WHY IS THIS LEGAL & NAPSTER ISN'T?

[Vincent The Valentine]

I read an article in CNET that the RIAA is talking to ISPs to shut down Napster like services. I'm fairly technical but I do not know if Gnutella can be shut down/blocked trough an ISP.

What are your thoughts?

[Junior 79]

Hello-
I cannot figure out why this gets around the law and Napster doesn't. I am doing a research paper for my freshman comp class at UMD and I cannot find why it is any different?! PLEASE HELP ME!!!

[praneetha]

Napster is not illegal, the way in which it is used is illegal. Gnutella is not illegal unless it is used to download illegal things.

[Avory]

There is not an IP that controls Gnutella. We are all host/users/clients so we are called Servants. You COULD connect two IP's to each other and nobody else. Share files between them and how would "THEY" ever find out????

[You know you love me♥]

There may not be an IP that controls........, but here is what my IP told me today :
"On the 25 of February, we recorded unauthorized attempts to probe out
networks originating from an IP address of 64.19x.yyy.zzz Our records show
that this IP address belongs to your DSL connection.
We are obligated to contact you and warn you that this type of action is
strictly against the terms of service that you agreed to when signing up for
service."
My agreement with them forbids direct or indirect violation of 3rd party intelectual propertiy rights.!! So they say....stop or they pull the plug. As of today, I don't do audio downloading, nor do I share audio or other proprietary files without previous authorization. DSL has opened up the internet for me.! I am very reluctant to return to my 56K modem.

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

[radiokatblu]

First of all napster is not illegal.
Secondly the way it is used is not illegal.
Thirdly THERE ARE NO LOOPHOLES THAT MAKE FILE SHARING ILLEGAL!!
And finally NOTHING transmitted over the internet is illegal,period! The only thing that is illegal to transmit over the internet,and this goes for everything,is STOLEN military secrets and once it has been made public it is to late for them to do anything about it anyway. And I hardly think mp3's qaulify as stolen military secrets and as for whats going on in europe about security software,it is also not illegal to take apart anything to see how it works!!!!even if it is to build aftermarket part's. Can you imagine not being able to make aftermarket part's for a car because ford won't let you cut into thier profit.NOT BEING ALLOWED TO OWN YOU OWN SET OF WRENCHES! Hacking into other people's computers is illegal. Hacking into your own computer is not. Nor is it illegal to decompile or reverse engineer any program or to own software to do it. The only other thing that is illegal is jamming the internet. That is an attack on freedom itself. It is NOT ILLEGAL for people to pool thier resources together. It's so we can all have much more than we could ever have on our own. It works like this, you buy a couple of cd's I buy a couple of cd's and we all chip in a little because we all aren't freakin rich enough to afford all everything, period! And as for the people that don't have anything to share, eventually they will. Besides even if everybody only contributed one song what's one times a million. BESIDES WHAT WE ALL SHOULD BE ASKING IS WHY WE ARE SEEING A WORLDWIDE CORDINATED EFFORT TO SNUFF OUT INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM'S.

[Mr.Orange]

Before they pull the plug, don't you think you should ask them why they are WIRE TAPPING your private calls?

These ISP's want the protection of being a COMMON CARRIER (not responsible for your packets as is the phone company, SAME SAME, THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE!)

So why are they allowed to TAP YOUR PHONE/NET CONVERSATIONS?

Ask them for proof, detailed proof, and then SUE THE CRAP OUT OF THEM for invasion of privacy, wire tapping and who knows what else (contact a real lawyer would you?)

This is SERIOUS stuff here. You can always get another DSL provider, YOUR PRIVACY IS AT STAKE (again)

WAKE UP PEOPLE!

[Gouldie]

I don't believe both are legal (in the eyes of the Hollywood lawyers). Both are distributing privately produced material freely without legal permission - i.e. music & movies which are owned by private individuals and distrobuted/sold at their discretion.

The trouble arises when their is one individual controling or (in the lawyer minds) prompting the distribution of the material without permission. In this case Napster has one central location acting as a go-between. (And anyone, please correct me if I am wrong) People work through the one central server to connect to their associates to trade files. The safe occurs with Scour and ??? - hmmm, I forgot the third that was reently closed down. Anyways, this "Gnutella" and its bretherin (Newtella, Aimster, Toadnode, ect.) do not work through one source but connect to each other indvidually. There isn't one controlling source for the lawyers to attack and take down.

A good comparison would be Cell phones and CB radios. If you knock out the local Cell tower (where the transmitters sit) you've basically whiped out the Cell phones. On the other hand, there is no central location for CB radios. To knock them out, you have to attack each one individually.

I think the big test will happen when some private group opens a Napster-like server outside the US jurisdication (say like Sealand which is just outside of Great Britian and is famous for "illegal" internet hosting).

Well, I hope I've helped. Good luck on your paper. Bye the bye, what is UMD? Is it the University of Minnesota?

Huck
[email protected]

[i wsh i was dead]

OVERSIGHT,
You are right in saying neither Napster or Gnutella are technically illegal, but you are wrong to assume that it is legal to trade copyrighted material. Both Napster and Gnutella ARE LEGAL. They are simply file sharing programs (or the medium) to which millions or people illegally copy copyrighted materials. To say that Napster is illegal is to say that cassette tapes are illegal. People used to make copys of tapes/CD's onto tapes for their friends and that's all Napster is. It is the individuals using Napster that are committing the crime, not Napster.
Notice how Napster doesn't mention sharing all music anywhere on the website. They promote new bands wanting exposure and featured artists, because they can't officially condone what goes on.
The IS something wrong with these programs and something will have to be done in the law to prevent programs like this. Gnutella is nice cause it evades the law. As someone else said, there is no central part to attack, just the users!

[Sarah Cliff]

simple 1 company owns napster and napster logs who downloads what and can attach personal information to the downloads this makes it easy for the music companies to go after the 1 company (napster) andd make them shut down there servers / reveal the identities of downloaders Gnutella however with it's lack of logins/handels makes it a royal bitch to track someone unless you use a little questionable software to hack them while they download (not cool as far as any US judge is concerned) and they can't attack the servers since no one company owns them all you hit one company and you may take down 2 servers and with in 5seconds 30 more can be up to replace them.

more simply put both are equaly questionable as to legality napster just got hit because it's easy to hit and a bigger name.