Clogger of P2P networks to shut down

A leading service that attempted to dissuade people from using file-trading networks like Kazaa, by planting millions of fake files online, is being shut down.

Seattle-based Loudeye said Friday that it is shuttering its Overpeer division, effective immediately, in an attempt to bolster the parent company's bottom line.

Executives did not immediately return a request for comment. However, in a filing with federal regulators in November, Loudeye said the Overpeer division had seen declining revenue through much of 2005 and that a major client had dropped its services at the end of the second quarter.

Overpeer rose to prominence in 2002, at the height of the Net's love affair with peer-to-peer networks, offering record companies and movie studios a way to discourage would-be file-swappers looking for hit music or films.

The company used banks of servers around the world to plant false files, so that when a file-trader downloaded the latest Matrix movie, for example, it would often turn out to be garbage data, or an advertisement.

Over time, peer-to-peer networks added features that let users rate files or otherwise make better guesses about the authenticity of downloads. In its financial filing, Loudeye--which purchased Overpeer in 2004--said these tools had diminished the effectiveness of its offering.

The company is seeking to sell the Overpeer assets, it said in a statement.

[yrrahxob]

They should be?????

The people that put all those fake files on the internet should be staked to the ground near a mound of fire ants and honey poured over their bodies. I for one wish they would go completely bankrupt for all the misery they have caused.

[Brucenote]

Hello?

Do you mean misery to thieves?

[Brucenote]

Hello?

Do you mean misery to thieves?

[skeptik]

misery?

Misery as in you had to work a little harder to get your music for free? Come on, it's a game. If you don't want to play, then go to iTunes. Either way, go home and shut-up.

[heystoopid]

Dogs like these will always have a fatal flaw

The idiot that thought of this dog, is not the brightest soul known to man, and a total computer illiterate, who was absolutely ignorant as to how P2P worked!
Ah, the main problem with stupid ignorant computer illiterate people, like this is that, due to their absolute incompetence, of being a square peg in a round hole, in order to get rid of them instead of being shown the door, they usually get promoted, in order to get rid of them!

Dog Food

my dogs breath smells like dog food.

[JonathanGCohen]

Good Riddance

I can't tell you how many times while living in the dorms that you'd hear someone's Winamp shuffle from one blaring song to a blaring mp3 file full of high pitched interference as a result of P2P spoofing. There's no need for that kind of file faking, they could have just made it silent.

-Jonathan
http://philoneist.com

[jerseyrich]

...maybe, but it serves 'em right

IMHO, if someone stole music or movies, they should get what's coming to 'em, which is whatever it is that is planted on those fake-*** files.

I don't care whether Overpeer exists or not, but I have no sympathy for thieves.

[Joe Bolt]

A few observations

First off, I would consider this "much ado about nothing". Clogging up the P2P networks with junk songs has never been much of a deterrent. You fire up your P2P program, search for the song, get 50 hits, sort them by size, then download the five or six largest for the highest audio quality. If three of them are junk, no big deal. And, assuming you're on broadband, it's not even taking you any more time to download six songs compared to one, since the downloads are usually so slow that, combined, you're still just using a fraction of your bandwidth.

And, before the Righteous Moralists come out of the woodwork screaming "thief!" and "pirate!", consider this:

You find yourself humming some ancient 20-year-old (or 30-, or 40-) song and think you'd sure like to hear that old favorite again. Now, do you really think anyone expects you to plunk down $10 for the CD just to hear one ancient song?

And that's if the CD has even been released. It's to note that many old albums have not, repeat, NOT been put onto CD. That's especially true with some of the great bands and artists from the 70's who never reached national prominence. The only place in the galaxy you can find these songs in digital format is on the Internet, where someone has digitized the song from the original LP.

And, as far as new material goes, in case you haven't been paying attention, not all artists agree that passing around freebies is particularly a bad thing. It's becoming quite common in the Country/Western field to let people hear a cut or two from some upcoming CD in order to whet their appetite for more. And it stands to reason that if you're allowed to hear a cut from someone's latest CD and you really like it, that you'll be inclined to purchase the whole CD.

On the subject, I would say that if posting entire CDs to the Internet was very common, then the artists might have grounds to worry, but it's not. In fact, it's somewhat rare, and understandably so. Most people just have "song collections" and don't want to have to fish through some large file just to play one song, nor can a single song in a large MP3 file be queued up in one's playlist. Nor do people who are into the P2P scene want to clog up their outgoing bandwidth with huge files.

While I agree that pirating is somewhat harmful to the business, it's important to note that most people who download single songs would probably NOT be buying the CD if they had no alternative. It'd be a lot cheaper to simply record it off the air. Most radio stations that take requests will eventually play a tune if you nag them long enough.

And if you're a connoisseur who just can't handle FM quality, then, as a connoisseur, you shouldn't have any compunction about buying the CD.

If it's available, of course.

If it's not, then I don't see what harm is done by grabbing it off the Internet. If you can't buy it, then no one's going to be getting any royalties, anyway.

In summation, I'd say the one real problem is that the RIAA doesn't differentiate between old songs and new. As long as the song is still new enough to be marketable, then the artists have grounds to complain. But much of the stuff that's being downloaded is relatively obscure, yet the RIAA continues to pretend that, if it weren't available on the Internet, the downloaders would immediately rush out and buy it, which simply isn't true.

[Johnet123]

Online theft

IMHO, people who download music or video files without paying
for them are committing theft, and deserve whatever they
receive in the way of an annoying punishment, such as wasting
their time downloading fake music or video files.

It is sheer hubris on the part of someone to believe that if
something is too expensive, it is okay to steal it. Personally, I
believe that the main reason people commit theft or engage in
other types of online antisocial behavior is that they believe that
they will get away with it.

[Sentinel]

Get away with it

"I believe that the main reason people commit theft or engage in other types of online antisocial behavior is that they believe that they will get away with it."

Actually, most do get away with it. RIAA has filed a few thousand lawsuits, but does that constitute even more than 1% of all P2P activity that goes on on the Internet? Those who have gotten caught are those that download ten or fifteen songs at a time, and keep sharing them indefinitely. A bad practice if I say so myself. Opening up your files to thousands of random users around the globe. A PC like that is just begging to be hacked.

Social Behavior...

Society will not be bound by these half lies and false truths. It's copyright infringement, not theft or piracy. It's billionares living in multi-million dollar mansion vs. people who can't afford to heat their homes this winter. Let's have a real discussion about antisocial behavior.
It's not about supporting a society, it's about controlling it for one's own benefit. P2P is a social behavior benefiting everyone that participates in it.

Nope! complete simpleton view

Peoples motivation is not that they can get away with it. Theres much more pushing people into P2P.

The big businesses place themselves in the market place as being the only realistic way for artists to reach consumers.

Theyre ripping off consumers and artists equally.

They then give artists miniscule percentages of their works, assume ownership of the works, and even when you buy music online artists receive no compensation.

Not all P2P is illegal, and the same activity isnt illegal everywhere. Legality is not morality.
Morally speaking one can justify not paying. Because it is extortion to pay. The music simply isnt worth the escalating cost. Which was escalating well before P2P. Its like gas.

The difference is... unlike gas theres a free alternative. And its easier to get, and the quality is better.

Its because of P2P that we have ipods and small mp3 players... without it we'd still be with CD's
12 songs a disc.

Plus theres the obvious fact that people are testing and trying out music they would never ever buy anyway. (in those uncountable cases no-ones really loosing money)


This is just one side of the problem yes yes!

But I'll make the case,
The people loosing the vast majority of the money are about the worlds richest 1%, the very few richest in america. Their chump change.
You might argue music stores are closing... but those are crappy min wage jobs... even buying music online puts them under... and it was bound to happen eventually with the internet.

Business Model Obsolete.

The only reson those big businesses exist was to make records, so people could play music in their homes. Now the internet can do that. The middle man has been cut out, and hes not happy.

[open-mind]

What About Legal P2P Use?

Can one legally download a song they already own on vinyl, 8-
track, or cassette?

If so, why should they have to deal with this?

[Heebee Jeebies]

I doubt you can...

The industries involved would most likely say you are still stealing. Never mind that you already paid for the product in question. Like everything else with these companies it comes down to greed.

Robert

Here's how.

Download Audiograbber.
http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/
Download the LAME codec.
http://lame.sourceforge.net/
Place the lame_enc.dll in the Audiograbber folder. Set the Mp3 birate and encoding setting you desire. Hook the component audio out to your computers audio in then open Audiograbber and choose File/Line in Sampling... I think you can figure out the rest by yourself. Rip your own cassettes etc. instead of downloading them. The only thing I ever download are live performances that were never released to the public. For instance Bob Marley, his live performances are awesome, his music released by the St. Clair Entertainment Group Inc. are as close to trash as any corporation could ever get. Believe me I've purchased them and they don't compare. The entire meaning and escence of the song is entirely lost.

[Digital_Freedom]

Are not such companies breakingthe law themselves?

We have long expected such companies were out there- despte millions of people that seem to think a user simply misnamed a file. What I want to know is about the millions of files that ARE what they say, but there corupted. Say it's the new unrated Dukes of Hazard DVD rip or something like that... but it gets corupted 5 minutes into the movie.. Is that not still a copyright violation to even use that part of a copyrighted movie? I dont think there are even legal.

[unknown unknown]

RE

Overpeer inc. was offering a service. Recording companies would pay them to do it. So no they are not doing anything illegal as they have permission from the copyright holder to use their work in that manner.

[zaznet]

Contracted to by the Copyright Owner...

They were contracted by the copyright owner of specific works to provide those materials. Giving a 5 minute teaser is one way to get owner of the corrupt file to hurry up, go out and buy the real thing out of frustration with the p2p service.

Sports Too

aight.

Same things happened to baseball and football.

Gas is a money grab too.

oops

oops.. replied to the whole story...

[BMR777]

In a perfect world:

In a perfect world there would be no piracy, no P2P, no RIAA lawsuits, no copyright infringement, no bait and switch files.

In reality, we are not in a perfect world, but we are closer than you may think.

To stop piracy, there some very simple steps that the RIAA and the recording and movie comanies can take to stop and reduce piracy:

1. Make Content Available for Legal Download - I personally don't download from Peer to Peer networks, I prefer to buy my music legally through Walmart Music Downloads. So far, that has worked alright, the the fact is that some record companies and bands won't put their content online. For instance, I like music from bands, such as Creed and Evanescence, but the record company won't put legal downloads on the net. Then, my alternatives become, do I buy the CD to get only three songs I like, or do I get it online from a dodgy source, or from a friend? It kinda puts one into a corner.

2. Give us legal downloads without the added software. - When I go to a new online music store, I first look at one thing, additional software. I am unwilling to give up any more control of my computer than I absolutely have to. For instance, MSN Music requires me to do an ActiveX Update in IE. Napster requires me to download their UI to manage my music. Others require that I download a "media manager" of some form or another. Only Wal-Mart Music Downloads - http://musicdownloads.walmart.com - as far as I know - allows me to download just the song I want with no ActiveX, no "media manager", or anything. The only thing it requires is the Windows Media Player 9 or 10, which comes preinstalled in most cases on Windows. That way both of us win, I don;t give up any more hard drive space or privacy than I am willing to, and they have a file that I can't just upload to a P2P and share. Now, every system is flawed in one way or another, but here we both win. Many other music stores should follow this model, and offer file formats that a user can play in their favorite player with no extra software needed.

3. No Credit Card Required - A big reason I think so many young people use P2P is that to get music legally they need a credit card. Some music stores, such as Walmart and Napster allow you to pay in cash for music cards so you can buy without a CC. Sometimes, however, you need a CC to set up an account, and this is what turns many young people away from legal music downloads. You should be able to buy digital music with no CC needed, just as you can do with a CD.

4. Trust us and don't sabotage your CD's - The whole SONY rootkit fiasco as no doubt turned many people off of buying CDs. I have not bought a cd for this very reason in the past few years. When using a CD to transfer music to the PC, it's really Russian Roulette as to knowing what it will do to your PC. Will it install a startup program? How about a rootkit? There is no way of knowing unless you take that gamble. I am not much of a gambler when it comes to my PC.

5. Include legal music DRM files online with CD purchase - I'm sure that it would be quicker for many to download legal DRM files of the music that they want rather than rip an entire CD to the PC. What music companies should do is provide a code on the CD that allows the bearer to download DRM encoded files for use on two of their PCs or Macs. The user could then burn them to a cd X amount of times, and transfer them to a MP3 player X amount of times. Then they could not share them online! :-) In addition, disks could be given a "digital signature" that is recognized by common players such as Winamp, Windows Media, ITunes, etc. Basically, the player would read the CD with the Digital ID, and refuse to RIP the CD. Then the player would pop-up a message stating that you can download the cd in the DRM files. This way, you can play the music on your PC, put it on the MP3 player, and burn a backup copy. If the CD isn't rippable by the average user, because on a software level the PLAYER won't rip it, then they can't share it. Sony failed by trying to accomplish this via the CD level, but, with help from companies such as Microsoft and Apple, this is very practical and doable on a Player level. This way the desired affect is accomplished without any additional software loaded on the PC, or any system settings changed.

6. Music Kiosks - For those without computers, rather than sell CDs, there should be Kiosks at major stores where you can choose which songs you want, and the kiosk will put them on a CD for you. Walmart will sonn be bringing this same sort of system to their stores. If more stores removed CDs in favor of these kiosks, everyone would be happy. Patrons could buy just the songs they want, and the artists make money from the sale of their music. Simple!

Bottom line: Piracy is wrong, but in today's world many see it as a safer and better alternative to buying CDs, not because it costs less, but because the music industry is not willing to give us their music on our terms.

Brandon Rusnak
http://www.rusnakweb.com

[skeptik]

breath of fresh air.

A very well thought out post. I can't say I agree with all your ideas, but it's a refreshing change from all the "I'm entitled" BS posts above. It's only reasonable approaches that will move us forward in this debate and help win back our rights as consumers.

[skeptik]

Not so bad...

I for one don't mind Overpeer. They did little to stem the P2P scene, but made the industry feel like they were accomplishing something. A win-win for us fair-use "pirates"!