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Peer to peer : after napster
Un article sur le peer to peer et la guerre du copyright syr le numérique :
Recording Industry 'Losing the War'
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By McGregor McCance
April 2, 2002
Newer utilities like BearShare and Kazaa are based on technology that lets users share files directly from one person's computer hard drive to another.
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Even as the courts keep Napster down, online swapping of copyrighted music and video files continues almost unabated. AfterNapster.com, a Web site devoted to Internet file-swapping utilities, lists more than 100 alternatives to the pioneering Napster. These include Kazaa, Morpheus, Blubster, Audio Galaxy, eDonkey 2000 and WinMX.
"There will always be an underground for pirated music and movies," said P.J. McNealy of Gartner G2, a technology research firm.
Statistics by Nielsen NetRatings show visits to sites offering Napster-alternatives have increased dramatically in the past year, sometimes rising from nonexistence to more than a million unique visitors per month.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
'Losing the War'
The trends illustrate how widespread file-swapping has become. They support the idea that Napster's experience so far has accomplished little in the recording industry's efforts to slow online distribution of copyrighted works.
"While we have won some important battles, we are losing the war," said Hilary Rosen, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, in testimony before a congressional committee. "More and more, consumers obtain music through infringing downloads and CD burning rather than through legitimate channels."
Millions of users made Napster famous for an almost limitless variety of digital music in the MP3 format. But newer file-swapping utilities do even more.
"Movie files are the next big one," McNealy said.
The week "Black Hawk Down" made its debut in theaters, for example, pirated copies were available on Morpheus.
Dangerous Freebies
But the freebies have their drawbacks.
Annoying pop-up advertisements litter many. Some also incorporate "spyware" that tracks where the user goes online and what he or she downloads. More risky, McNealy said, is that you may not get what you ask for.
A file labeled as a popular song could just as easily turn out to be a cleverly named file infected with a computer virus.
Meanwhile, Napster, a victim of its own popularity and publicity, continues a grim struggle to transform into a "legitimate" service.
A federal appeals court last week agreed with an earlier ruling on Napster, which keeps the service offline until it can show that users cannot use Napster to illegally trade copyrighted music.
Who Cares?
Napster plans to re-emerge later this year as a paid service, after obtaining licenses from major record labels to offer copyrighted music through its service. That could cost between $5 and $10 a month for Napster subscribers.
"We feel strongly that the value you receive from Napster will make the fee seem insignificant," the company's Web site says.
Several groups also have organized fee-based music sites, including PressPlay, a joint venture of Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group. PressPlay costs between $10 and $25 a month.
But does anyone care?
Going up against free is never easy. And that's a major reason so many of the alternative utilities and services flourish today.
McNealy said it is too soon to evaluate how well ventures like PressPlay are doing. They clearly have a tough chore: "The challenge for the services is to make the offer so compelling that they compete against free."
Copyright? What's That?
Richmond resident David Bull is trying out the Morpheus file-swapping utility. His wife has used Kazaa. (Both utilities have been marred by service outages recently.)
"Kazaa is buggy and crashes constantly, so it's not of much use," he said. "I'll probably start using Morpheus for all my multimedia, as it has always gotten rave reviews from friends and has movie trailers, too."
Like so many others, Bull isn't too concerned about copyright issues.
"If we like the MP3, we will often go buy the CD, to support the artist. Not out of guilt, but out of respect for their talent," he said. "But what percentage of that money does the artist actually see? Not much, I'll bet. I think the main people upset about the MP3 sharing sites are the middlemen and the labels, not the artists."
What's Next?
AfterNapster.com founder Randy Gerritse said he started his Web site out of curiosity about what the millions of Napster devotees would do when the service shut down.
Gerritse, a resident of the Netherlands who was interviewed by e-mail, suggests the highly publicized Napster proceedings simply generated more interest in online file-sharing.
"If Napster would have been the only problem they had, they should have left it alone and [considered] themselves lucky," he said. "What we have seen now is what happens when you add a little spark to a barrel of gunpowder -- not a smart thing to do. It brought file-sharing into every home."
The 'Digi-Dilemma'
The bane of file-swapping utilities, however, is popularity.
A utility's virtual catalog of digital songs or other files swells and shrinks with the number of people connected at the same time. Eventually, it might become popular enough to draw the ire of groups such as the RIAA or the Motion Picture Association of America.
Napster relies on its servers to act as a hub for trading music, giving opponents a single target for lawsuits.
But newer utilities like BearShare and Kazaa are based on technology that lets users share files directly from one person's computer hard drive to another, bypassing central servers. That puts industry groups in the awkward position of pursuing individual computer users as well as utility-makers if they want legal recourse.
McNealy said going after the most popular file-swapping utility makers, or going after the heaviest individual traders, may have a chilling effect, "but they're never going to shut them all down."
Swapping services that originate outside U.S. borders complicate efforts to sue them or stop them, and those that use private networks instead of the public Internet have even more insulation.
Ultimately, the open nature of the Internet means you'll probably always have a way to freely exchange files.
"I think the question should be: Is there a way to stop people from sharing copyrighted material?" Gerritse said. "And, answering my own question, I think not. We are facing a 'digi-dilemma.'"
© 2002 Richmond Times-Dispatch, VA i/a/w ScreamingMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.
© 2002 NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved.
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03-04-2002 15:09
). Mais essaye de faire ce que je t'ai dis à l'avenir.
