Wired on authorized P2P. All of this misses the point: most consumers don't really care how it's distributed, they just want the social aspects (and price) of the commonly used P2P networks. If the lawsuits can succeed in making everyone hide their libraries, and if the official services can offer the social experience of filtering by exploring the library of someone whose taste you enjoy, then they will succeed. But there's no reason why a centralized network couldn't do just the same thing, without the bandwidth issues of one-to-one P2P (as opposed to something like BitTorrent or more advanced protocols). Right now, the only real net gain from the authorized P2P services really seems to be accruing to the store operators by offloading bandwidth costs onto consumers, and the price doesn't really drop in a manner commensurate with that.
Anyway, there are many ways the social aspects could be improved with, e.g. iTMS. If Apple really cared about selling more tracks (vs. selling more iPods), they might more closely link the biggest social aspect of iTunes in with iTMS (having a buy me button show up when you view shared libraries on your local network, for instance). Authorized P2P may yet succeed, but if it does it will be because they have found new ways to make the experience of finding music better in a way that the early P2P services did, not because of any magic in P2P. Trying to marry decentralized file transfer with central control just doesn't seem like a magic bullet.
/. coverage of authorized P2P.
Speaking of large corporations grabbing on to the latest craze.
Ars dissects the annual CD piracy report. Looks like it might be an uphill battle for them.
Is the patent reform movement finally starting to scare the USPTO into doing its job? Unlikely, but regardless of the cause, it would be a wonderful thing for the world if this was the start of real introspection on the USPTO's part.
First come the proof-of-concept cracks, then the easily-accessible-to-the-mass-market cracks, then the lawsuits. DRM remains a pipe dream.
--Ari
Anyway, there are many ways the social aspects could be improved with, e.g. iTMS. If Apple really cared about selling more tracks (vs. selling more iPods), they might more closely link the biggest social aspect of iTunes in with iTMS (having a buy me button show up when you view shared libraries on your local network, for instance). Authorized P2P may yet succeed, but if it does it will be because they have found new ways to make the experience of finding music better in a way that the early P2P services did, not because of any magic in P2P. Trying to marry decentralized file transfer with central control just doesn't seem like a magic bullet.
/. coverage of authorized P2P.
Speaking of large corporations grabbing on to the latest craze.
Ars dissects the annual CD piracy report. Looks like it might be an uphill battle for them.
Is the patent reform movement finally starting to scare the USPTO into doing its job? Unlikely, but regardless of the cause, it would be a wonderful thing for the world if this was the start of real introspection on the USPTO's part.
First come the proof-of-concept cracks, then the easily-accessible-to-the-mass-market cracks, then the lawsuits. DRM remains a pipe dream.
--Ari
posted by Ari F. | 4:59 PM
1 Comments:
"Trying to marry decentralized file transfer with central control just doesn't seem like a magic bullet."
Well said! This was exactly what I was thinking when I saw this announcement. It's P2P, except with a central server, ie. without P2P.
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