I have very large breasts I like to wave around!

It's all a wash for the RIAA and MPAA. The artists are not going to gain an inch from limiting or prohibiting companies that sell this type of software. Look at the long list of "Tape Friendly" artists, who encourage live taping and trading of their material: The Grateful Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews, Ben Harper, Cowboy Junkies, just to name a few; all tremendously popular artists, who have fought both major marketing by the industry and have had very successful careers. The industry, in my opinion, has a right to protect their investments, but how far should it be taken. BetaMAX anyone?

Nandy! Put those things away before you give yourself a black eye [again]

I agree with herestomwiththeweather ('Are talented musicians going to be allowed an audience or will mass advertising continue to drown them out?'")

If the labels would concentrate on putting out good music instead of cr$p, they'd be rolling in so much money they wouldn't have to worry about P2P.

don't forget www.blogmaverick.com he has not only been blogging on the status but recently suggested he is funding Groksters defense. Seems like an article on blogs might be woefully incomplete without this one

Your ISP bill should mirror your cell phone bill! Its that simple..you have a certain amount of bandwidth per month to utilize based on the package you subscribe to(Rogers Cable). ISPs should then block ports to certain services based on the package you signed up for. People wont be so eager to download the world where their pockets are affected! This would also speed up the adoption of broadband, as lower bandwidth packages could be offerred!

From an active 7 year downloader, who is willing to pay for digital goods in this fashion! Hollywood stop the valuation of online piracy and change your business model! Look at your history?

It doesn't matter what the Supreme Court decides -- the technology is out there and it can't be stopped. If they rule against Grokster, they'll just be proving what a backassward nation we've become and not doing any more to stop "illegal" file sharing than the original Napster ruling did.

Greed destroys our future.

Fact it cost the record companies absolute nothing to allow millions of 'pirates' to manufacture, redistribe, and promote there product. They recieve free global promotion mostly by means of word of mouth to increase the demand for thier product.

Then they what to turn around and police the world of information. There is no way to prevent piracy other than an absolute police state on the net. All information passed between persons must be searched for illicit content ... music, pictures, art, and even human thought that is not double plus good.

Blocking a particular port won't work. . .Grokster starts out as an illustration of how software develops "around" the obstacles that confront it:

Grokster is based upon sharing when the sharing is done by large numbers of otherwise autonomous computers. The only thing that all these machines have in common is a protocol and someone else's software implementation of that protocol. The protocol is every bit as useful for sharing files that ARE owned, as it is for files that are possessed under limited license arrangements (like your CD digital audio. . .or movie DVD files, etc.).

The Grokster thing is to get rid of any central servers. . .everybody is generally both server and client (I used to do this very briefly with other early software but deactivated my server status. .)

I no longer have much respect for Judiciary. . I doubt that they will even develop a fundamental understanding of how a client/server arrangement actually works.

RIAA's members are mostly criminally abusive of musicians. I KNOW I've been a musician most of my life. You should Google on "Janice Ian" and maybe "rant" to see how record companies treat artists. It's dog-eat-dog and many artists are totally abused by rec cos.

Tune

Legalities aside, studies have shown that if anything p2p helps record sales. I personally have found many new artists i very likely would not have knon of and then go tell everyone I know about them. Also, of all the downloaded music one might have how much of it would have been bought in the first place? A lot of people like "Come On Eileen", but how many were/are willing to throw down $15 for a cd just for that song? Or for that matter the dozens of albums you might like, but not enough to spend $15+ on? In the long run I can't see p2p do anything but help music as a whole and if the industry was smart they'd find a way to capitalize on it instead of mounting the impossible task of trying to turn back the clock and make p2p go away.

nother question

how many of you buy a cd without hearing ANY of the songs on it first?

radio perhaps
friends perhaps

but i doubt you buy a cd without hearing it first
unless its a band that has been around for a good bit and continues to be popular (read u2) but how many others?

p2p is just another type of radio, that gets artists music out

nother question

how many of you buy a cd without hearing ANY of the songs on it first?

radio perhaps
friends perhaps

but i doubt you buy a cd without hearing it first
unless its a band that has been around for a good bit and continues to be popular (read u2) but how many others?

p2p is just another type of radio, that gets artists music out