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Date Posted: 05:38:43 03/02/03 Sun
Author: Weird_Enigma
Author Host/IP: 209.252.119.2
Subject: The feeble effort in trying to sue music downloaders
In reply to: Weird_Enigma 's message, "The Day the Protest Music Died" on 00:57:18 02/25/03 Tue

HELP DESK
Anyone feel a chill on P2P sharing?
JOHN MCBRIDE

Let's begin with a look at how big-time corporations are ignoring market demand and history by snubbing "peer-to-peer" or P2P.

By understanding P2P you can understand how the record industry may affect your download habits -- especially if you use Kazaa, Morpheus, LimeWire or any of the other popular P2P programs.

P2P means a network of computers sharing resources. Forget any additional technical blather about what a P2P network is. The essential characteristic is this: The computers in a P2P network are different.

They're yours and mine.

Notice whose computers they are not: Sony's, BMG's or any other member of the Recording Industry Association of America.

So after installing a P2P program, people can give away anything they can put on their computer to anyone else running the same P2P program.

You can see why this makes the RIAA apprehensive.

Seems there's a huge demand for free music. Kazaa claims its P2P program has been downloaded 191 million times. Even if only 10 percent of those downloads translate into song sharing, that's still a slew of surfers learning how to spell Avril Livigne without spending $15 for the CD.

Naturally, the RIAA wants the freebies stopped. The record industry trade group has been active -- and successful -- in court. But for each Napster they knock off a LimeWire leaps up. They're tired of playing whack-a-mole. They need help, and this is where it could affect you.

They want your Internet service provider to be their P2P police. How? By giving them the names of people suspected of using P2P software so they can go after them.

Last month in Washington, a federal judge ordered Verizon Communications to give the RIAA an Internet subscriber's name and address because the subscriber was suspected of using Kazaa to share songs.

Unless the order is overturned on appeal, that subscriber will soon face the wrath of an angry recording industry. You could be next.

But probably not. The RIAA won't have to sue everyone. Screwing a few Jacks and Janes to the wall will chill the CD burning fever in most of us.

This is all kind of silly, really. The RIAA reminds me of the movie moguls in the early '80s. Threatened by the latest technology, that industry sought protection in the courts too. They fought hard to ban the VCR.

Fortunately they lost. The market spoke and the industry adjusted and thrived.

The market is speaking again, but the RIAA isn't listening.

People want to download music and burn their own CDs for personal use. Give them a simple program that gets them what they want when they want it and they'll pay a reasonable fee. I'm sure of it.

Can't the music industry give us that?

Apparently not.

They've tried. But their offerings (see box) are way complicated. They require a monthly fee -- whether you download or not -- on top of per-song charges. The choices at each site are abysmal compared with, say, Kazaa.

The music industry is blinded by the "free" aspect of the P2P craze. Rightly so, considering how much P2P networks probably cost them.

But it doesn't have to be all about free. It just has to be about reasonable cost, a wide range of choices and simplicity.

John

McBride

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John McBride, MCSE, MCP+I, is a news systems administrator at The Observer: jmcbride@charlotteobserver.com; (704) 358-5513.

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