Kazaa exists for one reason - to make LOTS of money for Sharman Networks who owns it, for Altnet, Sharman's partner. And it'll use just about any means to achieve that - including the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act).

It's the American Way - although Sharman is based in Sydney, Australia, and incorporated in the Pacific island of Vanuatu.

Given that for the moment, Kazaa is used for what one might delicately describe as questionable purposes, are the people who either use the ad- and pop-up polluted 'free' version or who pay $29.99 for a junk-free Kazaa safe?

Well, says Kazaa, there's "Improved Privacy Protection". Is it any good? Ask some of the Kazaa users who've been nailed during the RIAA's on-going sue 'em all DMCA subpoena war.

In the meanwhile, despite privacy issues with Altnet, Kazaa is already a long way down the road to joining the 'legitimate' international corporate community and, "actually can be configured to monetize the service and diminish piracy - if the price is right, of course," as executive director Alan Morris says here.

His price? About 25 cents per song.

Now Sharman/Kazaa has come up with another idea with which to milk online music lovers.

"Technical measures designed to turn free online file-sharing services into a major source of revenue for the record industry have been proposed by an industry group representing the most popular trading service, Kazaa," says no less than The New Scientist here.

"The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), which represents Kazaa's parent companies Sharman Networks and Altnet, suggests that music files traded through such networks could be encrypted so that only users who pay a fee will be supplied with the software needed to unlock them."

But, says the report, "the record industry has not welcomed the new proposal. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy told The Washington Post: 'It is hard to take seriously proposals to turn [peer-to-peer] systems into legitimate businesses when they continue to induce users to violate the law and willfully refuse to use available technologies to stop the rampant infringement'."

The DCIA reckons the scheme could generate around $900 million a year for the music industry but it acknowledges that it would only work if competing file-sharing networks agree to cooperate, adds The New Scientist.

"The DCIA also suggests that internet service providers might need to track the numbers of files being downloaded by users, something that would prove both costly and controversial."

You could say that.

Filetopia, anyone?

It actually is a step in teh right direction, although we are, in turn, just creating yet another corperation that will be shouting foul next time some new technology pops up to take a share of the market from them. What we need ultimately is copyright law reform.

Well, I dont like Kazaa, but that is primarily been because their software has been chock-full of adware and spyware.

Just use OpenFT (OpenFastTrack). I've got 80 Gigs of files shared there...

25 cents a song is still way to much, the price needs to be $0.005 - $0.01 before ill ever pay for music

darkened03, you have to remember that, while the RIAA is indeed a bloated money-making vampire, the individuals working in the recording studios aren't (for the most part). The equipment they buy is really expensive, and they do work really hard to make the artists and musicians sound as good as possible. If it wasn't for the RIAA getting a huge cut, I'd gladly pay $16 for a really well made CD, or a dollar for one song to support people in the industry, just not the RIAA. Just something to think about.

The artical refers to the concept of superdistribution. Its an intresting idea on paper. If you like a piece of music, feel free to give it away to all your friends in its DRM-protected container. They may or may not be allowed a few free listens, but the file will then refuse to play unless they pay up. The file contains a link to a website so its convenient for those potential customers. This still does not solve the porblem with p2p through. Its almost impossible to run a legitimate for-profit distribution service on p2p, where the user is just one search term away from getting all your information for free.

Some executives are in severe pain at the thought of 99c songs on iTunes. Dont exect them to lower it any more

Fasttrack/Kazaa is currently the most popular p2p network. If sherman attempts to limit copyright infringement, which would be an essential part of any plan to go legit, the user base will fall very rapidly. Of course, that would in turn trigger a sudden growth spurt in other p2p networks, and fasttracks getting old anyway.

All other P2P must fall in line as well. If Kaza does this (which won't happen unless the recording industry can control it) it'll become another RIAA entity and start sueing all the other P2P companies. What Kaza seems to be missing is that people not only want a change in the way they get their music but they want a change in the system and the law. Artists need to be paid and the stranglehold must end.

mp3s are merely advertisements for a real recording.

I'm not paying for ads. Anyone that does is a fool.

Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm not paying for a quality of 128 when 320, to me, id CD quality. I had to copy my CD cuz it was wearing and I made all the songs 320 (or whatever the highest quality is) and it sounded exactly what the original sounded like when it was still in good condition.

Have fun. you wont see me using it.

If you really want the real CD quality they need to be in wave file format any encoding even being at 320 lowers the quality of the sound, so why would I want to pay for an encoded sound aka mp3 when we should have the original as it was put on the CD.

"mp3s are merely advertisements for a real recording."

Yes they are advertisements. People just love advertisements. Not.

So when I upload my band's original music compositions, or my old term papers, or scans of my friend's paintings, how are they going to decide how much to charge? Am I gonna get paid for that? Somehow I doubt it...
And what about all the public domain music (classical stuff, national anthems, etc.) that I'm sharing?

"mp3s are merely advertisements for a real recording."

Why don't you tell dmusic.com to offer all of their music as free downloadable mp3's? I bet their sales would take off with all that free "advertising". You are a marketing genius!

"So when I upload my band's original music compositions, or my old term papers, or scans of my friend's paintings, how are they going to decide how much to charge? Am I gonna get paid for that?"

Why should you get paid? According to gdZiemann that would be "advertising". You should be paying them!

Any attempt to try to enrich the RIAA labels is folly and evil, since their enrichment enables them to pursue more litigation against citizen. Trying to meld a free P2P and the likes of the leeches at the RIAA is like trying to polish a turd, it's fruitless and you get a bad smell on you in the process.
-bulkeraser

NeoDeltaI:
"The equipment they buy is really expensive, and they do work really hard to make the artists and musicians sound as good as possible."

Is that so? You might want to tell that to Bob Rock and Metallica, ever listen to St. Anger??? Yeah, good sound in your ears maybe.

What's this $.25 per download? Get serious. Charge a monthly rate and be done with it. Simple. Efficient. I won't be paying for any service that charges per download, and $.25 is still TOO MUCH.

Funny that the 'excuse' given by the RIAA for not accepting the proposals is basically that they don't want to deal with crooks. They ought to look in the mirror.

Who cares about Kazza. It installs tons of spyware, crashes machines, provides tons of security risks. Funniest thing out of all the P2P crap is Morpheus was one of the first, and is still one of the best. And nobody even cares about em.

Don't get me wrong, I think it does blow artists getting shafted by P2P swapping. But I guarrenty its no more of a shafting then what thier own labels do to them. Besides, bands like Metallica aren't exactly hurting for cash.

KaZaa are crooks as well

Hmm.. what the hell is the difference.. Why pay $30 a month when you can just download kazaalite for free with no ads at all and if i'm not mistaken it downloads off the same network... hmmm....

Here's a thought, maybe we'd start buying CD's if they lowered the price from $20 a CD! Most of us only want one song! The RIAA are fascists, not willing to lower prices of CD's, so we're not willing to buy them!

WE CONTROL THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, NOT THE RIAA... its supply and demand my friend...

-WE ARE IN CONTROL

I think it's funny watching all of these corrupted thugs spend their time and money trying to take away the very freedom that they should have realized by now that they aren't going to get back from us.

~goingnova

"the DCIA also suggests that internet service providers might need to track the numbers of files being downloaded by users, something that would prove both costly and controversial."

This is already being done. Although they don't advertise this much. There have been situations where ISP's have warned users to reduce their activities or risk being dropped.

The difference here is that your local ISP is not obligated to report your usage to anyone. Local providers would vigorously fight any change in this arrangement. The end result in any change to this policy would be increased operating cost's and lost customers.

This kind of thinking is very dangerous. It targets all users as POSSIBLE criminals that need to be monitored. We're all guilty by default, and thus must prove our innocence. As an ex student/athlete, i was very much opposed to summary drug testing and searches. The argument was, if i had nothing to hide, then i shouldn't object. Well, i didn't have anything to hide. I felt my rights and privacy were being violated. We are asked to dismiss their burden of proof.

Funny, i thought the soviet union fell years ago...

Riaa-Lover,

bluerhythm suggested uploading his own term papers. You used Ziemann's comment to suggest that he ought to be charged for uploading term papers, which according to you, would be in MP3 format.

Aside from your significant lack of knowledge in the area of .doc file formats, I have yet to witness you presenting one of your own ideas or proposals for progress or a solution to this mess.

Some of us appreciate your coming here and playing devil's advocate. This website welcomes a variety of opinions. However, some of us can't stop wondering how the hell you get your term papers in MP3 format.

RIAA-Lover, you seem to be an expert at disecting proposals by others, and pointing out each and every one of their flaws. So, what are your ideas? What solution(s) do you have?

Please let us know. All of us here at boycott-riaa.com would be thrilled with the opportunity to critique you as you have so kindly critiqued us.

Unless, of course, your reason for repeatedly coming around here is to play devil's advocate. Which is fine, but I can tell you I already know plenty of kids fresh out of Intro. to Logic who would love to blow their load by showing everybody "what's up" when they try to present an idea. So if that's the case, you really aren't necessary. I could introduce this site to some pimply faced freshman in college who's just waiting to sink his teeth into every logical error he sees.

We're all aware that there are boycott-riaa members among us who occasinally faulter in logic. Perhaps unlike you. What is your solution? What is your stance on the issue?

If you're afraid you're good touch won't reach enough people if you type all that wisdom way down here.. then here you go:

http://www.boycott-riaa.com/contact/

I am sure any and all of the staff here would love to take any opposing idea(s) you have and present them here as an article, with you as the author, for all of us to read and be blown away by.

I bet you anything the people who have made the laws don't understand a darn thing about mp3's and wave files and what it really sounds like.. To me an mp3 file is the equivlant of something recorded off AM radio. The only way they even sound halfway decent is if they are put through an equalizer unless they are a wave file so when people "buy" even an mp3 they aren't getting their moneys worth period, cause you aren't getting the same CD quality ya might as well burn your money! I feel sorry for people who pay from online unless they are getting even their moneys worth as a wave file and not for an mp3 encoding. RIP OFFS! I wouldn't pay them for CRAP!

All that will happen if ISP's are forced to monitor music files is that the files will get encrypted and disguised as something else. They need a small subs service. Bot this 30 a month crap. More like 3-5 a month and NO feckin DRM and HIGH bitrate options.

If ISPs attempted to monitor downloads on a file basis, p2p would quickly encrypt to prevent monitoring on that level. But the ISPs would then start working on gigabytes-downloaded. Encryption does not reduce the data transfered. Compression can redce it but has its limits. Lossless compression has a limit (in theory) of k log2 s for random data. Lossy can only be made smaller by reduceing bitrate and so quality. Many ISPs already monitor the capacity used by a user so they can identify people using excessive bandwidth (ie my two series of andromeda, one of farscape, three anime series and four films currently downloading) and either charge them extra or threaten to kick them if they dont reduce their usage.

A quarter a song? Sounds like a ripoff to me. looks like I'll need an alternative to Kazaa. Bye sharman! Although we support you sueing the RIAA for us.

Zeon
"Live Free or Die!!"

A Quarter a song isn't bad, that means it will only cost you $3.00 for a 12 song album. That isn't to bad, and if you are complaining about a Quarter, you are downloading music for other reasons that have nothing to do with money.

I thought 99p a song would be reasonable. 99p a song times the number of songs sold globally is a lot of profit, considering the money saved by scaleing down the physical media production, distribution and retail system. Still doesn't mean were likely to see it happen on a large scale. Whats needed for internet legal distribution to get going is for one of the major music retailers, with their trusted brand, to support a pay-download site.

"Is that so? You might want to tell that to Bob Rock and Metallica, ever listen to St. Anger??? Yeah, good sound in your ears maybe."

spikester, you're missing the point. Go to any recording studio and ask much much the equipment is. It'll probably blow your mind. As for the type of music, you might want to read the rest of my post (the part about "as good as possible"). Just because you don't like their music doesn't mean that someone didn't work really hard and mixing in in the studio.

RIAA-Lover:
"Why don't you tell dmusic.com to offer all of their music as free downloadable mp3's?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a few artists do.

As far as I am concerned, Kazaa has the flu and I don't want to catch it. Don't look for me on Kazza. I have other issues with the p2p but this isn't the right time to air them.

I don't think they want the pay-services because alot of the songs put on CDs won't be bought. People will buy the song or two they like..and the rest will sit there. The music companies like the fact they can put alot of filler-crap on a CD and we can do nothing about it, other than boycott their product. I took all the p2p off my computer.. I have had enough of being spied on.

My boys built a recording studio in their two-car garage. It IS expensive...they spent over ten grand just on sound proofing. IBM gave them (when they did a jingle for them) a $2000 voice mic. It can add up quick.

If you are a real quality fanatic you can spend ten grand, but really you can achieve results almost as good with a very high-end sound card, powerful-ish computer and high quality mic. Altogether thats going to cost you perhaps $2000-3000. Unless you live in a really urban area, and need to spend a few thousand more on soundproofing to keep the traffic noise out.

I'll never pay for Mp3's....they aren't TRUE CDQ files

After hearing this, I will never use Kazaa, I'll stick to whatever I'm using now.

TO HELL WITH YOU KAZAA!!!!!!

that is not cool. its supposed to be a FREE thing. and it should remain. there makeing enough off the rich ppl who pay $30 for the pop up free kazaa. give the poor ppl a break and let us keep our free d/l.

Kazaa, charge me? Sure they will... Does anyone have any idea how much software I've paid for in the last 2-3 years? None. If I haven't paid for that, why Kazaa?

MP3, buy them, yea right. All an mp3 is a ghost of the original, I will not pay for an mp3, a wave file yea but not an mp3, get real RIAA and KAZAA.
An industry that pushes music and are supposed to be "Experts" are trying to take over a product that is even worse than the crap they push now. Mp3's are cool don't get me wrong, but compared to a wave file way inferior, and I as an artist and soon to become a studio owner will tell all of you and the RIAA and KAZAA that an mp3 is as George put it a commercial for the tune, give me a break. I will not pay for them and like I have said before, if the RIAA likes their product that much let them keep it and I hope they choke on it.

A high-bitrate MP3 file is good enough to be sold. The difference between a CD and a 320kbps MP3 is negligable.

Silencethepoet,

Your post (first one) is dead on!

Sorry to disagree but the difference between a 320 bitrate mp3 and the equilvalent wav file is 90% loss of musical content.

I will not let a computer algorthm decide what I can and can't hear. They are decidedly not equal.

btw ask any musician what they think of cds in general as a music distribution format for other than ease and compact size.

It is certainly not for musical content, if it has to approximate the actual audio wave into a digital number that does not capture the true sonic qualities of say a warm guitar or an orchestral arrangement of an entire 50 piece symphony. It relies on compression itself to bring the lowest nuances and the loudest crescendoes into a manageable range of some numbers that can be translated to a digital equivalent. That is why a live performance will sound dull and lifeless once it has been homogenized and mixed down to a digital recording. Nobody would have any problem distinguishing the live performance from a recording...

Until something better comes along agreed we will have to make due but a cd is not the end all to music quality...

scayf wrote:
"My boys built a recording studio in their two-car garage. It IS expensive...they spent over ten grand just on sound proofing. IBM gave them (when they did a jingle for them) a $2000 voice mic. It can add up quick. "

Very very true! Three grand for a wireless mic is nothing. And as video dollars go, a rule of thumb is to add another digit to the left of the decimal point for the price tag.