wippit.com homepage, and a story on Distorted-Loop, one of the first legitimate p2p media networks has shut down due to being unable to compete in the current marketplace. Visitors to wippit.com are greeted with the following message:
Wippit has closed.
After 8 years of pushing the digital boundaries, Wippit can no longer compete in the current market climate.
Thank you to everyone that has supported us over the years and apologies to those that will miss us. “
In related news, Pandora also looks like it may be shutting down as well, after failing to reach an agreement with U.S. music publishers.
… and in sure to be upcoming news, music publishers continue to try to shut down services and refuse to license new business models, while the rest of the Internet walks away with their business. (my opinion).
The Constable on August 25th, 2008
Dear Grooveshark:
Are you serious? You’re actually selling songs that you know you don’t have rights to, and just putting the money into a slush fund so you can pay the record labels, etc. when you get the deal done? Seriously?!
recent twitter conversation:
In my experience, if there is one way to kill any chances of going legit, it is to do exactly what you are doing. Your system of posting songs and paying ASCAP / streaming rights is more than likely fine, but to sell content that you know you don’t have rights to is extraordinarily risky.
From the deals I’ve worked on, one thing has stood out - and that is that there are many publishers and labels out there who simply will not work with a business if they have openly violated copyright law.
The simple fact that you have songs from The Beatles available for sale on your service, when not even iTunes has gotten this, is an extraordinarily bad move on your part, if your goal is to be a legal service with actual licenses. It’s one thing to hold royalties if you don’t know if you have rights. That’s debatable, but to hold royalties when you KNOW you don’t have rights….
All I can say is good luck, and I hope you have a good lawyer on retainer.
The Constable on August 25th, 2008
I have to admit, I haven’t had much time to research this site since I just came across it this morning… so consider this more of a note to myself than anything.
A kind of P2P music file sharer / iTunes / social network, Grooveshark.com “is an online music community that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music.” The more music you share, the more credits you get to download music from other people. Beyond this, the built-in social aspect of the site allows people to organize, filter and recommend music for each other - and the most respected users are automatically highlighted so as to give the best experience for casual users.
As for the legal portion… frankly I don’t know how this is set up. At first glance it appears that users can upload anything they want, and then the music is available for sharing or download.
Here’s the info from their one-sheet for the labels:
User Music Experience
- User-generated music bios, reviews, a la Wikipedia
- Demand-based Pricing ($.99, $.75, $.50, $.25)
- Users receive $.25 for every song they sell
- 100% virus-free, high quality files at high speeds
- Massive library via patented p2p architecture
- Custom music recommendations for music discovery
Label Licensing Benefits
- No hard drives or CDs required to upload content
- $.25 user credit incentivizes users to buy more music
- Song recommendations, artist promotion for partners
- Fans are paid to market your artists and bands
- Content is spread virally and legally from fan to fan
Label Content Management
- Full control of pricing, payment, file quality (bitrates)
- Sales reporting and comparison between competitors
- Artist metadata information input and development
- Access fan and user geographic & demographic data
- Full take-down and opt-out of content distribution
Terms
- Revenue split for songs sold in the system:
- 50% - Label
- 25% - Grooveshark User
- 25% - Grooveshark Administration Fee
- • Label provides full metadata information
- • Label pays publishing fees for any content sold
- • Grooveshark pays all PROs related to streaming
- • Grooveshark pays all hosting, integration fees
I haven’t been able to find an option yet for labels to opt out of the system, but I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist. However, I find it hard to believe they are doing this without first gaining approval. If they are simply posting songs, then selling them, and then trying to get contracts, that’s going to be a major problem.
I’ll try to spend some more time on the site later and give a better overview at that time. In the meantime, if anyone has any experience with Grooveshark, please give your opinions in the comments below.
All said, it does look pretty slick. I’m excited to do some research.
The Constable on August 25th, 2008
Came across this article while doing my morning news reading. Now that Obama has selected his running mate, it’s important to know where Joe Biden stands on a topic that is important to many people, but unlikely to be discussed during any of the debates, etc.
As I come across other candidates’ stance on these issues, I’ll be sure to post the news.
read more | digg story
The Constable on August 22nd, 2008
This is probably a bit old, since The Chronicle of Higher Education already reported on this way back in the beginning of July, but it seems like it would be a disservice not to mention it here as well.
As is to be expected with any kind of product that is easily digitized and pricier than most people would like, one of the biggest new things being traded online is textbooks. As such, sites like Textbook Torrents are starting to pop up focused on the area, hoping this focus will help spur more availability of the books (they claim to currently have over 5,000 fully scanned textbooks).
Of course, the copyright holders and publishers of these products are less than happy with this and have begun a concerted legal effort to thwart the sharing of such files. Their response: the Association of American Publishers has hired an outside legal firm to send takedown notices to sites hosting the illegal content (although I’m not quite sure how this is going to do them any good in the p2p realm).
One thing to note, however, is that unlike the RIAA’s approach, the publishers have yet to focus on the actual individuals downloading the books. Rather, they appear to be placing their focus (for now at least) entirely on the ones actively hosting the files.
As for Textbook Torrents, it appears they have already been forced to move servers once - and they seem to be prepared to do it again. This is the one real problem with take-down notices: all it will do is keep moving the sites from server to server until they decide to move their hosting to somewhere outside the United States or any other territory that will actually take them down.
