BIT320 Remix — P2P

November 15, 2005

BBC NEWS | Technology | High-speed college network closes

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P2P issues

In del.icio.us/zeenah, 11/15/2005 | Original | Archive

October 16, 2005

Ridin the donkey out

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How P2P services need to reinvent themselves after Grokster ruling brought the house down

In del.icio.us/pinkfootsie, 10/16/2005 | Original | Archive

October 13, 2005

Who’s not shady about their music?

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Hello! I got a reply to my post earlier about proprietary music encoding by matt, saying:

 

Personally I think iTunes Fair Play scheme is one of the best and isn’t really that restricting. Though I still refuse to by whole albums from them…so maybe I’m not as trusting as I think I am. Yeah, life’s about options. But what happens when none of them are that great?

 

And yeah….maybe the options have better qualities and it’s legal, but the fact that they set those types of restrictions seems like a bad business model run wild. The online stores should not view cd sales and stores as their comeptitors, but the other download programs that are not so legal…..but who’s can really kill someone’s delusion ;)

In Shady Waters, 10/13/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

October 11, 2005

Shady (Musical) Waters

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Recently Shady Waters talked about digital rights management (DRM) in regards to music. And she concluded that:

“It’s such a proprietary approach and totally understandable why legal downloads are such a small portion of the market. who would want to when you have such better options. That’s what life is about: Options.”

 

And I think that’s the problem…too many options. Stores like iTunes, do allow the artist to get paid. Though I had heard that they receive very little from album sales anyway (digital and CD alike). Though you can often find a wider range of material on the less legal sites. Stores like iTunes guarantee song quality and information. The other side doesn’t. But iTunes restricts your use through DRM like Fair Play. The other side has no restriction.

Personally I think iTunes Fair Play scheme is one of the best and isn’t really that restricting. Though I still refuse to by whole albums from them…so maybe I’m not as trusting as I think I am. Yeah, life’s about options. But what happens when none of them are that great?

In Matt's Musings, 10/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

Restriction Will Robison Restriction

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So I ran across this article in Business Week, The Music Mess. It’s old yes I know, almost a year, but it pertains to a lot of what we having been talking about regarding music, downloading and all those wonderful debates regarding mp3 players. The article is here.

This is a little different then Jb and Matt’s discussion regarding restriced cds. JB said:

We PAID for the music, so we should be able to put it on a computer, right? We should be able to play it on an MP3 player, right? Turns out, no. We tried 3 times and every time the ripped songs skipped. The CD, however, plays fine.

The issue that I’m looking further into is the fact that now for those who do download legally through things like itunes, winamp, or napster. The most problematic is when you download the way that the song has been encoded, restricts it. For example, if downloading from itunes, the technology restricts how and where you can play it.

It’s such a proprietary approach and totally understandable why legal downloads are such a small portion of the market. who would want to when you have such better options. That’s what life is about: Options.

In Shady Waters, 10/11/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

October 5, 2005

Bit of Torrent Attack

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Bud happened to post a del.icio.us link to an attack on Bit Torrent. The corporations are running as peers in the systems and sending chunks of garbage instead of the actual file. For those who don’t know, Bit Torrent is a little simpler than a regular file sharing such as Kazaa, napster, or DC++, in that it just connects you directly to other computers to share the file instead of running it through a middle man or server. It also runs better the more people who are sharing the file itself, called seeding. No one person or computer “hosts” the file, but instead puts their file up for sharing and downloading The longer, more you share the fast your own download goes. It does this by swarming…I think is the correct term, because a majority of your bandwidth is unused which is a waste, so BT just takes over the extra stuff. That’s the best way I can describe it, I might be wrong but its my type of lay terms ;) correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m particularly upset about this recent info about people funding garbage. The whole point of BT is that you can share things easily and it encourages sharing. This is similar to when record companies started getting on Kazaas and others and sharing songs with blanks in it to deter people. Do they really really think that this will deter people? NO…they will still search. I doubt this is the real solution and could be spending so much more time just actually making downloading more legalized. It’s not going away, now or never, live with it!

To further this sharing, here are some links of bit torrent programs: official bit torrent page, ABC torrent (I use this), Azureus, Bit Tornado. You just download this little program, and then search the internet for file links of bit torrent, click, save on your computer through the program and you’re downloading. The only downside is that if no one is sharing or seeding…there’s a likelyhood that you won’t get your file.

I do try not to download US stuff…just to be on the safe side, but I use BT mainly for manga so… ;)

In Shady Waters, 10/05/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

October 1, 2005

In response to Cdigix

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Tigerlily said that she did not feel as though many students knew about Cdigix on campus and that it didn’t seem worth the hype. I was actually talked to CDigix about marketing them on campus this year, but they changed their focus. Right know they are focusing on their CLabs service at U of M. They are working together with faculty to better get media in classes to students. Right now, if a student wants to watch a movie which a class requires, they have to go to the UGLI or a library reserve and rent it. But through CLabs they have access through the internet to download it and use it on their comps.

Cdigix is not really getting their word out to students at U OF M as of yet. Other universities in which they’ve been a presence longer have a much larger number of students using their services. They are relatively cheaper. I think it is $10.00 a month to download movies and watch them and $2.99 to download unlimited songs. If you want to transfer the songs to an mp3 player or cd, you have to pay an additional fee. CDigix offers a legal way of obtaining media on campus. Before students downloaded illegally and would complain that this was because the university didn’t offer any alternative. By offering this service and collaborating with CDigix, the university is providing a legal way of downloading movies and music.

Whether or not CDigix will pick up is due to how well they market themselves on campus and if students are willin to pay for their service.

If you want more info, check out Michigan Daily’s article on CDigix.

In zee124, 10/01/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

September 30, 2005

I Created the Internet…

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….and now I’m going to manage it.

Well the debate ranges on. Everyone’s trying to figure out who should control and manage the internet. The US, of course, wants control to remain with them. However the rest of the world is arguing for a seperate international body to be set up. But who knows? I ran across the NY Times article giving further detail. Up until this point, the EU had been supporting the US but not anymore. They switched over suddenly and now everyone’s threatening to take the rights from the US.

Who knows who’s going to win. These talks have been going on for 2 years. The speed of goverments and officals. Also what about all the P2P stuff going on then? A lot of file sharing is now based outside the US cause the US can’t govern outside of its borders, but with this new international group, if it ever forms, will it take away our rights…steal our movies, steal or songs….steal our manga and anime….ok that really was my only concern. The rest they can steal ;D

In Shady Waters, 09/30/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

P2P - CDigix

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After reading the post from Matt about CDigix, I decided to take a look. From what I can tell it is a easy way to share files throughout all universities that have contracted with them. However, when I looked on the Cvilliage community page, which is where students would upload files, it seems that it is mostly from Duke, Loyola, Wake Forest and Purdue. So, I am guessing that not very many Michigan students, or any other students, know about this site. It just didn’t seem like there was much on there. Also, you can watch movie clips (TV shows) and download music. I feel like from what I saw, it is not worth it. However, I didn’t spend much time looking. Does anyone else have a different impression?

In Tigerlily's Blog, 09/30/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati

2 P2P or not 2 P2P

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Zeenah recently blogged about CDigix and how the University has a contract with that company. Has anyone actually used the service? I’d be interested to hear some real-life testimonials on the product. But I wonder, why hasn’t the University promoted this service? Zeenah’s blog post was the first I had heard of it. I wonder if the University is worried about some of the same problems that we posited on? And if they don’t want us to use it, why spend the money on the service? Is it just to add it to the long list of resources this University provides or is there another reason? As you can see, at least for me, there’s a lot of questions that need answers.

In Matt's Musings, 09/30/2005 | Original | Archive | Post to del.icio.us | Technorati