WHY IS THIS LEGAL & NAPSTER ISN'T?

[Bergstrom]

I am AWAKE ! I am also 79 years old; and just want to enjoy my final days, learning / discovering, on my computer. on the internet. I have no energy for crusades and, heaven knows, I have had enough confrontation in my life. I will digitize my private collection of music. Can anyone who can point me to the best software for converting / editing my audio cassette collection. Darn, I really enjoyed this forum and the Limewire Client was impressive. Many thanks for the help, particularly from Lightstone,

[This message has been edited by sayhu (edited 03-02-2001).]

[asparagus_tr]

You said it worthless! Hell yah!

[alexis b]

The legality of either is not the real issue. The real issue is that Gnutella CANNOT BE SHUT DOWN. There is NO WAY at all, EVER that someone could shut it down. On the other hand, Napster can easily be shut down. And if you want ot talk about illegal stuff, then technically NONE of what you you people are saying is actually illegal. Napster isn't illegal. MP3s aren't illegal. Even cd rippers aren't illegal. The illegal part is the transmission of songs in any form. Therefore since napster ASSISTS transfering illegal files, it CAN be considered illegal. Since gnutella does the same, it also CAN be considered illegal. However, gnutella is not MP3s only, so is it less legal? If there are different degress of lagality, where do you draw the line? Certainly email is still legal if you send mp3s to your friends so what defines lagality? I don't think that the music industries cares. They just want to shut down whatever is costing them money. However, it all goes back to the same original fact that gnutella CANNOT be shut down and Napster CAN.

[Michele]

i think its simple as this:

napster is not illegal. Only trading copyrighted material is illegal. The problem with napster is that it is a centralized operation with its own legal entity becuase it is a corporation.

Gnutella on the other hand is in loose terms a bunch of people trading files directly with each other. There is no way to shut down gnutella because it is not a corporation and nor does it have a legal entity. To shut it down you have to sue every single user, which is pretty much impossible.

Hope this helps.

[o no its mo]

you all are losers...

just download your porn/mp3's/warez and be happy...

who cares if its not legal...

[Olivia Hazell]

Neither are illegal, because some of us don't LIVE in "the country of the free", America... therefore we aren't bound by the rules your stupid antiquated legal system makes. .. Napster, Gnutella, DivX, 128bit encryption... Sorry america, can't stop **** like this happening oRABhore.

[♥Allie misses him♥]

This site is for recording LP to CD, but it should help you.

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm

From the FAQ:
How do I record from cassette tape to hard disk?
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/pcaudiofaq.htm#rectape

[This message has been edited by MrAlaska (edited 03-04-2001).]

[shelivade ♂☿]

Ummm ... actually, no. Wiretapping and sniffing internet packets are not the same thing. Time after time, the (United States) courts have backed up those doing the sniffing, sadly. That's because TCP/IP is an inherently insecure protocol, and one can (and has) effectively argue that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when sending and receiving information via unencrypted TCP or UDP packets. That's what Napster uses, and it's what Gnutella uses. Operation Carnivore is a good example of this. The courts ruled it was okay for the FBI to eavesdrop on emails because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of the sender and/or recipients.

Face facts, and wake up yourself before you start instructing others on the law. There is no way to ensure privacy on the internet. But that's nothing new. There's no way to ensure privacy anywhere. The key is being smart. Use encryption when transmittting sensitive information. Be careful about what information you chose to send via the internet, as opposed to other media. Don't send anything via email, web form transmission, or other insecure formats (including gnutella and napster) that you wouldn't send via a postcard with no envelope.

But this is really besides the point. Fact is, all the RIAA has to do is connect to the Gnutella network and start downloading songs. If they find people sharing their copyrighted material, they can go after the users they downloaded the material from. Your internet addy is prominently displayed in the servents, and even if it wasn't, anyone with any knowledge of internet protocols can determine the ip addy in a matter of 5 seconds.

The question of whether or not they will actually go after individual users in an effort to discourage the larger population of gnutella users remains to be seen, but there's really nothing to stop them from trying.

[L. U. D. O.]

Because these are PRIVATE calls via the switched packet network (just like a voice call, it's digitized too), so therefore you have to WIRETAP someone to figure out FOR SURE WITHOUT A DOUBT that they are downloading a copyrighted song.
You can go to JAIL for wiretapping, THAT'S ILLEGAL! so when the RIAA tells you to stop, you ask them to put it in writing and say how they found out you were transfering whatever they thought you were.
IP addresses are no different then a phone number, GET A CLUE PEOPLE! WAKE UP!
The first time a RIAA lawyer goes to jail for wire tapping, this will stop real fast.
THEY ARE THE CRIMINALS!

[donna p]

Three issues here you should be aware of.

First, what they're yelling at you for isn't sharing copyrighted material. They're mad because your gnutella servent was probing a domain for possible connections. While your activity was innocent, this activity can also be the work of a hacker trying to find vulnerable systems to compromise. Therefore most ISP's explicitly forbid "scanning" of this nature.

Second, despite the bogus advice you've received, it *is* legal for an ISP to monitor your internet traffic. The courts are ruling fairly consistently that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to unencrypted internet communication.

Third, your ISP would be fairly hard pressed to prove you were sharing copyrighted material, and i doubt they independently try to find customers engaged in such behavior. This would require enormous resources on their part. They would have to log every packet of every customer, then reassemble those packets on the other end, *and* then deal with the encoding inserted by various softwares. Lots of disk space, lots of cpu time, lots of bandwidth, no noticable payoff.

However, a third party, say the record labels, *could* very easily call them up and say "we downloaded copyrighted material from this ip address and we demand you pull the plug!" They probably couldn't use legal means to force the ISP to unplug you, but if your TOS explicitly forbids such activities, your ISP could do it simply to maintain their image as "good net citizens," and in fact, many ISP's do just that.

All that said, you still have a problem. Your isp is ticked off because you're scanning domains for gnutella servers. That activity continues regardless of whether you're uploading, or simply downloading, material. So their complaint will be repeated unless you find a way to either convince them that your scans are innocent, or find a way to run your client without scanning entire domains for servents.

Good luck.