First it was the music industry complaining

April 25, 2002 9:37 PM

First it was the music industry complaining about the file sharers, now it's the file sharers complaining about people stripping the adware out of their software. More proof that 'piracy will find a way'.
posted by mrben (11 comments total)

Ironically, you can download kazaa lite using kazaa or Grokster. There will always be a way to spread this stuff. The real question is how much of a hit is the fast track network taking? Kazaa is very popular and I doubt a significant number of its users are big on the privacy angle.

In a worst case scenario the fast track network will simply fold. Then there will be another scramble to find the newest and hottest P2P client. Filetrading is a very dirty business and next years big P2P program may be something completely different. Kazaa more or less walked into the napster controled net and took over. It might not take much for another P2P client with promises on no spyware to kill the fast track network.
posted by skallas at 10:39 PM on April 25, 2002

"I've never been a big fan of large companies spying on their users," Dr. Damn wrote in an instant messenger interview.

Hello, Props Department? I need a ton of irony and I need it yesterday.
posted by WolfDaddy at 10:44 PM on April 25, 2002

i love that they purposely built their network to be decentralized in order to avoid getting shut down by the record companies and now as a result they are helpless to stop people from sharing hacked versions of their own software. maybe they can get a court order to have themselves shut down.
posted by boltman at 10:48 PM on April 25, 2002

As an avid P2P user and a music lover (hell, anything digitally encoded). "F*CK YOU!" To the dumb bastards at KaZaa, from college kids everywhere. WTF you thinkin? UR shiZ is hAx0red.
posted by Glibaudio at 11:02 PM on April 25, 2002

i must admit when i started using audiogalaxy i fell in love, i much prefered it to napster etc. probably due to my efforts out site admin has now banned audiogalaxy. it sounds dumb but i really did buy MORE cd's when i had access to free mp3's.

now i find myself back to internet radio .. anyone any suggestions for challenging and varied music on net radio ?.
posted by mrben at 11:11 PM on April 25, 2002

Dog bites man//Man bites dog.....Next Case!
posted by Mack Twain at 11:39 PM on April 25, 2002

anyone any suggestions for challenging and varied music on net radio?

Oh please learn how to use MetaFilter Search already. There's been at least two threads on this subject already.
posted by milnak at 12:20 AM on April 26, 2002

Oh please, where were you a couple of days ago when someone actually re-posted the fighting stick figure movie, or when they recently reposted the giant magnifying glass game? I found this link to be new... AND interesting, and since there are other comments on this post, it was obviously worthwhile, at least to a couple people. Besides... the MetaFilter Search always times out...
posted by banished at 1:34 AM on April 26, 2002

Free, open-source gnutella client Gnucleus has now implemented supernodes. Supernodes, people...

With all this talk of piracy, is anyone- wait, let me rephrase- is any economist giving serious thought to the possibility that the market itself is evolving to abandon traditional concepts of property, copyright, and sales when it comes to information technologies? We have reached virtually costless reproduction and innovation at this point; the traditional models and standards don't seem to apply so firmly, when this isn't Joe Carpenter having his handmade chair stolen from his workshop, or even Joe Mass-Produced Media Congolomerate having physical CDs or software being bootlegged and sold as real copies.

We are seeing an anarchic orgy of innovation; the collective brain power of many independent people from around the world being self-directed to sieze a technology and improve upon it with each new generation, responding not to centralized and/or profit based whims but to fundamental desires. Kazaa may have been "stolen" from the original makers, but is evolving independently into forms that are improvements on the original. This may not be a boon to quarterly earnings, but is it even a bad thing for humanity?

And what of the issue of music itself, much less its recorded distribution: as small-minded men in large-engined Hummers worry about maintaing corporate control over payola-promoted pop acts, perhaps the future is stampeding right over them. The Western twelve tone scale may get played and sampled ad nauseum, and unusual tone scales may follow a similar path- so will the next generation of music be interactive? Music that's no longer a recorded, static experience, but merely a skeletal structure that is uniquely created with each experience in response to cues and spontaneous direction from the listeners themselves- music not unlike the improvisational structure of jazz, but where the listener is the performer during the very act of listening? What if the computer was set up with a camera that used a basic framework for the music and then used your body motions to "flesh out" and punctuate the music- music that danced to you as you danced to it?

Hm- I think I had too many mushrooms from this thread...
posted by hincandenza at 1:58 AM on April 26, 2002

here here. bring on more mushrooms.
posted by mook at 2:06 AM on April 26, 2002

hincandenza, it's funny that i would be reading your post about an hour before performing live interactive computer music in a concert setting. i was just reflecting in the shower about how i think that interactive installation art will probably rise to be one of the foremost arts in the next 20-30 years. with software tools that were unthinkable 10 years ago, someone can develop an interactive universe for a rather small sum. total immersion, anyone? as for music in general becoming a totally listener-oriented interactive form, i must say that i think that is highly unlikely. most people aren't into a unique experience when they listen to music. for many, something immediately recognizable that can be experienced passively is soothing or exciting. think of how many people have music on in the background while they a) surf the web, b) drive, c) have a conversation, d) party, e) etc. interaction requires attention, something that people seem to have less of these days (as a result of content being omnipresent). but i think in the world of "art", where the focus is on the creator and the specific product, interactivity will become much more important. oh well, i hate to draw the art/popular distinction, but it seems its rooted in the amount of attention paid to the work.
posted by nonreflectiveobject at 4:09 PM on April 26, 2002