Will ISP's Cut Service To Music-Swappers?

[soulsearcher]

Think this will fly?

If the music industry finds out that you're swapping music files online, it'll send an e-mail to your ISP... read on:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/31678

[Mole_J]

I don't think this will work. If the RIAA did have an agreement with all current ISPs to cut or limit service, there will be a new ISP that will not agree with the RIAA and many customers would flock to this new ISP. The RIAA has lost this war to stop people from stealing music.

Gene Simmons said it best, the record industry is dead.

[Jeremy Gault]

Agreed.

Let's face it. If people want to transfer music on-line, they'll transfer music on-line, with or without the endorsement/approval of any corporate/legal entity. Period.

It's only going to turn into an arms race. (Isn't that essentially what it's been for years?)

You monitor my traffic, I'll encrypt it.

You somehow join the encrypted network (posing as a legit client) and I'll start proxying my traffic. At some point, said proxying becomes built into the protocol. Now you have no idea who you are *really* transferring from.

You get the idea...

[Brian]

Agreed.

Let's face it. If people want to transfer music on-line, they'll transfer music on-line, with or without the endorsement/approval of any corporate/legal entity. Period.

It's only going to turn into an arms race. (Isn't that essentially what it's been for years?)

You monitor my traffic, I'll encrypt it.

You somehow join the encrypted network (posing as a legit client) and I'll start proxying my traffic. At some point, said proxying becomes built into the protocol. Now you have no idea who you are *really* transferring from.

You get the idea...

Isn't technology great!

[Jeremy Gault]

Isn't technology great!

Yeah, it is.

To be honest, and a little more realistic, here is how I see it: The recording industry has to compete with the alternatives (downloading.) They have to offer a more attractive product. Now, it's hard to compete with free, but it can be done.

Once upon a time, I subscribed to Napster (circa 2003/2004.) My experience was this:

• All of the music was distributed in Windows Media Audio format.
• The audio qualify of the downloaded music was inversely proportional to the qualify of the equipment upon which it was being listened to. (It sounded great using $5 earbuds, but plugging the computer into my surround sound rendered HORRIBLE results.)
• The files seemed to utilize DRM, meaning that I couldn't simply burn them to a data CD and take them to work to listen to on my computer there. Instead, I would have to install the Napster software on my work computer and re-download it all there. (Which was not feasible, as my work computer was Linux-only -- I happened to have dual-boot Linux/Win2000 at home at the time.)
• Due to the aforementioned DRM, I had to boot into Win2000 if I wanted to listen to my music. I could play most .wma files in Linux, but the ones from Napster were not playable under Linux.
• I could not burn the tracks to audio CD without paying extra per-track fees.

After a few months, I canceled and went back to using the good ol' file-sharing networks, and I found:

• The files were distributed in MP3 format.
• The audio quality was MUCH better. I could listen to them through my surround sound (same computer, same sound card as above) without any issues.
• I could burn them to a data CD and take it to work to listen to.
• I didn't have to reboot into Windows every time I wanted to listen to my music.
• I could burn audio CDs of the tracks to my heart's content.
• It was FREE.

So, yeah, I refuse to pay a monthly fee to listen to over-compressed, horrible sounding garbage, when I can get a better product for free.

And that's what 99% of people out there are going to say, too...